So, they’d just announced the boarding, and Victor had come out onto the platform. A week-long work trip was finally over, and he was heading home. He found his carriage, stepped inside, and settled into his lower berth. While he was getting his things sorted, he heard someone making their way down the carriage, breathing hard. He turned around. An elderly woman stood opposite him, trying to catch her breath, with one of those wheeled bags that looks more like a rucksack, an autumn coat, and a colourful headscarf.
“Right, here we go,” Victor thought. “This old dear’s obviously my neighbour. She’ll be after my lower berth.”
“Look here, love,” she said, once she’d got her breath back. “I think I’ve got the lower berth, after all.”
And sure enough, she had. She started bustling about, unpacking her things. Victor guessed she was well over seventy. “Fancy that,” he thought. “Still travelling at that age. Why can’t she just stay at home?”
At last, the old lady sat down on her berth, folding her hands neatly in her lap like a schoolgirl. Passengers were still coming through the carriage, but nobody took the upper bunks in their little section, so Victor resigned himself to the journey with an elderly neighbour he wouldn’t have much to say to.
The train pulled out. Soon the carriage attendant came round with the bedding. The woman immediately started fussing with the sheets and pillowcase, smoothing everything out and tucking it in properly. Then she sat back down and spoke first.
“I’m not used to this sort of bedding, you know. At home I have a lovely soft bed, but here I’ll be bruising my hips all night. I haven’t travelled like this since I was young, and I’d stopped thinking I ever would.”
Victor nodded but stayed quiet.
“I’m Dorothy,” she said. “Dorothy Green. And what do they call you?”
“Victor.”
“And what’s your surname?”
“Matthews. But just Victor’s fine.”
“Yes, well, you’re young enough for first names. Off to visit someone?”
“Why visit?” Victor said, surprised. “I’m coming home from a work trip.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Home is good. And I’m leaving home, in my old age.” She suddenly went quiet and stared out of the window. Victor thought he saw tears welling in her eyes, though she wasn’t crying. He suddenly felt ashamed of how unfriendly he’d been to her.
“So are you heading home, or leaving home?” he asked, trying to soften his coldness.
“Leaving home, love, leaving home. That’s why it feels strange. It’s only a bit over a day’s journey, but I’m all restless on the road.”
“And who are you going to see?”
“My daughter,” Dorothy said. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped away a tear.
“You should be happy, not crying.”
“Oh, I am happy. I haven’t seen my daughter in five years. I thought I’d never see her again.”
“Had you lost touch, then?”
“Lost touch, love. Lost touch on purpose. Our tempers wouldn’t let us rest when we were younger. Pride got in the way of peace, and so we didn’t see each other for years. Once my daughter grew up, we just couldn’t get along. I raised her on my own, no father around, and we had all sorts of rows. She married the first time just to spite me, and it didn’t last. And I didn’t give her a kind word, I blamed her… so we bickered all our lives. She turned my granddaughter against me, did everything to go against me. Then, five years ago, she sold her flat, moved away, and didn’t tell me where. I went to the police, made enquiries—I was frantic, because she’d taken my granddaughter with her.
Then, out of the blue, she got in touch. Said she was fine, that she’d remarried, but told me not to look for her and never to come. And I lived with that weight all those years. Over time, I realised I’d been in the wrong too. She might not have listened to me, she might have been angry, but she was still my daughter.
Then, a year ago, a letter came from Sarah—that’s my daughter’s name. She wrote where she lived, that she’d been divorced for years, that she was a grandmother herself, and asked how I was. I cried all night, then wrote back that I couldn’t live without them. We talked on the phone after that, and we both saw we were to blame.
My granddaughter’s had a baby now, so I’ve got a great-grandson. Sarah helps her with everything, and she’s got a job, so she can’t get away… She asked me to come. So what was I to do? I locked up the cottage, gave the neighbours a spare key to keep an eye on it and pop the heating on if it turned cold, packed my bag, and decided to go see my daughter. Who knows how much time I’ve got left? I wanted to see her.”
Victor said nothing. He thought about his own mother, whom he rarely visited. She lived in the countryside, and his older sister lived there too. He’d always assumed his sister would look after her. But now, after hearing Dorothy’s story, something ached in his chest. A heavy sadness settled on him. He was her son. She missed him. She wanted to see him more.
Victor talked with Dorothy for the rest of the journey, and the time passed before he knew it. When the train pulled in, he helped her off the carriage and noticed a pleasant-looking woman walking towards them, watching them anxiously. Victor stepped aside. The two women caught each other’s eye, hugged, and held on for a long, long time. Both of them were crying. It was such a moving sight that Victor had no doubt they’d be all right. Now, definitely, they’d be all right.
He moved away, wanting to calm the swell of emotion in his chest. So much had become clear after that meeting. He took out his phone and dialled his mother’s number. For some reason, he just wanted to say: “Mum, I’m here, I’ve made it home. I’ll come and see you at the weekend.”The phone rang once, twice — and then her voice, tentative, a little breathless. “Victor? Is that you, love?”
Something in his throat tightened. He hadn’t told her he was coming home today. She didn’t even know he’d been away. How long had it been since he’d simply called her for no reason at all?
“Yeah, Mum. It’s me. I’m here, I’ve made it home.” He paused, then the words came easily, as if they’d been waiting on the platform all along. “I’ll come and see you at the weekend.”
A silence. He heard her exhale, a shaky little breath, the kind she used to make when he was small and she’d found him safe after losing him in a crowd.
“Oh, Victor,” she said. “I was just thinking about you. I was looking at your old photographs, the ones where you’re missing your two front teeth. I thought — I thought I’d never get to see that cheeky grin again.”
He laughed, but it came out watery. “I still grin, Mum. Just with more wrinkles now.”
“Wrinkles I’d love to see,” she said softly. “I’ll make your favourite — the apple pie with the crumbly topping. And I’ll put fresh sheets on your bed. The one in your old room. It’s still there, you know. I never changed it.”
He closed his eyes. Behind him, he could hear Dorothy and her daughter laughing through their tears, already walking arm in arm toward the exit. Somewhere ahead, his mother was standing in a kitchen that smelled of flour and warmth, waiting for a son who’d forgotten how to come home.
“I’ll be there, Mum. I promise.”
“You’re coming home,” she said, as if tasting the words. “My boy is coming home.”
And Victor, standing alone on the platform with his phone pressed to his ear, felt the heavy sadness in his chest finally begin to lift — because he knew, with a certainty that made his heart ache, that this time he’d stay.
