From the attic window, she saw the museum through torrential rain. Being Asian, she was not easy with these frequent storm clouds over Wales. It was as if the sky was constantly letting off steam.
“To the right’s the Talyllin Railway Museum,” he had announced on the day he had brought her as his bride to his terrace house.
She had lit up her eyes to please him.
“Train lamps, those eyes of yours,” he had once said, and ever after, she had obliged.
For a free-spirited woman, a high price to pay to escape poverty.
“So, you’re from Darjeeling housing the famous Darjeeling Toy Train! It’s Fate! Dad was a railway man!” he had roared.
She peered into the dark hall. Their bikes loomed.
“I eschew the car,” he had said.
She hated his pretentious speech, his humble house, and the damn bikes.
“None of this living in India hogwash,” he had said in Mumbai after their wedding.
“Prove your sincerity, Brian.”
“How?”
“Put your house into joint names. Mother was left homeless when father deserted.”
Clever to have told him she feared abandonment because he had rejection issues.
“My father owned the railway, but he was a hands-on man. What he loved most was driving his great iron horses all over Wales. Hardly saw him. Dreadful,” he had said.
But she had discovered his father had been a ticket collector, and no matter how hard she tried to get his house put in her sole name only angry refusal. But one day, he had put his arms around her waist.
“Feel more secure if I put the house in your sole name, my sweet steam engine? Can’t get you rusted through crying.”
“Let’s buy a larger house. If we make babies, we’ll need more space,” she had urged.
“Then, take on the responsibility of selling this house.”
Today, the cash from the sale would be in her bank account. Perhaps their meeting had been Fate. A visit to a cousin in Mumbai had coincided with his to the World Heritage site of the Toy Train. Sipping tea in the Windmere Hotel, she had lain in wait for a wealthy European. And suddenly there he was in the steam from her raised cup.
Nervousness flooded her. Maybe wait ten minutes before phoning the bank to see if the money was in. She put the kettle on. A nice cup of Darjeeling before her flight to London, and thence to India. She lit a cigarette.
Suddenly, he was in the doorway.
“Smoking? You’re getting more like a steam engine every day.”
He paused.
“I faked the papers putting the house in your sole name. A pal pretended to buy it. Don’t you know you’re in my museum, my sweet steam engine?” he said.
Cigarette smoke issued from her mouth as she took a heavy puff.
A piercing scream of a train entering what she knew would be an eternal tunnel. Coming from her funnel?
INSTANT NOODLES 