Page 5 of New Beginnings on Railway Lane

Ethan was even worse at dealing with it, despite his seemingly flippant nature and sarcastic humour, sometimes not even coming home for a whole year at a time.

The summer all those years ago had been the start of a downward spiral for their happy family life. He and Ethan had tried to avoid facing up to the reality of their actions altogether by effectively running away as soon as they could to take jobs in other countries.

As far as Ryan could guess, the marriage had continued the same way. After the station had closed and the short railway line had shut for good, his dad had taken a conductor’s job on the nearby mainline but had withdrawn to the workshop in his spare time, leaving their mum on her own most of the time. Presumably she had had more affairs over the years, but she had always stayed with their dad.

Until now. It had happened after all.

Now that she had finally left, their dad’s heart had broken with the shock.

Despite rushing home to rally around their dad, Ryan and Ethan still hadn’t spoken about their mum leaving. Any attempts by Ryan to start a serious conversation had been brushed off by Ethan who had spent the majority of the past few weeks catching up with local friends.

With the news that Ethan was once more escaping Cranfield, and his dad still suffering with the fallout from the abrupt end of his seemingly happy marriage, Ryan had no choice but to stay. He was trapped, at least for now.

Unable to cook anything like he had created in Rome, he had been preparing solid, dull meals for them all, despite Ethan’s protestations. He normally loved working with food, the feel and the taste. Working with Italian food had been incredible and he missed trying out new flavours, new ingredients and how they all meshed together. But he was still too scared to admit that perhaps he just wasn’t as good a chef as he had thought. And so he felt as if both his life and career were stagnating in the middle of the English countryside.

But at least the setting was glorious, he thought, walking over to look out of the upstairs window. Beyond the platform below was the railway track, a single line that used to take the passengers into Aldwych. The tracks were still there, but they now had grass and weeds growing around them.

To the left were the row of cottages along Railway Lane, each built in the sandy-coloured brick that all the houses in the tiny village were made of, as well as the station. One of them belonged to his grandad Eddie, now a widower after the loss of his wife, Ryan’s beloved grandmother who had introduced him to cooking.

When the station had closed all those years ago, the village had slowly begun to shut down as well. The small shop had disappeared and, without any commuters, people and families had begun to drift away too. Even with the advent of home working in recent years, the people hadn’t returned. They had chosen the much larger village of Cranbridge nearby. He could just see the church spire of St Barnabas’ peeping through the trees on the horizon at the end of a long path between the two villages. Cranbridge had had a makeover in recent years and appeared to be flourishing, unlike its smaller, quiet neighbour Cranfield.

Only the original generation of families appeared to have stayed. Such as Libby and Flora who had been in the same school year as Ethan. Flora was now helping her grandmother run the family farm on the other side of the railway tracks. The other fields were full of clipped lavender, thanks to a recent effort over the summer. The lavender fields had been opened to the public and had been very popular. Maybe life would come back to Cranfield, although with the landscape slowly turning to the rich reds and oranges of autumn, Ryan very much doubted it once winter arrived.

He looked down to his right, where at the end of the railway line was the large train workshop. His dad and grandad could be found in there every day tinkering on the steam engine which had become the embodiment of his dad’s obsession with trains. Ryan’s great-grandfather had been a driver on the steam train and it was Bob and Eddie’s dream to get the abandoned locomotive up and running one more time, but Ryan doubted that would ever happen, given the amount of work required.

The thought of the messy workshop led Ryan to think about the cluttered station and home as well. Now, thanks to his brother’s ridiculous idea, he was stuck interviewing this woman for a job that didn’t exist.

For a second, he wondered whether someone could come in and wave a magic wand and make everything better for them all. The trouble was that the problems existed far beyond the mess and clutter inside the apartment. It was embedded deep in the brick walls of the family home. Nobody would be able to solve any of that, least of all a stranger.

Ryan sighed as he turned away from the window. Whoever was coming for the interview, he hoped she liked a challenge.

3

Katy woke up on the sofa to an enormous hangover and a reply to an email that she couldn’t even remember sending. What interview had she been invited to? she thought, in horror. And for what job?

She groaned and clutched her head as she stared at her phone in disbelief, reading through the previous evening’s communications. What on earth had she been thinking sending an email when she had obviously been so drunk?

She looked at the empty wine bottle on the coffee table in front of her. She obviously hadn’t been thinking straight, thanks to the wine. Otherwise she would never have answered such a ridiculous advertisement.

Leaning against the back of the sofa to reread the email, she tried her best to concentrate. They wanted to interview her that very afternoon! And it was nine o’clock in the morning already!

Katy sat bolt upright and groaned at the rush of movement to her delicate nerves. She had overslept and she never overslept, let alone passed out on the sofa. But she never drank whole bottles of wine either and her raging headache reminded her why.

Think positive, she told herself, as she stared at the address. The Railway Station in Cranfield. A railway station? It was a bit of strange name for a hotel, but perhaps it was some kind of quirky bijou place. After all, the position was only temporary, so perhaps it was quite a small business.

Katy badly just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep off her hangover, but her professional business head won that battle pretty quickly. It was an interview. Of course she would go. Who knew where it would lead in her future career?

But the horror of her situation quickly returned when a quick google revealed where Cranfield was. It was actually a small dot in the middle of the English countryside. The countryside! For the first time that morning, her eyes clicked wide open. How could she have been so foolish? She hated the countryside and never went near it.

She dragged a hand through her hair, trying to think straight. Perhaps this would turn out all right. Maybe it really was some kind of fancy hotel which would look good on her CV. But there was no time to mull over her recklessness now, she had already given her word, and she needed to get ready for the train journey, which looked likely to take a couple of hours.

After a quick shower, she wolfed down two painkillers and a large coffee along with some toast. This was fine, she told herself, putting on some extra blusher to hide her very pale face. She put on her black skirt suit, plus her favourite high heels which always gave her confidence as well as the extra height. Now it was October, the outside temperature was beginning to drop, so she added a smart black coat as well.

She glanced at her watch once more. It was time to get going, otherwise she would miss the first of the many trains needed to get to her destination.

* * *

Twice, she almost missed her connections, but finally the train pulled into Aldwych station, which, according to Google, was the town and station closest to Cranfield. Which in itself was odd if she was heading to somewhere called the railway station, she thought in bewilderment.