The Bookshop on the Corner (8 page)

T
here was a dark and deathly silence. The radio had somehow turned itself off; she didn't know how. The lights had gone out, too. Nina blinked. Was this the afterlife? She hadn't felt anything, no impact, no pain. Maybe this was it and it was all over. The blackness was all-encompassing.

But no: she was still in the van. She could see the handle, and she reached and pulled it. The door was unlocked. It had been unlocked the entire time. What on earth had happened?

Carefully she stepped down onto the ground. Then she stumbled over to the side of the track, her legs refusing to obey her, and was promptly sick in a hedge.

She found a half-empty bottle of mineral water in her bag and drank some of it, then stopped in case she threw up again. She couldn't stop trembling. Gradually, after trying hard to sort out her breathing, she dared to look up.

Mere inches away from the untouched van on the crossing was the engine of a huge freight train, heaving like a living thing. Nina thought she was going to throw up again.

A man was leaning against the side of the engine, also breathing heavily. When he saw her, he started to move forward.

“What . . . ,” he said. His voice was so trembly he could hardly speak. “What the f . . .” He made a huge effort to stop himself swearing. “What . . . what the bloody hell . . .” His throat wheezed. “WHAT the BLOODY HELL!?”

“I . . .” Nina heard her voice break. “There was a deer . . . and I braked . . .”

“A DEER! You nearly killed the bloody lot of us for a DEER? You STUPID BLOODY . . . What were you THINKING?!”

“I couldn't . . . I couldn't think . . .”

“No, that's right, isn't it? Not bloody thinking at all! LOOK, there's ten bloody yards . . .”

Suddenly there were running footsteps up the side of the track. Another man appeared, out of breath, the smoke from the train brakes rolling around him like a fog.

“What has happened?” he said. He had an accent—European of some kind, Nina thought vaguely.

“This STUPID wee LASSIE here nearly killed you, me, herself, and half the local population if the fuel had gone up!” shouted the first man, purple in the face with fury.

The second man looked at Nina.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Is she all right? She nearly killed—”

“Yes, Jim. Yes. I understand.”

Jim shook his head, still trembling. “This is a bad business. A bad business.”

The lights of the train crossing were dinging again, and the barriers were coming up.

“They shouldn't do that,” said the second man. “We're not through. Are you all right?” he asked Nina again, who realized she couldn't stand up and slumped suddenly against the van.

“I'm going to talk to control,” the first man said.

When the second man reached Nina, she saw that he had curly black hair, rather too long, and tired-looking black eyes with long eyelashes. His skin was olive, and he had taut high cheekbones. He was of medium height, thickset.

“You are all right, yes?”

Nina blinked. She was too shocked to speak.

“Breathe,” he said. “Drink more water, yes?”

She tried a little more water, and spluttered as she did so. She put her hands on her knees until she could get her breath back.

“I thought,” she said, her teeth chattering uncontrollably, “I thought I was dead.”

“Nobody is dead,” said the man. “Nobody is dead. We have me and we have Jim and we have wool, whiskey, oil, and gin. No one is to be dead.”

He looked at her.

“You are freezing. Come, come.” He bundled her toward the train.

The first man had hopped up into the cab and was talking into a radio. He popped his head back out.

“I don't know what to tell them.”

“There is nothing to tell them! Everyone is fine. Gin, oil, wool is fine. Nobody is hurt.”

“If I tell them, there'll be a huge investigation. Police. It'll
go on for months.” He regarded Nina sternly. “She'll be in big trouble.”

“Ha. Yes. Don't tell them,” said the second man.

“I didn't . . . I didn't . . .” Nina could hardly speak. Jim's face up in the cab softened.

“I have to tell them; they've called through already. Nobody's going anywhere.” He looked at her. “Oh for God's sake,” he said. “You might as well come up and have a cup of tea.”

“Yes, tea,” said the other man, propelling her gently forward. “Tea is answer to everything. Come up into cab! Right now! Be in warm, not cold.”

Nina, not knowing what else to do, stumbled toward the cab, then found she couldn't swing herself up. Her arms had turned to jelly.

The man leaped up nimbly, then turned and held out a hand.

“Come,” he said. He had wiry black stubble, and his arm was hairy and muscular and covered in oil. He grabbed Nina's small hand and swung her up into the cab as if she weighed nothing.

The tiny space was warm and cozy. Jim was sitting in front of a large gray molded plastic control panel, and the second man indicated that Nina should sit there too, but instead she slid to the ground and burst into tears.

The two men exchanged glances.

“Have tea?” said the second man eventually. Jim leaned over and brought out a thermos. He poured a cup and handed it to Nina, who accepted it gratefully.

“Don't cry, lassie,” he said. “Drink that.”

The tea was hot and very sweet, and Nina started to feel better.

“I'm so sorry,” she sobbed. “So, so sorry.”

“Oh God,” said Jim again. “The paperwork. The police will
be on their way right now. There'll be filing and investigations up the wazoo.”

“But nobody hurt,” said the second man. “You hero, Jim.”

There was a long pause. The driver didn't say anything. Then he said, “I didn't think of it like that.”

“You are,” said Nina, feeling livened up. “You absolutely are. I thought I was dead. I owe you my life. You're amazing. You stopped just in time.”

The driver's anger seemed to have almost completely disappeared as he drank his own cup of tea.

“It was just instinct taking over really,” he said modestly.

“You'll be in paper,” said the second man, smiling and winking at Nina. “You have photograph in paper.”

“Do you think so?”

“You saved my life,” said Nina again, just glad that he wasn't angry anymore. “You saved me.”

Jim took another slug of tea, then smiled.

“Well,” he said. “Well. Accidents happen.”

The police did arrive, and took long statements from everyone: the driver, Jim, who was quite recovered and pumped up about the entire incident, describing his rapid, life-saving use of the brake to anyone who wanted to listen; the second man, the engineer, whose name was Marek, trying to move everything on; and Nina, who was utterly horrified to learn that she might face criminal charges.

Marek stepped in and smoothly explained that it really ought to be the deer that faced criminal charges, and after they'd breathalyzed her and called in some paramedics to check both
her and Jim over, they agreed there was nothing to be done except move the van off the crossing and let everyone carry on, thank God.

The night sleeper from Inverness was backed up behind them and getting rather grumpy about it, and there wasn't a replacement driver for Jim available from here to Darlington, so Marek offered to take the shift.

There was one big problem, though: Nina was in absolutely no fit state to drive the van, and nobody else was insured. One of the policemen had kindly moved it into a turnoff next to a field and put a warning sticker on it saying
Police Aware
so nobody else would touch it, but there was still the problem of now.

The police offered to run her back to the pub—they were taking a still-shaken Jim there. But it was 2
A.M.
, and Nina didn't have a friendly railway employer who would put her up somewhere and she couldn't afford a hotel room. She blinked a lot, hoping she wouldn't burst into tears again, wishing desperately she knew what to do. Eventually Marek leaned forward.

“You know, we go to Birmingham,” he said quietly. She looked at him. The policemen looked at each other, not knowing whether this was allowed, but aware that it would be a massive problem off their hands. Jim was already waving good-bye.

“Fine,” said one of the policemen finally, handing her an incident report. “Don't go driving onto any more train crossings, okay?”

Nina nodded. “Never again,” she said.

And then everyone left and the blue lights vanished and suddenly they were up in the cab by themselves. Marek spoke to control and the train-crossing gates came down once more, and this time, without anyone in the way, the train moved off smoothly.

Marek had insisted on wrapping Nina up in a blanket and putting her on the seat. After everything they'd been through, she felt almost sleepy, but she couldn't fall asleep. She had never sat in the front of a train before, if you didn't count the Docklands Light Railway once when she was little. The windows were big and wide with—she was surprised, although she realized she shouldn't have been—perfectly normal windshield wipers on them. As the great tender started gradually to move, and then to pick up speed, she leaned forward eagerly to watch. The night sky wasn't, in fact, all black as they passed through the woods and out into open hills; the black was in the great curve of the land, but the sky itself was an array of dark velvety colors, spotted with stars, the moon almost full. In the bushes beside the train, watchful eyes lit up; there was a scurry of movement in the hedgerows; here and there across the track, little rabbits hopped so quickly Nina gasped, but they were never caught.

“Like you, heh?” said Marek, his voice deep, standing carefully at the handle as the train rattled its way across the night.

“They gave me a fright,” said Nina.

“I think you nearly killed Jim,” said Marek. “With the fright.”

“I really didn't mean to.”

“I know, I know,” said Marek. The cab was dark, for better visibility outside; Nina could only make out his profile, his stubbly chin against the moon shining through the window as they sped on through towns and villages shut down tight against the night.

“So what are you doing out like this at night, huh?” said Marek. “You're not Scottish, no?”

Nina shook her head.

“Birmingham.”

“I'm from Chester, but I live in Birmingham. Yes. Where are you from?” she asked out of curiosity.

“Latvia,” he grunted.

“So we're both far from home,” said Nina. Marek didn't answer.

“I was . . . I was bringing the van home,” she said. “For work.”

“What is your work? You drive van?”

“Not very well,” said Nina. “I was . . . I wanted to open a bookshop.”

Marek turned briefly to look at her. “Ah,” he said. “Bookshops. Very good. People like bookshops.”

Nina nodded. “I hope so. I wanted to . . . you know. Bring books to people. Find the right kind of thing for them to read.”

Marek smiled. “And where is your shop? Birmingham?”

Nina shook her head. “No. I thought I'd have it . . . in the van.”

“Inside the van? A shop inside a van?”

“I know,” said Nina. “Maybe it's a terrible idea. I'm not having much luck with it so far.”

“So you drive and look for people who need books?”

“Yes.”

“What book do I need, huh? No Russians.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Well,” she said, “I would recommend something about people who work nights. There's
Ovian Falls
. It's about a man in a war who stands watch all night before the signal to advance in the morning, and about what goes through his head before they have to go over the top and fight. He thinks about his family and when he was a child, and it's funny and sad, and there's a sniper who he thinks is trying
to kill him. And the sniper
is
trying to kill him. It's good and sad and exciting and it feels like all of life in a night.”