The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(70)

They passed him grumpily flicking through Netflix.

‘It doesn’t matter how much knowledge hindsight gives me,’ said the Ghost wearily, ‘because I have no future left to play with. I am a dead man. But you – you are young and you are a dreamer. And the thing with dreamers is they get to wake up.’

It wasn’t that everything they whizzed past in his last two decades was oppressively bleak. He had after all enjoyed country walks. He became friends with the neighbours. He had conversations with the landlord of the Hare in Clophill.

He even, at the age of sixty-eight, acquired a playful, problematic beagle – Ringo – from a nice man called Dylan at Bedford Animal Rescue Centre.

But there was no contact with anyone he had known from his working years. The ones he had been close to, like Charlie, had been pushed aside or died.

He occasionally hired a baffled chauffeur to take him into Bedford in order to sit in an Italian restaurant by himself. Then he discovered a Mexican restaurant and went there too. Again by himself, only this time eating enchiladas. He liked enchiladas and wondered if Maggie had ever tried them.

He sat there, looking at her Facebook page. But she had never posted.





String Theory


The Midnight Train stopped on a street in Bedford.

Wilbur was standing outside a music shop. It had a faded painted sign, decorated with a treble clef and five-line staff, and the name ‘String Theory’ written on it, a different colour for every letter.

Wilbur was staring at a card that had been stuck with Blu Tack onto the window. The sign said: PIANO LESSONS!

A pain-free way to learn the piano

All ages, all styles

Lessons from my home (Bancroft Avenue, Bedford)

Or can travel within 10 mile radius

Contact: Nora Seed

mob: 07780039251

Insta: noraseedpiano ‘I was on my way to the car,’ explained the Ghost. ‘The driver was parked a few streets away … I’d gone the long way round and taken a peek at how awful the little Budd Books branch was looking, and now I was here …’

‘Piano lessons?’ said the Dreamer, with that youthful, positive lilt to his voice.

‘Yes. The doctor told me learning a musical instrument could ward off dementia.’

A man came out of the shop. He was wearing a Fleetwood Mac T-shirt. Early sixties. Pot belly. Cheeky smile. He recognised him.

‘Hello, sir. You’re Wilbur Budd, aren’t you?’

‘Um. Yes. Yes.’

‘Thought I recognised you. Saw you on Dragon’s Den a while back and I thought, I know that face.’

‘Ah. Yes. I just did one episode.’

‘I’m Neil. This is my shop. Not quite Budd Books but we tick over. Anyway, the Bedford Budd Books over on the High Street – before your company got it – that was our place. We got priced out and had to come here. A bit off the beaten track but the rates are better.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry about that.’

‘Not your fault,’ Neil said breezily. ‘Just the way of the world.’

‘Yes.’ Wilbur pointed at the card. ‘Do you know this person?’

‘Nora? Oh yeah. She used to work here … Nora’s great. Especially these days. She had some issues but seems to have really turned her life around.’

Wilbur pulled out his phone to take a photo of the sign. ‘I think I’ll give her a chance then … But first I’ll probably need a piano.’

Neil laughed. ‘That’s what I’m here for!’ He escorted Wilbur inside, telling him to mind the step.

‘We had a long chat,’ sighed the Ghost, still standing with his dreaming honeymoon self out on the pavement. ‘He sensed my loneliness. He talked to me about Bob Dylan. I decided on a nice baby grand electric piano because he told me it was easy to learn on.’

‘And were you?’ asked the Dreamer.

‘Was I what?’

‘Were you lonely?’

‘Yes. That was the foundational feeling. There for ever like a lapping tide. I suppose that was why I got piano lessons. I wanted someone to talk to.’





Not Quite Despair


‘I missed people,’ the Ghost explained as they looked out at the last two years. ‘Not just Maggie, but Dougie and Charlie and even my mother. I missed Sheffield. I missed a cinema that didn’t even exist any more.’

Wilbur’s dog died. His neck and hands, in particular, became stiffer, which led to slow progress with the piano. He walked slower. He swore at the news.

But he wasn’t a totally miserable person. He had found a kindness that he had lost during his career. Remembering Victor, the old man he used to chat with in Sheffield, he gave money to homeless charities. On warm summer evenings, he sat in the garden and watched the sun sieve its golden light through the sycamore.

‘It wasn’t quite happiness,’ the Ghost explained. ‘But it was at least not quite despair. And I had the gardener and piano teacher to chat with every Saturday.’

Then the train slowed again.

‘Oh,’ said the Ghost with dread as he realised where – when – they were.





Nora Seed


Wilbur was having a piano lesson, beneath the wedding photo on the alcove shelf.