Father of the Man Read Online Free Page B

simply stared. Then he turned away, without another word. He didn’t know what more to say and definitely ‘thank you’ wasn’t going to be an option.
    He sat down limply on one of the wooden benches nearby. He felt numb.
    After about five minutes, however, he went down to the station manager’s office, which was situated between platforms four and five. It was red-bricked, had an entrance on either platform—though one said Private—and small, opaque windows through which a stack of empty cartons could be seen, a clipboard propped against the glass, and a couple of rubber plants. He knocked, then entered without hearing a response. The room was far from spacious. There were white walls; an old bicycle leaning against one of them; polystyrene tiles on the ceiling. In the centre of the place stood a desk that had a litter of paperwork scattered over its glass top. Two middle-aged officials had clearly been chatting companionably: one sitting behind the desk, the other with his bottom perched on a corner of it, tearing with his teeth at a thumb cuticle. They looked at Roger in a friendly and inquiring manner. When he explained that he wanted to speak to the station master, the one with the cuticle rose and said he ought to be getting back to his work anyway. Roger had to move over, to make room for the passage of a fairly striking girth. The official nodded amiably.
    The one who was left wasn’t in uniform. He wore a brown suit. Brown tie. He was a slight man; had a long narrow face and a long narrow nose. Gingery hair surrounded a bald pate which reflected the light—there was an illuminated square, glass-covered, amidst the polystyrene. Still seated, he prompted Roger to disclose his problem.
    “I didn’t realize,” answered Roger, “there was going to be a problem. Otherwise, you see, I wouldn’t have left it so late. I’m sorry about that.”
    In fact, it had all seemed so simple and straightforward. The neatness of the six days owing and the six days required…Roger had viewed this almost as a sign that everything was meant .
    He told the man, less succinctly than he’d hoped to, exactly what the trouble was.
    “And if you can’t extend my ticket I was wondering if I couldn’t…you know…have a…whether you couldn’t just give me some kind of a pass.” He shrugged, and again gave an apologetic smile.
    “Wish I could,” said the station master. “But even if something like that were possible—which I doubt—I’d still have to get authorization from our area office at Derby.” He pursed his lips slightly and looked at the two plants on the windowsill as if speculating on whether or not they needed water.
    “Excuse me, then, but…but couldn’t you give them a ring?”
    “What, on a Sunday? No, no, they don’t work weekends.” The very idea that anyone should think they did appeared to fill him with wonder and amusement and even a touch of pity. Now his glance travelled towards the bicycle. Roger imagined an ironical lift to the eyebrow: perhaps he was envisaging low handlebars and seeing himself bowling along country lanes on this bright October afternoon instead of sitting in a poky office poring over paperwork.
    “So what do I do tomorrow?”
    “I’m afraid you’ll have to pay.”
    “But I haven’t any money.”
    “Borrow some.” There could have been the hint of a question mark but certainly no more than a hint. Perhaps absentmindedly, he had picked up a pencil and was now rolling it beneath his right palm, back and forth across a small uncluttered space of desk. A poor substitute for freewheeling down an autumn hillside—maybe with your wife and children. The interview had not contained the friendliness it promised. Nor any feeling of genuine goodwill.
    “I don’t know if I can.”
    “Better stay home, then. You haven’t got much choice.”
    Rather than catch a bus back Roger decided to walk. When he opened the front door the smell of baking bread came out to him. His