He felt much better towards Lucinda having put her into this perspective, but he realised that he was still empty and depressed, hollow and without impetus to live compared to the wonders of the raging gale. It was not the loss of his wife he was feeling – she was still a presence – but the loss of the passion and desire he had once had for her; and without it, it was as if the pilot light of his life had been extinguished. He looked out once more, to where the bank fell steeply away to the railway line, and could feel himself heavy and cold like a stone; a stone that would fall out of the window and down, down, down, untouched by the glorious life force of the wind and weather, dead to the ground below.
At that moment, a whirring sound brought action across the scene of that ground, and a local electric train, jolly with lights, pulled into the station. Clyde’s attention was arrested; the ‘ghost train’ again! This time, he even heard the whistle and the dampened metallic slam of the doors along the wind. He watched automaton-like as the little collection of carriages clattered away, revealing the toy station master he’d imagined, next to a feminine figure in wide jeans and a deep brown coat. A vibrant print scarf cascaded in breezy ripples over the shaggy-sheep collar, a suggestion of bright hair escaping in between, and a big, flat oblong suitcase of a kind Clyde hadn’t seen for many years stood at her feet. As the station master walked away, she picked up her suitcase and in doing so, turned towards the house, looked up, and waved.