A short story about different generations and the climate crisis, by SF Layzell
Image: Engine shed, Lakeside Miniature Railway, Southport by Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tom finished oiling round the machine and wiped the excess with a soft cloth. He had already topped up the water tanks and the boiler, checked the valves. No sense in rushing when engine integrity and passenger safety were concerned. He stepped back from the steaming bay. Time to light and feed the fire, then prepare for a test run, before finally picking up today’s passengers.
In the next bay over, Joss had finished preparing his engine. He pushed a lever and held it down while the short length of track slid across and clicked into the main line.
“She’s looking good,” Tom called across.
“Aye,” said Joss. “I’ll take her round a couple of times now. Stick the kettle on, will you?”
Tom straightened, his back creaking, and adjusted his hearing aid. Overhead, birds called out to each other. Bounces of various sizes could be heard from the tennis courts and basketball hoops. The hum of a generator from the narrowboat where Meera ran her café on the canal vied for attention with the rattle of trams on the other side of the water and the scoop of oars from the rowing team. Tom hoped Meera hadn’t already been over to fill the water jugs for the café. They didn’t get many female visitors behind the scenes at the model railway club.
A hiss and whistle signalled Joss rounding the track then coming to a halt on the other side. He reappeared in front of the clubhouse with a stack of papers under one arm.
“Have you seen this?” he said to Tom, waving a piece of paper, block red letters against brilliant white.
COAL IS MURDER. DIVEST NOW!
“They’re all over the bloody track! I had to put the brakes on!”
“Coal is murder,” Tom said. He put the paper in the pocket of his overalls, donned his driver hat, and connected the passenger seats to his engine, ready to pick up the children waiting on the other side.
It was the hottest summer either of them had ever known.
“Today’s the day,” Tom whispered to his brother at breakfast.
They ran outside as soon as they could, circling the apple tree in the garden as they made their way towards the hill path that crisscrossed round jutting stacks of black rock and moss-covered trees and over to the river.
The apples wouldn’t be ready for another month. They shouldn’t expect much, their mother said. This variety liked a cooler summer, not the sweltering July of England in 1948. Good for wheat though, she said. Maybe bread would come off the ration soon.
On the way, they played for a while at the old shooting post, hiding behind sandbags and swinging the huge search light round.
The river was a sparkling blue, plentiful with fish and birds. White water gushed down over the rocks to their right as they walked up the path. A huge pipe crossed above the waterfall, creating a route to a small island where mosses and ferns shone like emeralds, herons nested and clean water pooled, certain to contain fish that could be scooped out in handfuls.
“You first,” said Tom’s brother.
“Let’s go together,” said Tom.
Hugging the pipe, they started to cross. “Don’t look down!” Inch by inch, they made their way to the island.
“We did it!” Tom cried. “Welcome to Paradise Island.”
They spent hours exploring the tiny island, climbing trees, stalking birds, keeping time by the sun in the aching blue sky.
“Come on,” said Tom. “Best get back and catch something for tea.” On the riverbank, they would find fishing lines stowed in a tree and sit by the water’s edge, waiting for trout to find them.
Crossing back, Tom stood up on the pipe, arms wobbling, daring himself to look down over the waterfall. He slipped and grabbed the pipe, then turned to make sure his brother hadn’t copied him. In the look of intense concentration on his brother’s face, Tom glimpsed the face of men he remembered, smeared with coal dust.
Tom and Joss arrived early the next Sunday. Joss stalked the perimeter of the track while Tom finished his engine checks and fired up.
As Tom curved his way round, a small, hooded figure appeared and hurled a can of paint at the track. Tom quickly switched the engine into reverse and brought it to a rolling stop.
Tom and Joss spent the rest of the day cleaning blood-red paint from the track. The children waiting for the little trains whinged and their parents sighed.
Tom traced round the four sides of an invisible wall where the sandbags had been. He wanted another look at the river full of trout and the island paradise in the middle above the falls.
Time seemed to stretch out before them back then, winding and whistling and grumbling like the river, like the ration queue. Now, time hurtled towards him like a tunnel swallowing up a steam train.
Tom reached the top of the path, expecting to hear the roar of white water. Time to get his hearing checked, he told himself.
But it wasn’t his hearing. The place wasn’t anything like he remembered. Trees were stripped of foliage, drooping, fruitless. The waterfall seemed to have collapsed into itself, the river a deep sludge. The pipe across, slick and slimy and green, shored up plastic bottles. The island was flooded and unreachable.
Tom looked in vain for swans, herons, moorhens, kingfishers. He swirled a stick around in the water but scared up no trout.
The river was dead.
“Expecting any more trouble?” Meera asked as she filled up the water jugs for the café. Her muscles flexed as she loaded the trolley. Another hot day.
“Here, let me pull that,” said Tom.
As they reached the canal, Meera tried again. “I’ve been quite inspired by your protestor, you know. I’ve applied for a grant to kit out the boat with solar panels. Maybe you could convert one of your engines?”
“And I’ve got you a present.”
She leaned over and pulled a litter picker off the boat.
“What’s the point?” Tom wondered out loud.
“Better than nothing, isn’t it,” Meera said, unloading the water.
On the way back to the track, the hooded figure appeared again. Tom watched as they lay down on the track.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.
The figure sat up and Tom saw a young child, as young as his brother the day they crossed the pipe to Paradise Island.
“This is a peaceful protest against coal,” the child said, not meeting Tom’s eye.
“Look here, young…”
“Person,” the figure supplied. “Young person. Sam,” they added.
“Right,” said Tom, walking over. “Sam, haven’t you got bigger fish to fry? You’re wasting your time trying to kill us off. We’re a dying breed as it is. In twenty years’ time, there won’t be anyone left who even knows how to make these engines.”
“In twenty years’ time, this park will be a desert,” Sam replied. “I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I just feel like nobody cares.”
Tom patted Sam on the back. “Aye,” he said. “Us old boys know all about that.”
High above a woodpecker rattled. A squirrel dashed down the track, then leapt into the trees.
“Here,” Tom said. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and come and help me with this contraption?”
He passed the litter picker to Sam. Together they made their way through the park, lit up by the red streaks of the morning sky.
“It’s good,” said Sam, looking at the bags of rubbish piled up after a morning’s hard work. “But it’s not enough, is it?”
Tom wiped the sweat from his forehead with a clean cotton handkerchief. Every summer now was as hot as the hottest summer his childhood had ever known. “No,” he said. “But it’s not nothing.”
They walked back to the clubhouse and Sam watched as Tom finished firing up. The generator hummed. The birds sang. Tom fed the fire with a final scoop of tiny coals.