Remembering Johnno

He was three when he ran away. Not because he didn't like his home but because he liked trains more. He could tell the time and knew the express train left for the seaside at 9.30am sharp every morning. When his mother was busy he furiously peddled his tricycle to the station. He arrived to hear the big engine puffing and hissing, eager to leave. The station master and the driver were laughing together by the ticket office. People filled the platform, the passengers in warm coats and hats with their lunches in paper bags. He went and sat on a slotted bench seat, his legs dangling over the edge and watched the station master carefully. As soon as the station master picked up his flag he raced across the platform and scrambled up the stairs onto the train. The whistle blew, the flag fell and the train squealed and chugged slowly on its way.

Two old ladies in brown woolly coats and hats were in the second compartment. He went in and sat down next to one of them. They smelled of mothballs and lavender. The ladies looked at him with raised eyebrows. He eyed their lunch packages longingly. One sighed and got out a beautiful piece of fruitcake full of plump sultanas and red cherries. He smiled like an angel at them. He was in heaven.

The call for tickets echoed down the long corridor. He quickly finished his cake and said goodbye to the kind ladies. The train had nowhere for him to hide. The guard drew closer clicking tickets and chatting to passengers. When the gaurd reached him the boy tried his angelic smile. It failed to impress the gaurd who picked him up and carried him back down the train. No one claimed him. At the next station the police car was waiting. His mother had raised the alarm and his tricycle had been found on the platform. When he was returned home his mother was distraught. He was sorry he had upset her. It was the first time and the last time he ran away.

His mother had wanted him to be a doctor. He disagreed. He wanted to travel, have adventures. He was a man now. He caught the train to St Andrews dock at Hull. He had signed up as a crewman on a fishing trawler. It looked like a spider with arms gathered in and nets hanging around it like a web.

They left Hull in the early evening, it's lights fading to starboard in the sleet surprisingly fast. Four hours on, four hours off hadn't sounded too bad in words but anchored to the mast, operating the winches as the freezing waves swept relentlessly back and forth over the deck and nets of fish opened above him he felt like he had entered another realm. As if the trawler had sailed into the underworld with no up or down, day or night. Sometimes it was freezing darkness with the trawlers lights blinking like stars above him. Sometimes it was freezing misty grey with the crew moving like ghosts across the deck. Always everything was in motion. The constant tiredness sapped his strength.

In their down time the old hands played magnetic chess with the cabin boy who could never be beaten. They toasted each other with cups of hot liquid fat to stay warm. It became his whole world. After three weeks the trawler filled with fish and the captain turned towards Reykjavik. It was surreal to be back on land again. In dry clothes, showered in fresh water, warm and comfortable. The trawler left on its next trip without him. It went down in a storm a week later taking all of its crew with it. It was his first and last fishing trip.

His usual confidence had deserted him. He had sat with tears rolling down his cheeks. Why had he come here? It had seemed an amazing opportunity. Not only for himself but for his wife and children too. He had invested all of his life savings and borrowed heavily to live in a tiny historic town by the seaside with its own steam train and station, two old pubs and his brand new pharmacy, proudly open on the quaint main street.

The locals were suspicious. They tolerated the day trippers and the holiday makers with their sunburned children, melting ice creams and surfboards. They were needed to keep the pubs open and the train operating. The pharmacy was a different matter all together. Their secrets would be revealed. Who was a drug addict, depressed, dying? For the first week only a handful of tourists came in. The locals watched suspiciously from their cars as they drove by or from the pub windows across the street.

Slowly, one by one they came in. The next towns pharmacy was fifteen kilometres away, a thirty kilometre round trip. His confidence grew. He gently teased the old ladies about their rheumatism, talked business with the farmers and fishermen, helped the worried mothers with their children's ailments. He was hiding a secret. He wasn't well. It was an inconvenient truth. It was his first pharmacy and his last pharmacy.

He stood looking out of the electric doors of the nursing home. They didn't open. He turned back down the plush corridor with its plastic upholstered chairs and cheerful music. He couldn't believe he was here. Didn't want to believe he was here.

At first his illness had not seemed too bad. A quieter voice but he had never been a loud man. A difficulty writing but he typed most things anyway. A slight tremor but he was retired and didn't need to hurry. It was the dreams that really bothered him. He would wake confused and that made him angry. The nurses kept shifting the doors. Sometimes they had the wardrobe door next to the bed, sometimes next to the window, sometimes in the bathroom. He wasn't going to cooperate with them until they admitted what they were doing.

He walked down the corridor until he saw a door with a white dogs photo on it. He liked white dogs. He had owned a dog like that once. Funny how he could clearly recall old memories. They were comforting to think about. He went into the room. The lamp in the corner was flickering. He could fix that. No good telling the nurses. They would say he was imagining it. He took the fork from the lunch tray and went over to the lamp. He decided the power point was the problem. He pushed the forks prongs into it. It was the first and last time he did that.

His family gathered on the winter beach. The sharp wind tore away their tears and lamentations. They grey waves rolled in and were dragged back to rejoin the sea. His children scattered his ashes gently onto the sand. A whirlwind of fine dust rose and trailed spinning out to sea, shimmering in the grey winter light. It was the last time they saw him.