Leila: Further in the Life and Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

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Taking the train, this empty lonely Dublin day of Sunday. Staring out the stained streaked window, westwards. With the sweet smell of turf puffed whitely by the engine out into a purple darkening sky of Ireland.

The snow deeper across the white frozen countryside. Streams and the canal iced over. Cattle standing dumb and still. A line of black figures on foot following a horse drawn hearse waiting at a barrier to cross the railway track. Ivy clad trees passing like multi armed dark green monsters. Fluffs of snow blown off the shiny green leaves in the carriage’s thundering windy wake. A farmer tossing forkfuls ofhay from a cart to his hungry shivering bullocks.

Nearing the big midland town. Horizon glowing pink, the winter afternoon grown dark. Faint lights in the houses after the gnawing painful solitary stretches of empty fields and bereft boglands. Compartment doors opening. The bangs as they slam shut. Flurries of snow blowing along the cold concrete of the station platform. A large ring and key handed to the driver. A shout. And off again. Rumbling along the lake’s sparkling blackness and by the gentle whitened moonlit hills. Till the train wheels squeak and screech again against their brakes. Heft down my two bags from the luggage rack. Say goodbye to the pictures of watering places in the county of Kerry. Unhook the leather strap and drop the window. Push open the door. And alight at last on this familiar station.

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