Tea-Time at the Train Station
A short Story by Elizabeth Hoyle
From the Wayfarer Archive, Summer 2013
“Here you are. At last! I’ve been waiting for you.” The man sits behind a perfectly appointed tea table, white tablecloth beneath a finely painted floral tea set. “Please, come and have a seat.”
I move forward, amazed to feel my body so substantial in this realm which must surely be a dream. It is not until I come up to the tea table that I see it is placed directly on a crisscrossing section of railroad tracks. I look around; we are in the middle of a bright, exceptionally clean train station I have never seen before. The man patiently pours me a cup of tea.
“What is your name?” He asks as he hands the cup to me.
“Cameron,” I answer, taking the tea and sitting down.
The man’s brows pucker. “Cameron? I strapping nino like you seems more like a Felipe to me, but Cameron you are named and so Cameron you are.”
“And who are you?” The tea is so hot and strong that it doesn’t feel dream-like.
“Mi nombre es Antoni Gaudi,” he replies in beautifully accented Spanish. My jaw drops at his answer.
“Antoni Gaudi. The Gaudi?”
“Were you expecting another Gaudi?”
“No,” I mumble, trying to get a grip on my thoughts. “I wasn’t expecting anyone, least of all you. I don’t even know where we are.”
“No se, mi amigo; I don’t know where we are either. I know we are in a train station, but as to where this station is or where any of the trains go when they arrive, I am remarkably uncertain. Rembrandt was unclear about those facts,” he says calmly and takes a sip of tea. It takes all my will not to make my jaw drop again.
“Rembrandt was here?”
“Si, he boarded a train though and has gone to who knows where. I’m waiting for the next train.”
“Where are you going?” I ask, his every statement causing a thousand new questions to spring up in my mind.
“Back to Barcelona, with all luck, to finish La Segrada Familia.”
“You never did finish it, did you?” I recall this fact from a Spanish class I had been taking before I fell ill.
“No thanks to that burro of a tram driver. He hit me without a thought and I died a few days later.”
A new thought makes me choke on the sip of tea I had just taken. Gaudi reaches across the table to pound me on the back, which only makes me cough more.
“Ay Dios Mio, nino, take it easy!” He exclaims as my coughs subside.
“Does this mean I’m dead, if I’m here, having tea with you? All this,” I gesture toward him and to everything around us, “feels too real for me to be dead.”
He is silent for a moment, brows drawn together in thought.
“I do not know if you are dead. I do not know if I am dead. I just thought I was because I was in darkness then I saw a light, brighter than any estrella en el cielo. I followed the light and arrived here, with Rembrandt sitting where you are now.”
I try my hardest to make sense of the fact that I may be dead. “Well…I mean there’s likelihood that I am dead. I’ve been having problems with my heart and they operated on me a few days ago…” I feel incredibly light-headed and am unable to say anything else. Gaudi takes another sip of tea, his face overcome by a faraway expression.
“You are Cameron, ill and probably dead. I am Antoni Gaudi, an architect and also probably dead. Dios, what does it mean to be anything when all of it vanishes when we die? Or is it because it all vanishes that we seek to get as many titles and praises as we can while we can attain them?”
“You’ve hit upon an eternal muddle there, mate,” a voice from behind me says. My jaw drops again as E.M. Forester walks across the shiny train tracks over to our table. Gaudi pours him a cup of tea before standing up to shake hands. The two great men introduce themselves then Gaudi introduces me. Giving my hand a warm, firm shake, Edward Morgan Forester himself takes a seat beside me.
“But if all we are vanishes when we die, why is it the great men and women are remembered for what they were in life? To say nothing of what we are before we’re born, while we are in the womb?” Forester continues the conversation, an eager glow in his eyes.
“Are we really alive though, in the womb? We cannot see during that time, cannot remember it,” Gaudi muses.
“Considering we come out of the womb alive, I would think we’d be alive inside it.”
“And as for why the great are remembered, la repuesta es facil. The world remembers the strong and those the world remembers were the strongest of their kind,” Gaudi says with a small scowl. Forester gulps his tea then folds his hands together.
“But there are many kinds of strength, though. The world does not easily remember the courage of a woman who defied society in order to achieve the life she wanted.” He pauses. “I guess that’s why I wrote my novels as I did. I wanted to be the one man who remembered the great bravery of women in a time when they were thought helpless and cowardly. Though who knows if my work will even be read a hundred years from now.”
I finally find my voice. “Neither of you need to worry about being remembered!” I turn to Forester. “You are remembered as one of the greatest English novelists of the twentieth century. And you, Gaudi, are remembered as one of Spain’s greatest architects; some even called you God’s architect.” Gaudi smiles into his beard, obviously pleased.
“And you, my friend? What will the world remember you as?” Forester’s question is kind but it’s enough to make me want to throw the table and spatter the immaculate train station with tea and tarts filled with jam as red as blood. But of course I don’t, my repressed anger stays in the farthest corner of myself, where its been growing and simmering since I learned I was ill.
“I won’t be remembered as much,” I say, fixing my gaze on the pattern of my teacup. “I’ll just be the star University football player who died of an ailing heart.”
“A gifted athlete whose very heart betrayed him,” a new voice, this time a female, says. “Now that is pitifully ironic.”
The woman, wearing an old-fashioned white dress, approaches the table and Gaudi and Forester suddenly stand. She nods to both of them but extends her hand to me first.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jane Austen,” she says, her hazel eyes sparkling at me. In my shock I impulsively kiss her hand. She smiles.
“I’m Cameron Stockell,” I say and shake my head in surprise while she introduces herself to Gaudi and Forester. Even though I’m fairly sure I’m dead, I can’t help but wish my mum and sister were here to see this. Any mention of anything Jane Austen practically makes them salivate. Miss Austen is given the place at my right and is supplied with tea and tarts. She ignores them and takes my hand.
“For all the pitiful irony of your situation, Cameron, if I may call you that, you are wrong about one thing. You will be remembered as something special by each person who knew you.”
It’s her kindness that makes me snap. “That’s very easy for you to say, considering you are remembered by millions as one of the greatest writers ever!”
“Am I? That’s interesting to know,” she mumbles, her surprise plain on her face.
“I think the point Miss Austen was trying to make, dear chap, is none of us know how we’re going to be remembered, so we may as well live our lives in a way to make us worthy of remembrance,” Forester puts in, stroking his mustache thoughtfully.
“That is not what I was attempting to say exactly, Mr. Forester, though that was well put,” she says, one brilliant writer acknowledging another. “No, what I was trying to say is a mother and a father cannot forget their son. A brother or a sister will not forget their other siblings. A woman cannot forget a man who loved her, no matter how the attachment turned out. You will not be forgotten.”
I can’t help but sound like a child as I say, “But I’ll never be a famous football player. I’ll never play for Manchester United like I always wanted to.”
“It does not matter. What matters is that you lived.”
“Es verdad,” Gaudi speaks up. “You are a wise woman, Miss Austen.” He raises his teacup like he’s toasting to her.
“Thank you, Mr. Gaudi, but such wisdom makes me famished.” She devours her tart in three dainty bites and sips her tea thirstily. “Since I find myself surrounded by three gentlemen, I feel compelled to ask a question: why are men so concerned with grandness and glory? Why do they want to be emblazoned as the greatest, whether they are soldier, sailor or writer?”
“Because men are taught to be great. Greatness is what makes a man a man supposedly,” Forester answers.
Miss Austen looks like she knew this already. “But why does greatness make a man a man? Why cannot men be content with what they’ve been given as women are taught to? Why struggle after something they may never attain?”
“Why did you struggle after something you might not have gotten, Miss Austen?” Forester counters.
“The only thing I struggled to attain was more money for my family. I was told I could never be great because I am a woman.”
“Yet you are great,” I interrupt, though I could listen to them for hours.
“The greatness and glory of man is nothing compared with the greatness and glory of God,” Gaudi muses to no one in particular. We are all silent for a moment but the silence is quickly broken by the sound of timid footsteps.
“I’m sorry, but I overheard your questions and I think I might provide an answer,” a man with a thick French accent joins our table. “I am Henry Le Chatlier, a chemist.”
Introductions are made and he is given tea; I’m beginning to wonder if more supplies just magically appear every time someone enters the train station. He sits next to Gaudi.
“I heard your question about why men seek greatness and why women are discouraged from that pursuit and the answer can be found in chemical solutions.”
Despite our arched eyebrows and confused expressions, he goes on to explain passionately.
“In my work with chemical solutions, I stumbled across a theory that proves universally true for all solutions. If there is a stress on one side of the chemical equation, the only way the reaction can maintain its equilibrium is to counteract the stress in the opposite direction. This can be done by using up or producing more products, increasing reactant concentrations or the giving off of heat, but it’s all about balance. Men add the stress on society by their pursuit of greatness and women counteract that stress by acting in the roles which they’ve been given. Again I say it’s all about balance.”
“Would that it could be the other way around,” Miss Austen states, bitterness in her voice.
“It is now,” I assure her. “In my time, women have achieved and are achieving greatness. The trappings of certain periods in time do vanish.”
She snorts. “Only to be replaced by new trappings once the old have been smashed down.”
“How odd society is,” Forester observes, “to encourage the pursuit of what one thinks to be great and then at the same time criticize a man or a women once they’ve got it. It seems human beings are counterproductive to their own happiness.”
“I’ve always thought it an extraordinary coincidence of the English language the word ‘unique’ rhymes with the word ‘critique’,” Gaudi interjects, giving his beard a thoughtful tug.
“All we can do is plod about, doing what makes us happy and not listening to those who say we’re wrong,” Forester continues, his eyes on something only he can see.
“Maybe that’s what it means to be great,” I say, my head buzzing a little with all the thoughts this conversation has evoked in me.
“What a funny world it is,” Le Chatlier declares wistfully, setting his teacup down with a soft clink. We settle into silence with the weighty feeling of shared secrets between us. I’ve never had a talk like this with anyone before, where the world’s mask is stripped down, revealing the raw, beautifully ugly truth beneath. If and when I get back and get well, I think, things are going to be different.
Just then, whistles blow, like an army of ghosts coming closer. As if conjured by my thoughts, five separate trains pull into the station, each coming from different directions. They halt in a hiss of steam and their doors slide open, waiting for us. We all look at each other and rise in unison. Gaudi skips ahead of us and swings himself up onto the first train nearest the tea table. A look of peace transforms his face.
“Ah, I can smell Barcelona already!” He inhales deeply then turns to us. “Well, mis amigos y amiga, it is time for me to go back and finish what I started. You will see La Segrada Familia, won’t you?”
With our promises that we will, his train departs from the station, though I don’t think its heading to Barcelona. We hesitate when we come to the next train, but in the end, E.M. Forester steps up and boards. He leans out the window.
“Farewell until we meet again. Whenever we see each other next, we must have tea and together we’ll solve all the world’s muddles. “He gives us a broad smile and waves until his train is out of sight. Le Chatlier takes the next train with a reminder: life is about finding balance, both with the world and with yourself. With those accented words of wisdom, his train is gone. It is just Miss Austen and I and two separate trains we must take.
“I don’t want to leave,” I realize as the words come out.
“I imagine you could stay here, if you truly want,” she says, glancing around. “Someone else is bound to come along. But as for me, I’ll board this metal monster and see where it takes me.”
“Where do you think the trains go?”
She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “That is the adventure of it; you get to find out.”
She steps aboard her train and in a moment is gone. I look back at the deserted tea table and I long to stay here, where my heart is well, where I can talk to famous people and try to make sense of the world that has always been so confusing to me. But then I think of my mum, my dad, my sister. It is with them I belong, not here. Without another glance back, I get on the last train, which hurtles down the tracks as soon as I sit down. I am plunged into darkness as the train enters a tunnel and I gradually get very sleepy as the tunnel goes on and on and on. The clack of the wheels fades to the steady beep of a heart monitor and the sound of the wind gushing past the train becomes the sound of my own breathing with the added help of an oxygen mask. I can feel it encasing my mouth and my nose and a hand stops me from trying to dislodge it. My eyes flutter open and all I see is unforgiving brightness.
“Cameron! Thank God!” I hear my mother gasp and feel her hand on my forehead, smoothing back my hair. I open my eyes again and see her tired, beaming face looking back at me. I smile at her and she dashes off to get my father and a nurse. I try to cut through the fog in my brain, try to figure out if the tea party at the train station was a dream or not. My mother and father come in with a nurse and I am showered with smiles and kisses and checks of my vital signs. It must have been a dream then. The very thought of it makes me unbearably sad. I lean back on my pillow and sigh; it’s only then I realize my breath smells distinctly of a good cup of Earl Grey.
Elizabeth Hoyle has been writing stories since she was eight years old and is currently earning her Bachelor's in both English Writing and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. A native of Beckley, West Virginia, her fiction has been featured on flashfictionworld.com and her poetry has been included in the American Library of Poetry's student anthology entitled "Talented".