Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 5 (August 1, 1938)

Dream Places

page 14

Dream Places

There was something peculiar about that day from the moment I opened my eyes. Although it was winter still and I had gone to bed shivering and cursing the cold, I woke up with the pleasant realisation that I could sit up in bed to drink my tea and read my morning paper without feeling chilly about the shoulders. Oh—and about the tea—it was for once neither too hot nor too cold, neither too strong nor too weak, and the proportion of milk and leaf infusion was as near perfect as mortal hands could make it—and none of it had spilled into the saucer. The morning paper had a different air about it, too, and after a few minutes reading I realised what it was. The headings were quite happy ones—there was no mention of war—apparently no one had been murdered the day before—there was a most unusual absence of floods, earthquakes, storms and disasters at sea and other misfortunes that bring so much human sorrow in their wake. There were no photographs of car smashes—no illustrations of battle-grounds or places marked with a cross where some poor devil's body had been found. The editorials were lacking in their daily sting and strafe, and indignant complaints. There was a gentleness and bland pleasantness throughout.

The newspaper folded itself easily and without the “malevolence of inanimate objects” which seems concentrated in one's morning paper. And for once there was no loose single page to fall out and thus bring impolite references to the methods of gentlemen responsible for the make-up of the paper.

I rose, felt very fit and refreshed, and in the bathroom, found that no one had been there before me to run off all the hot water and to leave cold wet patches on the bath mat. The soap did not play its usual daily game of hide and seek, nor flirt elusively with my groping hands. I carolled gaily and the reverberations were even more self-satisfying than ever before, and there were no cries of complaint from my family, nor vocal opposition from my neighbours. The razor glided easily—almost caressingly—across my face and I did not notice even one new grey hair at my temples. I viewed my face in the mirror with a certain smug satisfaction instead of the disturbing dislike of my own image which had hitherto assailed me—and increasingly so of late. My available socks were such as matched the shirt and tie I wanted to wear and were not either in the wash or awaiting repair. The knife-edge crease in my trosusers was such as to increase my self-respect, and I entered the dining room with a smile and a cheery word of greeting.

After a singularly well-cooked and appetising meal which consisted of everything I just happened to feel like, I heard a voice saying: “Your bag is packed, dad, and the car's ready!”

My son and heir is, as a rule, one of those lads who, by cajolery, threats, or downright misrepresentation, turn a car-owning father into a reluctant pedestrian, but this morning he not only allowed me to drive the car myself, but actually complimented me on my slick and silent gear-changing and my clever handling of the car in traffic, so that by the time we arrived at the station I felt an inner glow—the like of which I had not experienced for many years.

I bade my son good-bye, with a backward glance of pride at his straight and manly figure and his gentlemanly bearing.

Have I mentioned that it was a glorious day? It was! One of those marvellous, still, clear, champagne-like days that Wellington very often and suddenly springs upon her citizens.

Immediately I entered the great hall of the station, I found a porter at my elbow. “Where for, sir?”

It was then that I realised that I hadn't a notion of my destination except that it was somewhere very pleasant, very beautiful and very restful. I managed to convey something of this to the porter, who, instead of saying that there was only one place for “a fellow who comes along to a busy railway station wasting the time of busy railway porters,” said, “Well, now sir, I'd advise you to take the page 15 first train going out. That'll be in five minutes from now from number eight platform. It doesn't really matter what station you book for, because all the places along that line are lovely and restful—if you expect to find beauty and restfulness!”

I thanked him—booked a ticket (I can't remember what station I asked for) and found my porter had taken my one bag to the train and had secured for me a corner seat, back to the engine, in a smoking compartment.

The train steamed gently out almost immediately. There was a lady with a child sitting opposite to me, and—being rather afraid of very young babies—I smiled a bit rather shyly. The baby smiled back—waved a podgy hand vaguely in my direction and cooed. I had never been cooed at by a baby before and I found the experience quite thrilling. The baby's mother said: “Smoke if you want to—I like it and it won't hurt the baby!” We chatted pleasantly and admired the scenery through the windows. It was all strange country to me.

“I found a porter at my elbow.”

“I found a porter at my elbow.”

Every now and again a waterfall would catch the sun and turn to living silver, or a river reflect the high blue of the heavens.

At some period later in the day (I had lost all sense of time by now) the guard had touched me on the shoulder and informed me that we should be arriving any minute now. The train, which throughout had travelled swiftly and smoothly, began to slow down perceptibly and finally came to a stop.

I said good-bye to the mother and child and received a smile from the one and a gurgle from the other, and stepped out on to the platform. The air was warm, but not oppressive—it entered my lungs and filled me with a welcome feeling of well-being. The hotel was just over the way. I registered and handed over my bag to a cheerful youth who conducted me to a bedroom overlooking one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen. How long I stood there bathing myself in its beauty I do not know, but I was brought to earth by the musical tinkling of the dinner gong. I washed and cleaned up generally and descended to the dining-room, where I was shown to a table overlooking a pleasant and carefully laid-out orchard and kitchen garden with, beyond, a haze of purple-blue hills, catching the golden pink after-glow of sunset.

My waitress had a happy friendly smile and a swift but unobtrusive service. Her suggestions, which I invited, for my meal, proved sound. The vegetables had obviously just recently been taken from the kitchen garden outside the window and the fruit had not long ago been hanging on the trees in the orchard. The chicken was in its first—and not its second—childhood, and, with a sigh of satisfaction and repletion, I ambled through to the lounge for coffee. And the coffee was good. The conversation about me was good, too—and after a while I went for a quiet stroll outside. The moon was just rising over the hills I had admired through the dining-room windows. The air was quiet and still. Everything appeared to have ceased growing at the very peak of perfection. All nature about me, in its several and varied lovelinesses enveloped me in its magic. It was like being alone in a very beautiful open-air cathedral.

When I felt that my eyes could not bear the sight of such beauty any longer, and my heart was overflowing with that breath-taking sadness which the contemplation of superlative loveliness always fills me, I returned slowly and almost reverently—to the hotel. In my bedroom, my pyjamas lay folded and ready on the bed—the clothes of which were invitingly turned back.

I undressed and got into bed to be wooed almost instantly by its enveloping comfort, to sleep. I awakened to the sound of a cup of tea being placed on the little table by my bedside. To my dismay and astonishment the air was chilly and cold. I sat up and attempted to read a refractory newspaper—a loose sheet fell out as I opened it. I sipped my tea—weak and tepid—and half of it in the saucer; the headlines in the paper were harsh, warlike and full of hatred and threatened trouble—the editorials were biting and viperish. I threw it from me in disgust—left my unfinished tea (to give it an undeserved title) and strode to the bathroom. There was just sufficient hot water to deceive me into running a bath, only to find that it was stone cold when I attempted to lower myself into it. The bathmat was wet, and I cut my chin shaving. The bacon was underdone and the eggs overdone, and I stepped out into a cheerless world, where a particularly biting southerly carried stinging rain into my face. Summer seemed a long way off! Ah me!

“Oh yes! there are fashions in tobacco just as there are in lots of other things,” said the weed merchant to the inquisitive reporter, “new brands are always coming and going. In years long gone by the most fancied imported lines included Shag and Black Plug, but there's not much enquiry for them now save perhaps by sailors who generally chew more than they smoke. The modern smoker is more fastidious. He wants something of finer quality with flavour and bouquet to it. “Toasted” is all the go now as any tobacconist will tell you. That's not very surprising either, because the five genuine toasted blends, Cut Plug No. 10 (Bulls-head) Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold range from superfine cigarette baccy to full flavoured for the pipe, and supply a brand for every smoker. They're all made from the choicest leaf and, being toasted, are comparatively free from nicotine. It's often said there's no ‘bite’ in them—and there isn't.” “How about imitations?” queried the reporter. “All as dead as mutton,” laughed the tobacconist.*

page 16