It felt like Ronan was looking at me in the glass, staring right through me with the clock face behind my reflection; gleaming solid. Without needing to ask I pushed on.
The next area was the most well-lit part and was as far back as the ground floor stretched. It was dedicated to the Great Train Disaster of 1889, where two trains collided and many people died, mainly children, with hundreds injured. The local station closed after that day and no trains ever passed near or through our town again.
The beginning of the exhibit showed trains of the 1800s in all their glory, several of which were pictured in the local station with Victorian men, women and children boarding with happy faces and waving from inside. Further along there were pictures of railway staff in offices behind typewriters and conductors with their ticket machines strapped across their shoulder and railway maintenance staff on the lines – all happy at their work, oblivious of what was to come, which the pictures further along were showing.
The part of the line the accident had happened on was at the top of a high sloping bank, so when the two trains collided their carriages splattered down the sides and hung there. One picture of the scene was taken about fifty yards away from the wreckage, the photographer’s perspective of a field where all the survivors were standing in groups. Every single head was turned towards the trains. I pushed Ronan past these pictures to the final part of the exhibit, a small glass case all on its own. It was the brightest thing in the room, illuminated from within by spotlights in each corner of the case, which made it seem almost sacred. It was a scale model of one of the trains looking how it would have on the day when all those passengers boarded it. Its smooth dark green surface sparkled, its golden metal shone. The perfection of it preserved forever.
‘Goh,’ Ronan suddenly said. ‘G-goh.’
I came round to look at him. His gaze was fixed on the train in the glass case. Then he turned his head away and tried to lift his arm to point away from it.
‘G-goh,’ he said again.
‘You want to leave, Ronan? Go home?’
I was panicking that he was about to get distressed but there was something about his energy that wasn’t like it had been at Kilmare or in the canteen, it was determined, focused.
‘Noh,’ he said, shakily lifting his arm again trying to point in the direction of the entrance of the museum, ‘g-goh …’
‘OK,’ I said, going behind him to spin us around, ‘we’ll go back.’
Ronan was humming hoarsely as I sped off back the way we’d come, past the train pictures, past the architecture section and on to the linen section.
‘Stah-p,’ he said, trying to lift his other arm and point down towards the glass cabinet filled with lace embroidery. Ronan was breathing heavy and hard, almost frantic but without muchnoise; he was quietly, but restlessly, set on something. I pushed him down the line of lace and linen-filled rows.
‘Keep going?’ I said as I pushed him fast towards the end of the display until we stopped at the picture of the barley field.
Ronan’s breathing started to slow down as we came to a stop and he started to hum gently once again, his energy easing down and his head stock still, staring straight at the picture in front of us. I came round to him and knelt down. He was fixed on the picture behind me of the barley field and the combine harvester. I turned to look at it too, and when I turned back Ronan was staring at me.
‘What happened that day, Ronan?’
His hand lifted to point towards the picture.
‘The barley field?’
He tried to lift his hand further, but it dropped onto the armrest of his wheelchair.
‘Yeah-sh,’ he said and started to get agitated again, turning his head over his shoulder and trying to point back the way we’d come.
‘Goh,’ he said with that fiery energy rising in him once again. When I didn’t move immediately he said it louder, ‘G-goh!’
I leapt to my feet, spun him round and sped towards the other end of the linen display until Ronan’s right hand came up to indicate towards the architecture display.
‘Goh.’
I spun us in that direction and he made another gesture with his right hand for me to turn us down along the display cabinet with all the photos of buildings until he told me to stop at the clock face.
I came round to hunker in front of him again. He was red in the face and words were failing him as he struggled to articulate; he was making garbled sounds I couldn’t make sense of.
‘What is it, Ronan? The clock?’
He was shaking his head frantically.
‘It’s OK, Ronan, just breathe, take your time and breathe.’
I started taking deep breaths to demonstrate and he followed my lead until we were breathing together, calmly.
‘It’s OK,’ I said.
