ABSTRACT
After my visit, my father drove me back to the local train station. As we turned into the approach road, the lights of the level crossing began to flash and the barriers descended. My father accelerated, mounted the pavement to avoid the queue of cars and turned into the station car park just as the train drew to a halt. I jumped out of the car and ran for the station bridge to cross the tracks. Before my foot was on the second step, the train pulled out of the station. My father was reversing his car. I lifted my hand to wave him to stop; to say goodbye; perhaps to sit in his car for 30 minutes until the next train. But I hesitated-not wanting the discomfort of the silence between us -and he drove out of the car park without a backward glance. Or perhaps he gave a backward glance and decided to pretend he had not seen me standing there and the train leaving. For a brief moment our lives together were measured in this surreptitious economy of glances; an economy in which language, the prelude to feelings, had failed to take root.
