We stopped briefly at the last station before my destination. Two more hours and I would be there. The door opened and a woman clambered into the carriage. She fell into the corner seat. I barely registered her presence. I slid into dreams of my boyhood; my unhappy, abandoned mother, alone with me, her infant, fatherless son, in that poky flat; her shame, her poverty.

A soft sound made a strange accompaniment to the train’s soothing rhythm. Sad music, it seemed. The sound of crying? Through half-opened eyes, I peeped across the compartment. The woman held her head in her hands. She had undone her long dark coat and pulled her scarf loose. Her briefcase, which was her only luggage, was beside her on the seat.

‘No business of mine,’ I thought. ‘Some secret sorrow. We all have them.’ I drifted away again.

I was jolted awake by the sound of loud sobs. With both hands she grasped a letter. Between each shuddering sob she took a long screeching inbreath, holding it in tension before releasing it in desperate cries.

I had a moment’s annoyance at being disturbed. She was making it my business, forcing me to pay attention. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I hoped she would say there wasn’t.

But my tiredness was none of her business; she clearly had other things on her mind. I proffered her a large white handkerchief.

She buried her face in it and then looked up, waving the letter at me with the other hand. ‘No! There is nothing anyone can do! He is married! He got married this very morning! And to my own sister! After all his promises to me!’ She crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. Leaning back in her seat, she pulled her hat off roughly and started to tug at her auburn hair, so that it stood out around her head and tumbled down her back.

‘My God,’ I thought, ‘she’s mad! I must do something!’

The train hurtled along in the darkness. Rain poured down the window panes. The open briefcase, the crumpled letter, the discarded hat, all added to the sense of chaos. I was with her in her agitation.

She rocked back and forth in her seat, howling like a baby. Tears ran down her red, puffy cheeks, leaving muddy streaks. Her hands reached up wildly and pulled her hair from the back of her head down over her face. For a long time I sat opposite her, on the edge of my seat. She seemed to be in her twenties, and underweight. She was neatly dressed, but her coat was thin. Obviously she was hardly looking her best – perhaps she might appear handsome in different circumstances. How could I gain her attention, try to calm her down? Foolishly, I leaned across and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She leapt up with a scream, her blue eyes wide open staring into mine, as though I were about to attack her. I was on my feet in front of her. She pummelled me with her fists. I grasped her firmly, a hand on each shoulder. ‘Calm yourself,’ I said. ‘Sit down and tell me all about it.’

It was too late. She was out of control. She was struggling with me, screaming and sobbing. ‘Let me go! I can’t bear it! My life is ruined, finished!’

She wrenched herself to one side, escaped from my grasp and reached for the door handle. Automatically my hand moved out to seize her wrist. I pulled her away from the open door, wind and rain roaring as we sped along.

‘No, no! Not that!’ I shouted.

Her face was contorted as she snatched her hand away. ‘But… I’m going to have a baby! I can’t… I can’t!’ And she lunged again towards the door.

She leapt out. In my brain a thought flashed like a spark between synapses. ‘I must save her!’ Then I fell after her.

We were falling together though the rain, turning, tumbling, rolling, ending up in a heap at the foot of a muddy bank, our legs folded the wrong way, our necks broken…

Instead, the floor was firm beneath my feet. The air was warm and still. The train still sang its old refrain, clickety clack over and over. A man with white hair and a little beard stood leaning with his back towards a window, smoking a pipe. I looked left and right – no sign of the woman.

‘Did you see her?’ I asked him. ‘Which way did she go?’

He looked at me thoughtfully, sucked on his pipe and then drew it from his mouth. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That woman. She rushed out of this compartment, auburn hair all over the place.’

‘I saw no one.’

‘She wanted to jump out of the train!’ Agitated and confused, I looked again to right and to left. I looked down at my feet. ‘This train has a corridor,’ I said.

‘It has indeed,’ replied the smoker with no air of surprise.

‘She was mad,’ I told him. ‘She had been deserted by her lover. She sobbed and cried, and tried to jump out of the train!’

‘Mad, was she? Distressed and suicidal?’ His calm tone expressed mild interest tinged with doubt.

The door at the end of the carriage showed no signs of having been opened. My legs began to shake, and I was perspiring. I sagged, leaning back against the compartment door, which had slid shut.

‘You look unwell,’ said my companion. ‘You are very pale. Come inside and sit down.’ He put out his pipe and put it in his pocket. Taking my arm he opened the door and led me into the compartment. We sat down together.

‘She left her briefcase just here.’ I pointed to the empty spot. ‘Her hat, too. Do all the trains in your country have corridors?’ He nodded. ‘Are you sure?’I asked.

‘Believe me. I have travelled in this area all my life, and I have never seen a train without a corridor. You do not know this country?’

‘I lived here as a child, but I have not been back for over forty years. I think I must have seen a ghost!’ I searched his face for a clue. How likely was it? The skin of my head crawled and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled, as a faint idea about who the woman might have been began to form.

‘No, no. Utter nonsense, my dear fellow!’ The elderly gentleman patted me on the arm. He took out a flask from his pocket and made me sip some brandy from it. ‘Ghosts do not exist. They are purely imaginary.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We shall be arriving soon. I must go and collect my things. I’m sure you will be perfectly all right if you just keep calm, and stop imagining things.’

He stood up to go. I wanted to seize hold of his arm and make him stay. As he went out, I gasped, ‘My mother… she’s dying.’

He glanced back briefly, and smiled. I looked straight into his eyes, and saw that he didn’t care, not one bit. He closed the sliding door.

With a sigh I looked down, and under the opposite seat I noticed a sheet of crumpled paper. I picked it up and smoothed it out. It was written in a spidery hand, and all in a language I could not read. Anyway, I thought, it could not have anything to do with the ‘ghost’. If she had been real, she’d have left her briefcase and hat. The man had been right; I had imagined all that, even down to the absence of a corridor in the train. I couldn’t understand why I had done so. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.

From now on I would stick to what I had evidence for. I had been adopted at the age of four by Bill and Mavis Johnson in London. They told me that my mother’s name was Tania and that the adoption had been arranged by Kristjan Sander. That was all I knew, but I had just had a letter inviting me to come to that distant small town, near where I had lived so long ago. I took that paper out of my pocket. It simply informed me that Tania Sander was very ill and if I wanted to see her before she died I should come at once. It was signed by Andrei Sander, clearly a relative of hers. I didn’t know him. He said he would meet the train I was now on. I was almost there.

The train pulled in and a few people alighted. The elderly man from the next compartment walked ahead of me out of the station. He was met by a serious looking younger man with dark hair, who then turned to me, shook my hand and said,

‘Mr Peter Johnson? I am happy to meet you. My name is Andrei Sander, and this is my uncle, Jaan Neeme.’ He opened the doors of a small black car.

Mr Neeme smiled coldly. ‘We have met. I trust you are feeling better, Mr Johnson. No more imaginary encounters, eh? We’ll say no more about it.’ His tone was firm.

I was embarrassed to meet him again. It was a relief when he got into the front of the car, leaving me the back seat. No doubt he thought I was unstable. He ignored me as we drove through the narrow roads out of the town and through the dark pine forests.

Andrei Sander had no reason not to be friendly, and asked me about my connection with Tania Sander, who, he said, was his mother. ‘She asked me to contact you, but she would say nothing about you.’

Inhibited by Jaan’s attitude, and warned by my mother’s discretion about me, I replied, ‘I was born in this area, but when I was four I was sent away to England to be adopted. I do not know why. I did know Tania many years ago, but I don’t remember much, being so young.’

No one spoke again until the car drew up outside an old thatched house. Then Andrei said, ‘This house was in my father’s family. My parents married in the mid-twenties, and this is where I grew up.’

The house was large and comfortably furnished in the traditional style of an earlier period. His father was evidently well off. In the drawing room Andrei introduced me to two more elderly people. ‘I’d like you to meet my father, Kristjan Sander, and my mother’s sister, Marja Neeme.’ I shook their hands, and they looked at me with puzzled curiosity, but said nothing beyond a polite formal greeting. When Kristjan heard my name, his eyes narrowed, but he made no remark. I felt a strange discomfort which seemed out of proportion to the circumstances, but I put it down to my tiredness, and to the sadness of the occasion.

‘My aunt has been here a few days, caring for my mother,’ Andrei explained, ‘but my uncle was not able to be here until today.

‘She has been calm today, ‘ said Marja, ‘but she is very weak.’ The couple went straightaway to Tania’s room to see her. Kristjan sat down, but I was not offered a seat, and there was an awkward pause in the conversation.

Andrei said, ‘Come with me.’ In the passageway he went on, ‘You mustn’t mind my family – we are all distressed about my mother. The fact is, she is very confused in her mind, and always has been. She has fits of madness, tearing her hair, crying, breaking mirrors. She has tried to overdose many times. She has to have a nurse with her constantly. In between she is a delightful person, clear-minded, intelligent, cultured. And now she is dying.’ He showed me to my room where I tried to rest for a while after the journey.

Later he took me to our mother’s room. Tania lay in the bed. She was very pale. Her grey hair was tied back from her face by a thin white ribbon. She took deep laboured breaths. Medicine bottles and jars cluttered the bedside table. The curtains were drawn, and a fire flickered weakly in the grate. A younger woman sat near the bed; Andrei nodded to her, and she left the room.

Andrei said, ‘Mother, here is Peter Johnson. You asked me to send for him.’ She opened blue expressionless eyes, glanced at me for a moment, then she looked back at Andrei and gave him a sad smile. He went out and quietly shut the door.

Then she changed. She raised her head from the pillow. ‘Do you remember me? It was so long ago. Prop me up a little.’

I placed a pillow behind her back. She seized my hand and gazed into my face. ‘Tell no one!’ she whispered dramatically. ‘I would never have sent you away. He made me do it to avoid a scandal. It was a shameful thing, in those days. He wouldn’t have married me, with a child tied to my apron strings.’

Astonished, I said, ‘Hush, do not distress yourself. As you see, I am happy, and I have flourished in England with my adoptive parents. But who forced you to send me away?’

‘Kristjan, of course! He hated you. He made me chose, you see. He found this woman, Mavis Johnson, who wanted to adopt a child. I had no money, nothing! I have never forgiven him. I had another boy, Andrei, you’ve met him, but I wanted you too. It was never mentioned again. No. I have had to keep silent all these years!’

I gazed at her face. It was alive with passion, distorted with bitterness. Hesitantly, I asked, ‘And…my father?’

‘Jaan Neeme! He played with me; I thought he meant it when he said he would marry me, but then he married her! Why? Was she prettier? We were both equally poor. What did he gain by choosing Marja? I never told him I was expecting his baby. He went with her to the city to set up his business, and I stayed here with you. When Kristjan offered to marry me, he insisted on keeping everthing secret, my affair with Jaan and your existence. Marja doesn’t know anything about any of it. Now the pair of them come to look after me, and nothing is said about the past.’

So what the ghost woman had said in the train was true. It had been a vision of my mother, shortly before I was born. Either that, or we were both mad.

I took out the crumpled letter from my pocket. ‘Do you recognise this?’ I asked her.

She took it and looked at it. She began to cry. With both hands she grasped the letter, and sobbed loudly. I looked around anxiously, and tried to hush her.

‘This is Jaan’s letter to me, telling me they were getting married. I wouldn't go to the wedding. Where did you get it?’ She gave me a piercing stare. 'You mustn't breathe a word to any of them about being my son.'

'Won't Kristjan suspect something? He must recognise my adoptive name. He must wonder why I'm here.'

'He doesn't want anyone to know. But I must have been crazy to ask you to come. I needed to see you once more. I am dying, at last. You won't tell them who you are, will you? Promise me!'

Before I could answer, she started rocking back and forth in the bed, screeching. Then she began to pull her hair, just as the apparition in the train had done. I stared in horror, and felt as I had done then. 'My God, she’s mad. I must do something!'

I ran to the door and called Andrei. He came quickly, his face full of concern. He took a pill from a bottle on the table and gave it to her with a sip of water. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to me, ‘it’s not your fault. This happens to her from time to time.’

She began to calm down, and seemed sleepy. I took her hand, and said, ‘Goodbye, Tania. Be at peace now. Thank you for asking me to come. I have heard your story.’

Andrei shot me a look. Back in my room he asked me what I had meant. ‘It is not anything you need to concern yourself about,’ I told him. ‘I knew your mother a very long time ago, and all that happened then is over.’ I longed to tell him we were half brothers. I felt we might have become friends too.

Downstairs, we ate a simple supper served by a maid. Again the two older men looked at me warily, and all of us were subdued. Kristjan left the room quickly after the meal.

Marja asked me how I liked living in London and what work I did. She wanted to be friendly, I felt, but Jaan was clearly still keeping his distance, and after a few polite exchanges, they both withdrew for the night. It had been a strange way to meet my father, and stranger still that he went off not realising what our relationship was. Perhaps he dismissed me from his mind as an oddity, rather like the hysterical woman he had known, who had later become his sister in law.

In the morning I set off again for London. The following week I received a letter from Andrei telling me that Tania Sander had passed away peacefully. I did not go to the funeral, but I lit a candle for her, and beside it I placed the thin white ribbon she had worn in her hair.