My bed isn’t ready yet, isn’t pulled down. So I have to ask Charles to pull down my bed—which is good. Safety in numbers. Then the lock and then the staring and then sleep.
And I’ll wake refreshed and this will have receded, it will no longer be true.
Sudbury. I’m looking at ugly Sudbury: the huge, gouged waste of it: dust and metalwork and rock, the imprint of uncontrolled need: and it’s offensive, it should make me annoyed, but my head’s lolling nicely and I’m calmer, unharried, heavy on my pillow, sinking back.
Until the soft hand of nothing reaches up and cups my face, draws me away.
But the little old ladies are stirring next door. First a peripheral murmur, an additional comfort to wash me away. Then a dull impact that nearly brings me back. Then silence again, sweet engine song and the start of dreaming.
Then a brisk, hard clack of metal beside my ear. It yanks me up and has me sitting before I can open my eyes. The noise whacks in a second time—something vicious happening through the partition. A succession of clatters.
According to my watch, I’ve slept for fifteen minutes, if that.
And I’m about to get dressed, go out and speak somewhat harshly to the little old ladies, whoever they happen to be, when their sounds transform completely. There are giggles, hurrying feet, more giggles—and the elderly should have their fun, of course: they’re still filled with delight that the Second World War didn’t kill them—but there are limits. Two days of this and I’ll toss them both out on the track.
It changes again, though, their noise, splits into a harder growl and a kind of mewing, dense pauses and then the regular, broad shunt of fucking. There is no other sound like it, no other beat. They’re fucking. Presumably old lady one with old lady two—banging each other unmercifully in the mid-afternoon. Possibly without drawing down the blind. Certainly inches away from me.
Now I know the lesbian thing happens—can’t understand it myself, but each to their own—and the geriatric shagging, that happens, too. I just don’t want to be listening while it does. It’s as if I’m intruding and also as if they are making fun of me, or at least showing off, which is unseemly in anyone over fifteen.
Into my clothes, then, and I’ll try for a jolting stroll to take me somewhere less obscene. Except that, when I open my door, there is somebody standing, listening, next to the old ladies’ berth. It’s the woman with the wooden necklace, leaning forward, her hands braced between the walls, smirking. She turns her head to me and winks, the little carved doll swinging free—jointed limbs, long white socks painted over the legs up to the thigh, long white gloves, a white bib across the breast and on to the white neck, the white face with black gloss hair, Cupid’s bow crimson mouth, brown eyes. Dressed, it would seem, like an affectation, a piece of girlish whimsy. Hanging as it is, the stretches of unpainted wood seem very naked, the whole effect deliberately erotic.
From the closed berth comes a cry: unjoyful, something to do with pain. The woman licks her lips and slowly, purposely, sets her ear flat to the old ladies’ door and her doll seems more and more an offer, or an order, a dirty joke she has to make. I push past her, hurry on, ignoring the throaty, theatrical sigh, the shudder she manufactures when our shoulders touch.
It’s not what you’d expect.
No, it isn’t what you’d expect.
In a nice, clean train on a usual route.
It is not what you’d expect.
I’m heading for the back of the train now, the way I haven’t been before. Ahead of the observation car, a dimmer room lies open, its floor just a whisker lower than the passageway. It has an art deco theme: chrome and leather stools, sculptural lighting, a fine pink glow cast down to warm the vaguely locomotive details of the bar.
“What can I get you?” The bartender—the only employee I’ve met on this train with a normal intonation. “Anything you like.” His uniform buttons glimmer, his hair is brushed to a sleek pelt, his look is soft and patient.
“Ah . . . A ginger beer.”
“A ginger beer. Not a coffee? I have some fresh.”
“No, I’m trying to sleep. But thanks.”
“A ginger beer it is, then.”
“Yes.” When I look down, I can’t recall his face. Although it is gentle, distinctive, even fine: it also seems impossible to grasp.
“Nothing stronger?” He’s wearing black plush gloves—I’ve never seen that before on a barman. It’s elegant, I think, classy. “Abstaining for your health?” He suggests this kindly, with insight, no one else here—no freaks, no perverts—only the excellent bartender and me.
“Yes. I am abstaining. For my health.” For some reason I don’t understand, the engine seems muffled, our voices low, but completely audible, relaxed and well produced.
“Good health can never be overestimated.” His gloves spider neatly along the bar top and find a glass while he never slips his glance away from me. “One ginger beer for the lady.” He could work in radio with a warmth and enunciation as fine as that.
“For Hannah.”
But his natural place would be in a bar, safe in this bar. “Hannah?” He smiles quietly, nods, tongs ice into my glass and pauses. He understands I am about to correct myself and that I will make my lie so obvious that it could never cause offence. “Is that so?” He understands everything.
“I mean Burnaby. I’m called Burnaby.”
“Burnaby.” Again a nod. “Now that is a name. That is.” Firing the ginger beer into the glass, adding the lemon deftly, dealing out the coaster. “You really picked a good one there, Hannah.”
I take the glass from him, the round, iced weight. I nod and smile my best smile, because we will be friends. I’ve found the one place on this train where I’m at home. I set the rim to my lips.
Then I find that I’m rolling over in my bunk, grazing my forehead against the partition wall.
According to my watch, I’ve slept right through more than four hours.
No waking up.
No goings-on from old ladies.
No weird bitch in the corridor.
No bar—which does upset me for a while. It had seemed it would be an especially good bar.
By dinner time I am bored out of my mind and hungry. I’ve already had more than enough of tranquil vistas blossoming through trees: of lakes, of rocks, of the smothering green that’s shining in towards me, thick and repellent with life. I’m beginning to understand Sudbury: why you’d have to scour this down to nothing, grind it clean and start again. I have looked at things enough now—I am full. And next door are the old ladies, behaving themselves impeccably and repeating the train’s informative announcements, cooing them out as if they were poetry.
“So. Ladies and gentlemen. Mes-dameset Me ssieurs. To your left— gauche—the tranquil vista oh-ver there . . . You’ll see there the famous Brass Lake.”
“Brass Lake.”
“That’s Brass Lake.”
“Yes, Brass Lake.”
“Brass Lake.”
“Vousvoy ezla, le Lac du Cui-vre Jaune. C’est un lac très, très toxique. Plusieurs vo-ya-gers ont été assassinés par ce lac. Deux cent, on pense, peu tetreplus. And the Brass Lake cemetery, you will see right over yonder, sur votre droit. ”
“That’s the cemetery.”
“That’s the cemetery.”
“Brass Lake cemetery.”
I am willing myself to be struck with hysterical deafness but this has no effect, beyond making me feel hysterical. The train drags us forward and I try not to imagine that I am trapped in a nightmare cinema: the endless film reeling off sideways, the narration recited by a lunatic, the audience talking and talking and talking. I am actually happy when the call goes out to eat, to complete the last sitting.
And the familiar gang is here, assembled, when I arrive. Even though I raced out of my cell as soon as I heard the signal, even though the earlier sitting must have taken some time to disperse and there must have been a small delay before the fresh diners coul
d sit—tablecloths to change, or brush, spillages, stains—still, everyone has made it in before me. Not only that, but they are nibbling rolls and chatting, sipping preparatory drinks, like people who’ve been idling at their tables for half an hour or more. The manatee mother is already eyeing her soup. No one but me is out of breath, or flustered, or disturbed.
Although I am cheered, on closer inspection, to note that the misfits table is short of its pensioner. He’s later than me. Or he could still be digesting those two ounces of unbuttered bread that he recklessly crammed in for lunch. He did have the look of someone who was only used to eating once a week. He’s most likely shut in a toilet somewhere, drinking his own urine, swallowing razor blades because he can. Smug git. Or perhaps he got off and is now walking nude in the woods, birching himself using genuine birches. Whatever he’s up to, as the minutes pass and Shaking Hands Woman trembles her napkin laboriously down over her lap, it becomes clear that he won’t be arriving for dinner today.
“Yeah, the old iron horse. Fifteen years I worked on her.” Railway Bore is still horribly with us. “You wouldn’t believe the stories. I could tell you something.”
Yes, and I could recite my latest daydream for you—hot, weird, senile action—that’d curl your hair, mate. If you still had any.
Quaker Beard Man drums his table and forks down mashed potatoes while his companion/lover/wife dissects her meat, that sodding doll still on display, bringing a nice little hint of the gibbet to our proceedings. No wonder I dreamed about it—it’s bloody weird—like hanging a voodoo model prostitute round your neck.
“Very interesting, isn’t it?” This is the first time that Shaking Hands Woman has spoken to me, or anyone else at our table. “Yes, very interesting.”
I’m not sure whether to answer her, or not. There could be numberless reasons for her shake, but her sad child’s voice, her stunned eyes, the kind of softly luminous hurt that surrounds her—they suggest apocalyptic trauma in her past, a life built out of aftershock. It seems any further intrusion might provoke terminal unease. Still, she appears to be inviting contact, creeping shy glances towards me, tiny darts of intensity shading across her face.
I murmur as blandly as I can. “Interesting?”
“The doll.” There’s something of the playground about this: the approach of the clumsy girl nobody likes, the threat of her trying to make a friend of you. “You were looking at it. The same as lunchtime.” Tonight she wears a white sweatshirt, the collar of a pink blouse showing above, neat jeans and white trainers with a pair of appliquéd cherries bright on each. Someone like her shouldn’t even consider that doll.
“I was just staring into space—the doll got in the way.”
“I think it’s interesting.”
“It’s . . . it’s certainly striking.”
“Where are you from?” She rushes this, as if it’s a phrase she has learned from a book of conversations.
“Scotland.”
“The Scotland in England?”
“The Scotland next door to England.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Her chin tucks in and she drops her head and I guess that she may be the type to cry easily. “Sorry.”
“Not at all. I have no idea where I am most of the time. You were close . . . It’s fine . . . I’m not offended.”
But she has retreated completely, frowns at her plate and sighs to herself until it is taken away.
Once again, I spend my time risking indigestion, bolting my food so that I can be free to batter back into my cabin for some privacy, lock my door. Although I will simply be locking it for peace—the sense of doom I had this afternoon has dissipated, possibly settling in Shaking Hands Woman, just for a lark. I am rested and well and only two nights from Clear Spring and I have no sense of other, arcane plans afoot. My fellow-travellers are eccentric, improperly adjusted, but they mean no harm.
As I make for my carriage, I pass the little clutches of seats where passengers will be attempting to go to sleep. In one of them, the manatee mother is arranging and rearranging pillows and bags of snacks while her children stare. Beyond her, the curtains across the corridor bunks are swaying, letting out glimmers of white sheet.
Then at home in my cell the tracks rock and grumble beneath me, I turn out the lamp above my bed and tuck myself in under the night. Against the bare window there is a deep, large dark, a smother of something between me and the stars.
“Good morning, lady, bless you.”
I am attempting to butter a croissant while the carriage shakes and my paper plate flexes threateningly.
“Bless you.”
I am standing, because there is nowhere left to sit.
“Bless you, lady.”
There is nowhere left to sit because the whole of the observation car—and fuck knows why they’ve dumped the things for breakfast here— is full of Christians. Christians with wall eyes, Christians with mental-home haircuts, Christians with one leg shorter than the other, Christians with medieval heads, Christians who smell of heavy medication and of cats and Terylene.
“Bless you.”
Christians who have doubtless left far more disturbing things, hopping and singing psalms in their root cellars. “God bless you, lady.”
“I’d rather not, thank you.”
“Excuse me?” This one’s teeth are splayed and jumbled, three of them peek over his bottom lip when he’s distressed. He is currently distressed.
“I’d rather not be blessed.” I take an unnecessarily large bite from my croissant and then fight off the urge to cough as it flakes into hard, dry layers that fill my mouth. I swallow grittily, eyes moist, while the Christian watches. “Yes, I’d rather not. I don’t want Him to know where I am at the moment, okay?”
“Excuse me?” The baleful morning is washing in on every side, this being the car with the acres of window through which we may observe— more acres upstairs if you want them—and so the Christian’s deformities are especially well-defined: the pimples, the slack jowls, those incredible teeth.
“I do excuse you—I excuse you completely. But everything is fine with me, so don’t you start calling in undue attention. I have a plan. That’s all I need. Thank you.” And I retreat without even gathering up my plastic glass of orange juice, or my plastic beaker of dank coffee.
I trot back down the passage with relative ease—our progress being especially slow at the moment—and am quickly level with the dark, quiet doorway to the bar. I hardly noticed it as I passed by earlier.
“Come in.”
I have never been in, except when I was dreaming, but still the voice that calls is not unexpected and I am aware that it belongs to the bartender before I step inside and find him sitting alone on one of the stools drawn up beside his counter. The bar also comes as no surprise—it is as I imagined. Exactly as I imagined. “Ah, was I here yesterday?”
“On the train yesterday?” Unasked, he pours me a coffee from the flask beside him. He had a cup and saucer ready, the twins of his own. “Or in here yesterday?”
“I was on the train yesterday.”
“But were you in here yesterday?” He doesn’t face me, only stares into his cup, as if he is waiting for something to surface.
“Yes. I mean, was I?”
He slides my drink towards me as I sit next to him, lean on his bar. “Do you think you were?”
“I dreamed I was.” The coffee tastes fantastic. “But the way it looked was . . . the way it looks. The same. Everything. But I’ve never been here . . .” My sentence dwindles—it’s the coffee, it’s too distracting, just too wonderful.
“You must have seen a brochure, one of our posters—the bar is frequently depicted.” He drinks. “D’you like my coffee?”
“Ah . . . yes. It’s amazing. The way I imagined it would be when I was a kid—you know, before you try it and it tastes like paint.”
“It probably still does—but now your mouth is used to it. Your mouth can get used to anything.” He drin
ks in illustration of his point, rather more deliberately than he needs to. “I don’t think you were in here yesterday. I would have remembered you.”
“I do remember you. That is, when I see you . . . otherwise, you’re hard to visualise . . . But I recognise you.”
“I am frequently depicted.” He smiles to himself and then to me. “You want another?”
“Hm?” I have indeed emptied my cup. “Thank you, I’d love one, it’s . . . it’s great coffee.”
“Thank you.” He gracefully refills: not a waver, not a wasted drop. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
“Even the way it smells, the aroma. Great . . .”
“And you have quite a thirst. A healthy thirst.” This is a compliment, heartfelt, but discreet.
“Well, yes.” I can’t help but seem shy. “I have a little thirst, now and again.”
“Ah, yes.” He sips. “And don’t we all.” Then gazes at me, takes me in fully, somehow: testing, enquiring—the force of it expanding one, hot moment and then gone. “You’ve never been here, Hannah. I called you in so you could rest. And so you could be away from all those along there.” He nudges in, conspiring. “Always happens once we get nearer the prairies—that sort of religion.”
“Yes, they’re . . .” The coffee is incredible, getting better. “They’re . . .” It’s approaching the miraculous.
“An inspiration to Satan?” He dabs at his lips with a tissue. “You get blessed yet?”
“Oh yes.”
“Mm. I’ve been blessed a great deal, too—lifetimes of blessings . . .” His eyes shine. “I must be very holy now.” Smoothing at his hair, he straightens slightly where he sits, gives the impression that he has decided something, made a pleasing choice. “We’re closed, of course, at the moment. Until eleven.”
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