‘Wow, that’s way out in the wilderness,’ Sarah said, frowning and rubbing her belly. ‘Most Canadians have never been anywhere like that. That’s far.’
I knew better than to question her. Canada has as many residents as the state of California – four people per square kilometre – so when a Canadian tells you that where you’re going is in the wilderness, you’d better believe it.
Snaking like a line of silver Dualit toasters from the 1950s, The Canadian flashed in the late evening light. This metallic bruiser, which dwarfed our British trains, needed boarding with a stepladder. Straight from the movies, attendants wearing blazers and shiny shoes registered each passenger, driving beeping buggies piled with luggage and grandmas down the platform to their cabins. Travelling in sleeper-plus class, we had a private cabin and quickly inspected our new surroundings, opening drawers, checking taps and peering into the loo. Satisfied with the compact compartment, we had barely shaken out our things and freshened up for dinner when the train began to pull away from the station, and the city slid by against a pink-striped sky.
Being on board was reminiscent of the first day back at school, with new faces passing our door, nervous smiles, and that irresistible urge to judge everyone by their bags and clothes. Fittingly, a bell soon beckoned us to dinner and we worked our way up the carriages, the train swaying as it gathered pace. The aroma of roast meat and fresh rolls warmed my soul as we entered the dining car to find everyone already seated, sharing wine and stories, a comfortable babble drowning out the thump of the train. There were no spare seats, so Jem and I sat alone, like the new kids arriving late to find everyone has already made friends – which was exactly what had happened. To reinforce our pariah status, the attendant cleared away the other two place settings, leaving us with nothing but a single rose for company. Over a dinner of grilled lamb, and a bottle of burgundy, I began to grow uncomfortable when Jem voiced my fears: ‘Do you feel like people are staring at us?’
For a good portion of the evening I had noticed heads turning in our direction but had thought nothing of it until it was clear we were being talked about.
‘We’re the youngest people here by about thirty years.’
‘So, it’s not me being paranoid then,’ Jem replied, running a finger around the edge of his plate and licking the gravy.
‘Don’t lick your plate and people won’t stare.’
‘No one can see.’
‘Perhaps not, but please don’t do that in public.’
‘Maybe it’s because we look homeless.’
‘We are homeless.’
‘Can we finish up and go back to the cabin?’
Nothing was more appealing than lounging in my pyjamas and socks with Jem and a glass of wine. Corking our bottle, we moved past the other tables, nodding and smiling, but I could feel the frost in the atmosphere. Instead of going straight to bed, we went in search of the glass-domed panorama car, where we found two passengers sitting in the dark. An elderly version of Alan Partridge was at the front, wearing a hand-knitted scarf and a red cardigan, holding an empty glass. Seeing people travelling alone always upset Jem, who tapped Clive on the shoulder and offered to share our bottle. Clive was from Wisbech. He and his wife Susan – who for some unknown reason was sitting four rows behind him – were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary: the train trip was a gift from their four children.
‘Congratulations,’ Jem said. ‘That’s quite an achievement.’
‘Are you married?’ Clive asked. His breath smelt of cheese and onion crisps.
‘No, we just got engaged this year, so we’ll be getting married next summer hopefully.’
‘Oh right, well, congratulations.’
‘Thanks, it’s been great fun so far.’
‘Wait until you’re married.’
Jem’s brow creased.
‘Are you two on holiday then?’ Clive nodded in my direction.
‘No, Moni’s writing a book. We’re travelling around the world by train.’
‘Right … so how are you paying for that?’
In the darkness, the silence was suffocating.
‘I’m a writer. That’s my job.’
Clive looked at me as though I’d said I had syphilis. ‘Well that’s a nice job you’ve got. And what about you?’
Jem sat up as I put a warning hand on his knee. ‘I left my job to travel with Moni, it’s something we wanted to do together before we got married.’
‘Good luck to you both.’ Clive stared ahead at the beam from the train’s headlamps carving through the forests of pine.
‘Anyway, I think we might hit the sack,’ I said, ‘we’ve just flown in from Japan and we’re quite jet-lagged.’
‘See you at breakfast,’ said Clive.
I sincerely hoped we didn’t. As we passed Susan, I now understood that sitting four rows away from her husband was the only way to stay married to him for forty years.
During dinner, our cabin attendant, André, had done a turndown: the armchairs had been folded away and replaced by a set of pull-down bunk beds wearing moleskin duvet covers. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, we finished the wine over a game of rummy then got ready for bed, Jem clambering up while I ducked into the bottom bunk. Footsteps passed up the corridor, followed by boozy chortles as our fellow passengers eventually retired for the night amid the sound of flushing loos and banging cupboards, until there was nothing but the dum-dum, dum-dum of the train. From the darkness, a distinct smell crept into my nostrils: the smell of burning.
‘Can you smell that?’ I asked.
‘The burning?’
‘That can’t be a good thing.’
‘I was hoping if I ignored it, it would go away.’
‘Or engulf us in flames and kill us in our beds?’
Jem climbed down to investigate while I sat up in bed trying to look helpful but reluctant to throw off my duvet. Peering out of the door, Jem stepped out, returning with André who looked apologetic.
‘Don’t worry nothing’s on fire,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the train hits a skunk, and the smell can carry through into the air systems. It should go soon.’
Relieved, but also depressed that remnants of skunk were probably smeared across the front of the train, we thanked André who slunk out, wishing us goodnight. It was close to 1 a.m. Willing the rocking to send me to sleep, I was now possessed by jet lag and the more I yearned for sleep, the more it eluded me. An hour ticked by, then two, as I lay awake staring into the darkness. A sigh from above suggested Jem was also awake.
‘Still up?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Come join me then.’
Jem swung down and snuggled under the duvet next to me before I shifted to the end of the bed and tucked back the curtains, curious to see where we were. The train’s lights skimmed the foreground, illuminating rocks and shrubs at the edge of the tracks, but the sky was dancing with stars: millions of white clusters winked and glowed, with the odd shooting star flashing and fading into the blackness. Lying on our backs, we gazed up at the sky as it followed the course of the train. Silent but for the sound of our breathing, the cabin had turned into our private planetarium, and there we lay until dawn when we finally fell asleep.
Destination Canada adverts had nothing on the morning view from the train. Deep in Rockies territory, we scrambled to look out across a lake gleaming like a sheet of turquoise glass. Veins of snow sparkled on the mountaintops from where conifers marched down to the water’s edge, wisps of cloud reflected in its stillness. Content to sit there all morning, we heard the last bell for breakfast and braced ourselves for the next encounter.
Running a finger down his clipboard, the attendant showed us to a table where a couple was already sitting, arguing over a pot of coffee. They stopped when we approached and the woman dusted her red fringe out of her eyes.
‘Hi there, I’m Jeanette and this is my husband Patrick.’
‘I’m Monisha, and this is Jeremy,’ I replied, shuffling up
to the window seat.
‘A pleasure to meet you both.’
‘Likewise. Where are you both from?’
‘Sydney,’ said Jeanette.
‘Oh wow, you’ve travelled far.’
‘We’re here for my son’s wedding in Toronto.’
‘How lovely. You must be so excited.’
Patrick folded his arms and looked out of the window, as a tuft of his stomach hair peeked out of his shirt and tickled his plate.
‘Well, my son’s gay …’ she said, lowering her voice and wrinkling her nose. But in these modern times you have to do certain things for your kids, don’t you?’
Patrick inhaled, rubbing the stem of his glass between thumb and forefinger.
‘It’s a long way to go, so we thought we’d make a little holiday out of it, didn’t we?’ Jeanette said, looking up at Patrick who continued to stare at the view. ‘My son’s “partner”,’ she said, making air quotes with her fingers, ‘is from Toronto, and as they can’t legally get married in Australia, we had to come over here.’
Jem straightened his cutlery.
‘Anyway,’ Jeanette beamed, slicing a strawberry, ‘we were just talking to your dad in the panoramic car this morning. Isn’t that funny?’
It certainly was funny, considering my dad was, at that point, at home in Birmingham.
‘He told us how you’re all travelling together for his seventieth birthday,’ she said, pointing over my shoulder to a Sri Lankan family sitting two tables away. ‘That’s so nice.’
‘That’s not my dad.’
‘Oh, isn’t … isn’t it?’ She turned to Patrick who was pretending to read the menu. ‘I just thought …’
Conversation over, I turned towards the window to look for moose. I knew exactly what she had thought. Grateful for the scenery’s splendour, I was overjoyed to see more mountains looming in the distance, mainly because they provided distraction. It took skill and energy to ignore these people, whose knees brushed ours every few moments. Sentenced to twenty minutes of awkwardness so intense I wanted to peel off my skin, Jem and I exchanged banalities about how snow stayed frozen in the sun. As we waited for sausages and fried eggs, I glanced down at my watch, reminded of sitting through many an awful play and willing along the interval. Mopping up the last of his yolk, Jem mumbled something about jet lag and we bee-lined for our cabin, leaving Jeanette and Patrick to sip their coffee. Just after 4 p.m. the train pulled into Jasper station, a green-tiled cottage with cobbled walls and chimney. At the height of the tourist season, only one motel was available that night and we trudged down Connaught Drive past picket-fenced lawns with ‘no vacancy’ signs hung in lace-curtained windows, hunting for our lodgings.
Downtown Jasper looked like a ski village, with SUVs parked outside restaurants named ‘Evil Dave’s’ and ‘Grandma’s Place’. For lighter bites, there was Bear’s Paw Bakery, and for something completely different, the Other Paw Bakery Cafe. This was the kind of town where there were more fir trees than people, elk roamed the streets, and shop counters sold bear spray deterrent next to the chewing gum. The queue for the most popular grill extended around the corner, so we picked up a bucket of chicken and sat in bed in the motel watching Miss Congeniality and spilling gravy on the sheets. Just before midnight we turned in and were on the verge of falling asleep when something slammed into the wall so hard I screamed and sat upright. Convinced a truck had driven into the building, we turned on the light, my chest hammering.
‘What the hell was that?’ Jem’s face was drained by terror.
‘Something just hit the wall.’
‘Let me go and look,’ Jem said, throwing off the duvet.
‘No!’ I lunged, grabbing his arm. ‘Don’t be stupid. Switch off the light.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, my god! Have you never seen any horror film? Don’t ever pull back the curtain on the window.’
My fingers were trembling as we sat in the dark, moonlight leaking through the curtains making puddles on the floor. A silhouette moved past the window, then stopped outside our door. I held my breath. ‘Call reception,’ I whispered. ‘Ask them to send someone to have a look.’
‘It’s fine, it was probably just the neighbours slamming their door.’
‘Do you think?’
‘Yes, definitely. It just seemed loud as the rooms are so close together.’
‘Okay, you’re right. That must be what it was.’ I took a deep breath, wanting to believe him, then lay down again, easing my head onto the pillow so as not to make a sound. No sooner had I closed my eyes than the crunch of metal slammed the wall again and we grabbed at each other. This was it. This was how we were going to die. A trucker was ramming his vehicle against the wall of our room and any second now a second assailant would creep into the room through a secret door in the bathroom and stab us to death in our beds. That’s what ground-floor motels with neon signs and vending machines were made for – backpacker murders. Someone was probably watching us right now through the air vents.
‘Maybe this is redneck country. We’re literally the only brown people for miles and they’re trying to scare us.’
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Jem. ‘This isn’t America. This is Canada, they’re the most placid people in the world.’
As Jem sidled up to the curtains, I hid under the duvet and did a quick Google search for ‘murder in Jasper’, and to my horror discovered that a week earlier an elderly Indian couple had been found shot dead in the local Best Western. I thrust the phone in Jem’s face. Scrabbling for the landline, he called reception to come and have a look as I crawled onto the floor and sat against the wall, my palms like ice.
‘Hi, yes, I’m calling from room five. Yes, there’s a loud slamming noise coming from outside our window and we wondered if you might be able to come and check it out … Yes, a huge slamming sound. Er, no we haven’t been out to look … That’s great, if you could … thanks.’
At that moment, the slam resounded for a third time.
‘It’s the air conditioner.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the air-conditioning unit.’ From on the floor, next to an old and clanking unit, I realised the sound was the ventilation system kick-starting itself. Jem looked at me for a full minute before speaking to the receptionist who was still on the line.
‘Don’t worry, you don’t need to come out. My fiancée was just worried that our air-conditioning unit was going to kill us.’
‘Ask if we can change rooms!’
‘Ah right, yes, can we move to another room please? We can’t sleep through this all night. Right. Great.’ He hung up. ‘They’re fully booked and can’t move us anywhere.’
Getting back into bed, I scrolled through Google again and discovered that the double murder had actually taken place in Jasper County in South Carolina. In the absence of cotton, we shoved bits of tissue in our ears, and I spent the rest of the night dreaming about fighting giant air conditioners with nothing but bear spray and a bucket of chicken.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have been informed that there are moose coming up on the south side.’ Popping up like a gang of meerkats in fleeces, passengers turned to the windows with cameras in hand and false hope in their hearts; the animals had already scarpered. Derived from the dialect of the indigenous Gitxsan people, meaning ‘river of the clouds’, the ‘Skeena’ train skirted the edge of Moose Lake, a body of teal water reflecting the sky. Most passengers went back to their crosswords and knitting, others milled around the open doorway, watching dandelion heads whip by on the wind. Lovingly known as the Rupert Rocket – or its dull official name, Train Five – the Skeena took two days to cover the 720 miles from Jasper to Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast, with an overnight stop at Prince George. Sarah was right: even for Canada, this was off-piste terrain. Veering west of Jasper, past the Cariboo Mountains, the train wormed its way up British Columbia along freshwater lakes filled with salmon, First Nations reservations, mountains, sawmill settl
ements, historical railway bridges, the Fraser River, and villages and towns named Telkwa, Kitwanga, Kwinitsa, Vanderhoof, and Longworth – where three times a week Walter the postman opened up his house for two hours so people could come and collect their post – and Penny, home to nine people and four dogs.
Although elk, moose, deer, and bears were common sights along this route, I’d given up hope of spotting grizzlies and was content to gaze at the army of Douglas firs standing to attention. For a moment, I was overcome by an urge to slap the glass and scream ‘BEAR!’ for the fun of riling my companions. Alas, our service managers Gill and Tracy, a double act in navy and neckerchiefs, began serving lunch, so I abandoned the plan. With its glass dome and panoramic views, the Skeena mostly attracted tourists, but there were a few commuters and a number of indigenous people who still rode the train in what was an otherwise poorly connected region. One of those commuters was Jörg, who was sitting across from us sipping a glass of red wine. Jörg – ‘as in New York’ – was a journalist who used the train when travelling for work.
‘In the east of Canada, people take the train a lot more through Toronto and Ottawa, but not so much here, because everybody wants their freedom and not to be dependent on the trains, which don’t run often enough,’ he said.
Around the World in 80 Trains Page 13