15
The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
‘Can I ask a silly question?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Would you like a glass of prosecco?’
With his thumb in the hollow of the bottle, the steward filled a crystal glass and handed it to me with a white-gloved thumb and forefinger.
‘My name is Patricius, and I will be your steward for the duration of your time with us on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. If you need anything at all, please do not hesitate to call me.’
Thanking Patricius, I went back into our cabin, where Jem was running his hand over the mahogany panels, rapping them with a knuckle. ‘I can see my face,’ he said, crouching down and baring his teeth at the reflection.
‘It’s so shiny,’ said Patricius, sticking his head around the door, ‘because it has fifteen layers of varnish. They don’t do that any more, though.’ He raised an eyebrow at my glass. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ he whispered like a pantomime dame, giving it one final top-up. Before he left, I tapped him on the elbow.
‘Where’s the washroom?’
Patricius pointed down the carriage.
‘First door on the right. The toilets are charming, you have to lift up a lock and it folds out. It’s utterly divine.’
In almost eighty journeys around the world, I was yet to discover a train toilet that could be described as ‘charming’ or ‘divine’. Most were ‘rancid’ or ‘unusable’. Finding a working lock on a door was luxury enough, finding toilet paper was a treat. Soap was out of the question. Intrigued by these water closets that had so charmed Patricius, I eased past our neighbours who were photographing each other in the aisle, and slipped around the door, sliding the brass lock shut, and turning around to inspect the fittings and solid mahogany walls. ‘Divine’ was a stretch, but the toilet was certainly more agreeable than any toilet I’d seen on our travels, lovelier even than most compartments we’d slept in. Washing my hands with the kind of soap that smelt and felt expensive, I suspected it had been created bespoke for the train, with base notes of teak, and top notes of velvet and pearls. Out of habit, I dried my hands on my thighs and nudged open the door with my elbow, as Patricius walked by and swooned.
After parting ways with Marc, Jem and I had taken the morning train to Warsaw, which connected to Berlin. From Berlin, we’d travelled via Munich down to Venice and spent three days getting lost, eating numerous plates of spaghetti alle vongole while trying to locate the route back to the hotel. Venice seemed deliberately designed for tourists to get lost. The city was fed up with them polluting the canals with their titanic cruise ships and clogging the streets in summer. Better that they gathered at dead ends staring at maps, than annoyed Venetians trying to eat dinner. That morning, we’d followed the curves of the Grand Canal, enjoying the slosh of vaporetti, and arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia station, where a blue-and-gold beauty was waiting on platform four, flanked by grubby, grey express trains. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express gleamed from a recent polish, prompting passers-by to crane their necks with wonder. Built from sixty different types of wood – adorning everything from the wheels to the roof – it looked as magical as I’d hoped. Gazing up at the engine, I could almost hear the whistle pierce the air of a scene from the 1920s, where women wearing mink stoles boarded with leather trunks – a dreamy image deflated by the sound of my rucksack slumping sideways to the ground. While skimming the itinerary the day before, I had come across a line that had brought me up short: In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, you can never be overdressed on board. There was no risk of that, given our respective wardrobes no longer resembled clothing, but a bundle of limp rags. However, it had provided another excuse to get lost in Venice and eat vongole again, in between buying outfits. So genteel was the on-board service that passengers weren’t expected to carry anything but prosecco: relieved of our bags at check-in, we were escorted up the platform and shown to our cabin.
Contrary to what passengers were led to believe, there was no ‘original’ Orient Express. Launched in 1883, the Orient Express was a regular passenger service – rather than a single train – incorporating numerous sets of rolling stock. This particular interpretation of the train was the brainchild of an American businessman named James Sherwood, who, inspired by the British nostalgia for luxury train travel, bought two 1920s carriages and some marquetry panels at a Sotheby’s auction in the seventies. Over the next few years, he eventually acquired twenty-five cars, enough to string together a train, moving the collection to workshops in Bremen and Ostend, where the vintage carriages were carefully returned to their former glory – down to the last inch of marquetry. Even the cellulose in the wood was sourced from a tiny Italian company, the only designer in the world to manufacture it. Like a mobile museum, the train was so lovingly reassembled that it made me nervous to touch anything in case it broke off and could only be glued back together with Marlene Dietrich’s tears. Slipping off my shoes, I stretched out on the sofa, as Jem sat down and pulled my feet across his knees, covering us both with a blanket. Rubbing in some complimentary ‘palm balm’, I looked around at the art deco lampshades and single lily. It was as though the previous seven months had built up to this moment, here in the sunshine, my prosecco fizzing on one side, my fiancé fizzing on the other.
At exactly five minutes past eleven, the train eased out of the station and I lay back watching the Venetian waters twinkle past the window. Finally, I could lie here in peace knowing that no one would enter the cabin. No one would ask me to move up or shift my bags. No one would hammer on the door and demand to see my ticket. No one would shine a torch in my face and check for stowaways. No one would smoke or grope me in the corridor. No one would make phone calls in my ear, throw sunflower-seed shells on the carpet or clear phlegm at 4 a.m. No one was here but the two of us.
There was a knock at the door.
‘That didn’t last long,’ said Jem, throwing off the blanket and opening the door to find Paolo, resplendent in black tails with gold trimming.
‘Good morning, sir, I have come to offer you a choice of two lunchtime sittings.’
‘Just the man I wanted to see! Come on in.’
‘What’s a chicken oyster?’ asked Jem, reading off the menu.
‘I have no idea. Show me?’
‘Here, it says chicken oyster and foie gras lasagne with star-anise fennel.’
‘Shame, that sounded great until the fennel. It always tastes of liquorice.’
Surrounded by the Italian Dolomites, we were sitting in ‘L’Oriental’, one of three dining cars, waiting for our starters. Originally a Pullman kitchen car built in 1927 in Birmingham, its lacquered walls and blush pink decor made for a fine setting to dine in, the clang of pans coming through the swinging door. There were only three chefs in the kitchen, waking at 5 a.m. to bake and prep for the day. To avoid fires on board, they cooked without oil, and nothing was ever fried. Sunlight flashed through the windows, the fringes on the table lamp quivering as we jolted through the mountains, china rattling on the table. Steadying my wine glass, I looked around the carriage at our fellow passengers, who included families celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, retired couples, and a table of hedge fund managers wearing sunglasses, their wives at a separate table. The door swung open and our waiter arrived with the plates, swiping away the remaining glasses like a magician.
‘Is this the foie gras?’ Jem asked me, slicing open a delicately browned morsel of meat.
‘I don’t think so, it’s layered through the lasagne.’
‘It tastes a bit like thigh meat,’ he said.
‘Oh! I know what it is, it’s that lovely juicy bit that you always push out with your thumb from the underside of the bird.’
‘I never knew they were called oysters. They look more like mussels.’
There was always an element of suspense that accompanied fine dining, owing to a stray term or rogue ingredient that left a question mark hanging over an other
wise reasonable-sounding dish. Hispi? Dashi? Quenelles? Worse were the chefs who played around with menus to the point that it appeared they were serving the contents of their kitchen bins. No one wanted cheese crusts, shaved potatoes, or burned salsify. Scanning the train’s menu, I was satisfied that I could expect ‘purple potato puree’ with my monkfish.
After pudding, we swayed back up to our cabin, reading trivia about the train that hung above the entrance to each carriage. Robert Baden-Powell had apparently used the Orient Express while spying for Britain, and Graham Greene had taken inspiration from it for Stamboul Train. I stopped beneath one panel and drew Jem’s attention to the unsurprising statistic that there were thirty marriage proposals on board per year. ‘See, other people propose on the Orient Express.’
‘Yes, thirty unoriginal men. At least you’re the only one who can proudly say you got engaged next to a bin outside the Tube.’
The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express travelled from Italy through Austria, to Switzerland and France, making several stops along the way. The technology for the signals varied between each country, so the train had to make adjustments before crossing each border. An engine was added at Verona to help pull the train through the Brenner Pass, then removed for the journey down to Innsbruck, giving us plenty of time to step out into the Alpine chill and admire the train from all angles. While Jem went out for a stroll, I stayed on board in the bar, listening to a pianist playing ‘Moon River’, and pretending to read Murder on the Orient Express, which I hadn’t pretended to read since I was a precocious eight-year-old. From behind the pages, I watched the other passengers sipping gin and eating wasabi peas, in rapture at the scenery. Star-struck by the service, most passengers were unable to take their eyes off the grand piano and the brass fittings, stroking the sofas and staring at the walls, the romance of train travel igniting in their eyes.
That night, dolled up in a 1950s rose-pink dress, with a matching flower in my hair, I cupped my hands to the window of the ‘Etoile du Nord’ dining car and breathed in the sight of the Austrian Alps. In the almost-darkness, the snow appeared blue, sweeping down into the valleys where clusters of chalets glowed like golden orbs. Staring into the reflection, I could spy on men in black tie nuzzling into the perfumed necks of women wearing elbow gloves and flapper headbands. As authentic as the train was, this wasn’t real. At least, not to me. This was a theatrical production put on for one night, and we were all starring in the show. Who didn’t want to dine on champagne and truffles, or close their eyes in Zurich and wake up in Paris? The train was no more a representative example of train travel than a private jet was of flying. We were riding along in a hologram, a recreation of a time that no longer existed. It wasn’t important, though. Reality was relative. To everyone around me, this was a dream realised and that was all that mattered.
After dinner, we shunned our fellow passengers and sought sanctuary in our cabin, where Patricius had made up the bunk beds, complete with damask sheets. Crawling onto the covers, Jem took off his tie and gestured for me to join him, and we lay there listening to the deep beat of wheels on steel.
‘Doesn’t the Reunification Express feel like a lifetime away?’ he said.
‘To you maybe; it’s not easy to forget sitting up for seventeen hours with my feet on someone’s crate.’
‘I’d do it all again, though.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, most of it. Not sure I’d rush back to North Korea.’ Jem turned to look at me. ‘We’re never going to be like those people, are we?’
‘Which people?’
‘All those retirees we met along the way who can’t stand being in the same carriage as each other, let alone the same compartment. Imagine waiting your whole life to travel, only to find you can’t bear each other’s company any more. Or worse, finding yourself alone. Dad died before he and Mum could do anything like this. I don’t want to wait to travel this way again.’
I moved towards the window and looked out as we neared Lake Zurich. Jem had stepped well outside his comfort zone to join me on a journey that would have made most seasoned travellers recoil in horror. He’d quietly shouldered the ups and downs for seven months, enduring stomach upsets, shingles, sleepless nights – and Robert De Niro – putting his career on hold to support me. The journey wouldn’t have been the same without him, and I was confident we’d never be like those retirees.
‘Then we won’t,’ I said. ‘And thank you for coming with me.’
No one had slept – at least no one but us. Seasoned train sleepers, we’d fallen onto the pillows, sinking into deep, delicious sleep for the last time, waking in Paris to the smell of coffee and fresh croissants in our cabin. With a few hours to wander around the station, most passengers had disembarked while we stayed in bed, enjoying the peace of the stationary train. After pulling out of Paris, we were now being served brunch en route to the Channel Tunnel. Jem was reading through my notes, while I crunched into a chunk of sweet lobster tail soaked with garlic butter.
‘Seventy-nine.’
‘What?’
‘Seventy-nine. We’ve only done seventy-nine trains.’
‘That’s really not funny. Don’t wind me up.’
‘I’m not winding you up. Look.’ Jem turned my notebook towards me. ‘I’ve counted every journey – twice. Have a look if you don’t believe me.’
While Jem ran a piece of bread around my plate, I read through the list of trains, playing the journeys through in my head.
‘You missed one. You jumped from 42 to 44.’
Jem was right. I’d scribbled in the numbers – probably on a moving train – and had miscounted them, reading 42 as 43, and leaving us with a grand total of 79 trains. My palms turned cold. I had planned the seven-month journey with surgical precision and care, but in the end, it wasn’t a delay or a cancellation that had caught me out, or even a breakdown or a missed train: my own handwriting had failed me. Draining my prosecco, I pushed back my chair and fled back to the cabin.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ said Jem, sitting next to me on the bed. ‘It’s an easy mistake to have made.’
‘Would you have made it?’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. I didn’t notice either. And besides, who cares?’
‘You’re right: Around the World in 79 Trains has quite a ring to it.’
‘Maybe we can come back and do another train?’
‘It wouldn’t be the same.’
There was a knock at the door, and Patricius appeared, looking apologetic.
‘I’m sorry for disturbing you, but this is just to let you know that we will be approaching Calais Ville station in around twenty minutes.’
‘Thanks, Patricius,’ said Jem.
Broken-hearted, I sat by the window, the misery of French rain dribbling down the glass. Staring down at my notebook, I re-counted the trains, hoping we were wrong. Jem had just finished packing our things when Patricius came by again.
‘Madam, may I collect your bags? We will be sending them on to London Victoria for you.’
‘Can we not keep them with us?’
‘No, madam, the luggage will be transferred by road to London. It won’t go with you on the Pullman.’
‘The Pullman?’
‘Yes, madam. At Calais Ville you will be transferred onto a coach to the terminal at Coquelles to travel through the Tunnel. At the other side, you will board the Belmond British Pullman. It’s the sister train to this one.’
‘There’s another train?! I thought this train continued through the Tunnel and up to London?’
‘No, madam, you have one more train journey to take.’
Jem wrapped me in a hug as I collapsed on the sofa in disbelief. ‘I think it’s very appropriate that our final train home is a good old British train.’
Once pulled along by the Brighton Belle and the Golden Arrow, the Pullman carriages had also been unearthed by James Sherwood, who had sourced them from a number of unexpected places. He’d bought one from a master a
t Eton College, two from a collector in Ashford who was living in one of the carriages at the time, and a baggage car that had been converted to transport racing pigeons in the north of England. Moved to a specially built workshop in Lancashire, the carriages had been restored but updated for modern-day travel: electric heating had been installed, and the antique glass replaced with safety glass, but otherwise the interiors were a perfect representation of their former selves.
Pushing back the Pullman’s plush curtains, I bit into a smoked salmon sandwich and looked out at the Kent countryside. There was nothing remarkable about the scene that lay before me: the criss-cross of wonky wooden stiles, impossibly narrow lanes, and dried leaves coated with frost. But it was familiar. I didn’t need to trudge across those fields to know how they’d sink underfoot or breathe the crisp air to know it smelt faintly of bonfires. Sipping tea, I leant back in a velvet armchair and looked down at the paper. My phone buzzed across the table. Swiping it open, I found a message from the Tibetan nun who had just sent another image of a golden smiling Buddha. As much as social media had its downsides, it was transforming the way we travelled. Where once I would have waved off my new friends, occasionally wondering about their whereabouts, now I could stay in touch with them all, from Azamat in Almaty, to Lucy in Tibet, Xué in Nanning, Bob in Boston, and Karen in Winnipeg.
As we swept up towards London, the last light dissolved into the horizon. Fields fell by the wayside, and stations flashed by, terraced houses backing onto the tracks. Burrowing into the south of the city, the train curved through Brixton, Stockwell and Clapham, the lights of Chelsea Bridge shaking gold into the Thames. Soon, the signs of arrival were all around: graffiti bulged from the walls, and parallels of track closed in as we approached Victoria Station. With a hiss and a jolt, the train finally came to a standstill. Stepping down onto the platform, I felt my city seep straight back into my bones: pigeons flapped through the rafters, engines slammed, and whistles blew. Commuters gathered on the concourse staring up at the screens, while others thundered down the stairs towards the Tube, shoving papers into plastic bins. Exiting the station, we walked towards the amber light of a rumbling black cab. For seven months and 45,000 miles – almost twice the circumference of the earth – this city, our home, had always been our destination, its invisible pull now as clear as the winter sky. Home was our beginning and our end, with the world lying somewhere in between.
Around the World in 80 Trains Page 33