had matching luggage: a brown canvas zippy
yoke that my parents had got free with petrol vouchers, and an identical brown canvas zippy yoke
that Conor’s parents had got free withpetrol vouchers. The handles
were coming loose on one of the bags and the seams were slowly disintegrating on the other. It
never even occurred to me to be ashamed.
All around me beaten-looking elderly men carrying
cardboard suitcases were boarding the train. I climbed on and bumped my way down the carriage,
hoping – like I always did – that when I found my seat the man of my dreams would be
sitting opposite me. We’d fall into chat, we’d click instantly, we’d fashion
plans to meet up when we returned to London …
Alas, no such luck. Across from me was a
granite-faced man chomping on home-made corned-beef sandwiches the thickness of a phonebook.
Seated next to him was a mild-faced woman with the nail-scissors haircut of the off-duty nun. Mr
Corned Beef appeared too ground down by thirty years of manual labour to even look at me, but
Off-Duty Nun gave a meek, God-bless-you-my-child-even-if-you-do-have-a-most-peculiar-hat smile
which I returned with a cold stare. I had a strict No Conversation policy with any religious
types. Or corned-beef men.
As the clock inched towards ten o’clock and
the off, the seat next to me remained unoccupied and I began to imagine the unimaginable –
an empty seat beside me; I could lie down and sleep! (Those in the know slept with their head on
their handbag, to avoid their handbag being stolen. And with their feet towards the window, in
case their shoes got stolen. And as shoes went, mine were eminently stealable.)
But seconds before the whistle blew, a young man
jumped aboard. Every other seat in the entire train was occupied: this had to be my companion.
Initially I was hopeful – he was almost late and I liked late men, the more unreliable the
better; in fact, I’d have preferred if he had missed the train entirely. However, he was
pleasant and cheery – I preferred tortured and surly – andhad
the curly-haired, meaty-framed air of a rugby-playing jock. (Strangely, his cheery, friendly
demeanour seemed to waver slightly when he focused on my lovely home-made hat.)
With much jerking and slopping of flasks of tea,
we were off! Jock-boy transpired to be on his way home from Paris, which elicited oohs of
delight from Nun-Woman. They fell into passionate chat about
petty pans
o’shockolahhhh
,
trying to outdo each other with atrocious French accents.
I decided I hated him.
Despite the cold, the windows steamed up within
moments. We rattled through the night, wedged shoulder to shoulder with our fellow passengers,
sleeping with our eyes open. There was a distinct smell, a fug of old damp overcoats, of fried
breakfasts, of decades of grinding poverty.
I was in the lucky position of having a window
seat and occasionally I nodded off and when the train took a corner too sharply I was woken by
my skull being cracked smartly against the glass.
Once or twice a trolley came round, trying to
tempt us to cough up for tea and sandwiches, but everyone had brought their own. (I hadn’t
brought sandwiches because for reasons I don’t fully understand now, I thought sandwiches
were ‘silly’. I had a Bounty, a Lion bar and a Twix – that was food enough for
me.)
At about 2.30 a.m., amid whistles and hisses of
steam, the delights of Holyhead were unleashed upon us. We descended from the train into the
perishing night. I hoicked one hefty petrol bag over my shoulder and dragged the other along
behind me. The bags felt like they were packed with lead because I’d brought every item of
clothing I owned, to dazzle the eyes out of the heads of those back home, but I refused to get a
trolley. I had a ‘thing’ about trollies. In the same way that I had a
‘thing’ aboutsandwiches. I thought – I’m afraid
this is the best explanation I can come up with – that they were a sign of weakness.
In those days,
yoke that my parents had got free with petrol vouchers, and an identical brown canvas zippy yoke
that Conor’s parents had got free withpetrol vouchers. The handles
were coming loose on one of the bags and the seams were slowly disintegrating on the other. It
never even occurred to me to be ashamed.
All around me beaten-looking elderly men carrying
cardboard suitcases were boarding the train. I climbed on and bumped my way down the carriage,
hoping – like I always did – that when I found my seat the man of my dreams would be
sitting opposite me. We’d fall into chat, we’d click instantly, we’d fashion
plans to meet up when we returned to London …
Alas, no such luck. Across from me was a
granite-faced man chomping on home-made corned-beef sandwiches the thickness of a phonebook.
Seated next to him was a mild-faced woman with the nail-scissors haircut of the off-duty nun. Mr
Corned Beef appeared too ground down by thirty years of manual labour to even look at me, but
Off-Duty Nun gave a meek, God-bless-you-my-child-even-if-you-do-have-a-most-peculiar-hat smile
which I returned with a cold stare. I had a strict No Conversation policy with any religious
types. Or corned-beef men.
As the clock inched towards ten o’clock and
the off, the seat next to me remained unoccupied and I began to imagine the unimaginable –
an empty seat beside me; I could lie down and sleep! (Those in the know slept with their head on
their handbag, to avoid their handbag being stolen. And with their feet towards the window, in
case their shoes got stolen. And as shoes went, mine were eminently stealable.)
But seconds before the whistle blew, a young man
jumped aboard. Every other seat in the entire train was occupied: this had to be my companion.
Initially I was hopeful – he was almost late and I liked late men, the more unreliable the
better; in fact, I’d have preferred if he had missed the train entirely. However, he was
pleasant and cheery – I preferred tortured and surly – andhad
the curly-haired, meaty-framed air of a rugby-playing jock. (Strangely, his cheery, friendly
demeanour seemed to waver slightly when he focused on my lovely home-made hat.)
With much jerking and slopping of flasks of tea,
we were off! Jock-boy transpired to be on his way home from Paris, which elicited oohs of
delight from Nun-Woman. They fell into passionate chat about
petty pans
o’shockolahhhh
,
trying to outdo each other with atrocious French accents.
I decided I hated him.
Despite the cold, the windows steamed up within
moments. We rattled through the night, wedged shoulder to shoulder with our fellow passengers,
sleeping with our eyes open. There was a distinct smell, a fug of old damp overcoats, of fried
breakfasts, of decades of grinding poverty.
I was in the lucky position of having a window
seat and occasionally I nodded off and when the train took a corner too sharply I was woken by
my skull being cracked smartly against the glass.
Once or twice a trolley came round, trying to
tempt us to cough up for tea and sandwiches, but everyone had brought their own. (I hadn’t
brought sandwiches because for reasons I don’t fully understand now, I thought sandwiches
were ‘silly’. I had a Bounty, a Lion bar and a Twix – that was food enough for
me.)
At about 2.30 a.m., amid whistles and hisses of
steam, the delights of Holyhead were unleashed upon us. We descended from the train into the
perishing night. I hoicked one hefty petrol bag over my shoulder and dragged the other along
behind me. The bags felt like they were packed with lead because I’d brought every item of
clothing I owned, to dazzle the eyes out of the heads of those back home, but I refused to get a
trolley. I had a ‘thing’ about trollies. In the same way that I had a
‘thing’ aboutsandwiches. I thought – I’m afraid
this is the best explanation I can come up with – that they were a sign of weakness.
In those days,
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