Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski Page B

were taking. There was no sense here, as in many groups, of newcomers having to prove themselves or be superseded by newer newcomers before gaining acceptance. The simple act of entering the coach, laughing appreciatively at the smog and lighting up entitled you to full membership. The notion of the train being the longest main street in America was reduced in the smoking coach to a far more essential concept of an America where all kinds and conditions of humanity could coexist in spite of all their differences of status, race, religion, political creed, because of a recognised underlying common cause. This ( pace the Native Americans) was what America had been for in the first place.
    Bet and I headed for the smoking car directly after breakfast. To get there we passed Troy’s seat. He waved and we said hello but didn’t stop. Troy wasn’t a smoker. Already we were in different camps. Gail was there when we arrived, wearing what she had been wearing the previous night, her bulky thighs splayed over the edge of the narrow plastic seat near the door.
    â€˜Hi,’ Bet said brightly.
    Gail groaned, and lifted her limp arm to take a drag, as if the half-smoked cigarette she held between her fingers weighed a ton or two. ‘Is it breakfast time yet?’
    She hadn’t slept. The kids were asleep in their seats, and she’d been kept awake with their tossing and turning and the wondrous unconscious determination of children to take all the space they need. She spent the night in and out of the smoking coach. ‘Where we at?’ she rasped, as we sat down across from her and began to light our cigarettes.
    Through the night I’d noted the stations on the way, as I was woken from my rocking sleep by the unfamiliar slowing and stopping of my bedroom. I’d open my eyes and see that we were in Lake City, Madison, Tallahassee, Chipley, Crestview, Pensacola: names on boards at half-lit middle-of-the-night stations where one or two people waited sleepily for the Sunset Limited to arrive, blowing its unearthly whistle at an unearthly hour. The travellers got on or off and the engine started up again, the wheels squeaked as they began to roll, and I lay back in my bunk beside the black-again window to watch the stars slip away at a gathering speed.
    We were, of course, two hours behind schedule. We should have arrived at our first stop in Alabama – Atmore – at 7.05 a.m., but we had just left it at sometime past nine.
    â€˜We’re an hour out of Mobile,’ I told Gail. ‘Though we should be in Mississippi by now. But we haven’t lost any more time during the night.’
    Gail shrugged. It was a long way still to LA and a comfortable bed. She heaved herself off the chair, stubbed out her cigarette and with a ‘See ya’ went off to wake the kids and get some breakfast.
    It was a quiet time in the smoking coach. A woman in a knitted gold dress sat in the far corner, tap-tapping the end of her cigarette. A very young girl in floppy jeans and midriff-baring top sat huddled over in the opposite corner, drawing hard on her Marlboro. A couple of chairs down from her a very tall, thin young black man with a baseball cap on backwards read from a book resting on his crossed, outstretched legs. Gold Dress and Baseball Cap had looked up briefly and said hi as Bet and I came in. Marlboro Girl had remained hunched, head down, face hidden behind a fall of wispy blonde hair, in her corner. A few minutes after we arrived and were smoking contentedly, watching the bayous pass, a corpulent red-faced man wearing long shorts and a sporty open shirt slid the door open with his elbow so as not to disturb the contents of the plastic tumbler in his hand.
    â€˜For Christ’s sake shut up,’ he was muttering grimly. ‘Sit down, stick a cigarette in your stupid face and shut up.’
    He was talking to a woman behind him dressed formally in tailored pants and a neat blouse, a scarf