I did a mental check on my limbs and head.
‘No, absolutely not, I’m fine.’
‘I haven’t opened this bottle of water; you could have that if you need it?’
How fast could I get out of here, I wondered, and back to the safely of our cabin? Did I really need to brush my teeth? Could it wait until morning? No, it couldn’t. I may be very slightly overweight and have a problem with driving at night, but I knew the importance of good dental hygiene.
I stood up, pushed my hair out of my face and gave him a hesitant smile. Which he returned. He had a nice smile too, and a dimple which made him look even more attractive.
‘It was my fault, perhaps I opened the door too fast,’ he said.
I thought about explaining about the train rocking, the poker evening we had enjoyed and the red wine, but then I chickened out and darted back into the corridor. Muttering about being fine and sorry, I grabbed my washbag, made a dash for the loo and bolted the door behind me, much to the annoyance of a young woman in a leopard-print onesie who had been hurrying to get there before me.
I leaned against the door for a moment and closed my eyes. How embarrassing had that been. And I certainly wasn’t drunk or anywhere near it.
I washed my face at the little basin. It was one of those annoying ones that looked stylish and modern, but it splashed water over the edge onto my trousers when I turned the tap on, so it looked as though I might have had an unfortunate accident. Then I cleaned my teeth. Then I put my ear to the door, wondering if that man was still there, not to mention leopard-print woman. All I could hear was the rumbling of the train as it sped onwards.
At last, I unlocked the door and peered out. Leopard-print woman had gone to clean her teeth somewhere else and so had the man with the Mickey Mouse socks. His cabin door remained closed as I scooted past, and I reached the safety of our couchette without further incident.
I slammed the door behind me, locked it and leaned up against it with a groan of relief.
‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’ Anna said, peering down from her berth.
‘I fell over and landed in a man’s cabin,’ I said.
They both laughed which reassured me slightly that I wasn’t yet decrepit.
‘Was he nice?’ Anna asked.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ Harriet said after I had explained everything.
‘It was very embarrassing. And it was that same man. The one from the train, and in the brasserie.’
‘Really? Small world. How weird. Perhaps he’s stalking you?’ Anna said airily. ‘You ensnared him with your womanly wiles on the train from St Pancras, and he’s been following you ever since.’
‘It’s a bit extreme though,’ Harriet said, ‘to follow you onto a night sleeper train. His wife will wonder where the heck he is. “Honestly, Joe, I send you out for some milk and cat food and you end up in the South of France…”’
I laughed then and things looked a lot better. I wondered what his name was; he didn’t look like a Joe to me. Perhaps Mark or John. Solid sensible names.
I’d chickened out of changing in the washroom in case Mr Grumpy saw me on my return journey, so then I pulled on my nightie, wriggling out of my clothes underneath it. I may have been brought up in liberal times but I still had a modicum of modesty. Then I hung my damp trousers up to dry and clambered into my berth, which had a sort of sleeping bag arrangement in it.
‘This isn’t bad, is it,’ I said, stretching out my legs to straighten the folds in the bag.
The other two agreed.
‘As long as I don’t roll off this bunk in the night,’ Anna said. ‘It’s better than last time when I had to sleep with my head against Tom’s backpack.’
I wouldn’t want to do that now, and I thought it couldn’t have been much fun then either. It had taken me years to find a comfortable pillow; if I’d had a bigger case I would have brought it with me. I began to wonder if my rose-tinted vision of that trip was entirely accurate.
I was very pleased to see there was a handy socket just above me, and I found the necessary adaptor and cables and put my phone on to charge.
It had been a long, tiring day and although I hadn’t expected it, I was surprisingly comfortable in my little bed. Tomorrow we would wake up to the South of France and a trip along the Mediterranean coastline. How thrilling was that.
And perhaps when we got there I would watch to see that the Disney sock man got off before us. Or of course he might leave the train when we stopped in Marseille, which would be even better.
I reached behind my head to double-check that the door was properly locked, and then I fell asleep in minutes, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic rocking of the train.
I was woken with a yelp just after two in the morning, when the adaptor and cable, affected by the same thing, fell out of the socket onto my head.
