Harriet snoozed on for a while, even after Anna returned from the on-board café with coffee for her and some chocolate. This in itself was a nice change, as Anna hadn’t always been so thoughtful in the past. Perhaps this trip was having a good effect on her. She didn’t even complain that I had pinched her window seat.
Wanting to let Harriet enjoy her rest, we didn’t talk much but just enjoyed the changing scenery outside. There was the usual muddle of industrial parks and apartment blocks, the backs of houses and views of roads and traffic jams which we soared past.
At last, the train began to slow down and we crossed a broad river before stopping in Genoa very briefly and then pressing on to Milan.
Harriet woke up, blinked a bit in confusion and looked out of the window.
‘Where are we?’
‘Just leaving Genoa, next stop Milan,’ I said. ‘You’ve had a good snooze.’
‘I feel all the better for it,’ she said, stretching, ‘although I’ve got a bit of a crick in my neck.’ She spotted the empty coffee mugs. ‘Where did you get those?’
‘I did get you one, but then you were asleep so I drank it for you,’ Anna said. ‘There’s a little café a couple of carriages along. I’ll go and get you another one if you like.’
‘I’ll come with you. I could do with some excitement,’ Harriet said.
‘I can’t promise that, but the coffee is very good,’ Anna replied. ‘And it’s my treat. Lizzie can guard the luggage.’
‘Jolly good,’ Harriet said as they went off together along the corridor.
The train left the suburbs and out into the countryside, rushing along at a fine speed, sweeping dismissively through small railways stations, through yet more tunnels and past broad fields.
I raised myself up in my seat a little to see if Jack was still there, and of course he was. I wondered for a moment if he was still working or if he was, like me, just looking out at the countryside.
Perhaps to someone like him this sort of travel was a bit tedious. Possibly he was more used to the immediacy of planes. But then I thought, despite everything there was something pleasant about train travel after all, as one was more gently introduced into a new country.
And then I deliberated about whether I should go and talk to him. This journey was going to take hours and the prospect of sitting still for that length of time was awful. But what would I talk to him about?
It might be horribly embarrassing to stand there next to him, swaying a little with the motion of the train, and not know what to say. After all, we had got through the usual sort of things. How was he enjoying the trip, what did he think of the train, what was he hoping to see when we got there? I’d be asking him about his preferred city, the best hotel he’d ever stayed in, his favourite biscuit next.
Instead, I closed my eyes and for a while I think I drifted, not really asleep. And I suddenly wished I could get off this train and never get on another one, which was the last thing I had expected to feel. But of course, that was impossible. Like a child on a car journey wondering ‘are we there yet’, I would have to wait, and to be honest I began to understand the frustration small children felt when they were shoved into the back of a car and left there for hours on end.
This journey seemed as though it would take forever. The novelty of it all was wearing off. Perhaps it had been a mistake to do so much in such a short time, and it hadn’t given us any time to explore anywhere yet as we had whizzed past. Which was a great shame.
Perhaps a road trip would have been better? After all, I had driven in France quite a lot in previous years because Fred didn’t approve of people driving on the wrong side of the road. He seemed to take it as a personal affront and driving with him in the passenger seat shouting at other cars was anything but enjoyable.
Enthusiasm for this new idea grew the more I thought about it. I could take a more leisurely progress down the Loire valley looking at all those marvellous chateaux. Or perhaps I could take the ferry from Plymouth to Santander and drive up through the Pyrenees, exploring Biarritz, perhaps seeing some of those surfers Anna and Harriet had waxed lyrical about all those years ago. And seeing Carcassonne, a place I had dreamed of visiting for decades. Yes, there was no reason why I couldn’t do those things, and more. I felt quite energised and positive at the prospect.
Anna and Harriet returned at last with three coffees in cardboard mugs, and a paper carrier filled with food. A couple of chocolate bars, some pistachio nuts, crisps and some pastries.
‘This is really nice, isn’t it?’ Anna said cheerfully. ‘And I have a bag full of treats. The sort of things which I have been avoiding for years because if I believe everything my doctor tells me, all the snacks I used to love are now trying to kill me.’
‘Have we got to the stage in life when it doesn’t matter any more?’ Harriet wondered, and she stared out of the window again. ‘Anyone know where we are? I don’t remember the journeys taking this long. Perhaps we slept more all those years ago?’
‘We were usually hungover,’ Anna said, ‘that’s what I remember. And we played cards, didn’t we? I seem to remember playing strip poker on a train from Barcelona to somewhere. Tom was down to his boxers by the time we arrived. It was a good job the train was nearly empty. No wonder those policemen were so suspicious of us when we clambered down onto the platform and he was still buttoning up his shirt.’
‘I don’t think the world is ready to see us do that today,’ Harriet said, and she stood up to rummage in her bag, triumphantly bringing out a new pack of playing cards she had bought in Paris. ‘Shall we carry on with our poker game?’
‘You’ll have to take an IOU,’ I said, cracking open a pistachio shell with my thumb nail, ‘to go with the other one.’
* * *
By the time we reached Milan, my theoretical gambling debt had increased to thirty thousand euros, and Anna had done worse; she owed Harriet half a million euros and a speedboat.
‘I shall expect all debts to be made good before we get off the train,’ Harriet said happily.
‘Then you are doomed to disappointment,’ I said.
