Fifty years in the making, fifteen months in the planning: my parents’ golden wedding anniversary is here. Family from all over Albion are about to converge on Portsmouth, helping it sink just a little deeper into the sea. And we — The Mathematician and I — have a country or two to cross.
We’re up at 4, in the pre-dawn, to brew coffee. Sure, we could have had an extra 20 minutes in bed and gone flaskless, but we know what we like, and like to suffer for it. After pouring, there’s a little left over in the cafetière, and we grab a precious 5 minutes by the window. The Mathematician cracks it open to let in the dawn chorus. We hear ducks.
“Seriously?” I say. “I thought we’d get a Blackbird or something.”
She smiles and shrugs. “They sound happy.”
We set off in good time for the 5.03 train, excite-tired. (The word “train” will pop up quite a bit: it’s our primary mode of travel. You can’t be a climate scientist (The M) or decent human (me and often The M) if, every time you have to travel a little out of your way, you thrust through the air like Captain Flashheart.)
The main station’s surprisingly busy. Our train is surprisingly on time. A good sign, as we’ve only 21 minutes to change in Frankfurt (which used to be 16 minutes too many, back in the days when Germany had the rail service foreigners still believe it has today).
“Oh, no,” says The Mathematician, looking at our reserved seats. I check to see if there are any kids, sneezers, or over-fragranced people nearby. No, we’re good.
“What’s wrong?”
She points. “We’re going backwards.”
Ah. Fallen prey to the Guess the Direction game. Even when the booking site shows the direction of travel, sometimes the train arrives backwards. Just because.
“You going to be OK?”
She nods. I almost believe her.
The morning light is lovely, even in reverse. Brick, bough, and brook glow golden, Byron might have said. I just think it’s gorgeous.
At the next station, we’re joined across the aisle by a well-groomed woman who unpacks a flask, a magazine, and a cuticle pen. She spends a few minutes inspecting her nails, then lowers the table in front of her, places her glossy on it, and begins to read. As she does so, she uses the end of the pen as a cuticle pusher, evening out those irregular lines.
I look out of my window. I look out of hers. Push, push, push. Page turn. Push, push, push. I see a Red Kite hunting for breakfast and point it out to The Mathematician. She looks a little uncomfortable.
“Just a couple more hours.”
She nods. “I’m fine.”
Push, push, push. Fascinating. She’s completed both hands and is now starting on the first again. She’ll push back to the knuckle soon, surely.
I distract myself with a few deer standing in field mist, watching us pass. Reflected in the glass I see Nails. I turn to The Mathematician and gesture with my eyes.
“I know,” she says.
“For half an hour. Do you think she know’s she’s doing it?”
The Mathematician shrugs. “How about some coffee?”
Great idea. I look at the screen attached to the ceiling to see what time it is, and am surprised it’s only 6.30. Feels like 9. One of the nice things about getting up so early.
Oh, wow, it smells so good. And the sound as it lands in the cup. We both sniff, sip, and grin. The day just got a little more golden.
As we pull into the next station I see a man on the platform watching us. He’s standing in the yellow smoker’s box, a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He begins sucking frantically. It looks like a home movie of a kid blowing out birthday candles, played backwards. He stubs it out on the bin, then hurries to our coach, trailing tar. He sits in front of Nails.
He relaxes as we pull away. He pops in some earphones, opens a brown bakery bag, pulls out a bun, unlocks his phone and leans back, scrolling. As he watches vids and eats, he extends a pinkie. It stays out, like a bun-hand antenna, until the last morsel is gone.
Nails, meanwhile, has finished her article and is unscrewing the cuticle pen. A little brush appears. She dips it a few times and carefully applies a liquid over the work she’s done. I look at my own nails. A clipper’s the most I can be bothered with.
As soon as we touch French soil, the wind begins to whistle
We make the connection in Frankfurt, and even have time to splurge on a hot chocolate and banana bread before boarding. (Both will turn out to be unbearably sweet. We know this. We buy them anyway.) It’s the sprinter train to Paris Est, a collaborative effort between Deutsche Bahn and the French SNCF. Our seats are easy to find, being right by the door, and are facing forward. The Mathematician is elated. They’re dark though, having only a sliver of window. So much for the view …
A delightful woman in her 60s sits across the aisle from us. She smiles warmly. We both want to talk to her, but don’t. As we speed off towards the border, we pick up a few more passengers, including a man — also in his 60s — who sits next to her. They begin to converse in French. Perhaps we would have found it hard to talk then. I still regret not doing so.
We cross the border. A great thing about modern trains is the map they display on the screens, along with the current speed. As soon as we touch French soil, the wind begins to whistle past. We reach 320kph. I nudge The Mathematician.
“You see that?”
“Oh. That’s 70kph more than we manage in Germany.” She sighs. “I love France.”
Trains are full of smells. There’s coffee, beer, bread, perfume, sweat, the occasional mammalian emission … and smoke. A number of the passengers look about for the source. It seems to be coming out of the ventilators. The train begins to slow. The conductor makes an announcement (in French, German, and English): “I remind all passengers that smoking on board is not allowed!” A few nods from the people in our coach.
We continue to slow, and then come to a stop at a tiny, out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere station. We sit for 3 minutes, then head off. The conductor comes into our carriage.
“What happened to the smoker?” the woman near us asks.
The conductor smiles and cocks his head in that peculiar French manner. “He left.”
The waft from the ovens makes my eyes float.
Ah, Paris. The city sings. People rush or dawdle. We stroll from the Metro and walk the 15 minutes to St Lazare station.
“Look at these cakes!” I say as we walk inside.
There’s an open-plan shop where they bake in front of you. The waft from the ovens makes my eyes float. But we’ve a train to catch. We head to the Blue section of the colour-coded station, flashing our QR codes to get through the gates, which works fine until we arrive at the barrier to our platform. We both scan them several times, getting that lovely uh-uh tone from the machine. A member of staff comes over, smiles, and tells us to turn the brightness up to maximum. Voila. The gate opens. “Have a great trip!”
It’s not just the weather that’s warm here.
Next week: Caen, The Conqueror, and the cuisine.
