When I come around to a new day in remote Canada, I’m not behind the wheel, I’m not under the wheels; I’m directly over the goddamn wheels – bouncing up and down, on a pull-down bed.
Living a jolted half-life, partly on the rails / partly off the rails; and when I can’t toss and turn any longer, bumping into Colin – emerging from the shower, via South Wales.
Despite having close to zero interest in cricket, I’m given a comprehensive news report on the latest scores and state of play in various international matches, as we stand there at 6.30am in the deserted train carriage, outside the shower cubicle.
The strangest thing is … I’ve never met Colin before.
By 7am, breakfast is wrapped up in the canteen / games car, with the sugar police accosting me even at this early hour, tut-tutting at a morning offering which I find perfectly satisfactory except for the fact that it’s not served up on plates, with cutlery.
Morning has barely broken, and already I’ve had a lecture on cricket and a sermon on sugar.
I retreat to the elevated observation car, to take in the scenery as we speed onwards, west across the Canadian plains.
It doesn’t take long before all the seats up on the top deck are filled, as we check in on the lakes and the trees as if we need to tick them off on some sort of mental checklist.
But some folk aren’t even paying attention to what’s out of the window!
More fool them … I’m busy moving from one Bob Ross composition to another, a series of hastily-painted sketches of trees and lakes and wilderness landscapes, appearing one by one right in front of my eyes.
The only checklist I have is of the route – a dog-eared guide to the stations, with a brief history of each – is all in French.
When I tear myself away for brunch (brunch!), it’s a syrupy affair with Jenny and Jeremy, the English teachers living in China, on holiday in Canada.
They gaze into each other’s eyes with that desirous look of a young couple in love but not yet familiar with each other’s odd quirks and minor annoyances.
Me, I’m tucking into a plate of bacon and pancakes and maple syrup and strawberries … keeping one eye out for the one-woman sugar patrol. I don’t feel like being accosted twice in one day.
The afternoon is a stop-start affair – freight trains frequently preventing us from moving forwards, in fact forcing us into backwards manoeuvres more than once.
When the train does get some speed up, I’m eyeing up endless vistas of lakes and trees, again and again, over and over.
At various stages, we seem to be blasting directly through the rock and dragging along the trackside scenery with us.
When the landscape slowly starts to become wallpaper, the main bar in the prestige-class Park Car will see me now … but no-one else will – except for the staff.
Sitting alone as a fugitive in premium observation is a wild way to travel – living life on the edge, in luxury class, everything smothered in leather.
After a while, I’m joined by a few other escapees from regular sleeper class, as well as one or two lesser-spotted Very Rich People, who prior to 4pm have this particular elevated view to themselves.
We toast our cunning and wit, to have arrived here at this same moment at the precise same time, looking back at nothing except the tracks we’ve just glided over.
Heading back the half-mile to the dining car, I’m sat down unexpectedly with Chris and Terry, my drinking dining companions from last night.
After a bowl of warm water which has briefly been introduced to a tomato and some veg in the scullery, the main course is a pan-fried trout mash replica – with broccoli, and sauce.
When conversation lulls, I glance occasionally out the window, where the dust blows forward and the dust blows back. For dessert: apple pie.
With the sun lowering in the sky, forcing the scenery into the background, we toast our intrepid journey and makes plans for a quick evening excursion in Winnipeg, where the train is shortly making a brief service stop.
In the event, Chris doesn’t join Terry and I, as the two of us decide to jog around sultry Winnipeg, searching for a haunted hotel, which we don’t find.
Damn ghosts have all buggered off somewhere else, is my thought.
Darting around the forks and the relics of vintage trains, only to return to the station to stand in line for half an hour, like convicts awaiting prison transport.
And for our tickets to be checked, once more.
We’re all stood here, sweating in the evening heat, staring at the ceiling, captivated – wondering why we got off the goddamn train.
No surprise that the final remnants of daylight evaporate over the end car, the Park Car, the uncrowded bar.
For the second night running, I am the only paying passenger to witness this.
An Outside World 