Sleeper
After a fantastic dinner at the Lawrenceville Inn and four hours of sleep on Monday night, I flew in to London, cattle-class, on the BA178 jumbo. We landed just after 9pm and I made my way (luggage in tow) to the bus stops outside to catch the 'RailAir' coach to Reading (in order to catch the sleeper train to Cornwall to speak to two schools the next morning). Someone had crossed 'Reading' off the list of destinations with a black marker pen. Hmm. I went back inside. 'You need the central bus station, mate'. Heathrow Express. Moving walkways. Escalators. Trundle trundle. Central Bus Station. 'Nah boss. Reading goes from terminal two.' Escalator. Trundle. Moving walkway. Strip lighting. Trundle. Terminal Two.
The bus arrived at 11:15pm. I could hardly keep my eyes open. 'Eleven pounds' mumbled the dour-looking driver as I shuffled up the steps. I gave him two ten-pound notes (all I had, from the cash machine inside the terminal). He looked at me like I'd handed him Estonian Krooni, or perhaps Peruvian Nuevos Soles. 'I ain't got change. You'll 'ave to wait.' He wrote '??20' on my ticket with a felt-tip pen, pocketed both the tenners and glared at me. After taking on more passengers at the next stop, he waddled back to my seat with his bum-bag of change. 'Ticket.' 'I'm sorry, what?' 'Lemme see your ticket.' I was fast losing the will to live. He studied both sides of the ticket (that he had issued me just minutes before) before counting out nine pound coins, as slowly as he possibly could.
Reading Station. More strip lighting. Trundle. Lager louts eating kebabs from polystyrene containers, overflowing with shredded lettuce. Trundle. Ticket machine. 'Out of Order.' Trundle. FastTicket machine. Appears to be working. Return to Truro. '??178.' A hundred and seventy-flippin'-eight pounds?! Must be a joke. I'll buy one on the train. Trundle. Platform Five. Train arrives at some point between midnight and 1am. I heave my luggage onboard, and instantly things change.
The guard calls me 'sir', for starters. 'A hundred and seventy-eight quid?' He smiled and looked over his glasses at me, before pressing a few buttons on his chest-slung ticket machine. 'How does sixty-one sound?' Someone else calls me 'sir' and shows me to my sleeper cabin. Bunk beds. Starched sheets. Hospital corners. Tartan blankets. He asked me if I'd like coffee in the morning, and called me 'sir' again. It was like being transported back to the 1950s and I felt like an excited schoolkid as I peeled back the crisp sheets and climbed into the bottom bunk.
I slept like a log, the schools talks went brilliantly, I caught the 1640-something train back to London this evening (nearly six hours) and, amazingly, I find myself back at my desk with no immediate signs of deep-vein thrombosis. Time for bed.
— Filed under Miscellany