INTERLOCUTORY CRAFT

Dawn broke as we crossed the Firth of Forth and black darkness turned into hesitant dawn. The train was surprisingly full. Tattoo man sat diagonally opposite me, a serpent on one bicep and a scimitar on the other. He was young, with short unkempt hair, kept unkempt by a liberal application of axle grease. He wore an absurd chinstrap beard and in the upper part of his left ear was pinioned quite a large brass ring. It was as if he were going to auction, like a cow. Another young, deadly serious, bearded chap filled the seat next to me. He was listening intently to his i-pod and drinking Starbuck’s coffee. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and a Doctor Who scarf. He carried a student railcard, of which more later. I felt positively antediluvian next to them, with my navy cardigan and grey pinstripe suit.

The train carriage was warm, whilst outside a fearful wind pushed the temperature way below freezing. I could hear the wind buffeting the windows and roof of the carriage as the gale howled in from the German Ocean. Across the aisle, a large, pretty , blonde young American girl was earnestly conversing with her smaller, darker companion. The American girls played a favourite student trick, of laying their coats and bags (and other paraphernalia) on the seat alongside them, so that people would be discouraged from sitting there. It worked.

As the morning brightened, I could see how clear the sky was, and how narrowly we had missed the snow belt. The hills in the far west were covered in the stuff, whilst the eastern seaboard was relatively free. I looked at an advertisement at the head of the carriage. It had a Christmas theme: ‘Edinburgh sparkles – shopping, shows, celebrations. Visit Edinburgh’. In the advertisement, a young woman in a fur hat, who looked not unlike Mary Tyler Moore c. 1966, was smiling roundly and raising her eyes upward, whilst behind her head was a night image of a backlit Princes Street and Edinburgh Castle. It seemed a pretty vacuous advert to me, but I was reminded that the dreaded day was but four weeks away, and I frowned.

Chris, of the Hospitality Team, belied his role in that organisation by serving me extremely grumpily with coffee. The sweeteners were so far past their sell-by date, that they had turned themselves into sugar lumps and welded themselves to the wrappers. However, the coffee was hot, and welcome.

At Kircaldy, Tattoo Man got off and a woman probably a little younger than me got on. She looked like an older version of Sarah Palin, the American Tea Party lady. She sat opposite me. That meant I had to spend the rest of the journey with my legs tucked in under my seat and not catching her eye, and she likewise. She was quite pretty in a faded, end-of-the-season way. She sported rimless spectacles and her long, uncoiffured hair was dyed a mousey auburn. She wore a grey woollen cardigan with huge buttons over a bright blue turtle-necked sweater. Her figure was lost in a sea of wool. Palpably married, she wore a plain gold, highly polished band on the appropriate finger.

I wanted to start off a conversation with the lady, but I lacked the brass neck to do so. I had the feeling that she might have been similarly amenable, but I dared not put it to the test. The hot coffee and a burst of hot air from the heater vents made my face go very red indeed, at the same time as we inadvertently touched knees. I muttered an apology. She smiled. I noticed how well manicured her nails were and I put her down as a woman of some means.

The i-pod beardie got off at Leuchars. As we crossed the Tay Bridge and I got up to pack my bag, I noticed that he had left his railcard behind on his seat. The lady’s eyes met mine in a moment of genuine understanding. ‘The lost property office?’ she suggested. I nodded. ‘I’ll take it, when I get off the train,’ I said. ‘You a Geordie?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘My mother was from County Durham’, she said, ‘Came up here after the war. She married my dad – he was a Polish Infantryman. All his family were wiped out in the Warsaw ghetto.’ I clucked in sympathy, the way one does. ‘I like Geordies – they’re warm and friendly.’ ‘Everyone likes Geordies,’ I replied, lamely, desperate for even a half-witty one-liner and finding none. She laughed, a short, staccato ‘sheesh’. It was a pleasant, sibilant sound. ‘You here shopping?’ I asked. ‘I’m here on a training course - just today. I’m enjoying it.’ ‘You commuting?’ I asked. She replied in the affirmative.

That was it – the end of the line. The train trundled into Dundee Station. What could have been a beautiful though brief friendship fizzled out because I was too polite, reserved, to open my mouth. She hurried off the station through the Tay Bar, as I tried to wrestle my heavy case off the train and onto the platform. I never even learned her name and she only knew me as ‘Geordie.’