Let me tell you about where I am. It’s a special place. It's home at last, or moving between the homes of family members. But the land is home, and so is this journey. The rumbling below, vibrating up into red seats (soft to touch, hard to sit on), is sending me south. Edinburgh to London, the 16:00 hours, table seat, backwards. Focusing on the view helps block out the smell of stale air, of detergent-sprayed plastic, of the picnic that came before mine; I zone out what I see on the table - crumbs, the abandoned Capri-Sun straw, the hair that’s definitely not mine – and look out to see that the sun is shining. That’s one good thing, and I’m home, that’s another.
I’m cheating. It’s easy to be descriptive when each sight lasts two seconds; it’s there, it streams away, pulled backwards to sit in its place, because you’re the one on the move. Nor is the sea a constant; flashing in and out of view between undulations of fields. Today the water is flat. There are no shadows of energy pushing in from the deep, no waves curling north to south, no white break, no surfers; just a lead-grey surface stretched taut, punctuated by gulls, buoys, a sailing boat, and mossy green moments where the sun has broken through the clouds.
I don’t open my book. There’s too much to look at. Fields and forests flash past; the wind pulls shadows across meadows, shakes Horse Chestnuts, Poplars; and close by the long grass ripples in a dance. Wild flowers border the railway tracks, a Scottish summer purpling the banks.
We speed up. The soft thumping of wheels on steel, their staccato rhythm heightening. I’m trying to practise some mindfulness. Or what I think is mindfulness. So I watch the view blends behind me, punctuated by the present moment like this: tree, tree, pole, tree, tree, pole, pole, tree, pole, hedge, the sea, pole (is it still called a telegraph pole?), fields (not gold but blond, cereal coloured - which makes sense), another field, another pole, field, tractor tracks (curving away into the horizon), another field, an earthier one (soil turned, reddish), stone ruins at the edge (could be an abbey?), pole, tree, tree, pole, field, swallows on the line, they take off together, breathing as one, auburn cows (not coos) noses down, others sit down (is it going to rain?).
The thumping stutters to a halt and the train paces on at a groan, pauses, halts again. Inside people twitch, pretend not to notice the shifting tempo. Above the archipelago of clouds have become heavy-bottomed; underneath they’re the colour of days-old city snow, and on top is the fluff of freshly fallen powder. We start up again, sweeping backwards to Berwick; crossing the river, an elevated vista, looking down to the arching bridge; further out is the estuary, its water low, banks and tide-lines showing, and below, the red stoned cathedral, low houses, fitted neatly onto streets which curl down to shore.
All this time, a man opposite me has been clenching his Tupperware with swollen, freckled knuckles. He clicks it open and his hand quivers. I see two slices of homemade flapjack and feel moved by them, suddenly emotional.
Beside them lies a sandwich so tightly wrapped in cling-film the bread bulges out, airless, like faces pressed against a window. He unwraps one to examine its contents, nose twitching, eyes narrowed and peering as though seeing if for the first time(and perhaps he is). It means nothing to me, but I want to know too. If he were to bolt the lid shut now without revealing the contents, I’d be irritated, bereft, left lingering in doubt as to whether it’s tuna-sweet-corn or coronation chicken. He catches me looking, and I turn back to the window, see him smiling out of the corner of my eye.
Soon enough that smell of sticky sweetness, like barbecued fruit, travels over. Cheese and chutney. He sits back, breathes out, perhaps feels relief, perhaps it could have been a lot worse.
Only eat your sandwich after Berwick, mum used to say. So I’ve waited. Now I’ll join him. Mine’s an egg mayo. Maybe he’ll even share the flapjack.
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