January. We are sitting on once-plush, deep pomegrate seats with bouncy, trampoline springs. They are tatty, a bit threadbare.
Knees press against the under-table heater blowing waterbottle warmth into a compartment where we sit, still thawing out, ruddy cheeks raw, numb noses running.
Outside, crusted, frosted furrowed fields; trees naked but for the thick, lush tangled balls of mistletoe.
We are cut off in here. It's snug, a bit oppressive if you're not used to it. There are five of us and outside, on the other side of the door, people walk to and fro on the long narrow corridor that snakes through the train.
It feels as though there ought to be conversation, but instead the silence grows from awkward to companiable. And on occasions when eyes meet, there are fleeting smiles, nods of acknowledgement, that we are in for these five hours together.
As the train leans, twists and meanders, first one of us, then the other is blinded by the low-slung setting setting sun, flinking and flashing through the spidery arms of the trees, hiding behind distant buildings and flaring again. Now-you-see-it-now-you-don't at 120kph.
The snow is thick on the ground - it would go 'crump' under foot if you walked on it. Three days of sub-zero temperatures keep it here, a kind of suspended animation. There is no melt. There is more to come.
Chimneys smoke and as we sway through quiet villages, busy towns, alongside lonely farmsteads, people going about their business give us a passing glance. They are thick-wadded dumplings in bobble hats under sharp icy skies, under icicle clouds. Their hot breath blows sharp and is snatched away.
As the light dims, house lights go on..and we can glimpse other people's lives: a TV, a woman washing up, a man bent over his desk upstairs, children playing, a girl at a piano..
Hard earth, harder sky...and us in between. And the pylons move and sway and stride away, sweeping left to right.
The goods yards are postcard pretty. On pilings and girders the rust glitters a burnished bronze. Trucks, sheds, metal, piles of wood...all transformed.
We see few livestock but in one field, two Shetland ponies with thick, russet shagpile coats, wait out the winter by a pile of hay.
As the sun dips our shadows play kiss-catch, mine sweeps across my neighbour's seat..and my neighbour's neighbour.
The slow train. Time stretches, uncurls and expands, and we stretch with it, fill the space, fuggy in the waterbottle warmth. Detached from everything and everyone.
One of my neighbours nods over her book, her hand protectively resting on her rucksack. Her neighbour is at work; he has paperwork on his knees and gazes with intensity at his precariously-balanced laptop. The couple to my right share a packed lunch: baguettes, cheeses, meats and red wine in plastic cups.
A younger man, perhaps only a teenager, is vulnerably dead to the world, his cheek resting against the corridor window, his coat a pillow, his mouth open. Dark, curly hair flopping over one closed eye.
We are above the land now, on a ridge looking down over woodland, lakes, streams. A grey heron is priesting in the reeds, a buzzard is great-winged, soaring above. Another one ..this time in a treetop, its back golden, catching the last faint rays of the sun. Rabbits bounce bob-tailed through stubbly fields and a charm of goldfinches head speedily to roost: flap flap flap dip, flap flap flap dip. Unmistakeable.
Forests look mystical, misty, an illusion perhaps, but steam curls above them - are they breathing?
Flatlands, marshlands; dangerous, tempting frozen ponds; a snow-crusted war memorial, a factory belching white steam. Lines of cars, glimpses of tired faces at the wheel; headlights, streetlights, traffic lights//
All this and more Thomas - and we sway and doze and sway and doze. For a moment, not quite asleep, not quite awake, I feel you beside me, bouncing on the springy seats. Of all things you loved a journey. What lay at the end could take care of itself.
Heaven, for you, I think, might be a slow train like this.
Perhaps I was in a doze when the sun set. The light changes from silver to gold to pink to purple....
Darkness comes quickly...and the landscape rushes blackly against a blacker sky.
Now, in the windows, we are reflected back at ourselves....
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