Tonbridge, South Eastern Trains

Am I Really Doing This

First the front eight coaches will uncouple at Tonbridge. We move down the train to find the first eight, finding it difficult since no carriages are marked numerically. We settle down, my coffee is still too hot, the beginnings of a sore throat. Weather warnings in place. Danger to life. The children, unused now to storms, find this hilarious. An announcement, the first four will uncouple now and continue directly to Hastings. Quickly, we gather our belongings. Estella screams, certain we won’t make it to the front of the train in time, but we do, and we settle for a third time. The woman across the aisle smiles. She’s tanned, perhaps ten years older than me. Recently, I find I can’t tell people’s ages, the just are. She’s immaculately put together. I think this is why I need her to be a good deal older than me, polish is an art I’m still to perfect.

She asks if we’re going to Hastings for a holiday. I tell her we’re moving, going down a day before the removal men, equipped with makeshift beds. An adventure, I say, aware if I over stress it I will be protesting too much. Oh, she says, perfect! For the next fifteen minutes she tells us about walks along the coast, where you can see giant dinosaur footprints, how the more the coast erodes the more footprints are revealed, tells us caves to visit and about a giant dinosaur thigh bone found in a quarry in the grounds of the now secondary school. This suits the children, who sit with their eyes widening and their mouths falling open at all her stories. She pulls her phone out, shows us pictures. Turns to me, tells me about an art house cinema in St Leonards, about different exhibitions and suddenly the terror of it, the fear of having made another big leap, begins to recede a little.

And then there are better seats, and we move on and the conversation stops until we arrive in Hastings. We say goodbye on the platform, the beginnings of rain in the air. I show the children the beach but the sea is too full. The seafront buffeted by giant waves. This pleases them until their hands are red and raw in ways they haven’t been since we left Scotland. Later, I will barely sleep for the sound of the rain filled wind, the way it hits the house full of unfamiliar noises. I think about creeping into my new study, sitting on the floor to write but it’s cold outside the covers and I will wait until morning, when the furniture will arrive.