The 1003 Cross Country from Birmingham

Our taxi picked us up from the Travelodge at Aston just after nine and we knew we were on our way home after a few days in the great metropolis of Birmingham.

The driver was one of those people who was “sorry” for everything they did. “Sorry, let me take your luggage”. “So sorry, let me open the door for you.” “Sorry, is it Birmingham New Street?”. He seemed to be using the word “sorry” as a form of spoken punctuation.

At the taxi rank outside the station the apolstarted to come thick and fast with offers to open the doors and take our luggage from the car and place it on the pavement.

“So sorry, thank you, sorry, thank you” he said as he put the last piece of our luggage on the pavement.

“That’s alright, how much do we owe you?” we asked.

He looked at the display unit on the dashboard.

“Sorry, I am so sorry, I am not thinking right today. My cousin…he was in loca election yesterday and am waiting to hear how he did. So sorry, I forgot to switch the meter on. So sorry. Will phone office to find out. So sorry.”

As well as using “sorry” as a form of verbal punctuation each time he said it he then hit his chest, gently, as a sort of ritualistic self-flagellation. We settled up at nine pounds and set off to the main concourse sitting quite close to the backside of Ozzie the Bull before going to our departure platform.

As we had seats reserved in Coach C I can’t help thinking that we both felt a little smug as the train arrived. We found the right coach. In rugby terms there was a bit of a maul on the platform as people burdened with luggage and children scrabbled back and forth looking for their coach. When the train did eventually stop and passengers for Birmingham got off the maul became a a ruck and a scrum. Three or four people plus their luggage simultaneously tried to get through a door only slightly wider than one person. A few grew sharp elbows but the majority knew that things would happen more smoothly if a bit of common courtesy and politeness took hold of the situation.

Why did we have to join the melee as we had reserved seats?

Damn! There was already someone sitting where we should be sat. I vaguely remember him at least jostling around at the door at the other end of the carriage. A big fellow with a mop of very dark curlyhair.

“Excuse me, those are our seats which we reserved” my wife said.

Silence.

“Excuse me, those are our seats” she said a bit more firmly while I fought with the phone to access images of our tickets confirming C61 and C62 were ours.

“We have seats booked. We are part of a group and there is someone sittin in our seats” came the voice from under the mop of black hair.

I still hadn’t found those pictures to offer as proof. A lady in the seat behind where we were meant to be joined in.

“If there is someone in your seat that is your problem, not this couples’. You’ll just have to go and get them to move and if they don’t find the guard.”

There was a bit of grunting from under the black mop and the scarfed head next to him. They both got up, collected their bags rom the rack and under the seat before wandering to “their” end of the coach.

We sat down and thanked the lady behind us for her help.

As we could see people struggling I found the images of our tickets just in case anyone felt they might have territorial rights over our posterior parking zones. While we were settlng I heard mumblings.

“Could you move your bags from there as I would like to use the seat” followed by “well, you’ll have to put it in the luggage area then.”

The man across the aisle from me looked up briefly, saw how people were struggling for seats. He didn’t yield any body language or vocalisation that the seat next to him was available.

Fortunately, at the next stop, the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), there was a churn of passengers and our carriage went from being overcrowded to full. I was rather hoping the man across the aisle from me was going to get off as well to attend an event at the NEC.

He didn’t.

From the NEC onwards through Coventry, Banbury, Oxford, Reading and Basingstoke he rad from his Torah. Not silently but with a volume somewhere between that and a whisper. He uttered a constant and almost subliminal hissing whisper. It was there and it wasn’t but even when it wasn’t there it was there. The only relief when he left his seat and the compartment.

This happened quite frequently between the NEC and Winchester. Either he was leaving his seat to carry out his standing devotions known as “Amidah’s” facing Israel. Or, he had bladder slash prostate troubles.

From his waist hung a white woven cord like a bell pull or curtain tieback. This is a “tzitzit” which is attached to an item of clothing, preferable with four corners. It is there as a reminder of the Jewish commandments, their faith and their spirituality.

Whatever, what a great word for SCRABBLE and the problem with it having to Z’s can be solved with a blank tile. Without any bonuses it would be worth fifteen points.

They must have got on the train at the NEC or Coventry. We could hear to male voices having a laddish chat about life and whatever had led them into the evil clutches of the drink. It most definitely sounded as if capacity had exceeded contentment.

On the stage or the movie set it would be called “corpsing”. There was something the two men had hit on that had them giggling before building up to unsuppressed laughter. In between the guffaws were traces of a highly personal topic of conversation.

“What time do you, you know do it?”

“Do what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, you know?”

“Oh that. Every morning about seven. What about you? What time do you have your daily dump?”

“Normally about seven. Same time as you.”

“Did you manage one today?”

“No, not yet.”

“Bloody hell mate, you must be bursting. You gonna to use the one on the train or wait until we get to Bournemouth?”

It was as if the act of having uncontrollable laughter had purged these two guys of any inhibitions about scatology.

Their laughter was infectious and the two ladies behind us could be heard doing their best to stifle their own laughter. This broke whatever barriers there were between them and they started a conversation. The only one unaffected by this infection was the man wearing the tzitzit. Well, he was infected as his incantations did accelerate and get a bit louder as the scatological conversation progressed.

“I remember when my boys were sort of growing up and came home in a state. Newspapers across the hall floor and all that.”

“We’ve all been there as Mums haven’t we?”

“Where are you going?”

“Reading. What about you?”

“Weymouth. Seeing my grandson for the first time…he’s four.”

“Oh.”

“After my divorce, rather a messy one, my son and I became estranged for about five years.”

“What brought you together then?”

“My ex died about three months ago. I only found out because of my son, the one I’m visiting. You would have thought my ex’s new wife would have at least had the decency to let me. No, the old bastard was dead and buried in less than a month, even before my son knew.”

“What a bitch. At least some good has come out of it all. You’re back with your son and you’ve got a grandson to look forward to meeting. Oh, here we are, Reading, lovely meeting you.”

There was another churn of passengers and Coach C was back to full capacity.

Our tickets were from Birmingham to Brockenhurst but they said we had to change at Winchester. It was a bit sad for us as somehow within the confines of Coach C and amongst a disparate set of six people, then five after Reading, there was a sense of shared space and community. Our disembarkation at Winchester really marked the end of our journey even though we still had a few miles to go but the train we had to ride on was only a humble commuter one whose carriages and their ambience are only ever transient.

When we got off and sat with our luggage we were directly opposite the “Cross Country” logo on Coach C. In the window above the “O” in Coach were the two men. One of them looked up and saw us. We waved. He nudged his mate who also looked up. They waved back with the croissants they had bought to rebalance their carbohydrate intake and were gone on their merry way to Bournemouth.