writings

Approaching Storm: Rail Journey, Edinburgh / Darlington / York / King's Cross

January murk descends after open views to the sea

Hay bales submerged in the deluge.

Swollen Northumberland rivers racing to the coast,

Lindisfarne Castle shrouded in cloud on its Holy Island.

The train picks up speed and my pen

wobbles…

Everyone cradles phones, IPads, laptops

cosy, bored, working from the train…

I see editing going on in the seat in front of me,

“Defective Apparatus: Appendix 1”, the screen reads, dense with text.
Chicken & Avocado on Malted Bread,

reads the empty package discarded in the aisle.

The train slows...

A vast murmuration of starlings shifts above the electric pylons,

shredded clouds and a wee crack of light edge the horizon.

"Again, that’s York in a couple of moments”,

comes the conductor’s repeat announcement.

We’ll see the Minster if we’re lucky,

and yes, there it is, looming above the dark Victorian station.

We're stopped, and as the rain falls, the train fills with passengers.

Off again, and now the refreshments trolley:

Wine and sodas, sandwiches, crisps and coffee.

Do I see anything suspicious?

Another voice on the intercom asks--

"Something that doesn’t look right?"

"See it, say it, sorted!”

Her voice is reassuring,

yet somehow remote and disembodied.

My eyes move to the window—

What about those scudding clouds moving eastward?

issuing rain, or that dark copse, brooding on the brow of the hill?

Actually, they look… just right.

I'm sleepy and stand to stretch my leg,

dull with the memory of a fractured tibia…

OK, I’ll sit down then… along comes someone in a hurry for the loo.

Now I remember the name we saw on the side

of this train’s engine as we boarded at Edinburgh Waverley:

For the Fallen

with sombre images of 1914-18.

An hour and a half to King's Cross

and a Marks & Spencer G & T in a tinny opens with a crack,

poured into a stomach already working on

Chicken & Avocado… the editing is done now,

the screen dark, the North of England

awash in floodwater fallen from a swollen, seeping sky

“Apologies for any inconvenience it may cause,

I’m afraid we're under a speed restriction between

Grantham and Newark, due to high winds.

Thank you."

80 mph does seem a tad slow now as we make our way south past Grantham

and Storm Brendan bears down from the west, ripping roofs off housing estates,

according to the BBC.

By 7:30 this evening, I’ll be sitting comfortably in a leather chair

in Chertsey, Surrey, reading The Guardian.

The thought sends me to sleep,

and as the train slows in its final run into London,

I'm in a waking dream, still in Edinburgh,

walking through rain and wind across dark streets lined with grand town houses.

Sandstone walls, high, immutable, punctuated by

enormous window panes— inside,

high-ceilinged front rooms with paintings and

bookcases and knick-knacks and trees still lit and decorated

well past the Twelfth Day of Christmas.

And finally, the Epiphany:

"Ladies & Gentlemen: King’s Cross, this is King’s Cross."