Azuma

‘First Class is all about luxury. Serving you the best travel experience at 125mph.’

LNER website.

Monday, 11th October, 11.30, Edinburgh to London KX.

Coach L Seat 21.

Fart, fart, fart.

The looks across the table say it all. ‘This is going to be one of those journeys.’ The carriage was packed. No spare seats. I think I might escape to ‘standard’, but the train wide message tells us that ‘the service is extra busy today and travellers in standard should remove their luggage from seats and aisles for the benefit of other passengers.’ The body of the man seated at the window next to me spills over the arm rests. The remains of a breakfast on view on his t-shirt. He farts regularly and loudly throughout the journey. The two women opposite take out their knitting and the talk is about Tom Daley.

Fart, fart.

A few passengers not wearing face coverings, even though Nicola has said they are compulsory on trains as far as the Scottish border. The suited man in the single seat to my right would have benefited from a mask, if only to protect the rest of us from the constant loud office talk. ‘That’s a good girl. You have done really well getting that contract out on time.’ Big Ben chimes from phone. ‘I told him there was a mistake on the spreadsheet. He needs to get that sorted before the end of the day’. Big Ben chimes. ‘Im meeting them at Charing Cross this afternoon to sign off on the High Speed 2 work. There are huge sums involved and we want to make sure we get in on this.’

Fart, fart, fart, fart.

Two labradors sit in the aisle. Black. Shiny coats. Beautiful. There’s a cockapoo on the floor further up. No guessing the havoc this causes as passengers climb over them to reach the end of carriage toilets. Cooing and clucking. Some exasperated. How will the at-seat service cope? Just out of Newcastle and there’s an issue with seat bookings. It turns out the couple being confronted are travelling in the right seats on the wrong day. They head for standard. Best of luck.

Faaaaaart.

‘She does not like me. I’m sure she is turning the rest of the department against me.’ A man in a tweed jacket sits in front of Mr Big Ben. One hand covers the mouthpiece of his mobile phone. ‘It was the cakes that started it. Yes. Honestly. She brought them in for Mike’s birthday. I didn’t have one. She told me she felt insulted. She spent ages cooking them. Her own special recipe. No one had ever turned them down before.’ He selects the New York Deli sandwich from the trolley service. ‘And that was it. Ever since she has been bad mouthing me to everyone’. He chooses a ginger beer. ‘And it’s not that she is that good at her job. Everyone in the department has been complaining about her.’ A napkin, packet of crisps and chocolate brownie are placed on the table.

Fart, fart, fart.

T-shirt man with the hairy belly growled at me to ‘shift as he needed a piss’. If eyes and needles could talk, there was certainly some furious communication taking place across the table. Click-click-click-click-click. I let him out. A few minutes later the automatic door slid open. Swoosh. I started to get up. A hand stretched forward over mine and I was told, ‘Just sit still dear.’ The two women made their move. Standing in the aisle, they stabbed furiously forward at the farter, pushing him back into the space between carriages. He fell with a dull thud to the floor, two knitting needles in the shape of a V protruding from his lifeless chest. ‘Just in time for lunch’, said one of the women, as they returned to their seat and the trolley service appeared.

Note: that last part was wishful thinking and pure fantasy on my part, but the rest is a true record of my one and hopefully only journey on LNER Azuma First Class.