a dusky glass panel which stretched all the way to the ceiling. She wondered if it had been tacked on as an afterthought, or whether it had been purposely designed to offer a small corner of additional exclusivity. Either way, she liked the subtle degree of privacy it provided. Seems like the perfect refuge, she mused, for anyone with something to hide.
‘That’s you,’ Henry said. He gestured amiably to her seat. ‘Make yourself at home!’
‘Thanks, Henry,’ she replied.
She slipped off her coat. Her mohair jumper – which had long seen better days – wilted under her gaze. Shit, she said again – silently, this time. She could just see Linus shaking his head in horror, then covering it up with a smile. She – like the rest of her family as far as she was aware – had never had the pleasure of travelling anywhere First Class.
She tucked her canvas shoulder bag under the table and sat down. ‘It’s another world in here,’ she said, her voice shot with awe. ‘Lots of leg room. Actual metal cutlery. Nice.’
An invisible steward had laid the table with white china mugs, place mats, svelte silver spoons – all much too smart for a girl from Oystermouth wearing ripped jeans and a charity-shop jumper. Her fingers sought the ends of her sleeves and curled around them into a protective ball.
‘My niece persuaded me to treat myself,’ Henry replied. ‘Of course, that was when she thought she’d be travelling with me. It’ll be one less thing for the bucket list, I suppose!’
Ariel smiled, then glanced over her shoulder and furtively eyed the door. She wondered if Henry would be offended if she made an excuse and slipped back to her rightful place in Standard Class, where she belonged.
Something moved in the corner of her eye, a quick flash of blue. A guy in his mid-twenties was lounging behind the table for four across the aisle. He was dressed in a woollen beanie, faded black jeans, and an electric-blue fisherman’s jumper almost as threadbare as her own. A tangle of rope and leather cords snaked around his wrist. His dark hair was splayed out in a casual mess beneath his hat, and from the dusting of stubble on his chin, it was obvious he hadn’t seen a razor in days.
He looked over and met her gaze.
Ariel gave him a self-conscious smile and deflected her attention further down the carriage. A group of businessmen were staking out their terrain, visibly assessing the available table space between themselves and their neighbours. She stared at them in disbelief. It was like laptops at dawn! Did they seriously not have enough room?
‘Well, there’s plenty of room here!’ Henry said in a cheerful voice.
He removed his coat, folded it into a rectangle and placed it next to his walking stick in the luggage rack overhead. ‘How the other half lives! It’ll be walk-in closets for everyone next!’
He bent over and rummaged in his suitcase, which was now lying open on his seat. Ariel tilted her head and discreetly peeped inside. His belongings were arranged in neat piles and held in place by four crisscrossing elasticated straps which snapped together in the middle like a pair of gentlemen’s braces. The case’s lining – a soft, fuzzy turmeric – was patchy and worn, its edges stained with rusty blooms of ochre and brown. Overall, she got the impression the suitcase must be almost as old as he was.
‘Back in a jiffy,’ Henry said. He pulled himself upright, tucked a bundle of fresh clothing under his arm and retraced his steps through the sliding door.
A palpable air of mystery lingered in his wake, absorbing Ariel’s thoughts entirely before curling around her shoulders and settling on the now closed, tight-lipped surface of his suitcase.
‘Excuse me? If you don’t mind me asking, is the gentleman okay?’
Her neighbour in the woollen beanie was staring at her over a copy of the Time Out Guide to Edinburgh. His question – along with his American accent – caught her momentarily off-guard.
‘Oh. Yes, he’s fine, thanks. He had a nosebleed. A pretty bad one, but it seems to be under control now.’
‘Nosebleed, huh? That’s a relief. I thought maybe he’d been in a fight.’ Beanie Guy’s deadpan demeanour segued into a broad, easy smile.
She waited for him to return to his book, but he held her gaze, his inquisitive brown eyes watching her closely, like someone examining something curious, something foreign or unfamiliar under a microscopic lens. A moment later he shifted forwards in his seat, his palm pressed to his chest.
‘Hi, I’m Travis Farlan. I’m guessing we’re going to be sitting across the aisle from one another for the next four and a half hours, so I thought I may as well live up to the cultural cliché of the gregarious American and introduce myself.’
As he spoke, Ariel noticed a battered music case lying on the window seat beside him. The case was liberally plastered with a ragtag collection of stickers, the majority of which were scuffed and fraying at the edges. She caught the word ‘Chicago’ emblazoned across one; ‘Monterey’ on another. A couple of friends from school had wandered the hallways with stickered cases like that. Violins and flutes, mainly. The odd French horn. Every once in a while one or other of them would get pounced on in the schoolyard. One boy even had his viola tossed into the recycling bin. She never understood why they were targeted like that. She always thought they were cool.
‘If you’re the gregarious American, does that make me a classically reserved Brit?’ she countered with a smile.
Travis held up his hands and laughed. ‘Touché!’
Ariel leaned her elbows on the table, taking care not to disturb the precise alignment of the crockery any more than was absolutely necessary. ‘I’m Ariel Bliss, and he’s –’ she pointed vaguely towards Henry’s empty seat – ‘Henry.’
She hesitated, unsure what more to add, then decided the truth was as good as anything under the circumstances. ‘Henry and I met in the station this morning. I went over to make sure he was okay, and when he found out we were both travelling to Edinburgh he offered me his spare first-class ticket as a thank you.’
‘For real? That’s awesome! You and I are kindred spirits. My first-class ticket was a gift, too.’ He uttered a low chuckle. ‘We’re like a pair of high-class railroad bums. I guess both of us landed on our feet.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s a train-hopping reference. Or don’t you guys have that over here?’
Ariel gave him a blank stare.
‘Maybe not…’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘So…’
Travis seized his cue. ‘So basically, there’s this whole subculture of homeless people who ride freight trains all over the U.S. – illegally, obviously. They’re like modern-day hobos. They haven’t got any place to live, so they use the rolling stock as a means of putting a temporary roof over their heads. Some of them cover hundreds and thousands of miles a year hopping from one freight carrier to another. Some even travel with families, kids as young as five or six.’
‘Sounds dangerous.’
‘Uh-huh. Imagine risking your life every time you jumped!
