Race the Blue Train

(Final Extracts, London – St Ethelbert’s Square) Late night, outskirts of London We entered the capital like a knife slipping through steak,sudden, unavoidable. The Bentley grumbled at the stop-start traffic, eager to sprint, but London does not permit sprinting. She crawls, she coils, she waits. Simon sat rigid beside me, his case balanced on his … Read more

(Extracts from Day Two, Somewhere near Paris) Just outside Lyon, very early morning I accidentally woke Simon at dawn by accelerating out of a toll booth. He snorted awake like a startled walrus, then demanded to know where we were. I pointed at a sign for Mâcon and said, “France.” His silence thereafter was, for … Read more

(Extracts from Day Three, Calais – Dover – Into the Night) Dawn, Calais We reached the port just as the gulls were beginning their dreadful chorus. Salt wind, diesel fumes, a faint reek of chips already frying. The Bentley looked slightly dishevelled, as though she’d been in a bar fight and come third. The train, … Read more