Not All Tarts Are Apple by Pip Granger

Author:Pip Granger [Granger, Pip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Corgi

18

Apart from getting on to the train, I really enjoyed the journey down to Aggie on Horseback. Auntie Maggie had decided that if she and Uncle Bert were taking a break from catering, it could ‘bloody well start in the Pullman car, so sod packets of sandwiches and flasks of tea’. It was therefore agreed that any refreshments we required could be provided by British Railways and hang the expense.

First off, though, before we got to the Pullman, we had to negotiate those bits where the carriages were joined to each other. I don’t know if the stuff they used to hold it all together was canvas or leather but it was pleated like a giant concertina or the sides of a pair of bellows and seemed pretty flimsy to me. The floors were even worse, with metal plates that moved from side to side or ground together when the driver slung out his anchors. I was even less happy about these joins than I had been about the pits of hell at Paddington. In the end I had to be carried over them by Uncle Bert, who was kind enough to make no comment. I was lucky like that; neither Uncle Bert nor Auntie Maggie were of the persuasion that the way to encourage a frightened kid was to jeer at it, in public or in private. Some parents do that, don’t they – shame children into doing things that terrify them? I remember being really shocked the first time I saw someone do that to their child. Even I squirmed with humiliation. Anyway, I’m thrilled to say that my lot never did that sort of thing to me.

Once we had safely negotiated what seemed like hundreds of those bloody joins, we finally made it to the comfort and safety of the Pullman car. I was enchanted with the whole thing. I loved the little lamps on the tables, which came complete with dear little lampshades with bobbled fringes; I liked the etched glass that proudly proclaimed Pullman; I liked the waiters in their stiffly starched white jackets with spotless tea-towel things draped smartly over their arms; and I was particularly impressed with the way they poured the coffee from an elegant silver-metal pot with a long narrow spout. They managed not to spill a single drop – and I was watching like a hawk – even as the train lurched and thundered through the countryside.

Once we were back in our seats, I was mesmerized by the passing scene. I had never been out of London before, or if I had I had been far too young to notice, so I was staggered by the sheer expanse of green, and bowled over by the sight of real sheep and cows. I also saw these great big grey birds that were standing around on one leg in a field. I jumped up and down, clamouring to be told what they were. Uncle Bert and Auntie Maggie exchanged baffled looks and asked Madame Zelda if she knew, but she shook her head.

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