Train ride

At Victoria station, Network SouthEast’s wheelchair service falls a bit short. Thea phoned ahead yesterday - why should she have to do that? Anyway, she did - and a chap duly comes to meet us when she presses a big blue button on a thing. Chap takes the bag that’s been balanced precariously on my lap and leads us to the Eastbourne train, where he unfolds a big knobbly yellow plastic ramp and helps Thea push me up into the carriage. He positions me facing forward, nice, yes…but we appear to be in the goods van. An interior of battered wood drowned under annual layers of grey paint, containing a single bicycle and its owner, who smiles at us sheepishly. Network SouthEast Bloke takes his ramp and disappears. There’s a quiet pause in which nobody looks at anybody else, but we’re all coming to the same conclusion. Thea breaks the silence.

“So we’re supposed to stay here? In the fucking…pig box?”

Even the cyclist laughs.