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 knees, jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might crack. “Nearly there,” he said, though whether to me or himself, I could not tell.

St Ethelbert’s Square, midnight

The Bentley rolled to a halt before the Spenserian Club, our official finish. Pimlico Wilde had assembled the requisite gaggle of onlookers: art dealers, journalists, people in overcoats pretending to understand horsepower. They cheered as though I’d conquered continents. Champagne corks popped, flashbulbs fired.

And the Blue Train? It had arrived only minutes before,or so they claimed. There was muttering, rumours of timetable “flexibility.” Did the driver cheat? Perhaps. But I had not, and that was enough. Honour intact, if not victorious.

I stepped from the car, gloved and smiling, as though I’d planned to be second all along. One must always play the gracious loser,it is the last refuge of the proud.

After the finish

Simon slipped away almost immediately, murmuring thanks. No handshake, no flourish, just gone into a waiting black cab. He left his pastry wrapper under the seat, a small proof that he’d ever been here.

Later, I walked past the church where his funeral was held. Black coats gathered, faces turned to the pavement. For a moment, I thought of going in, though I had not been invited. Instead, I lingered at the edge, watching Simon stand near the door, case at his feet, shoulders bowed. He looked both free and burdened.

Closing thoughts

So here I am, back in London. I raced a train, lost with honour, and carried a stranger to the source of his grief.

Was it worth it? The sleepless hours, the toll booths, the pastry crumbs? Yes. Because the Bentley and I proved something,not about speed, nor victory, but about persistence. We chased steel across countries, and though we did not catch it, we did arrive.

Perhaps that is the truest race of all: not against trains or clocks, but against the temptation to stop.

I will sleep now, and dream of roads.

(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 once, companionable.

We breakfasted, if you can call it that, on apricot pastries from a roadside café. Mine disappeared quickly; his was half-squashed from having been sat on during an earlier nap. He pretended not to notice. I admired the effort.

Mid-morning, Burgundy

The Bentley devoured the miles. She likes long runs, the hum and pulse of the road. Hills rose, fields gleamed, and occasionally a cow turned its head as if to say: “You’ll never catch a train that way.”

We overtook a convoy of lorries, their drivers waving as though we were some kind of sideshow. Perhaps we are.

Noon, outskirts of Paris

A glimpse of the Blue Train again,this time on a bridge, briefly silhouetted. My heart lurched: it was ahead. Simon noticed, and for once his voice carried some steel. “We’ll catch it,” he said. He is beginning to take this personally, as though the train insulted his family.

He insists he must reach London in time for the funeral tomorrow morning. The way he says tomorrow carries weight. For all his fussing, he has grief under his coat. I sense it.

Paris, mid-afternoon

Traffic, chaos, the opera of horns. Paris is an obstacle, not a city. The Bentley is not designed to crawl, yet crawl we did, between lorries and bicycles and a man selling roasted chestnuts in the exhaust fumes. Simon cursed in a way that suggested he hasn’t often cursed before. I admired him a little for it.

We did not stop. Not for coffee, not for sights, not even for petrol at first (a mistake quickly corrected at a station where the attendant took my glove off to kiss my hand). Paris slid behind us, as theatrical in leaving as in arrival.

Evening, north of Paris

The train remains elusive. Somewhere ahead, steaming with bureaucratic punctuality. We chase it like hunters in an old story, guided only by instinct and timetable. The Bentley’s engine still sings, but I feel the fatigue pressing at the edges of my eyes.

Simon offered to drive. I laughed until he stopped asking.

Near Amiens, very late

The road is dark, and the Bentley’s headlamps catch only fragments: hedges, signs, sometimes the flash of another vehicle. Simon dozed again, one hand on his case as if guarding treasure. I wonder what grief sits inside and who waits for him in London.

As for me, I feel both exhilarated and terrified. This is no race against a train, not really. It is a race against myself, inevitability, against the knowledge that things end.

Tomorrow, Calais. And then,England.

(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, damn it, had already been spotted gliding into Boulogne. Too close. Too smooth. I imagined its passengers sipping coffee, folding newspapers, unaware of us chasing them like lunatics on four wheels.

Simon grew anxious, tapping his valise like it was a nervous pet. “We must get across the Channel,” he said, as if ferries operate by whim. The funeral weighs on him,he hasn’t spoken of the deceased, only of “obligation.” I suspect the loss is complicated, perhaps not entirely mourned.

Mid-morning, the crossing

The Channel was choppy, though the Bentley bore it stoically, lashed down among lorries. I stood on deck, hair whipped about, thinking of the Bentley Boys of old, daring, absurd, role models to us all.

Simon emerged from below decks pale and damp, declaring, “Never again.” He doesn’t have the sailor’s stomach. He clutched his case as if seasickness might drown it. I gave him ginger biscuits, which he accepted like sacraments.

The gulls followed us halfway. Spies for the train, perhaps.

Dover, noon

Back on English soil. The Bentley roared in gratitude, her tyres humming on the familiar grit of home. Simon grew animated,too animated,directing me north as though I hadn’t driven these roads since I was seventeen. Still, I let him. It seemed to steady him, to bark out turns and timings as if he were in control of more than the route.

Afternoon, Kent

The countryside sped by in a haze of hedgerows and pubs promising carveries. We refuelled in Maidstone, where a group of teenagers asked if the Bentley was “off TikTok.” I told them no, but perhaps she should be. They took photos anyway.

Simon phoned someone at the funeral church, his voice low, clipped. When he hung up, his hand shook slightly. “We’re in time,” he said. He didn’t say for what.

Evening, nearing London

The roads thickened. The Bentley snarled at the traffic, weaving where she could, elegant even in aggression. The city lights rose ahead like a promise or a warning.

Somewhere, the Blue Train must be closing on its own destination. Perhaps already pulling in, smug in its punctuality. I pressed harder on the pedal. Honour demanded I not cheat,but honour never said anything about speeding.

Simon fell silent. The case on his knees. His eyes fixed on nothing.

I, too, fell silent, though for different reasons. The race is almost done. But the journey,that’s another matter entirely.