I have relatives either side of Australia: cousins in Perth, grandmother in Sydney. A few years ago I took a three-day train ride from one side to the other. I travelled alone. I slept and ate and showered on the train. Sometimes it would stop at night, sometimes it would keep going, through landscapes spectacular for their scale and sunrise and sameness.
I filled all my twelve video tapes on the journey, desperate to catch it all. Afterwards I looked through the tapes and almost every minute showed the inside of my tiny cabin: the fold-up metal washbasin, the fold-up table, the madly thin cupboard, the chair becoming a bed at night-time, the peculiar catch lock on the door, the shutters against the glass. The paper cups of tea. It remains the happiest holiday I can recall.
Only recently have I come to appreciate how absurd it was, and how telling, that I should travel the breadth of a continent and stare lovingly at the inside of my compartment throughout. I have every little detail down on tape. I did spend hours staring from the window, and climbed out to explore at every pit stop, but very little of that ended up on tape.
Working my way through the text I’m preparing for the lovesong book, I’m reminded of the little compartment on the train. Trying to write to the line of ink I’m writing, trying to get it to listen to the words I’m putting it through, but it’s only alive to me at the fleeting and racing point of contact with my nib. The desperate need to hold still a thrilling and wonderful thing that will not stop moving, and the hope that if you grip hold of the only bit within reach, it might still count for something even though it isn’t the bit that thrills.
Perhaps that’s not quite it. The fold-up table and the little catch that held it in place genuinely thrilled me on their own. That’s not a bad thing is it?
