The next morning we got up early and took two taxis to the railway station with us and all our luggage. Mummy didn’t want to spend money for taxis – she kept watching the meter – but there was no other way.
She told us that the train journey to Saskatoon would take three days. This gave us an idea of how big Canada was – the longest train trip I’d ever taken was three hours, to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to visit my old nanny.
“Your fathers paid for our tickets before we left England,” Mummy explained. “So we shouldn’t have to spend any money till we get there. The ship was expensive – luckily there’s not much to buy on a train!”
In the taxi I asked, “What will the Laines be like?”
“I think, very nice. We got a letter from them saying how much they’re looking forward to having children in their home.”
“Haven’t they got any?”
“No.”
Cameron frowned, and said, “I suppose we’ll have to be very quiet and well-mannered then.”
“Yes, you will,” said Mummy. “And who knows for how long? It’s not like a visit. We’ll be living there. It’ll be their house and we’ll have to stick to their rules, whatever they are.”
“Sounds like lots of fun,” muttered Cameron.
We settled on to the train, as we had on the ship, but of course with far, far less space. We had two double seats, facing, with a folding table, to ourselves. Most of our luggage was taken away to be put in the luggage van. We just had the suitcases we’d had in the cabin.
“Won’t I be glad when we can have proper baths and I can get all our clothes washed!” Mummy said.
Mummy was the cleanest person in the world and it was hard for her to put the same clothes on day after day. She’d washed our undies and socks out every night on the ship, but on the train she couldn’t.
And the train wasn’t very clean, I must say. It was a steam train, which meant a lot of smoke blowing back from the engine. Even though the windows didn’t open, everything soon felt gritty.
The locomotive let out a long hiss and sounded its whistle. As soon as it began to move, Cameron and I jumped up and started to explore.
We could run up and down the aisle between the seats, although Mummy said we should walk, and not disturb other passengers. There were a lot of children besides us on the train with their families, but I don’t think any of them were evacuees – they looked too clean and tidy. I somehow knew we wouldn’t make friends with any of them. We were set apart.
We went as far towards the engine as we could go, and then the other way, towards the last coach. We passed through a dining car where the stewards were laying the tables for lunch, which cheered us up. Beyond that, past the kitchen coach with its white-coated chefs and lovely smells and another three carriages, we found it – our happy heaven! It was called the Observation Car.
First there was a carriage with a bar in it. People were sitting around with drinks and snacks and newspapers. We sort of sneaked past them, because we could see that at the far end – the very back of the train – there was an open place. When we got out there, we stood on the rocking, swaying, racketty boards, and stared around us in amazement. It was just like the back of a small ship! A half-moon space with a curved rail around it and a roof over it, but open sides. We could hear the clacketty-clack of the wheels racing over the rails, smell the smoke from the engine far away at the front of the train, and breathe the Canadian air. How different from English air, somehow!
“You could easily just fall off the back of the train,” I said, leaning over, staring at the rails streaming out behind us.
“Only if you were extremely stupid,” said Cameron, backing up his point with, “‘Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won’t drown.’” This was from Swallows and Amazons, which, before he found England, Their England, had been one of his favourite books.
There was nobody out there but us. We sat on the fixed seats and watched the outer suburbs of Montreal flash past, and then the countryside – wide, lots of lakes and trees, empty of people – everything utterly new and exciting. But also scary – it looked so wild. I could feel my heart beating in time to the wheels: Clicketty-clack! Clicketty-clack! You’re going so far you may never go back!
“Aren’t you liking any of it?” I asked Cameron at last.
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Cameron said, scowling out at the wild scenery. “I wonder if there’s hunting here.”
After a while, Mummy came to find us.
“Isn’t it big,” she said.
I could tell she liked the wide open spaces. Nothing claustrophobic about this.
She sat with us for a while and smoked a cigarette. Her smoke streamed away with the rest of the smoke. Mummy smoked an awful lot – she always had, but she’d cut down since we left home, to save money.
At last Cameron said, “Isn’t it nearly time for lunch?”
We worked our way back to the dining car and sat down at a table nicely laid with clean linen and cutlery and glasses. After the ship, the rocking of the train merely jingled the glasses against the knives and forks.
We were just looking at the menu, which was full of strange but interesting things, when the waiter came along and asked Mummy for our tickets.
She brought them out of her handbag and gave them to him. He looked at them for a long time and I felt a sudden prickle of unease. Something was wrong.
“I am very sorry, ma’am,” he said. “These tickets only entitle you to ride the train to Saskatoon. They don’t give you any meals.”
Mummy looked at him in disbelief.
“No meals?” she said. “But my husband bought us first-class tickets from Canadian Pacific Railways in London!”
“These are standard-class tickets, ma’am. They don’t include meals.”
“So what are we to do?” Mummy asked with a shrill note in her voice.
“There’s a snack bar in the observation car,” he said, looking very uncomfortable. “You can get sandwiches, peanuts, candy bars, that sort of thing. And soft drinks. And tea,” he added, as if that made up for everything.
“For three days?” Mummy cried.
People were looking at us now, and I became aware of how we must look – travel-worn and shabby. I was suddenly so hungry I felt tears come into my eyes. I looked at Cameron. He was just laying the menu down in a very final kind of way, as if he were saying, Well, this is just what I was expecting. Complete disaster.
“Of course,” said the waiter, “if you care to pay a supplement on your tickets, to make them first class—”
Mummy stood up, and urged us to our feet.
“I can’t,” she said, as quietly as she could. “We left England with ten pounds each, of which I have less than half left. Let’s just hope Canadian Pacific Railways does very cheap sandwiches.”
She herded us into the aisle and back towards our seats, under the eyes of everybody in the dining car.
“Mummy,