I WAS childishly disappointed to be leaving Edinburgh.
Met with K for a farewell drink in my favourite haunt, The Dome on George Street. It's one hell of a place with an excellent Cocktail bar off to one side and a main room that has been immaculately maintained (renovated?) to be the ideal setting for a Poirot mystery, topped by the largest and most ornate glass dome I've ever set eyes on. It's a great bar, and I can see myself using it daily next year when the pressure's on.
The train south was heaving with as many rucksacks as people. Everyone seemed to be on some sort of expedition to the Andes whereas in fact it was obviously just loads of tourists leaving the helter skelter action of Edinburgh and moving on to explore the Lake District. This theory was proved correct when the carriage thinned out somewhat after Oxenholme and we could all stretch our legs. I could be Poirot myself, see how I made short work of that little mystery?
I went on about trains in my diary entry last Wednesday, but I didn't mention another reason I like them so much. They are the best place in the world to chat someone up.
Now, don't go thinking I'm some sort of letch or public nuisance. I am, but don't go thinking that. The opportunity to chat people up on the train is rare, but it will occasionally happen.
What you need is an icebreaker, because I'm certainly not the sort of person to just bully my way into a conversation. And, don't forget, for a conversation to start up at all you need, by complete chance, to be sat opposite someone you'd happily chat up in the first place.
The girl opposite me on the last leg of the journey was drinking a can of pre-mixed Gin and Tonic. When the man came along the carriage with his trolley, I got a small bottle of red wine. She opened the conversation brilliantly by saying, "Aren't trains a good place to have a drink?" This is a subject I'm very passionate about and replied "Of course. The best place to have a drink. A train is essentially a long, thin, fast, silver pub."
Now this was all going fine until I committed seppuku, and fell on my own sword. I do this occasionally. What happens is, I'll be having a perfectly decent conversation, then tell the most outrageous lie, and see if I can get away with it. It's stupid, I know.
So today's lie came when she asked what I did for a living. I told her I was a novelist. She was reading a book so I thought that would be a suitable character to play. Better than saying I write a web Blog read by six people. But then, the lie grew, as lies do, and I found myself talking about publishers and this author, and that author, until the whole thing was out of control.
She got out a notebook and wrote down the name of the book (The Best Idea Of The Year, the one I'm working on at the moment, my first novel) and promised she was going to have someone at her work go out and get it the following day for her. She's a lawyer.
THEN she gives me her e-mail address, suggesting I get in touch because she'd love me to answer some questions about the book when she's read it, and THEN she asks for my autograph, which - so far into the lie now to back out - I confidently give. I even personalised the autograph by writing; 'Caroline. Read it, don't weep. Stanley.'
Oh my life.....
THEN, when the train pulls into Liverpool we go for a drink in Doctor Duncan's. I simply didn't have the heart to say, 'Oh, about that book stuff, that's ninety five percent rubbish by the way', because I thought she might feel, firstly, stupid that she'd been fooled and, secondly, scared she was sat with an obvious lunatic.
She'll find that out for herself when she's told that neither book or author exist. An internet search of my name will also reveal she was talking to a comedian.
Sorry Caroline - if it's any consolation, I do loathe myself.
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