Free Stalin Ate My Homework by Alexei Sayle Page A

voice. He seemed shocked when, rather than the expressions of
delight or interest that he was used to from out-of-towners, there were
scowls, a look of pure hatred and mutterings of ‘Parasites’ and ‘Thieves’
directed towards the home of the royal family from the trio in the back of his
taxi. Soon we were back in busy, traffic-choked streets and edging our way
under the fretwork canopy of Victoria Station.
    The
terminus had two distinct sides, possessing wildly different characteristics.
One part dealt with the dull, suburban halts of the home counties — Maidstone,
Brockley, Whitstable and Sevenoaks. It was neat and subdued, thronged with
bowler-hatted city clerks and demure female typists. The other half had
platforms dedicated solely to trains that connected with the Channel ferries
and thus with the continent of Europe. On these platforms, segregated from the
rest, the English Channel seemed an almost tangible presence, as if there was a
tang of the sea in the air and seagulls weaving amongst the iron rafters of the
high station roof. There were money changing booths and a feeling of decadence.
Men wearing raincoats of an alien cut lurked in the entrance of the news
cinema, as did women with bright red lips, brittle blonde hair and tight skirts
who seemed far too friendly.
    In the
raffish half of Victoria Station, towards evening I would always see waiting on
Platform 2 the blue and gold carriages of the Night Ferry Service run by the
Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Looking impossibly luxurious, this
sumptuous train travelled overnight to Paris Gare du Nord, the carriages being
loaded and unloaded on to a special ferry while the passengers slept in their
own private compartments on crisp cotton sheets. No other train was allowed to
use Platform 2, so during the day it remained empty, but on others there slid
in and out the brown and cream Pullman coaches of the Golden Arrow, a luxury
first-class service complete with its own special bar car called Le Trianon that
ran to Dover Marine, where it connected with a first-class-only ferry.
    Our
free passes did not allow us to take any of these fabulous trains. We had to
haul our suitcases past them, skulking like displaced persons to platforms so
distant and insignificant that they had letters attached to their numbers.
There we would cram ourselves on to the ordinary boat trains that rattled
through the South London suburbs and into the green fields of Kent, passing hop
poles and oast houses before pulling first into Dover Town, then backing out
again to rattle and sway into Dover Marine right alongside the ferry that was
going to take us to France.
    Although
it was happening on the edge of England, this going into a station one way and
then reversing out seemed to be the beginning of continental Europe. In plain
old Britain you always entered a station and then left it in the same
direction. But abroad, in mysterious and mystifying Europe, your direction of
travel and who you travelled with were a much more complicated and
ever-changing affair. On a foreign train you would often enter a station one
way, then exit it from the direction in which you had come, travelling
backwards as if you were being sent back home having failed some test or, more
worryingly, as if you were now, without leaving your seat, somehow on the wrong
train. Even when you were going in a straight line there would be long,
mysterious waits accompanied by enigmatic clankings, violent shuntings and
inexplicable bangings.
    Sometimes
you would walk down the train to find that the carriages that had been there
were now gone. Looking for food, you might discover that the buffet coach had
vanished, to be replaced by two wagons crammed full of soldiers in battledress
carrying rifles who said nasty, confusing things to you in strange languages
and then laughed in an unfriendly manner. Or, wandering towards the front of
the train, you might encounter a car in which all the blinds to the