Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
11. Gothenburg
On the ferry across the ￖresund between Denmark and Sweden, I drank a cup of coffee and began to
feel human again. I passed the time staring out at the slate-grey sea and studying my Kmmerly and Frey
'Sudskandinavien' map. Denmark looks like a plate that has been dropped onto a hard floor: it is fractured
into a thousand pieces, forming deep bays and scorpion-tail peninsulas and seas within seas. The villages
and towns sounded inviting - Aerskbing, Skaerbaek, Holstenbro, the intriguingly specific Middlefart -
and from dozens of them dotted red lines led out to cosily forlorn islands like Anholt and Endelave and
above all Bornholm, adrift in the Baltic; closer to Poland than to Denmark. It was my sudden earnest wish to
visit them all. There would never be enough time. There never is in life. There wasn't even time for another
cup of coffee.
A reddish-brown train was waiting at Helsingborg to take us on to Gothenburg, 152 miles to the north
along the west coast. We travelled through a landscape of low hills, red barns, small towns with mustard-
coloured town halls, impenetrable pine forests, scattered lakes dotted with clapboard holiday cottages,
jetties, upturned rowing boats. Occasionally the train would swing near the coast and give a glimpse through
the trees of a cold sea. After a while rain began to streak the window.
I shared a compartment with a tanned young man, blond as only a Swede can be, in wire-rimmed
glasses and a pony tail, who was returning to Gothenburg from Marrakech, where he had been visiting a
girlfriend, as he put it. Actually she was a former girlfriend and he hadn't exactly visited her because upon
arriving he discovered she was living with a Moroccan rug merchant - she had somehow neglected to
mention this in her postcards - who had pulled out a scimitar and threatened to send the Swede home with
his goolies in a sandwich bag if he didn't clear off instantly. Considering that he had just made a pointless
journey of a couple of thousand miles, the young man seemed remarkably equable and spent almost the
entire journey sitting cross-legged spooning purple yoghurt into his mouth from an enormous jar and reading
a novel by Thomas Mann.
At ￄngelholm we were joined by two more people, a grim-looking older woman all in black who looked
as if she hadn't smiled since 1937 and who spent the entire journey watching me as if she had seen my
face on a wanted poster, and by a fastidious older man who I guessed to be a recently retired schoolmaster
and to whom I took an instant dislike.
The young Swede was sitting in the schoolmaster's reserved seat. Not only did the schoolmaster make
him move, but instructed him to transfer all his personal effects from the luggage rack above the seat to the
rack on the other side, which takes a particular kind of pettiness, don't you think? The schoolmaster then
spent an endless period fussily sorting out his things - extracting a folded newspaper and a small bag of
plums from his case, arranging the case on the rack, examining the seat minutely for anything unpleasant
and giving it a brush with the back of his hand, folding his jacket and his jumper with ritualistic care,
adjusting the window in consultation with the lady but without reference to me or the young Swede, getting
his case down again for some forgotten item, checking his hankie, readjusting the window. Every time he
bent over, his ass bobbed in my face. How I longed for a Smith & Wesson. And every time I looked round
there would be that old crone watching me like the Daughter of Death.
And so the morning passed.
I fell into one of those drooly, head-lolling dozes that seem to be more and more a feature of the
advancing years. When I woke, I discovered that my companions were also snoozing. The schoolmaster
was snoring raspingly, his mouth hugely agape. I noticed that my swaying foot had rubbed against him,
leaving a dusty mark on his navy trousers. I further discovered, with cautious movements of my foot, that it
was possible to extend the mark from just above his knee almost to his ankle, leaving an interesting streak
on the trouser leg. In this means I amused myself for some minutes until I turned my head a fraction and
discovered that the old lady was watching me. Immediately, I pretended to be asleep, knowing that if she
uttered a sound I would have to smother her with my jacket. But she said nothing.
And so the afternoon passed.
I hadn't eaten since my snackette supper of the night before and I was so hungry that I would have
