Under the Channel. Gilles Pétel

John now realised that the barman mopping the floor was not the one he had been hoping to see. The Brazilian must have finished his shift. A Pole, judging by the accent, had replaced him. A good-looking blond, yes, but now was really not the time. On his way out of the pub, John passed two paramedics carrying a stretcher. They had come quickly.

      John hurried across the main road. The stench of that man clung to his skin. He took a deep breath. The rain was coming down by the bucketload. What if the giant was dead? He might have wet himself on his way out, the muscles relaxing at the point of death. John felt a knot of anxiety forming inside his stomach. Was he too about to piss? He felt a sudden, urgent need to empty his bladder.

      ‘Well that’s just great,’ he thought. ‘I’ve had it.’

      The two pints of Guinness he had knocked back an hour earlier were now making their presence felt.

      ‘Shit!’ he muttered, racing into the station in search of toilets. The flow of commuters was starting to dry up. John strode along the concourse looking left, right and straight ahead, to no avail. In his rush to locate the lavatories, he almost floored a Frenchman who had just got off the incoming train. Struggling with a map, he hadn’t seen the Scotsman flying towards him at the speed of a fighter pilot. The Frenchman apologised, as though his mere presence on foreign soil was a reason to feel guilty. But John was already a dozen yards further on, still turning his head one way and the other.

      ‘I’ve had it,’ he told himself once more. He felt like he might keel over any second. ‘Right. OK. I’ll go through security and passport control and then I’m heading straight to the urinals.’

      The woman with the permanent smile recognised him immediately. It was seven o’clock. John had actually turned up in good time for this train. Her smile broadened. John was among the first passengers to arrive. The woman was on her own with little to do. She would have liked to strike up a conversation but John didn’t let her get a word in. He was already feeding his ticket into the mouth of the machine, which spat it out again as the barrier lifted. There was still security to get through. John threw his bag onto the conveyor belt without waiting to be asked. He set down his umbrella and took off his watch, shoes and belt, deaf to the words of the security officer who was telling him he really didn’t need to bother with his shoes. John carried on regardless, now rooting through his pockets in search of stray coins, keys, any metal object likely to set off the detector and delay his progress. He would be forced to explain himself, to unzip his bag and open it wide, when all he could think about was one thing: ‘If I don’t piss, I’ve had it.’ At passport control, he offered up his best Scottish smile along with his documents. Go ahead! A moment later, leaning against the wall of the urinals, he thought he had achieved nirvana. His face was the very picture of happiness. ‘I’m alive!’ The missed train, the rain, the giant, had all been forgotten.

      *

      The train doors closed automatically with a dull thud. The noise came as a relief, like a burst of oxygen coming to the aid of a deep-sea diver or a climber at the top of Everest struggling for air. John didn’t know what to think about, but at least he could feel his muscles relaxing. ‘Everything’s good. Cool. I’m off.’ The train was on time. Having taken his place in first class, John stretched out his legs and shamelessly sprawled in the comfort of his seat as the train started moving. Why go? He knew the answer now. Getting away gave you the feeling of starting over. Even if just for a couple of days, it was a clean slate each time. ‘Goodbye Kate, goodbye Ali the Incredible, goodbye everyone, I’m off, I’m leaving, who knows when I’ll be back again.’ Just getting away for the weekend gave you the space to dream and to forget everyday life for a little while. The ball of anxiety lodged in John’s stomach gradually ebbed away with each mile the train travelled. Soon there would be nothing left of it but an empty shell. John was on his way to Paris.

      Row upon row of two-up-two-downs ran in front of John’s absent gaze. Now and then, a warehouse or factory building broke up the monotony of the suburban landscape. Then suddenly they were in the countryside. Like disjointed images in a dream, the working-class homes had given way abruptly to a sleepy expanse of green as night fell over Kent. Fields floated in the twilight, languid with rain. The land was falling asleep, rocked by the slow and steady movement of the water. Lovely. Not far off the beauty of a Turner. John rubbed his eyes. He was almost asleep himself. When he next looked out of the window, it was dark. 8.30 p.m. The train would soon be entering the Channel Tunnel. The darkness over the farmland would be succeeded by that of the long tunnel. There wasn’t much to tell between them. For a second, John caught sight of two little white lights flickering in the gloom. A moment later they were gone. Under the Channel there would be nothing to light the sky. Down at the bottom it was as dark as the grave, mused John, seized by the melancholy that sometimes hits once you have set off and there’s no going back. The image of the drunken giant falling at his feet came back to him. A loud burst of laughter from an English couple sitting a few rows ahead shook him from his thoughts. They were quaffing a bottle of champagne. Judging by the tone of their voices, the man was in his fifties, she perhaps a little younger. They seemed intent on spending the entire journey drinking. And really, it occurred to John, what else was there to do to pass the time? A quarter of an hour later he was back in his seat armed with enough provisions to see him to the end of the longest tunnel: a bottle of champagne, a bag of peanuts, a ham sandwich and two beers, just in case the train broke down.

      Lo and behold, the train had begun to slow its pace. Outside, floodlights rained down on a futuristic expanse of steel and concrete. Barbed wire fences ran alongside the rails. The train was approaching the entrance of the tunnel. The blinding lights went out in the flick of a switch.

      ‘We’re in,’ thought John, tearing his gaze from the window. The gaping mouth of the tunnel had just swallowed up the train. John downed his glass of champagne in one and poured himself another. He had already read the evening paper he had bought at the station from cover to cover, twice. The news was as bad as ever, apart from on the page dedicated to the exploits of the royal family. John let the paper slide onto the floor. This weekend in Paris was an excellent idea. He was really enjoying this champagne. A week had gone by since his last taste of the stuff, during the interval of the concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The adagio of Mahler’s tenth symphony came into his head. The slow, sad movement of the music had got under John’s skin on first hearing, and he had to admit that the sense of unease, almost sadness, it had stirred in him had stayed with him for the whole week, over the course of which he had listened to the passage several more times on his iPod. John had no particular interest in classical music. He preferred to listen to pop, sometimes jazz on nights out at piano bars. But on those occasions it was usually more about the person he was with than the music itself.

      Chance had brought him to the Royal Albert Hall that night. A friend, or rather a business contact, had been unable to go and had offered him his ticket. Chance sometimes arranged things rather well, John thought as he searched his bag for his iPod. Happening to meet someone you liked, happening upon a new piece of music: you never knew what might come of it. John had found out online that the symphony had been left unfinished. This struck him as rather poetic. The musician had been felled at the height of his career, mid-composition. Deep down, he thought, most of us would like to go the same way: in the prime of life. Old age blighted your existence with disease, impotence and dependency. People could be dead well before they actually kicked the bucket. On that note, what about that fuckwit who had come out of nowhere, fallen into him, collapsed in a heap, thrown up everywhere and wet himself? Instinctively, John sniffed the sleeve of his polo shirt. ‘No. Don’t think so. Can’t smell anything. Imagine arriving in Paris smelling like crap. You’d be sent back at customs.’ The idea made him smile. It had been a tough end to the day. The train had gathered pace once more, speeding along inside the cocoon of the tunnel. Everything was going well. John put his iPod down on the tray table in front of him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to the adagio again after all.

      The carriage he was sitting in was only three-quarters full. The seat in front of him was occupied by a quiet young woman keeping herself to herself. She had not looked up from her laptop all journey. Out of curiosity or boredom, John leant over to try to see what she was so engrossed in. Might she be a secretary who had been forced to take work home with her?