We said our goodbyes outside the railway station, vowing to meet up next year - we hugged each other, remembering the marvels we'd seen, the stories we'd shared, the ancient magic we'd encountered -
Despite the talk of Saint Cuthbert's Way, ruined abbeys, seals and Lindisfarne, I still felt a sense of loss trickle into my heart like icy water - in my notebook, on the 10.28 from Carlisle to Newcastle, I wrote I feel something precious has been left behind - they were faraway now, Penny, Julia and Alyson -
The two carriage train was full of dour walkers, tough elderly women with large knees and stony stares - I eavesdropped their conversations, surely scripted by Alan Bennett - we rattled through a landscape now familiar to me, past Haltwhistle, Haydon Bridge and Hexham - I looked out for kestrels, my face almost touching the window, gazing at dry stone walls, a bright river, a shattered castle -
Too soon the train was crossing the Tyne - I could see the noble bridges - the northern city enfolded me - I recalled with a sigh the silences of the Literary and Philosophical Society Library -
The London train whirled me southwards - honey skinned Chinese girls ate noodles - I walked across Trafalgar Square to St Martin in the Fields - above yellowed bones in the crypt I drank a London cappuccino - bravos capered in Leicester Square - I made my way to Bloomsbury, to see Jay - I slept that night in Monkland, the gracious house in Clapton -
I learned later that Alyson and Penny had donned replica Legionnaire's armour in Carlisle Museum -
16 July 2014
Carlisle, Newcastle, London
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