Read Online Trains and Lovers: A Novel by Alexander McCall Smith - Free Book Online

readied. He had been standing behind a woman speaking loudly on her cell phone about business arrangements and had been obliged to listen to the details. He had turned his back on her, hoping to blot out the conversation, but had found that this only had the opposite effect. She was a distributor of olives, and was discussing a client’s requirements. It was very complicated because the olives came in cartons of twenty jars and there were customers who wanted to order in units other than twenty.
    “Tell them they can have forty, sixty, eighty and so on. Multiples of twenty. Tell them that they should round the order up—if they want fifteen, order twenty. Sure, they’ll have to hold on to another five jars, but they can sell those. Five jars? You’ll always shift five jars. No, tell them we don’t split the cartons because then it’d be us with the spare five jars, and we don’t have anywhere to put them.Tell them it’s not our warehouse—we don’t have guys down there to open the cartons and sort out the numbers. We just don’t. Those guys work for Edwards not for us. Tell them that.”
    He tried to detach himself—he tried not to listen. But he found himself picturing the warehouse with its stacked crates of olives, and he could see her point. Of course they couldn’t open the crates because you couldn’t stack individual jars in a warehouse like that. They’d break, and there would be glass all over the floor, and Edwards’ men might slip and cut themselves and there would be litigation and … Tell them that, he thought. Tell them about the problems down at Edwards’ end. Tell them that some things come in units of twenty—they just do—and we should be grateful that they don’t come in units of one hundred. Tell them not to be so demanding …
    The issue of the olives was resolved and his neighbour began to busy herself with a copy of The Washington Post , reading an article with a frown of disapproval; perhaps she was still cross about the unreasonableness of her customers—or at least of some of them. He looked about him, glancing at his fellow travellers, allowing himself to imagine why they were making this particular journey. Going home? Visiting children in New York? A few daysin the city: a show on Broadway, an opera at the Met, an over-priced dinner? A meeting? A wedding?
    His attention was caught by two new arrivals. Two young men had arrived at the end of the line. One was to board the train, he thought; the other had come to see him off. A suitcase stood at the feet of one of them—a nondescript suitcase with an old baggage label attached to the handle.
    He wondered about them. There was a similarity in appearance—both were in their early twenties, if that, perhaps slightly younger—two college boys then. One had shorter hair than the other; one had seen more of the sun than his friend. Their dress was similar, but the one who was travelling had made some effort to look smart.
    A loudspeaker crackled into life and people picked up their impedimenta. The woman in front of him folded her newspaper and reached, with a sigh, for the bulging briefcase at her feet. A mother grabbed her son and started to pack away the toy with which the child had been playing; the boy protested loudly, began to cry.
    He watched the two young men. They were both tall, but one was slightly taller than the other. They were shaking hands—the taller one was staying—it was the other who was travelling, the one who had been tanned by thesun. The handshake continued, and then one moved forward and embraced the other, hands about shoulders.
    He did not move. A guard was preparing to remove the barrier to the platform. He felt somebody’s back-pack against his leg. “Sorry. I think that’s our train.” He paid no attention. The young men still held one another, and then one took a step back and raised a hand in farewell. He watched. There was something strangely moving in this. A line came to him from a