The Wedding

I had a wedding yesterday, in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere, near Wolverhampton. Last week I booked my train tickets. It would take three and a half hours to get there and two and a half to get back on a direct train. The wedding was on a Sunday and I figured that since I had work the next day, I’d need to get there and come back in the same day, but of course, we have a bank-holiday the next day (what does the ‘bank’ part mean?!) which meant I could have stayed over and enjoyed the party in the evening.

I knew the bride from University, Grace, a girl my age who I’ve seen once in five years so I was a little surprised to be invited. She asked me to play piano before the meal. It was one of those weddings where I knew very few people there so there was a lot of awkward standing about, and walking with intent to other areas of the courtyard as if I knew everybody there, when in reality I was seeking out the 3 people I knew in the whole congregation.

As weddings usually go, it started awkwardly and quickly warmed-up with the aid of that great social lubricant, alcohol. We asked each other the same questions and as I’d describe my job, the phrase “bloody nightmare” and “can’t wait to quit” would soon follow.

So I got picked up from Wolverhampton after a long train ride and a horribly early morning for a day off and after a 5 mile drive from Grace’s brother who picked me up form the station, found myself at the church. That’s not too far I thought, I’ll be able to get a cab back to the station easily enough. But after the ceremony, we all got in cars and drove a further 15 miles to the reception venue. How on earth would I get back to Wolverhampton station?! It would cost a bomb.

I can never forget about “Four Weddings and a Funeral” when attending the meal at weddings. But I was placed at a table full of couples, apart from one brightly dressed attractive girl who seemed way too sensible to want to talk to me. You have to make quite an effort not to get drunk at weddings, what with the free champagne and wine. I played piano, finished, sat down again, and looked at my watch: 6:30pm. My train would leave at 8.30pm. That meant I had about an hour here before I’d need to leave and we hadn’t even started main course yet.

I put off having to organise anything, hoping for a magical solution, which never materialised. So I thought, oh forget it, I’ll just stay, knock myself out with booze and make sure I collapse somewhere inside, ideally with a carpet, or better still, with that sensible pink-dress girl. But suddenly, I met a friend at 7.45pm who said he was getting a cab to go back to a station which would be on the way to Wolverhampton so I got in the cab with him and after the 5 minute drive to his station, asked the cab driver if he could get to Wolverhampton station by 8.30pm. It was 8pm now, so he sped most of the way.

Twenty-eight minutes and a horrendous cab fair later, I got out at Wolverhampton station at 8.28pm. I rushed straight to the first platform where I saw a big Virgin train waiting. Ahh! Just like in the movies! Made it at the last second. It was as if everyone on the train was happy to see me and glad I had just made it in time! I thought I’d confirm with the train guard “this is to London yes?” and he said “London? No, that’s across the bridge on platform 4, you’d better hurry.” And so followed a panicked dash across the biggest railway bridge I’ve ever seen with an unnecessary amount of stairs, and the obligatory slap on the train door, from the outside, seconds after it closed on me. I’d missed it. I turned to the station attendant who said “stay here. There’s another at 9.30pm. We’ll try to get you on that one.”

So I sat for an hour. I’d forgotten to pack my book so I felt the hour going by slowly as I played snake on my ancient phone, lost interested, realised there was nothing else to do in Wolverhampton on a Sunday night, played snake again, got bored etc. 9.30pm came, as did the train. The station attendant told me to speak to the train guard and explain that I’d missed the train before. I immediately know this train guard was an utter bastard. For a start he was from London.

“No sir, you needed to be on the train before.”
“Yes but the wedding overran, I missed the train by seconds. Can I not just get on this one? It doesn’t look busy at all,”
“No sir, you read the terms and conditions of the train ticket yes?”
“Er… what?”
“Yes? And you would have read that you can’t ride on any other train than the one you missed.”
“But this is the last train to London.”
“Do you have £80 sir? The ticket will cost you £80.”
“Oh come on. I’ve already paid… I…”
“It’s £80. Goodbye sir.”

And the train went. That was it. 9.30pm in Wolverhampton, 140 miles from home. On a Sunday night. Having missed the last train to London. I was stunned that such bastards existed. Well, no, I’d met them before. They’d knocked me off my bicycle and they worked at my school.

So I exited the station trying to engage my brain. Maybe I could get a coach? I walked through Wolverhampton and found a coach station.

“Are there any coaches to London left tonight?” I asked. It was now 10pm.
“Er… yes, a 2am to London.”
That was it. I really didn’t want to be on a coach all through the night.
“But if you get a local bus to Birmingham, you’ll be able to get an earlier coach since they leave every hour there, on the hour.”

Great. So I took this local bus into Birmingham, which took an hour and a half with the last half hour spend standing by the driver so he could tell me where to get off.

So at 11.30pm I found myself in the middle of Birmingham. After asking three people, I found the coach station and went into the dingy lonely waiting room. Ah! There it is! The 12am coach to London… oh… no, from London. I was looking at the arrivals board. So where was the departures list? So, it turns out there is no 12am coach to London, and no 1am coach, and not even a 2am coach. The first coach to London was at 3am. How is it that every thing is wrong?!

After a few minutes of throwing my fists around as if having some kind of psychotic boxing match with an invisible person, I started wandering around drizzly Birmingham, now desperately tired, looking for a place to just wait and lie down.

I had just over 3 hours to kill. God I hate killing time, so much. But I had no choice. So there I was, still in wedding attire, looking for a dark spot to settle down for three hours. I found a set of empty market stalls, under a roof. I didn’t want to lie on the filthy ground so I needed something to lie on. I figured a bin-bag would do it. So I took one of the stuffed bin backs from the back of a pub and went to a large bin to empty it. I was lucky as the bag contained old pub curtains. So I took one of these and wandered back to the stalls. I put down a curtain and lied down, like some high-class tramp in my suit. But people kept walking by, and some guy pissed on the ground just a few yards away from me. So I needed a new spot. I wandered around for about an hour looking for a suitably dark spot, so tired by now. I settled for a shabby lorry park behind some lorries so I couldn’t be pissed on by any drunken clubbers walking home. Of course I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know if it was the fear of being found by some nutter, or having one of the lorries suddenly reverse over my face, or the stink of the smoke on the curtains. But eventually 2.30am came so I got up, freezing and stiff, and walked to the lonely coach station.

The ticket machines weren’t working properly. Of course. Why should they?! That would have been way too much to ask. Only on the six attempt did the machine randomly accept my debit card and spit out a paper ticket for the 3am trip home. As I was in the remarkably busy line to the coach, I was told my the driver that he couldn’t accept my ticket because the booking reference number was wrong.

“I don’t know what that means” I said, “I bought a ticket for the 3am coach.”
“No no” said some dickhead manager who came over when he heard my voice rising, I was starting to loose it “you see, the ticket machine has issued you with the wrong journey. So we can only let you on this coach if it’s not full.”

A 3am coach to London on a Sunday night is packed. How do you explain that?

I was losing it now.
“Look, what the hell?! I’ve just paid for this ticket, it has today’s date, the right route and the right time, now if you know the journey I’ve had so far…”
“Look sir, the computer has issued you with a ticket for tomorrow’s journey. The sysem’s not working properly”
“WELL THAT’S NOT MY FAULT IS IT?! THAT’S YOUR FAULT!””No sir. It’s the computer. The computer’s all wrong so…”
“SO THAT’S YOUR FAULT!”
“Well no sir, not my fault.”
“OF COURSE IT IS, YOUR COMPANY’S FAULT.”
“Well you could write a letter of complaint to …”
“OH FOR GOD’S SAKE. WE BOTH KNOW THAT FUCK-ALL WILL HAPPEN IF I WRITE A FUCKING LETTER OF COMPLAINT. NOW WILL YOU LET ME ON THIS FUCKING COACH.”
And by chance, just by chance, some polish guy wasn’t allowed on the coach so there was a spare seat for me. I got in at London Victoria station at 6.30am and into my house at 7.30am, some 8 hours later than I had planned.