Emil briefly consulted a notebook, stowed his travel bag on a rack in a small bedroom and directed me to put my bag in the one next door. He said I should remove my raincoat and my jacket and hang them on the hangers provided.
That done, he closed both doors and we descended again to the ground.
'It's easier to walk along outside while we are in the station,' he explained. He was ever precise. We walked along beside the wheels until the end of the train was in sight and finally walked past the dining car and at the end of it swung upwards through its rear door into the scene of operations.
The special dining car lived up to its name with a blue and red carpet, big blue padded leather chairs, polished wood gleaming in the lights and glass panels engraved with birds. There were windows all down both sides with blue patterned curtains at intervals and green plants lodged above, behind pelmets. Ten feet wide, the car was long enough to accommodate six oblong tables down each side of a wide aisle with four chairs at each- forty-eight seats, as promised. All quiet, all empty. All waiting.
'Come,' Emil said, leading the way forward through the splendour, 'I show you the kitchen.'
The long, silvery, all-metal kitchen was already occupied by two figures dressed in white trousers and jackets topped by high white paper hats: the diminutive lady chef from Montreal and a tall willowy young man who introduced himself as Angus, the special chef employed by the outside firm of top class caterers who were providing for this journey the sort of food not usually served on trains
It seemed to my amused eyes that the two chefs were in chilly unfriendliness, marking out their territories, each, in the normal course of events, being accustomed to being the boss.
Emil, who must have picked up the same signals, spoke with a true leader's decisiveness 'In this kitchen this week ' he said to me, 'Angus is to command. Simone will assist.' Angus looked relieved, Simone resentful. 'This is because,' Emil said, as if it clinched matters, which it did, 'Angus and his company have designed le menu and provided the food.'
The matter, everyone could see, was closed. Emil explained to me that on this trip the linen, cutlery and glasses had been provided by the caterers, and without more ado he showed me first, where to find everything and second, how to set a table.
He watched me do the second table in imitation of his manner. 'You learn fast,' he said approvingly. 'If you practise, they will not tell you are not a waiter.'
I practised on about half of the remaining tables while the two other dining-room stewards, the real regular service attendants, Oliver and Cathy, set the rest. They put things right with a smile when I got them wrong and I fell into their ways and rhythm of working as well as I could. Emil surveyed the finished dining room with a critical eye and said that after a week I would probably be able to fold a napkin tidily. They all smiled: it seemed that my napkins were already OK, and I felt quite ridiculously pleased, and also reassured.Outside the windows, the red hat of a porter trundling luggage went by, with, in its wake, the Lorrimores.
'They're boarding,' Emil said. 'When the train departs, our passengers will all come here for the champagne.' He bustled about with champagne flutes and ice and showed me how to fold a napkin round the neck of a bottle and how to pour without drips. He seemed to have forgotten about only letting me loose on water.
There were voices outside as the train came alive. I put my head out of the rear door of the dining car and, looking forward, saw all the passengers climbing upwards into the sleeping cars, with porters following after with their bags. Several people were embarking also into the car behind the dining car, into the car which comprised three bedrooms, a bar, a large lounge area and an upstairs glass-domed observation deck, the whole lot known, I'd discovered, as the dome car.
Forward by the gate through which the passengers were crowding, Nell was doing her stuff with bandages on the convincing bloodiness of Ricky. The little scene concluded, she walked aft, looking inward through the windows, searching for someone, who in fact turned out to be me.
'I wanted to tell you,' she said, 'the Conductor- he's like the captain of a ship-knows that you're our security guard, sort of, and he's agreed to help you with anything you want, and to let you go everywhere in the train without question, including the engines, as long as the two engineers-they're the train-drivers-permit it, which he says they will once he's talked to them. Say you are Tommy, when you see him.'
I gazed at her with admiration. 'You're marvellous,' I said.
'Yes, aren't I?' She smiled. 'Bill Baudelaire did ask about you. I said you were here and you'd boarded early. He seemed satisfied. Now I've got to sort out all the people who persist in putting themselves into the wrong bedrooms…' She had gone before she'd finished the sentence, climbing into the sleeping car forward of the kitchen and vanishing from view.
Filmer's bedroom was in that car.
It had been easy to get myself moved away from sleeping next door to him: it had happened naturally with my demotion to crew. However much I might want to keep tabs on him, bumping into him several times a day in the corridor hardly seemed the best route to anonymously.
People started coming into the dining room and sitting at the tables regardless of the fact that we were still in the station.
'Where do we sit?' a pleasant faced woman asked Emil, and he said, 'Anywhere, madam.' The man with her demanded a double Scotch on the rocks and Emil told him that alcohol was available only after departure. Emil was courteous and helpful. I listened, and I learned.
Mercer Lorrimore came through into the dining car followed by his wife, who looked displeased.
'Where do we sit?' Lorrimore said to me, and I answered 'Anywhere, sir,' in best Emil fashion, which drew a fast appreciative grin from Emil himself.
Mercer and Bambi chose a centrally located table and were soon joined by their less than happy offspring, Sheridan audibly saying, 'I don't see why we have to sit in here when we have our own private car.'
Both mother and daughter looked as if they agreed with him but Mercer, smiling round clenched molars, said with surprising bitterness, 'You will do what I ask or accept the consequences.' And Sheridan looked furious but also afraid.
They had spoken as if I weren't there, which in a way I wasn't, as other passengers were moving round me, all asking the same questions. 'Anywhere, madam. Anywhere, sir,' I said, and 'I'm afraid we can't serve alcohol before departure.'
Departure came from one instant to the next, without any whistles blowing, horns sounding or general ballyhoo. One moment we were stationary, the next sliding forward smoothly, the transition from rest to motion of a quarter of a mile of metal achieved as if on silk.
We emerged from the shadow of the station into the bright light of noon, and Daffodil Quentin under her sunburst of curls made an entrance from the dome car end, looking about her as if accustomed to people leaping up to help.
'Where do we sit?' she asked, not quite looking at me, and I said, 'Anywhere, madam. Wherever you like.'
She found two seats free not far from the Lorrimores and, putting herself on one chair and her handbag on the other, said with bonhomie to the elderly couple already occupying the table, 'I'm Daffodil Quentin. Isn't this fun?' They agreed with her warmly. They knew who she was: she was yesterday's winner. They started talking with animation, like almost everyone else in the car. There was no cool period here of waiting for the ice to break. Any ice left after the previous day's racing had been broken conclusively in the scenes out in the station, and the party had already gelled and was in full swing.
Emil beckoned me towards the kitchen end, and I went up there into the small lobby with a serving counter, a space that made a needed gap between the hot glittering galley and the actual dining area. The lobby led on the left to the kitchen and on the right to the corridor to the rest of the train, along which desultory passengers were appearing, swaying gently now to the movement of gathering speed.