Let the poor chicken wait awhile.Here I am on the Brighton line, on my way to collect my brother’s body, or view it, or say hello to it, or goodbye, or whatever you do to a body you once loved. Pay your respects. It is a mellow autumn day. I look out the window and am surprised that the Downs exist. There has always been something childish about England for me.Haywards HeathWivelsfieldBurgess HillHassocksNames so silly and twee they must be made up. The constant surprise of this land, that it is actually green and actually pleasant. That it is actually there. It moves past me, but at different speeds. In the middle distance a swathe of countryside moves serenely on, while the far hills run backwards slightly, in a narrow strip. I try to find the line along which the landscape holds still and changes its mind, thinking that travel is a contrary kind of thing, because moving towards a dead man is not moving at all.Then my sister Bea rings.‘Hello?’‘Are you on roaming?’‘I don’t know.’‘Well, if you’re in England you’re on roaming.’‘All right, I’m on roaming.’‘Well, I won’t run up your bill,’ she says.
