The Train from Paris to Le Mans (via Chartres)
We boarded the train to Le Mans in Paris. It seemed a little unusual, older than the usual TGVs we were used to, with soft bunks to sit on and curtains at the window. The train announcements were very strange, fast and muffled. There was carriage buy coffee or food, but luckily I’d brought a picnic. We were talking about composition and didn’t notice the messages.
Our itinerary said that we would arrive at Le Mans at 6 pm. After a few hours, at 6 pm, the train began to approach a station. I was already standing at the door of the coach. I have to prepare early to get my cello off the train. As it screeched and stopped, Gavin came down the aisle. “No, this is not Le Mans.” But a man near us nodded and smiled and put his thumb up to reassure us. So, Gavin and I continued to leave the train. James came running to the door. “This isn’t Le Mans!” “Yes, it is” we answered, and so we all left the train. As it pulled away, leaving us on a quiet platform, we saw the station sign – Chartres.
We had been on a slow train to Le Mans which had left at precisely the same time, but from the opposite end of the station in Paris as the train we should have taken. We hadn’t seen the signs to the correct train because we had been walking in the opposite direction. The fast train arrived in Le Mans at 6 pm. At 6 pm, the slow train had only reached Chartres. The two trains left simultaneously, and they arrived at the same time, just different destinations. We needed to wait another hour for the next slow train to Le Mans.
We accepted it and decided to be amused, rather than put out by this alignment of coincidences. After an unintended but pleasant hour drinking wine in Chartres, we reboarded the slow train and laughed all the way to Le Mans. We had made time cease for a while, escaped from our relentless schedule and were refreshed into noticing things again.