July 2025

A brand new edition of Alexander’s much-loved novel Trains and Lovers is being published in the UK this month. Enjoy an extract from the beginning of the book below.

Trains and Lovers

There were four people sitting together on this train – three men and one woman. One of the men, wearing a corduroy jacket, was somewhere in his late forties, as was the woman seated opposite him. His name was David, and the woman was called Kay. She might have been a bit older – in her fifties, perhaps. David was well-groomed; there was an expensive look to him, as there sometimes is to people who lead sheltered lives, who have always had everything provided for them. The other two were young men, both somewhere in their twenties; one, Andrew, with dark hair and eyes of a rather unusual colour; the other, Hugh, tousle-haired, was well-built – he looked as if he might be good at the playing of a boisterous contact sport.

The journey on which these people met, the journey from Scotland to England, is not a particularly long one – four or five hours, depending on how many stations are stopped at. But four hours is long enough for conversations to develop and for people to reveal to others something of themselves. A friendship may be conceived in four hours; a short book finished and put away; a life remembered.

The train links Edinburgh with London. It leaves Edinburgh behind it and begins its journey over the rich farmland of East Lothian. Then there is a coast, that brings the sight of cliffs and sea-birds; and the North Sea which was still and smooth that day under the clear morning light. Andrew, seated at the window, looked out and saw a boat ploughing across the field of blue, and he said to the woman seated opposite him, the first thing that any of them said that day: “I think that’s a fishing boat.”

She looked at him, and saw a young man in his midtwenties, not much more than that, rather slender, but not slight. She noticed his eyes, which were that striking shade of green that some people are blessed with and that in some lights could appear almost grey. She thought that she had once met somebody who looked like him, but she could not remember where or when it was. It was unlikely that it was this particular young man, as she was in Scotland, so far away from home, which was in Perth in Western Australia. And Andrew, from the way he spoke, was Scottish.

“Yes,” she said. “A fishing boat.” And then she added, “I suppose there are still some fish left. Enough for a few boats here and there.”

He nodded and then he looked at her. He was never sure with people who sounded like that. They might be Australian, but they might equally well be New Zealanders, and he had been told that New Zealanders were sensitive about being taken for Australians. He was not sure if it worked the other way round; he could not think of why the big should be put out by being taken for the small. It was easy, of course, to understand how the small might feel that way.

“You’re … ” he began.

“My name is Kay.”

“Andrew.”

“I’m from Perth. Not the Perth here in Scotland, but the one in Australia. Our Perth.”

He smiled. “The one that’s nearer Singapore than it is to Sydney?”

She said, “Yes. We can get to Singapore very quickly. Bali too.”

This incipient conversation, still at the level of the sort of small talk that travellers engage in – and rarely get beyond – was listened to by the two others in the group of four seats. David noticed, as had Kay, the colour of the young man’s eyes. He looked at them again. He said, “I’ve been in Singapore.”

Andrew turned to look at him. He sounded American, but then he remembered what he had thought about Australians and New Zealanders. Canadians did not like to be taken for Americans; disparity in size, of course – it was the same sensitivity.

So he said, “You must be Canadian.”

David shook his head. “American. But close enough, I suppose – at least in my part of the world, New York State. We’re almost in Canada up in Buffalo.”

And this was the signal for the other young man, sitting next to Andrew, to say, “I’ve always thought that Buffalo is a wonderful name for a place.”

“Have you?” said David. “For us, it’s just our place. You get used to names, don’t you?” This young man, Hugh, who was English, smiled. “I’m sure you do,” he said. He paused, and then began, “You’ve been …”

“At a conference,” said David. “A conference in Edinburgh. And now I have to go home. A night in London, and then the flight home.”

Now Kay turned to Andrew, “Are you going to London?” The train stopped at Newcastle and York, and sometimes stations in between. People went to these places too.

“Yes.”

She hesitated. “May I ask why?”

Andrew did not mind the question. “I’m going to start a job.”

She waited for him to say more, but he did not. Yet he did not seem to be discouraging her, and so she asked, “What is it?”

“I’ll tell you,” he said.

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Trains and Lovers is available from Polygon (paperback, £9.99).