'Calm down, sir, calm down, madam,' Zak said as to children. 'Merry amp; Co have a special horsemaster looking after them. They will all be safe from now on.'

He concluded the scene by saying that we would soon be stopping at Newmarket, but that British owners shouldn't get off the train as they would find no races there. (Laughter.) Lunch was now on its way, he added, and he hoped everyone would return for drinks at five-thirty when there would be Interesting Developments as per their printed programmes. The passengers clapped very loudly, to encourage him. Zak waved, retreated and set off down the corridor, flat-footed almost at once after his bounce in the dining car, and already with drooping shoulders consulting his notebook about what he needed to do next. How often, I wondered, had he had to deal with the likes of Sheridan? From his demeanour, often enough.

Emil told me to collect the champagne glasses, pour the water and put a pot of breadsticks on each table. He himself was opening wine. Oliver and Cathy began bringing plates of smoked salmon and bowls of vichyssoise soup on trays from the kitchen and offering a choice.

The seating problem more or less sorted itself out. Mavis and Walter, pretending 'their horse's welfare meant more to them than eating', set off up the train to eat in the racegoers' dining car, and so did Angelica, 'too upset to sit down'. A few others like Raoul, Pierre and Donna, left discreetly, until Nell, counting heads, could match all paying passengers with a place. Giles-the-murderer, I was interested to see, was still in the dining room, still being overpoweringly nice: it was apparently essential to the drama that he should be liked.

We stopped at Newmarket briefly. No British owners got off. (A pity.) The soup gave place to a fricassee of chicken with lemon and parsley.

I was promoted from Aquarius to Ganymede, forsaking water for wine. Emil quite rightly didn't trust me to clear dirty plates, which involved fancy juggling with knives and forks. I was allowed with the others to change ashtrays, to deliver maple hazelnut praline mousse and to take tea and coffee to the cups, already laid. Filmer ignored my presence throughout and I was extremely careful not to draw his attention by spilling things.

By the end I had a great admiration for Emil, Oliver and Cathy, who had neatly served and cleared three full courses with the floor swaying beneath their feet and who normally would have taken my few jobs also in their stride.

When nearly all the passengers (including Filmer) had left, heading for their own rooms or the observation car, we cleared the tables, spread fresh cloths and began thinking of food for ourselves. At least, I did. The others made for the kitchen with me following, but once there Oliver took off his waistcoat, donned an apron and long yellow gloves, and began washing dishes. A deep endless sinkful of three courses for forty-eight people.

I watched him in horror. 'Do you always do this?' I asked.

'Who else?'

Cathy took a cloth to do some drying.

'No machines?' I protested.

'We're the machines,' she said.

Catch me, I thought ruefully, washing dishes. I picked up one of the cloths and helped her.

'You don't have to,' she said. 'But thanks.'

Angus the chef was cleaning up his realm at the far end of the long hot kitchen and Simone was unpacking fat beef sandwiches which we all ate standing up while working. There was an odd sort of camaraderie about it all, as if we were the front-line troops in battle. They were entitled to eat after the last sitting in the central dining car, Emil said, rinsing glasses, but usually they went only for dinner, if then; I could see why, as after the sandwiches on that first day we ate the all-too-few left-over portions of the Lucullan lunch we had served. 'There's never anything thrown away,' Cathy said, 'when we do trips like this.'

The dishes finally finished and stowed in their racks, it appeared that we were free for a blessed couple of hours: reassembly on the dot of five-thirty.

I don't know what the other's did but I made straight towards the front of the packed train, threading an unsteady way through seemingly endless sleeping cars (passing my own berth), through the still busy central dining car, the full and raucous open-seat dayniter, three more sleeping cars, the crowded dome car (dining room, kitchen, lounge, observation deck), another sleeping car, and finally reaching the horses. In all, a little less than a quarter of a mile's walk, though it felt like a marathon.

I was stopped at the horse-car entrance by a locked door and, in response to my repeated knocking, by a determined female who told me I wasn't welcome.

'You can't come in,' she said bluntly, physically barring my way. 'The train crew aren't allowed in here.'

'I'm working for Merry amp; Co,' I said.

She looked me up and down. 'You're an attendant,' she said flatly. 'You're not coming in.'

She was quivering with authority, the resolute governess guarding the pass. Maybe forty, I judged, with regular features, no make-up and a slim wiry figure in shirt, sweater and jeans. I knew an immovable object when I saw it, and I retreated through the first sleeping car, where grooms in T-shirts lolled in open day compartments (shut off by heavy felt curtains for sleeping), on my way to consult with the Chinese chef in the forward dome car's kitchen.

'The Conductor?' he said in answer to my question. 'He is here.' He pointed along the corridor towards the dining section. 'You're lucky.'

The Conductor, in his grey suit with gold bars of long service on his left sleeve, was sitting at the first table past the kitchen, finishing his lunch. There were other diners at other tables, but he was alone, using his lunch break to fill in papers laid out on the cloth. I slid into one of the seats opposite him and he raised his eyes enquiringly.

'I'm from Merry amp; Co,' I said. 'I believe you know about me.'

'Tommy?' he said, after thought.

'Yes.'

He put a hand across the table, which I shook.

'George Burley,' he said. 'Call me George.'

He was middle-aged, bulky, close cropped as to hair and moustache and with, I discovered, a nice line in irony.

I explained about the impasse at the door of the horse car.

His eyes twinkled, 'You've met the dragon-lady, eh? Ms Leslie Brown. They sent her to keep the grooms in order. Now she tries to rule the train, eh?'

He had the widespread Canadian habit of turning the most ordinary statement into a question. It's a nice day, eh?

'I hope,' I said politely, 'that your authority outranks hers.'

'You bet your life,' he said. 'Let me finish these papers and my lunch and we'll go along there, eh?'

I sat for a while watching the scenery slide by, wild uninhabited stretches of green and autumn-blazing trees, grey rocks and blue lakes punctuated by tiny hamlets and lonely houses, all vivid in the afternoon sunshine, a panoramic impression of the vastness of Canada and the smallness of her population.

'Right,' George said, shuffling his papers together. 'I'll just finish my coffee, eh?'

'Is there,' I asked, 'a telephone on the train?'

He chuckled. 'You bet your life. But it's a radio phone, eh? It only works near cities where they have receiver/ transmitters. At small stations, we have to get off and use the regular phones on the ground, like the passengers do at longer stops.'

'But can anyone use the train telephone?' I asked.

He nodded. 'It's a pay phone by credit card, eh? Much more expensive. Most people stretch their legs and go into the stations. It's in my office.' He anticipated my question. 'My office is in the first sleeping car aft of the central dining car.'

'My roomette is there,' I said, working it out.

'There you are, then. Look for my name on the door.'