I would be very grateful for any feedback on the first chapter of the book I am writing. Here it is:

Chapter I: London to Edinburgh

The train was full; his anticipation matched it. A carrier bag full of beer cans sat next to him. The four and a bit hour journey could be a long one. The day had brought about various problems; all were dealt with and solved successfully, but had caused the day to be in hindsight, unproductive. However, he had made the train, found necessary provisions, and was ready to begin his journey.

As the train pulled away from the station, Eric glanced at his phone, nothing. He wanted to turn it off and cut himself off from the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He returned his now outdated mobile to his pocket and peered around at the nearby passengers. Eric always enjoyed analysing and predicting people’s purpose of travel or their thoughts and dreams. A guy who looked in his late twenties was dressed in what seemed like clothes that Eric might have worn when he was about fifteen and yet he was of a similar age. The man’s presumed girlfriend was of a much younger age and was commenting on the state of the architecture that the 21st century had adhered to.

“It just doesn’t seem to represent the modern ethos.” she stated.

“You’re right; the current architects seem to be focussing on functionality rather than panache.” The man retorted as if he had just read it in The Guardian that lay neatly folded on the table in front of them. Eric turned away and smiled to himself, so many men turn into lapdogs when in a relationship, just to make their partner ‘happy’. He thought of his father, a man who had always tried to fight his corner and hold on to the last smidgen of his identity, but he always did things that gave him the image of a man with the maturity of a seventeen year old, getting drunk and falling over, for example. This would then give his mother the upper hand, and therefore the opportunity to tap away at the last hint of his personality. Eric giggled.

His smile suddenly disappeared and he realised that his amusement in these situations was a result of jealousy. He wanted someone to dote on, someone to love. He thought he had found her ten years ago in a bar in South East London, he had forgotten the name of the place, which had now been converted into flats. He always hated the fact that he had forgotten the name. She was the first girl he had met who made him want to do anything to make her happy. But he wasn’t willing to change his personality completely. He now wondered whether he should have done; she had left him two years ago and the divorce papers were in his suitcase ready for him to sign.

The train came to a halt, and the voice announced the arrival in York. The couple across from him gathered up their stuff and hurriedly left the train, leaving behind the almost untouched newspaper. Eric recognised the jacket that the guy was wearing and realised that he had the exact same one about twenty years ago, in the mid-eighties. Again he smirked. He was always a believer in how culture, politics, fashion and art was cyclic and nothing was particularly new.

A number of other passengers boarded the train, although none of them sat near him, which he often seemed to notice. Maybe he looked sinister, or over friendly, or… He immediately stopped this train of thought and noticed a beautiful young lady gliding up the aisle. He tried to avert his eyes and was almost praying (although he hadn’t prayed since he was a child, when wishing for a pretty young girl to move in next door, it hadn‘t worked and his already little faith had been depleted since that day) for her to sit opposite him. Should he have smiled at her? Should he have pretended to not see her? It didn’t matter, she had already passed him. However, she had sat within talking distance in the chair two seats behind him. Should have smiled he thought. He wondered to himself over the significance of her choice of seat, her age, her reason for travelling, whether she was also going to Edinburgh, as he was. He wanted to talk to her although he thought she was probably about ten years younger than him. But still, you never know, he thought hopefully.

The girl had immediately grabbed a novel from her leopard skinned hand luggage and preceded to read it. Eric became suddenly aware of the cans of lager next to him and the half drunken one on his table. That’s why no one is sitting near me he pondered. He wanted to see the book she was reading and plotted a plan to glance behind him. The Guardian, he thought. I’ll reach over and then I’ll be able to glance back, he scammed. His plan had worked and he saw the book, she hadn’t even noticed him. For some reason he was happy about this, although being unnoticed wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy was the book she was holding close to her face. This, he felt, made her about five years older, or on a literature based course at university. Either way, Eric had loved that book and now wanted to talk to her even more. Maybe she was Sue Brideshead and he was Jude Fawley he quietly imagined, maybe she was married to an old scholar, hence the novel. He was married, well just. But she was definitely not his cousin; he probably wasn’t ready for that kind of tainted love affair anyway. However, he continued to build a picture of her life in his head, and had, within five minutes, planned their life as a happy couple.

Eric glanced at his watch, somehow he had been sat on the train for just over two hours. Nearly half way, he observed. He decided to find his book and have a read, it might make the girl think he was an intellectual he thought. Eric was on his second read of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, he had loved it the first time, but had recently forgotten why, he loved the character and wanted to reread it. He felt that there was an element of himself in the character of Myshkin, although perhaps not the epilepsy bit. He often thought that he was misunderstood, the only one who understood Eric completely, he thought this through his early twenties and then one day realised that he was definitely correct, but he also realised that this was the case for everyone, his brothers and sister, his friends, his mum and dad, his wife (soon to be ex-wife). No one can truly understand another person’s mind, in fact, he didn’t even understand his own completely, especially during the last year or so.

The tannoy announced the soon arrival at Newcastle. The girl started to collect her stuff. Eric knew this would be his last chance to talk to her, but he didn’t know what to say, what is a good starting statement or question in these circumstances? After a minute or so of racking his brains for a suitable line, he gave up, it was no good, he was going to Edinburgh, she was getting off at Newcastle. Anyway he didn’t believe in love at first sight, well not anymore. The train slowly came to a halt and the beautiful, youngish, probable literature student, Eric’s wife to be about an hour ago, got off the train. A new darkness hit Eric, he was scared to think about the thing that frightened him the most… He avoided it by returning to his book.

As Eric’s eyes glided over the words of his cheap translation of The Idiot, none of the words linked together to form any sense in his head. He was starting to get nervously excited as the sun was setting, causing a beautiful multi-coloured sunset that washed over the still sea. For a moment the butterflies in Eric’s stomach stopped fluttering and the scenery of the North East coast immediately led him into a state of reminiscence. He had originally lived by the sea, although not on the North Sea, and the feelings of his childhood came rushing back. The summers spent playing in the sea, the smell of fish and chips and the taste of mint choc chip ice-cream were prevalent in his memories. The time when he swam about a mile out to sea without a thought of how hard the return to the shore would be against the tide. His dad always worrying about the children playing in the sea, this worry had seemed irrational to Eric, but he had recently had a new found respect for the sea and could now understand his dad’s anxieties. He was slowly turning into his dad. He had another sip of his beer to stop the lump in his throat materialising into tears. He rarely missed his parents but when he did he missed them a lot.

The reds and purples of the sunset were slowly dying out and the first sense of night time became visible. It was a true British summer’s night and again Eric felt excited about his trip. Fourteen days travelling around Scotland. He had always wanted to travel to New Zealand, but he could never muster up the money to pay for the flights. He had read somewhere and had been told that Scotland was of a similar ilk, how it was such a shame that more British people didn’t appreciate the land they lived in and how they preferred to visit places abroad. Hence the trip to the Highlands. Edinburgh was obviously the first stop, but initially for only one night, however he had planned to return at the end of the trip for a while longer. Again within the excitement began to creep some apprehensions, he had never travelled alone before. He was a shy boy when in his teens and had developed a more confident personality as he grew older but often it was a masquerade to fool people into thinking he was a confident and amiable person. Therefore, he was worried that he might not be able to befriend anyone on his travels, although that wasn’t necessarily the purpose of the trip. He had not also spent this much time in his own company and was afraid of what that might lead to. He had however brought with him a brand new notebook and pen, as he planned to keep a journal for the trip. That, he thought, might just be able to keep him sane.

Some of his friends had asked whether he was on a trip to ’find himself’ or ’to get away from it all’ or ’be one with nature’, he hated that sort of bollocks and would just use a ‘think what you fucking like’ smile to answer them. But maybe there were some truths in these buzz statements. He didn’t want to be one of those young professionals that only go on holiday to impress others with the stories of their break, or the overstated praises of the scenery or culture or art or whatever, or to take three-hundred photos to put on Facebook so everyone could see where he had been. But maybe part of him did just ‘want to get away from it all’, it had after all been a pretty difficult year. He knew though, that he didn’t want to focus on that fickle crap and just wanted to experience the country and see what it had to offer. Eric reached down to grab another beer, there was only one left, have I really drank three beers, he thought to himself. He opened the now luke warm beer and took a sip that reflected the social situation and placed his head against the relatively comfy headrest of his seat, his eyes were heavy but he didn’t want to miss any of the scenery.

As the train rolled into Edinburgh Waverley station, Eric bolted up in his seat, his sweater had a small wet patch just under his chin and his mouth was bone dry. He glanced around worrying that he had been snoring, but no one was looking at him and the carriage was three-quarters empty. He looked out of the now darkened window to see where he was, he could just make out the silhouette of the unmistakable castle that stood overlooking the city that it once protected. He rubbed his eyes and started to collect up his things ready to alight the train.

Edinburgh was a city he had visited before, but not enough to be sure of his exact bearings. He found a corner of the platform to search his bag for his guide book. Eric was a fan of the new found craze of the travel guide, it was now seen as cool and wise to have an eclectic range of guides on your bookshelf. Eric was very much part of this craze and had guides of various countries on his very well dressed bookshelf, including some of countries that he had not yet visited. He found his Rough Guide to Scotland and proceeded to find the map of the city centre. His hostel was not a long walk away, so he packed himself up and began his stroll towards his bed for the night.

The air was cool but Eric’s t-shirt was adequate to keep him at the right temperature as he was carrying two rucksacks, the larger of the two on his back and the smaller one on his chest. The streets were quite busy and although all the universities had broken up for the summer, there was a wide range of ‘young people’ dressed in attire that reminded Eric of Talking Heads, an eighties band of which he enjoyed the music and which helped to prove his theory of the cyclic process of fashion. It definitely felt as if the fringe festival was ready to begin, the venue posters were being erected all around and there were numerous people handing out flyers for all kinds of shows. Eric was looking forward to returning to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks time so he could enjoy the festival at its fullest.

Having walked down the busy Royal Mile he found the building that was to be his home for the night, a rickety old building that had bags of character but was left to decay for a bit too long. The receptionist was beautiful and Eric had to again forcefully avert his eyes as to not stare. He glanced at the weather forecast that hung from a notice board, and wondered to himself whether this holiday was just going to be a chance for him to stare at beautiful women but not have the courage, or will, to take part in a conversation with them. He really hoped that this wasn’t going to be the case and made a pledge to himself that he was to not concentrate on the opposite sex this holiday and enjoy the break and focus on himself. Eric was good at making sensible and mature pacts with himself, like that time when he was determined to lose some weight after his now ex-wife had said that he was overweight. It never happened, as most of his ‘plans’ didn’t. This was probably going to be one of those.

After the couple in front of him had finished checking in and walked up the stairs hand in hand, he smiled at the girl and gave her his name. His voiced cracked a little but he cleared his throat and repeated the name. She found him in the book and then proceeded to retort the list of rules and information about the hostel with absolutely no change in tone or meaning as she had done to the couple before him. Her voice was sweet and soft but had the sense that after twenty minutes or so you would need a sofa and a comfy cushion so you could nestle down and take a quick nap. Eventually, he received his key and was directed to go to the first floor. The room had a stench of cigarette smoke that had lingered since before the days of the ban, over two years ago now, but that stuff makes itself part of the furniture. He chose his bed and was happy that the room was empty, although there were bags on some beds. He quickly analysed the bags and figured there were two girls and another guy staying in the six bed mixed dorm. His mind wandered. He decided to quickly change his t-shirt and head straight back out to the centre, find a nice pub and have a read of his book.

He attempted to search for a recommended pub in his guide book before he left but had now forgotten the name of it and had left his book upstairs. He asked the girl for any recommendations, a brave move for Eric. She suggested a small, quaint pub about five minutes away, which sounded perfect for tonight’s needs. He sauntered up the hill and found the place, Ensign Ewart, he entered and ordered himself a pint of lager without really glancing at anybody or the surroundings. He found a seat away from everyone else, the speakers were playing a song from the nineties, that had no place in a building of such history and stories. The walls were inundated with paraphernalia that told a story of Edinburgh and Scottish heritage. The sepia photographs showed images of the pub from various eras in the past. Eric always loved history and especially primary resources such as photographs, he wanted to get up and walk about so he could look at every object individually, but felt that maybe he should analyse the clientele before he proceeded with this act. He knew that this made no sense but wasn’t in the mood for any confrontations with any angry Scot who didn’t like the look of him, especially as he was English and from London. He opened up his book and got himself comfortable in the leather armchair that he had chosen. He took a sip of his pint and proceeded with the reading of his book.

Eric was trying to focus on the words on the page, but he couldn’t help tuning in to the conversation that was taking place at the bar between three elderly men.

“Did ya see that bloody traffic last night?” The first man began, sipping on his pint of dark ale and scratching his grey straw like hair. “Them bloody trams is good for nothin’, we never bleeding had the bleeding tram when I was a wee lad.”

“Well… it might be good for the city, get rid of them pollutin’ cars, ya know” The second man replied, having finished his pint and turning to a dram of the local whisky.

“Naaa… don’t need the bloody thing, all that bloody money and for what? It’s no good for the local businesses I say, how are the lorries and vans and such gonna get through the city like?” The third and slightly younger man added. The presumable landlord lent against the bar listening intently with a slight smirk on his face, displaying that this conversation or ones like it had been previously heard by himself, probably in the exact same circumstances.

“What do ya think eh, Bob? The first man asked turning to the landlord. The landlord stood up and turned to the bottle of whisky next to him, a 12 year old Ardbeg, poored each of them a drop and answered, “As long as it brings in more punters, I couldn’t give a shit; the beer will get here one way or another. Now drink up boys its nearly lockin’ up time.” They all smiled at him, almost expecting those exact words to come from his well used lips and whetted their lips with the smoky whisky.

Eric smiled to himself and finished off his pint, he wanted another but decided to see if he could find another place before all the bars shut, he took his glass to the bar and said thanks, the landlord nodded and smiled and Eric left. He was going to enjoy his time in Scotland he thought.

The streets were now filled with a variety of people, men dressed up as women, obviously on stag dos. Another man was dressed up as what looked like a Mrs. Asterix, along with blonde plaits and a Jean-Paul Gautier style bra. The thing that amused Eric the most was the look on this man’s face, he looked as if this was what he wore every weekend, a stout, expressionless face, happily sipping his pint of lager. Eric never quite understood the dressing up stag do craze and briefly thought back to his stag do, and how no one would ever have made him wear such an outfit. His stag do was a much more sophisticated affair (except for the not getting into the club, because he was too drunk bit) and he had all of his friends there with him. Eric’s thoughts of this started to make him feel lonely, suddenly the city streets became much larger and his being on his own became immediately more apparent.

He continued walking down the cobbled street passing many open and welcoming public houses and yet he now felt reluctant to enter one. He decided to return to his abode and read his book for a while before getting a well deserved sleep. As he returned to the hostel he could see and hear from outside the building that it was quite lively inside. He sighed internally. He could do without people having fun, he wanted everyone to understand his pain and sadness. Eric was always aware of his irrational thoughts but they continued to happen regardless; he knew that this was part of his psyche and would continue to be. He entered the hostel, put his head down, and walked upstairs to his bed. He wished that he was more confident in joining in such situations but was never able to muster up the courage to do so, but he was also aware that these sort of soirees wouldn’t interest him anyway.

He went to his room and found that none of the other people in his dorm had returned, he was therefore able to get ready for bed with the light on and read his book without disturbing anyone. The reading didn’t last long and he soon gave up and welcomed the inevitable heavy sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day and he was ready for it. Before his heavy eyes closed fully he felt that ever present seed of excitement in his stomach, he was looking forward to a couple of weeks of unknown exploration.