Normally I might just continue my work and pretend that my ticket has been checked. I’m reading, of course. Actually I’m overwhelmed with reading for a literary prize I’m supposed to be judging, the International Booker. But today is a big day: the first day with an electronic ticket on a Regionale. So I say, ‘You haven’t seen mine.’
And I show him the code on the piece of paper.
Of course by now I’m familiar with all the inspectors on this line. This is an elderly man – the capotreno, in fact – with deep dusty wrinkles and cobwebbed eyelashes, dry papery skin, a shrewd, calculating look. I once saw him being very tough with a Slav girl who claimed that she hadn’t bought a ticket because the machine accepted only credit cards. On the other hand, he regularly turns a blind eye to the freeloaders in first class.
‘This ticket needs to be in una stampa,’ he says. Printed.
All around me eyebrows are raised. Over the years passengers become connoisseurs of ticket complications, and I may be the first person they have seen who has tried to travel on a Regionale Veloce with an electronic ticket purchased online.
I decide to say nothing.
‘I need to see all the details,’ he says. ‘Your name and an ID card.’
‘I always give the booking number on the Freccia. They seem to think it’s enough.’
‘This is not a Freccia, signore. Does it look like a Freccia? I don’t have a fancy little computer with me to check your booking code. I can’t know if the details are correct.’
‘But I have the details on-screen.’
I open my computer, which is in sleep mode, and wait for it to fire up. Everybody is silent, intent. The inspector, who had seemed so relaxed when he merely enquired whether there were any tickets he hadn’t checked, now seems disturbingly grim and purposeful, as if he’d encountered an unexpected pocket of enemy activity deep inside home territory. Perhaps he is a traditionalist, entirely against the introduction of electronic tickets. He fears that one day these tickets will cancel out his job, as they have already cancelled out the jobs of thousands of ticket sellers. It occurs to me that maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I regularly travel on the frecce. Perhaps the inspector now feels that this well-to-do foreigner has no business cheapskating on his Regionale Veloce, which is a social service for the poorer traveller. He’s a Communist of the old school, maybe.
Needless to say, the computer takes an unconscionable time to fire up. The train rattles along. Since the air conditioning isn’t working, everyone has the windows open, and the blue curtains are flapping and fluttering all down the packed carriage. It looks like a cinémavérité production from the 1950s.
‘I need to see a printout,’ the inspector repeats. ‘On paper.’
Why, then, is he waiting to see what I am going to show him on-screen? Again I choose to say nothing, but realise that I’m getting nervous. My right hand is trembling. This is ridiculous! It’s just a ticket inspection.
The screen glows and there, at once, ready and waiting, is the PDF. The date and time of travel, the stations of departure and arrival. The class. Second.
‘As you see,’ I tell him, ‘there’s my name, which you can compare with that on my ID.’
I pull my ID card from my pocket, my Italian ID, and offer it to him. He refuses to look at it.
‘The ticket is only for this train, so I couldn’t use it again,’ I tell him. ‘How could I be cheating?’
‘I need to see a paper printout,’ he says.
I object that it doesn’t say anything about printouts. Surely if there was some major difference between this and the other online tickets they would have warned the buyer.
‘Of course it says so. Look at rule three.’
He is standing in the aisle bending over the screen, which is on my knee. He is enjoying himself now, absolutely sure of his position, like someone who has a good hand at poker and is just waiting for the pleasure of recording a win and, even better, registering the dismay on his opponent’s face.
‘Where is rule three?’
He sighs, as though wishing he were up against more experienced opposition.
‘Scroll down to the bottom of the page.’
I confess I had never done this before. The PDF as it pops up on my screen ends with a long and unexplained code number, KK8-9EY-U5K-UVJ. I scroll down. Sure enough, written in a much much smaller typeface there is a heading, AVVERTENZE. Cautions, warnings.
The first says: ‘This transportation contract is governed by “Conditions and tariffs for the transport of persons on the FS”, which can be consulted on www.ferroviedellostato.it and on www.trenitalia.it – Conditions of transport.’
The second says: ‘This ticket is named, personal and untransferable. It is to be considered as already validated and can be used for four hours from the time and date indicated on this receipt.’
The third says: ‘At the request of the inspection personnel, this receipt must be exhibited together with a valid ID.’
It’s the first victory to me. ‘I can’t see anything here about printouts,’ I say triumphantly. ‘I’m showing the receipt in PDF and I have my ID where, as you will see, the name corresponds to that on the receipt, Timothy Parks.’
It’s a crass mistake on my part to sound so damn pleased with myself.
‘Look at rule four,’ he says, unperturbed.
I scroll down another click.
Rule four says: ‘The ticket bearer cannot depart before the time shown on this receipt.’
Reading it out, I don’t even bother to remark that he seems to have slipped up. I departed exactly at the time indicated on the receipt, though the rule does raise the interesting question of whether one could legitimately travel on a train that left early.
The students are chewing
