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| | A
Journey by Rail
By Andrew Janes | |
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| | The third best
thing about commuting by train is getting home and telling your significant other
what a rotten journey you've had. In England everyone loves complaining, as long
as it's just harmless moaning at friends or foes - and that only makes me feel
it all the more, that you're not here in London with me. But after dinner, when
I call you, you'll hear about my journey back from work - I won't say my journey
home. We've really learnt to love the telephone.
As I walked up the
stairs to the platform the recorded voice was announcing delays. She insisted
politely that she was sorry for any inconvenience this might cause me but she
didn't sound as if she meant it. (Why should she? It was hardly her fault.) I
found a seat, took my book out of my bag, and waited. It wasn't hot or cold or
wet and there was hardly any wind. The platform wasn't crowded, which I supposed
was a good sign though I wasn't sure of what. I fidgeted. There was nothing else
to do.
You must remember how upmarket it is, the area where I work -
all the Georgian houses, schools for diplomats' children and avenues with trees.
The station looks almost rural: it has an island platform with an old-fashioned
platform indicator, one that shows the destination but not how long you have to
wait. It's the only station I've ever seen look really tidy: the plants aren't
scraggy and even the footbridge isn't too ugly; if it wasn't for the trains and
the signage you'd never know it was part of the tube.
I was partly reading
and partly looking at the other would-be passengers. Opposite me, sitting on a
neat wooden bench, was a girl of six or seven wearing a neat school dress with
small blue checks and reading a neat little book. I screwed up my eyes for a better
look and saw that the book was a collection of fairytales in French. The aristocrat
on the cover was a bit crude and cartoonish - and with a turquoise beard! - but
not bad enough to spoil the child's placid look. Such children are rare other
than in fiction; I decided she must be Swiss.
My eyes turned back to
my own book, but my thoughts turned to Bluebeard, the man that killed his wives
- that is until his last wife's brothers arrived just in time to prevent him.
It surprises me now that it was my favourite tale when I was young, but children
always did handle storybook violence better than grownups. (It didn't seem to
be worrying the Swiss girl, but perhaps she was reading Sleeping Beauty.) Besides,
the heroine's sister is called Anne, and I liked to imagine it was me standing
at the top of the tower watching for my brothers. It never bothered me that I
had no brothers to watch for and no sister to shout down to: she was Anne, I was
Anne, and that was enough.
Anne, sister Anne, do you see any trains
coming?I see nothing but the sun making a dust and the grass looking green.
That was unfair: I hadn't been waiting ten minutes and, since half of them
go along the other branch, the interval between trains can be that long anyway.
And just then a train did appear, though it was on the other side of
the platform, going west. The probably-Swiss girl and her probably-yummy mummy
- or maybe it her yummy nanny - got up ready to board, and a young couple with
big bags ran down the footbridge steps, meeting the platform just as the train
did. "Perfect Timing", said the man as the woman stepped into the train, and as
he placed his bag into her hands he added: "See you tomorrow, Fatima". And then
the warning wailed, the doors slid together, and Fatima rode away.
If
it hadn't been for the coincidence of the names I wouldn't have taken any further
notice of the man, but if she was Fatima - Anne's sister and Bluebeard's last
wife - then he was definitely a Bluebeard, if an untraditionally young and cheerful
one. Twenty-two at the most, tallish and just a little too slim, he had the kind
of pale face that will always grow a lot of black stubble: he must have shaved
it in the past few hours, since his cheeks looked fresh and closely speckled inky
blue. I can't tell you what he was wearing (I'm a typical woman in many ways but
not a stereotypical one) but taking the voice and the clothes and the face all
together, he was not quite handsome or quite posh enough to be annoying.
You know how much I like noticing those kinds of details - and how much I'm
given to wild speculation. I was trying to decide whether or not our Bluebeard
and Fatima were just friends or more-than-just-friends. There had been no parting
kiss, but perhaps there hadn't been time for one. I don't think they'd even touched
- or had their fingers met when she took back her bag? - but then some people
don't like showing affection in public. (Would being a mixed-race couple have
anything to do with that? It's never been a problem for you and me, neither thing
has.)
That's how far thoughts had spun when an eastbound train, my train,
clattered into the station. I stepped inside and found a seat, one of the rear-facing
sort, and saw young Bluebeard taking a seat at the far end of the carriage. I'd
just decided that they weren't a couple-couple and it was a pity because they'd
have made someone a good set of parents when the train jolted and we were in motion.
Seeing a station platform slip into the distance usually helps me to realise when
I've gone too far.
I'll be coming to see you soon.
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| | The second best
thing about commuting is that it's a bit of time to yourself, time to read, think
or just stare out of the window. I like to do all three.
A few stations
down the line there's a section that runs up high and you can look down onto a
park and people's gardens. We pulled up unexpectedly, just for a minute, and there
were two young men below playing badminton in a place where the grass and trees
were very green. A strong breeze had started - leaves were rustling and branches
swayed - so it couldn't have been easy for them to keep a rally going, but they
did. True, the shuttlecock did touch the grass once, but the player flicked it
back up just in time and they continued to play, although technically this was
cheating. We trundled on, leaving them behind, laughing as the shuttlecock flew
backwards and forwards between them.
I opened my novel again, the one
you recommended, but it was a while before I started to read.
At the
end of the story, the widowed Fatima inherited Bluebeard's money and her sister
Anne could afford to get married. Lacking any siblings to rescue me, I go to work
and pay for our precious visits. Next year, when you're fully trained, we can
live together. It doesn't matter in which country: I love you more than London.
That's a privilege, because I do love London, even with its crowds and noise and
mess and expense, and perhaps even because of them. I even love its transport
system (sometimes). Tube trains roll and clank and bump and hiss; as they ride
over the expansion gaps in the rails, pairs of soft clicks decorate their melody.
When we rode around your city on my first visit, the humming and jangling of the
trams sounded strange in my ears, the music of an unknown culture, but I grew
to love it: it became the sound of you.
My book was at an important
bit: at a Stevenage very different from today's, Margaret Wilcox had met her sister
at Howards End and found her pregnant. I read with concentration, shutting out
most of what was around me and tearing the words from the page as fast as I could.
It was much further on, when the train was nearly full and had dived into
the tunnels, before an exchange of views at the other end of the carriage disturbed
me. "I can listen to my music on my phone if I want", growled a woman's voice.
The usual few rustlings and faint conversations faded to nothing as she drew attention
to herself. "It's public transport, that's for the public, yeah? I can do what
I like on it."
The grey-suited man opposite me glanced up briefly from
his unlikely Big Issue, scanned my face as if seeking confirmation of his disapproval,
and turned back to the magazine. There were a few other pairs of rolled eyes and
raised eyebrows but most people pretended they hadn't noticed anything, mainly
with fair success. Somebody opened a bag of crisps and spilt a couple on the floor.
The train clunked and chuntered. The woman clacked and snarled: she
was still in full flow and the object of her wrath was our friend the clean-shaven
Bluebeard. "What's it got to do with you anyway," she snapped, "interfering in
other people's business?" She paused, perhaps for breath and he was unwise enough
to attempt a response. His voice was too soft and mild to carry - either that
or I was too far away to hear properly - but I gathered that another passenger
had asked could she use headphones or lower the volume, please. She, the music
woman, had made some rude reply, and he, Bluebeard, had gently repeated the request,
causing her to make a scene.
She wasn't finished yet: "You don't like
reggae music, that's your problem. Are you racist or something? Get over it, batty
boy" She didn't mean it in the way that old women like Howards End's Miss Avery
can be batty.
We entered a station: several people got out; not many
got on; we left. In the novel, Mrs Wilcox was angry: her husband could not connect,
would not see a contradiction. The noisy woman ran out of steam. Her mobile music
(which, in fairness, I hadn't actually heard until that point - certainly not
whilst its owner was yakking) continued. I thought about you on your own journey
home: the tram whirring and rattling, the sun making a dust, your eyes looking
green.
I closed the book and stood up. The next stop was mine, where
I pick up my second train - a big train, not a tube. Stairs, corridor, escalator,
corridor, stairs: this station wasn't designed for interchange, but I can walk
quickly - trying to keep up with your long legs has done that - and reached the
platform with three minutes to spare.
I'm sure that the music woman was
quite sincere. (Does that make it worse?) Perhaps she just assumed everyone behaved
as badly as herself, but I think that she believed the worst because that's what
usually happens. Let's dump false English modesty: you're lucky to have me, and
I'm very fortunate in you. In a week's time we'll be together. Mustn't grumble.
The very best thing about commuting is that sometimes good things happen
quite unexpectedly: meeting a friend that you rarely see; running for a train
and just catching it; a Private Eye left on the seat. None of those things happened
this time - rarity is what makes them special - so I just sank into an aisle seat
and wondered why I felt grateful. Mustn't grumble, did I say?
We were
moving again. Tower blocks and Victorian terraces slipped past. Here was a gothic
church and there a nineteen-twenties crescent; and there were even some gardens
but no badminton players - I looked especially. I carried on reading. Sometimes
it makes me jealous, thinking how you can read grownup books in English; one day
I'll read a novel written in your language.
The next station was a busy
junction, with fast and slow trains, as well as a tube line and the terminus for
several buses. I was expecting the carriage to be fairly full for ten minutes
or so, but today this was to be an understatement. We glided into platform four
to meet a crowd three passengers deep and a less-than-half-hearted apology that
the previous service had been cancelled - at least I think that's what the announcer
was trying to say.
Anne, sister Anne, do you see anyone allowing passengers
off the train first, please? Do you see anyone moving down the carriage to allow
others to board?
Somehow the lucky few alighting passengers struggled
off before the mass surged forward to cram itself through the doors. The London
public can be very determined in its way, so it won't surprise you that most of
it succeeded. I took a swift look around for pregnant women or any others that
might have thought themselves better entitled to a seat than I was, and felt guiltily
relieved to spot none. We lurched away, rather more uncomfortably than before.
Overstuffed trains always seem to go more slowly and we crawled to the
next station, where two more passengers squeezed themselves into my carriage.
Several of the standees started to look fidgety (not that they had any room for
fidgeting in) as their breathing spaces dwindled to nothing. I realised why I'd
felt grateful earlier and I sat tight.
There was some attempt to encourage
a more efficient distribution of bodies. The first "could you move down, please"
(as much polite hope as request) met a slight, grudging response, and a determined
male voice tried again, specifying the lady with the gold hairclip as the obstruction.
This lady, or rather woman, was standing by my seat and few others could have
heard her mumbled reply (muffled under the bleep warning of closing doors) that
people could go past her if they liked. Her reluctance was understandable - the
horizontal handrails in this part of the carriage were difficult for a shorter
person to grab - but nobody could have been thin enough to follow her suggestion.
The train shifted, and something inside me shifted too. We left the
station and I felt my body leave its seat: I had stood up, without knowing why.
A voice that I recognized as my own but rather higher in pitch than usual said:
"Sit down, please" (somehow the please seemed the most meaningful word of the
three), and it was probably out of surprise that she obeyed. Perhaps it was the
surprise as much as the shuddering of the train and the tight space for the manoeuvre
that sent her wobbling into the woman opposite's Polish newspaper before she into
the seat, while thanking the newspaper's owner and apologizing to nobody in particular.
Her gold hairclip, I notice, was quite pretty. A brief, faded smile washed across
the Polish woman's tired face and she hid behind her paper.
I'd moved
into a vacant space and some of the others had shuffled along a bit; it wasn't
all that bad. A boy of seventeen with a heavy gold watch on his thin, brown wrist
and an iPod dangling from his ears made eye-contact with me from five passengers
away; he smiled too. I followed the Polish woman's example and used my book as
something to look at. I might have heard someone say "Well done" but, Londoners
being what they are, nobody else said anything and the awkward atmosphere dissolved
in less than a minute. That's what I love most about my city: the people - most
of the people.
I wasn't blushing: you'll never get me to admit that I
was. I turned over a page to make it look as if I was reading. Bluebeard, I thought,
would have been proud of me. But that's not important: he'll never know. You will
know, and you'll understand - you are the most important thing of all.
From the next station onwards, the carriage population dwindled steadily and after
four stops it was fairly empty, so I thought it was safe to sit down again and
read properly for a few minutes. I was absorbed in the novel when a sharp halt
brought me back to myself. From what I could see through the window we were at
the signal just outside my station. My mobile bleeped and I rummaged in my bag
to find it. Your message was simple and easy to translate: This time next week...
A fast train rattled past and vanished beyond the bend, heading for the east coast.
Smiling to myself, I wrote you a reply: Fancy playing badminton in the wind? An
explanation would wait until later. As the message floated away to you, I looked
out along the curve of the track: I the sun making a dust and the red signal changing
to green. The train stirred and rolled onward to the station.
I stood
up and walked towards the doors. The journey had seemed shorter than usual.
Andrew Janes
A Journey by Rail | | | |
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