Some very odd behaviour on the train.

"Some Very Odd Behaviour on a Train"

From

"Waiting for Dave"

By Barney DoggetWaiting for Dave is a story about a bunch of people in
a pub waiting for a bloke called Dave, who was apparently a witness to
the big story that happened in town a couple of days before. While
they're waiting they each tell stories. This is one that Lotty
tells.

"Some very odd behaviour on the train."

Lotty continued with her story about her friend Shelly and her train
journey from Selbridge to Milford East....

"Shelly was relieved to discover the 22:17 was its traditional twelve
minutes late tonight as she had been held up trying to leave work and
only just made it as it was. She really wasn't very prepared at all,
and had even forgotten to buy her Evening Standard. She had no book
either, having just finished a Harry Potter without buying the next one
in advance. This was going to be a very long, very dull journey, unless
she slept through it. But she didn't want to risk missing her stop so
there was no chance of that. No. She would just have to sit and hope
that she got lots of text messages on the way. Then she had a thought.
Didn't Kelly, her best mate, have the new Harry Potter? She could text
her the first few pages ...... no that was a really stupid idea. Forget
it.
There remained one option. One she had been trying to put off for a
while. She had always told herself, and lately other people, that she
had a talent for creative writing. Poetry, mainly, but it wouldn't be
long before she was churning out reams of TV scripts, film treatments,
plays, novels, novelettes. She had spoken quite openly about her poems,
even describing the extraordinary and unique creative ritual that led
to inspiration. 'I get a large wooden table. It has to be dark wood,
unvarnished. I place before me a blank piece of paper and a pen. Also
on the table is a candle which I use for lighting purposes as well as
to add atmosphere, a bottle of red wine, a packet of cigarettes, a
lighter and an ashtray, a box of Maltesers, some wine gums and a plum.
I place the table so that I face my window. I turn off the lights,
light the candle and sit, naked, waiting for inspiration. That's how I
wrote my two epic poems and my three-act Play.' All rubbish of course.
She'd never written so much as a non-rhyming couplet.

So. A poem. Subject? Erm. Being stuck on a train with nowt to do. No.
Surely one of the greats of literature had covered that
earth-shattering topic. Rhyming schemes. Stanza. Form and what was it?
Structure. Maybe a short story would be a better idea. About what?
Being stuck on a train with nowt to do. Suddenly a vicar gets on and
robs everyone with a big gun. A young couple running off together.
No.

The train pulled into a station and it was then that Shelly noticed how
hard it was raining. Where are we? Cookham Heath. Nothing ever happens
in Cookham Heath. Nothing that would win the Booker Prize anyway.

A very nice Indian man stepped into the carriage and sat opposite and
to the left of Shelly. She could tell he was a very nice Indian man
because he had on a calmly patterned jumper that looked very cosy and
he carried a Sainsbury's bag, wore thick-rimmed glasses and was swamped
by a gigantic duffle-coat that looked like it had been made for
Goliath's big brother. He smiled and made a gesture that reminded
Shelly of the Pope for some reason. It was a very nice smile and
confirmed for Shelly that this man was indeed a very nice Indian man.
She wondered if it was difficult for him to be nice all the time. Maybe
he wasn't nice all the time. Maybe he had been a complete shite all day
and was only being nice now to atone for a whole dayfull's shite-being
. Maybe he only smiled because he thought she was pretty. No. She took
a look at her reflection in the window and ruled that out. Nothing
unusually attractive about a Safeways uniform, especially the hairnet.
Oh god the hairnet. She still had it on. Silly cow. God she must really
be tired. No, he must just be a very nice Indian man, because anybody
who can give a smile as genuine as his- after waiting on an empty
platform in Cookham bloody Heath at half ten at bollock-freezing
piss-chucking night in mid-December on a Connex train that's now
characteristically running fourteen minutes late- must be a very nice
Indian man indeed.

At that precise moment, as if he had heard Shelly's inner monologue
confirming his niceness, the nice Indian man got up from opposite her
and plonked himself immediately to her left. He turned to her and
beamed in the most stereotypically Ealing comedy Peter Sellers Indian
way, with his hands clapped together and his head wiggling from side to
side ..."

"Oh yeah," said Stu, "Like the waiters do to Curry virgins. Lets 'em
know they've come to the right place type thing. They stop all that
once you've been in a few times and ordered the Thali. I tell you what,
I had a cracking Thali in the Spice Of Life down Barnes way ..."
"Stu," interrupted Lotty.
"Sorry," said Stu, and Lotty continued.

"...So he beamed at her and said 'Just remembered I like to face this
way.'
Shelly thought it was a bit odd that he had decided that out of all the
empty seats in this carriage, he had to pick the one right next to her.
However, the thing that struck Shelly as being even odder, was that she
didn't feel uncomfortable about it at all. Quite the reverse ..."

"I wouldn't like that," said the unpopular old man in the corner who
likes to join in on other peoples' conversations, who was now the
unpopular man just behind Stu, having picked himself off his bar stool
and sidled all the way over just to make that remark, "Being sat next
to a Paki. I'd move."
"He was an Indian." replied an unperturbed Lotty.
"Still wouldn't like him sat next to me," insisted the now even more
unpopular man, who was about to continue when Beronice piped up with
"Well I wouldn't lose any sleep about it. From where I'm smelling, the
chances of any of God's creatures actually opting to sit next to are
somewhere between nothing and zero. Now go back to your stool and be
quiet."
She was roundly applauded for this well-balanced and
accurately-targeted outburst of vitriol and the young barmaid sent her
over a complimentary drink- on her.
Lotty continued.

"I'm going to finish this story if it kills me. Now. Having placed
himself as close as possible to Shelly, even though he could have had
almost any other seat on the entire train, he then beamed again and
said 'I'm not a pervert, you know.'
'Oh,' said Shelly. 'That's a shame.'
It had obviously struck them both as a most peculiar thing for her to
have said, but neither felt awkward or nervous about it.
'Wish I had a book,' said the nice Indian man. He really was very nice.
Really, he was.

"Just then, the door of the carriage flew open and Shelly and the nice
Indian man had to fold their legs in to ease the path of what really
must have been a very flustered man in his forties. The lenses of his
spectacles were huge and exactly square, very fogged up on the inside
with cumbersome droplets of water on the outside. As he sat, he mopped
back his wet brown hair and then proceeded to de-foggify his glasses.
Actions like that always seem very private. A slightly blind man trying
to make his seeing equipment more seeable-through, hampered only by the
fact that he can't see very well to see whether he's done it well
enough to see through. He might just as well sport a 'please don't
stare' hat.
Shelly thought she recognised him from somewhere. The nice Indian man
said nothing.
After removing his Barbour coat, the flustered wet man finally managed
to put on his now clear spectacles in time to notice Shelly and the
nice Indian man in full stare, straight at him, no holds barred. He
obviously thought them an odd couple. They must be a couple. Every seat
on this carriage... empty, and they're sat right next to each other.
Maybe the carriage had been jam-packed and everyone had got off at the
last stop leaving only the two of them and they were both too polite to
move and risk hurting the other's feelings. No. They must be a couple.
A very odd couple. He desperately wanted to move away but the moment
had passed for him to be able to do that without appearing rude. So he
stayed and stared out of the window.
As soon as he turned his face away, Shelly recognised him. It was that
bloke on the telly who argues with politicians. She was always seeing
the back of his head, nodding rhythmically on BBC2 late at night.
What was he doing in Cookham Heath at this time of night? And why was
he looking so flustered and shady? And why was the fucking train still
not going anywhere? And why was nobody telling them what was
happening?
What was his name, the telly man?
His mobile phone rang. He answered it in hushed tones. 'Yes .... yes
.... I'm on the train ..... No please don't .... no you mustn't ....
don't follow me. I can't anymore, I've told you. No ..... no don't
...... go back. You've got to go back. Where are you?' Then he looked
at the phone and cursed. It must have been cut off or something.

The gears of the train kicked in with some very loud whirring turning
noises, prompting Shelly and the nice Indian man to smile approval at
each other. At last, something was happening.
Then the noises stopped.

Telly man's phone rang again. He answered it, crossly. "What? No you
can't. We're not at Cookham Heath anymore. We've pulled out. We're
miles away.

A voice pierced through the ceiling of the carriage ...
'Sorry about the delay, ladies and gentlemen. We shall shortly be
departing Cookham Heath ......'

"What?" said the Telly man. "No I wasn't lying. That was an incorrect
announcement. They'll correct it in a minute, you just listen. You're
cutting out ..." he said, then made a noise like an espresso machine
and cut the caller off again. He caught Shelly and the nice Indian man
observing him and tried a cheeky you-know-what-it's like smile. The
nice Indian smiled of course, being so nice. Shelly raised an eyebrow
at him and looked away.

Two minutes passed. No further announcements. No further movement. No
further intrigue.
They all listened out for more. Telly man was looking increasingly
anxious, as if he was trying to move the train forward with his
willpower, but it still wasn't going anywhere.
The noises started up again, and so did Telly man's mobile phone.
'Yes ..... no don't! I've told you, go back! Don't!"
The gears of the train locked in and it shunted forward only to stop
abruptly to the sound of a whistle accompanied by furious scrabbling at
the door of the next compartment down and the guard's voice yelling
'Stand away! Stand away!'
The scrabbler at the next door down made it into carriage in the next
compartment. It was a middle-aged lady carrying two holdalls. She felt
around for a safe place to sit and found one by the window, diagonally
opposite but one compartment away from Shelly, who was observing
everything. The lady was also bespectacled and was clearly quite
visually impaired as she was having to feel around for things.

Finally the train moved and everyone began to relax. The Telly man was
staring vacantly in front of him. The nice Indian man was content. The
lady, who was breathing heavily, sat back and closed her eyes. Shelly
was watching everyone.

The nice Indian man leant over and whispered to Shelly 'There's your
story.' It didn't occur to Shelly at that moment to wonder how he knew
she was looking for a story to write. She just smiled gratefully. But
she saw what he meant....

The lady had removed her glasses. They were quite old-fashioned, in the
Dame Edna style. She felt for the window, found it, opened it, and out
went the glasses. Shelly and the nice Indian man threw each other a
stunned look. He smiled. He really was so very nice.
Having thrown away her spectacles the lady started to remove her
make-up. She did this very carefully, without the aid of a mirror. It
took a good seven minutes. Shelly noticed that there was now something
quite different about her face. Something a bit, well, masculine. It
wasn't long before Shelly had her answer. The lady removed her wig to
reveal cropped brown hair. She then fiddled in one of the bags for a
while until she produced another set of spectacles, this time smaller
ones with thick black oblong rims in the Michael Caine 'Harry Palmer'
fashion.
'Oh yes,' whispered the nice Indian man, 'You've got your story
here.'

The lady then prized off both of her high-heeled shoes, took them in
hand, and out of the window they went. She fiddled in the bag again and
out came a pair of size ten black brogues.
She placed them on the floor in front of her.
Then she produced, very carefully from the other bag, a pair of grey
pinstriped trousers. She ran her fingers up and down both creases to
check how fresh they were, and, once satisfied, stood up and put them
on under her skirt, which she then removed and threw out of the window.
Next, the matching jacket and shirt came out. She checked them both.
Fine. Off came the cardigan, out the window. Off came the blouse, same
fate. The jewellery went into the second bag, so it must have been
genuine and possibly even valuable. The first bag, now empty, went out
of the window.
Five minutes later what had not long ago been a rather demure if
ungainly and frumpily dressed woman was now a very convincingly
masculine manly male man among men.

Shelly was very excited. Her mind was doing somersaults and her
creative juices were flowing so freely that, due to overproduction,
they had to be put on special offer. What was this man's story? Was he
linked to Telly man? Why hadn't they noticed each other? Why hadn't he
noticed Shelly staring in disbelief? Why hadn't he gone to the toilet
to perform this bizarre ritual metamorphosis?

The train was beginning to slow down as it prepared to pull in to
Milford Junction, where the ladyman was obviously planning to alight.
He picked up his bag and stood at the door, waiting. It had been
raining so hard and the heating was on so high in the carriage that it
was nigh impossible to see out of the window so the ladyman had his
left ear cocked and was straining to hear if this was going to be his
stop. The announcement came. Milford Junction. This satisfied him. He
reached for the handle.

'You should follow him,' said the nice Indian man, 'for your story.
Find out what happens.'
Shelly's heart screamed. Should she? An adventure? She'd have to make
her mind up pretty quickly.

Questions were dancing round Shelly's head like some sort of dreadful
Walt Disney hokey-cokey karaoke video. Should she shouldn't she maybe
she should oh not but what if but when do you get a chance like this
but what if this happens and I can't no I shouldn't but oh my god what
if I were to no I mustn't oh my god we're here!

The lady man was concentrating very hard, straining to hear whether the
train had stopped yet. Shelly half stood up, eyeing the ladyman like he
was her potential dinner. The train slowed and slowed, creeeeeeaked,
squeeeeealed and finally judded back into position. They had stopped.
Satisfied, the ladyman opened the door, prepared himself to jump so as
to avoid the gap, pulled his bag towards his chest, bent his knees and
leapt forward out of the door of the wrong side of the train, straight
into the path of the oncoming fast train to Brighton.
'Oh well.' said the nice Indian man, 'It's a short story.'
Shelly turned to look at him. He beamed back at her in his very nice
way and said 'More of a sketch, if I'm honest.'