Justine's Hat

Justine's Hat

Justine's hat was the brightest thing not in the sky that afternoon at
White Hart Lane Station. But there was little competition on the
ground: the posts and benches had been freshly painted grey and I, like
everyone else on the platform, declined colour.

Justine's hat was yellow and pink and blue and came down to her waist
with a bobble on the end. When I first met her, I'm sure she wore
nothing more daring than a smack of lipstick. But that's what happens
to so many people when they go to university- they 'find' themselves
and as a side effect start dressing differently: stripes, primary
colours- they all make an appearance. If I had approached the whole
thing more wholeheartedly perhaps I too would have been so inclined.
But I had no desire to stand out like that, even if I did envy her
enthusiasm.

I certainly didn't envy her this particular day though. The whole
episode was so unexpected. When I was with Justine a part of me was
always waiting for comments, for snide remarks but I wasn't prepared
for the scene on the platform.

He started by singing a song they sing at Spurs when they play
Arsenal:

"Georgie Graham's magic, he wears a magic hat, and when he saw the
agent's bung, he said I'm having that."

She just rolled her eyes and we carried on talking. We had exams
coming up and she was saying how she knew she was going to mess them up
and I said the same because you do. I actually thought I might do quite
well. Then I looked at the board and saw the train was running ten
minutes late. I had to meet a connection at Liverpool Street and just
as I was saying, "Isn't that bloody typical?" he started up
again:

"Georgie Graham's magic, he wears a magic hat?"

He was about twenty metres up the platform, leaning against the
mustard yellow wall below 'White Hart Lane' with a girl not more than
sixteen leaning against him. She looked directly at Justine and
laughed.

"Wanker, eh?" I said to Justine, shaking my head.

"Not worth worrying about," she said, but as she did her hand went to
her forehead and beneath the rim of her hat. It was March but still,
with only a few clouds drifting in the sky. Beneath that hat and amidst
the pitying half-looks from the other people on the platform it must
have felt tropical.

I had known Justine since I started at Middlesex University but hadn't
really spoken to her until September of this, our second year, when she
moved to Hackney and started getting the same train as me. She probably
hadn't noticed me until then. We both took English Lit as our major.
Justine liked the feminist authors- Virginia Woolf, George Eliot,
Angela Carter- and was vocal in her appreciation. I was enjoying
Kingsley Amis.

Justine took out a pouch of tobacco and I took out mine. Justine sat
firmly facing the track, not looking at her hands while she rolled; I
sat to her right keeping the couple in the corner of my eye. He had
begun to pace the platform, both hands in his pockets, kicking at
scarps of paper that would not be kicked and just floated about his
shoe. She stood with her hands on her hips, airily dusting the floor
with a heel. Both of them watched us.

"Nice hat" he shouted down to us.

"Really imaginative" Justine said to me but I was busily lighting my
cigarette and could only raise my eyebrows in reply.

"I hope that's not wacky baccy you're smoking."

"For God's sake?" she muttered, more to her cigarette than me. The
girlfriend drew him to her and he had to stoop for her to whisper in
his ear. He nodded, smiling.

"Dunno about cat in the hat- dog in the hat more like."

"What is his problem?" I said to Justine, my voice not sounding like I
had expected it to, like it does first thing in the morning.

"Some people are just idiots."

I should have been reassuring her. Uncertain exactly how this went, I
gave it a go. "You probably shouldn't worry about it," I said, my voice
still gravely. "I think he's just mouthing off and he'll leave it at
that."

"Don't you think that's enough?" She screwed up her lips, shrinking
them. I checked the board: the train would still not be here for
another five minutes.

"D'you know, I swear I- no, no, he's too thin." She allowed herself a
glance at them.

"You know him?"

"It can't be. Not even he was that obnoxious. God, it really pisses me
off the way some people carry on. And look at him- I don't think I've
ever seen such a case against the theory of evolution! How the hell did
he slip through? And his girlfriend- I bet he's just met her outside
the school gates! It's twenty to four: I bet he has!"

I didn't know what to say, what to do, even how to sit in a way that
appeared natural. I had never been in a situation like this before and
I felt like the sun had been eclipsed, leaving everyone in darkness
except for me and Justine, who bore a single concentrated beam. Justine
continued ranting, louder and louder, while I, externally silent,
crossed my legs, uncrossed them, crossed them again and tried to keep
still, feeling awkward, feeling like I was posing. The only limb I knew
what to do with was my smoking arm and so I smoked, rapidly,
continuously, until I had burnt out my cigarette and needed both arms
and hands to roll another one. And all the while I tried desperately to
think of something to say.

Eventually I said "I think he's bored now, I think he's done."

"Bored? I reckon he could go on indefinitely, he's like a toddler with
a saucepan that he could keep banging on for hours."

I wanted to apologise for being so useless but I didn't, I just nodded
and made an "mmm" noise.

And sure enough, she was right.
"Oi, weird girl, you're hat's nearly as long as my cock, did you know
that?"

The bloke and his girlfriend fell into uproarious laughter. And
Justine snapped, when there was only two minutes left until the train
should arrive and I had begun to hope we might ride it out. She stood
and charged up to where they were standing, her hat trailing behind
her.

"Do you want to explain to me exactly what your problem is?" She stood
less than a metre from him. The girlfriend took a sly step back.

"Calm down love, you'll burst a blood?" Something flickered on his
face. They stood transfixed.

"I thought it was you but I said to myself 'even Shane Newman's not
that much of a wanker. It seems I was wrong."

"Justine." He said it quickly, his Adam's apple dancing in his throat.
The girlfriend stepped back forward.

"You know 'er, Shane?"

He ignored her. I could hear the train approaching and summoned myself
to follow Justine.

"Are you all right?"

She turned away from them and started striding further up the
platform, with me half-running to keep up with her.

"I'm fine, absolutely fine". We drew level with a carriage and she
pushed the button until the door opened. Then with one foot on the
train she turned her head in the direction of the bloke and his
girlfriend.

"As I remember it, Shane", she yelled loud enough for him and everyone
getting on the train to hear, "it wasn't even as big as the
bobble!"

And she sank into a seat and closed her eyes.

The journey was tormentingly long. Nobody said anything to us but I
could feel eyes on her, on us. Occasionally she met them with her own,
wide and bulging questioningly. But then she'd shut them again and sit
back, arms folded, legs stretched out ahead of her. I admired her
composure. I sat opposite writing a text I would only pretend to send
and flicking through my bag reading bits from course booklets, trying
to look calm, trying to forget about the eyes, trying to control my
heartbeat.

I attempted conversation once; I asked her how she was getting on with
David Copperfield but she just said "all right." I said I was
struggling (I wasn't) and she just nodded and said, "You'll get into
it." Then she turned her head away and looked out the window. So I did
the same.

I studied every detail of trackside. They'd cleared away some of the
dead trees at Stamford Hill but it was still a mess of brown-black wood
and white carrier bags. I tried to read the graffiti in the tunnel but
the angular white words didn't seem to say anything. We went past a
stack of tyres, black refuse bags, bottles, cans- loads of Coke Cans,
newspapers, a broom head and later the handle, cigarette packets and at
every station a thousand butts. Most of the gardens I could see from
the train were concreted or overgrown, and many filled with boxes,
bikes, freezers, car-parts; people had dumped sacks, buckets, oil drums
and crates in them. But a few gardens were green- gardened, and
flowering and I saw flashes of yellow daffodils, bright as sunshine.
And in one garden a fence was painted in a whirl of orange, yellow,
green and blue and I couldn't be sure, because we went past so quick,
but it looked like a tropical island painted on that fence. In that
garden the brown and grey expanse of North London was firmly kept out.
In that garden the occupants could enjoy their own colourful
haven.

I saw Justine looking at me and I wondered whether I ought to ask her
about the bloke at the station. She must have seen the question on my
lips because she sighed and said, "I went out with him four years
ago."

It seemed so inconceivable: I would never have put Justine and him
together. I wanted to ask 'Why?' and tried to find another way of
phrasing it. Finally I said, "Was he different then?"

"No, not really."

She watched my face closely and I tried not to look confused.

"I was."

She didn't say anymore, she just went back to staring out of the
window until we reached Hackney Downs and she got off.

I had just opened David Copperfield when he came into my carriage and
sat down opposite me, where Justine had been sitting. His girlfriend
wasn't with him.

I looked up at him briefly. He was a tall bloke but narrow with it,
scrawny, gangly. His face was long with a triangular jaw, not shaven
that day and he had dark, unreadable eyes, trained on me. But he was
average. He was wearing faded black jeans and a grey Nike sweatshirt,
the tick emblazoned across his chest. He seemed as much a part of the
landscape as the rusting cars at Rectory Road.

"'Scuse me."

I ignored him.

"'Scuse me."

I turned a page and tried to carry on reading.

"Hello, excuse me." He waved a hand in front of my eyes.

I looked up at him but didn't speak. He ran the hand through his
greasy, brown hair.

"I'm not gonna hassle ya, I just wanna ask you somefin'."

"What do you want?" It came out a little hoarse, but hard.

"'S about Justine."

I raised my eyebrows. I wanted to smack his face.

"Have you got a pen? If I write down my number-"

"You've got a fucking nerve!" I felt my blood being replaced with
adrenaline. I started to shake but I was too outraged to think about
fear.

"Look, love, all I want you to do-"

"Fuck off! I mean it, fuck off! You were a complete arsehole out
there! Justine would be crazy to want to know you after that!"

Passengers lowered their heads or looked out of the window.

"I was just having a laugh, weren't I? Justine used to like a laugh,
an' all."

"Yeah? Then she grew up. You might want to think about it too."

"An' you might wanna think about shutting your face. Frigid bloody
cow. I bet you've never had a laugh in your life!"

"I don't think many people would find you funny." I felt a smile creep
on my face. "Except maybe children- like your girlfriend."

He exploded. "You snooty little bitch, you fucking stuck-up cow. All I
wanted you to do was give Justine my fucking number! But if she's
turned into anything like you are she can fuck off! Fucking high and
mighty student bitches! Prissy, frigid little know-it-all tarts."

The train rolled into Bethnal Green. He swaggered to the door and
smashed his fist into the button until it opened, and jumped off.

I looked straight ahead while I waited for the doors to close and the
train to move on but then I heard him banging on the window.

"I was only taking the piss out of her fucking hat!" he yelled. I just
put my middle finger up to the window.

"I was only taking the piss out of her fucking hat!"

Justine didn't come to uni for a couple of days after that day. When I
did see her she was wearing a black jumper and jeans. And no hat.

"He came and spoke to me, after you'd got off," I told her. "I
couldn't believe it."

"Sorry." She spoke quietly.

"No, don't be sorry- it's not your fault. I just couldn't believe his
front. I told him to fuck off."

"You never."

"It felt good." I smiled. "Actually, it felt brilliant. But I thought
what you said was great!"

"I can't believe I said it."

"I think he was impressed too. He wanted me to give you his phone
number."

"Really?"

"Really. That's when I told him to fuck off."

"Oh."

"What do you mean- 'oh'?"

"Nothing."

"You can't seriously be considering seeing him again?"

"No, no, of course not. God, no."

We walked to our lecture hall the long way, smoking. Justine said
little and kept her eyes on the pavement. The weather was cooler so I
asked her where her hat was. She said that perhaps it wasn't really
'her', after all. And then she complimented me on my hair.

"You shouldn't let what he said bother you, you know."

She sighed. "Mmm."

"And what you said then really was brilliant. You didn't care what
anyone thought."

"I don't want anything like that to happen to me ever again," she
said, stubbing out her cigarette and walking into the shadow of the
lecture hall entrance. "Come on, let's get a seat before everyone comes
in."

I pulled a lock of tulip-red hair forward so I could see it. I don't
want anything like it to happen me again either, I thought. But I
wasn't going to worry about dull things like that again.