Train Man Read online

  Michael smiled, then frowned.

  His reading glasses were surprisingly dirty, so he cleaned them harder with the little duster that had come with the case. When he put them on again, everything was so much clearer – including Monica, sitting opposite him on the other platform. There she was, or someone who looked just like her, and he was tempted to wave. She was hunting for something in her bag, even as the 09.46 came slowly and quietly into view.

  It was the commuter train, and Michael knew he couldn’t take it. The 10.13 was on its way, running just two minutes late: whether it would make those minutes up or experience further delays was impossible to say. He watched the train he’d intended to catch get closer, as the woman he’d spoken to stood up and moved further down the platform in readiness to board.

  She hadn’t looked at him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she might have said. ‘Excuse me, aren’t you getting this one after all? Sorry, what’s your name? I thought we were travelling together?’

  ‘I’m Michael. Michael MacMillan.’

  ‘I’m Henrietta, or Hilary – and as you know, I’m on my way to Cheltenham. Shall we sit together, Michael? We could talk properly.’

  She didn’t say that or anything else, because she had a daughter on her mind, who was probably starting an important job. She might even be getting a foot on the property ladder, though Cheltenham was expensive, of course – and they could have talked all the way north about just how difficult it was. They could have agreed that young people stood little chance these days, without their parents’ help, and they could have laughed indulgently. Michael could have invented a daughter of his own. She’d be in Germany working as a translator, like the god-daughter poor old Monica supported.

  The announcement came then, as he knew it must – and it was that wonderfully clear voice again: ‘The train now standing at platform two is the 09.46 for Great Malvern…’

  It was not standing at the platform.

  The driver was just beginning to brake; the automated information-sequence had started fifteen seconds too early. He’d missed the previous one, but they must have played it – for that was the one that told everyone that the train was approaching. They would have made that claim when there was no train in sight, and Michael had once emailed the company to point it out. His real concern was with the last of the three, which came just as the doors opened: ‘Stand clear of the train at platform two. This train is ready to leave.’

  That was the announcement as people disembarked, and it induced not exactly panic but a certain anxiety. For how could the train be ready to leave when there were people on the platform waiting to board? Fifteen seconds later, it would have all made perfect sense: all they had to do was play the first one fifteen seconds later, and everything would be correct.

  ‘As I get onto the train,’ Michael had said. ‘Or as I wait on the platform, you tell me to stand back. “The train is ready to leave,” you say. The train is not ready to leave, because we’re still getting on and off. I’d like to know if you play the message by mistake, because there’s an error in the timing – or if it’s deliberate. Is it your intention to hurry people? If that’s the case, I understand, but I think it’s impolite. If it’s not the case, please do your best to change the timing.’

  The station clock was also wrong, but he hadn’t mentioned that. The lift was often out of order, but he hadn’t mentioned that. The ticket office seemed to be open for fewer hours, but he hadn’t even mentioned that, even though he liked the calm, efficient men who sold tickets and knew their jobs were under threat. One thing at a time, and he had written politely and positively.

  The reply had come in less than a week. The company was grateful for his message, but: We have no control over the routine communications system on individual stations. We have therefore forwarded your communication to the operations department.

  Michael had gone to the library and researched that department. He found details for a first point of contact.

  I expect by now you will have received my email…

  I wonder if you have received an email that was forwarded to you…?

  I am hoping to communicate with you about something that on one level is very trivial, but – on another – fundamental to how our railways run and how people use them. It is a small thing…

  He had a vision of young men and women in the equivalent of a call centre, sitting at computers with headsets over their ears. The company would have outsourced the passenger-comment franchise, or whatever it was called, and those working would undoubtedly be on minimum wage. He had spoken to three workers in the customer-service department, about other things – and they always gave their names.

  ‘My name is Stefan, how can I help you today?’

  Michael explained – and this had been another incident, that had happened to him late one night the previous year. It came back to him now so clearly, and he closed his eyes. On that occasion he’d been in Southampton, having booked his return in advance for just five pounds. The train had arrived early. The carriage he’d stepped into had the most terrible smell, for it was nearly eleven o’clock at night and there were fast-food wrappers strewn around the tables. There was another smell over the top of that, though – much more distinctive.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ laughed Stefan. ‘Was it dog shit?’

  In fact, he hadn’t said anything of the sort: Michael would amuse himself, sometimes, by imagining what call-centre people wished they could say, because it was clear that Stefan worked to a script. Michael knew that he had been trained never to be facetious – the poor man wasn’t allowed even to interrupt.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he might have said. ‘Someone had pissed themselves, or puked? Vomit, perhaps? Tell me everything, Michael.’

  The man sounded Polish, Romanian or Czech. What journey from the east had he made, in order to find himself hunched over a console listening to a fifty-six-year-old man recalling his experience on a stationary train in Southampton?

  ‘It was a smell of permanent marker,’ said Michael.

  It had reminded him of school.

  ‘Right,’ said Stefan – listening carefully.

  ‘It’s unmistakable, isn’t it?’ continued Michael. ‘So I looked up and down and I saw that two of the tables had been vandalised. With graffiti, you see – from the marker pen.’

  Stefan said nothing now. Presumably he wasn’t sure what Michael’s point was going to be – or if, perhaps, he had made it. That was the probable reason for the silence, though Michael knew there could be others.

  ‘The graffiti was actually quite obscene,’ said Michael.

  ‘Were you able to move to another carriage, sir?’ said Stefan.

  ‘Yes, of course. I could have done.’

  He might have used the connecting door and forgotten about the images he’d seen. There were four carriages, and the train was still at the station, changing crew, so Michael could have disembarked. Instead, he had paused to study the graffiti, and that was how he’d come to see the large penis rearing up from a pair of pineapple-sized testicles. The penis had lips, which were pulled back to release a fountain of what had to be sperm – the globules looked like teardrops, bursting. Suk my cock had been written under the image, and the artist had signed his or her name below that. Ejay! was the name, shouting out loud in thick, black ineradicable ink. Michael had stared and reread the words, wondering how long it had taken Ejay to create the work, and what other passengers might have been thinking.

  The other table had no picture at all: it had simply been scribbled on.

  ‘I could have done that,’ said Michael. ‘I could have moved, but that’s not what I’m actually calling about. I’m calling to tell you that when I spoke to the guard a bit later, he didn’t seem to care. He told me that the train would be cleaned in the depot.’

  Again, there was a silence. Michael could hear the very faint sounds of another operator taking a call.

  ‘You’ve got CCTV,’ said Michael, to
Stefan. ‘I asked the guard if he was going to find out who’d vandalised his train, and he said it wasn’t worth it. “Ah,” he said. “They’ll clean it at the depot.” “But it’s vandalism,” I said.’

  The guard had laughed.

  He had been a small, slight Sikh gentleman. He had the gentlest, most sympathetic face under his turban, and he’d walked up the carriage slowly in a little grey suit, treading lightly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the passengers. Michael was used to Sikhs being very big, so this man seemed like a miniature – or even a little boy carefully made up to look old. He had told Michael that there was no point studying the CCTV film because the Transport Police wouldn’t do anything.

  ‘They would if it was an assault,’ said Michael.

  He sat on the bench, as the delayed 09.46 prepared to leave, and wondered why he had said something so stupid.

  Of course they would act, if it was an assault. An assault was different. An assault was more serious than someone drawing obscene graffiti: everyone knew that, so what was the point of the comparison? Why had Michael thought, even for a moment, that a room full of Transport Police might want to sit studying the footage, hunting for images of Ejay as he or she fled the station with the marker pen in his or her hand? What would they do if they identified him – because it must have been a boy, surely? Would he be arrested and made to pay?

  ‘You’ll have to pay, I’m afraid,’ said a smooth voice in Michael’s head – sing-song, smiling, with glittering, fun-filled eyes. The smell of the pen had taken him straight back to the classroom, and there was the teacher’s voice.

  ‘I didn’t know homework was due, sir.’

  ‘Ah, but ignorance is no plea,’ said Mr Trace as the other boys laughed. ‘Come out here and pay the price!’

  ‘Wouldn’t they?’ said Michael.

  He was speaking to Stefan, who was still at his computer console, listening professionally and not interrupting. ‘You have the CCTV footage,’ he said. ‘So I think something ought to be done. You ought to prosecute these people, because it’s a crime. It’s disgusting.’

  Stefan did speak, then. He urged Michael to put his thoughts in writing, and send them to the company so as to open a proper complaint file that would receive further attention. He would need to document the case and detail the exact time and date of the incident.

  ‘I haven’t got the time,’ said Michael – which was a lie.

  Stefan said nothing to that.

  I just want the world to be a nicer place, he thought, but did not say. I want it to be better and more decent, and I want… it’s more than that, Stefan. I want big corporations like your train company to spend some of their profits on making our world less foul. I want Ejay to be confronted and helped. I don’t want him fined or thrashed. He’s only a boy and I want him supported, because you can’t go through life drawing ejaculating penises on tables: it’s not right.

  Michael said, ‘I don’t have the time,’ and he’d said it in a voice that suggested that even this call now had to be hurried. Perhaps Stefan was imagining Michael just as Michael had been imagining Stefan? – in which case perhaps Stefan had an image of a forceful person, neatly dressed and professional, sitting amongst files and invoices, his laptop chirping softly as the emails landed. The Michael that Stefan saw was a conscientious traveller who’d made the time to follow up on an experience that had disturbed his sense of propriety, but now – duty done – he had to return to the pressures of his demanding job and loving, needy family.

  ‘I’m sorry your journey was made uncomfortable,’ said Stefan – and there was no trace of irony. The man was humble and sincere.

  ‘It wasn’t really,’ said Michael.

  Silence.

  ‘I just wanted to talk to someone about the incident. I mean… if young children had seen that picture, they would have been horrified.’

  ‘I’m sure it will have been cleaned off, as a priority,’ said Stefan.

  ‘That’s what the guard said. He said it would be cleaned in the depot.’

  ‘They’re pretty good.’

  Stefan’s English was perfect.

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ said Michael – and he wondered which young children might have been horrified. Why would young children have been up so late, and wouldn’t the drawing have simply made them laugh – or put their hands to their mouths? Yes, it would have told them, subliminally, that the penis is a weapon – but they would have got over that soon enough and realised it needn’t be. They would come to understand that if some penises go unused for long periods of time, shrinking and withering as the pubic hair moults and sensation proves ever more unsatisfactory, then some penises do not. Some swell and splatter the world, for some penises are like spears, because what’s the best way of picking up a bird? That was a joke from school that clawed him back to boyhood. What’s the best way of picking up a bird, Michael? On the end of your dick.

  He hated that joke, but it was lodged in his head.

  You lift her up on the end of your dick, and carry her into the bedroom! That’s the best way, apparently. That’s how it’s done, Mr Trace – if a girl is what you want, sir.

  ‘Thanks for taking my call,’ said Michael politely.

  ‘Not at all, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ he wanted to say. ‘Yes.’

  Instead he’d said, ‘No. You’ve helped me a lot.’

  Courtesy meant dignity. Perhaps Stefan ended the call feeling better, because progress had been made. He would have felt worse, probably, if Michael had sworn at him – though once again, how could you know? Call-centre people buckled on suits of armour, surely: they made themselves impregnable. It was Michael who’d ended the call feeling better, and he knew it was because someone had taken him seriously for almost two whole minutes. Now he sat on the station bench, trying not to look down, for the 09.46 had departed.

  To look down meant seeing his own feet, which were planted either side of his shoulder bag, there on the earth’s crust. If he stood up too fast he’d go through, and slither down into the caverns of despair.

  ‘The Caverns of Despair’ was an image from a poem he’d written for his English teacher, who’d read it to the class:

  Come with me, to the caverns of despair…

  It had earned eleven-year-old Michael his first ever straight A grade, but he couldn’t remember the next line. Now he was old, and he leaned forward carefully to open the bag. There were some easy-peel tangerines inside, packed into the front pocket in their net. He took one out, and it took less than thirty seconds to reveal the fruit, then sixty seconds to eat it. As a child, he remembered the peeling of an orange taking for ever, because skins were tight and there was always a layer of white stuff that needed removing. Now they were simple and they were seedless, too. They were ridiculously cheap, discounted at the supermarket he passed on his way to this particular station.

  He is a lucky man, people might think, if they noticed him on the bench. He eats his orange, without a care in the world – no work for him today, and why not? Perhaps he’s part-time, or even retired? Is that possible? He is going on some nice excursion, perhaps, this man of leisure… he is meeting a friend for coffee further up the line. Could he even be a grandfather? Yes, he’s old enough – but he’s probably an uncle joining a nephew and niece, with tickets to the zoo. The zoo? No, the space museum, or the science park, or the place people play Laser Quest, next door to the vast, warehouse-like space they’d opened full of trampolines.

  So many people, it seemed, wanted to bounce up and down.

  Michael sat, wondering if he looked like a grandfather, and he wondered who would have his watch, which he’d left by his phone. Both sat on the envelope: phone and watch, and his charger too. He’d made his bed. He’d even emptied the glass of water, and left it in the kitchen. What would happen to the things he kept in the fridge?

  Ryan might have them, as he lived below. More likely, they’d be thrown awa
y along with his paperbacks, his underwear, and his extra-thick jersey. Even his supermarket loyalty card would be wasted, and yet he’d accumulated so many points. Surely they could be transferred to someone?

  Ryan downstairs – or nobody at all. But someone would have to take the duvet cover off the duvet, launder it and then fold it on a hanger so it could sit in the linen section of the charity shop, so that another someone, coming in, might pause and – if they only knew – recognise the clothing on the rack just behind. The jersey, the cap, the half-dozen shirts. The blue bedroom slippers! And they might, just for a moment, remember the man they’d seen walking to and from the railway station, and glimpse his ghost. Here were his remains on the two-for-the-price-of-one rail, raising money for Save the Children. God save the children: Michael was helping children, even after Crewe.

  He looked up at the electronic-display sign, so much more efficient than the painted ones they’d used when he was younger. These were updated every second it seemed, for the 10.13 was on time again – it had made up some distance. He had eight minutes left to wait, and he was alone on the bench. Nobody had sat beside him, and there was orange peel on his knee.

  A boy in school uniform stopped in front of him, wheeling a bicycle. Without thinking, Michael said, ‘You’re running late,’ and the boy smiled nervously.

  His instinct was to smile, even at a stranger.