by Geoff Ryman
Inside information
A mature nursing student doing a study at St Thomas’ Hospital8 into aspects of alternative medicine.
What she is doing or thinking
She is trying to decipher an Oranjboom ad. Along with Poetry on the Tube, they are the only objects of interest among the usual January package holiday ads. The joke is that the slogan looks Dutch, until you work it out.
Druifes u tooi
Dis traag schone
dous ent et?
In the back of her mind, her study seems similarly disjointed. Helen has not been able to identify enough patients with similar conditions to be separated into control groups—let alone to discount variables such as age and general health. She is in touch with an American hospital doing similar work, but they are suddenly being difficult about releasing their data. Perhaps they think she is a crank. Or just a nurse.
She tries sounding out the Oranjboom slogan without looking for meaning. It suddenly swims into focus.
Drives you to
distraction
doesn’t it?
Helen smiles. Part of the joke is working so hard for an answer that means nothing. She is beginning to accept that her study may not work. Still smiling, she waits for others to pass before standing up to exit at Waterloo.
Not everyone will get it, says the punchline.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
8 St Thomas’ Hospital, according to Christopher Hibbert, dates from 1106, and was named after St Thomas after 1173. It has a long history of fire, rebuilding, reopening, and re-naming. Dick Whittington, of the old story, added a chamber to it, and noted that it was for young women who had done amiss. For a time, the hospital had a bawdy reputation. It did not have a physician until 1556. The founder of its sister hospital Guy’s, Thomas Guy, also part-funded St Thomas’ for a time.
In 1859, the site was acquired by the Charing Cross Railway Company for London Bridge Station. A new site for the hospital was found next to Westminster Bridge and the new buildings opened in 1871. Florence Nightingale approved the plans and established there the Nightingale School of Nursing.
The Florence Nightingale Museum opened in 1989 and features in a small space an impressive exhibition of photographs, letters, and exhibits which bring to life exactly what Nightingale accomplished.
Some of the old, grand, towered hospital buildings were bombed in World War II. Others remain, walled off from the riverside walk. A new, airy building stands just south of the Bridge, with a pleasant modern fountain, which is sometimes switched on. It may not have a bawdy reputation, but personal experience suggests that a lot of romance still took place within living memory in the nurses’ quarters.
A justly award-winning example of new media exists in the consultants’ clinic dealing with rheumatism and other bone diseases. An information kiosk, designed to look like a living-room TV, gently, and with immense tact, helps people understand the implications of their diagnosis. Designed by Dr Julia Schofield in association with a hospital consultant.
30
BOB ‘THE KNOB’ HALL
Outward appearance
Skinny seventeen-year-old in black satin jacket with the Nintendo grinning face logo. Jeans, boots. He sits slung across the seat, open legged, his Walkman hissing nervous, rattling drum and bass.
Inside information
Studying print technology at the London College of Printing, Elephant and Castle. On his way to his first class. No books or papers.
What he is doing or thinking
Bob listens to Dub Culture while eyeballing the tightly crossed ski pants of Passenger 6. Latin pussy, yum. He can see the perfect brown flesh, the slit, the hair; he can almost taste it. Shame she’s got her boyfriend with her. Number 8’s a bit past it and has no tits, but a woman in leather must be a bit pervy. Though the dog would probably get in the way. So it’s all the way back to Passenger 12. Blonde. She looks like a bloke, but she’s got nice skin. I bet she’s brown all the way down. Sunlamps and oil. He can feel her skin under his fingertips, smooth with a layer of fat just underneath the surface.
His cock is wet. He has a shift of affections towards himself. Wanking when you want a fuck is boring, but when you want a wank, there’s nothing better. He calculates. Can he stand going through the morning before having a wank? He hates doing it at school, he always thinks people can hear under the partitions.
Suddenly he decides: the clean marble loos at Waterloo. The train slows and he stands up. You’re only young once, he thinks.
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31
MR MAURICE HAZLETT
Outward appearance
A distinguished businessman on holiday. Double chinned, grey haired, but in anorak and blue jeans mismatched with heavy brown brogues.
Inside information
A retired intelligence agent who worked for MI5 when its offices were in Lambeth North. Has come up from the country without his wife to help their daughter move. On a sentimental journey to see his old haunts. In the 1940s, he was a lover of Donald Maclean. Many other secrets. He would be pleased to see Passenger 22 from whom he used to buy wine.
What he is doing or thinking
Remembering the old days. The Russian ‘export shop’ across the road. Spooks would wave to each other in the mornings. The church tower nearby had a pair of nesting kestrels that returned to it every year. All of MI5 birdwatched through their mirrored windows. It was a dull life in a way.
Why am I doing this? he thinks. Everything’s closed, the bookshop, the Turkish grocers. Nothing left.
Maurice also remembers the smell of underarms, cigarettes, white linen. Embracing one of the great traitors of the century in a blackout. You gave no sign in those days, it was secret, you were never sure until the very moment you kissed male stubble.
There is a cottage in the toilets at Elephant and Castle. He is, after all, off his leash today—Jenny need never know. He has an image of a young well-spoken man, rather like himself, or Don.
He heads on towards the cottage at the end of the line, unaware that it too has been closed.
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32
MR WILLIAM DYNHAM
Outward appearance
A more mischievous Tony Blair. Impeccable blue suit, grey coat, burnished black shoes, new briefcase. He sprawls relaxed, hiding a grin behind a hand.
Inside information
A Euro MP for a Midlands constituency which he had never visited before becoming a candidate. Lives in the Chitterns, has a flat in London. His parents are decent middle-class people from Kent.
William became a Euro MP to make money. He has. Previous careers include being a bicycle messenger, teacher of English in the Philippines and a professional lobbyist for the Small Bosses Syndicate. Has an appointment at 9:00 with the new Director of the SBS, Passenger 106.
Most people think William went to Oxford and was a businessman. He has one O level. Everyone believes everything William says. For a while.
What he is doing or thinking
He is savouring the uncommon experience of travelling on public transport. He enjoys looking at the people.
For example, he decides Passenger 11, the cross-Channel pianist, is an off-duty policeman because of his black trousers and blue shirt. Passenger 4, the grinning werewolf, is plainly a recipient of Care in the Community, and will be discovered to be a serial killer. William fears that Passenger 5, the broadcaster, may be a constituent. The face is familiar. William has a tendency to forget their names.
Suddenly, down the carriage there is some unpleasantness. A fight! Entranced by the richness of life around him, William reluctantly stands up to go. He has an appointment. Why does he find such things so boring these days?9
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
9 William’s sense of mischief a
nd adventure could not be restrained by a respectable job for long. In autumn 1996 he announced, as a Euro MP, that he was going to stand as an MP for Sir James Goldsmith’s anti-Europe Referendum Party.
33
MS DEIRDRE HIDDERLEY
Outward appearance
Black crushed-velvet jacket under a coat with a ring of fake fur round the hood. Wiry red hair pulled fiercely back. Round pouting face like Shirley Temple. Headphones, a whisper of classical music. She opens her eyes, closes them, opens them.
Inside information
Arts/music student at Merely College. Lives with her parents in Stratford.
What she is doing or thinking
She is mourning the gradual loss of her synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a medical condition in which one sense triggers a response in another. Until a month ago, Deirdre could see sound.
The opening of the tube doors used to send delicately coloured soap bubbles wafting through the carriage. The rattling smear outside the windows would trail floating oranges and melted-wax bobbles of purple. The sound of people talking evoked bright, jagged, jerking shapes of yellow, blue, green.
Deirdre’s fear is that all modern art has been derived from synaesthesia. Kandinsky, Auerbach, Bacon were synaesthetic, she is sure. She felt like a member of a secret society. Deirdre was never good at school (she is also mildly dyslexic). But she could sing and paint. She now fears that her talent will go, along with the thing that made her special. It is as though part of her had died.
Even music no longer works. She snaps off the Walkman. She begins to hum a tune. She becomes aware of it, something sad, graceful, expressing loss. Whose is it? It’s modern, but it’s not Pärt or Tavener or Glass.
It’s hers. Emotion has been converted into music. She fumbles for a pen.
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34
MRS ADELE DRISCOLL
Outward appearance
Professional woman in crisp blouse, pleated grey skirt, brown coat. Glasses as big as windows with transparent frames. Longish, curved, tinted hair.
Inside information
Works as a Personal Financial Adviser at Lloyds Bank, York Road. Originally from Melbourne, Australia. Today she is returning to work after two weeks’ jury service.
What she is doing or thinking
‘Interesting case?’ people ask her brightly. It was rape. She remembers the man’s heavy, thuggish face and the prickle in the air when the charge was announced. The victim, a fourteen-year-old black girl, stood straight, proud, small-voiced. She had been terrorized into going into his flat, too afraid to fight or cry out. Adele felt hatred.
Then the psychiatrist testified. The thug is simple minded, with verbal skills that disguise that he cannot understand the most basic social signals. Afterwards, he had asked the girl if he could see her next Sunday. He was a virgin too. Something he denied in a stumbling voice as tiny and uncertain as the girl’s.
But in police tapes, he was a different man: sly, ugly, playing games with the interviewers. ‘Yeah, I get around a bit. She didn’t look fourteen, know what I mean?’
What was true? Who to believe? To be guilty of rape, he must be in a condition to know what he was doing: when did the girl say no?
God help them, the verdict was not guilty. There was a woman in the court every day. Was she his mother? When the verdict was read, the woman nodded once, yes.
Yes what?
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35
MISS MARIE BREATNACH
Outward appearance
About 22, black hair pulled behind her ears. A sprinkling of spots on her chin. Everything she wears is blue, like a school uniform. Stares at herself in a small hand mirror.
Inside information
Marie is from Northern Ireland and lives with her brother and his wife. She has a steel plate in her head. She was hit by a van when she was twelve cycling in a country lane.
She starts work today in the pay department of Railtrack, Waterloo Station. She forgot until reminded by her brother.
What she is doing or thinking
Marie has headaches and gets confused. She has a headache now. That means she’s nervous. And she was such a brave child. She was cycling much faster than her friend Fee, and didn’t see the van because she was looking back over her shoulder. She won the race.
She looks at her chin in the mirror and thinks: you’d never believe I used to have a beautiful complexion. Marie is unsure if she is pretty. She would really like to be told one way or the other. The face in the mirror doesn’t look like the one she remembers.
She is sure they won’t mind her being late in the new job. She will explain that she forgot today was the first day. Then she’ll ask for a nice cup of tea.
The doors open and close. Through the window, the sign says Lambeth North. How many more stops to Waterloo? Marie gets out her map as the train gathers speed toward Elephant and Castle.
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36
MR JASON LUVERIDGE
Outward appearance
Late teens, black male. Slumped in green baggy track suit, American sports jacket and baseball cap. Looks resentful, staring ahead.
Inside information
Going to the South Bank Technology Park near the Elephant.
Jason’s mother saved enough money to send one of her children to St Paul’s School.10 This is resented by her other children who make fun of him when he wants to hear classical music or watch Panorama. He still thinks his mother made the right decision. Jason is academically gifted and wants to study computer science.
Jason’s clothes are camouflage. He expects to wear camouflage all his life.
What he is doing or thinking
Jason has been struck with love for Passenger 3, Deborah Payne. He does not know that he will always be attracted to older women. All he knows is that she looks pretty, clever, concerned. He is already dreaming of marriage to her. A wife like that would show what he was—smart, caught between worlds. She’s not some daft Sharon, or prejudiced. She’d be too business-like for that. She’s what I want, he realizes. A business woman with soul.
He follows Deborah out into Waterloo Station. He is heartsick, hands jammed into his pockets, knowing she would find this creepy.
Then she stops a man on the platform and cries, ‘You don’t need to die!’ Wow. That does it, this woman is special.
‘Excuse me,’ says Jason. ‘I don’t normally do this, I’m shy. But. Can I ask you out?’ The man and woman stare at him, open-mouthed.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
10 St Paul’s School was, according to Christopher Hibbert, founded in 1509 by the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was at that time the largest school in the country. It had all of 153 students.
It continues its tradition of egalitarianism. It opened its first building in Hammersmith (see footnote to Passenger 10) in 1884, and the school moved south of the river to Barnes in 1968. Famous pupils include John Milton, Samuel Pepys, Field-Marshal Montgomery and G. K. Chesterton. These are healthily outnumbered by pupils who are not famous in any way.
The little second-hand experience I have of it suggests that it was in the late 1980s a great introduction to the rave scene.
37
MR RICHARD TOMLINSON
Outward appearance
Stocky, middle-aged man, athletic build. Rumpled pink face with pure white hair. Blue jeans, anorak, woolly red hat. He seems lost in thought.
Inside information
He is returning from hospital having failed to convince them to let him die. This is his second bout of pneumonia and he has survived three suicide attempts. One left him in a wrecked car, sick but alive, in the pouring rain at one in the morning. None of his friends know he is ill—except one, Passenger 235, who withdrew from him in fear and disgust. Richard lost heart after that.
What
he is doing or thinking
Dying is a full-time job. Politics never let up. Richard had the support of one doctor but, after a battery of interviews, they decided to offer him two more years of declining life.
Richard’s anger at the hospital is cold, shaped by logic. It is not for them to tell him that he must live. They have not had anal herpes that feels like a lighted match on an open wound. They have not had the giddy spells, the eye infections, the thrush. As far as possible he wanted a normal life. That is no longer possible.
The best they could do is let him go home. Despite his size, he is very weak and cannot breathe. He has just enough strength left to walk from the tube, and draw the curtains and listen to Mozart and let the pneumonia blossom. An answering machine will take all his calls.
He goes on to Elephant and Castle.