by Geoff Ryman
Car 1 map
Contents
For Your Reading Ease and Comfort
PASSENGER MAP
Car No 2
THIS MAP SHOWS YOU
WHO is in the car
WHERE they are sitting and
WHAT are their interests and concerns
38. ANDRE STANLEY
movies for Jesus
73. MILTON RICHARDS
Jesus and Frank Bruno
39. KEVIN POTTER
pastel images and stronger smells
72. HILARY VIALLS
truth and fashion
40. GEORGINA BULLEN
good works, loud mouth
71. ALLAN MARJORAM
love in ads
41. CHRIS GREEN
karate and flowers
70. FLORENCE CASSELL
trouble with minicabs
42. ANNE WARRINGTON
style and substance
69. AMY STEWART
trains and telly
43. KEITH SNOW
zinc, lead and quim
68. GRISELDA STEWART
Scotland and childhood
DOORS
DOORS
44. AMANDA STINTON
wankers and Simply Red
67. SAMANTHA ALLERS
cots and convicts
45. DOREEN GOODMAN
presents of mind
66. JULIE TILDSLEY
a small slip
46. MARTIN PARK
trains and bicycles
65. CORRINE TRACY
hair and crabs
47. ASHLEY WATKINS
pride and Tammy Wynette
64. MICHAEL LIPKIN
sex and scripture
48. OLIVIA PARSONS
last night’s burglar
63. OLIVER MASKEY
last night’s burglar
49. MARTIN BELCHER
performance parts
62. MARY AL-MASUD
cats and bigamy
DOORS
DOORS
50. RALPH MOLES
courage and KY
61. MICHAEL JEROME
shoes and snooze
51. AMINA KHATUN
sons and insurance
60. DIMITRI BELINKOV
Gin and tonic
52. ANNIE JEANRENAUD
dead letter office
59. IGOR KLIMOV
tonic and gin
53. EVA SIMMONDS
beauty in the eye
58. RICHARD MAYO
jobs and slander
54. BILLIE HOLIDAY
crossed lines, wrong signals
57. MAGGIE ROLT
love and capital
55. HARRY FREER
graffiti and doppelgangers
56. SAVI GUPTA
fate and mannequins
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In just a few hours a day, you too can become a writer. 253 shows you how.
Every passenger in 253 has a number that is his or hers alone. And every section has 253 words. This means that: each character has his or her own word in every section.
Put all these words together—and you have made a monument to your favourite 253 character.
Here’s how it works…
Let’s take passenger number 9, Mr Keith Olewaio.
All you have to do is take the 9th word from each section. If you put together Keith’s words for Car One only, it reads like this:
Even under short suit sits and of carefully jokes his black brown make brown big she jacket tinted power someone is eyes pink face long face T his rural track haired grey with open ears jacket very.
Surrealistic!
Do that for each of the seven cars, and you will have a new 253-word section in honour of Mr Keith Olewaio. In the privacy of your own home, you will have:
* treated words as things,
* moved them into place
* and counted them.
That is all that writers do! That’s all there is to it. Try it next time you want to write a business letter or instructions for the general public. Write a poem and see if it really is any different from the 253 method. You’ll have a fun hobby and will impress your friends. But remember, the one thing you will not do is
Earn big £££££!!!!!
38
MR ANDRE STANLEY
Outward appearance
Ageing football coach? American letterman’s jacket with beige sleeves, black trunk, OSHKOSH INDIANS it announces, NUMBER 22. White Levis jeans, white socks, black shoes, salt and pepper hair, healthy pink complexion. A young person into retro fashion would kill to know where Andre finds his clothes.
Inside information
A minister from an Episcopalian diocese in Wisconsin on a theological fact-finding mission. Andre is particularly bemused by the debate about gay priests. Why the fuss? There are none.
Andre served in Vietnam. He is baffled by all the talk of post-traumatic stress disorder. He piloted helicopters and saw the worst the war had to offer—the blasted bodies of young men—but he has no trouble accounting for the deaths, the destruction. God leaves everyone free, everyone responsible, even Nazis. We are free to wage mistaken wars, mistranslate the Bible, or commit rapes. And we are free to fight back.
Andre wants to write screenplays for Jesus…and reclaim the media from barnstorming fundamentalists. He is working on a screen treatment now, about helicopter pilots in Vietnam.
What he is doing or thinking
Trying not to breathe. The man next to him stinks beyond belief. It is an inhuman smell, very pungent, like scorched hops. It reminds Andre of his one visit to the Annhauser-Busch brewery in Los Angeles, which was like a sewer. Do all English people smell like this? Don’t they ever wash? Maybe they just don’t know about dry cleaning.
Then a woman says in exasperated, fruity tones: ‘This is unbearable! Can’t you use a deodorant?’
Car 2 map
Contents
39
MR KEVIN POTTER
Outward appearance
John Carradine? Elongated, raffish, middle-aged man. An ill-fitting black overcoat. Its velvet collar arches up to his hair line. Bone-thin, hairy wrists. Young person’s black, thick-soled shoes.
Inside information
Purchaser for Mosstains and closet novelist. Sits alone in his office and continually rewrites Pastel Images, a novel based on a love affair he had in 1967.
Kevin would not recognize himself under the lank grey hair. Being a kind of handsome and full of promise was part of his identity for so long that it comes as a shock to realize he is near retirement, without a published novel or even a chain of mistresses. As if his life were not complicated enough, under the black suit, he is wearing women’s underwear.
What he is doing or thinking
Kevin wonders with hurt bafflement why his career has stalled. Colleagues avoid him; salesmen cancel appointments. His PA keeps her window wide open. The office is freezing. ‘Do you have to keep the window open all the time?’ he once asked. Her face was hard, strange. ‘We need the air,’ she replied. His nickname around the office is Rotten Fish. All of this is very hurtful. He is a sensitive, creative person.
To his horror the woman sitting next to him erupts, jowls quivering. ‘This is unbearable,’ she announces. ‘Can’t you use a deodorant? You smell like a bonfire of old rubber tyres!’
What is she talking about? Kevin can’t help sniffing; he smells nothing. Insulted, hypnotized by shock, he stands to get off one stop early at Waterloo.
Car 2 map
Contents
40
MRS GEORGINA BULLEN
Outward appearance
Rugged old type. Heavily made-up face seems about to smile grimly. Green jersey, grey skirt, clean sensible shoes. It is a surprise to see town shoes instead of green wellies.
Inside information
Her husband was a Captain in the Royal Navy, and turned around his
destroyer to propose marriage. It was war time. Georgina now does work for charities and the church. She is a caring, conservative woman, whose heart sings at the thought of Mrs Thatcher, whom she regards as a great force for good brought down by the jealousy of those around her. Georgina devotes herself to church work, her decent romantic husband, and the memory of her one true love—a Pakistani lawyer she met in Quetta in 1941. She has no photograph of him.
Georgina is visiting Lambeth Palace1 for a briefing on the issue of gays in the priesthood, and will have an embarrassing meeting in 20 minutes’ time with Passenger 38. She will assume throughout that he is gay and will address him sympathetically on the subject.
What she is doing or thinking
Feels pity and horror for the man next to her—he may not even know that he stinks. She has stood it since Baker Street and now has a terrible headache. She explodes and says perhaps too much…something about burnt tyres.
The poor man flees and she feels terrible. Billows waft from the folds of his coat like a gas leak. Georgina feels the stench in the roots of her teeth.
She has to get off at Waterloo. With him.
Car 2 map
Contents
Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
1 Lambeth Palace is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official residence. It is on the south bank, but walled away from it, across the main road. Part of its grounds are now a public park, Archbishop’s Park, which was donated in 1900.
To most of the people who drive past, aiming for the roundabout by Lambeth Bridge, or who walk past, choking on asbestos dust, the great house might as well be invisible, walled and churched-in as it is. The Park is what they can use, with a play area for children, and tennis courts.
The Palace’s great ecclesiastical library has its roots in a bequest of books in 1610 from an Archbishop. From time to time, the buildings survive riots—in 1640 from London apprentices or in 1780 by Gordon rioters. Otherwise, for the most part, its history is unbelievably dull.
41
MR CHRIS GREEN
Outward appearance
Shaved temples, dyed blond hair. Earring. White jacket and slacks, bovver boots. Broad-shouldered, slim-waisted. Looks healthy except for old tobacco-stained hands. Reading Clive Barker’s Books of Blood.
Inside information
A qualified psychologist going for a job interview as a karate instructor at the Multi-Use Resource Centre, Lambeth North. Also rock-climbs and plays in a band.
Chris’s last full-time job was in the Personnel Department of Hackney Council. His boss was another idiot. He thought the staff were depressed for psychological reasons. In Hackney? ‘They’re only depressed because they have to work for peanuts for you,’ Chris told his boss and walked out. Then he sent the Mayor a letter detailing why staff hated working for the elected officials of both parties.
He now offers aromatherapy to clients he terrifies; classes in communication to computer geeks at whom he shouts. Saturdays he arranges flowers and delivers them to restaurants. He makes flowers look angry. His clients try to like them, but the exclamations of pleasure die in their throats. They are too frightened to complain.
At least people who learn karate will be more durable. He thinks.
What he is doing or thinking
The stench of Passenger 39 is like what Chris feels most of the time. Nothing works, and he is 34 years old. At college people clustered around him, in clubs everybody used to know him. He knows he’s smart, strong, fast, clever. He knows he has something, but it always escapes him, and the world is run by fools whom he frightens.
It should be the other way around.
Car 2 map
Contents
42
MS ANNE WARRINGTON
Outward appearance
Fuzzy black jacket, a sweater that is a work of art—blue, green, yellow angular patterns in different thicknesses of yarn. Red hair in a Beatle cut, green eye make-up, lipstick that matches her hair, tooled cowboy boots.
Inside information
Works as an administrator for the Florence Nightingale Museum, St Thomas’ Hospital. Considers her skills to be in style and marketing. Member of the Health Museum Network, which has proved to be counter-productive.
What she is doing or thinking
She is fuming. Dun and Old, the accounting firm, are just across the street. For months Anne has been building a case for sponsorship: a venue for D&O visitors, exposure to the health market. Instead, the Museum of Dental Prosthetics has got the money. It’s infuriating. It was Anne who told the dentists that D&O’s Public Sector Manager had false teeth. They sent him a giant grinning set as part of their SMILE campaign and promised exposure on every leaflet.
When she first visited the Museum, Anne fell in love with the story of Florence Nightingale. Sad, alone, battling depression, Nightingale exposed a truth that no one else wanted to face: the British Army took everything it could from its men, and then discarded their wounded bodies like burnt bacon. Florence proved beyond doubt that the Army did not care, and that she did. She invented a profession.
Anne wanted to be part of that story. Rivalry and conniving were not what she meant. What next?
You could always, a voice says within her, become a nurse yourself.
Car 2 map
Contents
43
MR KEITH SNOW
Outward appearance
Big, blond, soft-faced man in wire-rimmed spectacles and clean casual clothing—brown slacks, tan jacket. Carries a shoulder bag hugged by a grubby, grinning Garfield cat.
Inside information
Keith was meant for the priesthood until faced with a choice between A levels and the school rugby team. Chose the latter. Went to Hull Polytechnic instead of university, where he met and married his similarly religious, gentle wife. Now father of six tidy children.
At twenty-six, he was surprised to write a series of funny pornographic stories about an ancient Greek satyr loose in modern Britain. He rutted people’s trouser cuffs. On the strength of the stories, Keith was offered the assistant editorship of Exposed for Men. Needed the money. Hated it. The walls were covered in fanny. He lied about his job. They offered him editor and he left. He couldn’t face telling people he was fully responsible for Britain’s leading dirty magazine.
What he is doing or thinking
Trying to feel the full happiness of his new job.
Keith is now the proud editor of Zinc and Lead, companion periodical to Bibliographical Supplement on Mining. It has modern offices on Lower Marsh: the walls are covered with mineral crystals. This fulfils an ambition; he studied mineralogy at Hull and often consulted the Supplement.
So he’s happy, right? So why can he still see the satyr and his grin? Worse than that, Keith is sure suddenly that he can smell him, the goatish, ruttish musk.
He looks around, paranoia in his eyes. He is of course smelling Passenger 39.
Car 2 map
Contents
44
MS AMANDA STINTON
Outward appearance
About 22, in black leather jacket and ski pants. Long hair tinged with henna. Her Walkman plays music loudly identifiable as Simply Red.
Inside information
Works in the Pay Unit of the Metropolitan Police HQ. Lives with her parents. Both she and her parents think of her as a wild hoyden. ‘Fancy Amanda, working for the police,’ says her mother, who dreams of her daughter doing all sorts of things she never did.
What she is doing or thinking
Amanda thinks about her affair with a married man in Maintenance. Gary is everything a man should be: masculine, a bit hard. She has to confess that the attraction is mostly sexual.
It was exciting in the beginning. You see this married man and you begin to think: I could have him. But much longer and she’ll just be a little mistress, waiting for him to call.
Sunday was the worst. They were supposed to meet up at Gary’s mate’s. It was so humiliatin
g. She showed up and Gary’s friend opened the door and just said, ‘Gary rang. He can’t make it.’ Then he said, ‘I’m free as it happens.’ Oh please. He’s a horrible little wanker as well.
Mick Hucknall sings…Maybe some day; someone will come. Amanda decides. It’s going nowhere. She’ll end it.
The woman across from her stands up. Oh wow, she’s wearing one of those antique slips. People make a big thing about it, but it’s just nice lacy material. Amanda salutes her for fashion bravery: more power to you, girl. She decides to do the same.
Car 2 map
Contents
45
MRS DOREEN GOODMAN
Outward appearance
Tiny, elf-like black lady. Sits smiling in conservative blue clothes, teased up straightened hair, and padded shoes. On her lap, there is a parcel wrapped in purple with a lavender ribbon.
Inside information
Works in the Corporate Development Unit of the London Emergency Service2 off Morley Street. The Unit was set up to market the Service after a series of management disasters, particularly a new computer system. A new logo, a Management Accounting System and stringent financial targets were put in place by the new manager, a failed banker. Doreen types his memos and drafts the letters to employees who have been made redundant.