by Geoff Ryman
Doreen has always been a quiet soul. She has a sweet slow husband, whose moustache is white and who has retired from his job as a security guard in a bank. They both miss the island they left as children. Doreen will retire soon and then they will go back home.
What she is doing or thinking
She is thinking of the present she has bought for her boss that sits so prettily on her lap. There is a card signed by the entire Unit. They all banded together to buy it, but it was Doreen’s idea.
The boss is old, white haired, and knows only money. She has bought him for his birthday a fossilized turd.
It is probably from a bison or other bovine mammal, large, round in sections and petrified a beautiful smooth blue. He’ll have to open it up in front of everyone. She can’t wait until she sees his face. Birthday boy.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
2 There is no such thing as the London Emergency Service. I made it up. Think of it as a glorified ambulance service.
46
MR MARTIN PARK
Outward appearance
Thrusts himself into the carriage as if having beaten his way through bushes. Grey-green trousers crumpled where bicycle clips usually go. Heavy Aran sweater under a duffel-coat. Ill-advised greying beard. Carries a plastic bag full of books, and a bicycle seat. Accidentally hits Passenger 47 with it as he passes.
Inside information
Runs a bookstall along the Embankment in front of the National Film Theatre.3 Last night found that his bicycle, ringed round with chains like tinsel on a Christmas tree, had had its seat stolen. He is bringing its replacement. The books in the bag are stock. Twenty years ago running a bookstall seemed romantic. In January, in biting winds with few customers, it is a fate that closes in. Last March he developed large purple welts across his face. The doctor said it was the ozone layer: standing outside in winter sunlight has become dangerous.
What he is doing or thinking
He cannot believe the pure hell that is London Underground. Due to the genius of British design, the way out and the way in for the Bakerloo platform at Embankment use the same tunnel. A thicket of blocked, bored people had taken root in it. His bicycle seat caught one woman’s bag. She plainly thought he was a thief. Spinning around he trod heavily on a gentleman’s foot. The man erupted: ‘You people are ruining my shoes!’
‘Hey man,’ rumbles Passenger 47. He’s big. ‘Sorry,’ says Martin, like a curse. ‘Didn’t mean it.’
He will arrive to find that, chained to the railings, only the bicycle wheels remain.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
3 The area of bookstalls is under the arches of Waterloo Bridge, sweeping off overhead across the river. This riverside walk is lined with trees. Joggers wobble past, children sit on the sculptures, and the National Theatre, looking like a temporary facility in a trailer camp, also fits neatly under the bridge, offering outdoor tables and food.
The National Film Theatre is one of the best repertory film theatres in London—though less adventurous than the ICA or than it used to be itself. Part of the British Film Institute, it is the central venue for the London Film Festival and the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It has a great bookshop and is attached to the Museum of the Moving Image, which honours television as well as film.
MOMI and the NFT form part of the riverside area called the South Bank. This horseshoe-shaped bend of the river contains the Royal Festival Hall, the Hayward Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and on the other side of Waterloo Bridge, the Royal National Theatre and on to the new Tate Gallery in the old power station and the new Globe Theatre.
The Royal Festival Hall was built as part of the Festival of Britain. It is large, many floored and does free lunchtime concerts in its lower floor bar area, next to its free exhibitions. A good place to meet for lunch. Concerts of everything from Argentinian tangos, to Steve Reich, to Franz Liszt (which is what Passenger 53 is booking—her daughter will hate it).
I originally intended these footnotes to be full of bitchy misinformation designed to mislead. I keep losing heart and telling the truth. Losing heart is at the core of all artistic failure. I promise that some of the information in these footnotes will be deliberately, wilfully WRONG.
What other novel will make you that promise? Someone has to maintain standards.
47
MR ASHLEY WATKINS
Outward appearance
Heavily set black man in woolly hat, army jacket and baggy blue jeans. Hair in braids down behind his head, tied in a pigtail. This looks slightly out of place with his age, bulk and general air of gravitas. Deeply lined hands rest on each knee. Passenger 46 bumps him with a bicycle seat and apologizes. ‘Tch’ says Mr Watkins, sucking on his teeth in disgust.
Inside information
Runs a stall in the bleak, windswept trench around the Elephant and Castle shopping centre.4 Everything Mr Watkins sells is black-themed: Egyptian papyrus, towels with leaders’ portraits, books by Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, and tapes of lectures.
The stall really makes its money from soul, rap and dance cassettes, which he buys in bulk from a supplier who seems to have a limitless source of deleted albums.
What he is doing or thinking
Mr Watkins’ dignity is affronted. His white supplier must have made a mistake or he’s taking the piss. He is yet to have words. The last shipment of cassettes consisted almost entirely of the Tammy Wynette back catalogue. There were some George Reeves and Slim Whitman cassettes, nine copies of the Ray Coniff Christmas Album and two copies of The James Last Sound Honours ABBA. There was a single bargain basement collection of the worst of Teddy Pendergast. Mr Watkins does not drink or smoke; he does not pursue women. Women do not pursue him. He labours in the fields of pride, but there is not much harvest from the concrete plains of Elephant and Castle. And even fewer laughs.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
4 The Elephant and Castle shopping centre is one of the most beautiful buildings in London.
It is a prime example of the great favour Hitler did in bombing flat many of London’s most historic areas. The opportunity to rebuild unleashed a diarrhoea of imaginative architecture.
Nothing in all of London quite takes away the breath like the Elephant. Its attractive maze of underground tunnels affords pedestrians safe passage under one of the most ruthless traffic interchanges in Europe plus ample opportunity for dog-emptying. The doggy results are often crisscrossed with skateboard tracks. Attractive murals mingle with the work of local graffiti artists.
Nothing can prepare the traveller for the first sight of the Shopping Centre itself. It is huge and painted a shade of pink that exists nowhere else in art or nature. Now attractively aged and peeling, it has acquired a patina of genuine London urban angst.
Delightfully set off by Alexander Fleming House, a building that has been closed for years because it made people sick. It used to house the Department of Health.
48
MS OLIVIA PARSONS
Outward appearance
Red-framed spectacles, a hearty plump face, mauve sweatshirt over stretch trousers and a quilted coat. Long, careless hair. Stares ahead of herself chewing abstractedly on one strand of it.
Inside information
A contract tutor and Apple operator at the South Bank Technology Park.5 Olivia teaches Quark Xpress and Illustrator skills. Also works on the Park’s money-making design and publications service.
What she is doing or thinking
Olivia is remembering the terror of the night before. She was working late on the University prospectus, when she heard a noise, a bit like one of the swing windows thumping against its frame. She thought no more of it. Then her door opened.
A young man in sweatshirt and baseball cap stood there. She had time to register t
hat she did not know him. ‘Oh shit,’ he said, and left, quickly. She went on working for a few moments, and then realized that something was wrong. She stood up, went into the next studio. The backs of the machines were prized open. In one corner was a curl of turd. Her heart started to pound. It was 10.30 PM and she was alone. For some reason she ran back into her own studio before ringing the police. The first the security guard knew of it was when the police arrived.
For a full fifteen minutes, from the questioning, it was plain that the police suspected Olivia of helping. She now fears for her job. It would be so easy for them to cancel her contract, just in case.
And she can still smell the shit.
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5 To be honest, I’m not sure what the South Bank Technology Park is, except a huge brick building full of computers which I choose to believe is linked in some way to the University of the South Bank.
That is why anyone going to the Technopark could be linked to USB and vice versa.
Full marks to whoever had the balls to call a brick building by the Elephant a park.
49
MR MARTIN BELCHER
Outward appearance
Stout, clear-complexioned man about 34, wearing quilted black and red motorcycle gear. Sits with his boot resting on the opposite knee, occupying a fair amount of space. Reading The Independent.
Inside information
Manager of Waterloo Spare Parts, a motorcycle supply store. Usually he motorcycles into work, but it’s too cold today. The tube gives him a chance to read the paper.
What he is doing or thinking
Man U’s paid seven million for Andy Cole! Lucky Geordie bastards…a Russian journalist has been expelled as a spy…Tony Blair having a go at the lefties over Clause Four. And Howard has sacked the Governor of Parkhurst jail after the escape and everyone says he’s a scapegoat…
Martin reads with satisfaction. Yesterday, a real biker came into the shop. Officer class, posh, not pretentious, he wanted a spare part for a Kawasaki ZX. Martin had to laugh. ‘Sorry, we do stuff for couriers…You know, little Hondas.’ The guy had biked all the way across Soviet Asia to Mongolia. He was planning to bike up through California and the redwoods, up into Oregon. Martin ached with jealousy and gave him an address for high-performance parts.
Martin was just about to feel depressed when, outside the window, the guy looked both ways up the street then nipped into the massage parlour next door. Martin’s jealousy burst like an ear infection. I suppose he’s got performance parts, Martin thought. He grins, and goes back to his newspaper.
The Indy’s got a competition for an Alfa Romeo Spider. Things could be looking up.6
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
6 Unfortunately, by mid-1996, the shop was closed, replaced by a vintage clothing store that also moved quickly on. Maybe Martin took off for the redwoods after all.
50
MR RALPH MOLES
Outward appearance
About 32, plaid shirt, no sweater, glossy bum-freezer in black vinyl with fake fur interior. An old-fashioned 1950s hat with earflaps. Retreating hair, thin face, a light beard, black boots.
Inside information
Works as a body-piercing specialist in Courage. This is not a brewery but a rubberware and fetish shop. It has a black shiny awning and rubber draperies across its front window. The shop used to be the neighbourhood butchers.
What he is doing or thinking
Ralph is still gently stoned from last night. Jamie showed off his new acquisition, yet another heavy ethnic earring hanging from his scrotum. Jamie works out at the YMCA, has shaved pubes and a spider’s web tattooed over his designer-stubble chest. The spider sits on his tit. Stanley and Jane were discussing their investment in an exercise horse, over which to bend people.
For some reason Ralph was unmoved. He excused himself and tumbled into a bed with rubber sheets. Woke up clammy with sweat. Stumbled to the loo and tripped on a leather jock strap. Dazed by the lights, he tried to brush his teeth and found he’d used KY by mistake.
He’s sick of everything smelling of old shoes. He now finds nothing sexy about nipple clamps, face masks, chains, diapers. Worrying about what else the kitchen grater might have been used for. Who needs any of it?
Ralph wants clean white Y-fronts and Hayley Mills fully clothed. How long will this alienation continue? It puts at risk his friendships, leisure pursuits, profession.
Is there a counsellor for this kind of thing?
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51
MRS AMINA KHATUN
Outward appearance
A red and orange sari underneath a black coat. Hair enlivened with streaks of white. Dark circles under her eyes. She coughs over and over, hand covering her mouth. The eyes flicker back and forth about the carriage.
Inside information
Her son Imran manages a newsagent opposite Lambeth North tube. She is going to nurse it for him while he renews his passport.
What she is doing or thinking
Who are all these people? Mrs Khatun cannot identify a single customer or family member. She is unused to taking the Underground. Nearly always a cousin or a son will drive her.
Imran’s shop is so sad. He has to leave it half-empty because of the insurance. Mrs Khatun likes a shop to be full, the racks bulging with colour. Milk, newspapers, and magazines the wholesalers force him to take are the only things left.
If only Imran would work, bring in business. Of all her sons, he does the least. If he wanted to be a computer programmer, then he should have studied. He still could study.
Instead, he is always going back to what he calls home. It may be home, but things are better here. It breaks Mrs Khatun’s heart to see her boy, now fat, not handsome, dreamy, mismanaging the store and fleeing to Pakistan. Oh they make a fuss of him there, they think he is a rich businessman. She curses the insurance company, but what can she do? She coughs again. This cold has not gone, it will not go. It’s been with her for years.
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52
MS ANNIE JEANRENAUD
Outward appearance
Frizzle-haired, large lady of about 45 in a long batik dress and oatmeal jumper nearly to her knees. Rifles through a hessian bag. Pulls out a final warning in red, various tube passes, and a letter from a rumpled envelope.
Inside information
Teaches life drawing at Merely College. Loves it, economizes, eats little, remains large, and has many middle-aged boyfriends, which on the whole seems enough. Her large cheekbones, narrow eyes (myopic) and ironic grin make her most natural expression one of merriment. Recently had tests for a lump in her womb. This evening she’s meeting the art class for drinks.
What she is doing or thinking
The letter is xeroxed. The salutation and ending are handwritten.
Dearest, Dearest Annie
If you should hear that something has happened, I would like you to have this letter. It thanks you for the years of friendship and support you have given to me and my work. Sometimes life is strange rather than wonderful. Sometimes it is wonderful.
Don’t believe any rumours you may hear about me. There are people who will stop at nothing to discredit the author of work that does not express what they themselves see or feel.
Thanks for all the evenings at the Rose and Crown!!!
Love, June
June is a sculptress of Annie’s age. Annie sees her thick mop of grey hair, the strange mask of the face after plastic surgery.
Annie knows then: June has killed herself. She leaps up, as if to prevent it. Then she remembers: the letter has been in her bag for weeks.
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53
MRS EVA SIMMONDS
Outward appearance
Middle-aged
woman, small, pinched, hairy chinned, a face pulled into itself. Her clothes are beige and clean. Clunky shoes. Chews on her lower lip, arms folded.
Inside information
Eva married her cousin, who is Professor of Jurisprudence at UCL. Everything she has done since has been done equally blindly. What she was blind to was her husband’s ugliness. His eyes bulge, his tiny nose is hooked, his chin juts out to meet it, his teeth splay like clumsy feet, he has to suck in spit all the time. He works with his books, mostly at home. He insists Eva stay with him and forbids her to work.