by Geoff Ryman
What he is doing or thinking
His memories swim like fish in a pool. He sees the old man on the bus many years ago back home. He sees his English girlfriend Karen. He sees his mother in their flat in Mansura, reeds on the floor to repair chairs. He sees the many photographs of himself, handsome in a gelabiya.
He sees Karen’s father, big, pink faced, crumpled, white haired, in the showers after tennis. Karen’s father’s hand on his thigh. Karen’s father lying face down on the bed. Karen saying, ‘My father really, really likes you. He keeps asking after you.’
He sees the rowboatmen in Mansura. ‘You are an Egyptian, why are you taking the side of these foreigners?’ And he himself saying, ‘It doesn’t give you the right to cheat them.’ He cheats them himself. He loves them.
He supports a group that aims rifles at them because Islam stands up to Mubarak and his corruption.
What stands up to his own corruption? His many selves swim like fish, on from Waterloo Station.
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140
MS ANITA MAZZONI
Outward appearance
Floppy velvet hat, black bangs, red lipstick, Gothic pallor, bovver boots, charcoal stockings. Sits smiling slightly, legs crossed.
Inside information
Works for a small commercials production house behind Merely College. Her boss is an ex-academic who gets nervous in presentations and nervous around her. She likes making people nervous.
She’s an unusual girl. She would have been on the Marchioness the night of the disaster, but a last minute liaison meant she was otherwise engaged. Her mother dated Mick Jagger, was briefly famous as a model and went out with John Noakes of Blue Peter fame. Anita inherited this capacity for effortless notoriety. Her friend Ruth did a portrait of Anita for a degree show. It won a prize, and she ended up on posters all over the Underground.
What she is doing or thinking
Anita loves herself. She is about to embark on another escapade. The Big Issue salesman at Waterloo is a real hunk. She’s been chatting him up for weeks, getting off one stop early. Today she’s going to tell him: don’t be homeless, come live with me and be my sex slave.
His name is Antonio. He’s from Italy, and is so much more interesting than English men. He’s an actor and worked in New York for years which is why he speaks with an American accent. Antonio came over here for a show. It went bust, which is why he’s on the skids. Anita knows people who could help him.
She thinks: who else but me would have an affair with a Big Issue salesman?
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141
MISS JOSETTE PARELY
Outward appearance
Middle-aged woman, thick pebble glasses on a chain, grey overcoat, brogues. Sits reading with ferocious concentration a Beryl the Peril Annual. A young woman next to her reaches across and shakes a pack of licorice allsorts at her. The woman chooses one with great care—a pink square. ‘Put the book away,’ says her companion, and they begin to pack up for Waterloo.
Inside information
Josette suffers from Down’s Syndrome. Her family are French. They escaped the Occupation and stayed after the war. Her mother was a trained nurse who devoted herself to raising Josette. Her younger brother took care of her and defended her if she were teased.
‘How come your sister is funny?’ children would ask. ‘I’m retarded,’ Josette would answer. She learned how to manage other children. They grew up. She did not.
What she is doing or thinking
Josette wishes she were like Beryl, looking after herself. But she doesn’t because she has Down’s Syndrome. They are going to visit Mummy, and talk to Mummy and leave her some sweets. You can’t replace a Mummy, she goes away and leaves a hole. You want people to hug you, but no one hugs you like Mummy.
They’re going to change trains! Josette recognizes the signs in herself, she could get over-excited and silly. She gives Nane a quick hug, and Nane knows what that means. ‘We’ll settle down soon,’ Nane promises. ‘Got everything?’
‘Except my Mummy,’ says Josette. But that will solve itself soon because Josette knows Down’s Syndrome don’t live long. She’ll join her soon.
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142
MISS NANE PARELY
Outward appearance
Old-fashioned woman in her late twenties. Vanessa Redgrave hair, tan sheepskin coat, Laura Ashley dress. Tends the older woman next to her.
Inside information
Graduate student doing a PhD on Dog Latin and Renaissance verse. Born out of wedlock to Josette Parely when Josette was sixteen.
Josette was always affectionate. One day she hugged the wrong man. No one knows who the bastard was. Nane and Josy grew up like sisters in the grandparents’ house. Nane assumed that Gran was her mother. Both are now visiting Gran’s grave.
What she is doing or thinking
When Nane’s girlfriend asks what was it like to grow up with Josette, Nane says that it was fun. Like having a big sister who was just a bit bigger than other people’s sisters. They had friends and parties together. They would make paper crowns and sing. It was easy to scare Josy, with ghost stories or summaries of horror films. ‘You mustn’t scare me,’ Josette would warn. If frightened, she would weep, beg and scrabble at the floor until her fingers bled.
Josette, loved putting on plays. In 1981, when Gran was dying, Nane was thirteen. She decided to distract Josy with a production of Grease. They and little Christian rehearsed ‘You’re the One that I Want’ between summer visits to the hospital. Their father sat in the garden and wept.
Now he lives in France, with other graves and memories. In her mind, Nane sees him, her girlfriend, her Gran and has a sense of unlikely connections. Time and family. Her sister-mother stands.
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143
MS LUCIE FRIEND
Outward appearance
Going to dinner dance in 1957? Satin top, full black skirt, velvety black high heels, tweed coat with black velvet collar. About 36. Looks across the row and fans out her fingers of both hands. Turns her head to the left, to the right. Squeezes both earrings. Grimaces showing all her teeth, moving head from left to right again. Licks teeth. Reaches into purse.
Inside information
Works for Beetlehide shippers as PA to the Mediterranean Controller. Unmarried, lives with her mother. The two are very fashion conscious and share clothes.
What she is doing or thinking
Lucie is using the windows of the train as mirrors. She was very impressed once by a description of Mrs Thatcher’s3 grooming. The secret was constant maintenance. Lucie checks out hair, fingernail polish, and teeth, for any signs of breakfast. From her colour-coordinated purse, she gets an i.d. badge, and tries out various positions which combine modesty and assertiveness.
Lucie knows her workmates are spreading vicious rumours. They say she has fallen in love with the Mediterranean Controller. That is because she must restrict access to him, protect him. Others are out to undermine him, and so target her as well. Naturally, a woman devoted to her work is devoted to the man. She keeps a picture of his two children on her desk. She sends them birthday cards and presents. She gives him presents: mugs, pens and, once, a set of six white Y-fronts.
Armoured for the day, she walks early to the doorway, rustling from silks and girdles underneath her skirt.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
3 Margaret Thatcher is one of Britain’s greatest fashion and entertainment icons.
She is perhaps best considered in the light of the 1985 pop video ‘Dancing in the Street’ which starred Mick Jagger and David Bowie, the other great British national figures she most resembles.
No one who has seen documentary footage of David Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973 can doubt h
is influence on Mrs Thatcher. She appropriated Ziggy’s make-up and general air of warm androgyny.
Consider also the parallels with Mick Jagger. Both are first generation university-educated people of exceptional achievement. Their last names are both easily understood derivatives of verbs that became professional designations (a jagger being a thief or highwayman). Both became widely loved and hated at the same time, and Mrs Thatcher took over from Jagger as one of the public figures most often appearing in people’s dreams. Both of course are sex symbols. ‘The eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe,’ said François Mitterrand of Mrs Thatcher, a description that applies equally to Mick Jagger.
Finally, and of course most importantly, all three conveyed a similar social and political message. ‘Calling out around the world are you ready for a brand new beat?’
144
MR DOMINIC SHARPE
Outward appearance
Old soldier in green camouflage jacket and blue jeans, hiking books, tartan beret with a regimental badge on the side. Red beard streaked with grey. Matching scarf. He looks pudgy, pernickety, gruff.
Inside information
An unemployed Munchausen, who imagines he was a soldier. On his way to the Imperial War Museum,4 where he talks to visitors about his wartime experiences at the Battle of the Bulge. If challenged by a foreigner for being too young to have served in World War Two (Dominic is 55 years old), he pretends to think they are German and yells xenophobic abuse at them. If they could not be taken for German (for example, black Americans) he thanks them for being too kind, and says that he is sure he looks every one of his 77 years.
If challenged by a Brit, he winks and admits he is an actor paid to enliven the exhibit. This is also untrue but it is close to what he tells himself—that he is an unpaid display.
Then he asks for money.
Has just sold his volume of wartime memoirs for an undisclosed sum.
What he is doing or thinking
Fuming over the size of the advance. The book took years to write, the product of bitter experience. The incompetence of his commanding officers, the heat, the dust, the loss of young life. The book will blow the lid right off the scandal of that fiasco. What do they know about it, snug in their publishers’ offices?
What happens if they ask him for proof he was there?
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
4 The Imperial War Museum seems to be impossible to find. Anyone who plainly cannot speak English and is walking along Westminster Bridge Road with a map will ask you where it is. ‘Directional Questions not answered,’ says a helpful hand-lettered sign next to the Evening Standard kiosk in front of Lambeth North station. The Imperial War Museum is to blame.
I have never succeeded in entering it. It costs a reasonable sum of money to get in, and it never struck me as being worthwhile to pay it for a quick lunchtime scan. It is set in a surprisingly large, surprisingly open park, with an annoyingly inconvenient fence all the way around it. No one ever sweeps up the leaves. You realize in late summer that the leaves on the ground are last year’s or the year before’s.
It was founded by an Act of Parliament in 1920 and opened at the Crystal Palace, moved about as London institutions do, and ended up in a hospital building. It was closed during World War Two, since they had a real war to muse upon.
Its park is called the Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park in memory of the mother of Viscount Rothermere. Now who could forget her? The pub opposite used to call itself after Charlie Chaplin, who at least drank in the vicinity.
145
MR DOUGLAS ESSWOOD
Outward appearance
Middle-aged man, prematurely grey, bustles into the car. Heavy grey suit, clean beige overcoat. Briefcase and smaller cloth bag probably containing laptop computer. Passenger 110 moves feet so he can sit down. Nods to the kid then settles in more pensively, index finger pressed against the line of his mouth.
Inside information
Sales Director of Effective Buggers Inc, an American company. On way for third presentation to the Met Police. Douglas’s company offers realtime image enhancement to video surveillance systems.
What he is doing or thinking
Pondering Britain. A kid like that back home would be a punk, here he’s sweet and polite. This is such a nice country, but all anyone talks about is security—job security, locks, CCTV. Douglas knows his product works. It enlarges, clarifies but it’s being called upon to do new things.
Because, to put it bluntly, it’s illegal to spy on people in America. A visit to New Scotland Yard left him exhausted. A very pretty woman his own age simply switched channels from flyovers to alleyways, shopping centres, main streets. The whole country is wired. In a department store in Oxford Street, the cameras followed a man the operators didn’t like around the shop. After he left, they warned other stores by radio.
Then cameras followed him down the street, saw him get on a bus, and videoed the bus to make sure he didn’t get off. The English live in 1984 and don’t know it.
Still, it’s good for his business. As long as nobody tries to do the same to him.
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For Your Reading Ease and Comfort
PASSENGER MAP
Car No 5
THIS MAP SHOWS YOU
WHO is in the car
WHERE they are sitting and
WHAT are their interests and concerns
146. AMELIA APJOHN
chest hair and tubes
181. KEVIN SPINNAKER
Dr Football and Mr Hyde
147. DANIEL RICHARDS
British lions
180. TERRY WILCOX
hobbies and hobbies
148. HELEN THISTLETHWAITE
clothes and colours
179. ANNABELLE ROWAN
Bhagwan and pharmacy
149. SELIMA HAYDIR
environmental impact
178. DEBBIE DENUSSI
threadworms and directions
150. CAROLINE ROFFEY
old friends, new acquaintance
177. AMITABH CHOPRA
orgy of sex exposed!
151. DANNY DODDING
a friendly face
176. PETE DAYMOND
cards and contracts
DOORS
DOORS
152. TERRY MACK
a state of nerves
175. MADELEINE STRICKLER
memories mean Heinz
153. ANTHONY JAMIESON
a question of balance
174. ANTHONY AULDGIRTH
Godot and points between
154. NEIL SYLVAN
boats and Barings
173. DELIA HENDY
our cheerful, efficient staff…
155. IRIS KRAUSHAAR
she’s leaving home
172. LISA MUIR
gotcha!
156. SONALI SHETTY
young love and big bums
171. VICTOR DOWIE
Shoot! Shit!
157. PAUL BINYON
gardener’s question time
170. LINDA SCRALG
cats and mating calls
DOORS
DOORS
158. TINA RAVON
Chums R Us
169. ESTELLE IRTIN
The Apparatus of Yearning
159. CLIVE SIDDEN
flying the flag
168. GURDEV DHOLLIN
instant dharma
160. SASHA BINGHAM
inside housing
167. PAULE WRIGHT
other people’s offices
161. PRU WAVERLY
’Orrible murder, ’orrible lies
166. MARY LENEHAN
’Orrible murder, horrible lies
162. STEFANIE PARASHAR
smiles and villains
165. MEL McKINNEY
keys and brothers-in-law
163. SUNIL KURASH
164. BILL McREADY
Scotland and Ascension
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253 things to do on the Tube
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Read the paper of the person next to you.
Tut when they read faster than you do, turning the page before you’re ready.
Keep shifting a deserted heap of newspaper to different empty seats.
Remove your spectacles and rub the sleepy-dust out of your eyes.
Clean your spectacles on your tie.
Protect your briefcase with your feet.
Protect your new shoes with your briefcase.