And in the meantime… News 24 beckons!
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 88
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, April 14. Amount of my day wasted: nine minutes. Fellow sufferers: No regulars – Saturday…
Ah, there we go. Didn’t have to wait long, did we? Twenty-four hours, that’s all it took.
Twenty-four hours. I’ve been thinking about time. About what time does. What it does to us, I mean. Time the healer, time the ravager.
This time last year Beth and I were in what we called ‘the tunnel’. Beth and Sylvie and I: our little nuclear family, in our little house in Oxford together, happy. Exhausted, of course. Frantic with exhaustion. Frazzled. Kept awake all night and sleepwalking through the day. Unable to go longer than five minutes without checking Sylvie again, making sure she’s all right, making sure she’s still breathing, making sure she’s still there. In the tunnel.
Do you remember the tunnel, Martin? Those first six weeks or so after the birth when everything’s blurred and yet hyperfocused, when you basically live on the sofa and the telly’s on 24-hours a day, when you eat what and when you can, bolting it down as quickly as possible, in between bouts of feeding and nappy changes and pacing the living room, up and down, down and up, shushing and cooing and pleading for sleep. We called it the tunnel, because it felt like we were living in a tunnel, emerging from our house once every few days or so for more supplies, blinking and squinting at the sky, the fresh air.
The tunnel. So difficult and yet, so amazing.
I remember the tiredness, most of all. The tiredness and the happiness. The 24-hour exhaustion and the almost-permanent euphoria. I remember the moment I worked out the trick to get Sylvie to sleep – at about five in the morning, it was. After trying literally every idea in every book we could find, I swapped the nursery rhymes and Mozart CDs and sound effects (waterfalls, rain, heartbeat, etc) for one of my old-school trance albums. I mean, proper, tripped-out, arms-in-the-air, processed beats stuff. Dutch, too, I think. Dutch nosebleed techno. I have no idea why I still even own it. And you know what happened? The moment it came on, Sylvie closed her eyes and fell asleep. The hypnotic rhythms, the driving, relentless, repetitiveness of it… her little face relaxed and she drifted off. Amazing. That trick lasted a full fortnight and although the neighbours probably didn’t appreciate it, I’ve never felt happier about any piece of music in my life.
So, that’s where I was a year ago. In the tunnel. And, of course, six weeks later, with a little help from old-school Amsterdam trance music, there was, as there is with all tunnels, a light at the end of it. That’s the thing with tunnels: there’s always a light at the end of them. No matter how long, how dark, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.
This time last year I was still just a junior reporter on the showbiz desk, recycling press releases and handing over all my tips to others. I was getting stories (I had contacts all right) but by the time they ended up in the paper they rarely had my name on them. I was barely getting bylines. This time last year the Globe was only just beginning to get touched by scandal. It was still the biggest newspaper in the world, capable of toppling Premiers and crushing any who dared cross it.
This time last year I could never have dreamed this is where I’d be right now. Beth gone. Sylvie gone. And showbiz editor of the paper as it enters its death throes.
We got a paper out tonight. Unbelievably, with our student rag set-up, our laptops and cheap mobiles, our almost complete lack of original stories and pitiful excuses for scoops, with our skeleton staff and no access to our own archives… we got a paper out. I suppose that’s an achievement in itself, but really: it’s hardly worth it. I wouldn’t bother buying it tomorrow, if I were you. Unless it’s just for curiosity’s sake.
And you know what else? It was this time last year I started writing to your customer complaints department. They never did write back. Did I ever tell you that, Martin? Your customer complaints department – they never wrote back to explain the delays on my trains this time last year. You might want to have a word with someone about that, eh?
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 89
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 20.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, April 17. Amount of my day wasted: eight minutes. Fellow sufferer: Sauron Flesh Harrower.
Here we are again, Martin. We’ve had quite a run, recently. We’ve been averaging three delays a week. What’s happening? Taken your eye off the ball? Taken your foot off the gas? Or are you just giving up? Have you taken a good long look at the situation, decided it’s hopeless and stopped even trying to do anything about it?
Hey, guess what? I’m a little tipsy (obvs) – but then, I kind of feel I deserve it. And after all the nonsense and despair of the last few weeks, I’m drinking (for once) because, believe it or not, I’m in a good mood. Some things have gone right, for once!
I was offered a job today. I think. Well, no, I’m sure, actually. I got a call, on my new mobile (my first question, as it always is these days, was ‘How did you get my number?’ The answer: ‘You tell me. How would you have got your number?’ I liked them for that. It was a good answer). The call was from a PR company. The top PR company, as it happens. The one who looks after the interests of the cream of the country’s celebrities, the proper A-listers, the sort of people so rich, so famous, they don’t need to pay for anything, they don’t need to do anything… and anything they do is deemed newsworthy.
They want to talk to me. They’ve followed my career this past year with interest, they say. They want to have me in for a chat. Because there’s a position. A senior position. They need someone to – and this bit wasn’t actually said explicitly, but it was implied heavily enough for anyone but an idiot to pick it up – control the press. To make sure that bad news is buried and good news makes the front pages. They need someone to head up that particular department: the ‘media management’ department. And I’ve been a journalist long enough, I’ve had enough battles with PR companies, to know exactly what media management means.
But then, why not? They are the top dogs. And they’ve been following me with interest! They’ve been keeping an eye on my career, watching my rise through the paper. They want me – and they want me in a senior position! On serious money!
It’s worth a chat, right? It’s not journalism – it’s kind of the opposite, to be fair, it’s a sort of anti-journalism – but then so what? They want me! I’m flattered, Martin. They’ve made me an offer it’s very hard to refuse.
There is one slight drawback. Because do you know who one of their major clients is? Whose interests they look after?
Yep, got it in one.
And could I bring myself to suppress stories on our famous friend? Could I swallow my pride and promote his supposed good works, place pieces about his heart-warming quirks and his charming eccentricities? Could I?
I’ll think it over.
But anyway, even that isn’t what’s staving off the black dog today. There’s something else, something apart from work, something away from the rest of the world. I spoke to Beth at the weekend.
And I mean ‘spoke’, too. There was no shouting, no crying; there were no accusations or recriminations, or resentment or anger. We just spoke. Like two grown-ups. Not exactly like man and wife, not yet… but not like two people who hate each other either. We spoke for about half an hour, after she’d put Sylvie to bed. And when I hung up I realised I was smiling.
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 90
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington,
April 20. Amount of my day wasted: 11 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Train Girl, Universal Grandpa.
Oh dear, Martin. Are you ignoring me again? At least you’ve not set up that awful automated reply whatsit, but still. Where are you? Whither goest thou, Martin, in thy shiny train in the night? It must be six times I’ve written now, since your last reply. Admittedly, one of them was not apropos of a delay at all, but still, even allowing for that, there’s a good half-hour or so of unanswered tardiness on the tally.
So, anyway, I saw Train Girl this morning. (I’m writing this at work, on my personal laptop, through my completely impersonal webmail address.) In our usual seats in the middle of Coach C, we chatted our usual chat to London Paddington.
She’s looking good, Martin. This warm weather – it suits her. The legs are bare again, the skirt is short, the jacket is off. She’s got a tan somehow (that skiing trip can’t have done it – you can’t get tanned legs on a skiing trip, can you?). She’s had a haircut. She’s… well, I’ve said it before, but especially now, she’s hot.
Anyway. We chatted our usual chat, shooted the usual breeze, all the way to London town. And then, after we’d got off the train, after we’d followed the crowds down the length of Platform 4 and through the barriers, after we’d walked our usual walk through the cookie shops and the card shops and the Burger King and the information boards to where we usually part – me down the stairs to the Bakerloo line, her up the walkway and onto the street to her bus stop – she stopped me. Put a hand on my arm. And made me an offer.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘this is, um, difficult. I don’t normally do this. Well, I mean I do, but it’s not normally me having to say it. Normally the other person says it. But I don’t think you’re going to say it, so I’m going to have to say it for both of us.’
She smiled at this point. ‘That’s part of why I like you so much, actually. Because I don’t think you’d say what I want you to say. Because you’re the only person I’d actually say this to, if you know what I mean.’
I told her I didn’t have a clue what she meant. She looked at the ground for a minute, took a breath, swung her bag further back on her shoulder and then took my other arm, holding me, looking straight up into my eyes.
‘OK. Dan, listen. I like you. I mean, I really like you. I like talking to you – even when you’re moaning about work or the trains or that stupid bloody war on the other side of the world. Even when you get overexcited about ridiculous things no one else really cares about. I like that. It’s funny. It’s… endearing. I mean, you’re a bit of a dick, but I like that.
‘And when we go out, we have fun. We have really good fun. It’s a laugh, right? And I think you like me too.
‘The thing is, Dan, I do keep asking you out for a reason. I want to go drinking with you, and dancing, and having a laugh, and talking nonsense and stuff – but also, I want something… else. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I’m saying?’
I stuttered something about not being sure, but I’m pretty sure I did. My heart was banging in my chest; I could feel myself flushing.
‘Look,’ she continued. ‘What would you do if I asked you to kiss me now?’
‘Um,’ I managed, looking around at the commuters, the tourists, the day trippers, the students, the human traffic passing around us. ‘Um, well, it’s a bit busy and, y’know, someone might see, and, well, it’s difficult, and—’
‘Dan,’ she said. ‘Kiss me.’
I didn’t kiss her, Martin. I just stood there, stupidly, as she waited, her hands warm on my wrists, her eyes locked onto mine, her face upturned, her lips slightly parted. I stood there, just looking at her. I don’t know why I didn’t kiss her… but I didn’t kiss her.
She looked down again. ‘OK. I knew you wouldn’t kiss me. I don’t really know why you won’t kiss me because I’m pretty sure you want to kiss me, but I also knew you wouldn’t.
‘Anyway. Listen. I’m going to just say it. Dan: I really like you. I want us to be more than we are now. I want you to kiss me. I want you to… do more than just kiss me. I want us to be more than friends. I know you’re a bit mixed up cos of your wife and everything, but I don’t want to be your girlfriend. I just want us to have fun, whenever and wherever’s good for both of us. With no commitments. No hassles. No claims on each other.’
She stood on tiptoes, leaned in and whispered in my ears. ‘I want to sleep with you, Dan. I’m offering myself to you on a plate. No questions asked, no strings attached, no guilt involved. A sure thing. It’s yours, if you want it. And don’t tell me you don’t want it. Every man wants it.’
And she kissed me on the cheek and walked out of the station, and I watched her go, the sway of her hips, the swing of her legs. And you know what? She’s right. It is what every man wants. And Beth did sleep with someone else first.
So what do I do? If you thought the offer I was made on Tuesday was hard to refuse, that was nothing compared to this.
But shall I tell you why I didn’t kiss her? Because she said I was a bit of a dick. And I don’t mean that I was insulted by that, but that when she said it, the first person I thought of was Beth. How she said I was a bit of a dick too, in her email to her friend – and how a few words later she said she loved me. How she said ‘He’s my Dan’.
I am her Dan. She does love me – despite what she did. And I love her too. I couldn’t kiss Train Girl because I love Beth. It’s as simple as that.
Au revoir!
Dan
PS – Also, why do people keep calling me a dick? Seriously?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, April 20.
Dear Dan
Thank you for your recent letters. Your train on April 17 was delayed when a suspicious package was found in the Southall region, thus bringing about a ‘go slow’ enforcement in the area. You’ll be relieved I’m sure to hear that after a controlled explosion the package was later found to be nothing more sinister than a box of vinyl records somebody had left outside a charity shop.
On April 20, your morning service ran late due to an issue with vandals dropping eggs onto passing services from a bridge outside Slough. The impact of an egg on the windscreen of a train passing at even a moderate speed can be very serious, not least because of the impaired visual effects of yolk on the windscreen, and so we had to take the incident seriously. As I believe I have mentioned before, the safety of our customers is paramount to us.
I’m also pleased to hear that you have been offered a job away from the Globe. I really do believe that you would be better suited to work at a more respectable company and given all that’s been happening there, I’m surprised you haven’t been actively seeking work elsewhere for some time now.
Will you accept the job? Do please feel free to ignore my advice, and I’m sure you know the ‘business’ much better than I do, but one thing did occur to me. You say this public relations company looks after the interests of the man who recently won his court case against your paper? It’s just that several times in your letters you have mentioned his habit of making people offers ‘they can’t refuse’ when their actions prove troublesome to him. As I say, I dare say I don’t understand the situation fully and possibly I’m ‘jumping the gun’, but could it be that you yourself are now being made such an offer? Perhaps you should consider it very carefully.
Best
Martin
PS – I was going to say something about ‘Train Girl’ too, but I think you already know what my advice would be.
Letter 91
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, April 25. Amount of my day wasted: 13 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Overkeen Estate Agent.
Do you want to know where my integrity is, Martin? My integrity – it’s all
over me like a very expensive suit. Like a very fine aftershave. I’m wearing my integrity like a crown. Integrity is in every fibre of my being today. Integrity is what I am, it’s what I do. My name is Integrity, King of Kings. Look on my integrity, ye mighty, and despair!
I said no to Train Girl. Of course I said no. I had to say no. I told her I didn’t know why I was saying no, that I was probably mad for saying no, that the Dan of a decade ago would probably take me outside and give me a good kicking for saying no, that if my friend Harry the Dog ever found out I’d been made an offer like this and said no he would definitely take me outside and give me a good kicking… but that I was saying no.
I said no because I couldn’t say yes. I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t say yes. I had to say no. I’m just not that kind of person. I can’t do uncomplicated, no-questions-asked, no-strings-attached, no-guilt-involved sex. I’m married.
I’m married. And I love Beth. Despite what happened. Despite the fact she and Sylvie have been at her mum’s for the last two months. Despite the fact we’d barely been speaking for a month before she went. Despite the fact things haven’t exactly been brilliant since Sylvie was born. I love Beth. No matter what.
Train Girl was OK, I think. I don’t want to sound like an idiot and say she was gutted, but she didn’t seem ecstatic about the situation. She’s not the kind of girl who is often turned down. She’s not the kind of girl who’s used to rejection. Although having said that, what she actually said, when I phoned her on Sunday morning, when I told her, was: ‘I knew you’d say that.’
Then she said she wasn’t bothered either way, that it was my loss, that we could have had some fun, that she wasn’t going to be repeating the offer, that I might just have passed up the best offer of my life, that she hopes I won’t be too lonely all these long nights waiting for my wife to come back… and I just said ‘yes’ to it all. I said ‘no’ to her offer, and then I said ‘yes’ to all her reasons why I was an idiot for saying no. But I still said no.
Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time Page 29