OOM: 20th Century Boy, Pt. I

[the_gene_genie]

 

He has a window seat, at a table. Next to him, a teenager is playing some sort of game on a little screen in his hand, and has things stuck in his ears. Presumably they’re for music – mini headphones or something – but they don’t do a very good job of keeping the noise personal. He can hear someone screaming about ‘The Way I Am’, using language that shouldn’t be allowed to be committed to tape. Or whatever it is that’s playing it; it looks more like Guppy’s mobile phone thing, but he doesn’t know how that works, and doesn’t care to learn. He tries glaring at the kid so he’ll get the hint, but he doesn’t even look up.

‘Not like it used t’be, is it luv?’

There’s an old lady opposite, smiling at him. She looks a bit shy, as though she knows she’s breaking some cardinal rule of social propriety by speaking to a stranger on a train. But maybe there’s something about him that makes him look different. For a start, he supposes, he’s not plugged into anything. So he smiles back ruefully.

‘Feel like I’m stuck in how it used t’be.’

‘Give over, you’re not old enough. Goin’ to a fancy dress party, are you? My husband used to have a coat like that.’

Right, yeah. He should have been...what, ten, in 1973? Something like that. Old enough to remember how it was different, but modern enough to be used to all this new stuff. He just shrugs a bit, and says, ‘somethin’ like that, swee’eart.’

‘Probably shouldn’t say it but...you look like a man who’s dyin’ for a fag.’

He barks a laugh. ‘You’re not wrong there. A kiddie had a go at me when I sparked up on the platform.’

‘Oh, I know. All them rules. Fancy a game of bridge? It’ll take your mind off it. It’s hours yet ‘til I get home, an’ I do get bored. No one talks, do they?’

            ‘Aye, g’on then. No hidin’ cards up your sleeve, mind. I’ll be watchin’.’

            She grins joyfully, like she can’t believe her luck that she’s run into someone who knows how to play bridge, and will actually help her pass the time on the train. It transpires that her name is Margaret and she’s from Stockport. She’s been visiting her daughter down in Tamworth, only she didn’t get to see much of her because she’s a doctor, and ‘they’re so busy, aren’t they?’ Gene privately thinks if you’re going to invite your mother down to stay, then you should bloody take some time off work to see her, but he doesn’t say so. She’s a nice old thing, and they chat easily for an hour. She wouldn’t play for money, so they play for matches instead; good thing too, because by the time she says her head’s starting to hurt and she might just have a little nap now, she’s fleeced him for just about everything he had. Bridge was never his game. Always more of a blackjack man.

            ‘You have a kip, luv. I’ll wake you up when we’re near your stop.’

            He’s definitely itching for a fag now, and he needs to stretch his legs as well. These trains – Virgin trains, what the hell sort of name is that for a company? – seem to be designed for people about five foot tall, at most. Definitely not for blokes with legs as long as his. And he has to change his clothes anyway, so he figures he might as well get it done now. The kid next to him gives him a black look when he stands up to get out from his seat; there certainly isn’t enough room to squeeze past. So he yanks one of his ear thingies out, and tells him, conversationally;

‘You’re gonna go deaf, son.’

‘Piss off.’

Charming. He rolls his eyes and grabs his suit bag, shuffling between the rows of seats, feeling like a giant among ants. There’s barely enough width for one person to walk normally, let alone get past anyone else. Suitcases and bags spill out into the aisles, because the storage space isn’t big enough. It’s like a painted-red version of the trains that brought the soldiers home, only ten times more expensive, and with no smoking. This is the future?

            The suit Bar gave him fits perfectly, of course. The mirror in the toilet is only big enough for him to see his face, so he can’t tell how it looks, but it feels...different. It’s not made of polyester, that’s for sure. He feels like he is going to a fancy dress party now. It’s the sort of suit a banker would wear. Pinstriped, warm, not off the peg down at Marks and Spencers, anyway.

            He lights up a fag. Something beeps, and two minutes later a guard is knocking on the door. Fine. He’d managed to get through most of it by then anyway. He’s threatened with eviction at the next station, or a fine, and just shrugs. He’s only got Guppy’s address to give them, if they push it. But they don’t; he gets a ‘last warning’, like they’re in school or something. The urge to grab his warrant card and shove it under this twat’s nose is almost impossible to resist, but he manages it because he doesn’t want to risk them actually reading the dates on it. It’s a nice thought though.

            Back in his seat, there’s nothing to do but watch the countryside roll by. His thoughts wander. Does he ever really come this far south? Rarely. Sometimes for City’s away games, but never for any other reason. He and the wife go to Lytham-St-Anne’s on holiday, one week a year, in August. But that’s only an hour away from Manchester, and on the coast. Christ, this isn’t even the south anymore. They’re in the Midland’s, England’s green heart, and he rests his forehead on the window as trees, and fields, and nameless villages flash by. It all looks the same to him. Give him bricks and concrete over this stuff any day. He supposes it should be reassuring that nearly forty years in the future, England doesn’t look too different. He hasn’t seen a single flying car, or alien spaceship, and alright, the clothes on the kids up and down the carriage look stupid (and indecent, on one or two of the girls), but they’re not made of metal or anything. They’re just clothes, the people are just people, the country is still the same. It is reassuring. He hadn’t realised he was actually nervous about this, but now he reckons that Manchester will still be pretty much the same too, and there’s a weight lifted off his shoulders. OK, so City have got a posh new ground. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Home is still home.

            Five minutes before Stockport, he leans over and gives Margaret a little shake on the shoulder. She starts awake, and looks lost for a moment. She reminds him of his nan in the last few months before she died, looking at the world as though faintly puzzled by it, as if she didn’t quite recognise the people in her life. It hadn’t been easy to see – not that he ever let that show – and the sudden memory makes him wonder if her house is still standing. If his house is still standing. Not the one he lives in now, but the one he grew up in. He’s not sure he wants to know.

‘Comin’ up on Stockport, luv. You want a hand with your things?’

‘Oh, I’ve just got this little bag, Gene. I’ll manage, ta.’

‘Well, I’ll jus’ walk you to the door, then.’ He stands up – well, half-stands anyway, because the overhead rack won’t let him reach his full height – so as not to give her any choice in the matter, and shoves the teenager on the shoulder. ‘Move it, you little tosser.’

The boy looks like he might object at the insult, but then he sees Gene’s face and, wisely, shuts his mouth. Honestly, if he’d been as ignorant when he was a kid, his mam would’ve boxed his ears until they bled. Margaret’s laughing though, delighted. When they get to the space by the doors, and can stand side by side, she takes his arm to keep from swaying, and pats him on the hand. ‘Don’t often see youngsters put in their place like that these days. Makes me quite nostalgic.’

‘Yeah well, I reckon it won’ do him any harm. Here we go sweet'eart, you hang on tight until it stops.’

The train’s pulling up and he feels her grip, surprisingly strong on his forearm, clutching like the claws of a bird. His mother’s hand feels like that, these days. He supposes they’re all getting old. When the doors fizz open, he steps down first and helps her out properly; she looks at him in surprise before taking his hand, like it’s been a long, long time since anyone went out of their way to help her.

‘You are a gent.’

‘Plenty’d disagree, luv. You take care now.’

She presses half a pack of wine gums into his hand, and waves him off when the train starts moving again, like they’re related, or old friends. He has to wonder what sort of place this is where a simple act of courtesy is treated as something so alien.

* * *

He gets a glimpse of just what sort of place this is when he reaches Manchester Piccadilly. Off the train, the first thing he’s struck by is how little the place has changed. It’s got a couple more tracks, but other than that, it looks like he remembers it as a kid, except the fact that there’s far less grime on the glass ceiling. So he relaxes, until he has to stick his ticket into a machine to get off the platform. It takes it and doesn’t give it back, so he has to ask if it’s supposed to do that. Didn’t Guppy say he needed it to get back? The guard looks at him like he’s retarded, and tells him very slowly that no, he’s done with that one now. Gene resists the urge to punch him in his fat nose, and stalks off into the station where he’s met with...well. Not what he was expecting.

Where he comes from, British Rail run the railways. It means delays and really, really crap tea, as well as sandwiches you wouldn’t feed your dog. It means the place is grey and a bit dirty, a bit depressing, and it always makes him glad he drives everywhere. But you have the knowledge that the government is looking after its citizens; you’re riding a British institution, you’re all sharing the same shit drinks and dirty walls. It has a kind of camaraderie to it. All in this together.

This isn’t like that. This is...more like a collection of shops under one roof than a train station. The floor is shiny and colourful, and the walls are covered with billboard posters for this film or that (‘Catch it in 3D!!’), for holidays and books and TVs and mobile telephones. There’s a supermarket tacked on to one side, and he can count four different coffee shops from where he stands, despite the area only being about twenty metres square. It looks like you could come here to buy everything you needed to live on, if you had to. And this is a train station.

He needs a coffee. Preferably one with a triple whiskey in it, and he has no doubt he could get it if he asked. The nearest of the four shops is called Costa Coffee – it seems big on its ‘fairtrade’ beans, whatever that means – and it looks like it’ll do.

‘Coffee please, luv. Five sugars.’

‘Americano?’

‘...what?’

The girl stares at him from behind the counter. ‘An Americano coffee?’

He stares back. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘It’s a coffee. A filtered coffee.’

‘...tha’s what I asked for, isn’ it? Why the silly name?’

‘...right. Would you like milk with that?’

‘Milk’s not normal now?’

‘Not in an Americano, so much. They’re black, but you can have milk if you like. Half-fat, full or skinny?’

He’s aware that his mouth is hanging slightly open. ‘If I’d known there was gonna be a quiz, I’d have boned up before I left.’ The girl continues to stare at him, and he’s aware of some muttering in the queue forming to his left. ‘Just a coffee, luv. With milk an’ sugar in.’

‘To stay in, or go?’

He passes a hand over his face. ‘I think I wan’ t’get out of here as fast as I can.’

‘Right.’ The machine she uses looks like something out of space, and makes just as much racket, but it smells alright when she puts it down in front of him. He finds one of those pound coins in his pocket. ‘Three forty-five, please.’

‘...I’m sorry, you what?’

She sighs. ‘Three pounds. Forty-five pence. For the coffee. And the sugar’s over on that table over there. Help yourself.’

‘You don’ charge extra for makin’ me do it meself?’ She doesn’t look amused. He’s willing to bet he is even less so. More than three quid for a coffee? He could buy twenty pints with that back home. Twenty. Pints.

He forks over a fiver. The girl’s taking the next bloke’s order before she’s even given him his change back. He literally can’t believe what he’s just paid for this drink. It’d better taste like nectar of the gods for that price, but when he tries it, it just tastes like...well. Coffee. And he burns his tongue when it shoots up through the little plastic hole in the top.

He heads for the exit without looking too closely at the rest of the place. Though he can’t escape noticing one more thing as he passes by, and it’s the cherry on the icing of a really off cake...that in his home town, in this century, in this year...they make you pay to go and have a piss. Twenty pence for the privilege of executing a basic bodily function. He honestly has half a mind to get back on the train before this gets any worse.

 

[contd: here]