Tube (Part 2 of 2)

The next station raced into existence. Holborn. The old goat sleeping next to Graham snorted and woke herself up with a start. Graham looked at her and she looked around like she’d woken up in the next dimension. The arty-girl stood up and got off the train and Branson took her seat. Graham wondered what the hell was so special about that seat and not any one of the others that had been available since the previous stop. Then he considered the recently departed cleavage and made the connection. The kid in the hood was reading over the shoulder of the lady sitting next to him; The Art of War, as if the little shit needed any pointers.    

 

The carriage filled up considerably and Graham started  to stress. His occupancy of a seat began to feel morally wrong. He noticed the blue sign stuck to the window: For people who are disabled, pregnant or less able to stand. Less able to stand? The levels of subjectivity were criminal. It should not be left in the hands of the general public to determine who qualifies under that description. He thought that maybe they should all be wearing some kind of badge in order to remove any ambiguity but stopped, realising that the Nazis famously shared a similar perspective. That’s how it starts, he thought - with the badges. He scanned the new arrivals and couldn’t find anyone obviously fitting such descriptions but wondered whether he should stand up anyway. No, he said to himself, the opposing factions of his mind once again doing battle. Sit your ground Graham. 

 

One of the last to file in was a woman with a neat grey bob and glasses perched on the end of her nose. She carried a tote bag on her shoulder. (Grace had pointed out the differences between that and a canvas bag once and Graham had nodded like he understood but deep down, in the essence of his soul, he maintained the notion that there was no difference.) The woman  shuffled through the crowd and stood in the spot previously occupied by Branson. She rubbed the underside of her leg as if it could be causing her pain and Graham’s heart sank. This woman of indeterminable age was exactly the kind of candidate the blue sign could - or just as equally couldn’t - be referring to. Graham was torn. He was about to offer his seat but stopped himself with the words halfway out of his mouth. She didn’t look that old. He looked at the snoozing corpse next to him. There was no doubt she’d earned her seat. This lady, however, could quite easily be no older than fifty. Offering his place could be more offensive than not offering it. What if she refused and everyone thought he was some kind of passive aggressive misogynist?

 

The lady fished inside her bag and took out a book. Graham rolled his eyes. This was getting worse. She gave him a casual glance and the capillaries in his cheeks exploded red. A book! It was a trump card, a power move in public transport politics. He should definitely offer his seat. But no words came out. Why wasn’t he saying anything? He caught Branson’s eye but his plastic-wrapped face gave nothing away. The voice in his head piped up again. Graham, it said, you are a relatively young, relatively healthy male. You are the last demographic deserving of this seat. Get up. But Branson wasn’t jumping at the chance to offer his seat either. 

 

This bloke, Graham decided, knew more about underground etiquette than he did. If Branson didn’t feel obliged to get up then neither should he. He was to be Graham’s metropolitan spirit guide; an urban Tonto. Whatever he did, Graham would copy. He would follow him into battle and -

 

Branson coughed politely and addressed the woman of interest: ‘You can read your book sat down if you like?’ He stood up and offered her his spot with a gallant flourish. Eyes around the carriage responded to the simple stimulus of human interaction in such a sterile environment and within moments their part of the carriage was the centre of attention. 

 

The woman laughed and looked bashful but very much appreciative of the gesture. 

 

‘Oh, thank you ever so much,’ she said taking the seat. 

 

The ingratiating bastard! Branson stood heroically in the middle of the aisle. The champion of chivalry. He had even drawn attention to the book. Graham sank further into his chair, convinced that every onlooker was judging his inaction, a collective rolling of the eyes at the level of his male entitlement. Even the kid with the hood had taken his headphones out and was now staring at him, shaking his head slowly. Graham considered himself an awful person. His face burned with shame. Reaching for something, anything, to distract him he pulled out the theatre ticket from his pocket and read the information like it was the conclusion of a gripping novel. It didn’t detract from the feeling of a thousand eyes on him. Bristling hostility radiated from the woman now sat next to him and he could’ve sworn he’d even heard a toothless tut from the old lady on the other side. He returned the ticket clumsily to his back pocket and stared blankly into the nauseating, electric lights on the carriage roof. 

 

The train rolled into Covent Garden and the lady on the tannoy announced that anyone for the transport museum should alight here. Graham was so embarrassed at his inaction, he considered it. I could just get off here, he thought. Forget the theatre altogether. Just spend the day at the transport museum instead. No Graham, the voice in his head said. You have zero interest in the transport museum. Anyway getting off early would cause far too big a scene. It was better to just button up and grind out the rest of this journey. It didn’t occur to Graham that, at just one stop away, he could get off here and make it to the Cambridge in plenty of time on foot. 

 

The train stopped. The doors opened. A man on the platform yelled something about spy-cams in pigeons. And Branson - the oily douche - slinked out the door. He was getting off anyway! Graham looked around to see if anyone else acknowledged the conclusion to this spurious pantomime of phoney goodwill. But the carriage had returned once more to it’s zen-state of public isolationism. It was like they had instantly forgotten about everything and Graham began to wonder whether other people spent as much time thinking about things as he did. 

 

His mind wandered on to thoughts of Grace. She’d have got up and offered her seat without hesitation. She was the kind of person who just did things and said things and made casual conversation with strangers and it horrified Graham. Yet she was also the person who he had described - up until quite recently - as, probably, the love of his life. Was the plan to get back together, when she returned from her summer interlude? She hadn’t really made it very clear during the breakup brunch. Was she fucking Devon? It was fairly safe to assume she was. And yet - it pained him to admit - that if she came back from Spain with a tan and a new found enthusiasm for life and llamas then, yes, he would almost definitely jump at the chance to take her back. She could tell him all about the Andalusian way of life and all the different types of coffee there was and he would pretend to be interested and then he could walk her through a rigorous plot breakdown of Cymbeline and weigh up the merits of reworking Shakespeare into a contemporary setting, which is something she would probably like. There was no other reason for dragging himself across London, which he hated, to watch something he had no real interest in and would likely not understand until he got home and read the relevant SparkNotes. In reality, Film 4’s Branagh season had been background noise whilst Graham played online Risk. He wasn’t arsed by Shakespeare one jot but he was going to sit through it in the name of Love.

 

The boy in the hoodie was staring at him again. Once again uncomfortable and knowing his’ was the next stop, Graham stood up. The old woman watched him. He nodded politely at her and she rolled her eyes. The charm of withering boomers really was a gift. He weaved through legs and luggage carefully towards the central doors, planning each step meticulously. He was halfway over a Mickey Mouse luggage case abandoned in the aisle by a Chinese tourist who was too busy talking on the phone to notice that it was in the way and Graham too cripplingly shy to say anything, when the train made another jolt and he was sent into the lap of a young woman scrolling mindlessly through her phone. The young woman sat up in her seat and held out her hands like Graham was a hot coffee that had just been spilled down her shirt. 

 

‘Jesus,’ she said recoiling, ‘easy there bud.’

 

‘God, I’m - I’m so…’ 

 

Sorry. Flustered, the word completely escaped him. He just pulled himself up by the pole and stood there as his face turned a deep shade of social humiliation. 

 

‘You should buy a girl a drink first,’ said the young woman, who was amicably finding the whole thing quite inconsequential. There were a couple of polite chuckles from nearby passengers at the quip. 

 

‘You too,’ said Graham. And why the hell he did, he had no idea. It didn’t make any bloody sense. It wasn’t like she’d wished him a good fucking day. What an idiot, a total clod. The young woman smirked and gracefully made no attempt to carry on the awkward exchange. She went back to her phone.  

 

As the train arrived at Leicester Square, Graham stared unwaveringly out of the little window in the door. He had to get off. This was now a contaminated zone. He had to seal it off in his mind, with every one of these people in it; forget it ever happened. Total repression - a proven technique. He checked his watch. At least he was still on time. 

 

The doors hissed open and Graham stepped onto the platform. People jostled past him to get on. He pushed through to the safety of the wall - the nice, cool wall. He slumped against it and momentarily closed his eyes. It was nice to breathe again. The crowds filed away through the exits and soon enough he was alone on the platform. 

 

‘Oi mate.’

 

Graham opened an eye. His heart stepped up a notch. Not this. Not now. 

 

The kid with the hood and the crap music stood opposite him. A thousand thoughts raced through Graham’s head. A number of them involved Fiona Bruce detailing his brutal murder to the nation on the six o’clock news. At least he hoped it would be lovely Fiona, or at least the other one - something Raworth. Anyone but that smarmy George Alagiah. 

 

‘Mate.’

 

Ignore him Graham. Ignore him and he’ll go away. He glanced up and noticed something in the kid’s hand. Did it just catch a glint off the light there? Graham was convinced. Christ, he thought, the little shit does have a knife. 

 

‘Listen I don’t want any trouble.’

 

His voice sounded pathetic. Feeble. Weak. He felt twelve again. 

 

‘Nah, listen, you left this.’

 

The kid brandished the theatre ticket. He waved the flimsy bit of card in the air. In his mind all Graham saw was a knife and he instinctively flinched away.  

 

‘Fucks up with you?’ the kid asked, perplexed. He took down his hood,  ‘Just saw you looking at it back there and thought it might’ve been important.’ He read the ticket. ‘Cymbeline. Think I saw a film version of that. It was, like, about these biker gangs and there was this dirty copper. I dunno. It was wank anyway.’ 

 

The kid held the ticket out and Graham took it, warily. It must’ve fallen out of his back pocket on the train. 

 

‘It’s Shakespeare.’ Graham said, finally finding his voice.

 

‘Is it?’ The kid considered it. ‘Well it was still shit.’

 

Graham didn’t have anything to say; he just held the ticket limply in his hand. The kid nodded.

 

‘Enjoy it anyway, yeah.’

 

He put his hood back and wandered down the platform. He took a left at the exit and disappeared up the staircase. Graham watched him disappear. Slowly the platform began to fill-up again. The grim merry-go-round of subterranean London. A labyrinth of such absurdity it would force a Cretian minotaur to the therapist’s couch. Graham hated it but, more than that, he hated himself in it.