by Daniel Hurst
Writing can mean years of rejection.
Being a mum can mean a lifetime of it.
But it’s not all bad news because I can see my train slowly making its way into the station towards me. Better late than never, I suppose. But because of the fourteen-minute delay, the commuter count on the platform has grown unbearably large, and I can see the station employees keeping even more passengers back behind the ticket barriers to prevent overcrowding. I’m still in my prime position at the front of the platform where the doors will open, but it’s getting harder to keep my spot, and it’s only going to get worse as the train comes closer and people become more desperate to score an elusive seat.
I clutch the strap of the laptop bag that is slung over my shoulder as another errant elbow digs into me from behind, but I don’t bother to turn around this time because I know what I’ll see. It’ll be a flustered face belonging to a tired man or woman just as fed up about being here as I am. I know that he or she will be running entirely on the caffeine they used to start their day while dreaming about the alcohol they will use to end it.
Some in the nine-to-five world use ambition to keep themselves going, but most just use legal drugs.
The front of the train moves past me as it comes along the platform, and I catch a glimpse of the driver sitting inside at the controls as it does. He looks as thrilled with the delay as his passengers are. Finally, the train comes to a stop, and just as I knew they would be, the doors to the fifth carriage are now right in front of me.
There’s a brief moment that all commuters will know as “the calm before the storm” until the doors unlock and slide open automatically.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
Everybody on the platform surges forward to the open doors, and it’s only the fact that I am already wedged in so tightly amongst the bodies around me that prevents me from being knocked to the floor.
I step forward into the carriage but am immediately shoulder-barged to the side as a bulky businessman carrying a briefcase proceeds to bundle me out of the way in a sneaky bid to beat me on. But I’m no novice when it comes to this thirty-second dash, and I make sure to barge him right back before carrying on with my own scramble for a seat.
I’m grateful for the cool blast of air that I feel as I make my way deeper into the carriage. The air-con is working tonight, thank God. But that’s about all I have to be grateful for right now.
There are many things in life that give hope to the human race, like random acts of kindness and generosity, or a cute dog being reunited with its owner after a long time, but there aren’t many things that could extinguish that hope as quickly as witnessing the events on a commuter train in a city centre at rush hour. If an alien landed now and saw the scenes on this train, they would think that human life was just one big selfish scramble.
They wouldn’t be far wrong.
I grit my teeth as I weave my way through the sea of shoulders, elbows, and huffing and puffing and keep my eyes focused on my usual seat in the carriage.
It’s still available. I’m going to make it.
It’s mine.
It’s a relief to reach my traditional seat that is part of a two-seat set on either side of a table, but I still have to work fast to get myself sorted before the train departs. Quickly removing my laptop bag from my shoulder, I place it onto the empty table while noticing the attractive man arriving at the vacant seat opposite me. He gives me a brief smile as he removes his smart suit jacket before sitting down to get out of the way of the other passengers trying to squeeze past in the busy aisle.
I’m just about to do the same when a young woman comes out of nowhere and swoops in beside me, taking the seat I had already claimed as my own and leaving me standing without one.
‘Hey!’ I say to the annoyingly pretty female who has just broken one of the unwritten rules of train travel.
You don’t get into a seat that somebody is preparing to sit down in. As public transport rules go, it’s up there with “don’t listen to loud music without headphones” and “try to avoid eating anything fishy”. But the young woman doesn’t even acknowledge what she has done and instead settles into the seat even more.
I’m furious. I’m tired. Most of all, I’m sick of putting up with this awful routine. And I’m just about to let this rude person know it. That is until the guy sitting opposite decides to do it for me.
‘That’s not cool,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I’m sure your parents didn’t bring you up to be that rude.’
The young woman frowns as if to say “Are you talking to me?” so the man makes it clear that he is.
‘Yes, I’m talking to you. This lady here was just about to sit down. As you can see, she had already placed her laptop bag on the table, and she was in the process of removing her coat when you snuck in and stole that seat away from her. I think you should apologise and go and find another place to sit.’
I notice the young woman seems as surprised about this man’s intervention as I am.
‘Why do you care?’ the woman scoffs back, and for a second I’m reminded of Louise. It makes me feel a little better to know that it’s not just my daughter who has a bad attitude towards others.
‘I care because she is my wife, and she is pregnant,’ the man says, and now I’m even more surprised. ‘I don’t think it’s fair that you are going to make her stand up all the way back to Brighton just so you can put your feet up. What are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? Come on, you’ve got the energy to stand.’
I’m not sure who this guy is and why he is pretending we are married or that I’m pregnant, but before I can question it, I see the young woman in my seat look at me with a sympathetic expression.
‘I’m sorry. My bad,’ she says, and she gets up and scurries away down the carriage on the hunt for somewhere else to sit.
Wow. I’m amazed.
That actually worked.
But I don’t waste too much time thinking about it and quickly slump down into the vacant seat before anybody else can swoop in.
‘Thanks, hubs,’ I say jokingly to the man sitting opposite me, but he waves his hand in the air as if it was no big deal.
‘Sorry for the whole marriage and pregnancy thing. I just knew that was the best chance to get her to give the seat back.’
I smile but also feel a little self-conscious. Does he think I could pass for a woman who looks pregnant?
My stomach isn’t exactly flat, but I wasn’t aware it was round.
‘And I don’t mean you look pregnant either,’ the stranger quickly adds, and I laugh in relief.
‘That’s good to know. Thank you.’
We share a brief smile before the various noises in this chaotic carriage divert our attention away. Hurried chatter. Tannoy announcements. Arguing. Music. The rustle of a packet of crisps. The clatter of a suitcase on the floor. It’s like an orchestra of the mundane.
I’m tempted to try to keep the conversation going with the stranger opposite me, if only because it’s been a while since I got chatting with a good-looking guy, but the presence of the laptop bag on the table between us reminds me why I shouldn’t. I am supposed to be working now. This is my golden hour. That one sliver of precious time in my day when I get to do what I really want to do instead of what I’m paid to do or what I’m obligated to do. My boss in the office cares little for my dreams of being an author, and my daughter cares even less, but I care, and that is all that matters.
But that book won’t write itself.
With that in mind, I unzip the bag and slide out my silver laptop before lifting up the screen and pushing the power button. It’s not the best computer on the market, and it takes an age to load up, but it was affordable, and it does what I need it to do, which is basically stay powered long enough for me to punch some words into it before it dies.
As I watch the screen run through its tediously long powering-up phase, I look around the carriage, and as expected, all the seats are now taken. I can see seve
ral people standing in the area by the doors, squeezed in almost as tightly as they were out on the platform, and I feel sorry that they are the unlucky ones today who won’t get to sit down until we are well outside London.
And to think they are all paying good money for this.
But I can’t let other people’s problems distract me from my own, so I return my focus to my laptop, where I enter my eight-digit password, and now I am in.
There’s no stopping me now. I can work all the way home. All I need to do is start typing.
‘Wow, and I thought I was a workaholic.’
I glance up at the man sitting opposite me.
‘Sorry?’
He gestures to the laptop between us. ‘I thought the working day was over, but I guess you are proving me wrong.’
‘Oh, this isn’t work,’ I reply with a smile, and I expect him to leave it at that. But I kind of hope he doesn’t.
‘What is it?’ he asks me as he unfastens the top button on his white shirt and loosens his smart navy tie a little.
Hmmm, he really is good looking. I estimate that he is around thirty years of age, which is much too young for me of course, but then it feels like most people are these days. I’ve already begun my doomed descent into middle age, and now I feel as if anyone under the age of thirty-five possesses some elixir of youth that has somehow passed me by.
‘What, this?’ I say, gesturing at my laptop and trying to keep it casual. ‘It’s nothing. Just something I do to pass the time to Brighton.’
But the handsome stranger doesn’t take that for an answer. ‘Seriously, what are you working on there?’
I pause before telling him, not because I’m embarrassed about what I’m trying to achieve with my book but more because I know that mentioning it could lead to a long conversation. While I might like that based on his good looks, I don’t really have the time for it. I should be writing already because it won’t be long until I’m back at the flat and walking on eggshells around Louise again, but I know if I tell him I’m writing a book, then he will keep asking me about it or, worse, tell me he is writing his own.
It’s amazing how many people turn out to be budding authors when they find out somebody else is working on a book. The last thing I need here is a repeat of my commute last Tuesday. I told the woman opposite me that I was writing, and she then spent the whole journey telling me about how she really needed to put her life story into print because she was certain that her book of memoirs would become a bestseller. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, it wouldn’t help me. I need to focus on getting my own bestseller, or I’ll be riding this train until eternity.
But I still haven’t answered his question.
Making a snap decision to avoid a lengthy conversation, I click the programme on my desktop that opens a game of Virtual Solitaire on my screen and turn it around to show him.
‘See, nothing exciting. Just a game.’
The man smiles, and while I’m not exactly sure he buys it, I’ve at least saved myself from talking about my book for the next hour.
Instead, I’m free to actually write the damn thing.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay to your 17:35 service to Brighton. This was due to a signal failure in Croydon, but that has been resolved now, so we will be on our way shortly. Estimated arrival time in Brighton this evening is now 18:53.’
Several more moans and groans spring up from the passengers around the carriage after the announcement from the driver. That’s because it is confirmation that we will all definitely be late getting home tonight. But we knew that anyway after such a long delay, so I’m not sure why they are moaning now.
But never mind about that. The train starts to pull away from the station, and we’re on our way. More importantly, my fingers are flying across my keyboard, and the words are pouring out of me.
This journey is going to absolutely fly by now.
5
STRANGER
I watch the woman sitting opposite me as she types furiously away on her laptop, and smirk to myself because it’s the most unusual way to play solitaire that I ever saw. But I know she isn’t really playing that game. I know exactly what she is doing. Of course I do. I know everything about her.
In a show of pathetic predictability, Amanda rushed to her usual seat on the train, and now she is working on her book, which is why her fingers are hitting her laptop keyboard as if her life depended on it. This is the closest I have ever been to her since I began following her, but I haven’t been surprised by anything I have seen so far since we boarded this train. I already know she is very single-minded when it comes to the pursuit of her goal and has no time for men right now, and she just proved that when she made no attempt to keep the conversation with me flowing a moment ago. But that’s okay. My feelings aren’t hurt too badly.
We’ll be chatting again soon enough.
As I keep my eyes on the focused woman before me, I can’t help but admire her discipline and forward planning. It takes a lot of things to give up a stable job for something less reliable.
Confidence. Ambition. Courage.
But most of all: money.
While I suspect Amanda possesses those first three things, it’s the fourth one that I am absolutely certain she does. Amanda definitely has money, around £20,000 I’m led to believe, and all of it locked away in a safe in the bedroom of her flat in Brighton. No wonder she is so willing to walk away from her job with that much cash to hand. I imagine a disciplined woman like her could make those funds last a long time while she pursues her ambitions in the writing world.
Too bad I’m going to take it all from her before she gets the chance.
I loosen my tie a little further, but I’m desperate to just take the damn thing off if I’m honest, along with this tight-fitting shirt and these ridiculous pin-striped suit trousers. I’m much more comfortable in jeans and an old T-shirt, and it won’t be long until I’m back in my normal attire, but for now, I have to keep up appearances. I want Amanda to think that I am just like her and everybody else on this train.
Just another lowly worker making his way home after the grind of a day in the office.
My suit might look sharp on me, but it’s nothing more than a cheap cut I picked up at a knock-down price in some lousy discount store in Brixton. Everything I’m wearing is second-hand, including the gold watch on my wrist, which I took from the guy I mugged in Vauxhall last week. The watch still remains from my haul that night, but I’ve spent most of the money from that man’s wallet, which means I’m in need of more funds and fast. But I’m not just after some short-term cash today to tide me over until my next mark. What I’m after this evening is a proper payday, and the woman sitting opposite me is going to be the one who gives it to me.
But I must be patient and bide my time. The train has barely left London, and it’s still extremely busy. I need to give it ten minutes or so until we have left the capital behind and passed through a couple of stations before I make my move. The quieter the train is, the better. I don’t expect Amanda will make a scene, not when I tell her what is at stake, but I still have to take my time and get this right. I can’t afford to screw this up and not just because I need the money.
I can’t afford it because I don’t want to end up back in prison again.
I sit forward suddenly in my seat and take out my mobile phone from my trouser pocket, pushing the negative thoughts of potential failure from my mind and instead focusing on the task at hand. Amanda is busy working away on her own dream, so I should be doing the same.
Moving my fingers across the keypad on my phone’s screen just as efficiently as Amanda’s own hands on her laptop keyboard, I type out the message to my accomplice that will keep him up to date with the situation at hand.
“Train is late leaving London. New arrival time - 18:53.”
6
JAMES
‘Get up! We’re running out of time!’
I hear the fr
ustrated plea from my girlfriend from the bathroom but remain in the same position I have been for the last ten minutes, which is under the duvet with my head resting on the pillow.
I’m in Louise’s bed, and I’m in no rush to leave.
But I’m not going to be able to keep stalling forever, and I’m hoping that I’ll get an update any second now about exactly how long I have to do this before I really do have to get out of here. Fortunately, that update arrives a second later when I see the notification flash up on the screen of my mobile phone, and I click on it to read the new message I have just received.
“Train is late leaving London. New arrival time - 18:53.”
I check the time now and see that it is 18:02. We’re running almost half an hour behind the original schedule. That delay isn’t great, but it shouldn’t change things too much. Everything can still go to plan, providing there are no more hiccups.
With Louise currently out of the room, I have no need to be discreet, so I type back a quick reply.
“Keep me updated.”
‘Who are you texting?’
I look up from my phone to see Louise standing in the doorway.
Damn, I didn’t hear her leaving the bathroom.
‘It’s just a mate,’ I reply as I lock my phone and put it back down on the mattress under the duvet beside me.
‘Sure it’s not one of your other girlfriends?’ Louise asks, and I think she is teasing me judging by the look on her face, but I have to be careful with my answer, nonetheless. I can’t have her look at my phone and see the messages because that would spell trouble for the plan and make it way more complicated than it needs to be.
‘My only girlfriend is right here in this bedroom with me,’ I reply, and Louise smiles.
