It's Not Me, It's You

by Jon Richardson

  Looking around for new targets, I realise it isn’t all bad on the train. I overhear one woman shouting down her handset, ‘What? WHAT? Well then, what I suggest you do, Michael, is just put cling film over it and I’ll bloody well eat it when I get back!’ So perhaps not all the conversations here are about global trade deals or matters of international security as they seemed. Her irrational anger mirrors my own and makes me smile. I wonder if I could divert so much energy into liking people for no reason as I do to hating them?

  As I smile I notice a girl sat next to Sunglasses McWankerpants looking over at me. She isn’t smiling at me though, and when I look away and look back again she is still looking. My smile fades as flirting decorum indicates that it is necessary to look brooding and angry so that prospective mates can see how deep and thoughtful you are. Which film did we get this idea from? A few more pauses and a few more glances later and she is looking back most of the time.

  Could she be looking at me? Are we beginning a flirtatious period? Am I going to cheat on Gemma already? (OK, I’ve already cheated on her in my mind, but this could be for real, even if we haven’t even started on a relationship yet.) How could I do that to either of them? I’m already a potential two-timer. What kind of sleazy scumbag am I? And anyway, it’s not as if I’m even any good at flirting.

  Now I break out into a nervous sweat as this is the realm in which I am least comfortable. Flirting is all about showing yourself in the best light possible, moving in a sexy way, holding yourself together and appearing sexy – not easy. In truth this is the stage I would rather cut out altogether from the whole dating process. Humans should be forced to carry around with them a laminated list of everything they are good and bad at, in order, which they can then hand to anyone who shows interest in them.

  ‘Here are my details. Check the good list there and you will see cooking – that’s right I used to be a chef – keeping fit, my attentiveness rating is high and I have a decent score for generosity. If you just turn the list over, OK, now just there in between fixing my own car and touching spiders with my bare hands you’ll see staying up all night banging women senseless and doing drugs on a weeknight – not me I’m afraid. Anyway, have a good long look at the list and if that looks like a trade-off you are happy to make then give me a call.’

  I’m not a stud and I do not do sexy chat – I do awkward jokes that are endearing to begin with in a Hugh-Grant-kind-of-a-way, but grow ever more irritating and soon become an obvious attempt to avoid any genuinely open conversation about emotions. If a woman leaned over to me on a train and said, ‘I’m not wearing any knickers’, I know for a fact I would not be able to help myself from replying with, ‘Me neither – don’t you find that boxer shorts help your testicles breathe?’

  I can’t actually be sure whether she is looking over at me romantically, as I am at her, or if she is simply trying to work out why the pointy-featured weirdo is staring so intently at her with his occasional manic smile. I try to remember what the smile I did earlier looked like, in case she saw me do it, and without thinking try to re-enact it. It comes out all wrong, as my eyebrows are furrowed with concentration and the smile uses too many of the muscles in my face. I imagine I look like a baby making a deliberate effort to soil its pants. If she saw that then she will definitely think I am a nutcase.

  This is a trap into which I fall regularly on public transport, believing that the girl I am seated opposite is falling in love with me, rather than the truth which is that she is probably just growing increasingly frightened of the lecherous pervert smirking at her over the top of his newspaper. Right now this girl seems perfect, attractive and well dressed and conforming to all the rules of her chosen carriage – hell yeah, you abide by those guidelines, you kinky little mare!

  Shall we have sex outside in this field? Not without the expressed written permission of the landowner!

  This thought again makes me smile, for the second time in as many minutes, and the smile feels oddly out of place. I wonder why? Somehow it feels inappropriate, as if I have started smirking at a funeral, and then I remember that I was occupying my mind with hating people. What a ridiculous state of affairs, that a moment’s fun should feel a distraction from my stated mission of boiling myself to the point of internal combustion with ire. Hate feels productive to me, as if by noticing the problems in the world I am helping to make it better.

  Children are just about the only group of people widely accepted as a staple of comedic hatred that I like. Impulsive and energetic entirely by nature rather than vain denial of the truth, they laugh and cry and are the only people on the planet who live in the moment, not because they stubbornly refuse to think of anything else, but because they genuinely don’t know it exists.

  I envy them that. I remember a time in my own life when I lived simply to ‘play out’, ate meals that weren’t planned ahead that morning and fell because I was so eager to get to new places. I place my steps now for fear of looking foolish and my greatest fear is that a child of my own, subjected to too much of my company, would pick up on that side of me and I would deprive someone precious of a chance to live properly. No child should have to suffer a father like me, nor even a babysitter like me.

  If I were Mary Poppins my songs would be about how carefully I have to pack my bag because magical, bottomless ones don’t really exist, or about how those who need sugar to take their medicine need to grow up and start acting like adults or they will get fat. What hope could I have of raising a balanced child? And if I accept that I could not, then planning for a relationship that might lead to such an eventuality is like premeditated child abuse. I resolve not to look at the girl any more and to be upfront with Gemma at our dinner tonight about all of this. What better end could there be to our Brief Encounter?

  While I have been fantasising about how miserable I could make this stranger and our unborn offspring, the train has slowed down to a gradual halt. Even the creature next to me has taken off its headphones in anticipation of an announcement explaining the delay. This only means that the music now is even louder and I can identify certain lyrics as well as the drums. Something about bitches and what they be all like. And then something about haters. Sing it! I guess he’s talking about people like me.

  ‘Come on, for God’s sake!’ someone shouts, pointlessly.

  I don’t think we have stopped because the driver feels we have lost our enthusiasm for the journey, but I suppose someone had to try something. All around the train phone conversations are finally coming to an end and the carriage is growing more and more quiet. I love the expression on the faces of those who have been talking non-stop on phones since we left Swindon. You don’t have to drive into the countryside and sit alone for hours on a rock to experience a sense of complete isolation – I often think the people who are most acutely aware of their spiritual solitude are commuters on trains who lose signal on their mobile phones in the middle of a conversation.

  Where just moments before they were ignorant of all the people around them, shouting and laughing into their handset, they are now (after a few obligatory ‘hello?’s) staring around the train compartment, working out whether or not they have upset anyone or shared personal details at too high a volume. They will then fiddle with their phone, or get papers out of their briefcases, anything to avoid facing up to the nothingness. Mobile phones have robbed people of the feeling of ever being alone, much to their detriment I fear. Company pollutes the mind.

  It is a few more minutes before the train manager announces the reason for the hold-up to the stranded passengers, which he does over the tinny and slightly too quiet public-address system, a problem made worse by his nasal and stilted vocal style, as he manages miraculously not to place the emphasis at the correct point on any of the words he wrestles into submission.

  ‘Ladies an’gennlemen, this is your train manager speakin’. We would like to apologise for the delay in your journey today. We are currently bein’ held just aarside Readin’ Station aaaand t
his is due. To a suicidal trespasser on the tracks. Once again we apologiseforthedelay and any inconvenience this will cause to you today. Thanyou. Meh.’

  The phrase ‘suicidal trespasser’ makes me feel sick with disgust. What a cold and clinical term to describe someone whose life has collapsed completely around them. It is not yet three o’clock in the afternoon and already someone has found themselves so despairing of life that they are contemplating suicide, and all they represent to those working for the train company is a legal inconvenience.

  At four o’clock this morning that person was someone who was too depressed to sleep, at seven o’clock they were probably in tears and starting to drink and by now they are in search of the most permanent answer there is to what might have been a problem with many alternative solutions. At what point in deciding to kill yourself does trespass cease to be an issue? After you are dead?

  ‘Ladies and gentleman, we apologise for the delay but this is due to a very naughty trespassing corpse lying under a good, honest, hard-working train in the Waterloo area.’

  For most of us on the train, to be fair, this is at least sufficient reason to accept our lot and stop complaining, some perhaps taking a moment to reflect on how lucky we are to have jobs worth commuting to and others resolving to phone loved ones when they eventually make it home. What stuns me beyond all previous levels of disgust with the world is that for some people this serves only as an excuse to grow even more impatient. Not only does there seem to be no sense of tragedy about this for them, no suggestion that we all get out to try and help as we might if someone in front of us had fallen off a bridge or crashed their car, but instead it is an annoyance.

  Well! Leaves on the track I could understand, but this? Honestly! Why don’t the police step in and stop these people?

  How could people really be so heartless? So willing to look after number one in the face of any challenge? Of course, chief amongst these heartless hecklers is eye-pinching Terminator, who I overhear say to the person he is speaking to, ‘Oh for God’s sake! Look, Martin, you’re going to have to call Nigel and tell him I’m going to be late. Some fucking idiot is trying to throw himself under the train so I’m probably going to miss my connection. Selfish arsehole! Look, can you call Nigel and then call me straight back and let me know what he says?’

  I sit utterly speechless – not that I would have had anyone to speak to even if I had wanted to say something; in my head the guy next to me is a mess of blood and broken glass. I suspect he isn’t alone in what he is thinking, but most other people at least have enough of a sense of decency to keep their self-interested concerns to themselves. Were I less of a coward I might have challenged him directly, but fortunately a less dangerous opportunity for vengeance is presenting itself, one that I cannot turn down.

  ‘Oh, wait, Martin, are you still there? Right, this piece of shit phone is about to die so you’ll have to call me on my private number. Have you got a pen?’

  Not missing the irony of this man’s lament for the death of his mobile-phone battery, which he seems to care for more than another human being, I spot my chance and reach for my own phone, typing the numbers in as he dictates them.

  ‘Ok, yeah. It’s 0 … 7…’

  The pause between the 0 and the 7 is further evidence, as if any were needed, that this guy is a total dick. What mobile number doesn’t start with 07? Does he need to patronise Martin like this, or is Martin really stupid enough to reply with ‘07? Hang on! That’s the same as your work number, are you sure you’re giving me the right one?’

  By the time he has finished speaking I have his whole number stored in my phone, helpfully repeated back by the unsuspecting egotist, and now all I have to decide is exactly what I am going to do with it. Will I wait until later and call him up from a payphone somewhere? Might I leave the number around various public toilets and phone boxes in London? Probably not, since this would involve a need for graffiti and therefore the loss of my moral high ground. I feel as though I need to act straight away, to make amends for so many missed opportunities in the past, so I carpe the diem good and proper, click ‘Compose Message’ and begin to type.

  Dear Arrogant Business Twat. Please note that no one else in the QUIET carriage gives a shit about your tedious existence, take your call elsewhere. Yours, Everyone In Carriage A (the QUIET carriage) P.S. You look like a cock in those sunglasses.

  I send the message to the number I have written down in my address book, await the screen that informs me that my message has been sent safely and switch off my phone, making me untraceable. I am no longer the sender of the message, I am part of a carriage of law-abiding citizens. Greysuit and I are now team-mates along with Sexy Girl and Microwave Dinners. Our name is Legion.

  I see the message arrive at his phone a moment later and am caught between my urge to see the result and my desire not to get caught. I decide he can’t look at me and read the message so I look over furtively. He reads it silently, before eyeing everyone in the carriage suspiciously. It crosses my mind that I might have made things worse: if he decides to react angrily someone who has done nothing wrong might be inconvenienced, but thankfully save for a sarcastic cry of ‘Well done!’ he doesn’t seem to react much at all, until his face grows red.

  There is a scrap of decency inside you, isn’t there? I think. Show love for the haters – sometime we win one back. Before he can do anything much more his phone rings and the news comes back from Martin about his delayed meeting. I can’t hear whether or not Nigel was able to reschedule as the subsequent chat is too quiet for me to hear. Mission accomplished, although frustratingly I now feel an annoying lack of closure about a story unfinished. If I go over and ask whether or not the meeting is still on he will definitely know it was me who sent the message, but I can’t help but want to know. Oh well. I allow myself a smirk of celebration, which if I had seen it on anyone’s face but my own, I would have hated beyond belief.

  I also never get to hear what happens to the trespasser, as five minutes later the train pulls into Reading station and no more is said of the matter, but the tone of the journey is different after that, for me at least. I start to get nervous about arriving in London and all that it entails. Aside from the importance of the meeting I am so ill-prepared for, for an organiser like myself, a journey across London must be planned with military precision.

  London is not the kind of city you simply drift around. If you do not have a plan then it will eat you up and before you know it you are simply wandering around in the rain, exhausted and wishing you were anywhere else as people shove past you in order to make you aware of just how important they are and what a rush they are in to get where they need to be.

  The underground is manageable outside of rush hour. The underground map is an absolute work of art, breaking London down as it does to a series of coloured lines with dots on. There is no crime, there are no people or buildings or pigeons, just a fractured rainbow of possible destinations. It all seems so simple down here, like Tron, all straight lines and clear options. Down here there is nothing between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly or Tottenham Court Road, but up there are obstacles and wrong turnings.

  When I come out of the underground station it is raining and overcast and I have half a mile or so to cover on foot. The rain will thin out the number of people on the streets I suppose, but means I won’t be able to get my phone out to check my route on its screen, although the frightened fifteen-year-old northerner in me knows that if I do that then I will become a victim of crime quicker than you can say Dick Van Dyke anyway.

  A typical journey on foot through London will find me imagining the horrific murders of anything upwards of five complete strangers. First in line today is the young man who spits on the floor right outside the station exit through which I have just come after negotiating the ticket gate first time and thus avoiding death by stampede. I don’t mean to suggest that he aimed his spit maliciously to inconvenience me specifically, since I am almost certain he doesn’t
even know I exist. He was just spitting aimlessly, for want of anything better to do at that moment in time.

  When is the last time I spewed my bacteria-ridden innards down onto the pavement for someone to step in and traipse through their house? Can’t remember … Best do one now to be on the safe side.

  For him I picture a cartoon rain cloud over his head, which follows him wherever he runs à la Tom and Jerry, but a cloud which rains down acid which slowly eats away at the fabric of his clothing and then his skin and bones. Just my little secret.

  15.00

  MEETING IN LONDON RE: BOOK

  Usually when I have to go to meetings in London I am annoyed that all this stress will be for nothing since I generally know how the next hour will pan out. Nothing of any importance normally happens in meeting rooms in London or any other city for that matter, we all just meet up to play the game and feel as though we have earned a glass of wine with our dinner that evening and have stories to tell our partners. Meeting chat can be boiled down succinctly to:

  ‘Are you still doing stuff?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m still doing stuff. You doing stuff?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I started stuff early this morning and will be doing stuff until late tonight. I hope the stuff goes well because then things will happen.’

  ‘Without doubt. The whole team agree that the occurrence of things as a result of stuff is inevitable. Ours is not to question, right!’

  ‘Too right. OK. If that’s all I have to stare at a screen for a period now, then take a call from a person.’

  ‘OK. Bye.’