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What he is doing or thinking
He is sitting with Jesus. Jesus stands in the aisle between the rows of seats, holding out both whole arms in mercy. Milton can see the heart of Jesus through the robes of his gown. Jesus is telling Milton that he must kill his stepdaughter.
She is spawn. Milton has seen her through the connecting doors between cars, sitting on the same train. By leaning back, he knows that she cannot see him. Soon, he will kill for Jesus.
Milton loves Jesus. His evil children tell him that he loves white people more than black people. They do not understand that he is comparing their own fallen behaviour with that of bank managers, politicians, the Royal Family, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. These are the people to emulate, they just happen to be white. Does he not also instruct them to follow the example of Frank Bruno? Nat King Cole?
Bruno fights for Britain, and so will Milton. In the empty sleeve, the knife is hidden. That is why the Lord took away Milton’s arm, to hide the knife, so that he could be His Scourge.
Milton awaits his duty with patience.
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Contents
For Your Reading Ease and Comfort
PASSENGER MAP
Car No 3
THIS MAP SHOWS YOU
WHO is in the car
WHERE they are sitting and
WHAT are their interests and concerns
74. CHRISTINE MARRE
a desperate story
109. ANYA RUDERIAN
adventures in libraries
75. STEFAN BRAUN
a model businessman
108. ANTHONY CURNIFFE
Gielgud and Gandhi
EMPTY SEAT
107. EMMA CHRISTIE
Voyage to the Bottom
76. JAMES MAIR
darts and gorillas
EMPTY SEAT
77. SPIDER SPENSER
Bauhaus and loss
106. CAMILLA BURKE-HARRIS
charity begins at home
78. GEORGE ARISTIDOU
fares and milk floats
105. SHIMON SOUZA
crutches and crotches
DOORS
DOORS
79. MARGE MATISSE
the biggest issue
104. KENDO KAWAHARA
The Kyoto Flash
80. MAUREEN STUART
cats and moles
103. SAIF ALI KHAN
fathers and consumer electronics
81. DON DISNEY
ice and eels
102. EDWIN GRIVES
country life, financial times
82. THOMAS WEST
fathers and sons
101. PAUL LAUNCEY
what’s in a name?
83. GWEN UTLAY
ambulances and ball bearings
100. DIANA DIAMANT
death and Peter Pan
84. JASMINE McGOWAN
lamps and Rock-olas
99. SUZE MORLEY
fags ’n’ bikes
DOORS
98. BERT HARRIS
bleach and Windolene
DOORS
85. RAFAEL DA CUNHA
cakes and cream
97. KAREN KEOWN
babies and boyfriends
86. BERYL BARBER
jokes and history
96. GEOFF RYMAN
maps and mistakes
87. BEN BEVIS
understudies and getaways
95. DORIS McPHERSON
smiles all round
88. VITROLA FELDMOUE
fakes and benefit
94. LAWRENCE TIMMINS
dollars and sense
89. BUNNY TAIT
art and commerce
93. HELEN TIMMINS
present laughter
90. MIGUELA PALLARÉS
Americans and the self
91. JAMES BARTLETT
partners
92. SARA IVANOVIC
youth is beauty
advertisement
The 253
Personal Ads
WHAT YOU REALLY NEED OTHER PEOPLE FOR!
* * *
Masculine fruit and veg man, 35, GSOH, going to seed, often wears no shirt seeks female customers to be mildly titillated and buy his cucumbers. Full price list available on request.
Swings both ways… male or female makes no difference to this post office counter worker who seeks lunchtime relief. Low pay means he’s all alone on the afternoon shift. Help him cut that queue! A burden shared is a burden shared.
Dry cleaning shop seeks woman, pref Eastern-European speaking, for below minimum wage employment. Must have unrecognized degree from university in collapsed republic and charming, intelligent, hard-working manner.
Man, 39, told good looking, needs someone to tell him he’s good looking. That’s all.
Professional male, handsome but ditsy 32, seeks adult to return library books, get printer in for repair, pay council tax etc. Most letters with photograph answered unless lost. Must be prepared to answer all other responses to this ad.
Woman, 40, needs people to mother. Preferably lower class and ignored at work. Let me do everything for you. That way we can never be equals. All nationalities welcome.
Middle-aged woman, non-scene, seeks same for visiting Royal Academy Summer Show, exchanging gardening tips etc. Must drink Earl Grey. No phonies.
Married couple mid-30s seek new friends for safe times at pop concerts. Lightning Seeds, Boo Radleys. Full and frank letter stating preferences gets same by return.
Young 50, isolated, needs devoted listeners for monotone political rants: Clinton a commie, Thatcher destroyed country etc. Willing to travel.
74
MS CHRISTINE MARRE
Outward appearance
Small freckled woman, flaming red hair, Lucille Ball lipstick, black ski pants, tiny Chinese flat shoes, floral print shirt, floral jumper. Keeps looking urgently over her shoulder, as if pursued.
Inside information
Typesetter for Epik Publications, specialists in gardening and military subjects. She has been telling everyone her husband is an undercover agent who infiltrated the IRA ten years ago. Now, in the ceasefire, they do not know how to get him out safely.
None of this is true. Whenever her phone rings, Christine runs to it as if expecting news. She pastiches fear, tension, drama. Ten local women worked part time at Epik, sorting post, packing books. They started asking things like ‘How are you able to tell us this?’ When they caught her out with inconsistencies, she apologized, ‘I have to mislead you, slightly.’
She’s shopped them to the Benefits Agency, anonymously. They’ve all lost their jobs. She is safe, for a while.
What she is doing or thinking
Christine is acting out several dramas at once, the pursued woman, the citizen against fraud. She fumes against her boss. He was using benefit to subsidize underpaying his workers. It’s not her fault he fired them all rather than pay them properly.
There is something empty and gnawing that won’t go away. Chris lives alone, in terror of being invisible. She lives in terror of being found out. She lives for the moments clinging in panic to the telephone with other people listening. She looks over her shoulder again. Can people see she is a woman with a desperate story?
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Contents
75
MR STEFAN BRAUN
Outward appearance
Polished forehead, tiny nose, craggy cheeks, floppy hair. Broad shouldered in an immaculate white overcoat and Gucci suit in patterned olive and brown. Reading the March 1995 issue of Jacqueline.
Inside information
Professional model being photographed by Passenger 109. Research shows that men do read this women’s magazine, but in private. The original campaign Out of the Closets and into the Streets was ditched as sounding too gay. Now it’s A Moveable Feast…food, fun, the arts, great suits and pages of beautiful women…what more could a man on the move want?
What he is do
ing or thinking
Looking at a piece called The Prom. It features grown women in the ’90s dressed up like teenagers in the ’50s, driving in a pink Cadillac in the American desert. Two guys in tuxedos squint into the sun, or jump up and down. So far, so obvious.
They want teenagers, babyfaces, thinks Stefan. He’s old for a model. It’s hard to look like a sleek, powerful businessman when you’re shaky inside and trying to think of the next scam. He owes the bank money.
When he was a teenager, Stefan made a working model of a hovercraft out of a vacuum cleaner. He had an instinct for computers: he loved programming. But he grew up beautiful, and everything was knocked off course by parties, dope, women, and finally modelling. Deep inside, he’s a nerd with a yearning for a steady job in an IT unit. He can’t get back.
Maybe he could teach a modelling course?
‘Stefan?’ asks the photographer. ‘Look up.’
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Contents
76
MR JAMES MAIR
Outward appearance
Nicol Williamson playing a farmer. Yellowish, ageing face, red hair, red beard. Clean jeans, rubber-soled boats, green anorak. Tank-like briefcase at his feet.
Inside information
A consultant veterinarian returning home after an early morning call. James has not committed suicide. Many vets do.
What he is doing or thinking
This morning James attended London Zoo to examine an old, sick gorilla. To examine gorillas he has to fire tranquillizer darts at them.
The gorillas have learned what the darts are. They’ve taken to flinging them back at their handlers. Even more cunning, some of the gorillas pretend to be tranquillized. When the keepers get close, the animals stab them with the needles and send them to sleep as well. All in good fun.
Now the vets call at 5 AM to take the gorillas by surprise. A team of three fire at once from different angles to ensure a hit.
This morning Beefy, an old cancerous male, woke up and saw the team and the darts. Instead of fighting, Beefy slumped depressed onto his haunches. It was strange: he stared at the ground, at his feet. They needed to fire only one dart. It plunged into his arm, and Beefy stayed sitting upright, as tranquillized gorillas do.
When James got near, Beefy suddenly reached up and pulled the dart out of his arm. James scurried back in fear. Then the gorilla, eyes full into his, passed James the dart, handle first. He can still see the old creature’s eyes, accusing, ill, angry and sad.
It’s that sadness the vets can’t take.
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Contents
77
MR SPIDER SPENSER
Outward appearance
A diffident librarian coming home from a fancy dress? Skinny, all in black, with traces of mascara and white make-up. Bald on top, with long wispy hair at the back and sides. His shoulders are covered with stray strands. He rifles repeatedly through a black shoulder bag.
Inside information
Works Tuesday nights at the bar in Etoile, when it gets called ‘Tombstone Blues’. Going home to Lambeth North. Officially unemployed—a Jobseeker, in other words.
Spider is a Bauhaus fan. He used to know people who knew Pete Murphy. He also knows a woman who does publicity for The Cure. Last night she gave him a cassette for free.
What he is doing or thinking
Where’s my bloody tape?
It was a copy of Concert the cure live from ’84. Back then, Spider was new on the scene. His hair was a kind of black fountain off the top of his head. He sat at the bar with his girlfriend Lizzie, who looked like a virgin being buried in her wedding dress. Everyone knew them. They were all ex-punks or Romantics or hardcore Goths or something in between and more interesting.
Some live in Australia now teaching scuba diving. Lizzie married an indulgent businessman and went dykey. Now she dresses like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and is a mother. She looks big. He feels small. They all thought that somehow being fashionable, knowing people, being in the arts would make them rich. Then suddenly they all were gone.
Like that tape. He keeps scrabbling in the bag.
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78
MR GEORGE ARISTIDOU
Outward appearance
Heavy subcutaneous beard. Hair still in streaks from the comb. Big blue duffel-coat with horn barrel buttons, very thick trousers: possibly another pair underneath. Stares fixedly at the empty seat across from him.
Inside information
Mechanic. Used to repair milk floats for a milk delivery company. It was bought by a rival and then closed down. George now works for Lambeth Council’s own vehicle repair establishment near Lambeth North tube.
What he is doing or thinking
George is reading an ad for London Transport, one of the latest in a campaign to stop fare-dodging.
A few weeks ago a milkman doing his rounds in Acton was confronted by a pregnant woman. She explained that she was feeling completely exhausted and would appreciate a lift down the street. He helped her into his milk float and took her all the way home. After waving him goodbye, she gave birth to an 8 lb Sainsbury’s bag…
The text is framed by a surround of white milk bottles. The message is that some people will have to try other dodges now that LT is getting so strict about fares.
George wants to kill someone at London Transport. Don’t they realize what happened to the milk floats? Don’t they realize how many men lost their jobs, how many men still don’t have work, how long it took him to find a job? He pictures some berk in a linen suit in an advertising agency thinking he’s clever.
As the train pulls into Waterloo he stands up and tears the cardboard poster out of its frame.
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Contents
79
MME. MARGE MATISSE
Outward appearance
String bag, multicolour flimsy dress, grey trenchcoat like Led Zeppelin fans used to wear. Fiercely proud, much made-up face, with a swathe of coarse long hair in many shades of blonde.
Inside information
Heiress and descendant of Henri Matisse.1 Many times divorced. Marge continues to use her famous maiden name. She lives in terror of being forced to spend capital. Complains constantly of poverty and lives on cauliflower cheese.
What she is doing or thinking
Women of a certain age and temperament need love. Marge believes in simplicity, independence and good taste, and lately has been very moved by a boy, a young boy, homeless, selling that magazine, The Big Issue.
He looks so handsome, so sad. An uneducated Albanian seaman. Lived for years illegally in America, and speaks perfect English. ‘Everyone learns English in Albania. But it is American English.’ There is something so elegant in his distant reserve, his enduring dignity.
She’s going to do something that all her friends will tell her is very silly, but the heart has its own reasons, mysteries. She has decided to ask him to live with her. She can introduce him to books, music, cafés, the spiritual life.
A poor man stands, deformed, and she cannot help but notice certain other attributes. Again, you see, she has imagination, so many people would feel mere pity, but she, she can see the man has a vibrant sexual quality. He perches on two artificial legs, and she yearns to support him, hold him.
She’ll get his name, just in case the Albanian falls through.
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Another helpful and informative 253 footnote
1 I have no idea if Matisse even had children. So, to be plain, Marge Matisse bears no relation to any of Matisse’s surviving relatives. Marge does not exist, more’s the pity. She’d be a great dinner party guest, full of spurious stories about the old man, whom she never really met. She’d leave thick lipstick on your cups and not allow anyone else to talk and need helping home, declaring ‘I only had one glass of wine!’
The main problem is, despite all my efforts, she persists in looking like one of
Matisse’s paintings. This means if she came to dinner, it would be like entertaining a particularly elegant toon.
80
MRS MAUREEN STUART
Outward appearance
Plump, vaguely hippyish woman in her mid-thirties. Long black hair, loose flowered dress, pink jacket. Broach in the shape of a cat. Holds shut a battered copy of Duncton Wood, a novel about moles. She is not reading it, but her lips move silently.
Inside information
Devoted animal rights activist and cat lover. Recently made redundant from a privatized public utility. She gets out of the house as often as she can: she can’t stand being cooped up with her unemployed husband, who is rapidly going to seed. Going to the German Romanticism exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.
What she is doing or thinking
Composing a letter to the Council about her proposed hostel for homeless cats. A neighbour has complained. Maureen savours each phrase. ‘As for noise and odours, Mr Peeling knows nothing about well-run catteries. Cats that are warm, fed, cared for and cleaned are quiet and do not smell. Mr Peeling allows his dog to foul the pavements and to bark. Cats do not, at least, bark.’