253

by Geoff Ryman

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  Contents

  100

  MS DIANA DIAMANT

  Outward appearance

  Woman in early middle age. Denim coat with fake fur collar, cowboy boots, Marianne Faithfull hair, rugged good looks. She should have a cigarette in one hand and a whisky glass in the other.

  Inside information

  Freelance estate valuer. Works from home which means she can devote more time to Emma, her daughter.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Emma loves painting up her face and going to parties in character. She lives in a provisional world. If the curtains are drawn at mid-day and it’s dark, Emma asks quizzically, ‘Is it night?’ If they miss a train, Emma sits on the platform and mourns with heaving sobs. Diana is beginning to understand how different Emma’s world is and how busy she herself is destroying it.

  Diana’s best friend Jane died at Christmas. They met at prenatal classes, and visited each other at the births. Their children became friends; Diana or Jane would take care of them both when the other had an assignment. In the hospital, Diana sat smoking by Jane’s bed, ducking the nurses and their admonitions. ‘You’re the only one who hasn’t run away,’ Jane said.

  Christmas was wiped out. As a late treat last night, Diana took both kids to see Peter Pan. It did nothing to help little Bobby. ‘Look, they’re flying,’ Diana said to him. He did not respond. In the car going back, he said in a quiet voice, ‘Everybody’s dead. The Lost Boys are dead. Peter Pan’s dead. Tinkerbell is dead.’

  ‘No she’s not,’ pleaded Emma. ‘She’s not. She’s going to come back.’

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  101

  MR PAUL LAUNCEY

  Outward appearance

  Lanky man rising 50, sitting hunched in a rumpled suit. Creased double chin. Bifocals, pink cheeks, balding dome.

  Inside information

  Investment adviser for Adventure Capital. A Lloyds name and soon-to-be bankrupt man.

  What he is doing or thinking

  He thinks of his wife and his only child. Benjamin is twelve years old and morbidly shy, hardly able to talk to anyone his own age. He has special tutors. Paul cannot imagine the boy surviving in a state school. That is where he is going.

  As for Anne, she is capable, kind, and deserves better. Even though his wife is not a name, her own family money will be taken to pay the debts. Lloyds can take the house, everything else. Alone, Anne would not be in any way liable. They would both be better off if he were dead.

  Paul has decided to kill himself. The problem is how. The insurance won’t pay out if it looks like suicide. It must be above suspicion, and he must die. The very worst thing that could happen is that he survives as a cripple with debts still due.

  He lets his stop rattle past, thinking, thinking, his job now irrelevant. Could he hire someone to kill him? Without anyone knowing it was him? He could buy a new pair of slippery-soled leather shoes and slide helplessly under a bus, scattering papers.

  He wants to die. Above all else, cold and angry, he wants the insurance to pay.

  He is, after all, insured with Lloyds. The train sweeps him on towards the Elephant.

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  102

  MAJOR EDWIN GRIVES

  Outward appearance

  Trim, conservatively dressed, about 35. Sits legs crossed, looking miffed, trying to read the FT.

  Inside information

  Came out of the Army straight into development work for Pall Mall Oil. Knows both Passengers 37 and 235. Travels widely for Pall Mall, always first class. Has family connections in the Far East (as well as a mistress, but he knew her before he married). His wife teaches in the local girls’ school. Commutes from a village near Aldeburgh. Lives in a 16th-century farmhouse with a Japanese water garden. He takes the train to Liverpool Street, parking his white BMW at the local station.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Cursing his local pig farm, which he calls Pig Belsen. When they wash out the tanks late at night, the smell wakes him up. The slurry is so full of chemicals it cannot be used on the fields. It’s hauled away in huge lorries marked HAZCHEM.

  This morning, however, was beyond imagining. The damn fool lorry driver tried to drive down their lane and got stuck. The valve went and they were flooded with pig swill. Edwin had to drive through it. Sheets of slurry washed up over the windscreen. The wipers jammed. His son Jason had left the back window open. The rear seat was splattered. The stench penetrated everything.

  The car is still sitting outside the station, a solid mass of drying sewage. The parking lot for several spaces round is empty. Tonight he’ll have to drive through the sewage again.

  Edwin gives his FT another fretful shake. No comment.

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  103

  MR SAIF ALI KHAN

  Outward appearance

  Thick-set Asian, about 25, in track suit bottoms, black trainers, baseball cap, jacket with felt lettering sewn on it, lumberjack shirt in blue and white checks. George Michael stubble. Flicks through an issue of Satellite TV.

  Inside information

  Works in his family’s hardware business. Married to Amrita, daughter of a business partner. Recently branched the business out into home electronics.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Thinking about last night. His mother was cooking, hollow eyed, while he talked about his father.

  His father came to Britain first, they followed. Saif is convinced his father didn’t want them. He would slam doors, slam their mother, slam the two boys. Saif remembers being pulled down the staircase of the council flats by his ankles, screaming, holding out his arms to his mother.

  Saif found he could escape beatings by bursting into tears whenever there was trouble. So the father beat the elder brother who blamed Saif. And strangest of all, because he wasn’t beaten, Saif thought his father didn’t love him.

  Saif grew up disruptive, with bad grades and a short attention span. He still finds reading nigglingly annoying, and hates most television. Things bore him. Women bore him, Amrita bores him.

  ‘You still hate your father,’ his mother said sadly.

  ‘Yes, yes I do,’ said Saif.

  He did not see his father standing behind him. ‘But I’ve grown up now,’ his father said. It’s true. Nowadays he is quiet, gentle, polite.

  That’s the worst of it. Saif cannot even reach the man who did it. He keeps flicking the magazine pages.

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  104

  MR KENDO KAWAHARA

  Outward appearance

  Japanese businessman. Tall and heavy in a grey suit, immaculate white shirt, tan overcoat. Briefcase. Narrow eyes, slightly pock-marked cheeks. Chews gum slowly as if laconically issuing orders. Greased hair.

  Inside information

  Publisher of a successful magazine for Japanese people about how to live in England during business stints away from home. Also runs a thriving business supplying them with Japanese books, food, music and social opportunities. Mr Kawahara is on his way to a recording session in a small studio operated by Merely College, who provide him with student musicians.

  Kendo is an Elvis Presley imitator who releases records of material the King would have recorded if he had lived. His professional name is The Kyoto Flash. The cassettes sell quite well through specialist mail outlets in the United States and Great Britain.

  His briefcase contains lyrics and charts for the sessions. The new set is the album Elvis would have recorded in 1991, the year of the Gulf War. The songs include ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’, ‘You Take My Breath Away’ from Top Gun, ‘Memory’ from Cats, and Tom Waits’ ‘Soldier’s Things’. This is a great song about war: a friend lists a dead soldier’s things at a garage sale. Waits sings it in a dry rasp. Kendo will sing it as Elvis would have done, as a tribute, with a lovely tremolo of emotion and a soaring oper
atic conclusion.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Mr Kawahara is planning Elvis’s AIDS album. It will include his unique interpretation of Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’.

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  105

  MR SHIMON SOUZA

  Outward appearance

  Small, rotund, dark-skinned man in navy-blue suit. Two walking sticks and a nautical tie clip. He wriggles in place as if doing a belly dance.

  Inside information

  Legal adviser at the International Maritime Organization near Vauxhall Bridge. Considers implications of changes to International Shipping Law. Of Portuguese/Angolan extraction. Lost both legs as a child when a train ran over him. Won a postgrad scholarship at Harvard. His life is built around independence and dignity.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Shimon’s testicles have caught in the leather harnesses of his artificial legs. Checking to see if anyone is looking, he eases his hand into his pocket to flip them free. The harnesses close like jaws.

  He arches his groin up in the hopes of pulling free. His entire genitalia are wrenched around 90 degrees. The most effective thing to do would be drop his trousers and start again. Instead, he gives two hard pelvic thrusts.

  This makes him erect. Shimon has always felt that his generous pudenda were a just reward for those with the imagination to sleep with him. Now that very generosity increases his embarrassment. He stands, but putting on his coat reveals the extent of his problem. He whimpers towards the doorway in pain. A woman looks at him in heartfelt sympathy.

  Shimon thinks of International Law, safety regulations, important shipping lanes. Rather worryingly, this makes the erection worse.

  Shimon waits by the doorway, sweat smearing his brow. It is plainly going to be one of those days.

  Until the lady follows him out of the carriage.

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  106

  MRS CAMILLA BURKE-HARRIS

  Outward appearance

  Julie Andrews gone British. Short hair, forceful face, pleated grey dress, black jacket, pearl earrings. Holds up wire-rimmed glasses to the light, cleans them, and goes back to documents spread out on her briefcase.

  Inside information

  Director of the Small Bosses Syndicate.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Redrafting a paper on the SBS’s case against charity shops.

  A review of retailers in Wimbledon has confirmed the effect on small businesses of the five charity shops in the main shopping area. Margerete Tweed, manager of Dropsilla Fashions, has recorded a 5% fall in trade since the Aged and Infirm Cancer Benefit Shop opened next door. David Tooth has similar statistics to back up his case against the Wounded Children’s Healing Fund.

  Camilla writes a note: ‘This is all too anecdotal’. Charity shops are, of course, a scandal, undercutting local businesses, but this paper is not good enough. She sighs.

  She has a nine o’clock appointment with that wide boy Willie Dynham. It was quite clever what he did to French wine, but Camilla remembers him of old. He simply never tells the truth. Some people seem to find this charming, but as far as she is concerned, he is the sort of person who gives Small Business a bad name.

  The train slows into Waterloo. Suddenly a foreign workman of some kind attacks an advertisement. Camilla is outraged. She stands up to him. ‘How could you do that to a perfectly good advertisement?’ He simply looks blank, resentful. ‘That poster creates jobs!’

  He’s lost for an answer. Such people always are.

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  107

  MRS EMMA CHRISTIE

  Outward appearance

  Blue trousers, thick-soled shoes, anorak, pageboy haircut, no make-up. Reads a thick, stapled, mimeographed publication, gone feathery around the edges.

  Inside information

  Clandestine author of slash fiction, for which she publishes a monthly fanzine. Slash is written almost exclusively by women. It describes in livid physical and romantic detail, love affairs between male television characters. Bodie and Doyle from The Professionals, or Sulu and Chekov from Star Trek.

  Emma’s province is Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The ruined beauty of Richard Basehart, the slightly ageing delicacy of David Hedison, make her heart grow faint. She writes of hidden moments of intimacy snatched between the giant squid or intelligent sea aliens.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Like a priest caught in a cottage, she is reading her bible for comfort.

  The newly released tape of episode 57 has a VERY slashable moment in which the Admiral clasps the Captain’s shoulder to give him fatherly advice. Hedison goes all dewy-eyed.

  Her husband has found out. He cleaned out the garage, and found a box of ’zines: the scenes of incestuous buggery between Steptoe and Son, a passionate affair among all four of The Monkees.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You do this because you want to get closer to men. You want to be in love with a man, but as a man, an equal.’

  Something in her tremored as he said it, with brown eyes that looked suddenly feminine.

  Now, two days later, she understands. Her husband is a cross-dresser. So in a sense is she.

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  108

  CHIEF INSPECTOR ANTHONY CURNIFFE

  Outward appearance

  Blue pinstripe suit, blue overcoat. A broken, disorderly face with heavy nose, lips that curl into a natural sneer, a crown of almost femininely upswept and completely silver hair. Sits still, with a Mona Lisa smile.

  Inside information

  Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police. On his way to his daily work in the bureaucracy of enforcement.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Remembering yesterday’s memorial service for Sir Terence Hobbin, at St Paul’s Church, WC2. Sir Terence had been retired for years, but was remembered for a series of administrative reforms in the late 1970s. He was a solid, respected man, notable to the readers of the Journal of the Police College.

  So even the family were surprised and delighted when Sir John Gielgud climbed into the pulpit to read a poem of John Donne’s. It showed an unexpected, but altogether apt, appreciation of a life spent in public service. The rich actorly tones resonated around the roof of the church.

  It was even less likely, then, that Sir Ian McKellen also entered and, smiling somewhat embarrassed, began to wave at Sir John. Sir John waved benignly back, and finished his reading. He had been expected in St Paul’s Church, SW1.

  Every day, walking to the tube from his apartment in Bloomsbury, Chief Inspector Curniffe stops to talk to the statue of Gandhi.6 This morning the Inspector asked: why did it apply? It was all wrong and all right at the same time. Does God play jokes to tell the truth?

  Gandhi just smiled. The answer was a wonderful yes.

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  Another helpful and informative 253 footnote

  6 Mahatma Gandhi’s statue by Fredda Brilliant is located in Tavistock Square, central London. It was unveiled in 1968.

  Anything called Tavistock, Russell or Bedford in central London is or was owned by the same family. There is also a Tavistock Street, Place and Clinic and Bedford Park, Place, Row, Square, and Street along with Russell Square, Street and Road. Basically Bedford Estates included Covent Garden and Bloomsbury. They are also still my landlord.

  109

  MS ANYA RUDERIAN

  Outward appearance

  Mass of curly black hair, black duffel-coat, baggy black turtle-neck, boots. Anya is taking photographs of Passenger 75. Like her, the camera is neat and unobtrusive. She checks the reading, squints, clicks and all without anyone seeming to notice.

  Inside information

  Freelance photographer famed for her location work. Lebanese-Armenian extraction, married to a handsome, quiet barrister. This job is for a campaign t
o convince men it’s all right to be seen in public reading Jacqueline, the fashion magazine.

  What she is doing or thinking

  If she is not careful, the photographs will look green and horrible and express everything she feels about the Tube: claustrophobia, a taste of something black and gritty between the teeth. The model is wrong too: he looks sulky, not dynamic, not the kind of guy you would want to be.

  Yesterday she photographed the inside of the unfinished British Library.7 It was huge, bare, labyrinthine. The architect wandered off to deal with a wiring problem. Anya was left alone in one of the subterranean chambers.

  She got lost. There were no windows, or signage. She wandered for over an hour, calling ‘Paul?’ Anya doesn’t flap (she was able to film in Bosnia). In fact, she found the idea amusing. I could die in here and become its first ghost, she thought. The unfinished corridors went on and on, and everything was coated in white dust. Even now the white dust follows her as ghostly footprints.