I'm on the train!

‘I
'm on the train, Pete … Yeah, I know it's an unearthly hour, but Jackie was mad keen to make an early start … Yeah, 'course we're going to shop till we drop! Need you ask?'

Stephen winced at the loud, braying laugh. Mobiles should be banned, apart from strictly business calls. And ditzy shoppers should be barred from boarding rush-hour trains.

‘What d'you mean, don't spend all my money? That's exactly what I intend to do!'

That laugh again – it grated. He hadn't laughed in weeks.

‘Pardon…? Oh, I see. No, I don't expect I'll be back in time for that. You know what Jackie's like! But I can pop in this evening, if that's OK. Shall we say half-past eight?'

Did the wretched woman have to talk so loudly, when he was trying to concentrate? His natural instinct was to find a seat in another, quieter carriage, although it seemed unlikely in the extreme there would actually be a free one. Besides, he was more or less blockaded by a hugely overweight bloke – clearly in the running for the ‘Britain's Biggest Beer-Gut Award' – wedged
right-bang
in front of him and all but treading on his feet. It had been standing-room only since Wadhurst and he was ashamed to admit that he'd fought an older guy for the last remaining seat. But, older or no, the guy probably didn't have an all-important
job-interview
and thus need to prepare his spiel one final time. Much easier to do that sitting with his papers on his lap, than clinging to a handrail and lurching to and fro. And also easier to do it in peace and quiet.

Welcome aboard this Southeastern train service to London, Charing Cross, calling at Tunbridge Wells, High Brooms, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks
…..

‘Pete, are you OK? You don't sound your normal self. I hope you haven't gone down with some bug. There's this sickness-and-
diarrhoea
thing doing the rounds at present and….'

He sighed in irritation, having no desire to hear more about the state of Pete's gut, nor to be alternately bullied and nannied by Southeastern Trains' announcements.
Please remember to take your personal belongings with you when alighting from
… Waste of breath. Anyone careless enough to leave their bag or briefcase behind probably wouldn't be listening anyway.
If you see anything suspicious, please inform a member of staff
. Patently impossible to fight one's way through a throng and scrum of passengers to
find
a member of staff.

‘If you want to go and lie down, Pete, I can always ring back later.'

Yes, please, Pete, he prayed.

‘Well, if you're sure you're OK, I would actually like a word with you about this Christine thing….'

He gave a silent groan. ‘A word' was bound to mean a torrent, and it was imperative that his interview went well. His whole future was at stake – even his children's future. Toby was a mere two years away from university entrance, which would mean crippling tuition fees. And Karen's ballet lessons were an increasing drain on the depleted family finances. Worst of all, Yvonne resented her new role as one-and-only breadwinner and was becoming distinctly tetchy. Just this morning, she'd observed, in a clipped and almost
threatening
tone, ‘If you don't get this job, then….'

Then what? Divorce? The end of the marriage? He saw himself moving into a bedsit; his kids refusing to visit; harbouring a lifelong grudge against their failure of a father.

First-class accommodation is available at the front of this train. Any customers travelling first-class without a valid first-class ticket
….

He had
never
travelled first-class, and never would, at this rate. He saw himself on the streets. Forget the bedsit – he'd be lucky to find a tattered sheet of cardboard.

‘I mean, it really pisses me off, Pete, when she takes that
high-and
-mighty line. On the other hand, we can't afford a showdown. It's just not worth the aggro and she'll only win, in any case. Or do you think…?'

He made a supreme effort to tune out the woman's voice, although it was by no means the sole distraction. The young lad on his right was tapping his fingers on his knee in time to some maddening music leaking from his earphones, while the girl on his left was crunching her way through a giant-sized bag of crisps. She, too, was overweight and her fleshy hip was overlapping his and encroaching into his space. Worse, the smell of grease was beginning to turn his stomach and, if flakes of crisp landed on his lap, it would ruin the impression he'd spent so long creating, of a smart and well groomed candidate.

Ignoring both the phone-pest and the crisp-eater, he jotted down a few more points on his pad; trying, as he had done all week, to pinpoint the exact nature of the panel's likely questions. The thing he dreaded most was a searching enquiry into why he'd been made redundant. He'd already explained in his application that it was due merely to the takeover, but suppose they went on to ask: ‘Yes, but after the merger, d'you think they let you go because you weren't as good as their existing Claims Manager?'

‘Listen,
twenty
people lost their jobs. It wasn't only me.'

Useless. That sounded simply peevish and defensive, when it was imperative to keep his cool. In any case, they might start probing as to why
he
been one of those twenty, after almost two decades of presumably loyal service at Taylor, Braun and Phipps. He was stuck for an answer himself. Having expended so much effort – indeed, sweated blood on their behalf – the last thing he'd expected was to be handed his cards. Had he become self-
satisfied
, or stale – or was he just too old? Forty-five was over-the-hill as far as recruitment was concerned. He stole a quick glance at his reflection in the window. The train was passing through a tunnel, so he could see his blurry features in the dark glass of the pane. Blurry or no, his receding hair was obvious and, if the stress of being out of work continued, he'd probably end up as bald as a
ping-pong ball, and with jowls and wrinkles thrown in for good measure.

Ladies and gentlemen, a buffet-service is available on this train, serving hot and cold beverages, sandwiches, crisps, confectionary
….

‘Save your breath,' he muttered. Even the slimmest trolley in the world couldn't manoeuvre its way along such a crowded train. And did they have to use such outmoded terminology? The kids talked about buying sweets, not purchasing ‘confectionary'; Yvonne offered him a cup of tea, not a ‘beverage'. In fact,
he
had made the tea this morning, while she rushed round in a panic, late for work and sounding off at Karen for borrowing her hair-drier. He had microwaved some Ready Brek for all of them, but she'd gone dashing off with barely a goodbye; calling out that she hadn't time to eat, before slamming the front door. He'd sat staring at the bowl of greyish sludge; the mere thought of food anathema, given the churning of his stomach. Finally, he'd pushed it away, untouched, only to be chided by the kids who said that
they
weren't allowed to leave their food, so why the hell should he? The pair had bickered and squabbled all through breakfast, behaving less like teens than toddlers, and even throwing toast-crusts at each other. His whole family seemed blithely unaware that, today of all days, he needed their support. Well, if he came a cropper at the interview, they'd know the difference soon enough – no more snazzy trainers or pricey ballet-shoes; no more holidays abroad.

‘Look, this is how I see it, Pete – we have to avoid a dust-up, because
we
need her more than
she
needs us. So, if it only takes one phone-call, don't you think it's worth it? …. Yeah, I know that means more hassle, but….'

Didn't this windbag feel embarrassed that the entire carriage could overhear her private conversation? Not that anyone else seemed bothered, or even to be listening. Most people were
oblivious
; wired up to their iPods, busy with their BlackBerries, or deep in newspapers or magazines. And, normally, he, too, could block out such irritations. However, having lain awake all night, his nerves were at breaking-point – which would hardly help his chances, of course.

He glanced out of the window, in an attempt to calm himself. The countryside was flashing past in a glaze of burgeoning green;
everything
at a peak of June perfection, new and fresh and lush. He longed to be outside, inhaling blossomy smells rather than stale and over-breathed air. The air-conditioning on this Southeastern service was notoriously unreliable, as he knew from past experience, so it came as no surprise that the carriage was uncomfortably hot, even at 8.30 in the morning. He imagined strolling through a shady wood, with a refreshing breeze on his face and no restricting tie and collar like a noose around his neck. Did he really want to continue working in the City, with all its noise and grime? One of his former colleagues had recently gone deaf, due to the constant din from a pneumatic drill in road-works outside the office; another had
developed
asthma on account of the noxious fumes. If he carried on with this daily grind, he, too, would soon go down with some
London-induced
disorder. Besides, according to a recent piece in the
Telegraph
, commuting was as stressful as being a fighter pilot; causing rapid heartbeat, memory-loss and dangerously high blood pressure. And even fighter pilots weren't subjected to the additional stress of people with verbal diarrhoea endlessly jabbering on mobile phones.

‘Listen, Pete, it's plain stupid just to shrug this off. You don't realize how obnoxious Christine is….'

Yes, ‘obnoxious' summed it up: the long hours; the stroppy claimants and their unrealistic demands; the cramped and tedious journey. Indeed, the very word ‘commuter' was a turn-off in itself – and ‘insurance man' was worse, with its unpleasant connotations of conformity, pernickitiness and lack of original thought.

As a boy, he'd planned on being an astronaut; venturing far beyond the confines of normal time and space; walking on the moon – or even on Mars and Venus – watching in amazement as other planets spun and hurtled past. Yet, the minute he'd left school, his dad had sat him down and given him a lecture on the
importance
to a family-man of safety and security; punctiliously explaining that a steady job, with the prospect of a decent pension, was more or less essential if he didn't want to end up in the
doss-house
.
But why the hell had he acquiesced – submitted so tamely to a father who had never spread his wings and who thought it perfectly normal to live in fear of penury when he was actually well paid? He should have put up some resistance; insisted on his
own
values, rather than adopting, second-hand, the paternal creed of meek subservience. But, in shaming truth, he had never taken a stand on anything whatever – not once in his whole life – never acted wildly or impulsively, or dared to throw over the traces. And, even more pathetic, he had never slept with any other woman but Yvonne. Who knew what he was missing; what delights he might have—?

The woman beside him suddenly scrunched up the empty crisp bag; the crackling noise making him jump. Next, she opened her newspaper – not a considerately compact one like
The Times
or
Daily Mail
, but a broadsheet so intrusive, it obscured his line of sight and forced him to read it, too.

Thirty million Africans still face the threat of famine….

Police hunt ex-con after fatal stabbing in Peckham….

Students on the march against increased tuition fees….

Well, at least such headlines had brought him down to earth; made him see that, in point of fact, his father was probably right. If he expended all his energies on amassing a harem, or zooming into outer space, how would he pay the mortgage, or keep his family in food and clothes? Returning to reality – and to the task in hand – he tried to anticipate the interviewers' line of fire.

‘Right, Mr Dickson, what can you offer us that we wouldn't be getting with any other candidate?'

As he ran through the answers silently, he set his face into an expression of high seriousness, combined with unshakeable
confidence
. ‘Well, eighteen years' experience, to start with, and for the last four of those I've been running a large department and dealing with every possible—'

We are now arriving at Tunbridge Wells. Customers are requested not to leave any unattended items either in the train or on the station….

That disembodied voice was like some new, imperious God
issuing His commandments from on high. If only He would command the garrulous woman never to speak another word in her life, or hurl a convenient thunderbolt at her poncy, puce-pink phone.

‘I mean, what I really hate, Pete, is people who won't admit they're wrong – and that's Christine all over. She's so pig-headed, it makes me sick! When I rang her last week, she wouldn't budge an inch, even though….'

Her phone-bill must be truly astronomical, not that she appeared to be concerned. She would probably continue babbling all the way to Charing Cross, unless, by some miracle, she got off here, at Tunbridge Wells. She hadn't actually specified that she was
shopping
with her friend in London, rather than some town
en route.

He held his breath as the train rumbled to a halt and the doors hissed slowly open. But, far from her – or anyone – alighting, yet more people struggled to climb aboard; causing the ten-ton fatso to press in even closer. The guy's enormous rear-end, clad,
lamentably
, in tartan trews, was now a mere six inches from his chest – hardly a sight to lift the spirits. In fact, all those standing were trying, vainly, to squeeze themselves to nothing, to make room for this new influx of harassed, sweaty bodies. He was sweating himself, from nerves, and, if the heat and crush increased much more, he'd arrive malodorous and sticky, with damp patches under his arms.