More from the pen of my lovely literary aunt.
The Quiet Carriage
I like writing on trains; watching people arriving, wondering who they are and where they’ve come from, and imagining what they’ll do when they arrive at their destinations. There’s something that inspires me as the countryside speeds past the window. It makes me jot down themes, plots, or possibilities on my pad. I draw bubbles around them, link and change their order until I have an outline I can work with. Sometimes I even catch snatches of conversations, and then I’m away!... So, I was wide open for what happened that morning.
“I’ve only just made it!” The girl was flushed and breathless. She dumped her brief-case on the table and slipped off her yellow jacket, folding and stowing it next to a musical instrument case on the luggage rack marked “LAMDA.” As she stretched she revealed a tanned midriff, a navel-ring, and black leather trousers.
“Bloody trains!” she said, “You’d think they could co-ordinate them, wouldn’t you? I had, literally, five minutes to change platforms. I know this is the Paddington train,” she said, frowning at the label on the headrest, “only I’ve booked a seat. This is 14B, isn’t it? I should have worn my glasses.”
The whistle shrilled, and she staggered a bit before plomping on the aisle seat opposite and grinning at me. We settled into a clackety trundle, picking up speed as we all shuffled newspapers and opened drinks. We plugged devices into power points and opened books and notepads. A few closed their eyes.
“The taxi was late too – road works, he said. I could have lost this job before I’d even left home!”
So, a chatty brunette from Carmarthen or one of the valleys (I recognized the accent) cheeks flushed from rushing, and dark, sparkling dark eyes, just like mine when I was young. “Job interview?” I asked.
She nodded, still psyched up: ”Broadcasting House.”
She wanted to talk, I could tell (and show off to anyone in the carriage who was interested) about her exciting and challenging day ahead. She glanced at the bearded student-look-alike on her left, and then up at the luggage rack.
“That your case?”
He nodded, “A viola,” and turned his head away.
“It’s only my jacket; I didn’t damage it.”
He didn’t respond.
“I trained through LAMDA. I did all their Speech and Drama exams before uni.
She was getting no where, so she shrugged and sighed, her fizz dissolving. After ten minutes of inactivity she sat upright and spun the briefcase around to face her. There was a mirror inside the lid. It was a sleeker design than the chunky beauty box I used to carry in my youth, but the contents were the same, so I was hooked. I turned a fresh page in my notebook and wrote “Chatterbox,” “Job Interview“ and “Belly button ring,” - enough to start me off.
From inside the case came a pair of black patent stilettos. She blew off dust, gave them a buffing on her sleeve, and pushed them aside, then she removed a head-band and a bib. She pulled on the band, which cleared the stray locks from her face, and donned the bib. Ah ha! I thought. I was with her now, so I wrote – “a clean palette!”
She seemed pleasant enough but nothing special. She took a moistened pad from a tin and scrubbed her face until she was glossy with some spots, the sort we all have, with everybody within sight in the carriage watching, then she dotted a cream on her cheeks, nose, chin and forehead, smoothing it with her fingertips down her willowy neck. She was probably tanned all over.
“I’m not doing the full Monty,” she explained, whether to me or to her fascinated audience I was not sure, most likely both.
I wrote, “Why not embarrassed?” on my pad, for I would have been, but then I was from a different generation.
She rifled around in her case, selected a base coat then applied that then unscrewed what we called a “Pan-stick,” but my grand-daughters tell me is now called “contouring.” She sucked in both cheeks and one minute she looked like a Red Indian in war-paint, and the next, after blending, a fashion model with flawless bone structure.
The musician had watched her when she arrived, but, maybe because he felt uncomfortably close, or so as not to reveal an interest, he closed his eyes. She kept checking him through her mirror while she concentrated on her handywork. She leaned closer to apply grey eyeshadow, then took a fine pointed brush and traced an arc into a crease under her brows in a darker shade, blending it with her fingertips.
“Such subtle shades” I remarked, to encourage her, though restraint was obviously the last thing on her mind. “The job’s for TV then, not radio?”
“I’ll leave the eye-lines for Cardiff” she explained. “I did a Ziggy Stardust flash by accident once, in the tunnel, and had to start all over again. No,” she continued, “no false lashes – too much for daytime, just mascara. It’s for kids’ tele, though…. you never know…” She unwound a wand and fluttered on a layer or two. “It could lead to anything – you have to be versatile in this game - an afternoon show maybe?”
“I used to spit on mascara, and work up a paste with a little brush” I said.
“How quaint, that must have been rather clunky?”
She wasn’t wrong. Her transition was affecting her speech too. The closer to the border we travelled the more she ironed out her lilting tones. She had outlined her lids, as she promised, at Cardiff Central and flicked the corners like Amy Winehouse. She took considerable care over this, ignoring the new passengers, but didn’t stop chatting. She did her nails and had finished her make-over by Reading with a puff of blusher, a spray of perfume and a nude lipstick.
So, she was ambitious; there’s nothing wrong with that. She needed an audience and maybe curious people, like me, to project to: and that she did, with little coaxing, now all was done, and her musician had gone to sleep – she told me how she intended to be at her most creative, work awkward hours, take low pay, tolerate shitty bosses, become brilliant at her job and do anything required to get accepted as a key player.
“Anything?” I said.
“Anything. This is my big chance.”
“You should still be careful. How old are you?”
“I’m not naive. I’ve worked in studios - BBC Wales. Twenty-five - plenty of time before I need to think about marriage, a mortgage, kids…”
“Kids? How can you fit kids in? How many?”
“Don’t know, suppose - three or four, and a nanny, as I’ll need to work. It’ll be that, or I’ll find a house husband.”
“You have it all planned, don’t you? And what then?”
“Once I’m known, once I’m a face; then game shows? travel shows? proper journalism even? wherever the money is! –”
“What countries would you like to visit?”
“Costa Rica! - Brazil! – Bali! - Vietnam! Though I know how it works, for with my background it’ll be walking in the rain on the Brecon Beacons.”
She pulled off the band and bib, and smoothed her hair into a flattering style. She looked and smelt like the business, like a career girl. She swopped her trainers for heels and re-packed her case. She leaned back and did some deep breathing, which could have been meditation, as we slowed on approaching the tower blocks of West London.
So I’d found my subject, but what would I do with her? I had acquired few reservations. I was under the impression that presenters were used to bring people out, not to rabbit on and on. She’d shown no interest in others. But maybe she needed research and preparation before she could do that. I didn’t expect attention: I prefer to watch, but she’d failed with the music man. It could have helped her to get in the job interview mode if she’d done a bit of role playing. She had a penetrating voice - strident almost – great for “the box” - and verbal diarrhoea. It would all depend on the competition. I had a feeling she would succeed but it was my story so it was up to me. We crawled into Paddington and sorted our possessions. The musician yawned and was the first to retrieve his instrument and open the carriage doors. He helped me down the steps to the platform. He seemed a pleasant lad.
“Did you enjoy that performance?” I asked, preparing myself for the ticket machine and the escalators and the underground. I decided she just wasn’t his type,
She joined us. “Are you going to LAMDA? Only I go that way.”
“No.” he snapped. “I had a score to transcribe, for which I had booked the quiet carriage to work on it in peace. I’ve have had more than enough of you and your life. But you couldn’t care less, could you?” and he stalked off, swinging his case onto his back, and mumbling about women who talk too much.
