I’m a regular commuter.
You will find me on the 0712 from Low Central station or the 1836 back from Avalon Street East, on the second Cross Line that runs between the north-east and south-west reaches. My employment isn’t particularly remarkable but suffice to say I started my days as a lowly-paid apprentice in the main Drawing Office during the war years but for whatever reason, even as I rose to the top of Research & Development, I found myself as the trusted member of the company who represented the ageing Director on business trips.
In my early days the platforms of Low Central were crammed with military personnel: drab greens of the United Army, dark blues of the Navy and greys of the Air Force. These days, in supposedly more peaceful times, it is a hub for holidaymakers and industrious businesspeople. I often join the latter group to buy a newspaper near platform three, take a handful of coins and a ration book to the cafe near platform eight and board one of the gleaming, steaming, coal-fired monsters that forge up and down the lengths of the first and second Cross Lines.
Long rail journeys are, I’m sure you will agree, dull and uneventful so allow ample time for one’s mind to wander. Every morning on the 0712 there is the same array of familiar faces that appear to have booked their seats through season tickets in the same way that I have.
On the opposite side of the aisle for instance is an elderly gentleman who, purely for my own amusement, I think of as ‘George’. Elderly men with impressive grey handlebar moustaches, bowler hats, second-rate broadsheet newspapers and pinstripe waistcoats always strike me as people who suit the name. Whether parents intend their sons to grow up this way and name them accordingly with the intention of the name defining them I’m not sure, but every man I’ve met who fits this man’s description has, in my experience, been called George. So there you have it.
On the seat opposite me on many mornings is a young woman of a similar age to me with dark waist-length hair and wearing beneath a long skirt, no matter what the season, nylon stockings that must surely have been imported from abroad at no small price. She never carries a newspaper but instead brings a popular paperback or takes a pair of Bakalite headphones from her handbag and makes use of the train’s customary wireless. Many of us, George included, often enjoy listening to the morning’s programming, but I suspect it’s purely for distraction in his case as he wrestles with the daily crossword.
On winter days, such as today, he carries an old scarf of indeterminate colour but his shirts are always brilliant white and freshly pressed. The familiar female passenger of my carriage in contrast wears a dark woollen overcoat that is so finely tailored that it appears to have been knitted around her, and always carries a pair of black leather gloves. Today was particularly cold, so we all brought overcoats and the hangers at the ends of each pair of seats were full.
Aside from the customary nod of greeting as we take our seats however, none of us ever speak. The polite offhanded air that is characteristic of the capital often takes visitors by surprise upon landing at the airport or disembarking at Low Central, but is is a rigidly enforced rule that is rarely broken. The only exception are the residents of a city to the north-east, who board the train at the beginning of the south-west route, and invariably travel in groups of four and book the same table seats near ‘my’ end of the carriage.
Here’s the curious thing: for the past two years, every time I take the Second Cross Line, the nearby table is occupied and the carriage is filled with the cheery, distinctive accent of that town. The men, almost without exception, carry two bottles of the local brew; the womenfolk are never seen on the 0712 without a gin/quinine water mix and the children have either lemonade or ginger beer. While most of us carry briefcases or handbags, these people have two large suitcases apiece.
On this particular morning the group of northern city-dwellers was particularly rowdy. One of the men was showing his companions how to remove the stopper from the beer bottle using his teeth, the reward for this feat apparently being the entire contents of each bottle. After an hour or so the singing and laughter grew steadily louder, and to my discomfort poor old George – who was grappling with a particularly challenging crossword – rose to speak to a passing conductor with some challenging cross words of his own.
As I said, I know George’s type well, so it was no surprise to me that what followed included the phrases “My good man…” and “now, see here…” The female traveller opposite cast a quick glance in my direction; not shock but a look of resigned distaste.
“It’s the wireless, I believe.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon, miss. The wireless has been disconnected in this carriage today. I daresay the gentleman there –“ I nodded at the increasingly irate George as he argued with the hapless conductor “– uses it as a distraction from the other passengers.”
“Oh…I see. I recall an announcement about a technical problem.” Her accent was hard to place; it was the perfectly measured crystal-clear delivery of state radio broadcasts. “Do you know anything about it? I really enjoy the piano recitals that they broadcast at this time of day; this company offer some wonderful opera on the late evening trains as well.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the exact cause,” I answered. “I feel slightly responsible for it though, since my employer is responsible for the valve receivers that they installed last year.” Without thinking I told her my name before slipping a business card from its chrome holder and handing it to her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sure you have no interest in electrical equipment sales. It’s force of habit in my line of work, I’m afraid.”
She took the card and carefully slipped it into her purse. “Manners maketh man, as they say,” she replied with a slight hint of a smile. George’s fury had worked its magic on the overwhelmed conductor, who grudgingly accepted a handful of banknotes and directed him, along with his coat, briefcase and grubby scarf, into the adjoining first class compartment. “Without common courtesy…” she added, “where would we be?”
*
“I’m Alison, by the way.” I took a gloved hand and shook it briefly. “I don’t suppose I’ll be enjoying any piano recitals today.” She pointed at the wireless headphone socket moulded into the padded arm of her seat. The nearby table full of northern city dwellers was entering a stage of what looked like forced merriment.
“I’m not one to speak badly of the director,” I began, “but he did start out by making automated farm equipment before turning his hand to these radio sets. It was after the war, really. A labour shortage led to all those diesel tractors and threshers, and the old fellow saw a business opportunity.” We both looked out at the window at the crisp winter’s morning. There were few people out tending the fields at this time of year, but a lone tractor and its trailer was slowly making its way across to a distant and hungry-looking flock of sheep. “Now that he’s getting on in years, it’s up to me to meet all the clients and associates on the south-west coast, especially when we started to specialise in the valve radios. So, here I am every morning. As are our jolly friends, here.” I nodded to the half-drunk group at the table seats.
“They’re a little odd, aren’t they?” Alison pointed out. “Who carries so much luggage on a commuter line?”
“I’ve often wondered about that myself,” I agreed. “Being on here every day, at the same time, seeing the same poor tractors in the fields and the same people in this carriage makes me imagination work overtime. Have you noticed that these folks with their drinks and suitcases are always on here? They are never the same ones though, unlike you or old George here.”
She shot me a quizzical look.
“Ah, excuse me. A little private joke that I came up with to kill time one day.” I gave Alison a brief outline of what sounded like a considerably funnier observation when it was contained within my own head.
“He does look like a ‘George’ though, don’t you think?” she replied.
“I just noticed the little things…although his briefcase has a monogram that starts with an ‘S’ so I expect it’s Stanley or something of that sort. Not that he’s all that upper-class. Did you see what newspaper he was reading?”
Rather than looking bored at my inane attempts to lighten the mood, she looked over at me curiously with a pair of slate-grey eyes. Unlike a bored housewife or fashionable city girl, it was an appraising look not dissimilar to the expression of my cat’s when it watches passersby out of the bedroom window.
“When I have a meeting later on in the day I tend to overthink things,” I continued. “I’m used to dealing with those stuffy old-school political sorts, and I suppose hanging around with technicians makes me fixated on silly details and patterns as well. Forgive me if I’m boring you, here.”
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “I try to shut out the background noise here since I like to be calm and collected when I get to work. Still, you’re really rather observant if you don’t mind me saying. Are you sure there are always a group of North-Easterners on here every day?”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. She wasn’t being flirtatious as far as I could tell, but it wasn’t cold lack of interest either. If anything, she had an aura of cool professionalism and genuine interest. “They’re on here every day; you can’t miss them. They’re always in the south-west direction too. I don’t see you on the return train as often as the morning one, but there are definitely none of them travelling in that direction whenever I’m on here. Where do you think these people are going, eh?”
My jovial comment at the end had a surprising effect. Her face clouded momentarily. “What do you mean by ‘where are these people going’?”
I scratched my chin for a second, annoyed at a tiny spot of stubble that my razor had missed during my bleary-eyed morning preparations for the day ahead. “I always see them going south-west, which presumably means they’re on some form of trip or excursion from home. And yet, I’ve yet to see them travelling in big groups like that in the opposite direction. I just find it strange.”
“You aren’t some form of detective or government agent, are you?” she asked with a peculiar lilt that made me unsure whether she was joking or not.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a humble radio repairman,” I admitted with mock embarrassment. “And not a particularly good one at that, if this morning’s service interruption is anything to go by.”
She gave a small sigh. “I have to admit that my own job is even less interesting, and right now I can’t even talk much about it.”
I ran a few possibilities through my head, and the first one that popped into my head was that of politics. A general election was looming, and there were rumours of vote rigging by the opposition parties and even a coup d’état was suggested by some more daring commentators. Generally though, government control was fairly strict so dissenting voices tended to choose their words carefully.
“Not politics, I hope?” I ventured with a theatrical grimace to cover my own back. “I’ll have to be extra careful if you’re a government representative or member of the state police, right?” She smiled a little.
“I’m but a mere functionary in the lower levels of the Progressives,” she explained. “It goes without saying that I don’t walk the streets of the capital with a rosette pinned to my lapel and rest assured that I’m not into espionage either. Still…” she lowered her voice and leaned forward a little. “…even an office junior like me hears funny rumours about what’s going on in the North-East reaches, and not the usual Reunification nonsense either.”
The conversation was getting a little close to politically sensitive territory, but the rowdy party nearby was doing a fine job of keeping our discussion hidden from any curious ears. Again, there were far more rumours than facts drifting around these days, but it was common knowledge that informers who were loyal to the main party and had a shortage of work now that the war was over still walked amongst the general population.
Alison didn’t seem particularly interested in discussing her political views, but in any case a service trolley was making its way down the aisle. As the poor attendant was greeted with heavily-accented and cheery greetings from the three gentlemen who had given up their own beer bottles for their now-drunken companion I saw an opening to change the subject.
“Could I interest you in a cup of tea?”
“Ah, certainly. Thank you.”
The trolley arrived as if on cue and I ordered two pastries, a coffee and a green tea.
“I’m terribly sorry dearie,” the attendant exclaimed. “I’m afraid the tea will have to come off your coupons. It’s the import regs, you understand.”
I paid for the pastries and my own coffee while Alison had to hand over her own money and ration book. “I didn’t know about the tea,” I said apologetically, and a little lamely. “I’m a coffee drinker and could’ve sworn tea was off the list already.” She raised a slightly-chipped cup in mock salute.
“Not only has rationing made our nylon stockings and chocolate hard to find,” she proclaimed, “but it’s also brought about the death of chivalry.”
*
Half an hour later the train reached its destination, pulling up alongside half a dozen other streamliners that glistened and hissed as their passengers spilled out and onwards to their shops and offices. The brief discussion about the Progressive movement forgotten, Alison gave me another brief handshake before we parted ways. “I can’t help but think that your observation about all those groups of North-East townsfolk is important somehow,” she mused. “I’ve never considered it before, but now you’ve pointed it out to me it’s rather hard to ignore.”
“Just put it down to the over-active imagination of a bored commuter,” I countered. “Thank you for indulging in my idle chatter though. It made the journey far more pleasant.” I gave a final farewell tip of my hat with what I hoped was a show of sincere friendliness, and I received a surprisingly warm smile in return.
“I’m sure things will calm down at work when that darned election’s over, and we can talk more easily,” she replied. “Take care now.”
I watched her stride confidently into the crowd of Avalon Street East as the distant cry of seagulls mixed with the yells of yet another newspaper seller who was taking advantage of the newly-lifted restrictions on paper. I rarely spoke to Alison over the next week or two, but old George was getting grumpier by the day as the wireless sets in the trains continued to suffer glitches; I swear he was glaring intently at me as the three of us boarded the 0712 At Low Central, as though he really was holding me personally responsible. A few days later it turned out to be a bad batch of valves that took another journey to Avalon Street East to procure, and another contract to argue over.
That day, the newspaper seller was proudly announcing that you heard it here first and could read all about it: no confirmation of imports of tea and clothing resuming, but the governing party had beaten the Progressives by the narrowest of margins.
Tags: dieselpunk, original fiction