“I mean their grief,” Ralph said.
“You were always one for tenderness to prized Monty members, Ralphy,” Iles replied.
TRAIN, NIGHT by Nicholas Royle
Alex, I never said it was you. I never said the man on the Tube was you. I said he looked like you. So much like you it was like we were back together again. And since I couldn’t be with you any more, I could be with this version of you. That’s what I was saying. That’s what I said.
I never said he was you. I made it perfectly clear that he couldn’t be you and that I understood that. His head was shaved. You would never do that. You’re too proud of your hair. You wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of wearing it long. He was also younger, ten, maybe fifteen years younger. But his bone structure was the same, his eyes were identical. You know what, I’m coming round to the idea that he was you, after all. Nor was it on the Central line that I saw him. It was the Hammersmith & City line. That’s what I said and that’s what it was. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush, you got that bit right. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush and he was already on, having boarded at Hammersmith or Goldhawk Road. There he was, in my carriage, and there was a seat right opposite him, so I took it. Because it was the Hammersmith & City line, I saw him in natural light, and natural light leaves no room for doubt. The Central line is underground at Shepherd’s Bush and while I’ll admit the Central line does have a peculiarly attractive light, it’s not the same. I might not have been so certain. Plus, if it had been the Central line, how would I have followed him off the train at King’s Cross?
I didn’t say I followed him into an abandoned building either. I followed him into an art gallery, that place on Wharf Road, that big one with the exposed brick walls. I said it looked like an abandoned building. Just as the man on the train looked like you. Geddit?
Anyway, I found out who he is. OK? Maybe this will make you happy, because it should demonstrate to you once and for all that I don’t think he’s you. I know he’s someone else. He’s an actor. I know because I saw him in something on TV. I was watching this crime drama, alone in the flat, because, you know – I live alone these days, with my unwashed towels and chipped cereal bowls dusted white with crushed paracetamol. That’s another thing about your email. You contradict yourself. One minute you say I walked out on you, then you’re saying you left me. Make your mind up. You can’t have it both ways. So I’m watching this thing. It was ITV but it was quite good. You wouldn’t have given it a chance, of course. That was how I knew you wouldn’t be watching it, because it was on ITV. I presume you don’t watch ITV with Fareda, either. I presume you’re as judgmental as you ever were. See, I don’t mind writing her name, now I know what it is. I don’t bear her any ill will. As a matter of fact I feel sorry for her. Are you going to do to her what you did to me? Poor girl.
There he was, in the background in one scene. Little more than an extra but he did have a line of dialogue. It was him, I was certain of it, and he looked as much like you on TV as he had on the train. His name was in the credits. Let’s call him Anthony.
I discovered something else. That film you showed me shortly after we first started seeing each other - Un soir, un train - that black and white Belgian film from the 1960s. You said I looked like Anouk Aimee. Looking back, maybe you wanted me to infer that you looked like Yves Montand. I watched it again the other day. As you know, when I say the other day, I generally mean the other week. You used to find this charming. The way the film pans out is a bit like what happened to us. That village where Mathias and his two companions end up, where they can’t understand a word the villagers are saying, that’s a bit like us at the end. It was like we were speaking different languages, and not just different languages from the same group, like two romance languages, but two completely different languages from different origins entirely. Arabic and Hungarian, Inuit and Welsh. Although, of course, only one of us had changed the language they were speaking.
It’s scary, a bit creepy, that film. Maybe you shouldn’t give a copy to Fareda. Maybe you shouldn’t take her dancing, either. That’s when I fell in love with you, you know. When we were dancing at that party in Shepherd’s Bush and every five minutes a train went by on the elevated line above the market. You grabbed me and made me watch as one went past.
“Look at them watching us,” you shouted into my ear.
“They think we look good together.”
I watched the figures silhouetted by the yellowish light inside the carriage, while you held me around the waist.
How I wish now I could have been one of those passengers inside the train looking out at the people dancing. You would have been no more than a frame-grab to me and I would have got off at Hammersmith and carried on with my life. A different life.
A couple of days after the party, we watched Un soir, un train for the first time.
I guess you thought the two of them – Mathias and Anne, Yves Montand and Anouk Aimee – were supposed to represent the two of us. If so, then the flashback in London is probably when they are happiest. The way they sit in the back of Michael Gough’s car when he takes them on a drive through Rotherhithe, both of them in the back so they can be together, leaving the front passenger seat empty, like it was a taxi. The way they hold hands, later when they’re out of the car. The look Michael Gough gives them when he sees them holding hands. I think he’s envious of them because they’re so happy together. Like we used to be.
The tape was recorded off Japanese TV. Do you remember that? A friend of yours had taped it for you because it was so rarely screened. So it was in French with Japanese subtitles. We had to watch it six or seven times before we knew what was going on and we laughed when we realized that Mathias and his companions couldn’t understand what the people in the village were saying either.
I started looking out for Anthony on the Hammersmith & City line. After all, I’d seen him twice, so there was a good chance he worked or lived somewhere along the line. A good chance I’d see him again. I didn’t carry my DV camera. I wasn’t going to film him this time.
The reason the footage I sent you was so uneven and featured other people as well as him, especially the stuff I shot in the gallery, was because I was having to do it on the sly. It’s not easy filming from inside a half-fastened coat.
I tried boarding the same carriage as the last time I’d seen him. Then I tried varying which carriage I got in. I still didn’t see him.
I was looking out for him on TV, too, and in Time Out and online, but it seemed like he wasn’t doing anything that was listed anywhere.
I watched Un soir, un train yet again, rewinding the tape endlessly to study the scenes shot in Rotherhithe. Both locations were previously unknown to me, yet notable enough to appear in The London Encyclopaedia, which you may remember buying me. I hung around the gallery on Wharf Road, but I didn’t see Anthony there either.
Then one morning I got on the train and there he was again. Sitting more or less in the same place. Looking every bit as much like you as he had done before. I didn’t stop to think. If I had done, I might have got tongue-tied and everything might have played out very differently. I contrived a conversation. It was easy. He was reading a script. I asked him if he was an actor and he smiled and said he was. It was so easy. Because his bone structure is the same as yours, his smile is the same as yours too. His teeth are slightly whiter, but that’s OK. It really did feel like I was sitting there and talking to you. Except it felt like talking to you at the beginning, not the end. And not now. Talking to you now – writing to you now – feels very different. We talked until King’s Cross, where he said he had to get off. I said I was getting off there too. I wondered if he was going to Wharf Road again, but I didn’t ask him that. I said, “Where are you going?” He said he was going to a rehearsal. He had a part in a play and they were using the director’s flat on Gray’s Inn Road as a rehearsal space. I said that sounded exciting.