Beck gave me a quizzical look, but I’d been on enough crash diets to know what I was talking about here.
Paddington, 9.54. I bought a first-class return to Oxford because it was too hot a day to suffer second class; it was also too hot a day to be worrying about money. I was sick of watching every penny. Anyway, I reasoned this trip would pay for itself, several times over. Plus I’d probably need the free Wi-Fi and a table, and plenty of coffee to keep me sharp. You could never rely on the buffet trolley in standard, which always felt like a dreadful lottery. No, first class was justified on so many levels. And since this was a work trip, I could take the £65 out of my taxable income, so there was another incentive. My father would be proud.
Paddington, like so many of those grand old Victorian stations, was slightly shit in various ways. Peeling paint, blackened glass and brickwork, dirty, dusty, draughty, fumy. Nowhere to smoke. I hadn’t been through the overground part of the station for several years, but it was just as I remembered it: basically, a vast glorified barn with one end offering up a tantalizing semi-circle of daylight and open space. Frankly, I don’t know what Isambard Kingdom Brunel was thinking. I couldn’t wait to be away, but since the train wasn’t yet boarding, I went on a hunt for the bronze statue of Paddington Bear, which proved elusive. In the end, I gave up and went to the first-class lounge, where I availed myself of the first-class toilet, which was worth the ticket price all by itself. They had two types of hand lotion and theatre lights around the mirror. I touched up my lipstick, tucked away the few strands of hair that had blown loose in the Tube tunnels, pouted, and felt generally good about the girl who pouted back. She was wearing a fuchsia vest top with a sea-green A-line skirt – thin, floaty and falling just above her knees. It was a bold combination, but well judged, and clearly the most vivid colouring her skin tone would allow. The large pale pink flower on her hairclip sang of summer, while her glasses added just the right note of quirky bookishness. Her footwear wasn’t quite visible in the mirror, but I suspected she was wearing turquoise sandals with heels large enough to lengthen her legs, but modest enough to suit the gaze of an ageing professor of evolutionary science. Her earrings and bracelets were also turquoise.
Satisfied that everything was just so, I picked up my laptop bag from beside the sink – black, unfortunately; white would have worked much better – and went to find my train.
It was all going very well for the first fifteen minutes. I drank one cup of coffee and got an immediate refill. I found and ordered two new laptop bags, one in white and one in taupe. I made small talk with the woman opposite as the semi-detacheds of Berkshire blurred across the window. She laughed when I told her she looked a bit like the Queen. I was having a perfectly harmonious journey until Slough, where three men entered our carriage and seated themselves at the table across the aisle.
I could tell straight away that they were dickheads. They were suited and sweating, and began talking loudly about the wholesale price of meat and last quarter’s net profits and their BMWs and some fresh-out-of-school administrator that one of them was apparently banging like a drum at carnival time. I rolled my eyes and tutted quietly at the Queen, but she had her eyes fixed on the Daily Telegraph in a valiant attempt to ignore them. I decided to do the same, and set to typing a plan for a top ten train stations in film and/or literature. It was June, so a travel feature was certain to sell. MSN would probably snap my hand off.
1) Grand Central – North by Northwest. 2) King’s Cross – Harry Potter. 3) What was the station in Brief Encounter? 4) I’m a big fan of Paddington Bear, but I can’t really put Paddington Station in there, however wonderful the toilet. 5) Why can’t they shut the fuck up and let me concentrate? It’s a beautiful day for a train journey and they’re ruining it for every other person in this carriage. 6) Gare Montparnasse – Hugo.
Then the ticket inspector arrived, and my ears pricked up. For a moment, it seemed I was to be saved.
‘What do you mean not valid?’
‘I’m very sorry,’ she repeated, ‘but these are advance tickets. They’re only valid on the stated train. This is the 10.36.’
‘Yes, I realize this is the 10.36, love. We got to the station earlier than expected, which is why we’re on the earlier train.’ It was the largest and sweatiest of the meat men. He was speaking in the slow, patronizing voice usually reserved for the very young, the very old, or the very foreign. ‘Anyway, the man behind the information desk at Slough told us these tickets were definitely valid for this train. If they aren’t, it’s his mistake not ours.’
The ticket inspector looked towards the door at the far end of the carriage, as if imploring for back-up. At the same time, the meat man winked smugly at his two sweaty colleagues. I tried to beam supportive thoughts into the ticket collector’s head: stand firm, tell him he’s a lying bastard, call the transport police.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s very unlikely that you were told that. Perhaps you misheard?’ She was being far too gracious. ‘The simple fact is that you don’t have a valid ticket for this train. None of you do. You’ll have to buy replacements.’
‘Buy replacements? Because of someone else’s incompetence? You’ve got to be joking!’
‘If you wish to make a formal complaint you’ll have to put it in writing to central office. They’ll decide if the fare should be refunded.’
‘Oh, what’s the bloody point? Your man in Slough will just deny it.’ He pulled out his wallet and slapped it on the table with the kind of indignation that only those feigning insult can manage. ‘Well? How much?’
The ticket collector tapped at her machine. ‘Three first-class singles to Hereford comes to two hundred and sixty-two pounds and fifty pence.’
‘How much?’
‘You can move to standard if you’d prefer. Then it’s only one hundred and twelve pounds.’
‘One hundred and twelve pounds! To sit in steerage? That’s literally highway robbery!’
This jumble of metaphors, cliché and appalling English was the last straw.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Four sets of eyes swung in my direction. ‘A highway is a road, steerage is a nautical term, this is a train, and you’re being an absolute arsehole!’
I didn’t say it in a hostile way, but just as a self-evident list of facts; I borrowed my sister’s telephone voice. Nevertheless, the meat man’s face went lobster pink. ‘This has nothing to do with you, sweetheart.’ He was trying to do alpha male, but sounded more like a sullen adolescent. ‘Keep your opinions to yourself.’
‘Ha!’ My laugh was genuine, possibly borderline hysterical, but I couldn’t help it. It was such a ridiculous thing for him to say. I turned to look at the ticket inspector, giving her my warmest smile. ‘You know, I saw him wink at his buddies – just after that bullshit about being given inaccurate advice at the information desk. I can write you a statement if you like. How much is the fine for deliberate fare evasion?’ She looked at the meat man and arched an eyebrow. He looked as if he’d just been kicked in the balls. ‘Or maybe he’d prefer just to buy a valid ticket – for steerage – and keep his mouth shut for the rest of the journey?’
If life were a film, this would have been the moment when the rest of the carriage broke into spontaneous applause. If it were an American film, there would have been some whooping too, and maybe an isolated ‘You go, girl!’ But this was reality and I was in Britain, the land that invented social awkwardness. I got nothing. Most of the other passengers had already averted their eyes from this unseemly public confrontation. The Queen looked mortified. The ticket inspector cleared her throat and returned the carriage to some semblance of normality. ‘Er, yes. I think the young lady is probably right.’