Strangers on the Tube 2

STRANGERS ON THE TUBE 2

C.J. Newt

Copyright 2012 C.J. Newt

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    Fellow Tube traveller, it is very good to be by your side today.  There is a lot going on and I have quite a bit to show and tell you.  We are sharing the carriage with some interesting characters indeed.  Our own daily routine seems almost bland when we look at what others are up to.  But don’t worry, we are lucky that we aren’t in their shoes as every soul has its own cross to bear.  You and I are exactly where we should be and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. 

Now, over to your left -
no don’t look yet
- there is a man.  His name is Gerry and he isn’t alone.  But don’t misunderstand me.  Neither of the people on either side of him knows him.  No.  He has
another
in his head; his otherself.  And believe me, Tuber, that otherself is a diabolical presence gaining more power over Gerry as the years go by.  So please, be very discreet if you decide to take a look.  You see Gerry doesn’t like people looking at him.  He would hide under the seat if he could just avoid people looking at him.  So we will watch him, albeit very discreetly for his otherself acts as both a strong protector and an attention detector.  Gerry is a non-descript grey little man who looks like a sixty year old but is in fact only forty eight years old.  He has had a tough life.  A cruel father and a cold mother gave him a miserable childhood.  When he was two, his mother gave birth to a daughter, but the poor child died at three months old.  Moira found her cold body in the cot late one night; something that shaped her for the rest of her life.  That is where the woman’s coldness came from.  And Gerry felt that chill for years.  It was as if she decided that she wouldn’t risk her love on another, in case he too was taken away from her.  How very sad.  And if she had expected any support or sympathy from her fisherman husband, she was mistaken.  Alan was a hard man with little time for niceties.  He put that woman and their young son through a very hard time when he was at home in between his fishing trips.  His companion was a bottle and the wireless, and a crying youngster disturbed his quiet time, as did a nagging wife and he put up with no nonsense from either of them. 

    Gerry has never married.  He isn’t a homosexual, and he finds women sexually attractive, but other than an on-off relationship with a big girl when he was in his early twenties, he has remained single and sexless, relying on his tattered magazines to drain his pipe.  Gerry suddenly looks around him.  He hears flies buzzing but can’t see them.  The girl sitting next to him looks a bit nervous and turns her head the other way in order to avoid his direct gaze.  Gerry wishes he was off the train.  He would never choose to take the tube and travel in public but his otherself, as he calls him, has made his life hell in the past few months.  Gerry knows that the torment would continue indefinitely until he gave in to the otherself’s demands.  A similar situation occurred when he turned forty and his otherself insisted he spy on one of his neighbours.  The middle aged woman who lived on her own still has no idea that for a period of two months, she was under intense scrutiny, with Gerry tracking her every move.  He now believes that was a test by his otherself for when he was prepared to take things a step further and capture the woman, the otherself had told him to stop and forget her.  And while he had immediately stopped watching her, it took a longer time to forget about her.  She haunted his fantasies for many a night.  He was almost disappointed that the mission was called off.  What he could have done to her, a woman belonging to him…  He hears the flies buzzing again and in his mind screams, “I did what you wanted!  I’m on the tube and going to that place.  I’ll do what you ask.  Why are you still tormenting me?”  He hears a nasty laugh, deep in his mind.  It is a barren gurgle of a sound that reminds him of his father.  He takes a deep breath and stares at his hands.  It will be his stop soon.

    And just who do we see entering the carriage as if she owned it?  Serena, who is sleeping with an opposition MP and has a secret file in her possession.  Anyone who reads a newspaper or watches the news could not have missed the spectacular fall of the MP whom Serena’s lover went after in order to secure his position which is higher up in the political trough.  Party headquarters however weren’t happy.  For while it is okay to quietly smear a member in another political party, it isn’t seen as good sport to target and destroy a member of your own party, and this is exactly what Serena and her lover have done.  We’ll call Serena’s lover Philip, for one must remain very discreet in such political matters and it wouldn’t do to spread his name.  Paid bribes from a large retailer were offered to Philip a year ago.  He refused as he doesn’t need the money, but he saw the meetings taking place between the retailer and his fellow member on the committee whom we’ll call Fred.  A hired detective and six weeks later Philip has a dossier on the man, with tapes, photographs, and records of bank transfers. 

    Serena brushes her hair from her face with her perfectly manicured hand.  Her eyes sweep the carriage, taking in the three men watching her.  She quarter pouts and closes her eyes.  The look on the chief’s face when she handed over the file was priceless.  It wouldn’t do for Philip to personally hand over such damning evidence.  The chief knows who she is and just as he starts to threaten the end of Philip’s career, she drops her bombshell.  “Don’t bother trying to bury it, the press already know!”  Priceless.  She thought the fat bastard might keel over with a heart attack right there, in his plush office.  Holding the upper hand, she touched his cheek, and said, “Give Phil the position, because I have more dirt.  Fred wasn’t the only one.”  Blinking her strikingly blue eyes, she smiled at the chief and left his office confident that she had secured a cushy number for her lover, and she was right.  And now… now she is on the way to Philip’s office to make a few demands and collect a substantial bonus.  He wined and dined her something chronic after the story exploded and he was summonsed to party headquarters and promoted.  He still doesn’t know what she said to the chief but being the man that he is, he doesn’t really give a shit.  He has been promoted and can live with the way in which the chief now looks at him; a combination of hatred, suspicion and anger.   Yes, she is going to lay out a few demands, and if his bitch wife is there again, then there will be fireworks.  She has moved Philip up to the next level politically and she means to be up there with him to enjoy the spoils.  If anyone tries to hold her back, they will regret it, and that includes Philip himself.  Yes, tonight they will have supper.  Philip doesn’t yet realise that he will indeed be eating her out until the early hours of the morning.  Serena smiles to herself.  Oh the thrill of it all.  And the new perfume she is wearing that he bought her last week is simply gorgeous.  She can smell herself and wonders how her three admirers can hold themselves back.  As she departs the carriage, she ignores the longing looks on their faces, men who no doubt would do anything to be in Philip’s position tonight.

    Beth has stolen her husband’s most treasured bible.  When he turns the hotel room upside down, she will tell him that she recalls him reading it in the airport lounge while they waited for their flight.  Indeed, he did take it out at one stage when an admirer of his approached them and asked for his blessing.  As always, he will take her suggestion as fact and no doubt complain about his own stupidity for the rest of the trip.  It’s a small price to pay for a symbolic act, she thinks, clasping it tighter.  An unusual looking lady, Beth is over in the United Kingdom along with her husband Herb, the renowned television evangelist.  Bored sitting around in their plush London hotel room with memories making her yearn for their simple past, she decided that she had to do something or she would go crazy.  Herb had his business to take care of for a British Christian network, so she got dressed and slipped out.  She has an idea of where she wants to go, but not for her the taxi or the fancy hired car.  Despite her high life, and her plastic enhancements (for the televisual work) Beth is still a down to earth girl from Nebraska and the trip on the tube helps her remember the same trip she took twenty years ago when she spent a year studying in London.   

    Such memories, and she is stunned at how little the tube has changed.  Twenty years ago, she had her whole future ahead of her and a world of endless possibilities.  She could so easily have married her boyfriend at the time, and spent the rest of her life here in London.  What sort of person would she have become?  She wonders whatever became of him.  Probably married with a few kids, she thinks.  But fate steered her back to the states where she had met Herb, a student at the time, like herself.  In those sepia days, he had been a free spirit, exciting to be with and ready to change the world.  Against family wishes, he had agreed to her request to be married in a little church in London.  To this day his father still complained about the costs of shipping the entire family to that ‘
damned cold place
’.  After the wedding, Herb had wanted to become a missionary in Africa.  But his father had compromised enough, and made that clear.  Their moneyed ways and contacts could not possibly be wasted by a trip to a continent that no one visited.  She thought now that she had lost a bit of Herb right then, when he had succumbed to his father’s wishes and begun his own ministry, which had grown and grown with substantial backing, branching into the media.  And as the years passed, he changed until the student who wanted to change the world was replaced by the powerful Mr. Superchrist, as she now cynically thought of him.  Beth was a good wife.  She was supportive and an excellent hostess for she had soon found out that her role was a very political one and involved becoming the perfect hostess, whispering asides and guiding investors and rich worshippers in the right direction.  Praise Jesus!  Praise the Lord!  Praise the donation and praise satellite television.  Who will give us an amen? 

    Their house, which has featured in a style magazine, is an eight bedroomed mansion with a swimming pool, a conference centre and a gym, set in landscaped gardens with tennis courts in an affluent area.  She took her place at Herb’s side and watched as he ascended from humble preacher to the Superchrist figure he had become in certain parts of America today.  He was a man she could no longer claim to love, for she couldn’t recognise the student within in that she had fallen in love with.  How could a person change and become someone so entirely different to what he had been?  She clasps the bible tightly.  This she will put on the altar of the church in which they got married.  It’s a small, lovely church.  She hopes that this symbolic act will bring back the man she married.  No more Mr. Superchrist with television and book deals and an ego grown wild.  She wants Herb the student back, not the mega preacher he has become.

    The portly woman standing near the pole staring at the reflections on the window is called Sandrine.  She is struggling to be positive.  You see Sandrine (name changed) was a star in the eighties.  She was member of a girl group that took the UK by storm.  In the group she was the lead singer.  But toward the end of the eighties it all went very wrong.  On the verge of breaking America, with a new album and a tour, she imploded under the stress and an addiction to painkillers.  She well and truly went off the rails.  And as contracts were broken and doors slammed in her face, she left the group amid a tabloid frenzy.  The three left in the group cut her off and broke all contact.  It was a few months later, waking up in the afternoon with a pounding head that she saw the news report that they had abandoned the idea of going on without her and the group was finished.  She remembers laughing for a good five minutes and then crying for an hour.  She is tormented by what she threw away and what her actions cost those who depended on her.  To this day, none of her ex-bandmates will take her call.  She gave up trying a few years back.  She sighs deeply when she thinks of the material wealth that slipped through her fingers.  The beautiful house she bought in the countryside, with stables and a gym, the sports car.  And then there’s the priceless contacts, and the access to the influential and rich people in the entertainment business that could make or break a career with a stroke of their pen or a phone call.  If she had kept on the straight and narrow she could have married a movie star.  Sandrine takes a deep breath and watches an old man, who looks forlornly at the floor.  She wonders what he has lost in his life.  She still has the framed platinum discs from a few of the band’s releases somewhere.  There is also a photo album of the band on tour and posing with all sorts of famous people.  That album also has concert pictures.  She doesn’t know where she put the album.  It has been years since she paged through it.  It’s just too painful.  It could be with some of her old outfits in the loft, or maybe she threw it away during one of her episodes.  She must take the time to look for it.