Chapter 6: THE MAN WHO WENT BY TRAIN

John’s train had been delayed by one of the many excuses the Rail Network used these days in order to pass the blame onto someone or something else rather than admit to their own incompetence. In fact, such was the frequency of delays that the Rail Network had long since stopped making up their own excuses and had instead begun handing out questionnaires to delayed passengers for them to fill in so they could select their most preferred reason why the train they were waiting for was not running on time. John was handed his questionnaire by a surly Railway official, who scowled at him and said simply, “Fill this in,” before striding off to hand out the remaining forms clutched in his gnarled hand to the weary travellers queuing behind him.

John looked at the badly photocopied form now in his possession and read down the list. The form read:

We apologise for the delay in the arrival of your train. It is due to:

o    Essential maintenance

o   The wrong type of leaves on the track

o   An earthquake in Bolivia

o   An overabundance of frogs

o   The Prime Minister

o   Velociraptors escaping from Jurassic Park

o   The price of New Zealand lamb

o   Gregorian chants

o   Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict

o   Other (but not us)

Please select one excuse only. Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. Your opinions are important to us. We hope you enjoy the rest of your delay.

John sighed and selected ‘The Prime Minister’ because he didn’t like him. It was ironic, he thought, he loved traveling by train, but hated waiting. More than anything he hated waiting on King’s Cross Station because it was Tramp Central. More tramps frequented King’s Cross Station than any other part of London – some days there were more tramps than there were passengers and it had become increasingly difficult not to make eye contact with them. Making eye contact with a King’s Cross tramp was fatal. As soon as a tramp realised a passenger was making eye contact with him, he would shuffle over and hold his grubby hand out for some cash. Most of them went away after they had been told ‘no’ thirty or forty times but others were more persistent and would stand firm, looking like swarthy, greasy-haired, badly dressed highwaymen, until they had extorted enough cash to buy a two-litre bottle of White Lightning.

John stuffed the questionnaire into his jacket pocket, ready to show to the conductor, along with his ticket, when the train eventually arrived. He looked up at the electronic board that showed when the trains were not arriving and inadvertently caught the eye of a passing tramp.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself as he watched helplessly as the tramp shambled over to him. The tramp had long, grey, dirty hair that appeared to have some kind of bird’s nest within its matted, filthy mess, along with two or three plastic World War Two American soldiers. He wore a long, threadbare, buttonless, brown coat, which was secured to his body with a length of frayed string. His trousers were worn at the knees and his shoes were scuffed, the soles of which were coming away from the uppers, revealing his bare, blackened toes. He stank like he had been sleeping in the urinal of a busy Soho pub on a Saturday night. He held out his hand and said, “Giz some change.”

“I haven’t got any,” said John quickly, hoping to rid himself of this foul smelling creature.

“Giz some change,” the tramp repeated.

“I told you I haven’t got any change.”

“Giz some change,” the tramp said again.

This exchange went on repetitiously for another five minutes, before the tramp moved on to the next person in line. John was relieved that he had been approached by one of the less persistent ones, but the constant repetition as the tramp moved down the queue gave him a headache. Eventually though, the tramp reached the end of the line and he wandered off to catch the eye of someone else, leaving his piss infused aroma lingering in the air.

He looked over at Platform 9, where his train had not arrived, and was surprised to see several adults with children running into a wall until they knocked themselves unconscious. He was wondering what they were trying to achieve when the elderly lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me young man, I need to call my daughter and tell her that I’ll be late getting in. You don’t have some change for the phone, do you?”

“Sure,” said John, fishing around in his pocket and producing a handful of coins. “How much do you want?”

“Fifty pee’ll be fine.”

“Giz some change.”

John turned from the elderly lady and looked in bewilderment at the smelly tramp standing directly in front of him, his grubby hand extended, with the palm open, ready to accept the free hand-out he felt sure he was going to receive, now that he knew the angry looking man who told him he had no change did in fact have some change to give him. He had been on the other side of the Station when John saw him last and John couldn’t quite believe he had been able to move that quickly, considering he looked almost at the point of death, having not consumed nearly enough of his daily quota of White Lightning. It was as if he had been beamed there by Scotty from the transporter deck of the USS Enterprise.

“Fuck off,” said John firmly, handing 50p in change to the elderly lady and dropping the rest of the coins back into his pocket, “and don’t come back.”

The tramp glared at John with mixture of surprise, confusion and disappointment. “I only asked for some change,” he said sorrowfully, before moving away.

The other people in the queue looked at John as if he had just taken a shit in front of them. He heard them mumbling about how course and vulgar he was and how the tramp had only wanted a little bit of small change. He turned away from them and mumbled something himself. “Fucking hypocrites,” was what he mumbled.

The train arrived at King’s Cross Platform 9 thirty minutes later and, after stepping over the unconscious bodies, he found a carriage as far away as possible from the people who had been queuing with him. He placed his bag in the luggage rack above his head and sat down. More passengers began to fill the carriage until the seat opposite him was the only empty seat left. This was filled a few minutes later by a strange looking young man with a pudding-basin haircut and sporting a pair of what seemed to be old National Health spectacles.

“Hello, my name’s Harry,” the young man said. “Harry Potty. Potty by name, potty by nature.” He snorted, obviously finding his own feeble joke amusing.

John didn’t normally talk to complete strangers on long train journeys. He found that they usually turned out to be tedious nutters who drank their own urine when they didn’t have to or they sacrificed small children to some fictional demon whenever the moon was full.  He was still in a bad mood after waiting for hours on King’s Cross Station and therefore had no intention of striking up a conversation with Harry Potty, or whatever the fuck he called himself. He didn’t look like someone who would drink his own urine or sacrifice young children. He looked like he was something worse – the worst possible person anyone could engage in conversation with no means of escape. He looked like a train spotter.

John grunted a cursory reply and then opened his newspaper.

“Are you going to Newtown?” asked Harry Potty, as the train was leaving the Station.

John didn’t reply. Instead, he shook his newspaper, which was the international sign for ‘shut the fuck up and leave me alone’.

“I’m going to Newtown,” said Harry Potty, ignoring the warning sign John had so clearly shown him, “I’m an apprentice wizard, you know.”

John rolled his eyes and folded up his newspaper. “You do know,” he said, “that there’s no such thing as wizards?”

“On the contrary,” replied Harry, “I’ve been accepted as a student in the first wizard academy in the country.”

“Really? And I suppose you’ll be learning how to do magic and cast spells on people and turn them into frogs or whatever wizards do?”

“I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, to be honest. I thought they might start by teaching me a few card tricks, you know, like Paul Daniels.”

“He’s a magician, not a wizard.”

“So you say.”

“So everyone says.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, well, that’s probably because you’re delusional.

“What do you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I told you what I do.”

“That’s different.”

“Why is it different?”

“I didn’t ask you what you did. You told me. You interrupted me when I was trying to read my newspaper.”

“But you weren’t reading your newspaper. You were just using it to ignore me.”

“So? What if I was?”

“Well, that’s just rude.”

John passed his hand over his face and said, “Does this look like the face of concern?”

Harry stared at John’s face for a few moments before saying, “Yes, actually, it does.”

“All right, if I tell you what I do for a living will you leave me alone?”

“Promise.”

“I’m a games designer.”

“What? Board games?”

“No, computer games. Who designs board games anymore?”

“Wow, that’s brilliant. What games have you designed?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Is that for security reasons or because you’re lying to me about being a games designer?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes you are. I may be young but I’m very observant – it’s one of the qualities that’s required for admittance to the Arnold Chemicals Wizard Academy. I’d say, judging by your covert manner and the bulge in the left-hand side of your jacket that you’re a secret agent.”

“Whoa, go back a bit. What Wizard Academy did you say?”

“Arnold Chemicals.”

John went silent for a moment while he reflected on what Harry had just said. He realised that he had seriously misjudged this young man – far from drinking his own urine or sacrificing young children or even being, heaven forbid, a train spotter, he seemed to be actually intelligent with a keen set of observational skills that may be of use during the forthcoming investigation. John reached into his right-hand jacket pocket and produced a wallet, which he opened, revealing the contents to the young man sat opposite him.

Harry gazed at the identification card that John held in front of his face. On the top of the ID card were the words BRITISH SECRET SERVICE, and underneath was a less than flattering back-and-white photograph of John looking several years younger than he did now. Directly below the photo was his name, JOHN LANGDON, and his number, 8001281, and below that were the words CHEESE DIVISION.

“I’m on leave at the moment,” John whispered, after giving Harry enough time to take in the information on the ID card, “and the investigation I’m currently involved in is completely off the record. My brother had protested against Arnold Chemicals and last month I got a frantic call from him. He said he was going to come and stay with me in London and something about a report he had to make to the local police, but then he just disappeared off the face of the earth. I don’t know what he’d got himself involved with – he was just a cook, for God’s sake – but I’m sure it’s got something to do with Arnold Chemicals. Can you see where I’m going with this?”

“You want me to spy for you?” said Harry.

“Yes. Look, I’m not forcing you or anything, but your inside access to Arnold Chemicals could provide invaluable information for my investigation. What do you say?”

Harry’s eyes opened wide and he was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “Brilliant! A spy! That’s way better than being a wizard!”

John breathed a sigh of relief. “Excellent,” he said. “Now there’s already someone inside Arnold Chemicals who used to work for our New Zealand division. His name is Peter Perkins and he’ll be your first point of contact. I’m not sure whether he’s still a reliable source or a double agent, so be careful what you say to him at first.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Peter Perkins. Be careful what I say to him,” Harry said excitedly.

“Right. Now, when we get off this train we act like we don’t know each other. We don’t want to attract any suspicion. Understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Act like I don’t know you. Understood?”

“Good. Now, do you think you could leave me in peace to read my newspaper?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Leave you in peace. Read your newspaper.”

 

The train arrived at Newtown Station four hours later and John retrieved his bag from the overhead storage. He said to Harry, “You get off first and I’ll get off about thirty seconds later. That way no one will suspect.”

Harry did as he was instructed and made his way along the platform to the ticket barrier. He was about to hand over his ticket to the guard stationed there when he saw John leave the train. He raised his hand and waved. “See you later, John!” he called loudly.

John stopped in his tracks, turned around and shook his head. “Christ on a fucking bike,” he whispered miserably to himself.

The cover of The Possum Book of Long Train Journeys Sat Next to a Nutter, from which book this chapter was taken