Just the Ticket - U.K. - by Andrew Campbell-Kearsey
Just The Ticket
By Andrew Campbell-Kearsey
Heaven. A carriage to myself. I can spread out at a table for four. My jacket is granted a seat to itself. The newspaper grabs another. What decadence. Last minute checklist; I tap shirt pocket and locate shape of mobile, ipod in my jeans. My ticket, wallet, and railcard, in front of me on the grubby table. I can relax.
A minute to go, the thirty second whistle then peace shattered by tinny rap on a cheap mobile. My new fellow traveller answers it. “I just fucking made it. You’ll never guess what he asked me to do for him”. Oh, I am pleased. I now have to endure a halfalogue. Not only is ‘fucking’ being used to qualify every adjective. She has bent the rules of the English language to contract it into a noun. I’m fascinated to see whether she can fashion it into a conjunction. All this and I get to see my vile sister at the end of the journey. How good does life get?
Only two stations down, and eleven more to go. I wave the metaphorical white flag and relocate. The next carriage has more people but I sit near to a business-suited woman who has a copy of the Guardian on her lap. Her companion is doing a crossword.
I’m half way into the opening paragraph of the editorial in my own paper when the smart woman speaks. “I am so anti-carrot cake.” She says it with the vehemence of a woman declaring her horror of the thought of troops in Afghanistan or discovering that the government was plotting a mass fluoridisation of the water supply. It’s an assertion so ridiculous I consider its origin. Did she once hear terrible news while eating the aforementioned baked dessert? Perhaps she was the victim of a traumatic event by a flame-haired perpetrator? Would a therapist call this transference? Maybe she’s allergic to root vegetables.
I think it was the smugness of the speaker that caused me so much annoyance. It was the assumption that anybody else within earshot, actually cared about her opinions, however strongly held. I suspect some dramatic training in her past. She can certainly project her voice. Her companion shows not the slightest interest in her culinary preferences, being far too engrossed in the solution to twenty-two down.
The ticket-collector appears. I pray and call upon all things holy that the carrot-cake hater has not paid the sufficient fare. I fantasize about her being ignominiously frogmarched off the train into the waiting arms of the police. Surely a hanging offence, at least it is, in my dream.
I even detest the way that she shows her ticket, like a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat. Then the uniform approaches me.
“May I see your ticket, Sir?”
“Of course.” I check all pockets. Nothing.
The more I protest that I have bought one, that I’d had it in the other carriage, the hollower and less truthful I sound. I could swear the Guardian-owner is smiling.
“Would you accompany me onto the platform at the next station please, Sir?”
I count my blessings. At least I won’t have to face my sister.
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Andrew’s local recommendation is what he describes as a "fantastic and friendly pub": The Sussex Yeoman
Andrew-about-Andrew: “I am a former headteacher living in Brighton. My partner and I had a civil partnership ceremony in 2007, hence the double barrelled name. I have had my first collection of stories 'Brighton Shorts' published by Aquillrelle in November 2011. One of my short stories has just been adapted for television.”