Totally Random

Penny Feeny

Am I on the right train? I know there’s electronic message boards everywhere but they keep changing their minds just like people do. I’ve been in and out of this carriage three times already. Once to get a coffee. Once because I thought: No way, this is the craziest stunt I’ve ever tried to pull, what if I’m back late and John finds out? And once to check the first stop in case I wanted to get off and go home again. I spot a mousy looking woman, no make-up, stringy hair. Just to be sure I ask her if this is the London train and she says yes. When I sit down I realise she’s got a baby with her. Maybe he’ll bring me luck.

Actually most people think I am lucky. They see the house, they see the cars, they see John in his Armani jacket and they think jammy cow. Me and John, we’re, like, focussed. Know what you want, aim for it, make your own good fortune. He don’t tell me everything about his deals. It’s like his way of doing business, on a need-to-know basis. So that’s how our relationship is: there’s some stuff it’s better to keep quiet about.

The letters weren’t a problem. He wouldn’t know about my mail because it always comes after he leaves the house. He brings me a cup of tea in bed at seven and then he’s off for his working breakfast. He runs a construction company and you have to be razor sharp on those building sites. Keep tabs on everything. He scares people, John. He isn’t a big man: skimpy shoulders, small feet, but there’s steel packed in between. I reckon I can handle him though, because of spending that time on and off in the kids’ home. Anyway, right now he’s treating me like a piece of glass. He wants us to have a baby.

The woman opposite has shifted hers into the crook of her arm and she’s unbuttoning her cardigan right in front of me. Her tit sort of falls out and the baby latches on to it and I have to look out of the window because it makes my stomach churn to tell the truth. I know breast-feeding’s normal but so’s pissing and I don’t like to see that in public either. I think bottles are much more hygienic; you can get one of them sterilising units and you won’t have to worry about your babe picking up germs and random diseases.

John had kids with his first wife but she took them to Australia so he hardly ever sees them. I went off the pill last winter but it takes time to get your cycle back. Actually I’m not really in a hurry. I’m still doing up the house. It’s not been finished long and there’s loads of stuff to sort out. I gave up my job at the beauty salon because of trying to get pregnant – plus John says why bother, it’s only pin money – but I get called in sometimes if there’s a really tricky client. Someone who’s had plastic surgery or a burn maybe. And I’m a dab hand at disguising bruises. One woman used to come in, she’d been a waitress or something and a filter coffee machine had exploded in her face: scalding coffee and tiny bits of glass under the skin. I was dead proud of the work I done on her.

This woman opposite, now she could do with a makeover. Doesn’t she ever look in the mirror? Shampoo and conditioner wouldn’t go amiss and a little blusher couldn’t do any harm. I mean is this what happens when you have a kid, the down-trodden couldn’t-care-less look? She don’t talk like she’s down-trodden though. She talks like the sodding queen – and she isn’t talking to me neither. She’s talking to her four month old baby – as if he can understand a word. ‘Look Oliver. Look at the cows. They give milk just like mummy does. Can you see them in the fields over there swishing their tails?’

It was bad enough watching her feeding; now I really want to throw up. It doesn’t help that my guts are twisting and tying themselves into loops. Like when the first letter came. I had to knock back a double vodka before I opened it. Ten o’clock in the morning! I used a knife to slit the envelope because my fingers were shaking and I was worried I’d tear into the letter by mistake. Could have sliced my hand off. He didn’t say much, but he did say he’d meet me and he gave me his number. I didn’t ring him. I couldn’t bear the thought of hearing his voice without seeing his body attached, know what I mean?

Right now my mobile’s switched off. That’s how superstitious I am. Usually I’m on the phone all the time. Bethany, says John, why your phone bills aren’t listed in the Guinness Book of Records I’ll never know. He makes loads of calls too, but his are like bulletin boards: Right, Thursday 2 o’clock. At the Five Acres. No show, no deal. That kind of thing. He doesn’t gossip. Well, obviously, what you talk about to your girlfriends is altogether different, right? Though I haven’t told no-one about the letters, not even Carly who was in the home with me, who I’ve known most of my life. I will tell her though, one day.

This whole thing started because of us trying for a baby. I probably wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. I’d thought about him of course. I’d imagined a thousand times what he might look like, what he might do. Tall, I reckoned, with a smile like a beacon and a job in the music business. And when I was younger I used to imagine all the ways he might come along and rescue me. That’s water under the bridge now I’ve got John, now I’m making my own family. Except I’m not. Every goddam shag – my legs up on his shoulders, John pumping away – I think maybe this time. This is it! Only it isn’t. Makes you realise how hit and miss the whole caboodle is.

I mean, why was I a hit?

How come this bloke, my dad, all those years ago managed to leave his calling card? Against all the odds. It wasn’t her choice, my mum says, to have her life ruined by some bugger she’d been too wasted to turn down. She’s always had a drink problem, my bloody mother. Thought she’d be in clover when she heard who I was marrying but we didn’t invite her to the wedding. Far as I was concerned, if you grow up half your life in an orphanage, you’re an orphan.

All I knew about him was his name. Every month when my period came around I couldn’t help thinking: why was it so easy for him to scatter his seed? Like one time – ONE TIME – he does it with this woman he’s just met, tripped over, whatever, and bingo there I am, an embryo dividing and growing and developing human bits. A different night he might not have met her. A few less drinks he might not have fancied her. Another rubber johnny might have done its job properly. How random can you get?

I root around in my bag because even though my phone’s off, I like to make sure I haven’t forgotten it or anything. And I never travel anywhere without a decent make-up kit. I’ve got this really cool case for my lipgloss, looks a bit like a packet of fags. I pull it out to check which colours I’ve brought and quick as a cat the woman opposite says: ‘You can’t smoke here.’

As if I would. As if I didn’t know you’re not supposed to smoke around babies. Anyway it’s a no-smoking train. I roll a bit more colour over my mouth. ‘It’s lippy,’ I tell her. ‘Don’t you ever use none?’

She looks at me a bit pitying, like she’s got much more important stuff to do than putting muck on her face. ‘I prefer to look the way God intended,’ she says.

Two sentences she’s spoken to me and God’s already got an introduction. I gave up on him years back. Like Fate, I reckon he’s a cop-out for people who haven’t got the nerve to do their own thing. Intended indeed! I don’t reckon he gives a bugger. Because if he did, wouldn’t he make everybody beautiful and kind and good to one another?

There’s nothing wrong with my looks. I know my mum’s a sad old lush and my dad’s a mystery and I’ve probably got any number of faulty genes. But on the outside I’m just fine. When they hired me at the salon they said my complexion was flawless. I could have been a model really, with my height and everything. I think John might prefer that to the beautician’s job. Sometimes I think he doesn’t like the idea of my fingers on other people’s skin. Like if you’re a model – even a glamour model with your bits hanging out – people can stare at you all they want, you can be on a seventy foot hoarding, but still no-one can touch you. Know what I mean?

The baby is plug ugly. You think all babies are cute little cherubs but actually you can see some real stinkers. His moon face is scrumpled up and a yellow stain’s seeping through his terry towelling.

‘Oh Oliver,’ says his mother. ‘Aren’t you a clever boy.’ But she carries on sitting there, makes no move to go and change him. The train’s all sealed up like an aeroplane, you can’t open a window or nothing. I’d of bought a first class ticket only I didn’t have the readies and I didn’t want it to show up on the card. Still, it shouldn’t take much longer now. Less than an hour, forty minutes, whatever, and we’ll be facing each other. First time in twenty-six years.

Mum said when I was born he didn’t want to know, but I bet he just didn’t want to know her. How easy will it be to recognise each other? Will he wonder at first – is she or isn’t she? Will it come back to him in a rush, that night with my mum, all that fumbling? Probably didn’t even take their clothes off, probably just a quick fuck up against a wall outside some dodgy night-club. Since then he’s lived another life entirely, only now he’s got my letters and quite a nice photo. I’ll be standing there in the middle of the railway station crowd and it’ll be like he’s found a missing piece of jigsaw puzzle.

The baby whimpers. I bet he wants his nappy changing but his all-that’s-natural loving mother can’t be arsed. ‘We’ll soon be back home, darling,’ she says. ‘Do you think Daddy will come and meet us or do you think he’ll be too busy?’ Oliver wails. ‘Oh, I’m only teasing you. Of course he’ll be there. He’s taking the morning off work he’s missed us so much.’

Just as I’m thinking I can’t take any more of this, I’m going to find another seat, the train stops. Just stops. In the middle of nowhere. Like, I don’t usually take public transport. If you’re the driver, you’re in control. So I don’t have a clue what this means. But all around me people are huffing and puffing and sighing and talking about points failure or engine seizure and exchanging stories about the worst breakdowns ever. Oliver and his mother are looking out of the window counting magpies.

We sit there for twenty minutes or so and the ticket collector walks through the carriage but he says he doesn’t know anything and I’m worrying: if I’m late will he think I’m not coming? Then I start wondering if he’ll even be there. Maybe he’s got cold feet and isn’t planning to turn up anyway. I’m feeling in my bag again and my hand closes over my phone when the train bucks and judders and starts to move. Passengers give a little cheer.

The electronic ticker tape that runs above the carriage door has a new message. This train will be terminating at Watford it says in spotty red letters. No explanation. There’s lots more mutterings and questions. Oliver’s mother is outraged. Daddy will be so worried. Daddy will have wasted the whole morning waiting for them. It’s quite ridiculous.

I pull out my phone and switch it on. There’s a new voicemail message. Could be from anybody. Before I can listen to it, I’m distracted by the rumours flying up and down the train. Then the guard comes through and confirms them. No-one’s going to London. London’s been sealed off because there’s been a terrorist attack. Or bomb explosion. Or something.

Just my luck, I think. Why did it have to be today? Why not tomorrow? Or next week?

We go through a cutting and I can see my face reflected in the dark glass. It looks as though it’s got lots of little nicks and splinters in it like the coffee machine woman’s. Not flawless at all.

Friday

The voicemail was from him – even though I’d told him not to ring. I suppose I’m glad he did now. He said he had some meeting he couldn’t get out of, he might be a few minutes late so not to worry. He was hurrying for the Piccadilly line tube. His voice is – well, what can I say? – the voice of a stranger. Quite ordinary. Not a fat voice or a posh voice or a squeaky voice. Just a middle-aged man apologising to someone he’s never met. Never will meet.

I sat on our big bed in front of the news all yesterday evening. We’ve got one of those Hungarian goose down duvets, so soft and light you don’t feel it. When John’s in a mellow mood he tells me I look like an angel sitting in the clouds. A heaven of white lace. He didn’t seem to think it odd for me to be interested in news all of a sudden. He was watching it himself anyway, worried that it might affect his business, though I don’t see how. They kept showing the same pictures: the bus with its top blown off, the CCTV footage, a few sooty patched-up survivors.

I didn’t cry. I mean, how can you mourn someone you don’t know, someone you’ve no memories of, someone who hasn’t figured in your life before? He’s just a blank really. And a handful of disembodied words.

I’ve rung the GP. I’ve decided to get a coil fitted. John doesn’t have to know.