This month's excerpts from Pillar Press Books
Strangers On A Train
Brilliant, just brilliant!
The few trains that are running are filled beyond their intended capacity.
I've paid over a hundred pounds for a reserved seat I will never have the opportunity to occupy because the central aisle is one hundred per cent blocked.
To top it all, someone has decided to avoid the Christmas festivities altogether by throwing themselves under the previous passing train.
They must have had to wait some time for that opportunity.
No one is going anywhere anytime soon, literally.
So, I'll be here, up close and personal, sandwiched between strangers, for the foreseeable future.
There's a woman behind me whose pre-pubescent son is facing me, with his nose practically touching my Che Guevara t-shirt.
His mother's been forced to convey messages to Liam, her son, via me, the obstacle between them.
Can you ask my son there, Liam, if he could call his dad and tell him we'll be home late... probably very, very late, she says.
This I dutifully do.
Liam taps the numbers on his mobile phone.
Dad says, How late?
Dad says...
I know, I heard him, says the mother.
Too late to cook any dinner... tell him there's some pie in the fridge.
What's that, mum?
She says, too late to cook dinner, and there's a pie in the fridge.
Too late to cook dinner, and there's a pie in the fridge, dad!
He's hung up now, Mum!
Mum mutters in my ear... that's typical of him, no thought about us, no wondering why we will be so late.
He's back on the phone, Mum!
Dad says he accidentally got cut off because he walked into the kitchen... are there mushy peas!
Tell him to look in the bloody cupboard, and tell him not to worry about us, stuck on a train in the middle of God knows where, bored and hungry.
What?
She says... tell him to look in the cupboard and don't worry.
He's gone again, Mum!
Bloody idiot, she mutters, for my ears only.
Then the man behind her decides it's time to ring his family.
Hello, my sweet baby girl, he says, loud enough for the whole carriage to hear.
How's my baby girl?
Christ, I'm thinking, I hope he's not talking to his wife.
Daddy's coming home, and he's got a lovely surprise for you, a big present... Daddy can't wait to get home and give hugs and kisses to his cutie pie.
There's a danger at this point that I might vomit all over Liam.
The student union had a party last night, so my body is in recovery mode.
Is mummy there... can I have to speak to mummy?
Mummy says she's busy.
Tell her I need to tell her something.
I can hear the child yelling, Mummy, daddy wants to talk to you about something!
Mummy says she's busy right now!
What's Mummy doing?
Uncle Ray's here!
Who's Uncle Ray?
We, the passengers privy to this call... can guess who Uncle Ray is.
Baby... are you still there?
Seated to my right is a woman, probably in her seventies.
She's tutting loudly and repeatedly muttering, deary me, oh deary me.
At first, I assume her agitation is due to the conversation 'daddy' is having with 'baby-girl',
That was not the case.
My cats... the poor darlings will be starving!
She's not talking to anyone, simply vocalising her inner anxiety.
Why aren't we moving?
The man sitting next to her is peering out of the window, lost in thought, so I tell her, they need to scrape someone off the train track before we can move on.
I'm in quite a bad mood and gasping for a cigarette.
Who's on the train track?
I don't know, just some poor soul who lost the will to live, and I'm beginning to feel the same.
Why didn't they throw themselves off a bridge or something rather than inflict all this inconvenience on us?
I don't know. Some people don't think about anyone but themselves. Of course, they could have thrown themselves off a bridge and landed on the track.
Elsie, my neighbour, could feed Franky and Sinatra, she says, brightening up at the thought.
Then she stabs the arm of the man next to her with a bony finger.
Will he call Elsie for her?
He says he doesn't want to because he's waiting for a call from his wife.
Liam here, he's got a phone, I tell her.
Liam, I say, can you make a call for this lady? We don't want Franky and Sinatra to die of malnutrition, do we?
We all might starve of malnutrition before we get home, says the boy's mother.
Liam calls Elsie.
Is that Elsie?
I've got her on the phone, says Liam, handing his phone over.
Elsie, is that you? This is me, Gloria, your neighbour.
There's a pause while Elsa speaks
Yes, I know you know who I am.
There's another exchange of words.
Yes, I know you haven't lost your bloody marbles... would you go round to mine and feed the cats?
Elsie wants to know how she will get into Gloria's house.
There's a key, Elsie, under the gnome fishing by the front door... you can't miss it. The cat food is under the kitchen sink, Franky likes the fish sachets, and Sinatra likes the poultry and their bowls are clearly marked with an F and an S. F for... OK, yes, I know you're not stupid.
Gloria gives me the phone to pass back to Benny.
On the seat to my left, there's a little girl who looks about three, sitting on her mother's lap.
The child is whining and wriggling about on her lap.
Can't you wait? Pleads the mother.
No, I'm going to poop my pants, says the three-year-old.
Great, that's all we need!
The mother stands up as we try to flatten ourselves against the opposite chairs and let her through.
It's a long way to the one carriage with a toilet. We can only hope they make it in time. At least the threat of this particular accident has moved further up the train.
I take the opportunity to sit down on the two empty seats.
Here, shove up, will you, says Liam's mother... I could do with a quick sit-down.
So, where are you going? she asks.
I hate talking to strangers on trains.
If I'm lucky enough to get a seat, I usually ensure I have a large book to hold up to my face to avert unwanted small talk.
I'm also one of those people, selfish enough to put my rucksack on the empty seat next to me.
Home, for Christmas, I say reluctantly, gazing out the window, hoping that any conversational exchange will end there.
Are you a student?
Yes, is it that obvious?
How dare she be so presumptuous, even if she's right.
Is it the long hair or my glasses?
What are you studying?
Criminology and psychology.
That sounds so interesting... I wish I'd studied something like that.
CSI Crime Scene's my favourite show, and Medical Detective's good as well... not as good... CSI is brilliant.
I looked out the window at the now far too familiar field of cows.
I don't know what I was thinking, getting pregnant and married at twenty-one, she says with a heavy sigh. Do you remember that Specials song, where the lyrics go... much too much, much too young when you should be having fun with me me me oh oh?
No.
So, what made you decide on criminology?
Like you, I probably watched too much CSI Crime Scene.
She laughed.
I felt obliged to ask, why did you marry at twenty-one?
I don't know, an unplanned pregnancy. Shane asked me to marry him. My parents are Catholics and very against babies born out of wedlock.
I could have gone on to study physics or chemistry, my two top subjects... or even criminology like you.
Unfortunately, at seventeen, I met Shane. He was so damn handsome, and there were six years between us. Shane seemed mature and sophisticated compared to the acnied youth in my peer group, and my friends were very jealous.
And now?
He's not the man I married. I had no idea he had such a temper. Once upon a time, I'd have butterflies in my stomach as soon as he walked into the room. Now I wish he'd walk right out again, through the front door and never return.
Why don't you leave?
Easier said than done. I've no savings, and I don't want to move back in with my parents, not with Liam in tow.
Fortunately, I noted that young Liam wasn't listening.
Liam was wearing headphones attached to his mobile, listening to Rap music, I gather, by the number of times he said bitch and bruvver.
Shane's a total bastard, he'd make my life unbearable if I left, and he'd go for custody out of spite, not for any other reason.
Fortunately, woman and child are now fighting their way back to claim the seats we are sitting in.
Having to stand up again was a relief. At last, the dull conversation with Liam's mother might end.
I fantasise about smothering him with a pillow while he's sleeping... is that wrong? She said to the back of my head.
Seems a bit drastic, and the coroner would know he'd died of asphyxiation. You would go to prison. Poor old Liam would end up in an orphanage.
True, I'll have to think of something less obvious.
Family... they're always the prime suspects, especially husband or wife, I added.
Still, if something looks like an accident. What if I suggested a walk along the canal and accidentally pushed Shane in? He doesn't know how to swim... idiot.
Well, you'd have to be sure there weren't any witnesses.
Someone might appear from nowhere just as you're going in for the big push, or worse, they might see him drowning and rescue him.
I was beginning to enjoy the direction in which the conversation was going.
Yes, you're right... poison, an undetectable poison?
There are very few; you'd really need to do your homework.
Thallium, that's one, said the voice of the man standing behind her, the one with the baby girl.
I swivelled my neck and looked at the doughy-faced middle-aged man.
Greasy Joe's & Other Stories
Those were her last words 'Wish me luck!'
What happened to Jessie the day she left Greasy Joe's?
Twelve dark or darkly funny contemporary short stories.
Spend time with each, very individual character as they narrate their story.
Discover their jealousies, loves, delusions, dreams, crimes and acts of kindness.
Greasy Joe's.
Not Like Back Then.
Curriculum Vitae
Number Thirty-Four, The Ivy House
What They Don't Know
Henry The Eighth
I Didn't See Anything
Ouagadougou
Green Eye's
Jimmy and The Ferret
In My Dreams
Strangers On A Train
What happened to Jessie the day she left Greasy Joe's?
Twelve dark or darkly funny contemporary short stories.
Spend time with each, very individual character as they narrate their story.
Discover their jealousies, loves, delusions, dreams, crimes and acts of kindness.
Greasy Joe's.
Not Like Back Then.
Curriculum Vitae
Number Thirty-Four, The Ivy House
What They Don't Know
Henry The Eighth
I Didn't See Anything
Ouagadougou
Green Eye's
Jimmy and The Ferret
In My Dreams
Strangers On A Train
In Conversation with Gill Watkiss
Conversation 1
You were a child during World War Two and an evacuee.
How old were you at that time and what are your memories?
I must have been about four years old because I was old enough to go to school.
We lived in East London.
I was born in The Mothers' Hospital, Hackney.
We were sent all over the place, to rest centres which were usually old schools. When you walked into the building there would be camp beds all over the main hall,
washing lines were hung so that people could wash and dry a few things, and there would be a great deal of talk and chatter in the room.
How did you feel about having to relocate?
Well, when you are young, as long as you are with your mother you believe everything is going to be alright, as long as she is there, and I don't recall not being able to sleep, despite all the noise.
What was it like having to stay in a rest centre, and how long would you be there before you were placed with a family or somewhere more permanent?
Oh, me and my mother stayed in a few rest centres, and usually for about a week while they tried to sort out where to place you.
Then they would try to get you out of the rest centre and into a house with people who had a couple of rooms, or a spare bedroom, and that could be lovely, or very awkward.
It must have been hard for my mother, especially towards the end of the war when she was pregnant with my brother, David. I recall one place (this was all near Manchester), where the lady really didn't want us in her house. She hung sheets and blankets on the walls of the room to keep the walls clean, and my mother felt very uncomfortable.
She hated being there.
I don't know what the arrangements were for us to eat, whether we could use the kitchen at certain times.
After a while, we went back to a school where they didn't seem to know what to do with us and we were given knitting to do.
We were then sent to Mrs Chalk who had a lovely old thatched cottage near Salisbury. She had pigs and goats. In the morning she would boil up potato skins for the animals and I loved the smell of that and the smell of the straw.
One morning, my mother disappeared and I was left with the neighbour, who told me, a few days later, that we were going to go to the train station to meet my mother, who had a lovely surprise for me.
So, I'd been expecting a big present, and instead, I had been presented with my baby brother.
I couldn't take my eyes off the bundle in her arms and my mother recalled me saying, “why you want him when you have me, I'll never know.”
I was given a colouring book, but not a very big one, it was poor compensation, and disappointing, I had
imagined something far more exciting.
While we were living with Mrs Chalk, my father was billeted near us for a while and the group of soldiers would run past the cottage on their morning drill. I was photographed with a big army cap on my head.
Then we were back at a school near Manchester, another rest centre, which was a lovely old house with beautiful tree-lined grounds and a wooded area.
There were about six women and their children staying in the house, and although we were only there for a short time, a particular day has always stayed with me.