An unholy trinity try and take me for a ride
I had an interesting journey home from London on Friday. It wasn’t very late. After 11.30 carriages full of fast food and drunken people are pretty much the norm and you are always relieved to be getting off after 25 minutes, but this was around 10pm and South West Trains are normally more sedate at that time. Early theatre chuck outs, after shopping supper types. And the trains aren’t usually chock full. But this one was and there was a slightly edgy atmosphere. I don’t think I was imagining It; like most born and bred South Londoners I have a pretty good sixth sense when it comes to sniffing out a febrile undercurrent in a public place or something sinister in the shadows, even to the point of choosing my train seat carefully, avoiding the darker, dodgier corners of pubs, or knowing when to cross the road because of what might be lurking in a shop doorway under a defective street lamp.
By good fortune and being prepared to walk down the carriages I found an empty table, even though most of the surrounding seats were busy. At the table opposite me was a small group of men and as soon as I saw them I knew that it wasn’t going to be a quiet journey. There were three of them, all in their early fifties, and I shall give them fictional names. Billy was a big fella in a gabardine check jacket who was manspreading over two seats and clearly the Alpha. Opposite him in the aisle nearest me was Colin in a very shabby suit, no tie, probably the most palpably drunk of the three and who watched Billy carefully for cues. Stuffed in a corner and bobbing and jutting like a ventriloquist’s dummy was the one I called Freddy the ferret, a small and angry little man, also in a suit that looked too tight with no tie but with his shirt unbuttoned halfway to his waist.
It started with the loaf of bread.
I had been given a mission from home to buy a sliced loaf from M&S on Waterloo Station, which I held sans carrier bag and plonked down in front of me. The three of them looked at it.
“Any chance of a sandwich?” asked Billy.
“Sure” I said “ham or cheese”?
“Ham” says Billy.
“Sorry we’re out of ham”.
“Cheese then”.
“Sorry we’re out of cheese. And butter too.”
There is a thing that happens in these situations. It’s a kind of interview process. If it goes badly you get the piss ripped out of you very publicly; if you’re lucky they get bored and move onto some other form of entertainment. The worst thing that can happen is that they like you and want you to become one of them. It’s like that scene at the end of the 1979 movie The Wanderers when the adolescent hero gets forced to join the local fat middle aged mafia and is given a hawaiian shirt as a badge of office. Please no.
“Why are you carrying a loaf of bread then?” asks Freddie the Ferrett.
“Someone told me there would be ducks on the train” I said. Freddy’s gaze narrowed but it was Billy who responded. “I’ve heard of snakes on a plane” he chuckled “but not ducks on a train”. Freddie was ready to push the point ‘though.
“So what’s with the bread then?” Christ I thought, you don’t have to be Sherlock bleeding Holmes.”
My wife range me up and asked me to get a loaf of bread” I said.
“Always do what your wife tells you then?”. Ah one of those, I thought. Goading to see if there is a real man under this loaf carrying wimp.
“We negotiate” I said. “Then I generally do what she asks”.
“So she wears the trousers in your house then?”
“No but she is generally right. Like I said it’s a negotiation.”
At this point the most bizarre thing happened. A short man in a red jacket seated two rows down suddenly jumped to his feet and said “a man should always do what his wife says” and then he sat down again and disappeared for the rest of the journey. Now I know that late night conversations on trains can sometimes end up involving the entire carriage but this was just strange. Billy and I just stared at each other as if sharing something private in the moment. Then Colin said
“I wish I had a wife”. It was at this point that I realised that Colin and Freddy the Ferret both had cans of beer in front of them and Billy had a Diet Coke and a mars bar.
“Anyway” I said to Billy. “You won’t go hungry. You’ve got your mars bar”.
“A mars a day helps you work rest and play” says Colin, although in a tone of voice that sounded unconvinced by the confectionary manufacturers claims. Billy’s eyes lit up.
“Do you know who invented that slogan?” he asked.
“No I don’t”.
“Go on have a guess”.
“Someone famous? An actor?”
“Yeah but you’ll never guess”.
“Go on” says I.
“Murray Walker”.
My mind went into overdrive. This was definitely part of the interview process. Somehow from the dredges of my memory banks I pulled out a recollection that Murray Walker was a motor racing commentator. I have no interest in this sport but had had it thrust upon me by certain members of my family in decades gone by.
“Formula One” I says.
Billy beamed. “That’s the fella. Before he went into commentating he worked in advertising”
“I remember that slogan” I said. “There was an advert of a guy landing hovercraft then eating a mars bar”.
“Don’t remember that advert ” says Colin. Freddy was glowering because he couldn’t find a way into the conversation so he said, rather desperately
“So do you always do what your wife tells you?” For god’s sake Freddy, I thought to myself, that wasn’t just desperate it was embarrassing. I ignored him and carried on talking to Colin.
“Maybe it was before your time. There were lots of Mars adverts in the 70s”
“How old are you then?” asks Billy.
“64” says I. Colin looked at me literally wide eyed. “Shit really. Bloody hell. I hope I look as good as you when I’m that age. I’m 53 this year”.
“Going far are you?” asks Freddy who clearly didn’t want me in their gang and just wanted to be rid of me.
“Just to Woking. Another five minutes”. It was the Southampton train and I guessed they were heading all the way down the line. I pulled out my phone and looked up Murray Walker on Wikipedia.
“He also did opal fruits” I said. Billy grinned as we intoned in unison:
“Opal fruits. Made to make your mouth water”
When I got off Colin had nodded off, Freddy was pissed off, and Billy and I were best mates. He even offered me a fist bump.
“Nice meeting you mate” he said.
“Safe journey gentleman” I said.
There is a lot of talk about toxic masculinity but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface and much more common, men constantly test each other like this to see where the other one sits on the masculine – feminine spectrum. Society is a bit more flexible these days thank god so you don’t have to usually suffer the binary experience of being labelled one of the lads or something very much the opposite expressed in a pejorative sense. But meeting the likes of Billy and his mates late at night is always an interesting experience.
On Sunday I dropped my eldest son at the station, wearing the same jacket I had been wearing on Friday. As we drove he said “You’re looking good these days dad. That coat really suits you. Looks a bit like a flying jacket. Makes you look like you mean business”. That was probably it I thought. Billy and his mates didn’t want me in their gang, just the coat. But then again my mum always said Clothes Maketh The Man…
Eyecatching 