| seat 1 | | Seat 3 | W| A B | A | C D |W i+----------------+ i +-----------------+i n Table s Table n d l d o+----------------+ e +-----------------+o w| Seat 2 | | Seat 4 |w | E F | | G H |OK, I'll admit that's not very clear but suffice it to say A and E were occupied by normal decent clean living people and seats D and H were also occupied. So my friends in choosing a seat decided to pick seats B and F - fair enough, so I had to sit across in the other pair of seats to maintain anything resembling a conversation with them. And so I unwittingly sat down in seat G forgoing my usual care in seat-choosing. (I'm beginning to see myself as an army commander doing a debriefing with a big stick to point to various things on the diagram).
Yes, it was truly to my own displeasure that I chose that fateful seat. For sitting opposite (seat D) was a young gentleman, aged 14 or so whose demeanour was of a strange over-anxious puppy St. Bernard while beside me sat the most krusty infested stink-ridden dirt-encrusted-over-his-unshaven-face unclean- jacket-never-washed-since-1972-and-slept-in-every-night-since disappearing- neck dead-animal-carrying line-where-snot-had-run-from-his-nose-and-dried trouser-shined-to-the-thread-bear Dunnes-stores-(a bit like K-mart only yukkier)-crap-mid-eighties-jumper-for-sad-individual-with-brown-shirt-that- had-once-been-white-wearing pensioner with free pass for public transportation I had ever met. The smell was heinous. I actually couldn't breath through my nose as it made me feel queasy, but that doesn't capture it because breathing through my mouth proved as disastrous. I could actually taste the dirt the air was so foul. I had to reduce myself to taking short gasps though a half open mouth, just to survive.
Keeping conversation with my friends proved impractical and soon, some semblance of silence fell. I think it was due to the fact that talking necessitates breathing and that was something no-one in the carriage wanted to do. So if they felt this way, imagine my horror at realising the source of the stink was a short fat man as mentioned above who couldn't help but spread into my half of the seat and engulf all of my senses. 'This is okay,' I told myself. I just have to survive 'til the next stop and I'll be fine. I looked out the window to see how far we were from Rush station so that I could estimate the time until my salvation. I didn't recognise anything. I panicked internally. Wait a minute - Bloody Skerries station. We hadn't left the platform. So what could I do? At last the train began to move. One of my friends inhaled slightly and risked a sentence to me - can't remember what it was but I judiciously chose not to answer. I looked to the 14-year-old sitting opposite myself. He was smiling wryly like he knew something I didn't. I looked away - I didn't want to risk a comment, but couldn't help looking back to his open notepad on which were scribbled 15 or so 8-digit numbers. Maths homework? Then with a shocking suddenness he stood up and ripped open the window - oh my god, he's taking a stand against the smell - and leans out. But he didn't mind the smell - no, as I later found out, he relished it because, as I also found out, he's the old bloke's nephew. I suddenly saw in his hand a horrible tool created by man - a shattering reminder of our cruelty to ourselves as a breed and it was moving towards me - the hand that held the stopwatch!
My mind, which had been on it's last dredges of oxygen-carrying blood corpuscles and behaving rather sluggishly, was suddenly hit by the air that has entered from the now-open window. And with lightening speed, I made the horrific but inevitable conjecture OMYGODTHATBLOKESATRAINSPOTTER. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!
No wonder he looked at me like he knew something I didn't. It's that look that is shared between people who love VMS, members of wild religious cults, train-spotters and Born-again Christians (wait a minute, they are wild religious cults aren't they).
He popped his head back in and made a note of the time we passed some peculiar landmark that he considered relevant and shut the window - after all, who needs clean air? So I sat trying not to hyperventilate with the intense fear that had overtaken me, because I know train-spotters, I know Trekkies and I know the fear and humiliation that arises out of every conversation with them. But I need not have feared the train-spotter, for he was too much in awe of his mentor who I had temporarily forgotten, to speak. The man's flab had now settled into the right-hand side of my body.
You know the way in films where you turn in slow motion and see and see and see the face of the most twisted evil alien in the galaxy - a cornflake still stuck to his hairy-but-not-bearded chin. And the slow motion opening of his mouth to reveal the beelzebubical tongue move and say 'Grand weather for the ducks'. Reeling from his indescribably cruel breath (I shan't even attempt to assign it adjectives - I've already described the smell he emitted with closed gape. With open mouth, it was like the foulest congregation of vapours ever to emit from the bowels of hell (to rip off Hamlet slightly)) I realised that this was the form that Satan had taken. They say he'll come along looking like a cool dude if only to fool us, but this blatant grossness had to have some huge demonic power behind it - or maybe it was just the fumes playing with my imagination. In any case I saw the young apprentice having just jotted down the time in his crowded notebook laughing quietly at his master's (okay, his uncle's - maybe they're not from hell) quip. How true - what grand weather for the ducks - his eye sparkled with delight at the candidness of the revelation.
'Yes', I choked back at him. But one can't just completely ignore a person who's started a conversation with one, especially when on their filthy jacket are 30 or so metal badges proclaiming his association with various train enthusiasts' clubs. With all of these well-shined glinting epitomes of a true bore's life shining at one, one can't help but look dazzledly at them. And so, I painfully embarked on one of the most irksome conversations of my life.
He spoke of his life as a spotter - and what a distinguished career it was. Did you realise that he travelled on the Harold's Cross line on the last train before its closing - that he was a founder member of the Spotters guild of Ireland - a sort of mason's for even more complete nerds - how deep his love for the original Star Trek series was (how warp 3 then was something spectacular but that the ion drives on the new Enterprise would see this as something below cruising speed - ha) - but his real passion was photography he loved it. This was his oldest and most abiding love. Oh, I thought, this could be relatively good. I decided to mention my Uncle in Australia who had similar interests. This was my chance to steer the conversation. 'What sort of a camera does he use?' I couldn't remember but I thought it was a Cannon and I remembered the zoom lens so I threw that in to impress. 'No that's not really any good, you see' he told me wisely. 'You need to use the best camera available to you, son.' Well, that was news to me, I always assumed Danny had quite a good camera. I waited to find out what he used - but first I got to see the pictures. And what would they be? The dramatic landscapes of the worlds deserts - clever studies of small objects perhaps - or perhaps he tempted young ladies into his home and had some tasteful or saucy pictures of them - maybe he had a dark side - just what sort of pictures would this man take I wondered.
A grocer's in Naas.
An overflowing bin in Carlow. Bloody disgrace isn't it?
A picture of my back garden.
And that's my dog (he went everywhere with me until the accident).
Here's another grocer but this one in Wicklow.
That's my finger over the lens but you can just see a car on Tuam Beach.
And while this one's blurred it's a cafe in Dublin - and I actually took
it from a carriage of a train.
Oh well, that was impressive - but wait, there was another.
'This one is of a shop in Leitrim. You see I've traveled widely (obviously) because of my interest in Train spotting. And everywhere I go I take pictures. In this shop there was a man who sold me a mars bar. Now he charged me 30 pence for it - but as I know in most shops they cost 28 pence. Now I told him this at the time and demanded a refund.'
'Naturally' I said, (is this guy completely mental as well as being a bore?)
'So as I couldn't get satisfaction, I wrote to him when I arrived home explaining that I would be contacting the Consumer Association if he failed to send me the difference between the recommended retail price and the price he charged (you see I have a book of letters of complaint).' 'And did you ever get your 2 pence?'
'Well, that's the interesting thing. I never received any letters from the shop owner regarding the money so I can only assume that either he has not received my letters or that he is happy to be rubbished in the pages of Comsumer Choice magazine.'
'Did you write to them?'
'Of course - this is a serious matter. Some people would say "it's only 2 pence", but it's the principle of the thing. He can't be let away with that. So I wrote to Consumer Choice in both Ireland and Britain and other Consumer Affairs groups. I received no replies from them. But that's what this country is coming to. I know I'm right and that's the important thing.'
'By the way, what sort of camera do you use?'
'Oh it's this chap here. Great model - well you can see that from the pictures I showed you.'
The object he held in his hand was a plastic 35mm camera. It was less well built than a Kodak 'Fun Camera' and it had no flash. I decided that the whole thing was getting too stressful. How can a person be so deluded. I didn't know whether to feel sorry for him or not. Could it be possible he was taking the piss? Listening to him convinced me he was not. So I established a precedent for my get-away.
'Well I my stop is the next one.'
He grabbed my arm. 'Before you go, let me tell you one thing I've learned' - so something was going to come of this meeting. I would learn what makes this man tick. The kernel of his philosophy - the grain of truth that he has gleaned from his life. 'Get your own black and white developing equipment - it works out cheaper in the long run. You wouldn't believe how much they'd charge these days. It's more expensive than colour processing.'
And so the last five minutes of our conversation were spent with him explaining how to develop black and white film in generic and specific terms and how he himself tackles the problem.
Exhausted from it all, I rose from my seat and said good bye to the man who now saw me as a lifelong friend. My friends sitting across the aisle asked why I was getting off here - bastards couldn't even play along, but the old man wasn't suspicious of my motives. I mumbled something because I couldn't think of a good reason and got off. Well I may not get to Dublin but 'Hey ho, there'll be another train along in an hour and a half.'
I ran to the back of the train and got back on feeling slightly guilty about being such a nasty person, but far more relieved about being able to breath relatively clean air (though his smell did rather cling to my clothes).
There's no lesson to this story. Wilde would be proud of me for being so fashionable.