- In the bookshop at the train station, a quote was prominently displayed. It was from G.K. Chesterton: “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity”.
I got on board well before my train was due to depart. I managed to find a seat that was both unoccupied and – crucially – was facing the direction the train was going to move. Once at the age of four, in an incident I can’t be bothered to fully explain, I was accused of vomiting profusely over the local priest. There was nothing deliberate about it, it was entirely down to motion sickness. I would like to boast that vomiting over priests is just the way I roll, but that would be a lie.
The seats facing me were soon occupied by a mother and her son. The latter was about nine years old and was showing signs of an irritable tiredness. The seat next to me on my side was eventually claimed by a woman in a long beige coat, looking at her phone. And immediately beyond, there were two older ladies – when they started talking, I noticed one was British and the other American. The Brit clearly came from somewhere around this part of the country. The American had short hair, dyed a brilliant red.
As we moved between the first few stations on our journey, you could see the strange structures in the distance that now make up much of London’s skyline. The Shard, the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater – only the first of those might be the official name, I have no idea. Nearer to us were other new buildings, as bland as the more distant examples were strange. These ones looked like they had been made out of Lego by a particularly unimaginative child.
The boy in the seat opposite me became restless after Clapham Junction. The mother got a drink out of a huge bag, of the sort that is vital if you’re in charge of the well-being of a child. I happened to glance at the contents for a second. It had bread rolls from M&S, still wrapped; those Percy Pig sweets, also still in their bag; and a few bottles of opaque lemonade sold under a popular brand. The kind they have in the US, which they refer to as “old-fashioned” on the label.
The older Brit nearby had got out a newspaper and was reading it out loud to the American. “Listen to this,” she said, oblivious to the fact that she was also addressing everybody else in the carriage. “Scientists believe that many world leaders suffer the same kind of physical and mental devolution as adult men in deprived parts of the first world. The team have stated that particularly authoritarian politicians show the exact same signs of physical decay and reduced mental capacity as those in the English research areas of Redhill in Surrey, Bridgwater in Somerset, and Salford, near Manchester…”
“Yeah,” sighed the American, “That might be true. I don’t know. They’ll print anything in the news…”
The Brit continued her rundown. “In Redhill, Bridgwater and Salford, the obscene graffiti observed on local walls and toilet facilities bore a startling resemblance to official US, UK and Russian governmental communications. While the study could only analyse authorised documents available to the public from 2008 onwards, the violent and repugnant imagery in these have increased year on year, and the effects upon unavailable internal data are likely to be far more pronounced. The researchers noted that some of the public data had been adapted for press releases…”
“…Necropsy examinations carried out on recently deceased white male citizens in the test locations matched that of necropsy data recorded by physicians based in Westminster, Washington D.C. and Moscow. However, the researchers admitted that the final couple of years’ worth of the Moscow data proved a problem, and this section had to be omitted… As well as being partially incomplete, from November 2020 until January 2022 the Moscow data shows signs of tampering. It reportedly features odd, out of place boasts about oil production, and repeats a mangled phrase that may have been a Russian idiom re-translated several times…”
“…The Moscow data ends prematurely in 2022, which of course was due to the war in Ukraine. A spokesman for Labour excused himself from the room when asked about the study.” She closed the paper, folded it, and put it on her lap. She looked out the window for a moment. “That was much better written than what you usually get from The Guardian,” she said.
The boy nearby had finished his lemonade and had become less wriggly. The woman in the coat was no longer looking at the phone, and was now listening to it through her earbuds.
“Do you want to hear the end of the Paddington story?” asked the mother to her son. The son wanted to hear the end of the Paddington story.
Out of that huge bag came an oversized book, and we were all treated to a reading of it. In hushed tones she began: “Paddington was guiding the Queen into the next life. The Queen didn’t have much to say. She never had much to say about anything. Usually when the Queen smiled and looked blankly at things, people assumed she was just being nice. That was what Paddington had always thought as well, but now he had his suspicions…”
“What sort of suspicions?” asked the boy. “I’m not sure,” said the mother. “I think we’ll find out in a moment.”
She continued. “As they walked the air became thicker, and breathing became harder. Soon rings of smoke started to drift around the Queen. She chose not to react. Then the path became ever more darkened, and in the distance a deep red glow was coming into view. Still the Queen chose not to react. A deep endless rumbling began, and kept rising in volume… higher, higher, louder, louder! The red light became brighter, and brighter, becoming hard to look at… like a furious, screaming free-floating wound…”
“It was only when a young woman’s voice started to echo around the two of them, saying all sorts of things, terrible angry things, things that accused the Queen of crimes Paddington had never even thought possible… it was only then that the Queen reacted. She said – What’s happening? But it was too late. The Queen kept walking after Paddington had stopped. The Queen could not stop walking. She called out, frightened. But Paddington simply remained where he was. He looked at her disappearing into the distance like a pitiless executioner. Her clothes caught fire, and she burst into flame… instantly she was a parody of regality, now more human in this blistering agony than she had ever been in life…”
“…The Queen was dragged away to the screaming and the noise and that terrible, terrible red light… Paddington turned his back, and began the walk home.” The mother closed the book. She paused for a moment. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she said.
“Our next stop is Wimbledon,” called the guard from the speakers. “Please make sure your personal belongings are with you… this is the 17:29 to Dorking, now approaching Wimbledon.”
“Just in time!” said the mother. She gathered up their things and the two of them made their way to the exit. So did the older ladies; the Brit left the paper on her seat.