PARK ’N’ RIDE

SWANWICK WRITERS SUMMER SCHOOL COMPETITIONS

Ian Gouge wrote his first story when he was five: an illustrated space adventure he can still visualise today. He has written ever since. He completed his first full-length work of fiction in the 1990s and wrote three books on IT strategy and management. Fiction and poetry remained his first loves, and after discovering indie publishing, he created Coverstory Books, enabling him to publish new and old material and help others get into print. His output now runs to six novels, three novellas, two collections of short stories, seven volumes of poetry, and four works of non-fiction. He also mentors writing retreats and hosts a monthly virtual poetry event.

She speaks with a strange rise in her voice as if the person who taught her English had overlaid it with the rhythms and inflections of an entirely different language: French, or German, or Pig Latin. It also seems as if she has never fully acquainted herself with the alphabet, some letters intermittently missing, certain combinations compromised. And occasionally, unsure she has got her meaning across, she replays phrases as if repetition is the guarantor of understanding.

‘I ‘ad chips for dinner, I did. Chips for dinner. Those wavy ones. But if you cooks ‘em too long they gets crispy on the outside, and I don’t like crispy chips. Not when I ‘ave ‘em for me dinner.’

Her voice accosts him from over his shoulder. Sitting at the front of the tram, he places her perhaps four rows behind him, her voice slicing through the air between them as if that were no distance at all. She is almost

in his ear. He wants to turn and look, to assign a physical form to the voice. Perhaps doing so will remove the threat.

‘Me boyfriend, ‘e likes chips an’ all. But not those wavy ones. So I ‘as to do two lots when he comes round for dinner, ‘cos he don’t like those wavy ones. Says they’re a waste of space, whatever that means. They’re just chips, ain’t they?’

It is a voice defying age. He imagines it belongs to someone younger; there is a slovenliness about it he can only attribute to youth. Yet there is also something else, an undercurrent suggesting not maturity but experience; experience in the sense of having lived for many years, nothing more. He tries to find a root in the way she says ‘boyfriend’. It is spoken with a brashness suggesting someone who – in spite of all contrary evidence – is cognisant they are crossing a boundary, stealing a word from another vocabulary, one to which they

should not be party.

‘Sausages ‘e likes. Beef ones. It’s ‘ard to get beef sausages these days, ain’t it? ‘E don’t like all those fancy sausages with fancy flavours. Not with apple or onion or whatnot. ‘E likes beef. And it’s ‘ard to get your ‘ands on beef sausages, ain’t it? Used to be easy. Used to be all there was when I was a girl, beef sausages. Got ‘em from the butchers at the end of our road; the one wot ain’t there no more. Lovely sausages ‘e ‘ad, that butchers. Me boyfriend would ‘ave loved those, ‘e would.’

It is an assertion which places her in time. Finding himself guessing, he wants to turn around even more. Probably well beyond thirty based on what she has just said, he instinctively feels the need to bestow more years on her but is unable to do so without evidence.

‘Yes.’

It is another voice; a companion piece. It is a ‘yes’ delivered by someone without choice. He wonders at the unbalanced exchange, as if this second person has been inadvertently trapped, as if they simply took a spare seat on a tram and found themselves adopted. Hidden in that single word is an implicit desire for the tram to go faster – or for the woman to get off at the next stop. It is a ‘yes’ that contains more of the ‘no’ in it; a plea for help, an unspoken desire to be rescued.

‘I don’t mind ‘em, sausages. But I likes fish fingers better. ‘Specially with wavy chips. But me boyfriend, ‘e don’t like fish fingers; so when ‘e comes round for dinner I ‘as to cook two lots of chips an’ sausages an’ fish fingers, ‘cos if I didn’t what would we eat?’

Attempting to block her out, he tries to focus on the city as it subsides into suburbs: a terrace or two, the hint of development, tired offices, a park and a school beyond.

The tram stops three more times, and even though he tries not to listen, he harvests the words she repeats. ‘Boyfriend’ hits him like a slap round the face.

‘I likes Asda, I do. Sometimes I goes to Morrison’s ‘cos there’s one just round the corner, but I likes Asda better. And B&M. That B&M’s good for some things too.

But not sausages. Asda’s good for sausages. My boyfriend likes ‘is sausages from Asda.’ Though the topics vary a little, the way she relays them creates a blur, noise lacking distinction.

The ‘ding’ of the bell causes him to look up. The ‘Stopping’ sign has been illuminated, and as the tram slows he realises he can no longer hear her. The second voice says ‘Bye’, and he cannot help but register the relief embodied in the word.

The tram stops outside a small parade of shops. Ahead, he can see a supermarket Morrison’s - squeezed between two charity shops, a Clinton’s cards, a bookmakers. One whitewashed shop window boasts a ‘To Let’ sign that hangs slightly askew. He waits.

A woman appears by his window, pauses before crossing towards the shops. He knows it is her. Catching her in profile for a moment, he is surprised. At least fifty if not older, she has a face worn down by living, the juggling of the everyday. In a too-familiar grey raincoat, she tugs at a dilapidated shopping trolley, its left wheel out of alignment. Her walk is a shuffle; she stoops a little; her hair, grey and wispy, looks too thin to be controllable.

As she reaches the far pavement, the doors of the tram close, and he feels the soft jolt of motion. Safe now, he turns his head to watch her, and before she disappears from view he sees her accost a pedestrian who happens to be heading her way, and he imagines a story about chips and sausages being re-told as if buried within it are the secrets of the universe.