The Unwanted Companion

I collapsed into seat 77a, coach B of the 18:06 from Paddington to Penzance. I checked the reservation ticket of the seat beside me to see if I would have the two seats to myself. Yes, but only until Reading. I settled down, took out my book (Ismailov’s The Railway) and the train rolled away, London’s outskirts flickering past like television in my peripheral vision.

By Reading I was engrossed in my book. I’d forgotten I was due a travelling companion. He appeared in the aisle beside me like some horrid apparition. Watery eyes bulging above puffy pouches, grizzled facial hair extending up towards them. Flaccid lips wet and shiny. His beige trench-coat was irredeemably soiled, but in a way that implied years of slow putrefaction, rather than a one off incident. Dirty tide-marks spread downwards from the collar, undoubtedly a direct result of his flabby, seeping mouth. He smiled at me. The sight of his teeth made my molars wince in horror.

“Is this seat 78?”

I wanted to lie. I have seldom felt such an overwhelming impulse to lie as I did in that very moment. But it would have been an incredibly transparent lie, made utterly redundant, besides, by the fact that his behind had already begun its slow descent towards the seat that was, of course, 78.  

Then the smell hit my nostrils and the impulse to lie was swept away by the impulse to vomit. He smelt of what his coat looked like, and that was just the top note. I resolved to breathe only through my mouth. I felt a little as though I was drowning.

“Where are you going? I’m going to Plymouth,” he announced, in exactly the kind of voice I’d imagined he would have, the kind children have stranger-danger nightmares about. He was taking up an extremely unnecessary amount of my personal space. He had putrefied my air. He had disrupted my reading. I couldn’t even look out of the window, because I could see his reflection, drooly lips shining gloriously in the evening sun. He had, in short, ruined this train journey for me entirely. No. He had ruined trains for ever. And I love trains. I smiled, and replied, “Exeter,” whilst silently pledging that I would escape, at any cost. There were spare seats taunting me out of the corner of my eye. He leant into my side a little more, and I began to taste his smell on my tongue. I considered just holding my breath for the next two hours, but realised, with defeat, that this was not humanly possible. 

Then he got up to go to the toilet. He asked me to look after his bag. This was my chance. This was my chance to escape!

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t just leave his bag there – what if it got stolen? I couldn’t bear the guilt of it. Maybe it would be ok. Maybe I could strike up some sort of conversation with him. Maybe I could learn something.

Then he came back and said, “That’s better!” in a way that made me think of him defecating and I retched, invisibly, inaudibly. I regretted my fleeting moment of kindness, wholeheartedly.

I tried to focus on my book, but I felt much too uncomfortable to become absorbed by it, just as one might feel too uneasy to fall asleep on an inner-city night bus.

But then he turned to me and said, “If you look to your left, you’ll see a white horse!” and I expected to be utterly underwhelmed by some field-bound beast of burden. And there before me, spread out in splendour on a rolling, sun-drenched  hillside, was a huge white horse hewn into the chalk. The beauty of it floored me. And in that moment I felt like an awful, awful person for the hateful thoughts I’d had about this poor bedraggled soul who was nothing more than an innocent receptacle of beauty, beauty that he’d chosen to share with me, a complete stranger, a complete stranger who’d spent forty minutes silently cursing his very existence. His humanity humbled me, humiliated me. I was unworthy of sitting beside someone who wanted to show me something so nice, when I’d done nothing to deserve it.

But by then the smell, his closeness, everything had gotten too much. I told him I was going to the loo, and couldn’t bear to meet his gaze as I, much to his suspicion, I am sure, brought all my baggage with me. Liberated, I found a seat in the next carriage, and sat in peace watching the sun light up the dove-hued clouds in a syrupy haze, setting thistles a-glow, glinting off rivers and marinas, making the dark-green trees burn emerald.

I could still smell him in my nostrils. I almost missed him.

Almost.