Tube Girl

Bon Voyage

AFTER checking their bags had made it safely to their stateroom, Jacqui and Graham Shelton headed for the upper decks, where — after plucking gratis welcome rum punches from a server’s tray — they wandered outside to gander over the rail at the stream of passengers below, still boarding the ship from the Southampton Cruise Terminal.

Jacqui, happily pressing herself against her husband: “We should probably take a ‘selfie’ together and send it to Michael and Judy.”

Graham, deadpanning: “Wouldn’t that make it an ‘usie?’”

Jacqui: “Twenty-two years it’s been and you’re still making me laugh. Did you know that?”

Graham, pecking Jacqui’s cheek: “Besides, Michael said this was to be their teenage holiday away from mum and dad.”

Jackie wiped at an eye, experiencing a pang, as Graham returned his focus to the eclectic flow of holidaymakers below.

After a time, Graham, murmuring: “Two-thousand, three-hundred and fifty sardines, all packed into a single tin.”

Jacqui: “Aunt Jodie says there’re all sorts of nooks and crannies on a cruise ship, inside and outside, where anytime you like you can find some peace and quiet.”

Graham: “Mmm.”

Jacqui: “Oh, and I forgot to tell you, Graham … when I was registering us in at the Angus McFergus Society desk, I signed myself up for their City Tour of Bilbao shore excursion. Tuesday.”

Graham: “That’s grand.”

Jacqui: “It includes the Guggenheim, so maybe I’ll see you there.”

Graham: “Mmm.”

Jacqui: “You and your museums, dear. How you can spend an entire day …”

Graham, suddenly exclaiming: “Bloody Hell!”

Jacqui, startled: “What?!”

Graham, incredulously, to himself: “It’s tube girl!”

Jacqui: “Who?”

Graham: “What’s she doing here?!”

Jacqui: “What are you talking about, Graham?”

Graham, self-absorbed: “Down there, on the ... what do you call it?”

Jacqui: “The gangway?”

Graham: “I’m not believing this!”

Jacqui, shaken by Graham’s distress: “Who is she?”

Graham hesitated to respond.

Jacqui: “Graham!”

Graham: “She, she’s this … woman ... on the tube!”

Jacqui: “You know her?”

Graham: “Of course not! I’ve never even spoken to her! She’s just …”

Jacqui: “She’s just what, Graham?”

Graham, still fixated on the gangway: “A familiar face … for years, now … on the way in ... in the morning.”

Jacqui: “A familiar face … that you’ve had a years-long, nonverbal London Underground flirtatious relationship with?”

Graham: “Absolutely not! She irritates me much of the time, if you want to know the truth of it!”

Jacqui: “How can she irritate you, Graham, if you don’t even know her?!”

Graham: “Bloody hell! What’s she doing here!?”

Sail Away Dinner

DINNER that first night of the ’Seven Day, Bay of Biscay’ cruise was an opened-seating, informal affair — where Jacqui and Graham found themselves sharing a table with one of the Angus McFergus Society’s bigwigs and his family.

The bigwig’s wife, cheerfully initiating conversation: “So, which one of you is the descendant?”

Jacqui: “We both are, actually.”

The bigwig, his interest piqued: “Now, you’ll be needing to fill us in on that one, lass.”

Jacqui: “Well, me … I’m a Yorkshire girl, myself, but my mum’s dad, he were a Scot; and a few years ago, when I was having a go at the family-tree ... online, you know ... I came across the Angus McFergus Society website ... and after finding I that was a descendant ... and after reading about his fascinating life ... well, I joined up.”

The bigwig: “Y’done the right thing.”

Jacqui: “Now, my husband, Graham, here ... we met in London, where we live, now ... he was adopted as an infant … by the Shelton’s. Lovely people.”

The bigwig’s pre-teen son: “Cool.”

The bigwig’s teenage daughter: “How is that like cool, stupid?”

Jacqui, continuing: “He didn’t even know his birth name until last year, after he’d finally given me his permission to look into his origins … genealogically speaking, that is.”

Jacqui playfully nudged an elbow into Graham, who could only manage an “Mmm” in response — being more attuned to being on the lookout for tube girl.

Jacqui: “We still haven’t a clue about his dad, but his mother was … Elspeth Marie McKuen.”

The bigwig, authoritatively nodding: “Aye, we do have a good number of McKuen’s in the society.”

Jacqui: “She was from Aberdeen, but when she were seventeen she ran away from home, she did … with a boyfriend.”

Teenage daughter: “Cool!”

Jacqui, continuing: “And it wasn’t until eight years later that the family learned the sad news: that she had died ... from drugs, poor thing ... five years after leaving home … and one year after Graham was born.”

The bigwig’s wife, buttering a dinner roll: “How sad.”

Jacqui, brightening: “And what do you think I discovered when I investigated her Scottish ancestry?”

The bigwig, bellowing delightedly: “Angus McFergus!”

Jacqui: “Amazing, isn’t it! My husband and I, we’re both descendants!”

The bigwig, happily slapping Graham’s knee: “Just like all three-hundred and seventy-two of us on board this vessel, eh! As well as the thousands of others spread all across the world. He had twenty-three children by four wives, you know!”

Graham, reflecting: “You know, neither of us has actually ever been to Scotland; we should try to make it up there, sometime, I suppose”

The bigwig, deflating: “Aye, you should probably do that … sometime … laddie.”

A Day at Sea on the Bay of Biscay

AFTER finishing her breakfast al fresco with Graham at the Port Side Buffet, Jacqui stood up.

Jacqui: “Well, I’m off to my Scottish Dancing Workshop. Are you going to be okay without me, this morning?”

Graham, focused on his Crosswords and Puzzles pulp magazine: “I suspect I can probably just manage not to fall overboard.”

Jacqui leaned down and kissed Graham atop his head.

Graham: “Hey, what are you doing!?”

Jacqui: “Kissing your bald spot, for good luck!”

Graham: “Gads, Jacqui!”

Jacqui: “I think it makes you look very distinguished.”

Graham: “Extinguished, maybe.”

Jacqui, whispering into Graham’s ear: “And remember, if you see tube girl, you can inform her that it will be with me that you’ll be having your shipboard romance.”

Later, after a morning’s exploration of the cruise ship’s amenities — always on the lookout for tube girl — Graham, just as Jacqui had predicted, found an isolated, non-trafficked spot, on the Lifeboat Deck, where he plopped himself down upon a surprisingly comfortable lounge chair with his pre-purchased ’Guide to Guggenheim Bilbao’ — just as the ship plunged, delivering a misty bit of spray onto Graham’s face. “It’s good to be at sea!” he reflected. “The English are, after all, a seafaring people; and I am, after all, according to Jacqui’s research, at least, in all likelihood half English.”

Eventually, his thoughts turned to tube girl — with whom he had had his first ‘encounter’ nine years earlier:

Seated in his morning commute train as it slowed to a stop at Golders Green Underground Station, Graham Shelton glanced up from his paper to find himself — SUDDENLY and STRANGELY — being confronted by — STANDING outside on the platform and disapprovingly LOOKING IN through the glass — a WOMAN: perhaps slightly older than himself (in her late-twenties) — WHO THEN! — quite purposefully proceeded to board his carriage and to take a seat directly across from him — HER presence, DISCOMBULATING Graham to no end!

And THEN AGAIN, the very next day — SHE was there on the platform, waiting for his train! — AND AGAIN boarding his very carriage! — THIS TIME, inaudibly harrumphing at his tabloid before moving to sit some distance away — WHERE SHE then commenced to make a show out of it of opening her own broadsheet!

And so it had gone, day after day, month after month, YEAR AFTER YEAR: the WOMAN, standing, awaiting his train’s arrival on the Golders Green platform — AND two or three times a week, maybe, entering HIS very carriage — to JUDGEMENTALLY take a seat, sometimes near to him, sometimes not — AND THEN, at Leicester Square, departing the train — NO DOUBT for some trendy, ’meaningful’

West End job — WHILE HE, on the other hand, ventured forth for yet another daily grind of bean counting in the bowels of the City!

Once, on a Saturday, when he was taking Michael and Judy on an outing to the British Museum — SHE had boarded their carriage and then got off with them at Tottenham Court — to follow them, nearly all the way to the museum!

Over time, Graham grew used to her ever-presence on his morning commute — EVEN finding it disconcerting when, on the odd day, she was NOT there, on the platform awaiting his train.

In year four, a wedding ring appeared on her finger. In year seven, on a Tuesday in November, the ring disappeared — AND for many a day afterwards Graham felt a DEEP SADNESS.

Another spray of seawater struck Graham’s face, shaking him out of his reverie — and, looking up, he saw that Jacqui, smiling, was approaching — and, emotionally, he smiled back at her.

Shore Excursion

TUESDAY morning — after seeing Jacqui onto her motor coach for her city tour of Bilbao — Graham walked from the pier to the nearby bus stop to await his own twelve-kilometer transport into the city.

On the bus, as he gazed up at the mountains, Graham — having had no further sightings of tube girl — semi-seriously wondered if he had, in fact, somehow imagined her, making her way up the gangway.

Arriving at the Guggenheim, his first-hand take regarding its famous edifice was that it was, indeed, impressively weird — though he would reserve his final judgment.

Inside the museum, after renting audio guide headphones (a must!), he ventured forth. (Although ‘modern and contemporary’ art were not ‘top of the list’ for Graham, still, he was delighted to be there — museums being very much his thing.)

Just before noon, and a planned for lunch at a nearby café he had researched online, Graham entered an exhibition hall of ‘Twenty-first Century Estonian Masters’ — WHERE, SUDDENLY — he was confronted by, facing away from him: TUBE GIRL! — SITTING on a backless viewing bench, partaking of something which no doubt was considered a work of art.

Graham’s initial reflex was to flee — BUT something, some FORCE, was taking hold of him — AND THUS, instead, he purposefully strode to a spot directly in front of tube girl.

Graham: “Excuse me, could you please tell me just what exactly it is that you think you are doing here!?”

Startled some, the smartly-casually dressed, auburn haired woman removed the headphones she was wearing and smiled up at Graham.

Tube girl: “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Graham, slowly and intensely: “I asked, ‘what is it, exactly, that you are … supposedly … doing here?’”

Tube girl, confused: “I … do I know you?”

Graham, almost laughing now: “Do you know me?!”

Speechless, Tube girl stared back.

Graham, pressing on: “Are you, perhaps, following me?”

Tube girl, furrowing her brow: “Of course not!”

Graham, turning away, muttering: “Oh, give me a break, please!”

Tube girl: “I’m sorry, but you have clearly mistaken me for somebody else.”

Still facing sideways, Graham beheld a painting which depicted a lopsided ‘RASPUTIN, THE MAD MONK,’ wearing a clown’s red nose.

Graham, turning back to tube girl, exclaiming in an inside voice, stretching it out for emphasis: “The tube!? The Northern Line!?”

Tube girl, eyes widening: “You know me from the underground?”

Cocking his head, Graham stared CARTOONISHLY back at her in the affirmative.

Tube girl, trying to find the words: “I, I really don’t, you know, pay that much attention to people on the tube. Never have. I rather make a point of it, actually.”

Unable to respond, Graham remained frozen in his contorted pose.

Tube girl, looking to instill some normalcy: “So, we’re fellow commuters, then.”

At this point, Graham began to deflate into a confused and helpless entity.

Graham, finally managing to mumble: “We’re on the cruise, my wife and I.”

Tube girl, injecting, with intent, a cheerful tone: “So. Fellow holidaymakers as well as fellow commuters then!”

Sheepishly, Graham nodded.

Tube girl, rising from the bench: “I’m really sorry … for your upset, that is.”

Graham: “No, no, no. It’s me that’s sorry. I’m the lunatic, it would appear. I need to sort ... well, anyway, I do … as it were … apologise.”

Then, as THE TWO stood there — in the SILENCE of ONE ANOTHER’S PRESENCE — the awkwardness subsided.

Tube girl: “I’m Ginger, by the way.

Graham, flatly: “Graham.”

Tube girl/Ginger: “So, perhaps we’ll meet again, if not on the cruise, then certainly on the tube.”

Graham, meekly: “No doubt.”

Tube girl/Ginger moved to depart, but then stopped, and after a moment’s hesitation, she turned back — and in a FAREWELL GESTURE, she moved to grasp Graham’s arm, smiling reassuringly up at him — and Graham experienced a very ODD, and a very POWERFUL, SENSATION.

Midnight Buffet

THAT night, in bed in their stateroom, Graham was unable to sleep.

Graham, stroking Jacqui’s hair: “I’m off for a stroll … do you mind?”

Jacqui, groggily: “I love you, Graham. There’s a midnight buffet, you know.”

Back in his isolated lounge chair on the Lifeboat Deck — the ship surging for Lisbon under a night sky full and bright with stars — Graham nibbled upon a hodgepodge of delectables from the buffet — as he processed, as best he could, his Tube Girl Delusion.

In time, he surmised: ‘tube girl’ had only ever existed as a mental manifestation within the alternative reality otherwise known as “his daily commute on the London Underground.” When she had suddenly appeared in Graham’s ’real world’ — on the gangway — the mad, magical semi-subconscious-thing-that-she-was had exploded into the forefront of his consciousness — there to trigger some kind of a minor, or not so minor, psychosis.

‘But WHY?’ wondered Graham. ’Why the Tube Girl fixation in the first place?!’

Seminar-at-Sea

The Angus McFergus Society

Standing near the entry to the ship’s ‘Grand Theatre’ facility, Jacqui removed the backing from Graham’s pre-printed name tag for session one of The Angus McFergus Society cruise program and affixed it to his summer jacket, before putting on her own.

Jacqui: “Thanks for coming, Graham. You never know, you might find it interesting.”

Graham: “I’ve brought my crosswords … should the need arise.”

Then, turning, Graham beheld: Ginger! — entering, alone — wearing a McFergus tartan scarf!

Quickly, he led Jacqui into the large meeting facility, where he found two seats to one side.

Slouching, Graham then watched as Ginger entered and found herself a seat — thankfully on the opposite side of the centre aisle, and thankfully in the same row a Graham’s and Jacqui’s, making a chance sighting unlikely.

“Gads, she’s a descendant!” Graham moaned to himself.

The slight, energetic, elderly chairwoman of the Angus McFergus Genealogical Committee was once again at the lectern, speaking in her distinctive highland brogue.

Chairwoman: “Thank you, Mr. McIntire, for that fascinating talk on ‘Angus McFergus – the Teen Years: 1634-1641.’ Tremendously enlightening stuff, that. And now, I am tremendously pleased to announce that the long awaited for ‘Angus McFergus Descendants Directory’ has finally been completed. Using all the available genealogical databases, it provides a comprehensive compendium of all the known descendants of Angus McFergus! So, if everyone will now look under their seats, there you will find, as part of your prepaid Angus McFergus cruise package, your very own copy of said directory.”

While Jacqui eagerly retrieved her’s, Graham stole a glance down the row to observe Ginger doing the same.

Chairwoman: “We will now be taking a fifteen-minute intermission ... before returning for my own presentation: ′The Many Loves of Angus McFergus.’”

As Jacqui, and Ginger, too, Graham noticed, — directories in hand — headed off for refreshments, Graham, staying put, opened his crosswords mag.

Just five minutes later, however, he stiffened, having sighted, out the corner of his eye, the tartan scarf making its way back through the now sparsely populated chamber.

Graham grabbed the directory from under his seat — it being a more effective ‘face shield’ than the crosswords mag.

After a few anxious moments, he commenced perusing the directory’s index. Soon enough, he located “Quincey G. (McKuen) Shelton.” Following a cringe at the sight of his given Christian name, he flipped to the referenced page number — to there partake of a schematic representation of his branch of the Angus McFergus family tree — fully expecting to find pretty much what Jacqui had already learned.

And, under the subheading “Seventeenth Generation,” there he was, linked to his mother Elspeth McKuen’s name by a vertical line. BUT! There was ANOTHER VERTICAL LINE below his mother’s — under which there was ANOTHER NAME: “Rita Marie (McKuen) Wilson!”

Graham now apprehended Jacqui to be excitedly making her way towards him down the row of seats.

Jacqui, exclaiming, not loudly: “Graham! Graham! You won’t believe what I just found in the directory!”

Then, taking her seat beside her slack faced husband — and spying his opened directory — Jacqui realised that her husband had just made the same discovery that she had.

Jacqui: “Oh, Graham, you have a sister!”

At the conclusion of her presentation, the chairwoman banged the gavel, declaring the first session of the Angus McFergus Society Cruise to be adjourned.

Graham, in a daze, rose to plod behind Jacqui towards the centre aisle — WHEREUPON, reaching it — SUDDENLY, he found himself FACE TO FACE with TUBE GIRL! GINGER! — WHO, it appeared, was herself very much in a ‘state’ of some kind.

Then, in unison, their two sets of eyes lowered — to gaze respectively upon one another’s pre-printed name tags:

Quincey G. (McKuen) Shelton

Rita Marie (McKuen) Wilson

Jacqui — having turned back around — after two ticks, knowingly, to Graham: “Tube girl?”

Graham, in a murmur, brushing a knuckle under an eye: “Yes.”

Ginger, blinking back a tear: “My adoptive parents nicknamed me Ginger … the red hair, you know. My teenage daughter thanks her lucky stars that she was spared.”

Then, Jacqui, reaching out with both arms, took hold of Graham’s and Ginger’s hands — to lead both BROTHER and SISTER from the chamber.