Tubing Page 3

  It wasn’t long before Alicia was in full flow. Polly did her best to follow what she was saying, but the food was so good she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. She didn’t think Alicia had noticed; she seemed content with the occasional nod and ‘yep’.

  When Alicia suddenly stopped, Polly looked up at her.

  ‘You’re not with it today, are you?’ the receptionist said.

  ‘Huh?’ Polly replied, trying to rewind the last couple of seconds’ conversation in her mind. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You’ve not listened to a word I’ve said.’

  Polly blushed; she felt embarrassed at being caught out, and even worse for letting it show. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting the last of her baguette down. ‘I didn’t get to bed till late last night and I’ve been feeling rough all morning.’

  ‘Trouble on the tube, eh?’ Alicia asked, coolly raising her left eyebrow.

  ‘What?’ snapped Polly. There was something in her tone that caught Polly’s attention. It was so considered and deliberate.

  ‘The tube … you said you didn’t get home till late … ’

  ‘What about it?’ she demanded.

  ‘Whoa, girl, it was just a question.’ Alicia put her hands up defensively. ‘Fuck, something must have happened, though.’

  Polly stared at her, trying to decide if she was just being paranoid. She turned it over in her mind for several seconds before choosing to test the water.

  ‘I … um … ’ She hesitated for a second, suddenly unsure of where this conversation would lead. ‘There were these two people on the tube … ’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘They were kind of … you know … ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the corner of the carriage … ’ Polly trailed off. She watched Alicia’s reaction carefully.

  ‘Come on, out with it, lady.’ Alicia was getting impatient.

  ‘You know … doing things two people shouldn’t be doing together in public.’

  ‘Fuckin’?’ Alicia asked, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘No, just touching each other, stuff like that.’

  ‘What?’ Her voice went all high-pitched and screechy. ‘You never got a bit frisky on the tube on the way home before? Bitta grindin’, bitta teasin’, till ya get home and … ’ She kissed her teeth and rolled her tongue.

  ‘No, no, this was different. They didn’t know each other. Well, that’s what it looked like to me,’ Polly finished, quickly correcting herself.

  ‘Really?’ said Alicia, moving closer. ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘They were both just kind of standing there, then he walked up to her and started kissing her and touching her, but it was so weird because they didn’t say a word to one another.’

  ‘Saucy,’ said Alicia.

  They sat in silence for several seconds, Polly unsure how to continue the conversation. Then Alicia started up again, telling her about some American reality TV show about drag queens that she just had to watch.

  ‘Afternoon, ladies.’ The voice interrupted them from behind. They both turned to see Jas with a takeaway in hand. Jas was the tech guy who worked in their building. Polly spoke to him from time to time. She wasn’t really sure what he did – something to do with servers and backends. He had his own small office a couple of floors up from hers.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.’ He pointed to the queue snaking along the sandwich counter. ‘I thought I’d come and enlighten you both.’

  ‘Excuse me, private chat,’ replied Alicia, annoyed at being cut off mid-sentence.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jas sheepishly. ‘Just heard you mention the tube thing, is all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Polly, immediately intrigued.

  Jas pulled out a chair and sat down. Even though he was talking to Polly, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Alicia. She, on the other hand, was looking away, irritated.

  ‘Meeting strangers on the tube and, you know … doing stuff with them. I done it.’ A wide grin spread across his face when Alicia slowly turned to look at him, her head cocked back slightly.

  ‘Really?’ asked Polly. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jas, ‘damn straight.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Alicia said sarcastically.

  Polly stared at him, disbelieving. ‘What tube line were you on?’ she asked.

  ‘I think it was Central … yeah, yeah, it was the Central Line,’ he said, nodding nonchalantly.

  ‘What time was it?’ Polly pressed on.

  ‘What is this? Twenty Questions or summink?’

  ‘No,’ replied Alicia, ‘I think she’s just trying to catch you out because you’re full of shit.’ She turned to look at Polly, exhaling through her nose loudly. ‘Can you believe this guy?’

  ‘So how many times have you done it?’ Polly was trying to keep the conversation going. She had butterflies in her stomach.

  ‘Couple of times.’

  Alicia tutted and rolled her eyes.

  ‘So how does it happen?’ Polly pressed on. ‘I mean, how do you know who’s up for it?’

  ‘It’s an arranged thing. People set up meetings on certain trains at certain times, then one dude gives a signal to the other and they just go at it,’ he replied. ‘It’s called tubing.’

  Four

  ‘Tubing.’

  The word spun round and round in Polly’s brain before it finally popped out of her mouth. She cleared her throat and quickly looked around to check if anyone had noticed – no one paid her any attention.

  Since talking to Jas, she’d been desperate to get back to work and on her laptop. But when she got to the office James was sitting at the desk behind hers, working through the backlog of paperwork she’d left for him. He had a clear view of her screen.

  She slumped down at her desk and spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to work. She opened up a document and spent a lot of time scrolling up and down and zooming in and out, but not actually doing anything. Eventually, she zoned out, letting her mind wander to the sound of tapping keys and the low murmur of voices.

  She thought about him – the guy from the train. It was the first time she’d gone through the events properly since it happened. She indulged herself, letting her mind run through every second of the encounter. Every time she imagined him touching her, her stomach would flutter so hard she could barely stand it. She could almost feel his fingers on her, inside her. She still couldn’t believe it had happened, it seemed like a dream, but it was real. She lifted up her skirt to look at the four deep fingertip marks on her thigh. But then in the next instant she felt appalled at herself. What had she been thinking? He was a total stranger; she’d been so intimate with him. What if someone had seen them? But her fingers kept finding the fingertip bruises. She pushed down on them, gently at first, then harder and harder. The pain took her breath away.

  At four, James finally left. As soon as she heard his briefcase snap shut, she was instantly alive and free of the apathy that had settled over her all afternoon. She was on Google before he was out of the door, curiosity getting the better of her.

  She searched using the term ‘tubing’ first. She waded through several pages of places to ride and rent tubes – big rubber rings to float down rivers on. After about seven pages she decided it was pointless, so clicked back and changed her search terms to ‘sex tube trains’. Several YouTube pages came up among an array of porn sites. The videos claimed to show people having sex on trains, but she couldn’t make out who she was supposed to be looking at, let alone what they were doing. Initially she forgot to turn off the sound on her laptop. She jumped out of her skin when she pressed Play and sex groans blasted the office. A few heads turned but no one said anything. She figured most of them were probably looking at porn themselves anyway.

  She went back to the search results to check out a couple of news stories. One was about a couple having oral sex on a train and then getting charged for lighting up cigarettes afterwards.
The next was about an adult movie that had been made using mobile phones while half a dozen people went at it on a busy Russian commuter train.

  She didn’t realise it was after five until most people in the office had already left. She was struck by the silence. She looked around at the empty desks. She’d never seen it this deserted before. The sunny weather had encouraged everyone to leave on time.

  She was back at Google contemplating a new set of search terms when she heard Alicia’s voice. ‘Working late tonight, hon?’

  Her fingers froze instantly. She hadn’t realised she was still in the office.

  ‘I’ve just a few bits to do before tomorrow,’ Polly lied without looking up, trying to make it clear she was busy.

  ‘Well, make sure you’re not here too late,’ Alicia said, gathering up her bags. ‘None of us is paid enough to be doing overtime in this place.’

  Alicia took forever to get out the door. First she dropped her handbag, then she couldn’t find her pass key, then her mobile rang and she talked for ten minutes through the half-opened office door. Polly was forced to eavesdrop. She was cooing to some guy, facing Polly and pulling expressions at her as though somehow trying to invite her into the conversation. Finally she left, fluttering her gel nails behind her.

  Polly decided to search for ‘sex underground’ this time. Big mistake. It brought up nothing but masochism sites. She changed it to ‘sex London Underground’ – more YouTube pages of people apparently having sex on trains, but nothing convincing or of any use.

  She sat for ages trying to think of other words to describe it. She couldn’t believe ‘tubing’ hadn’t brought anything up. She tried searching for it again, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

  At half-past six the office cleaners arrived. They tutted loudly as they tried to clean around her. She decided to give up.

  She got home at 7.15, tired, frustrated and in a foul mood. Oliver was in. He was making dinner, some chicken and pasta thing. She’d planned to collapse in front of the TV but, as soon as she walked in, he started fussing and trying to bulk out the sauce so she could have some too. She told him she didn’t want any – after her pig-out at lunch, she was only allowing herself a small bowl of cereal for dinner – but he insisted.

  Sometimes it felt as if food was an obsession for him: three hearty meals a day without fail – even if he got up at two in the afternoon, he’d still fit in all three. He made such a ritual of it, and always dragged her into it. She felt like one of his patients. After they’d been together for a couple of months he started mentioning that he thought she was too skinny and that she needed to feed her body properly. At first she found it endearing: he enveloped her in his care and concern. But since they’d moved in together a year ago she’d put on over half a stone, and his constant concern was beginning to grate. Most nights Polly was happy with cereal or a piece of toast, but he’d put a stop to all that. She was beginning to think he was a feeder, using food as some kind of sex substitute.

  Just as they sat down to eat, her mobile rang. Polly jumped up to get it from her bag. For an insane moment she thought it might be him – maybe he’d got her number somehow.

  ‘Leave it, Pol,’ Oliver said.

  ‘It might be important,’ she replied. By the time she got to it her heart was racing in anticipation.

  It was her dad.

  Sighing she took the call anyway. At least it got her away from the huge pile of carbs Oliver had just placed in front of her. The smell was making her mouth water.

  They made small talk about the hot weather and her job. After a few minutes he got round to the reason for his call. She didn’t need to be told; Polly had known the reason the second his name came up on the screen.

  ‘Now I don’t want you to get upset, love, but I’ve bad news. It’s your mother.’

  Polly wasn’t about to get upset; she received a phone call like this about once a month.

  ‘She’s in a bad way.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Polly.

  ‘The doctor said not to worry, but, oh … ’ He trailed off.

  As a child, Polly had accepted her mother’s illnesses as the norm; she’d never known any different. But as she got older she started to notice small inconsistencies. One day her mother would claim that her left leg was so stiff she couldn’t move it, but the next day it would be her right. Or she’d say that she’d had crippling back pain all morning and hadn’t been able to move from her bed, yet Polly had seen her out in the garden smoking. She had mentioned it to her dad once. He’d told her that her mother’s condition was like that – unpredictable – and could change from one moment to the next.

  ‘If we could just get a diagnosis, you know? Maybe this time … We all need to try and stay positive.’

  Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

  Eventually her father said, ‘Well, she’s comfortable now and the doctor’s coming back to see her tomorrow. Says he’ll refer her to another specialist.’

  He sounded drained. Her dad was well into his seventies, twenty years his wife’s senior. Retirement had never really happened for him; he’d gone from engineer to carer. She wanted to comfort him, she knew he was genuinely worried, but she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge her mother’s ridiculous behaviour.

  ‘Are you OK, Dad?’

  ‘Me? I’m fine, fit as a fiddle.’ She imagined him puffing and panting, doing a jig, just to prove it. ‘Maybe you could come home for a visit. She’d like that.’

  Polly knew her mother wouldn’t be fussed either way.

  Just then she heard a click on the line. She wondered if her mother was listening in on the call from the phone upstairs. She probably was.

  ‘I’m busy with work at the moment.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d understand if you told them your mother’s not well.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She desperately wanted to finish the call. She looked over at Oliver shovelling forkfuls of pasta into his mouth. ‘I’d better go, Dad, Oliver’s put dinner out.’

  ‘Well have a think about it and let me know.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Oh, before you go, maybe you should give me your work number, you know, just in case the worst … well, just in case I need you in a hurry.’

  ‘Just use my mobile.’

  ‘I can’t always get through to you on that thing.’ Despite his years as an engineer, her dad couldn’t get used to the concept of communication without wires. She’d tried to explain it several times, but he told her it wasn’t for him.

  To get off the phone, she gave him the number, then said goodbye.

  Oliver had cleared his plate by the time she sat back down at the table. She took a couple of forkfuls from her plate and left the rest – it was cold.

  Five

  Polly spent the next couple of days at work scouring the internet for any mention of tubing. She couldn’t help herself: the experience had been so intense she could do nothing but think about it. She knew James wouldn’t be back in for at least a week, so she didn’t even have to pretend to work. She felt exasperated. She tried every search engine, forum, blog and social networking site she could think of. There was nothing, not a single reference to tubing. It made no sense. Surely, if it existed, there’d be mention of it on the internet?

  She briefly considered mentioning it on Facebook to see if any of her friends knew. But Oliver might see, so instead she updated her status to ‘fed up’.

  Since she had moved to London, Facebook had become a lifeline for Polly. It seemed the older she got, the harder it was to make decent friends. She’d left everyone she knew back home or in Bristol where she went to uni. Oliver’s friends were nice enough, but they were much older than her and all had high-powered jobs as doctors or barristers. She had very little in common with them. Whenever she spoke to them, she felt as if she were having a conversation with someone’s parents.

  She had a couple of new friend requests on Facebook, one from a girl she’d gone to
school with who she’d barely spoken to, and another from some guy she thought she recognised from her literary criticism class at uni. She accepted both; it didn’t really matter if she knew them or not, only another 144 until she hit a thousand.

  On Friday, against her better judgment, she went up to the seventh floor to talk to Jas.

  ‘Hey, Polly,’ he said as she hesitantly made her way into his office.

  Polly looked around the room. She’d never actually been in his office before, only ducked her head round the door. It was tiny, and from the big square porcelain sink at the far end she guessed it had once been a broom cupboard. It was crammed with bits of circuitry and dismantled hard drives. Even the sink had a couple of devices precariously balanced on the edge. A musty smell filled the air, like a teenage boy’s bedroom first thing in the morning. She thought it was probably coming from the sink or the overflowing bin on the floor, or it could have been from the green-grey growths on the plates and cups that littered every surface. She spotted a mug she’d lost a couple of months ago. The handle was missing.

  They made small talk for a while, then she told him she was having a problem with her keyboard – a squeaky spacebar. He told her he couldn’t help – he was only contracted to deal with network issues, not hardware. She already knew that. At that point, Polly almost chickened out. She started walking out of the door, then stopped and turned back. ‘Actually, Jas, you know that thing you were talking about the other day at lunch … ’

  ‘Hmm?’ he said absently returning to his computer. The screen reflected lines of code in the lenses of his glasses. ‘What thing?’

  ‘The tubing thing,’ replied Polly embarrassed.

  A wide, toothy grin broke on his face. ‘Yes, what about it?’ he said, pretending to work.

  ‘I was just wondering how you found out about it.’ Her fingers picked at the flakes of loose paint on the doorframe.

  ‘Why, Polly, you’ve never struck me as that type of girl,’ he said, looking up to face her.

  ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I’m not looking for me, it’s for a friend.’ She winced as she said it.