The Metro
Finally, after three years of non-stop haggling, shifting goal-posts and missed deadlines, I received a letter from my solicitor confirming that the last of Beast's properties had been sold.
I heaved a sigh of relief. That place had been a major draw on my patience and tenacity for far too long. This letter meant an end to three years of back and forth, push and pull, give and take, a process wherein it quickly became very painfully obvious that the only individuals getting rich off this long, protracted scheme were the solicitors.
For those unfamiliar with this saga, Beast was my former band mate, my mentor and occasional lover during a brief flirtation with the music business some twenty years ago. He was forty two when he died of pancreatic cancer in 2019.
I'd never even visited the house until a few months ago and I remember the emotions from that day very clearly. I opened the front door on a cold, cold October morning and entered a barren desert, a heartless shell devoid of any love, of any connection, of any human feeling.
And, in an instant, I felt crushed.
This decaying pile of bricks had been Beast's final hideout whilst the pancreatic cancer that was killing him took hold and then wrecked his body.
"An odd choice for a place to live," I thought. "Not exactly his style at all."
And yet, looking around, I realised he would have had everything he needed at his finger tips. A convenience store over the road for food. Next to it, an Off-licence for booze and cigarettes, and his main Dealer had installed himself a few doors down. Quite a nice man by all accounts.
But perhaps this property's most important selling point of all was that it was within walking distance of Beast's Oncologist, a smart choice given that his alimony payments meant that he could no longer afford to take the bus.
Beast bequeathed the bulk of his estate, and this house, to me - in part to punish his faithless wife but also as my reward for years of loyalty in spite of his personal quirks. We both shared an earnest desire not to wash each other's dirty linen in public. Certain members of the British Royal Family might like to think hard on that last point.
Anyway, skip forwards in time to January 2023.
There was a thick layer of ice on the pavement when I arrived, bright and early, at the front door. I wanted to be there simply to ensure that everything was in order before I finally handed the keys over to the new owners. The house was still cold and bare, and spartan to the point of being monastic. I was ready to say goodbye, not because I had any real emotion invested in this dismal frame but mainly because, four years after he jumped the Shark, I still missed my friend. His former house felt sad and lonely and bereft of joy. This is not how I wanted to remember the man and this is not how houses are meant to end their days. This place deserved better, I thought.
I stared out through the thin and faded net curtains, and into the main street. It, too, was deserted. Not a single sign of life. None at all. No children playing in the road. No cars running up and down. Not even an aged and weatherworn drudge washing her front step.
I threw open the back door and walked out into a small jungle of parched grass and fallen branches, and immediately stumbled over a haphazard path made from a mess of broken bricks casually strewn about the yard. At the end of the garden sat the remains of a barbecue, with beer cans and burger wrappers lying wherever you looked.
"What a way to live?" I thought. But then... Could you even describe this sorry state of affairs as 'living'? Some do, doubtless.
A Metro train sailed past the bottom of the garden at a steady, even pace.
I smiled.
"Memories," I thought, and I was instantly transported back in time to those moments when I was a regular passenger, heading home from another indifferent day at school. I remembered how I would look through the windows of the houses that lined the railway tracks in search of any sign of life. You would typically see people sitting outside, some drinking tea or weeding or mowing a lawn. Within, you might see people cooking or doing homework or just watching TV. In the summer months, you might see the occasional sunbather although they were rare.
However, every now and again, you'd see something or someone you perhaps ought not to have seen. A bare thigh. A shapely leg. A boob. A bare bum. Typically male, sometimes female, such a vision made my day.
And you know something? I was jealous. I so wanted to be that person, innocently, or maybe not so innocently, flashing a small section of bare skin in the direction of an unsuspecting passenger. The joy that comes from the simplest of titillations. To be seen. To be viewed. To be admired. I have always found such pleasures to be utterly intoxicating.
Why? I'm an exhibitionist. Always have been. Hopefully always will be. Simple, really.
Another memory rose to the surface.
Some years ago, maybe 1999 or so, I really don't remember, I got on to a Metro at the Haymarket station in Newcastle bound for Whitley Bay and beyond. Nothing remarkable. Except that, on this occasion, I was wearing just a pair of flat-souled shoes and a long, long over coat. Nothing else.
What happened?
Nothing.
Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Nobody really paid me any real attention at all. Not at first, anyway. To the majority, I was just a short-arsed, skinny goth chick on the way home from a boozy afternoon in a downmarket bar on the other side of the tracks.
Did I flash anyone? Did I do the whole exhibitionist thing?
Of course I did. Where would the fun be if I didn't, or hadn't?
I flashed a couple of my fellow passengers, specifically an old geezer who wouldn't stop staring even when his wife suggested that, if he didn't refrain then she'd cut his balls off and feed them to the cat. I flashed him because his leering wasn't pleasant or friendly, or well-intentioned. He was just a letch. So I gave him what he wanted. Visibly shaken, he nearly fainted. He certainly had to have a sit down. His wife? She was furious and ran off as fast as she could in search of a station guard. Good luck finding a member of staff in those days, or any day for that matter.
I also flashed a bunch of guys from the safety and security of the platform just as their train pulled out of the station. They were just loud and leery, and their jeering comments hurt more than a little. I wanted to make the point that, as available as I was, I was also completely unavailable. They didn't like that.
Happy days, eh?
Anyway, back to today.
I watched the Metro train sail into the distance with a smile and a sense of nostalgia for my ancient past. To the residents of this humble street, the Metro train was, by and large, invisible. It was so frequent, so regular, so utterly commonplace that I'm convinced it barely registered. Just part of the regular background noise to life in the twenty first century.
And then I had an idea.
I pulled out my phone and googled the Metro timetable for the adjacent line. I checked the clock on the wall. Assuming it was right then I had another twelve or so minutes until the next train went past and, since I had nothing better to do for the next hour or so, I started to feel an old familiar twitch in my lower regions.
Should I? Shouldn't I? Where's the harm? Who would know? Or care?
