Train Travel Tales #43 – If Music Be the Food of Love…….Part 1

Hello – here is a 3 part Train Travel Tale. Hope you like it, Parts 2 and 3 to follow!

If Music Be The Food Of Love…..Part 1.

December 16^th – 1996 Kings Cross Station

 

As a child I was awestruck by the grandeur of train stations. It was where grown-ups went. On a daily basis. To do things. What these things were I had no idea. But they went there to do them.

 

When my parents brought my sister and I up to London for day trips from our suburban backwater, these great voluminous places, full of scuttling humanity had a sense of solid purpose that scared and exhilarated me at the same time. I remember clasping Dad’s hand a little tighter as we walked through them, something my son now does when we come up for day trips to London on my access weekends.

 

Now their role in my life is much more mundane and perfunctory. Merely conduits to another place accompanied by the heady perfume of diesel engines and fast food outlets.

 

I was early when I reached Kings Cross station today. Too early. I don’t like having to hang around. The slate grey sky and traffic noise gave a claustrophobic feel to the low slung station entrance. A newspaper vendor cried out “Standard! Standard!” The banner headline told of a political scandal involving a Conservative MP. Another? Surely there are not enough of them left.

 

A drunk’s basted features appeared before me, “Spare change?” He held a can of super strength lager with the other hand outstretched for alms. I fished in my pocket for some change and gave him a pound. And another one. It was nearly Christmas after all.

 

“Cheers. Merry Christmas.”  

 

A policeman crossed the lee of the entrance and intimated to the drunk not to come any closer. The beggar mumbled to himself and returned to a companion who was arguing with a waste bin. He took a deep slug from his can and began to solicit others.

 

Shoals of people drifted and eddied around the station concourse. A limp muzak rendition of Hark the Herald Angels, a begrudging admission of the festive season, played over the public address system, regularly interrupted by information of departures, arrivals and security alerts. The brash yellow lighting gave the atmosphere a soiled, used feel and the floor was pocked with discarded chewing gum like a grubby Dalmatian pelt.

 

As I looked at the departure board for signs of my train, I heard the nasal drone of an accordion. A Slavic voice accompanied the dirge, “If you thin I sex, an you wan my bod, cam on babi let me no -”

 

A Balkan tribute to Rod Stewart.  Most of his songs have a good beat. Baby Jane is my favourite.

 

The accordion player was short, squat and unshaven.  He wore a vivid, silver trimmed waistcoat over an Adidas shell suit and wore Adidas trainers. He had wrapped a strand of tinsel around his head and warbled the back catalogue of Rod Stewart with a healthy disdain for the original lyrical content – “I am salling, I am salling, oh lard to be nar oo, to be fray”.

 

I wondered if he knew any sea shanties, much more in line with our glorious maritime history.

 

A small, under nourished woman was with him. Black headscarf, pained, gap toothed expression daubed on her young face and a cherubic swaddled baby clinging to her. She approached me and held out a polystyrene cup and asked in unmistakable tones of poverty and misery for money. The baby began to cry. I fished in my pocket for some change and gave her a pound. And another one. It was nearly Christmas after all.

 

She thanked me and approached an elderly man of military bearing standing several feet away, “Certainly not. You must understand that for you and your ilk, and that goes for your musically challenged accomplice, that only the reintroduction of Workhouses can save you people from your insatiable breeding habits and thus your poverty.” 

 

The woman waved the cup in front of him, “Will you leave me alone you Slavic miscreant? Didn’t England do enough for you people in the war?  If only Franz Ferdinand had not sent his breast plate for buffing that day we would all be in better shape. Why, the next thing you and your kind will do is annex Shropshire. Now if you don’t go away, I will be forced to report you to the relevant authorities.”

 

A smartly dressed woman curtly waved her away but a man, a student by the look of him, dropped a number of coins into her cup.

 

The busker made his way towards a group of Asian tourists who stood like Mere Cats, eagerly trying to locate their train.

 

“I lav ewe hoh-knee!” I deduced it as Hot Legs, another of rocker Rod’s classics.

 

Sub-consciously the tourists formed a defensive square that would have drawn praise from the Duke of Wellington. The accordionist found it impossible to isolate any member of the group and allow his partner to beg. One of the tourists took copious photographs of the incident. As tourists do. The minstrel fired a broadside of cedilla laden insults at them. He continued to pour invective at the group and bumped into a middle-aged man who wore a florid, veined complexion. The accordion wheezed in harmony with their collision.

 

“Excuse me,” the man said in rounded Welsh tones. “Well well, an accordion. What pleasure that instrument has brought to countless thousands over the years. Lamentation, celebration, medication and education, the humble accordion has accompanied life around the world.  Once, singing in Poland, Krakow I think it was, I spent a night in a small tavern singing Polish laments with a number of cheerless, mustachioed peasants and their hefty women folk. I don’t mind telling you that one of the Babushka’s favoured me that night,” the man winked conspiratorially at the busker before breaking into song and competing with Ding Dong Merrily On High that blared over the public address system.

 

He sang with a liquid, cool voice which to shimmered and filled listeners with an instant longing for lost lovers. People were stopped in their tracks at the primal beauty of his voice.

 

The accordionist began asking for money. His cup was soon overflowing with coins and the occasional note. The man was content to sing his vision of pain and loss. As abruptly as he had commenced, he stopped. Applause rang out. He nodded his thanks, turned to the accordion player held out his hand and said,

 

“Bryn, I am a Welshman.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Bryn, I am a Welshman.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Never mind my friend; I am prepared to offer you half of the stipend the adoring masses have just given me.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Give me half the money,” Bryn replied in less gilded tones. He held out his left hand and rubbed the thumb and forefinger together.

 

“No.”

 

“Yes,” replied Bryn

 

“No,”

 

They began to jostle. The knot of people that had stopped to listen to Bryn sing now watched with bemusement as the men traded insults in Welsh and Albanian, both apparently with full knowledge of each other’s dialects. The accordion again wheezed its accompaniment. A jaunty Polka.

 

The old man who had berated the busker earlier turned to me and said, “I’ll have a fiver on the Chetnik. Blood thirsty animals they were in the war.”

 

The Policeman re-appeared, pulled the two men apart and began to frog-march them from the station, oblivious to their protestations of innocence and accusations of the other party’s guilt. The woman and child followed demurely behind.

 

Bryn spoke, “I demand a Judicial Review of your actions officer. I am due to board the 14.27 to Edinburgh. Do you know I once shared a sandwich with Charlton Heston?”

 

Both men were led off the concourse. The beggar approached them for money. I couldn’t tell you if he was successful in his pleadings.  But I doubt it. Even if it was Christmas.

Part 2 Tomorrow!