On the third and final train (the London to Manchester "express"), I realise that the child-blessed (note how nice I sound) and the child-free are living in two distinct universes. There can be no mutual ground between us... at least, not in the temporary living space offered by a train.
We are crammed around a small fold-down table. The "fold-down" is an important detail: it means that BB can have sustained fun folding it up and banging it down.
One the one side: me and my two offspring (FH has somehow managed to elope to a seat across the aisle: he will not get away with it for long). On the other side: a smart professional couple in their late thirties, child-free.
When they realise that these are their allotted seats, and that they are condemned to spend 2 hours in our company, their dismay is both visible and audible.
Something inside me prickles, and I shoot them my blackest look.
Sure, if I was them, I would feel dismayed too... but you know, maternal instinct is a very unique mechanism. It means: it's OK for ME to be horrified at the idea of sharing confined living space with these grumpy, excitable kids... but it's not OK for YOU to be horrified, you mean, intolerant, chic, clean people!
So the train rattles forward and - oh joy of joys! - both kids fall asleep pretty quickly.
Smug, I stroke BB's sleepy head and sit back, hoping the chic couple are shamed. Hoping they might actually say "Oops, we judged you too quickly there, didn't we?"
For a while, the only sounds in the carriage are the soft breathing of sleeping children and the flutter of pages turning.
Then the guy's mobile phone rings. Loudly.
I gasp in annoyance, but LB only shifts around and falls back to sleep.
But to my absolute, intolerant horror, chic guy takes the call and proceeds to talk - loudly - to whoever is on the line for the next twenty minutes.
Worse: it is obviously a professional call, and he is discussing mentally ill patients. Right there, in front of me, the other passengers and the kids who have not slept since they woke up in Paris at 7 a.m. this morning.
My blood boils. I out-sigh and out-gasp anything they could subject me to. His girlfriend looks like she just might have cottonned on to the fact I am irritated, but still the call goes on.
And half-way through that call, the woman's phone also rings. A parallel 20 minute call ensues: this one complete with juicy gossip about another woman's relationship trials, and a 2-pence pseudo psychological analysis of her "issues".
I am beside myself with outrage. LB wakes, red-eyed, confused and vocal. I now have a crying child on my hands, and Mr and Mrs Child-free are back to tutting and sighing.
We are so close, and yet so far. The one metre that separates us could just as well be an immense gulf of misunderstanding.
Whose intolerance is justified? Why is it unacceptable for crying kids to disturb other passengers... but a loudly related personal conversation is considered civilsed behaviour?
The only solution I can offer at this point in my life is, sadly: separate carriages.
1 comment:
I'm not all that up to date with British culture, but I thought there were mobile free zones on trains? And so even if you're in one or not, there is a growing culture that phones and trains are not an ideal match?
I think all we can do is stick by the motto - do onto others.... or maybe the serenity prayer: change what we can and accept what we can't change.
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