Short stories: Strangers on a tram

"Excuse me," he said, in an accent that was hard to place. She did her best to blot it out. Her finger moved guiltily over the volume switch on her phone. A mid-90s rock band took up a little more space between her ears.

"Excuse me," she heard him repeat, louder.

If he had just waited a few more seconds to speak… she felt them move over one of the parts where the tram track noisily joins the road, obliterating conversation as it slinks nearer to the city centre.

She looked up, scanned over his smiling face and hesitated, on his eyes, for just a millisecond. Enough time for her to clock their colour (green), but also for him to lock eyes with her.

She extracted her earphones, the left first, then the right, and held them in her hands, clasped in front of her chest. "What?" She instantly regretted her tone.

If he was offended he did not show it. "I was wondering if this was the right tram for Wolverhampton?" He enunciated slowly, closing the distance between them by sitting forward in his seat.

She was saved from having to make a statement about preserving her personal space by the automated announcer buzzing into life. "This tram terminates at Wolverhampton St Georges. The next stop is The Royal."

He threw himself back in his seat, his eyes rolling, head shaking. To make his meaning explicitly clear he made the universal sign for 'I'm being an idiot, just ignore me': bouncing his hand off his forehead theatrically. "Sorry to have bothered you."

As she moved to reinsert her earphones she stalled. She couldn't resist.

"It says that after every stop you know. The bit about Wolverhampton being the destination I mean."

"Oh I know. I just wanted to make sure. I have never been to this country before."

So that explains the accent, she thought. If anything, he doesn't have one, or at least one that was recognisably 'from somewhere'. Certainly no 'Wulver'amptun' vowels like mine.

"I come from Yemen."

She considered giving him her customary 'did I ask you to continue?' stare but she was surprised to find herself wanting to know more.

What's the worst that can happen? He murders me? Unlikely. And even if he does, there's an upside: I won't have to meet mum for lunch. Then maybe I won't have to bring it up. Not today, not ever. Maybe things can just carry on as they are. Maybe I won't have to shatter the image of mummy's little girl.

"Yemen?" She injected enough enthusiasm into the word to make it work as a question.

"Yes Yemen. Though I do not remember it very well. I moved around a lot as a child. My father's company is now based in Dubai. That's where I have just flown in from…"

She was barely registering what he was saying. She was still puzzling about Yemen. What did she know about the place? Where was it on a map? Do I know of any famous Yemenese, or whatever you call people from Yemen?

She dimly remembered it being mentioned on a TV show she used to watch avidly, a sitcom about thirtysomethings which failed to make her laugh now that she was herself a thirtysomething.

She did her best to tune in to what he was saying, mentally rewinding as much of his speech as she could.

"…and I thought it would be better for me to make a new life for myself here, away from my father."

"What's so bad about your father?" She was relieved that she had managed to segue back into the conversation. Perhaps I'm not a sociopath after all, she thought as the stranger carried on, even if he might be.

He sketched a portrait of a well meaning father who had always put his family first, perhaps at the expense of his own happiness, and then expected his son to do the same for his own family.

"At my graduation, in Paris last week, he told me I had to hurry up and use my engineering degree for something. By something he meant anything that made a lot of money so I could support my family. I'm only 21 years old; I don't even have a family yet!"

"Snap." The word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She could see from the encouraging tilt of his head that she wouldn't be able to unsay it. Did he really want to know more or was he just making polite conversation?

"Well, not quite snap. I've never been to Paris and I don't have a degree. And I don't have children, or even a boyfriend. And I'm 31, not 21." She paused. Why am I telling him all this? She glanced out of the window. Are there any answers out there? All she saw were carpet shops and car dealerships. "But I know what you mean."

The penultimate stop came and went. They shared that type of silence only incomplete strangers can. It was less of an elephant in the room than a third passenger, standing opaquely between them, holding onto the overhead handrail and swaying with the movement of the carriage.

After the tannoy had announced that their next stop would be their last, he was the first to find his voice.

'What's Wolverhampton like as a city?"

She always found it jarring when someone called her beloved 'Wolvo' a city. 'Town' whispered of childhood. 'City' shouted I AM A GROWN UP.

She became aware of her earphones, gossiping their tinny sound from her lap where she had let them fall just ten minutes before. When she looked up she noticed that, for the first time since they had known each other, his smile had faltered. A frown was threatening to upset the transitory harmony they had built together.

Finally, she made her choice. "Wolverhampton is home?"

By David Lowbridge