Cotton Underpants.
Detergent.
1 kg Rice.
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The train carriages stopped rattling as the train drew into Solihull and the doors opened in a noisy metal groan and people entered the bustling carriage. A man scratched at his patchy beard as a gothic-looking woman in her thirties rooted around in her handbag, pulled out a bright purple lipstick and began re-applying it liberally on her lips.
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Jackie and Pauline looked at the people getting onto the train, examining their appearances. A man wearing thick beer-bottle spectacles and a beanie. A woman wearing an orange parka and holding a travel mug full of tomato soup. An elderly man brought up the rear, his bent body struggling with his walker as the door slid closed.
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"Bet you he gets trapped in the door." said Jackie.
"Bet you he smells of piss and all." said Pauline.
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Pauline took a wad of gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the back of the train seat in front of her. She pressed it down and the pink glob spread across the back of the seat under a thumb coated in parts of two week old fuchsia nail polish.
Jackie was leering at the old man shuffling down the middle of the carriage, looking for a seat. Immediately, she reached up and grabbed the scuffed square sign indicating the priority seats from the wall.
With a quick rip, it came off leaving only four small blue blu-tack marks underneath.
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Frosties.
Hovis.
Four Yoghurts.
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Jackie laughed as the old man fell over before eventually clambering into a seat next to a suited businessman.
"So what are you gettin' Tash for Christmas?" she asked Pauline.
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"That singing Elsa Doll. She doesn't want anything else. Have you seen the prices in Smyths though? Fucking ridiculous, mate." said Pauline.
"Mate, Jack's after a BB like his cousin but he's not getting that, mate. Not 'til he's fourteen at least."
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The train continued clattering past trees and shrubbery, tangled gorse bushes and rain that ran like transparent arteries down the window panes.
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"At least." Jackie repeated, feeling slightly uncomfortable in the conversational lapse. "Na, I dunno what he wants. He's eight so he probably don't want any of that childish shit, does he?"
Pauline didn't reply as the train pulled up at Tyseley station and a few people got up and left as five others got on. A man with a blue rucksack with a cartoon image of Taz the Tasmanian devil. A woman in her mid thirties with a walking cane and seeing-eye dog. A pregnant lady in a paisley skirt trying to contain two errant charges, a five-year old boy and a seven-year old girl.
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Sellotape.
Apples.
Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.
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Are you still cheating on Jay?" Jackie said.
Pauline jabbed her arm but smiled.
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"Well?"
"Yeah, I am. It's alright, he hasn't found out. I might stop, y'know? Mike's fun. Jay just stays at home and looks after Tash since she's had that three week suspension. He's just really boring right now, just spends all his time with our daughter."
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"That's unfair, what about you?"
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"Exactly!" Pauline said. She rolled her eyes exasperatedly at her plight. "When we first started dating he was really interesting and took me out nice places. He says he hasn't got anything now and yeah, he don't, but Mike buys me things."
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Jackie looked at her sympathetically. "Yeah, I get it."
She pointed at Pauline's neck. "Like that?" she said.
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Jackie fiddled with her necklace. "Yeah, it's from Pandora." she said. "That's so bad, isn't it?"
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"Na mate, you deserve nice things." said Jackie. She bit her lip, trying desperately not to add that the necklace looked like cheap costume jewellery at best and entirely plastic at worst and managed to hold her nerve. She smiled widely, before her face took on a more pensive tone.
"It's hard sometimes, innit?" said Jackie. "Nobody can buy nice things anymore. It's the government and that. Putting prices up."
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"Yeah. Those fucking politicians mate." Pauline replied, spitting down the side of the train seat. "They've fucked up Britain. They've fucked it right up, mate. If it wasn't or them, I wouldn't have cheated on Jay cuz' they were the ones that done arrested him for burglary."
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"And he didn't do anything wrong." Jackie said. Whenever Jay's unfair arrest was mentioned, it was tantamount to always mention that he was innocent and had simply got lost and climbed through someone else's window.
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"He didn't!" Pauline agreed, equaling Jackie's outrage that Pauline didn't know was fake.
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As the train entered Birmingham, Pauline and Jackie got up from their seats. The priority seating sign lay forgotten on the plastic lap tray as they exited the train.
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Two seats behind them where he'd been sitting for the entire journey, Jay finished up his shopping list and drew a smiley face at the bottom. It was a shame, really. He'd had his suspicions for a while.
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He wondered how long it would take him to pick up everything from Sainsbury's and also thought of Natasha's face as he handed her a can of her favourite energy drink that "happened to be already open because he couldn't resist a cheeky sip".
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He clenched and unclenched his fists, imagining going upstairs to deal with his adulterous wife.
He hummed to himself happily as he quietly left the emptying train, one of the last passengers to leave.
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The train headed from Moor Street to New Street, where a bored train driver by the name of Larry Briggs changed with his partner who drove it to Boyle's Yard.
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The train was kept there overnight. The following morning it set off, blowing billowing grey smoke trails into the morning mists.
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Steak Knife.
Red Bull.
Rat Poison.
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