Said friends that materialized as reliably as gravity in the train journey I made on Monday morning, manifested themselves as a couple of Australian women who were particularly loud and unnecessarily happy for 08:00 on a Monday morning.
Upon squeezing their way unceremoniously into the carriage and giggling every time they knocked into someone the women proceeded to talk at length about a man called "Dave" who turned out to be the estranged husband of one of the women. "Well he just wouldn't listen in the end, didn't want to hear me talk anymore," the apparent wife said as a conclusion to why they were divorcing. There was a moment of silence when I imagined most of the carriage were probably thinking this wasn't much of a surprise, while the other half who were nursing their bleeding ears from the EXTREMELY LOUD, self-indulgent crooning of the two women.
After this brief pause the wife, who was looking into the middle distance with a sort of dark-night-of-soul expression, likely brought on by the clanging bell of irony that had filled the silence in their conversation, looked up brightly and said "I saw Black Swan this week, finally! Had to wait for to it come out on DVD but it was still fantastic."
Her friend nodded enthusiastically, "yeah, I saw it at the cinema. The music-"
"Amazing!" cut in the wife.
"I know, I know. Doo-do-do-do-do Doo-do-Doo Doo"
At this point they both began to sing the theme from swan lake. Their representation of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece was as a beautiful, sequined dress is to a dirty axel grinder covered in blood. As they launched into the high notes at the themes climax a man several metres away who had managed to get a seat convulsed, spitting the coffee he was drinking out onto an unfortunate set of school children who were sitting in front of him. I don't think the children noticed however, as they seemed to be reliving a host of infantile terrors brought on by the shrieking banshee voices of two women, which extended deep in the subsonic realms of instinctual fear.
I was probably only saved because I was behind on the glass dividers in the carriage.
After the tunes climax they collapsed into laughter. Upon regaining their composure the friend commented again "fantastic, fantastic, really gets your juices going."
I shuddered at this.
The wife jumped in with "You know what really gets MY juices flowing, that Vincent Cassel."
The rest of the carriage shuddered.
Several people nearby the two tried to distance themselves subtly lest the idea of Vincent Cassel as being attractive become somehow infectious. Of course as the carriage was so crowded it simply had the effect of compressing everyone into more uncomfortable, contorted positions while not putting any meaningful distance between the passengers and the two women.
"Very sexy." agreed the friend.
"Mmm. Very sexy indeed..."
At this point I thought I heard a woman several seats away grown and vomit as her belly finally gave up from the combined assault of the singing and the images of Cassel. I can't be sure though.
"And he got that lovely Natalie Portman." Continued the wife.
"She looked so good in that film." the friend commented. "So good, I don't how she does it."
"Very thin, I wish I were that thin sometimes." nodded the wife making a twisting movement with her hands around her waist.
While she was obviously disillusioned about her singing and Vicent Cassel, she had evidently realized certain things about her weight, even if she did relate them in the conscience clanging steel of understatement.
"I heard.. I heard that she only ate celery the entire time they were filming. And...! That a lot of the weight loss was actually due to all the blood she lost during the film."
"No!" Said the wife in apparent disbelief. "Really?"
"Yes! Yes! If you look at carefully at the beginning of the film you can see she is weightier than at the end. All those scenes when she had to cut herself took their toll."
"And I thought they were just fake." Replied the wife, without a hint of sarcasm. "Well, makes you think, she must have to work very hard acting AND cutting yourself. But I couldn't do all that, I've got a good amount of blood in me, that's probably why I'm slightly heavier."
"mmm," nodded the friend, with slight reservation, "probably." It seemed that even her cheerful enthusiasm could not quite bend reality that far.
"Definitely, both of us. We don't need to become anemic and arty like those skinny bitches!"
Both women laughed at this, the friend cheering up as she had now been included in the excuse for her weight. They clapped each other on the back and giggled for several minutes without a break, seemingly overcoming the human need for oxygen.
"Oo! It's our stop!" Shouted the wife, her head whipping round. Both women bulldozed their way out of the carriage just before the doors closed, crushing several slighter people in their path.
As the doors closed the carriage collectively breathed a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over...
There was a loud delighted shout from the other end of the carriage. As the Australian women had exited from one set of doors a group of three teenage girls had got on, discussing make up tips in their best shouting voices, thus maintaining the equilibrium of socially obnoxious people in a crowded space.
The battered passengers, minds assaulted, ears bleeding, soldiered on.
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