And Now, Destroy The Room

By Jud Widing

AND NOW, a few paragraphs to describe this collection, which features fifteen short stories and two novellas. These are stories of many different genres, covering a whole range of tones and time periods. There’s a little girl learning to deal with a new member of the household, and there’s a guy who’s having a very hard time killing his coworker. There are stories set at the height of the Persian Empire, in the trenches of World War I, and on a far-off planet called SYL-33. There’s slapstick and suspense, melancholy and moral dilemmas.

I feel like that pretty much covers it. It’s short stories, you know? I wish I hadn’t committed to multiple paragraphs here. I’m trying to think...oh, uh, well, I mean, I could describe the rest of the stories, but the surprise is part of the fun, right? I don’t know. It’s short stories. I don’t know what else to say.

I don’t have anything else to say. Please stop reading this. I’m just trying to fill up the space here. Just read the inside of the book instead. Please stop reading this. I’m serious. Stop. Please stop. There’s nothing else of substance here and I’m self-conscious about it. Why won’t you stop reading this? If you stop reading this now, you can have the book for free. That’s actually not true. I don’t know why I said that. I hope you kept reading, to read that part about that not being true. Oh, good. I am glad you kept reading after all. Anyway, please buy this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jud Widing
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215744086

Jud Widing

Jud Widing is an itinerant book person.

Book preview

AND NOW,

DESTROY THE ROOM

by

Jud Widing

Copyright © 2023 by Jud Widing

Cover artwork by Anthony Hurd

http://www.anthonyhurd.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

On Track originally appeared in Medusa's Laugh Press Microtext 4

Trememorendous originally appeared in the 2019 issue of Statement

Designed by Jud Widing

Edited by Gene Christopher

www.judwiding.com

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram: @judwiding

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The stories in this collection were written between 2017 and 2022. A couple of them have been published before. Most haven't. All, however, have been re-edited for this collection. In as much as this matters to anyone, the versions of the stories presented here can be considered definitive.

AND NOW,

UPTOWN ONE

The computer hadn't even finished making its little bing noise before Monica was on her feet, hurtling headlong towards Steadman's office. He saw her coming and threw on an outsized smile, the way a threatened lizard will inflate its throat sacs to ward off predators.

That was fast, he marveled.

Monica shut the glass door carefully behind her (rather ingenious, for someone like Steadman to have a door people were uneasy about slamming) and wheeled on her editor-in-chief. Make Pam do it.

Steadman leaned back in his chair and flopped his arms out to the side, palms up. "I believe your...talents would s-"

"Running the correction was humiliating enough. Point made. You don't need to rub my face in it. Which, by the way," Monica informed him, with a maximum of finger-wagging, "I was reporting on the information I had been given, which passed fact-check, by the way, and wh-"

I don't want to have this conversation again.

And you thought just sticking me with some bullshit puff piece was a good way to avoid it?

Steadman sighed and shrugged, granting the point.

Monica sat without asking. Steadman made a show of noticing the presumption. Make Pam do it, she repeated, her voice quiet, the plea implicit.

Steadman shook his head, his gaze coming to rest on his desk. Sorry. You're in reporter jail for a bit. It happens.

Oh, fuck you. Monica shot to her feet and mumbled sorry.

The Editor-In-Chief shrugged and smiled. I won't tack that on to your sentence.

Monica planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. Glancing out through the glass walls, she spotted a few of her fellow reporters' curious little prairie dog heads ducking back down behind cubical walls. How long am I stuck on the teeny-bopper beat, then?

A sigh. Tell you what, I'm feeling nice, and I also want you to go away. So you knock this one assignment out of the park, and you're back on general. That's the offer, if you leave my office n-

Monica closed the door behind her.

Okay. This was okay. One celebrity profile wasn't gonna kill her. Maybe she could find ways to circle it back to the subjects she actually cared about, exposing the bad behavior of powerful corporations, forcing men in expensive suits to mumble no comment at her, watching as her reporting sometimes translated to real positive change in the world...

Oh, who was she kidding. That wasn't what Steadman wanted here. Trying to find substance in a frothy little here's Hollywood's latest numbskull piece was bound to get her another three-to-five in Steadman's so-called reporter jail. No, straight down the line, this would have to be.

Monica did a bit of background on this Brydon Plyst guy, and some of the people he'd worked with. She didn't know any of the names; she didn't watch TV or movies. Who had the time? She'd spent the last year of her life reporting on: violations of hazardous waste disposal protocols - with grave consequences for the nearby population - at a semiconductor plant not far outside Syracuse; an unregulated network of third-party resellers on Amazon trading in unapproved or actively banned products; the exploitative hiring and labor practices of palm oil producers in Malaysia. Now here she was, mind-melding with the Internet Movie Database, catching up on a decade of lukewarm gossip, scrubbing through movies which mostly opened on Plyst's character waking up and smacking an alarm clock.

Here was the unremarkable career of Brydon at a glance, then: weasels his way onto the scene leading a show on some no-account streamer (playing a stuttering detective or something), burns out after trying and failing to break into film, ego swells as fortunes fall, addiction, rehab, mid-thirties career renaissance leading to now, with his name in conversations for this or that award. According to everybody from Travers to Turkington, the kid's performance in his latest movie, The Flickering Dream, was really something special. Comparisons were mostly made to actors whom Brydon was already too old to die as tragically as, your Deans and Lees and Ledgers. Monica couldn't quite work out if such allusions were tone-deaf or grimly perceptive, but they were the only point of real interest turned up by her research.

She considered going to actually see The Flickering Dream - it had just opened in limited release last weekend, with an apparently solid per-theater average - but she didn't think she could subject herself to a two and a half hour-long movie that was, by all accounts, about how great and important movies are. Having to do the profile was penance enough, she felt.

The assignment was bog-standard profiling: spend a day with the guy, go interview some friends and colleagues about him, barf out a few hundred words in time for Oscar season, then boom. Out of reporter jail, free to write about real things again. Easy enough. So Monica scheduled a day through Plyst's publicist, and pulled together a few questions to prime the punk, should he prove as surly an interview as some of these artist-types could apparently be.

The scheduled day was next Tuesday, which in time became this Tuesday, and then just today. Upon the attainment of Tuesday, Monica settled down at one of those bougie coffee spots on Seventh Ave and waited. Selecting the setting had been a more delicate business than she had anticipated - it was Sean, more well-accustomed to the celebrity grind, who had clued Monica in to the importance of picking the right venue. One wanted to go somewhere that wouldn't be slammed with photo-seeking tourists, but one also didn't want to land in a spot full of jaded New Yorkers indifferent to conspicuously inconspicuous stars, screaming don't mind me with their downturned baseball caps and oversized sunglasses. Good texture for a profile, Sean insisted, to have a part where a fan comes and bothers the subject mid-interview. Glimpse at the public persona in action, and more importantly, usually good for a hundred words or so unto itself. As long as it's just the one disruption, though.

This bougie coffee spot seemed to tick all boxes. Monica hoped so, anyway. Good god. Usually, when she was setting public meets with sources, her concerns were safety, privacy, sometimes even the number of exits. She was almost positive she and a source had been followed on more than one assignment. Now the only headshot she was worried about was one Plyst himself might produce, a sharpie not far behind.

Good luck, she suddenly recalled Sean adding as a farewell. I've heard Brydon can be a prickly interview.

Prickly. That didn't scare Monica. It did mildly annoy her though. Made it hard to not think Plyst pretentious, without having even met him. That wasn't fair, she knew. Yet her up-front frustration seemed vindicated by Plyst's running late. Ten minutes, twenty minutes. At thirty, Monica considered bailing. Never seriously. It was just a fun little daydream.

Then Brydon Plyst slunk in through the door. And despite having been only lately acquainted with his work, despite finding it remarkable for its mere adequacy...for just an instant, Monica was starstruck.

Perhaps her greatest shame, that. The low-voltage excitement she sometimes felt upon encountering, in the course of her reporting, a face she'd first seen on a TV screen. It was easily ignored, fortunately, lingering only as the self-resentment she felt for being vulnerable to such simple sorcery in the first place.

She forced herself to sit up a little straighter.

Brydon, for his part, looked a study in ease, with his untucked flannel shirt and blue jeans scuffed at the knees. Handsome in a way that plays better on camera than in person. Big head, small eyes, sharp jaw. Brydon flinched slightly at the intensity of the air conditioning, then spotted Monica and headed over before she had a chance to hail him.

So she wasn't the only one who'd done some research, then.

Monica hit 'record' on her phone, as she and Brydon's publicist had agreed upon via email, then stood and smiled as he approached. She extended her hand. Mr. Plyst, I'm Monica. Pleasure to meet you.

Brydon took her hand, squeezing way harder than necessary. As Monica had expected; men with soft hands always have so much to prove.

She made a point of squeezing back, holding eye contact, not wincing.

Still crushing her hand, Brydon pumped it twice then released and nodded, eyes raking across the room as he did. Thanks. He smiled faintly. Still looking everywhere but at her. You can just call me Brydon.

Brydon, then. While his attention was elsewhere, Monica shook her hand out at her side. Um... She glanced behind her, then back to Brydon. What are you looking at?

He studied the bridge of Monica's nose with the confidence of a drillbit. I'm just looking, he replied curtly.

Alright then. Off to a great start.

They went to the counter and ordered. Monica got a latte, Brydon a large black coffee, to which he added his cream and sugar at the little garbage-armoring counterspace where the sweeteners and swizzlesticks were piled up. You wouldn't call them coffee condiments...add-ons? Monica made a mental note to figure out a snappier way to describe that whole station there.

You like to load up your coffee yourself? Monica observed, for the benefit of her phone recording.

Brydon nodded. Nobody else does it right. He smiled at her, and for just a moment, Monica felt that marquee wattage. I'm fussy like that.

It seemed that something was expected of her, an empty reassurance that no, it was not fussy to put your own cream and sugar into your coffee. Because it wasn't. But Monica was getting the sense that, unlike most of the normal people she spoke with for stories, Brydon knew how the game was played. How every little action, every tic and signal, could be given outsized significance in the write-up. This was knowledge no doubt acquired through painful experience, given his tabloid years. Still, Monica resented him trying to steer the, for lack of a better word, story.

Though, to be fair, it had been she who'd commented on the coffee preparation in the first place.

Ok, she said once they'd sat and settled, so. Br-

"Have you seen The Flickering Dream?" Brydon interrupted.

Monica had to suppress a smile. I'm afraid I haven't. Tell me about it.

Brydon leaned back and folded his arms. It's been tremendously successful. Big triumph at the festivals, and we had a great first weekend.

I saw that.

"You saw that, but not the film. I don't know why you haven't seen it. Pretty unprofessional of you, actually."

Good grief. I'm very sorry, Brydon. I'd love to hear you t-

"What, describe it to you? It's a movie. It's visual storytelling." His eyes ran a quick lap around the back of the room.

Huh. Interesting. Monica knew plenty of people who were icy assholes, but turned on the charm when necessary. Brydon seemed to be quite the opposite - amiable enough until the tape got rolling, at which point, winter closed in. What was up with that?

Finally, here was a halfway compelling lead to chase down. More temptingly, though...Monica could see just how easy it would be to push this guy's buttons, let him blow up, let the hit piece write itself.

No, no. That would be unprofessional. And very easy.

Monica shrugged. Ok. If you don't want to talk about it, we can t-

The Flickering Dream, Brydon snapped, "is a tale as old as time itself. It's about how artists suffer for their art, and how art creates the artist. About truth. I play John Kirkman. He's a good man, but he has a haunted past. As Brydon spoke, his entire bearing softened. He leaned forward, his eyes and mouth all twitching independently of each other. So he has this horrible thing happen to him, he sees a hate crime and he doesn't do anything. So it's kind of timely because it talks about race and America, you know? Black people. Well, I guess it's a Muslim guy technically. But what we do, is it's about a white guy, because I am white and I'm not ashamed of it. I mean, I'm not proud of it, it's just that I am, anyway, John sees another white guy hurting a guy who isn't white, because he's Muslim, and that's the hate crime. I guess he actually kills him, the other guy kills the...well, no spoilers. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

John, Brydon continued as he scooted forward, bumping his leg against Monica's. Oops, sorry, he said to the table, anyway, John sees the hate crime and he gets tortured about it because he didn't intervene, so he writes a memoir and it's really successful. It kind of captures the American imagination because he's talking about race and America. Like the movie. And this is what's the best part, is that it's sort of, like, it gets meta, right? It...can I do spoilers?

Sure.

Brydon's face dropped. You're not gonna see it?

I'm sure I'll see it eventually, Monica replied, because life is long and full of surprises.

"Well, you should see it, but...anyway, John turns his memoir into a movie. He writes it and directs it. And then in our movie, The Flickering Dream, he goes to the theater to watch his movie. And so he's watching his movie, which is a movie in our movie, and his movie tells the story of our movie, but different, and so there's room for interpretation. But it also ends with him, the him in John's movie in our movie, going to the movie theater to sit down and watch his movie. So then we go into his movie, so we're watching me, as John, watching the movie he made where an actor playing him watches a movie that he made with an actor playing him. And at the end that one goes into the movie theater but the movie doesn't start, so it's kind of like an ambiguous ending because it leaves the audience with a question."

Monica nodded and hoped her phone had picked all of that up - it'd take more time than she had here to make sense of that. And what is that question?

Brydon slapped the table, hard.

Monica flinched.

Exactly! he shouted. "What is art? Are we in our own movies? He picked up his ceramic coffee cup, which Monica had a feeling was not long for this world. What is this? Is this a real cup, is it a prop? Is it art?" He stood up and - yep, called it - launched the cup at the nearest wall.

It exploded in a cough of pottery and hot bean water.

"Is that art?" Brydon bellowed.

All around them, the coffee shop fell silent. Heads turning. Shoulders tensing.

Monica projected calm as best she could. Only the back of her chair, creaking as she leaned against it, gave her away.

Race and America? Brydon shouted. Then he sat back down and mumbled, I told them, listen, get me a not-white person to do the profile. He pointed at Monica. "I want that perspective, you know. It's important. You can get it the way other people don't. The Flickering Dream is a movie that tells it like it is. I'm really proud to be a part of it. I also executive produced it."

It...yeah, Monica nodded. I can tell you're quite passionate abo-

I need to get another coffee. He stood up. All at once, everyone in the shop resumed their conversations.

Though Brydon made a fuss at the counter, the barista refused to give him anything other than a paper travel cup. Brydon, to his credit, never actually said the words do you know who I am during that interaction. But then, he did look over at Monica quite a lot.

I had a dark period, yeah. Sure. Guilty. He raised his hand as they walked up Seventh towards the subway station, off to go visit the studio where he was hard at work recording voices for an animated film.

Someone waved at him. Brydon frowned back. "C-C-Craig's Way was a huge hit. And did it go to my head? A little bit. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Why wouldn't it? I was young, and before that I'd grown up with hardly anything. My first car was used. It was humiliating. But suddenly I'm young, well, I was still...anyway, I was young, and I was on TV and magazines and talk shows and everybody loved me. I was a bona fide phenomenon, right? So sure, it went to my head a bit. Fine. I can admit that. They arrived at an intersection. Monica stopped; Brydon didn't. But what p-"

Oh, hang on, Monica tugged on his shirt sleeve. Red light.

Brydon chuckled. Pedestrians have the right away, he explained, as he walked into traffic.

Brydon!

A car screeched to a halt mere inches from him, the driver all but doing a handstand on the horn.

Brydon just shrugged and gave the driver an impish them's the breaks shrug, one so obnoxious it had a brakes pun built-in. When the light changed, Monica hustled across the street to meet him. Why did you do that?

"I'm clean. Did I tell you that? You probably think I'm high or something. I'm not. I'm high on sobriety. Or as I like to say, I'm high on sobrigh." He pursed his lips and nodded. "High on Sobrigh. It's got a nice ring, right? I actually trademarked that, so I can put it on shirts and stuff. But you can use it in the article. I can see it in big font. Top of the page, big font."

Monica nodded and smiled. I'm sure you can. So you've quit alcohol entirely?

"I'm talking about drugs. Drink doesn't make you high. Pay attention."

An older woman walking past did a double-take, remounted the curb and pointed a trembling finger at Brydon. "You're...you're C-C-Craig! Right?"

Brydon changed. Monica couldn't figure out if he was donning a mask or shedding one, but that softer, warmer man she'd glimpsed earlier reappeared to take the woman's proffered hand and shake, gently. Oh, my friends call me Brydon. Brydon gestured to Monica. "This is Monica. She works at The New Yorker."

Oh, wow! The woman enthused. Are they gonna write about you?

They are. What's your name?

"Oh, oh, gosh, how rude. My name's Isabel. Oh, Mr. Brydon, I love all of your work. I saw The Flickering Dream at least four times. I was trying to get all of my friends to watch The Gherkins, b-"

Brydon laughed. "Wow, you are a fan. I don't think even my agent's seen The Gherkins. Either episode," he added with an ironic wink to Monica.

Monica couldn't help but smile. There was something slightly disturbing about being so instantly charmed by a grown man she'd just seen throw a coffee cup at a wall and shout Race and America? But, well, that was his job. His very silly job.

Here, Isabel blubbered as she fished her phone from her pocket, oh, Mr. Brydon, my son i-

"Isabel, please, I especially insist that anybody who's seen The Gherkins calls me Brydon."

I'm sorry Mr...ha, Brydon!

Quite alright. What about your son?

"Yes, yes, my son. He just loves your work. He wants to be an actor too, and oh, is there any way you could speak to him, just very quickly maybe?"

Brydon agreed.

Monica watched him as he took the phone from Isabel and spoke to her son, smiling and reaffirming, again and again, that it was indeed he, Brydon Plyst. He leaned his ear into the phone, as though reconnecting with an old friend. He listened. He was patient. He was generous.

It was oddly enraging. Monica couldn't pin this guy down. He was almost like a regular celebrity in reverse. Rather than throwing up a smokescreen of truculence to protect his fundamental humanity, it seemed like the kindness was the diversion, the moat around his temperamental stronghold.

Or maybe that was wrong. Just as wrong as her initial size-up had been. There was no way to know. Not at present, at least.

More observation required.

So you wanna be an actor when you grow up? You're smart to start young, that... He paused. "You're...oh. Well hey, it's never too late! Man, you've got a youthful voice." He made an exaggerated oh no face at Isabel and tugged on his collar.

The old woman laughed. So did Monica.

Brydon didn't have a monthly pass on his MTA card, so Monica had to wait while he filled up. Once they'd swiped through the turnstiles and reached their platform, she hit him with what she thought of as her softball smirk. You know it's cheaper to go monthly, if you ride the train a lot.

I don't, he replied.

Don't know it's cheaper, or don't ride the train?

He gave her a patient-schoolmarm face as he walked them down the platform a ways. I like being on the back of the train, he offered, as though in reply.

Why is that?

Another silent tilt of the head.

You seem somewhat standoffish with me, Brydon. What's the reason for that?

From the end of the tunnel, a light. The screeches of the train announced its coming, like royal fanfare from folks who hadn't had a whole lot of rehearsal time.

She considered the phone still recording in her pocket. Hold that thought, she said, though Brydon had given no indication a response was coming. Train's gonna mess up the sound.

Brydon looked down at her pocket, smiled, then leaned in and whispered in her ear: what if I told you I was going to jump?

It took Monica a moment to process that. Jump where? Oh...

She froze. Then tilted away from Brydon.

The young star pulled out his most glittering time for my close-up smile.

Ok, it was shitty, but Monica couldn't help her first thought being I hope the phone is picking this up.

Her eyes darted down the tunnel to the spreading light, the engorging roar. She looked back to Brydon. He wasn't looking back towards the train, only at her. For some reason, it was that singularity of focus that convinced her that, whatever this was...it wasn't entirely a joke.

Brydon, she replied cautiously, not wanting to indulge a prank, nor shrug off something more serious, I don't find that sort of thing funny.

You have time to get out your phone. Take a video. I don't mind. There was a quiet confidence to his smile. Like he'd worked for months to perfect a standing backflip, and he couldn't wait to show her.

What the fuck was this?

Monica felt her brow crinkling over her eyes. Don't talk like that, please.

It's okay, he said. Softly. I don't mind.

The pit of Monica's stomach dropped out. This wasn't even partially a joke. She didn't care how fucking good an actor this guy was, you couldn't get that slate-grey slab behind the eyes without paving over something vital. Please stop.

I'm offering you a scoop.

Where is this coming from, Brydon?

There's a security camera up there, he tilted his smile over Monica's shoulder. TMZ'll have the footage pulled from that by the end of the day. The world sees it either way. I'm just giving you the chance to make a bit of cash on it.

Monica could feel the platform beneath her feet rumbling now.

She looked down the tunnel. Two hundred, maybe two-fifty feet away, and closing. She could see the fleshy little circle of the driver's face. Could she signal? How would they know what Monica was trying to say?

Take a beat and explain this to me, Monica pleaded. You have everything going for you. She wanted to elaborate but found herself at a loss. So she pivoted and hoped he wouldn't notice: Um...people look up to you. You're a role model.

You're missing your chance, he smiled at her. He edged nearer to the yellow line behind which all passengers were to stand.

THERE IS A...BRONX-BOUND...1 TRAIN...APPROACHING THE STATION a voice informed them.

Monica wanted to scream. Instead, all she managed was an even more mewling appeal. Brydon...I'm not going to stand here and watch you...I'll wrestle you back if I have to!

He scoffed. Coming to life a bit more. Adopting a defensive stance. Good luck. I received fight training from Iko Uwais' team. Pencak fucking Silat, ever heard of it?

She looked back to the train. One hundred feet. The entire station shrieking with vampire delight.

Brydon shouted to be heard. Get your phone out! You're gonna wanna film this!

No!

"I thought you were a journalist!" Brydon snapped, his toothy grin going sharp around the canines.

Oh. Oh.

Suddenly, Monica saw it. Felt foolish to have missed it.

Jump, she told him.

Get your phone out!

No.

For the first time, Brydon turned back to the train, its snout mere meters from poking into the station. He turned back, animal panic in his eyes. Take out your phone!

No! Fuck you!

I'm gonna jump!

Then fucking jump!

Brydon frowned.

The train entered the station, tousling their hair as it slid from the gloom of the tunnel. As it slowed, the light from the train cars splashing across their cheeks, one and then the next, stilled to a halo.

Bing!

The doors opened.

This is a...Bronx-bound...1 train.

Monica stepped onto the train and turned. Get on, she commanded.

Brydon stayed on-script this time.

She took her phone out of her pocket, stopped the recording, and showed the halted timecode to Brydon. Struggling to keep her hand from shaking, willing her heart to stop pounding. "Off-record. So quit the fucking bit. Sit," she ordered. Brydon did as told, sitting in the corner seat that Monica indicated. She stayed standing, looming over him. You wanna enlighten me as to what the fuck that was?

Apparently not.

Ooh! someone called over Monica's shoulder. Excuse me, sir, but are you Bryd-

Monica pivoted, thrusting a finger at the young woman stumbling her way across the train car. Grasping for words, finding none. Managing only deep, panicked breathing. The woman got the message well enough, turning around and stumbling back whence she came.

Brydon appeared to be studying the hell out of a piece of smushed gum on the floor of the train.

Hey, Monica growled, snapping her fingers right in front of Brydon's face.

He lifted his gaze. Not a gaze particularly worth elevating.

"I don't know what kind of tortured artist bullshit you were trying to play back there, if that was a power play or you fishing for compliments, or what the fuck, but you don't ever do that. Ever."

...

"I'm writing your fucking puff piece, asshole. This is my goddamned narrative to control. And that oh I'm gonna jump, I'm so dangerous routine, guess what, that's not making it in. At all. I'm not auditioning you to play the fucking Joker or whatever you're all doing method bullshit for now. So if you wanna hang up the showbiz melodrama for two seconds and talk to me, we can make something halfway decent out of this. Otherwise you can look forward to a splashy feature about how you're just another empty-headed, hyper-privileged Hollywood dipshit who can only get his rocks off with emotional manhandling he's too stupid to pull off properly."

Brydon mumbled something that Monica couldn't make out.

Excuse me?

I said, he repeated, you're a lot meaner than you look.

Monica considered that. Nodded. Sat down next to him. Look at us, she chuckled as she started the recording up again, learning about each other.

As it happened, Monica had heard of Pencak fucking Silat. She also happened to know that there were other ways to land a body blow.

The profile that resulted from her long day with Brydon pulled no punches. It painted him as a talented, confused, self-aggrandizing, insecure, intermittently generous, ultimately floundering young man. True to her word, Monica made no mention of the incident on the train platform; she had no need to, given the wealth of material that still remained.

Brydon didn't win his awards. Monica did win one, one she'd never heard of, and it brought her nothing but grief: suddenly Steadman