An American man is talking on his mobile - should I say cellphone? - outside the station. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, "Well I was saying we should wait for Merill Lynch. I said they won't keep their jobs for long."
I walk past him and past the woman selling the evening papers, stiff in her multiple layers of clothing, and the free paper vendors decked out in opposing purple and yellow.
A group of Italians are talking on the platform. I try to interpret their conversation, but only snatch the odd word here and there. From "domani mattina" I deduce they are making plans for the next morning, but I gather no more tidbits because the train arrives.
The doors shunt open and now I'm trying to squeeze on next to a bleach-blonde, middle-aged woman standing with her sister; at least I assume they must be sisters. There is plenty of space behind her if she would just move back, but she doesn't - doesn't even look round - and I am forced to bend awkwardly to prevent the door shutting on my coat the way I saw it happening a few weeks ago.
At the time, the man - a commuter - stood there oblivious, and a member of staff - the guy with the paddle - had to signal to the driver to open the doors once, twice, three times to free the coat before the train could move on.
The self-important blonde - with makeup-packed wrinkles deep around her eyes serving as an ugly contrast to her suspiciously flat forehead - steamrollers her sister with inane chatter, seemingly loathe to take a breath or come to the end of a sentence, "And I mean I don't know, I just wouldn't do anything like that, but she, well she said it might not be his sort of thing, and I don't know, but I just can't imagine a situation where I would do that, I don't know anyone who would, but she said he might not want to, so I said but I'm not sure you should do something like that..."
The woman's voice drones on, almost as hackle-raising as her elbow in my face. Luckily she, and a few other people get off at the next stop and I take the opportunity to move into the heart of the carriage, holding onto the central pole, and finding a seat at the stop after.
I settle down and let my eyes take in the row of shoes opposite me. Blue, knitted boots (yes footwear made of wool, who knew?); black, patent-leather shoes, crissed-crossed with a pattern of punched holes; overlong toes cramped into slip on, cardboard thin, ballet shoes; steel toecapped (I'm guessing) boots encrusted with plaster and speckled drops of paint.
A pair of high heels gets up to be replaced by unlaced sneakers, the tongue hanging forwards like a hungry dog. Next to those a pair of silver trainers looking down upon their blingless counterparts; and finally a man in flipflops, presumably of lower than average intelligence, at any rate courting frostbite in these winter months.
Passengers - and their shoes - come and go. The wash of voices swells and subsides. A man in dark jeans with a sheen of designer stubble gets out two mobile phones the moment we leave the tunnel and speaks loudly into one while fiddling with the other. It's hard to imagine a reason why he would need to use two mobile phones at once, unless he is a drug dealer, a serial philanderer or otherwise an idiot. But perhaps I'm being unfair.
My stop draws near and I get up, squeezing past a woman with a suitcase to go and stand by the doors. Then I'm out on the platform, down the stairs, through the barriers, the tunnel and the suburban streets and home.
Thursday 22 January 2009
Wednesday 14 January 2009
This Product Contains Absolutely No Chemicals
It is a universal law that when you set out to look you will find something - even if what you find is not what you were looking for.
Laura Thomas is not contemplating this as she walks beside her new friend. Neither does she notice the seagulls circling above, chasing the tail of a passing plane, or the low winter light glancing off the city skyline. Observation isn't her strong point. Nor is self awareness. In all truth, if asked, Laura would prove unable to point to a single thing about her that could be called a talent. She had, once, been good at history. Not outstanding, but good enough to study it, until she got to a point where her abilities seemed to fall away, outpaced by the level of her tutors' expectations.
It seemed to happen overnight. One day she was passable, and the next left behind. There wasn't much to be gained by carrying on, so she abandoned academia in search of something else and ended up here, walking towards the river with a shiny new companion - a young woman with earnest facial piercings and inexpertly-dreadlocked hair. The woman's name is Femi and the pair met just hours ago, but Femi talks so enthusiastically and acts so decisively that already Laura finds herself following in her wake, adjusting to accommodate her every whim.
Femi is rather inadequately dressed, her only nod to the temperature a blue and silver woven scarf thrown wildly around her shoulders and neck. In her right hand she holds a cigarette; her left she uses solely for gesticulation. Next to Femi, Laura feels awkward and dull, her own scarf neatly wrapped around her throat, her hair fuzzily framing her ill-formed, features. But Laura doesn't mind the unfavourable comparison - Femi's energy is of the kind that a lost person can feed on. In a very real sense, Laura feels saved by her.
They are walking to a restaurant, a vegetarian, whole-foods, hippy-middle-class-organic kind of place, somehow still open despite exorbitant inner-city rents. And Femi is talking, extolling, lecturing hypnotically about chi and karma and a whole mixed bag of half-remembered, exotic-sounding notions. For her, it seems, the words don't matter, only the prefix 'alternative'. Laura's core of common sense raises frequent objections, but she silences them and lets the power Femi's voice invigorate her.
As they walk, Laura's mind drifts back to the distant world of this morning - the feel of her skin against the cold handle of the bathroom door, the soft blush of her breath on the mirror, the emptiness she had registered when she gazed into her pale eyes. This morning there had seemed so little point to anything, so little purpose, and yesterday morning and countless mornings before, but this morning was different. This morning she had run out of shampoo.
A man in a thick, navy overcoat fumbled past her as she negotiated the heavy door to the shop. His breath acrid, he hissed frustration and bundled his bags of shopping around her and out, leaving her inwardly broken and close to giving up. Somehow she made it to the correct shelf - a monumental effort - and was about to place the bottle of own-brand shampoo in her basket when a voice rang out. Femi's voice.
"Oh no, don't get that one."
"Sorry?" Laura replied, half a question, half an apology for existing. Her hand faltered between the basket and the shelf.
"You don't want to buy that brand, it's full of chemicals. They're bad for your hair, and you've got such nice hair."
A giddy nausea rose in Laura. She was noticed, she was someone. She had nice hair. Curling a lock of it around her fingers, she firmly placed the shampoo back on the shelf.
"This one is better." Femi proffered an alternative and Laura took it reverently from her.
"See," Femi continued insistently, indicating the label, "'This product contains absolutely no chemicals'. It's much better for you. Have you heard of reiki?"
That was Laura's new beginning, a rebirth of sorts, and now they are here, a few hours later, walking through the city, united in their movements, framed by the warm glow of their skin smarting in the cold air. As they walk, a rare unbidden thought comes to Laura, transitory, replaced in an instant by the drowning buzz of contentment - when you are looking you will always find something, even if what you find is not what you were looking for.
Laura Thomas is not contemplating this as she walks beside her new friend. Neither does she notice the seagulls circling above, chasing the tail of a passing plane, or the low winter light glancing off the city skyline. Observation isn't her strong point. Nor is self awareness. In all truth, if asked, Laura would prove unable to point to a single thing about her that could be called a talent. She had, once, been good at history. Not outstanding, but good enough to study it, until she got to a point where her abilities seemed to fall away, outpaced by the level of her tutors' expectations.
It seemed to happen overnight. One day she was passable, and the next left behind. There wasn't much to be gained by carrying on, so she abandoned academia in search of something else and ended up here, walking towards the river with a shiny new companion - a young woman with earnest facial piercings and inexpertly-dreadlocked hair. The woman's name is Femi and the pair met just hours ago, but Femi talks so enthusiastically and acts so decisively that already Laura finds herself following in her wake, adjusting to accommodate her every whim.
Femi is rather inadequately dressed, her only nod to the temperature a blue and silver woven scarf thrown wildly around her shoulders and neck. In her right hand she holds a cigarette; her left she uses solely for gesticulation. Next to Femi, Laura feels awkward and dull, her own scarf neatly wrapped around her throat, her hair fuzzily framing her ill-formed, features. But Laura doesn't mind the unfavourable comparison - Femi's energy is of the kind that a lost person can feed on. In a very real sense, Laura feels saved by her.
They are walking to a restaurant, a vegetarian, whole-foods, hippy-middle-class-organic kind of place, somehow still open despite exorbitant inner-city rents. And Femi is talking, extolling, lecturing hypnotically about chi and karma and a whole mixed bag of half-remembered, exotic-sounding notions. For her, it seems, the words don't matter, only the prefix 'alternative'. Laura's core of common sense raises frequent objections, but she silences them and lets the power Femi's voice invigorate her.
As they walk, Laura's mind drifts back to the distant world of this morning - the feel of her skin against the cold handle of the bathroom door, the soft blush of her breath on the mirror, the emptiness she had registered when she gazed into her pale eyes. This morning there had seemed so little point to anything, so little purpose, and yesterday morning and countless mornings before, but this morning was different. This morning she had run out of shampoo.
A man in a thick, navy overcoat fumbled past her as she negotiated the heavy door to the shop. His breath acrid, he hissed frustration and bundled his bags of shopping around her and out, leaving her inwardly broken and close to giving up. Somehow she made it to the correct shelf - a monumental effort - and was about to place the bottle of own-brand shampoo in her basket when a voice rang out. Femi's voice.
"Oh no, don't get that one."
"Sorry?" Laura replied, half a question, half an apology for existing. Her hand faltered between the basket and the shelf.
"You don't want to buy that brand, it's full of chemicals. They're bad for your hair, and you've got such nice hair."
A giddy nausea rose in Laura. She was noticed, she was someone. She had nice hair. Curling a lock of it around her fingers, she firmly placed the shampoo back on the shelf.
"This one is better." Femi proffered an alternative and Laura took it reverently from her.
"See," Femi continued insistently, indicating the label, "'This product contains absolutely no chemicals'. It's much better for you. Have you heard of reiki?"
That was Laura's new beginning, a rebirth of sorts, and now they are here, a few hours later, walking through the city, united in their movements, framed by the warm glow of their skin smarting in the cold air. As they walk, a rare unbidden thought comes to Laura, transitory, replaced in an instant by the drowning buzz of contentment - when you are looking you will always find something, even if what you find is not what you were looking for.
Saturday 3 January 2009
Christmas
The fatted man sits lumpishly and contemplates his navel –
Incidentally much closer to him than it was some days before.
Around his head fly queasy thoughts of chocolates, wine and turkey.
Consequentially, he turns away and groans and pleads for nothing more.
His mind is crammed with Christmas tunes, with caroling and panto –
Am-dramatically the best he's seen, at least since 1998
When Widow Twanky ran away with Cinderella's husband,
But emphatically declined to give the matinee a miss. A great
Uneasy bloatedness consumes the man's attention
Indigestibly berating him for weaknesses he should condemn.
So, filled with sudden strength of mind, he hoists his body upright,
Optimistically declaring that he'll never want to eat again.
His eyes roam wildly round the room along the paths of tinsel
Accidentally alighting on a solitary macaroon
Just one will do no harm, he thinks, and stoops to claim the biscuit
Unconvincingly proclaiming that he'll stop this overeating soon.
Incidentally much closer to him than it was some days before.
Around his head fly queasy thoughts of chocolates, wine and turkey.
Consequentially, he turns away and groans and pleads for nothing more.
His mind is crammed with Christmas tunes, with caroling and panto –
Am-dramatically the best he's seen, at least since 1998
When Widow Twanky ran away with Cinderella's husband,
But emphatically declined to give the matinee a miss. A great
Uneasy bloatedness consumes the man's attention
Indigestibly berating him for weaknesses he should condemn.
So, filled with sudden strength of mind, he hoists his body upright,
Optimistically declaring that he'll never want to eat again.
His eyes roam wildly round the room along the paths of tinsel
Accidentally alighting on a solitary macaroon
Just one will do no harm, he thinks, and stoops to claim the biscuit
Unconvincingly proclaiming that he'll stop this overeating soon.
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