A Tube Journey

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.