A man in a suit sat down in the empty seat
next to me and unconsciously covered the armrest between our seats with his
broad, striped suit jacket. I was displeased. I wanted to rest my elbow on that
armrest and here it was suddenly draped in the pompous flap of a businessman’s suit. Not
wanting to ask him directly to move it, I spent the next three minutes casually
trying to push his jacket off the armrest with my elbow. After a concentrated
effort during which I tried to look as oblivious as possible, my elbow finally
staked a claim for itself on the arm. Aha! I allowed myself a small triumphant
smile. Then we arrived at the next station, and in the two seconds that I
removed my elbow to scratch my nose, the pompous suit jacket also removed
itself and was replaced by a chubby, dimpled arm belonging to a large woman who
comfortably took over possession of the recently conquered territory without so
much as a “How d’you do?”
***
While
changing lines at Green Park Station, two boys who didn’t quite reach my
shoulder whizzed past us through the station on rollerskates. They looked free
and blithe and invincible in a way only little boys who are daring enough to ride
the Tube in rollerskates can look, and as they skated ahead, weaving through the
crowd of suits and summer dresses, their lively figures made a pleasing contrast
to the tall sedate shapes walking briskly around them.
We saw
them again when we arrived at the platform for the Piccadilly line, as they
skated over to us to ask, “Is this train going to Hyde Park Corner?” Yes it is, we told them, and they contentedly retreated a little way from us to wait
near the edge of the platform for the train. They stood there in their
rollerskates, looking as if they might at any moment roll over onto the tracks,
but they were unconscious of any cause for fear. Finding no room for itself in
the boys’ minds, fear chose instead to settle on everyone around the youngsters, and my
friends and I watched the rollerskaters anxiously while they chatted in still-unbroken
voices with each other. When the train pulled in, they clambered onto it cheerfully,
quite unaware of the sea of hands behind them, stretched out in case they
needed a steadying push. The doors closed, all the suits and summer dresses and
rollerskates safely on board, and the whole carriage sighed a collective sigh
of relief.
***
I changed lines at Green Park from Piccadilly to Jubilee, with three
stops to go until Southwark. The train was mostly empty, and I absorbed myself
in my phone. When the doors opened at Westminster I was jolted out of my
self-imposed isolation and panicked, thinking I’d missed my stop. I ran off the
train discomposed, and as I watched the train pull out behind me, I realized I
had alighted two stations too early. Why is my response to panic always to run
and never to freeze? I spun around in the middle of the station and
tried to look cool as I walked sheepishly past everyone else who had got off
and back to the platform to wait for the next train. After about five minutes,
the train pulled in, and I climbed into a carriage overcrowded with sweaty
bodies that made me think longingly of the cool, empty train I had pointlessly
left minutes before.
***
I sat
down diagonally across from a young girl and her brother. The girl looked at me
and leaned over to her brother to whisper something, and they both stared at me
and smirked. I matched their stare and shoved my earphones into my ears,
feeling both amused and frustrated with myself for caring enough to glare back
at them. They continued to stare and smirk and nod their heads knowingly, and I
found myself wondering what could possibly be so entertaining about my person
at that moment. In a fit of immaturity I rolled my eyes at them. I immediately
felt as though I was about two inches tall, and decided to stop paying attention to the giggles coming from my two o’clock before I could go any lower in my own eyes.
I was glad to get off a few stations later, glad to escape the tween-shaped
reminders of my own self-consciousness.
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