This is a hybrid piece of writing, written on 3 or 4 evenings over a couple of weeks.
I was standing on Platform 9 at Victoria Station, waiting for the 1837 train to West Croydon via Crystal Palace (is that too much detail, or is it little details that transform writing from the mundane to the slightly above mundane?) when I spotted a man I use to work with some years ago. Indeed, we trained together and are almost exact contemporaries.
I read a few months ago that he had been appointed to a senior post in some department or other. Rather, more senior than me, which doesn't mean senior at all! I have spotted him a few times at Streatham Hill. Or, rather, spotted someone who looks like him but I concluded it wasn't him because he looked far too young to be in a senior post. But I managed a good long look at him this evening, and it was definitely him. And he definitely looks too young to be in a senior post. But not too young to be a contemporary of mine.
I thought to myself: gosh we must be the only *old* (ie over 30) people getting this train. Then I looked around me and realised that there were not very many under 30s there, and very few under 25s. I have been regularly travelling by overground in the evenings for about fifteen months; I previously did it in 91-95. In those former times, I used to think that everybody was older and more sophisticated. Of late, I have been convinced that they are younger and more sophisticated. I look round now:
we are an eclectic mix. The half Chinese man with a pony-tail opposite me is reading about shrinking databases. The black woman from the Deep South of America with the handsfree mobile has just got off at Battersea Park, having explained to 'Darling' that 'we pay her on Thursdays' - the childminder? the woman who does?
The white woman in the powder-blue jumper has put away her text book, and is frowning, troubled. Is she ill-prepared for night-school, or is she returning home to a collapsing relationship or an expiring relation?
The unsophisticated woman opposite has put away her Heat and is fiddling with her - handsfree - phone. I can faintly hear the tinny sounds from my neighbour's Walkman, but it doesn't annoy.
There's a man reading over my shoulder. Should I give him the web-address of my blog?
My god, that woman's jeans are gynaecological. She goes to work like that?
The man across the aisle is actually laughing out loud at whatever's coming through his dinner-plate-like ear-phones.
Looking around the train this evening I recognise only one face. I would have thought it would be more. But, then, I'm thinking of this as a quarter-hourly service, whereas for anyone leaving the train before me it is a five minutely service.
Most people are dressed in a range from smart jumper and trousers to three piece pinstripe suit. A man has just got on and is sitting diagonally opposite me. Over six foot, slender (not thin). Afro-Caribbean. He wears a neck to ankle black-brown leather coat. Round his neck is a bright red/green/yellow horizontally striped silk scarf with a tasselled fringe. He looks sensitive and gentle. He has in-ear earphones. The sound is inaudible to me. He reads a novel, the title is concealed from me. On somebody who would already stand out in a crowd, the most remarkable item is his hat. a large deerstalker...in fur, fake I assume. Very black, and probably nearly new, judging by the sleek strokeability of it. In peripheral vision it looks like a parody 70s Afro hairstyle. In full view, it shows a man unafraid to be flamboyant, who doesn't swim with the shoal.
He shares his six-seat with tonight's only phone-fiddler; a very young woman called Angela who has a 3 foot bunch of flowers; and someone reading "In Search of Zarasthustra."
The woman opposite me is now texting. Maybe it says "Nr Strthm Hl. Pt csrl in ovn." Or "RUSSIA". Who knows?
Ah, Streatham Hill Station. Site of Stampeding Hordes. When the days are longer and the nights are lighter I shall be a straggler and photograph the tsunami of humanity ascending the double set of stairs.
On the bus, a young woman pays with an Oyster Card. I want.
Off the bus on the hill, walk along M. Road. M. Road has houses/flats on the left, and a building site on the right. There are no street lights on the right; the lights on the hoarding are more to draw attention to the hoarding than to light the road.
The road is one way - from Subsidiary to Main road. So why does that young man think it is clever to ride his lacking lights bike from Main to Subsidiary. I have seen the speed the Yuppies take that road.
Finally, I'm home. I switch on the dining-room light. I look to the answer phone - no new messages, still a pleasurable emotion following eight years on the Council! Switch on computer. Take off coat and jacket. Kick off shoes, put on slippers. Hang up coat. Check Radio Times. Press random on stereo - I know there are two Double CDs in there. Sit down at computer. Blog.
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