It's hard to believe it now, but do you realise that when I first started working the occasional day in the centre of London I used to actively avoid the always-crowded underground trains during rush hour? In fact, I used to try my hardest to avoid travelling at all during those morning and evening sardine-tin journey times.
That changed back in the summer, though, and in a way that, like a lottery win on a ticket you had forgotten you bought, was most unexpected and most welcome.
I'm Maria, by the way, and I hasten to add that I am in every sense a normal, average, not very adventurous young (more or less -- thirty) woman, with a busy career and a fairly typical London home life (single and glad of the freedom). I'm slender (a more polite way of saying fairly skinny), with ratty, untameable dark hair, a not-unpleasant face with big brown eyes and a big smile, and the only feature I have that is in any way non-average is my height which is two inches shy of six foot but which makes me look taller. Or perhaps that's a product of my penchant for heels?
Anyway, none of that is relevant to my recollections of the days last summer when my travel horizons were broadened. Except possibly my height, come to think of it.
As I have already said, I tried my hardest to avoid having to travel into the centre of the City at peak times even on those days when I had to visit the central offices. The trip, when I do make it, involves one long underground schlep from the east of the city all the way across town to a stop just a minute's walk from the head office building in the west end -- a journey that lasts anything from twenty-two minutes to thirty-something.
Anyone that has ever travelled on the capital's tube trains knows that they can get mightily over-full in the centre of town with tourists and back-packers adding their not-inconsiderable weight to the regular local commuters, but what a lot of visitors and locals alike don't realise is just how crammed the beaten-up carriages get during the morning and evening crush when office workers pile onto the trains. You see people quite literally squeezing themselves into carriages that are already over-full to the point of potential crush injury. You can see, from the platform -- again, quite literally -- faces pressed up tight against the inside of carriage doors, and to the uninitiated there is a scary quality to the prospect of trying to join such a throng. Trust me, it really can be close to panic-inducing. Or at least, in my case that's how it used to be.
The one benefit of my journey, where I had no choice but to make it, is that at either end of the trip -- in other words whether it were morning of evening rush hour I was facing -- I was always boarding the train before the real crush had started. The stations I use at either end of the journey are just that couple of stops outside of the busiest zones, but unfortunately not so far outside that there was ever a holy grail available -- sorry, I mean seat. Standing was the order of the day and knowing the journey so well, I always took up position as far away from the doors that would be opening in order to admit the hordes as was possible.
Such was the case on the first of the days in question, and early evening commute back from the west end to the sanctuary of my apartment in the east end. Or at least, the wine bar three doors down from there.
I took up my position as a strap-hanger by the doors on the side of the carriage that would be remaining closed while the train stopped at the seventeen stations on my journey, and started to occupy my time with thoughts of the menu I would be preparing at the weekend when two of my old school-friends were due to visit. I was wondering where the heck I could get hold of some fresh lemon grass -- more of a problem than you might imagine living so close to Brick Lane -- when the train rolled into the first of the seventeen stops and I singularly failed to notice a larger-than-usual crowd of fellow commuters board.
It wasn't until the third stop -- wild rice -- when I began to realise that the evening's journey was going to be one of the more crowded ones. Where 'more', of course, is a very high number multiplied by 'n' for any given value of 'more'. In less scientific terms, it was going to be fucking crammed. A tall guy in a crumpled suit was already starting to crowd me from in front, to the point where an equally tall guy in an equally rumpled suit was edging backwards behind me, despite the fact that he was already pretty much pressed up against the unyielding doors behind him.
At the fourth stop -- although I could no longer see past the throng and through the opening doors and on to the platform -- the barely stifled groans of the current occupants indicated that there was a sizeable crowd wanting to board. A few seconds later, amid much forced politeness and totally unforced swearing, everyone already on board the train was pressed back even further. The doors wheezed closed and the train began to lurch into the darkness of the next tunnel where the underground system's embarrassment could be hidden from public view.
It was just as we entered the tunnel when I realised the guy behind me was trying to edge sideways. When I shook my head clear of all thoughts of Vietnamese cuisine, I also realised why. He was now pressed rather tightly up against me. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, my butt was level with -- and highly adjacent to -- the front of his suit trousers. His edging was to no avail though, as we were effectively pinned into the corner of the alcove where the doors were situated between the ranks of precious, unobtainable seats.
