Lost & Found on the Underground

Of all the things that I like to do, the thing that I like to do most is to observe the tiny little details that no-one would miss if they disappeared. Like dirty fingernails, or escalators whose handrails travel faster than the steps or that little finger-wave you get from people when they let you cross in front of them on the road. I find that the best way to see these things is to get a job where you will always be around dirt and escalators and people.

That is why I work for the Lost Property Office of the London Underground. I began as a temp and spoke to people who had lost things on the tube. Lots of people lose things like wallets and purses and false teeth and bags and shoes and lots of people hand them in too which I think is really nice. Especially the shoes. I would think twice before I would pick up a strange pair of shoes but that is just me.

I liked doing that job because it gave me an idea of what was important to people. Like the time I spoke to a woman who had lost her wedding ring. She didn’t seem overly distraught about it but wanted to know if we had it before she submitted a claim to her insurer because she didn’t want to get into trouble for making a false claim. While we were looking I asked her how long she had been married for. She said that she wasn’t sure and then she chewed gum and blew bubbles from it like she was in a movie.

After that I spoke to another woman who had lost a small notebook in which she wrote the names of every new person she met and the circumstances under which they met, whether it was a passing acquaintance or a new friend. She had been keeping a record of such things for over ten years and she kept bursting into tears while I was making a note of the description and contents of the book. I am glad to say that we found the notebook - someone handed it in and they left their contact details and when the woman came in to collect it she asked if she could have the person who found it’s number which the person who found it had already given us permission to do so and so she wrote down the number and sometimes I like to think that they met and fell in love and that their name is written in her notebook somewhere only she never lost it again. I think that would make for a nice story. The world is full of nice stories if you look close enough.

One day I got promoted to the Special Enquiries department. My first customer was a man; tall, but he seemed small, like he was shrinking in on himself. He was all pale faced and shaky and looked as though he was going to start crying at any point. I walked round the desk and asked him to take a seat. When I asked him how I could help he told me that he had lost his confidence the other week and he thought it might have been on the tube, possibly somewhere near Canary Wharf. He said he’d been going through hell since it happened because he was a motivational speaker and it was the worst thing that could have happened to him and his life was over if he couldn’t find it. I told him not to worry, that if he’d lost it on the tube then we’d be sure to find it again.

I shouldn’t have said that because we can’t find everything, but I had a good feeling that day and so I went with my instinct. I asked him what it looked like as I rooted around in the back and he said that it was blue, the kind of blue that you get on checked dresses that girls wear to school and I knew that he meant gingham because I like that word, I think it is a very nice word. He also said that it was a bit slippery and that that was probably how he lost it in the first place.

I was on my knees at this point, my arm reaching into a darkened corner of the back room and as I stretched I felt some strange jelly-like substance pulse and then shrink back from me. I got down on my belly and reached in with both arms, before retrieving what looked like a tiny blue jellyfish. The man was right, it really was slippery and I had to cradle it in my arms so as not to drop it. He was so happy when I showed it to him and even gave me a hug which is not something that anyone has ever done given me, even when I found things that they had lost.

And that is my job. I help people to find the things they never thought they would lose and then once they lost them thought they might never find again. It’s not much different from a person losing an umbrella or a hat. The worst times are when you can’t help someone. Like the first time I had a teenage girl come in telling me she’d lost her virginity and she really wanted it back. I explained that we could only help people find things they’d lost on the tube and she said that she did lose it on the tube, somewhere between Blackhorse Road and Walthamstow. I am sorry to say that unless there were particularly heavy delays on that occasion, that is only a journey time of two minutes. I say the first time because that happens at least once a week. When it does I sit the person down (sometimes it’s a boy; people forget that boys can be people too), make them a cup of tea and tell them that “loss is only change and change is Nature’s delight”. It’s a quote by Marcus Aurelius who was responsible for the deaths of a lot of people but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Just a few months ago I had a woman come in and tell me that she’d lost all capacity to love. I asked if she thought she had lost it on the tube and she said yes, she thought it might have been lost somewhere between Camden Town and Morden which was the journey she was making when it happened and also the time it took for her last partner to tell her that they were leaving her for someone else which is a mean thing to do to someone on a crowded train and they weren’t even sitting down, she told me. I asked her when she had lost it and she said about a year ago. That is a longer period of time than we would usually be able to help someone find something and Camden Town to Morden is a lot of stops but because I knew that the capacity to love was a terrible thing to lose whilst stood for a long time on a crowded train and I know this because it once happened to me although not under the same circumstances and because I just like to help people I said that I would see what I could do. I asked what it looked like and she said they didn’t know, she never really thought about it until the day she lost it. I said that that was common, that we all take things for granted and that she shouldn’t feel bad about being just like everybody else in that respect.

I had a bit of a hunt around in the back room, but I couldn’t see anything that might even vaguely resemble love or the ability to love. Actually, I couldn’t even imagine what something like that would look like and I wondered vaguely what that said about me. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind coming back in a day or two to see if I had been able to come up with anything and she said that that was very kind of me and I said not at all it’s what we’re here for and she smiled and said thank you and goodbye. I still couldn’t find anything though. I was sure it was around somewhere, I couldn’t imagine anyone finding it and keeping it for themselves. However, when she came back in a few days later I had to say that I was really sorry but I just couldn’t find it anywhere but if she wanted to maybe leave a number I would keep looking and update her if she liked, so she gave me her number and I kept on looking but still couldn’t find anything. I looked for about a month because we have a very large back room and I rang her every day we got new deliveries but each time the call ended with something like “I’m really sorry” or “Maybe tomorrow” until finally she said “Perhaps it just isn’t there” and I had to agree and we both fell silent for a few moments in order to honour her loss.

After the silence I asked her if she would like to go for a drink or dinner or something sometime and she said yes and we did and now we do lots of things together and we always travel by tube because even though it is dirty and crowded it is ours and we always make sure we take everything with us when we leave.