A Destination- Charing Cross

Destination: Charing Cross

I took this train to work every morning. From Wembley Park, it took
about 35 minutes at the most to cover the distance. Often, there were
the same faces one sees and after a while, begins to recognise as the
intricate dots in a pattern so regular its random origins seem
unbelievable. The 8.27 am from Wembley.

I missed the usual faces this time. I don't know, perhaps I wasn't
looking to see it they were there or not. But I knew the experience was
different. For a start, the carriage wasn't as full. In fact, some
would say it was sparsely populated. I took my regular seat, by the
double doors. Under the sign on the orange sticker that said, "Please
give this seat to elderly or disabled or those carrying children." No
one seemed bothered. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, do you know how plants
grow? Why photosynthesis of course, said the poster for the Natural
History Museum across me.

At Finchley road, a boy came in who could not stop looking at me. He
did it surreptitiously, as if not to let on he was staring intently.
Was there something wrong with me? I had dressed rather smartly this
time round, wearing my navy blue wool coat with the tartan lining, and
my square-toed brown shoes with the silver eyelets for black round
laces. I carried my Indian hand knitted backpack. I had shaved my
goatee into the perfect shape that morning and there was not a mark
elsewhere on my face. He sat across me, playing with the broken skin on
his thumb, then spreading his palms on his crossed legs, displaying the
rings on his fingers for a hand exhibition. I had a good mind to ask
him what his bloody problem was. But at the moment I plucked up the
courage, he had moved on, sitting in the next section of 3 adjoining
seats, while both me and him looked at the drunk sipping pungent beer
out of a Lucozade bottle and flicking crumbs from his trouser legs.
Still, I thought he dressed very well. For an ethnic person he looked
funky and hip and all that, like a real London boy on the town.

Ok, fine, so I read a John Grisham paperback. So what? It was only
reading for the train ride anyway. Did he have to condescend to me like
that? Like I knew he wanted me to raise his legs in the air and pound
into him, except now that he realised I read tacky crime thrillers
picked up in airport bookshops, I was no longer good enough. If the
carriage was emptier, and maybe it was 10 or 11 at night, I would have
picked up all the candy bar wrappers-all the Twix and Mars and Swirl
and what have you - stuffed them into his beautiful mouth and made him
bend over right there. Maybe play a Wagner opera while screwing him.
Make him grab on to the fluorescent yellow pole as the train rattled
under Baker Street and Trafalgar Square and make him latch on to a man
who read John Grisham. I bet he just skipped to the movie versions
without bothering to even pick up the book.

I got so fed up when this cleric barged through the doors at Baker
street and started eating his mandarins from a plastic bag in his lap.
The scent of oranges tore through the rattling Jubilee line, while his
turban slowly spilled down to his straggly beard. The ethnic boy looked
at the cleric with contempt, but he looked at me with a gleaming smile
instead. His black blazer over a white flowy shirt was full of little
hairs and colourful bits from his days in the East End garment
sweatshops. Soon, he snored cosily like it was his own house. When the
American lady got on at Green Park - you know she's American 'cos she
wears black tights with cheap jogging shoes that sneak out under a huge
mansized raincoat - I thought it would be the perfect menage a trois
I'd like to try out. Her, and the boy and the holy man in his shiny
patent leather shoes.

It was 10 past nine in the evening when the Jubilee Line pulled into
Charing Cross.

Luckily I'd put the baby to sleep before I left.

At Charing Cross, I met him at the assigned time, he was standing
outside the Kent tavern and when the whole crowd of washed up commuters
swarmed forward like an invading army of footmen to board their train
to Gillingham and Brighton and Croydon and Surrey at the platforms they
know religiously, we moved to the gentlemen's loos beside the Tie Rack
counter. Down the stairs and into the first cubicle on the left.

I tasted the sweat on his scrawny neck.
(c)Gurmit Singh Sidhu, June 2000.