Changing My Fate

Beautiful Brunette on the 9.20 from Clapham, our eyes met. I should have asked for your number. Want mine?
Classic Asian girl, you got off at Holborn and was carrying a pink umbrella. Fancy a drink, I was the tall Asian guy too shy to speak to you all the way from Northfields.
Cute ginger guy with the beard. I was the Italian tourist guy who gave you back your paper when you dropped it. Fancy showing me some sights?
Are these ads in the paper actually for real? Or has someone made them up? I read in absolute fascination. I so want them to be real. And I so want one of them to be about me.
They say that one chance meeting could change your whole life. The question is which chance meeting, could I have missed it already? And if not how can I be sure it’s the right one?
I decide I’m going to follow the Law of Attraction and put myself in the way of good fortune. Tomorrow I’m going to spend the whole day riding the Circle Line, then perhaps someone will write about me?
The next morning I get up at the usual time, I want to keep my routine as normal as possible. And I reckon the chances of getting a mention are highest from regular commuters, so I need to be riding the tube by 8am. I’ve carefully planned my outfit. I need something smart, sexy and that stands out. After trying on twenty outfits I finally settle on black pencil skirt, white shirt, heels and a red raincoat. When the coat is belted up it looks like I might be naked underneath. I check my look in the mirror. Sexy? Check. Smart? Check. Noticeable? Double check.
When I get to the tube station I call Miranda.
“Hi, Miranda. I’m not going to make it into work today. I’ve got a dreadful stomach bug. Must have been yesterdays prawn salad..............Lots of traffic noise?................Ah yes, I’ve got the window open, I thought fresh air would help. London is so noisy. I can’t sleep with the window open, can you?.............. Alright then. Well hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow. Just to be sure, I wouldn’t go to Benny’s for prawn for a while.”
I don’t live on the circle line, I can’t afford zone one, and don’t actually know anyone else who can. I get on the Piccadilly at Acton Town and after spending an uncomfortable fifteen minutes squashed in with some Americans and their oversized luggage I change at South Kensington. So this is it, the day that will change my life. I smile and nod at strangers. I wonder if I should try and make eye contact, or if I should be mysterious and aloof. I decide that the messages I like best mention people smiling at each other. I’m not going to be aloof today.
The wind blows through the tunnel.” Stand back, train approaching” says the sign. I wonder which carriage he will be in, The One. If I pick the wrong carriage I’ll miss him completely. My horoscope this morning said that I should stop trying to control everything. I wonder if all Virgo’s are feeling as annoyed by that remark as I am. I’m not trying to control everything, I’m just taking control of my life, in a grown-up and spiritually positive way. That’s not controlling that’s just smart.
It’s too late now to pick a carriage, the train is full and I just have to get on the only one which has a space for an anorexic fruit fly. I console myself with the thought that as I am spending the next two hours on this train, I will get a seat eventually. Actually I get one by Victoria, which is lucky as I am starting to regret wearing high heels.
Unlike everyone else on the tube today I’m not reading the Metro. If I’m reading I can’t see who’s looking at me. But disappointingly no-one is. They’re all reading the paper or staring at the adverts above my ahead, deliberately avoiding eye contact. I count ten people in this carriage listening to their ipods. If I spoke to them they wouldn’t even hear me.
At Embankment a cute guy in a suit gets on and sits opposite me. I flash him my breeziest “top of the morning to you” smile. He looks away, you’d have thought that I’d just told him my grandmother died he looks so uncomfortable. Making the first move is clearly not acceptable in twenty first century London. I decide to get out my book. I brought a book along because I thought it would be a good talking point. I discarded “Crazy in Love” the book I was actually reading as I didn’t want anyone to think I was reading a book about a Psycho Girlfriend. I remembered my friend Tom telling me that men always love to read factual books, especially books about the war. However even though I wasn’t planning to read whichever book I chose, the point of a talking point is to be able to talk about it. So Hitler just wouldn’t do. I got an E in my history GCSE, and frankly that was better than I deserved. I settled on a Lonely Planet guide to Thailand. I’ve never been to Thailand, but that’s okay, you only read guide books before you go, so that works. It’s not actually my guide book, it’s my flatmate’s. She went last year. I went to Rhodes with my parents and my sister, mostly because they offered to pay for me. Thailand sounded interesting and hopefully by osmosis that would make me sound interesting too, and besides if I got really bored it had lots of pictures.

I opened the book at the section on shopping, it actually was interesting. Apparently you can buy almost anything in Thailand. As I turned the page I realised the guy now standing I front of me was trying to read my book upside down. I smiled at him. He smiled back. Good it’s actually working, hooray. A girl three seats across from me is glaring at me. I wonder if she had a bad experience in Thailand. Perhaps she was supposed to go there for her honeymoon and her fiancee didn’t show up. With a face that sour, I would have had second thoughts. She gets up and comes towards me. I look back down at my book. Avoiding eye contact is definitely a smart thing to do on the tube sometimes. I hear the girl speak to the guy in front of me. I look up to see she’s draped herself around his shoulders. Damn it some girls work fast. I notice she has a big sparkly ring on her finger. In fact she seems to be almost waving it in my face. She is waving it in my face, only in a way her boyfriend/fiancée can’t see. It looks like she will be going to Thailand for her honeymoon after all.
We’ve reached High Street, Kensington. Surely there must be some gorgeous guy just waiting to meet the girl of his dreams in Kensington. I wonder if I should get off here and hang around in a cafe for a while pretending to be planning a holiday. But I think it’s important to complete the first circle. I’ll get coffee in South Kensington, which sounds the same, only slightly more south. I’ve only ever got off at South Kensington to go to a museum. Endless trips with my Dad at the weekends. I wonder if there is anywhere to drink coffee in South Kensington? Perhaps not. I check the tube map. Sloane Square, I’ll get off there.
It’s raining in Sloane Square. It’s probably raining elsewhere in London too, but sitting inside a cafe in the rain in Sloane Square does not feel like I’m maximising my chances. I finish my coffee and get back on the tube. By the time I get to Baker Street I notice that most of the commuters have gone now and I really should have gone to the loo while I was at the cafe. Notting Hill. Oh I love that movie. I get off at Notting Hill. I’ll go to a bookshop with my guide to Thailand and find someone else who is interested in travelling there too. Only instead I spend ten minutes trying to find a toilet. Must concentrate on finding The One. Though it is important that The One has a job, so perhaps now is not a good time to find him on the tube. He should be hard at work. As should I. It’s a shame I hate my job so much. The advert made it sound much more interesting. I know I’m raising money for good causes, but at the same time spending all day on the phone trying to persuade people to part with £10 a month and their bank account details is not inspiring. I see a man selling umbrellas. Umbrellas often feature in those change your fate ads. I know that’s partly because it’s London and it’s always raining so everyone carries umbrellas. But also importantly it is a talking point and something you notice. And these umbrellas are super cool. They have their very own patented casing which collects all the drips. So I will be both noticeable and super smart. It’s a shame they only come in black. I buy one, perhaps it will bring me luck. I need some luck, so far I have attracted the attentions of a guy and his less attractive fiancée, a teenage boy who looked like he was sizing me up to see if he could steal my wallet and an old lady how asked how I could walk in those heels.

Still it’s only twelve noon and I have another seven hours of riding the circle line ahead of me. I’m also starting to wonder if there wasn’t a better line to choose. If I got the Jubilee there would have been all the city boys going to Canary Wharf. Or the District line to Richmond. Richmond is nice. I’d like a boyfriend who lived there. I could stay over and on Sunday mornings we could walk up Richmond Hill or read the papers in some lovely pub looking over the river. Thinking about it, who does take the Circle Line, where are they going? Are they all going round in circles like me? I realise that like most people I only really know my part of London, there are some parts of the tube line I will never use – anything east of Whitechapel or north of St John’s Wood is a complete mystery to me. I get back to the tube station and look at the map. I decide I should probably have my own map and take a copy. From Notting Hill I could take the district line to Richmond, but then I spot the central line. It goes all the way up to Epping Forest. Epping Forest doesn’t sound very central to me. Oh it goes to Chigwell too. From Birds of a Feather. That’s supposed to be really posh, I’m sure it is. Perhaps too posh. I decide to take the Central and if by Shoreditch no-one interesting has got on I’ll change at Mile End and take the district line back to Richmond.

The central line runs really fast. Within minutes I’m at Oxford Circus and one hundred teenage girls with Topshop bags have crowded on to the tube. They look me up and down, inspecting me. I’m older than them, I have a flat (rented of course) and a job. I wonder if they want to look like me when they grow up. But then I realise they don’t want to look like me at my age. They don’t ever want to be my age. At twenty eight, I am old, older than they can possibly ever imagine being. I think I will change at Mile End. The idea of a boyfriend in Richmond is quite lovely. I try to picture us together in the pub. They say you create your future by visualising it. I think we would have a dog. A floppy eared spaniel. My boyfriend’s wearing a rugby shirt. I wonder what my imaginary boyfriend looks like with his top off. I realise I am smiling to myself and probably look a little crazy. I should probably stop there. I look around the carriage the teenage girls all got off at Liverpool Street. I decide I will change at Mile End. I’m standing on the platform for ten minutes, a crowd has begun to gather. No train comes.
The tannoy system buzzes into life. Due to a passenger jumping in front of a train the district line is suspended between Barking and Earls Court. I get out my tube map.
“Where are you trying to get to?”
“Richmond” I say. The feet in front of me are wearing odd socks with trainers. I look up. The odd socks belong to a guy with a nice voice. Sort of deep, but not Barry White deep. He’s wearing a rugby shirt. I want to ask him if he has a spaniel. But I know he will think I am nuts, so I keep that for later. He’s explaining how I can get to Richmond by using the Hammersmith and City Line
“I’m sorry could you show me on my map?” I have to ask, I have hardly heard a word he’s said. I’ve been listening without listening. He has an accent I can’t place.
He traces the route on my map. He has nice hands.
“Where are you going?” I ask and smile.
“Fulham.”
I want to say, ‘I could go to Fulham too....’ Damn. Why did I say I was going to Richmond?
“We’re almost going the same way, stick with me and you won’t get lost. I promise.” He smiles. I smile.
We talk all the way to Hammersmith. He’s from New Zealand. He’s wearing a black rugby shirt with a feather on it. It all makes sense. He sees the book poking out of my bag and asks me what I’m reading? I pull out the Thai guide. He asks if I’m planning a trip soon? I lie of course and say I’m thinking about it, I’ve borrowed this from a friend to take a look and see.
He tells me he has never been there. He’s trying to see as much of Europe as he can while he’s here.
We get to Hammersmith and he walks me to the District line station. It’s still raining. We share my umbrella. He seems impressed by the drip tray, I guess it has worked as a talking point. Only by then we didn’t really need one. He points to the platform for Richmond, an eastbound train is approaching. He has to go.
I tell him how grateful I am for his help. That it was really nice of him. He smiles. I smile. I wave. He is gone. I wonder what on earth I am going to do in Richmond. I realise he never asked me my name and I don’t know his.
I go home. I can’t be bothered to go to Richmond. I make myself a cup of tea and call Trish. She’s busy at work. Later that evening we dissect as much of the conversation as I can remember. She tells me off for not concentrating hard enough on exactly what he said. We agree that him not asking my name is a bad sign. We also agree that knowing he is going back to New Zealand is a bad sign. She tells me that the imaginary boyfriend in Richmond sounds a much better bet and maybe we should go there one evening and hang out. Just to see how it feels.
The next day I go back to work. Miranda asks me how I am? I forgot I was supposed to have been sick. I try to look sicker. She asks me if I want to go home. I say I’ll manage somehow.
Two days later I’m riding the Piccadilly line on my way to work. It’s Friday. Trish and I are going to Richmond after work. I pick up the Metro. I read my horoscope. Apparently today is not a good day. Mercury is doing something with Mars.
I turn to the Change Your Fate section.
Yet another ginger guy is being sought, this time by a red headed girl. Who’d have thought being ginger was so popular. Their babies would have no chance.
A guy on the 8.15 from Slough can’t tear his eyes away from a tall, leggy blonde. I bet he wasn’t alone in that department.
And then there it is:
Kiwi from Fulham, wishes he had asked for the name of the girl from Richmond. Please don’t go to Thailand without me.