Rush Hour

It was a Wednesday evening after work. Everyone was rammed into everyone else in the carriage, waiting to get home. The scent of a long tiring day for all aboard trickled through the carriage like cheap pot pourri. The Metropolitan line train hadn’t moved from its over-ground spot between Finchley Road and Wembley Park for half an hour. Apparently, we were being held at a red signal for some reason, but it was impossible to tell what that reason was, because the driver was choking on static.

It was at this point that the old lady whooped and hollered from her seat.
It scared the hell out of me.
Faces turned to look at her in a delayed domino line.

“Praise sweet Jesus!”

The old lady unleashed a maniacal laugh like a castrated hyena. I was standing directly over her and saw straight down her dark red throat as she celebrated. If I’d stared any longer, I would have been sucked straight in and digested by her evil soul. She chuckled heartily, at me, at the other faces, all traces of her earlier hostility erased. She was awful.

Forty-five minutes before, the train had crawled into Baker Street, where I get on after work. People swarmed aboard like frenzied ants. I’d ploughed on, too, apologising uselessly and clocked a suspiciously empty chair. I made for it, won it, and sunk into it, thoroughly exhausted and guilty, as if I was stood in an African village holding a bottle of Evian.

The old lady must have been mere milliseconds behind me.

She stood above me as I sunk into the seat, and started to eyeball me so hard that I felt it possible I could develop epilepsy. Anger surged through me. Of course I would have given her the seat if I’d seen her. And then she said loudly: “Well?”
It wasn’t a question.

Embarrassed, I stood up slowly. I didn’t need to look around me. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, heavy like rain drenched clothing. I hoped that some of those eyes would be full of sympathy, maybe welling up a little. Realistically, I knew they’d be full of yearning for that seat, too. An image of the carriage eyeballing the old woman with pure hate buzzed through my mind. I felt instantly ashamed.

She slipped into the seat like an eel and proceeded to act as if it were impossible for me not to be in her way. She kept moving about, banging her knees against mine. She continually shifted her handbag so that it rested on my feet at different angles every few seconds. She kept cutting her eyes at me, making eye contact with another passenger, looking to me, rolling her eyes, shaking her head, then starting the cycle all over again. I tried not to let it get to me and in doing that it got to me more and more.

I clung to a handrail like a shy monkey in a zoo. My eyes wandered the carriage in desperate hope of ignoring her and my shame. They landed on a Metro. Its headline screamed: Another red envelope found! I allowed myself to smile.

Some lunatic had been leaving small red envelopes on tube and train seats all over London, stuffing them into the narrow crevices of seats or taping them to the underbellies of arm rests. They were the size and thickness of playing cards, easily missed. There were no clues as to who could be doing it and no way of catching them. A handful had been found all over the capital, on random routes, at random times. Some contained hundreds of pounds, intricately folded and stuffed. Some didn’t.

Imagine what it would be like to find one of those envelopes! I couldn’t allow myself the fantasy of actually finding one stuffed with money. That wasn’t like me. Instead, I imagined finding an empty one and getting mocked by these tired and empty faces.

The old lady’s foot whacked the front of my shin. My fantasy became a new scenario: I had found an envelope, stuffed with dosh. I would wave it in her face and then tear it to bits, money included, and enjoy watching her bawl. A bizarre feeling of justice warmed my chest followed quickly by shame. Silly. I happened to look down at the old lady. She flashed me a fake smile.

The train made its way up to ground level and eventually came to rest between Finchley Road and Wembley Park. The evening sky pressed its fat nose against the windows. Silence filled the carriage.

After a while, the old lady had started to cackle.
She had found a red envelope.
She held it up in one hand that flickered with age, like candle flame. She stared right at me and let out another guffaw.
The train hissed and jolted forward suddenly.
The old lady dropped the envelope.
The train started building speed.
The envelope landed inches from my foot.

Immediately, I felt hands brush past me. A young student girl who sat next to the old lady elbowed me in my thigh as she dove for the envelope. At the same time the man with the Metro folded it with the precision and speed of an origami master and shoved his way towards it.

I didn’t even think about it. I swallowed it with my foot.
“Now, you just move!”
The old lady’s voice didn’t fit her frame. It was deep and haggard and came from the nether regions of hell.
An hour ago, a part of me would have done as I was told out of nothing more than stupidly doing what I was told. I heard someone say the words: “Yeah. Right.”
It was me.

Another man just to my left, a tall lean gym body, began playing footsy with the foot the envelope was pinned under. He wasn’t that cute. I stamped on his foot with my other one.
“I said move it, now!”
The old lady had fire in her eyes. It was almost kind of funny. It was past funny. It was psychotic.

The entire carriage was now aware of what was happening. Most people were too far away to take a shot at trying to grab for it. Others were so close I could see their thoughts on their faces. My heart threatened to pierce through my chest.

The world outside was flecked with spots of warm yellow light. Gradually, excitement began to tickle my body. I was shaking. Hundreds of pounds could soon be mine if I could just hold out a bit longer.
“It’s mine!”
The old lady was Medusa. “It was on this chair!”
It was her uttermost cheek that got to me the most; her self deluded right to the seat, and now the envelope, which was technically a finder’s keeper’s item. Playground rule number one.
“Well, it would have been mine if I was still sitting there.”
I surprised myself at the pettiness of my statement. I surprised myself by saying anything at all.
From somewhere behind me I heard the whisperings of a parent to their kid: “It’s just under her foot. There’s a good boy.”
Unbelievable.

A sign for Neasden flashed into view.
The next stop was mine.

I became overwhelmed with the feeling that fingers were crawling over me. I kept expecting to see a little kid stick its head up from under my skirt, red envelope secured. A prod to my stomach. The old lady had used her small umbrella. Now she moved to the edge of her seat and started stepping on the foot hiding the envelope. She felt like an obese skeleton. It hurt like hell.
“Are you kidding me?!”
I closed my eyes and tried to push past the pain. I imagined my hands around her throat, but then thought about the envelope and held out.

The train started to slow.
We were coming into Wembley Park.

Someone pushed me, again, and once more, so that I ended up bent over like wind swept grass. But my feet remained planted to the spot. I screamed out of shock and desperation. I dragged myself to an upright position and swung my handbag about like a human sprinkler.
The pushing stopped.
I bent down extra carefully, slowly, stretching my fingers until the joints cracked to reach the envelope. The old lady prodded my head with her umbrella.

The train braked. It braked too suddenly.

I must have grabbed it. It nipped at my fingertips before I, me, the old lady, everyone, fell into everyone else.

We’d arrived at Wembley Park.

I clambered up and off the train as fast as I could, bodies groaning about on the floor, hands reaching up and grabbing for me. I had the envelope and cradled it like a newborn baby in need of medical attention. I was filled with a mixed sense of pride and deep shame.

Safe on the platform, I watched the train go, slowly, and imagined the old lady cursing me through a window. My feet were sore. My skirt was ripped. I started to laugh, really laugh and the staff kept a wide circle. I opened the envelope.
It was empty.
I smiled all the way home.