From there onwards, the remains of the day just continued getting worse and worse. Because now Helen was irritated, which only reminded her of how exhaustingly annoying everything was. There were times when she found her city beautiful, even magical if she was in a good mood, but she hadn’t felt that way in so many months that she was beginning to find it difficult to understand how she could ever have felt that way in the first place. She longed for an escape, and every moment she spent trapped in the city drove her closer to just giving up, to packing her things and leaving.
The worst part was that Helen knew, with absolute certainty, that were it not for all the people she would quite happily live in London forever.
(Maybe not absolute certainty. But she’d definitely – maybe – be able to bear staying for more than a few years.)
See, the trouble with London, especially London during rush hour - which it was when she left the gallery - had always been the people. There were just so many of them, and they were all moving fast to get to where they needed to be. So fast, in fact, that there was no time for anyone to stop and think. And if you were foolish enough to stop, even for a second, you would either be swept into the flow of people or be crashed into, pushed and jostled so many times that being swept away would have been preferable. It was kill or be killed, and no place was this truer than the London Underground.
Helen wasn’t exactly a poor person. To be totally honest, she was about as far from poor as it was possible to be. She could very easily have afforded her own chauffeur driven car. Hell, she could have afforded an entire fleet of them, had that been what she wanted. At the very least she could easily have paid for a taxi ride every now and then, but still no. The trouble with chauffeurs and taxi drivers was that behind their mask of silence they heard everything, and they saw everything. And not only that, but they probably remembered it all too, because anybody capable of memorising every street in London she was sure would be more than able to remember a sentence that didn’t sound quite normal, or a face. Especially one like Helen’s.
Helen was tired of being remembered. She wanted – no. Needed to be forgotten.
The underground, with its hordes of people, provided the anonymity that she craved. Sitting on a tube, everybody else was so absorbed in their own private little worlds that most people didn’t even glance at her once, never mind twice. And if they did, it was usually not to look at her face, but to admire her shoes, or bag, or whatever other designer item she had with her at that moment. At the very worst, people’s glances would linger just slightly too long so that they could smile at the soft pink of her hair.
So she dealt with the people, because really what else could she do? When people bumped into her she glared and pushed them right back. Or, well, she had never actually pushed anyone, but did at least twice exclaim ‘PARDON me’, or tut and mutter ‘some people…’, whilst looking pointedly at the offender.
Not in the mood for passive aggressiveness that day, Helen silently navigated her way through the crowds, slipping through any small gaps between people that she could see. In a rather surprising turn of events, the entire journey actually went without a hitch. The ticket gates opened on her first try beeping her card in. The escalator, whilst still packed, didn’t seem to take as long as it usually did, and her tube arrived just as she stepped onto the platform. She was even quick enough to be able to snag a seat.
Naturally, because the universe just loved to screw with her like that, her streak of good luck ended. And, with her luck, went any remaining scrap of patience she still had with the world. Because if the underground at rush hour is hell, then London Waterloo at rush hour is, if that’s even possible, a thousand times worse. Everywhere she looked, there were people. She blinked, and within the split second that it had taken her to do that, more people had appeared.
This volume of people would normally be fine, or at least tolerable, if the crowds were simply flowing through, because then Helen could just go along with it, making it easier to get where she needed to be. But no. These people were randomly drifting around, wandering like sheep. Some meandered into shops and cafes, and of course some, or even most of them, weren’t moving at all. They were all stood still, practically on top of each other as they waited to meet someone, or checked the boards to see where their trains were.
Refusing to subscribe to this mindless behaviour, Helen, already waling quickly to the other end of the station, cast a brief glance up to the boards, just to make sure that everything was going according to schedule. Seeing what was written up there, she frowned slightly and moved her eyes down to her watch. And then back up to the boards. And did the same again a couple more times, all in the space of a few seconds.
Shit.
Leaving the gallery early had messed up her entire schedule, and to add to that her watch’s battery had apparently died, because the hands were frozen in place.
The train she had been planning to get wasn’t going to arrive for the better part of an hour. And the only alternative was to get a train that was due to leave in two minutes, which meant that she would have to run. But she could hardly do that, because running through a crowded station was undignified, the sort of thing that only children had the nerve to do, and Helen was about as far from childhood as it was possible to be.
Nonetheless, she picked up her pace as much as was possible without drawing attention to herself. As she desperately hoped that she’d make it on time, her eyes searched out any openings in the crowd that she could slip through, trying to minimise the number of ‘sorry’s and ‘pardon me’s that he had to use.
In her rush, she failed to notice the girl crossing her path, and crashed into her with full force. Because Helen’s luck that day was apparently just that good, the girl had of course been carrying a fresh cup of coffee which had of course spilled all over her.
“Fuuuu-udge.” She blinked and instantly regained her composure, because yes, the coffee had hurt like hell, and yes, this was her favourite skirt and was probably now ruined for good, but that was still no reason for her to behave like some sort of – some sort of monster. A monster that didn’t understand manners.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” the girl said, fumbling to grab her napkins and hand them to Helen. “I’m such a klutz.”
Helen put on a bright smile. “No no, it’s completely my fault. I was distracted, and I didn’t see you. Would you like me to buy you a replacement…” the girl had just looked up, ready to reply, when Helen stopped in her tracks. Because she knew that face, or perhaps ‘had known’ would be more appropriate. Around the same moment, the spark of recognition crossed the girl’s face, probably matching her own. “…oh.”
The girl took a small step back, muscles visibly tensing. “Ah.” She gave an awkward smile. “Hi.”
“Zoe.” Helen said, watching to control the surprise in her voice as she looked her up and down, carefully cataloguing each change in her appearance. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah, um.” Her hands fidgeted at her sides. “We should talk.”
“Are you sure?” Helen asked, raising an eyebrow. “Last time we saw one another I’m fairly certain you were screaming at me that you never wanted to see me again. It hasn’t been all that long.”
Zoe stayed silent for a moment, looking at Helen warily. “It’s been long enough, I think.”
Okay, she could work with that. “Alright,” she gestured at the now empty cup that Zoe was carrying. “May I offer to buy you another coffee?”
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