Hello Me

Chapter 10

The train rumbled through green fields, vague shapes of hedgerows whizzing past in the dusky light of the late afternoon. Guidebooks spread between them on the narrow table, Jen and Ellie chatted excitedly about the trip to London over plastic cups of steaming hot tea and chocolate muffins they'd bought on the station platform.

Quickly, the fields were gobbled up by houses, factories, warehouses and retail parks as they neared London. The city seemed so vast and sprawling, bigger than any she'd seen before. They quickly gathered their things as the train slid into Liverpool Street Station, a cavernous Victorian hall of metal, glass and brick. The last of the afternoon light filtered down from the vast iron and glass roof as Ellie craned her neck in every direction, marvelling at the cathedral-like architecture. Noise filled the space from every direction as trains rumbled in and out and people rushed like ants. A smartly dressed man carrying a briefcase and talking loudly into his mobile phone bumped past Ellie as she stood gazing around her with wonder, knocking into her shoulder so hard she teetered backwards. She mumbled an apology, even though it wasn't her fault, but the man carried his brisk pace onwards without so much of a backwards glance.

"You're not in Illinois now, kid," her mother grinned, throwing an arm around Ellie's shoulders and leading her towards the Underground station. "Londoners might be a little different than the people you're used to." Ellie couldn't help but agree already. Everyone seemed in such a hurry, jostling past one another without so much as an 'excuse me'. The sheer volume of people in one space was incredible; the station buzzed and hummed as if it were alive.

Jen bought tickets from a complicated-looking machine and showed Ellie how to feed hers into the barrier to walk through into the Underground station. A line already forming behind them, Ellie fumbled with her ticket, almost getting her small suitcase jammed in the swishing barrier as it closed behind her. They made their way down a rounded tunnel of white, shiny bricks, walking briskly to keep up with the commuter crowd. Vast escalators carried passengers down into the depths of the earth, the people standing in a long, snaking line like tin soldiers. Ellie was transfixed with it all. Electronic adverts blinked and flashed all the way down, reminding Ellie to visit Harrods department store, to see this musical or that, to buy the latest perfume or jeans. She loved it.

They made their way onto the platform of the Underground station, Jen leading the way like an expert. Deep under the earth, the narrow tube was filled with dozens of people of all shapes and sizes, and Ellie wondered who had ever thought to put trains so far under the ground; it all seemed so alien and foreign. A rush of cold air and the screeching of metal on metal signalled the arrival of the train, the faint blinking of lights suddenly becoming a rush of noise, wind and colour from the dark hole of the station tunnel. The already jam-packed train slid to a stop and for once the Londoners showed some manners, waiting for passengers to disembark before leaping on and jostling for space. Ellie grabbed her mother's hand and her suitcase with the other, suddenly fearful of being left behind on the narrow station platform, or worse, being spliced by the whooshing doors as they slid quickly shut.

The train took off with a start, causing Ellie to jerk backwards into a tall Afro-Caribbean woman, elegant in a brightly patterned headscarf, wrapped around her thick hair like a turban. So many different people were packed into the racing metal tube: half a dozen different languages could be heard coming from the lips of people in suits, jeans, thick winter coats and floral dresses, old and young, black, white, tall and small. Ellie watched a boy with tattoos and piercings lean in to kiss a girl with heavy biker boots and dreadlocks, her silver stud nose ring glinting in the light. They kissed and grinned at one another, oblivious to the man reading his newspaper beside them, or the baby wailing in her mother's arms to their right.