If I could sit on that train forever, watching the little girl’s empty but raging expression, I would. Each stop we came to, I prayed deeply that she would not get off, wouldn’t leave my living canvas blank. It was as though she was my muse, my creation, yet every time she looked at me, I could not help but look away.
The fascination had begun at Amersham; I, innocently reading the daily express; She, stepping on to the train like Dorothy in to Oz. Her eyes were glassy and vacant but I could see that behind them, behind that plain wrapping, was a distraught little girl, running away from something, just as I had all those years ago.
Please, however, do not get the wrong idea. I was no victim of abuse, neglect or such ghastly things. Rather, on the contrary, I felt that I was a victim of love, of endless happiness and money. Every medal I won, every first team, I played in. Yet happiness and satisfaction was not what this brought.
I left one summers night. My parents,with no clue of how encaged I felt, sat at a pleasant dinner with their companions.
On occasion, I would dare to hint at how ignorant I felt we were, how we were living lives removed from the so-called ‘real world’. Yet my dear Mother would simply reply by saying that there was actually a range of different classes and backgrounds among my peers at school. Clearly what my Mother meant by a “range of different classes” spanned from upper middle class to middle upper class.
So it was for no significant reason at all that I left the estate that night- only that I wanted to feel free and I was the only person who could liberate me.
I was, in fact, twenty-three years of age when I departed, not some young hopeless teenager. Nevertheless, I was young in terms of what I knew of the world. My streetwise skills were poor, my knowledge of popular culture: non-existent.
And there I sat, twenty-six years on, watching this poor little rich girl, in whom I could see my former self, if somewhat altered. It was hard to look because she brought back all the guilt of my impossibly limited contact with my family. And she reminded me also of my vulnerability when I arrived in the city, how people took advantage of me, why at markets I paid the full price yet others (dare I say it working classes) got a better offer. I had never before known a world in which I wasn’t given the best deal. In a way I liked it,but in a way I did not. For all those reasons and more, I wanted to tell that girl to be strong, that it was okay to be scared but not to let that make her weak because I knew she was not. I knew from the bold exterior that she was putting on that she was brave. All she needed was for someone to reassure her.
At each stop my heart pumped hot and fast, trying to pluck up the courage to talk to her before she would be out of my life forever. Yet at each stop, those glassy eyes remained still, that face empty. Until finally I rose from my seat at my stop, still watching her closely out of the corner of my eye. Like magic, she rose also, causing my heart to beat erratically and uncontrollably.
We both stepped out on to the platform; I, confident in what I was about to do and she, searching all over for some guidance to her destination, whilst laminated with fear. I put my hand on her shoulder as if to say, “You’re safe with me” and almost started pouring my heart out to this girl about all afore mentioned when suddenly, whilst gazing at me, a little tear fell from her delicate glassy eye and trickled down her fragile doll face.
Quickly she left out of my sight in a hysterical sprint.
I had missed my chance and sure enough, she had missed hers; for I knew what lay ahead for that poor little rich girl on my train.
It'll be my second ever. (I'm keeping a tally for now, I'm excited)
