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She turned to a favourite companion—the London Underground app on her phone. She greeted the yellow, blue, red, green, black, and pink Tube lines that zipped and twisted across the map like old friends. Back in college, she had studied the map dozens, probably hundreds of times. She could pinpoint specific Tube stations in her sleep. If that made her a London transport geek, so be it.
One by one, the charming station names—Oxford Circus, Pimlico, Chancery Lane—danced across her phone’s screen, but Alex meant business. She selected a saved journey within the app, reminding her that once she arrived at Paddington Station, it would take roughly forty minutes to travel eastward across the city to her final destination where Harry resided—London Fields, in the borough of Hackney. A few train and platform changes were on the cards, but several transfers meant more time exploring the Underground. Day made.
The express ride into Paddington took less time than a pizza delivery back home in Florida. She followed the other passengers off the train and into the concourse. Such a circus! London’s commuters stamped, shoved, and sneered through the station’s roving obstacle course of lost tourists, weaving suitcases, and skittish pigeons. No wonder Paddington Bear had such an unsettling introduction to London at this station.
Aw, Paddington. Alex needed her luggage to arrive if only to rescue her own Paddington Bear, a stowaway in one of her missing cases. Even an aspiring playwright about town needs her scruffy childhood pal on an overseas adventure. He would’ve made a rather fitting selfie accomplice right now, too.
Alex dodged many of the rampaging Londoners, but her swaying backpack had a mind of its own, body-checking commuter after commuter.
“Sorry! I’m so sorry. Whoops,” she said, cringing at the “Tsks!” “Watch its!” and “Heys!” of its victims.
She spotted the iconic London Underground sign and zigzagged towards it. Standing in front of the ticket wicket, she plunged her hand deep into her laptop bag to grab cash for an Oyster travel card, but her British bank notes played hide-and-seek.
Her chest tightened as she scrambled to free up space in her crammed bag. She fumbled and dropped her laptop charger, a loud plastic clack rising from the station’s floor. Klutz. She snatched it up by its cord and fished further into the bag, yanking out her headphones, chewing gum, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer, but still no wallet.
“Just a sec, my money’s right…here.”
A heavy exhale landed on the back of her neck.
“Excuse me, love. Do you mind stepping aside? I’m really late.”
Alex looked over her shoulder. A well-groomed man sporting a bowtie, a three-piece suit, and a leather briefcase fussed behind her, shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to the other. He bobbed his neck, checking his watch like the agitated white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
A woman in a baggy tracksuit twitched behind him, a snotty-nosed baby screaming in a sling tied to her chest. The infant heaved its pacifier and rattle to the floor, his watery eyes cursing Alex’s existence. He resembled a mini-version of the Bond villain Blofeld minus the fuzzy white feline. The young mom huffed and puffed, sticking out a defiant hip.
“Hurry up, will ya? Bloody tourists.” Her surliness bounced off the kiosk wall.
Alex wanted the floor to swallow her up. Weren’t British people supposed to be polite?
She peeked at her watch. 3:10 p.m. “Sorry. One more look, and I’ll get out of your way.”
Shoving both hands into her bag, she lifted the laptop. Underneath, she spied a purple leather corner. Phew! No need for an international incident.
“Got it! Can I please get an Oyster card with fifteen pounds on it?” Alex threaded a twenty-pound note through the small opening at the bottom of the glass wicket.
The Tube employee rolled his eyes and shoved a blue Oyster card back—Alex’s first piece of London identification.
“Yes! It’s all happening!” She spun on her heels, avoiding the glares thrown by the queue swelling behind her and headed towards the Hammersmith and City line.
She waved the Oyster card against the round yellow reader on the ticket barrier. It squealed an electronic beep and released its rubber panels with a clumsy shudder. Alex slipped through; successfully maneuvering her two bags clear of the gate’s grip. The mechanical clunk…clunk…clunk rhythm of rising and falling escalator steps filled her ears, a metal-on-metal invitation to the Tube’s dizzying precipice. The escalators plunged sharply into the subterranean depths of the city, but the locals breezed down the steel steps as if on rails, completely unfazed by the steep drop.
Alex stood on the right side of the escalator, mesmerized by the succession of theatre posters passing by on the walls: Kinky Boots, Billy Elliot, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Every advertisement celebrated a different production. She salivated.
If one of those posters were advertising MY play, I would DIE!
The path to the Hammersmith and City line sent commuters along cartoonishly bendy hallways, and up and down several heart-pounding flights of stairs, like an underground fitness test. Alex arrived just in time. The first carriage screeched into the station, the train’s whoosh morphing the platform into a temporary wind tunnel and blowing her ponytail over her head.
Her first impression upon climbing aboard—the train looked like a toy. Round in shape, its carriages mimicked the tunnel, and wacky patterned material from a bygone era covered the cushions. The train rocked out of the station as Alex’s Tube companions hid behind newspapers or closed their eyes, some lost in private headphone symphonies—all immune to the Underground’s charms—but not Alex. Giggling to herself, she wriggled in her seat like a sleep-deprived kid on Christmas morning. At each stop her wide eyes danced, capturing snapshots of the ads stretching the entire height and length of the curved platform walls, promoting films, cheap airfares, and cheesy tourist attractions. King’s Cross, Euston Square, Barbican—all the station names passing by the window captivated the Anglophile, but Baker Street, home to Sherlock Holmes (the Benedict Cumberbatch version), delighted her the most.
With one line change and eight Tube stations under her belt, Alex checked her app. Liverpool Street station beckoned, her second and final transfer…
Five minutes later, rising to street level on the escalator, sunshine greeted her eyes. She raced across the light-filled concourse and boarded the Overground line; three more stops—all above ground. Bring on the sights! She cozied up against the window as the train rattled away from the station, each minute unveiling a fleeting blur of London’s East End.
What the—?
Alex wilted. Instead of black taxis and quaint shops flying by, glimpses of obnoxious graffiti tags, rear entrances of squat apartment blocks, and the circular metal gasholders of Bethnal Green whizzed into frame. Not a picture postcard scene in the bunch. She collapsed into her seat, pulling her denim jacket tightly around her. What happened to the pretty London she adored in books and movies?
Ten minutes into the journey, the breezy blue sky darkened with a menacing scowl. An unrelenting deluge, the kind of gusty cloudburst that drowns sewers, disembowels umbrellas, and drenches pedestrians. The train pulled into Alex’s destination, London Fields station. She swallowed hard. Damn. Her raincoat and umbrella safely stowed in her luggage—her MIA luggage—no use to her now.
