An hour in the dark is not too bad, in winter it is dark anyway and matters little that I spend so long beneath the flickering artificial lights and stale air below. In summer, it is one hour less sunshine in an already dark life, skin prickling with sweat before the day has even begun, and the bitter stench of confined people sticking to my damp skin and my clothes, filling my nose and pressing in around me. People move like water against the movement of the carriage, like fish against the rippling current of a coral reef. The repetitive noise of the carriage is conducive to sleep, paired with its rhythmic movements and so sometimes I sleep, seat permitting, in the unsteady slumber of the undergrounds permanent night, waking slick and sticky in time to ascend to meet the murky day light of the city, sun slinking between the tall buildings, absorbed by grey streets below. I know people whose journey is two hours; an hour is not so bad. One is not so bad.
I climb the escalators, my legs moaning slightly, begging me to stay still, we will get there anyway they protest, please just stay still. The streets at this time are full of us, the commuters, the new blue collar workers, coming early into the city, blearily blinking the underground darkness and grit from our eyes, vole-like in the new day light, windswept from the trapped tunnel winds. From the throws of zone three, where no one with money treads, we walk throw the early silence of zone one, zombie-like towards our destination, no one talks, no one makes eye contact.. The morning coffee that I grabbed from home, sipped from a metallic mug on my dank station, seems so far away, I canât wait for the next, in the meantime, cheap chocolate fills my mouth as I consume my first solid food, and cloyingly wraps around my teeth as I chew and hurry along. I must not be late.
The work day passes in a blur of disdainful people, barked orders and the smell of warm milk mixed with hot coffee. The faces of suited males and females mix with that of the excited tourists, and I lose count of buttons pressed and milk swirled into foamy perfection at their requests. My face contorts into the service persons grimace, and aches by the time we flick the sign and close the door. The day always ends with the bitter sweet smell of chemicals, hot water and the beginning of the stale smell of sweat lingering against skin. In the dark backroom I pull the apron over my head and peel the work tshirt from my damp skin. Â Washed in the tiny rest room, and doused in cheap perfume, I hide the smell of hard work. I scrub the coffee grinds from under my finger nails and clean the brown discoloration, which makes me look like the tobacco stained beggers that litter the streets, from my hands. I quickly adjust the make-up that has slipped from the steam and sweat of the day, and pull a dress over my head. Removing the cheap, washed out black trousers, revealing slightly swollen legs, pink with the blood from standing relentlessly for hours, covering them with thin tights, removing the last of the waitress from my appearance. I feel like the swan, placing the ugly duckling in the locker for tomorrow. A princess of the night. A cheap Cinderella.
I weave through the busy streets, now so mixed, where this morning there was just the drudgery of cheap polyester uniforms and tired faces, the night is a heady mix of expensive suits, designer clothes and cheap knock offs. The cold silence of the dreary dawn replaced with the gold streetlight lit excitement, cries and laughing voices of an easy London evening. As I walk to the tube I reminisce, again, of Evaâs speech about London, âthe thing is,â she said, drawing on a cheap, thin, rolled cigarette, âwe are the faith, we are the religion, we are the cool kids who set the trends, they, with their money, they are the followers, the sheep, they need us to deign what is cool, to sprinkle the holiness of our presence in their lives, without us, they are nothing. We go, they follow, they come and we move on.â I wonder if she is right as I ride the tube, the darkness now smelling of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Loud happy people have replaced the zombies of the morning ride. The stations roll by, taking me out of the zone one of work, to the zone two of play âit has always beenâ she says, âfrom jazz bars in the 1920âs to raves in the 90s, the young, the poor, the cool, have set the scene for what the rich spend their money onâ. Maybe she is right, either way when the rich roll in, we roll out, not trend but expense pushing us out of our haunts and searching for the next cheap thrill to spend our hard earnt wages on, trying to dull the memory of the tedious hours before. It is gin bars and smoking, dark outfits, dark make up and poetry that is the vogue, as the poor but artistic youth spit beats over crackling microphones in dark basements, sipping warm drinks and talking over quiet, atmospheric music until the small hours.
The fashionistasâ amongst the riche are in the bar already, they stand out in stood in their lovely clothes, soon the rent will spike in the zone two wilderness that we frequent as their moneyed tendrils fill the place and talk of it, good for the businesses, but we move on. As I sip the room temperature gin, the ice not helping to cool but merely watering the acrid taste on my tongue, I wonder how long until we move on, looking for another place to sip cheap drinks and immerse in the atmosphere we seek. The ever fighting battle between the cool and the rich. Will they ever understand that it is them, and their money which turns their beloved places, and ours, to dust?
Of course, there are places we will never go, the places that are frequented by the sleek, the monied, the city bores, name dropped in order to impress a different kind of person. They drip taste, exude chic. We are the youth, the erudite and free, they are clean cut, old and fresh pressed. Their crisp cocktails are beyond our reach, their delicate meals beyond our palate. Our tastes are crude, but fashionable, rogue in their assumptions. We rarely eat dinner, we mainly drink. Dinner is a luxury. Lunch is more our style, or cheap street food grabbed drunkenly at silly hours.
My cheap rings begin to loop green stains around my dry fingers, not hiding the work callouses which ruin the effect of my neat nails and delicate jewelry. I feel the tingling of drink in my chest as I laugh at the riche men talking to us, bumming our rolls and drinking the metallic tasting gin when they could afford the finest. My cheap, deep coloured lipstick stains the cheap glass and looks greasy beneath the dim lighting. As people chat around me, I wonder abstractly how long I spend underground, under unreal lights, hiding from the sun. We are vampiric, but not the parasites of this concrete jungle, nor are we the predators. We are the flowers that are really weeds, we look pretty, but we are brash and cheap. We survive.
We head from the bar to the nearby bagel shop, an all-night shop that has become a cult hit with the mildly drunk middle-class wannabes. There is one down the road, and the competition is fierce, but this one is ours, the best. It is weird and neon after the darkness of the bar. We wait in line, brash and drunken waiting for our time, and return to the busy night streets clutching pastries and bagels, eating against the red bricked walls, cramming jokes and anecdotes between mouthfuls of cream cheese filled toasted slices of the round bread. We wipe our mouths and sticky fingers with coarse napkins and toss the wrappers in the overflowing bins.
The night is over in a blur of laughter and conversation, numbers exchanged, kisses lingered on lips and goodbyes were said as we split to our different home journeys. I run for the night bus, it neon light feels comforting as I jump on, I am used to them, they flicker and blink on the long journey home, as my addled brain fights to stay awake for my stop. The distant, over polite lady announces the stops, punctuating the journey home. I ponder why it is nearly as fast as the tube in the morning, the empty streets offering purchase on time in opposition to the busy push and tumble of the tubes, I presume. We slowly weave past the dim and comforting lights of the taxis, with their private clients snoozing or partying raucously within the confines of its sanctity. Our lights seem over stark in comparison, brash against the moody lighting of the expensive cabs.
The gin has made me soporific, and I think, in the jolting over bright and over loud atmosphere of the night bus, this is why you commute, this is why you donât stay in the northern over bright and boring cities, where jobs are closer, if not more plentiful, but there is little to see or do. I wanted a life, and here is where it is. It is normal that you will go home, no one can afford a child in this city, but while you are young, we survive to be close to life, some people hope they make it, some people just want to be here, to have fun.
I walk the final stretch home beneath the clapped out streetlights, treading the uneven pavements home, to my tiny rented house in zone three, to my tiny room. It is bohemian, the advert said, cute and bohemian, really it is just small and sad. Sadness creeps over me as the gin lingers in my veins, Damp creeps on the ceiling and paper walls, that barely hide the noise from my housemate her fakery emitting through the walls, the smell of perfume and strange menâs sweat dancing with the mildew, making it all smell sweet and close. I find the gap between the duvet and sheets in my unmade bed, crawling in, I pull the duvet above me and fall fast into a slumber. I wake in a few short hours, head thudding against my skull, and rise, seeking water and coffee. I wash in the drizzle of an ancient shower, the smell of mint which is mean to wake me, merely making my skin cold as I try to wash quickly. I walk to the tube trying to embrace my short time in the weak sunlight.
In the grey light the escalator pulls me down into the deep, I clutch my steal mug full of cheap coffee and a free paper to my chest, I descend back to the dark, lightened by the unnatural lights, hair whipped by the winds, stuck and whistling through the caves of the underground. I sit on the cold steel seat as the dim orange display winks â1 minuteâ at me, and peel the thin sheets of the paper apart, my eyes fall on the reviews page, and I see the gin joint of the night before reviewed, âA beautiful throw back to fast jazz and loose moralsâ. We move on. As my deodorant can clinks against my keys in my bag, I wonder how my uniform has faired, screwed up overnight in the confines of a tiny metal locker, I shall probably spend the day smelling faintly of yesterday. As the rhythmic motion and repetitive sound of the train lull me into a queasy sleep I think; I am so fortunate to live in London, and one hour is not a long time. One hour is not so bad
