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The flat near the park where the Bengali man was killed was the last one we viewed. M and I decided this was the home for us. For him it was gentrified enough, with its coffee shop chains just metres from each other. It also helped that there were many men in sharp suits that look like investment wankers, so M didn’t feel like it was Bangla town.
The flat itself ticked a few of our boxes. It had one bedroom (like I said, who needs friends and family?), was located near the tube station and rather excitingly, it comes complete with a concierge. It’s great that I don’t have to be home to collect parcels, or hunt them down when left with a neighbour. Granted, I don’t have any parcels, so I might develop an internet shopping habit just to feel a bit popular.
Onto the not so good stuff:
The apartment is a bit rough around the edges. The door handle is ever so slightly loose but that’s nothing a screw won’t fix. The furniture is terrible, I have never stayed on a metal bed in my life and I don’t intend to start now, so that’ll be the first thing we change. The concierge is less suited and booted compared to the one in Westminster. The manners are a bit off key, too, as monosyllabic Michael doesn’t smile but occasionally looks up from his phone and grunts every time we enter and exit the building.
As we’ve only been here a couple of weeks, we haven’t had much time to decorate. Therefore, I’ve been spending my time wisely at work, looking on Pinterest for interior inspo. Being renters, we can’t pin anything on the wall or move any of the furniture but I’ll probably buy a vase or something to jazz the place up.
The commute is not too bad. It’s a bit of a ball ache to wait for the Hammersmith and City line, which comes once every 15 minutes to Aldgate East tube station, but once you’re on it’s just one stop away. Bryony, the new PR girl, suggested I could walk the 15 minutes to get to the office. I told her I give myself barely enough time to brush my hair in the morning, let alone go for a brisk walk to work. Bryony then mentioned how it will take the same amount of time waiting for the tube as it would to walk. She made a compelling point but still, not doing it. Just in the same way I’m not ditching my kitten heels and wedge boots for trainers.
Though, right now, I’m not enjoying the tube journey quite so much. I’m missing my travel buddy and safety blanket.
M’s got a meeting in Tower Bridge, which is also just one tube journey from Aldgate East, or a 15 minute walk. He chose the tube.
Whenever I go on the underground with him I enjoy it. There is nothing more exciting than going in from one part of London, say Hackney Wick, to emerging in a completely different environment, like Queen’s Gate. Within minutes you’re in what looks like another world. Each destination has its own charm. Victoria is all red brick buildings, South Kensington has pretty white town houses that we didn’t even dare look into when renting (we probably couldn’t even afford a basement in those parts). Meanwhile, Oxford Street boasts hoards of busy shoppers, while Bank, with its multi-exits and super confusing navigation, boasts, well... bankers. I find it ironic that one of the main thoroughfares there is called Cheapside, given it’s suited and booted commuters.
Even on our new commute M could make it easy. We’d chat, people watch and generally avoid looking out of the window. I never thought why. Now I know. All the stops between stations are long, black nothingness.
I am currently sat between my house and Liverpool Street. It’s only one stop, yet the tube has managed to wedge itself somewhere, blocked up at the junction between the two stations. They’re not opening the doors, because there is nothing to open them to, except the abyss.
This journey isn’t exciting. I’m alone and packed in, unintentionally nuzzling some man’s armpit. Thank God it’s the morning. If it was the journey back after a hard day’s graft and I was in the same predicament, I might not have lived to tell the tale.
I look at some of the adverts above the windows. One is for an iron supplement. I need that. I’ve felt constantly exhausted since moving here. I’m not sure if it’s because of my fast-paced life or because I barely had a chance to breathe between planning my wedding and starting this new chapter. Or whether there is an underlying health condition. Regardless, must make a note of that supplement.
Not a single person makes eye contact. Why is nobody making eye contact? Why are people so unfriendly here? If I was back home getting the train anywhere up north, I’d have not only made conversation, I would probably have a full on friendship right now with an exchange of numbers to boot. Not here.
One woman undoes her blazer jacket, which reminds me how hot I am feeling. As I’m standing, I can’t take my coat off and hold it as my hands are busy gripping onto the bars on the tube for dear life.
“It’s taking too long,” I hear a curly haired woman say to no one and everyone on the tube, as she reaches for a magazine from her bag.
I guess she’s settling in for the long haul.
Is this normal? Should it be held in the darkness, in the middle of nowhere, this long?
“Please bear with us. The train will be moving shortly,” a man announces through the tinny speakerphone. That’s a relief. So we won’t be living out our last days on this dreaded tube.
What time is it, anyway? My phone’s in my bag. Luckily, armpit guy’s got a tablet in the other hand, offering me a full view of the book he’s reading, and the time. It’s been about seven minutes since we were held at this spot. Not that I’ve been counting. At this rate I’m going to be late for work. If I ever get there.
One woman looks like she’s reading some Fifty Shades knock off, judging by the cover of an undressed couple clinging to each other. It’s a bit like how I’m clinging to the bar, only sexier.
Armpit man finally moves his armpit from my face to turn around and offer me the back of his shoulder instead. I’d call that an upgrade.
Just as I’m relaxing into armpit man’s shoulder blade, the light flickers in the carriage. Bloody hell. What is this? Has there been an attack? Is it like the apocalypse of the London Underground?
I never thought of myself as a claustrophobic person but I feel like I’m choking. The air is stifling, thick, hot. The annoying thing about getting the tube in winter is that you’re layered up as it’s freezing outside, only to swelter away once you’re in the carriage. I can’t take my coat off, I can’t put my laptop bag down. I’m paralysed in this position, trapped in the packed out carriage in the middle of nowhere.
A lady smiles at me, with a look of kindness and a smattering of concern and, dare I say, maybe even pity. Right now I’ll take all the pity I can get.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” I say, surprising myself for talking to a Londoner on the tube. I was always under the impression it was the ultimate cardinal sin.
“Don’t worry, it’s always like that.” The lady has kind green eyes creased around the rims. Her soft, curling blonde bob adds to her comforting demeanour. I detect from her accent she is not from London.
“Someone’s probably just been sick, or pressed the button when they shouldn’t have,” the lady offers. “Once, we were stuck on the tube for about half an hour. We ended up having to walk outside onto the platform in the dark. That was the worst it’s been.” Her anecdote manages to both make me feel better and put me off getting the tube ever again.
Suddenly, I feel the floor beneath me give way. The chugging, dragging sound of the carriage taking off becomes my new favourite noise.
Maybe I should consider walking into work.
***
“Fancy seeing you next to the pastries,” says John, nudging me out of the way.
“I’ll have you know, I was here chatting to Bryony. The pastries just happen to be next to us,” I say, taking a bite out of an oatmeal and raisin biscuit.
“Yeah, yeah.” John shakes his head. “I should’ve known you were trouble when you did me out of my dessert at the Christmas do. Do you remember that, Bryony?”
Bryony doesn’t respond and instead points towards her mouth to show that she has a face full of shortbread and is polite enough not to speak until she’s finished it.
“Course you remember, you were sat next to her, egging her on. Taking advantage of the coeliac. I’m wasting away coz of you!” John rubs his flat stomach, which is in keeping with the rest of his small frame.
“I was doing the planet a favour, reducing food waste. I did you a favour too, if you remember? I gave you my salted rice cakes because you forgot to mention your dietary requirements?”
“Fucking rice cakes in exchange for a cherry Bakewell? Hardly the same thing, is it? You’re just smug because you struck gold that night with a halal meal!”
I smile proudly. “That’s because I bothered to tick the special request box. You didn’t. Amateur mistake.”
In the few months I’ve been at the London office, John and I have become regular sparring buddies. Making jokes about the increasingly widespread availability of halal food over coeliac options is fair game. Though that’s about as far as we go.
As John rifles through the generous selection of biscuits, cakes and pastries in search of something that doesn’t contain gluten, I tell Bryony about my tense commute.
“Blimey, I’d be scared, too, if the tube took ages to leave,” she says. “Usually I get held up on the platform, not in the tube itself.”
“I started thinking the worst,” I say. “Like, what if it’s a bomb or something? All the irrational thoughts popped into my head.”
“Really? I didn’t think you’d -” Bryony’s mouth forgets to engage her brain, “worry about... a... terrorist... attack.” The last word comes out slowly and weighed down with regret.
I feel my face warm up.
Jerome, who seems to appear out of nowhere, reaches in front of Bryony to grab an oat and raisin cookie. “What makes you say that?” He dares to ask the question I had in mind but wouldn’t dare utter.
Her eyes widen. “I just... I don’t know.”
“Uh, forget it! They never cater for us coeliacs. We’re the forgotten strugglers.” John abandons his search and, rather sensibly, walks away.
Jerome lowers his voice. “You do know that Muslims aren’t bomb-proof, right?”
Wow, he’s got guts, throwing that political football out there.
Jerome must enjoy seeing Bryony squirm, as he adds: “If something were to happen, she’d be as screwed as you.”
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone call out such a senseless statement.
Bryony opens her mouth to speak but no words fall out.
I laugh, then Bryony does, too, grateful for my sense of humour.
Jerome pats her back. “Only messing but, seriously, that was a bit problematic.” He flashes his perfectly white teeth to suggest that all is well, before taking a pastry and finding a chair.
“Sorry,” says Bryony to me. “I realised that was stupid as soon as I said it.”
“It’s okay,” I reply.
It really is. I like Bryony. She commutes from Surrey every day. I doubt she sees many people like me.
“It’s too early. I haven’t got my brain in gear so it’s just as well we’ve got a work-free morning,” she says.
“I know. Hopefully we can zone out through the meeting.” I grab a second biscuit for my tea and we take our seats.
After a recent case of bullying in one of the regional offices which ended in a costly out of court settlement, Delilah decided to take it upon herself to use a significant chunk of our PR training budget to hire an external HR-type person to figure out if we’ve got issues. To ensure she gets more bang for her buck, she’s invited most of the marketing team along to the session. Only a few bothered to turn up so the large meeting room Delilah booked feels a bit empty.
These things are usually tick box exercises that don’t really add much value. They’re more for the company to feel like they’ve done something. However, it’s always worth attending because whenever an outsider visits there are special sandwiches. I’ve learnt that HQ offers a much better spread than the lowly northern office.
The session begins with a bunch of HR bull about wellness in the workplace, how we should never feel alone, how we should set boundaries, etc. etc. etc.
While I roll my eyelids it turns out to be quite cathartic for Bryony.
“In my old place... at the Christmas parties, a lot of the male directors thought it was okay to get a bit touchy-feely, just because they were drunk. That would be their excuse. Not that they’d ever give an excuse or acknowledge it the next day at work.”
This is met with some sighs and shaking of heads.
“How did that make you feel?” asks Jolene, the external trainer, doing her best nodding, sympathetic face.
“I suppose...” Bryony pauses. “Insignificant. Unimportant. Like my feelings didn’t matter.”
“Mm... hmm,” more nodding and indecipherable sounds from Jolene. She unbuttons her ruby-red jacket as if to get more comfortable. I’m not sure if she’ll kick off her heels next. “What I’m hearing is, these men used their positions of power to take advantage, as they have always done. And what did your other colleagues do. Did they address the situation? Did they help make you feel seen?”
Oh God, corny questions alert. What does anyone ever do? What did Maggie my old boss do when Peter was handsy with me at our Christmas do? What did everyone else who witnessed his inappropriate behaviour do? Nothing. Nobody ever does anything. The pervy directors always get away with it because nobody ever says or does anything.
It’s a good job I don’t work in HR. I wouldn’t last long.
I think my eye roll didn’t go unnoticed.
Jolene perches on the front desk and turns to me. “What about you? Have you ever had anything like this?”
I wonder whether to share the Peter anecdote but then Jolene adds: “It doesn’t even need to be in the workplace. What Bryony touched upon is the wider issue for women. Has anything like this happened to you outside? Or has there ever been a time you felt unsafe?”
I feel I ought to bring something to the table. Thus far I’ve been pretty mute on this whole thing.
“Well, to be honest,” I begin, though I don’t exactly know where this is heading, “whenever I’m feeling unsafe, or unsure about somebody, I tend to put it more down to them being racist rather than anything else. That’s just the first thing that comes into my head.”
I didn’t read the room before opening my mouth. Everyone’s face drops. Was what I said that big a surprise?
“Well... that’s not the scope of what we’re here for today but,” Jolene leans in, all therapist like, “we should unpack this.”
Oh God, no. Please don’t. Let’s not unpack. Let’s keep it zipped up in a suitcase in the back of my mind. Also, I hate those Americanised phrases. Unpack this. Pfft.
Everyone looks at me, waiting to hear me unload my baggage. I’m under the spotlight. The air conditioning is too cold and I feel exposed.
“Does it... happen to you a lot?” Sam, the data girl, tentatively asks. That’s the first time she’s spoken to me. Or anyone, for that matter. She’s not one to mix business with pleasure. Or even acknowledge her colleagues.
“I mean, not a lot but, yeah, it’s happened a few times in my life. Usually it’s just someone shouting abuse from a car and by the time you’ve got over the shock, they’ve gone. It happened a few times at school, too. And once it was a bit more than that.”
Jolene sits back down in her chair and takes her glasses off, resting them on her mousey brown wavey hair. She gestures for me to have the figurative floor. “What I’m hearing is there’s a deeper issue here. Could you tell us more?”
Gosh, where to start.
***
I was on the way to the train station, in the small town where I used to work, to collect tickets for a trip to London the next day. As I was going up the steep hill to the station, someone threw something. I think it was a plastic bottle but I didn’t dare look. I didn’t have time to think. It was all so quick, yet car-crashingly slow at the same time.
It’s funny, in these circumstances you think you’ll behave differently. That you’ll stand up for yourself. Swear back. Be defiant. Many a movie and book has shown the wronged party stand up to the bigots. Big sis once recounted a story of how some kids started making fun of a German girl on the bus by repeating some of the words they overheard from her conversation with her friend. The girl, mortified, stopped talking, sat quietly and turned her attention to the window.
“She should have told them to fuck off,” I said at the time. “That’s what I’d do.”
“You wouldn’t!” said big sis.
“I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t. If you were in that situation and put on the spot like that, you’d probably just want them to stop. You’d want it to be over. You’re acting all hard now because you haven’t been in that situation. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Well, now I have. And now I do know what it’s like. And she was right.
For all my hypothetical bluster, when it happened in reality, I felt powerless and paralysed. The paralysis subsided once I realised what was happening.
Once the echoes of ‘paki’ became louder, once the direction of sound became clearer, once the verbal abuse threatened to become physical, my adrenaline kicked in and I went into survival mode.
Come on, get up that hill. Hurry the fuck up, I told myself as the steep incline I was leisurely scaling just moments before, now seemed vertiginously impossible. My feet felt like they were in danger of meeting my shins, so high was the hill and so fast I was walking.
I didn’t dare look back to see my tormentors. I didn’t dare put faces to the names they were calling me.
Finally, I’d reached the summit. I no longer heard any abuse. I’m not sure when the name-calling stopped. I think I’d muffled it out when I was climbing up the hill. I got into the safety of the station when I realised how fast my heart was racing. It was pounding through sheer exhaustion and fear.
Who do I tell? Who will help?
I joined the queue, waiting politely. Could I have jumped the queue? Probably not. That didn’t seem very British. After all, it’s not like I was bleeding, or hurt. Not physically. A minute lapsed, and the heat slowly faded off my face. I went to collect my ticket at the counter. I wasn’t going to mention anything but then I didn’t know who, if anyone, would be waiting for me outside the station. If they went to the effort to throw a bottle and follow me up the hill, who knew what they’d do?
I didn’t even know where to start. Why would I tell them? What did I expect the ticket master to do? Still, someone needed to know. Someone needed to know that this happened to me, a British-born girl who speaks English without an accent, wears English clothes and works at a posh all-white PR company.
“Erm, also,” I began, lowering my tone so nobody else would know of my shame, “as I was walking up...” my voice went quieter still, “someone shouted racial abuse at me.”
“Sorry, what was that, my love.” The ticket master gestured for me to speak into the microphone at the side of the counter.
I cleared my throat. “Oh... yes... sorry. As I was walking someone shouted racist abuse and I think they might have followed me here.”
Oh God.
I didn’t dare look but in the corner of my eye I could see a suited man at the adjacent counter (who was rather fit, if memory serves) looking at me with a familiar face. The one of pity. I couldn’t look back. I just couldn’t.
The ticket master had a similar look, though his face also swelled up with anger. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Do you see the person now?”
I said I didn’t. Then again, I didn’t know who I was looking for. I assumed the modern day racist was a bit more discreet than their skinhead or pillowcase-wearing predecessors.
“Give me a minute. I’m coming out.” My ticket master hero lifted his strong frame out of his chair and pulled down the black blind over his screen to signify he had bigger fish to fry.
He came out onto the civilian side and spoke to his colleague, a lady with bleached blonde hair, black roots and soft eyes beneath the harsh, etched in makeup. She looked at him with horror, then over at me with the same look that the fit guy next to me wore.
***
“Did you report it?” Bryony asks.
I’m caught between monologue and memory as I notice everyone in the meeting room looking at me with unintentional yet unmistakable pity. Well, almost everyone. Jerome, the only other person of colour in the room, has a different expression. He doesn’t look with sympathy. He shows empathy. Familiarity. He knows what I know. He’s felt what I felt.
“I did report it,” I say. “My old colleagues urged me to go to the police after I’d told them.”
“What I’m hearing is,” Jolene begins, “it’s a horrible experience but you felt safe in the hands of strangers. It shows there is more bad than good. It shows the importance of speaking out.”
No! Stop hearing what you want to hear! I want to shout at Jolene. Stop hearing what you want to hear and start listening to what I’m trying to say. I didn’t feel safe. I felt vulnerable, exposed and small.
“Then what happened when you told the police?” she asks.
I look at Jolene, all ruby skirt suit and out of touch. “Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.”
***
“Did you share all that with work?” M can hardly believe his ears during our dinnertime de-brief.
“Yeah, I can’t believe it myself.” I grab another slice of pizza.
“What did they all say?”
“Not much. After I’d poured my heart out, lunch arrived and everyone started diving in, making sure they got the best sandwiches. John moaned about the lack of gluten-free and Rick took an extra sandwich for later. By the time we were done eating, they’d forgotten what I’d said.”
“That’s a bit shit,” says M.
I nod, my mouth too full of jalapeño-laden pizza to talk.
Once I finish my slice, I ask. “Has it happened to you?”
“Yeah, of course,” says M, without even needing to ask what I’m referring to. “There’s not a single Asian person I know that it hasn’t happened to.”
M tells me his own story, of how he was on the bus home one day and a bunch of guys started shouting abuse from the back seats and one even tried to throw something and thankfully missed. M’s face changes as he tells me this. His eyes look sad. I’m compelled to give him a hug. I realise that’s not what he wants. That would be doing the same thing everyone has done to me whenever they’ve heard I’ve been abused. It’s offering pity when we already feel pitiful. Passing on sympathy when we want to feel empowered. Unintentionally belittling us when we already feel so, so small.
There is comfort in sharing this collective pain. I used to think I was being paranoid, that it was racist of me to assume racism from others. Now I know.
You don’t go out in your car expecting an accident but you exercise caution. You survey your environment, especially in new territories where you’re never fully sure of your surroundings. For us foreigners, despite being born and bred here, we look over our shoulder every time we step out of the door.
My phone rings. It’s Sophia. I send her to voicemail.
“Why did you do that?” asks M. “It’s not like we’re still eating. I can clear up.”
“Oh... it’s just while we’re talking. I’ll call her tomorrow. I’m not sure what it is. She called me earlier, too.”
“You should answer it. It might be something important. Or maybe she just wants to talk. Just because you’re chatting to me it doesn’t mean you have to ignore your friends.”
Suddenly, something slips off my shoulders like a dead weight. It’s as though I’ve cleared a blockage and drained out the gloopy fluid that had clogged my heart for as long as I can remember. I need to release all this tension, in the only way I know how. The tears come. Thankfully, they’re not full-on ugly tears, but they are streaming down my cheeks.
“Babe, what is it?” A worried M attempts to console me. “Has something happened?”
Nothing has happened, I think to myself. Yet everything has happened.
***
I call Sophia from the privacy of our bedroom. Luckily, nothing is wrong. It just seems she wants to chat. She talks at length about how much her life has changed, how a day doesn’t go by when she’s not stepping on or tripping over a Mega Block. How all her carefully curated furniture pieces are covered in some sticky film, which she can’t decipher. It could be dribble, dried up sick, or wet wipe residue.
“Anyway, enough about me. How are you?” she asks.
“I’m fine. Nothing much to report here.” Though there was plenty to say, I was tired of talking. This is something new and novel in itself. After a day of unloading, I was happy to just listen.