Back on the Tube again
She's a character from science fiction. And it's not because she's in metallic clothes, because she isn't; it's not crazy plastic hair, or vertiginous-soled boots, or white contact lenses. None of them.
She's tall and slender and oddly ageless; mid-forties at the youngest, late-fifties at the oldest. Beneath the fringe of a sharp black bob, her face is a strong-boned triangle, with wide brows narrowing to a pointed chin and a short, turned-up nose. Angular glasses are saved from harshness by their deep burgundy frames; the arms blending into the top bar in a heavy, sculpted double swoop, arcing in line with her eyebrows, the rest of the frame narrow and dark, skimming her cheekbones. The lenses distort her eyes; she's severely myopic.
She's pushed her large bag, an upright wheeled holdall in matt black neoprene, against the glass panel beside the door and is half-sitting on it, half-leaning on the panel. Her long legs tense to support herself and her thigh muscles ripple the fabric of her black cheongsam, making the chocolate brown embroideries of ferns and small flowers catch the harsh carriage light. One black-stockinged shin emerges from the slit in her skirt; she swings it across the other leg and taps her toes on the carriage floor.
It's warm in the carriage, that stifling heat from dry air pumped up from the seat-backs, but despite that she's wearing a fur coat, old-fashioned with a wide collar, mid-thigh length. It looks like real fur, mottled brown and black, with the slight lumpiness that comes from many pelts stitched together. It would stand up to a St Petersburg winter; it must be sweltering inside it. But she wears it casually, open over the embroidered black fabric, showing off the regularly spaced brocaded toggles. The fabric gapes slightly between them, revealing black lace and pale skin.
She's engrossed in a book, carefully flicking the pages with one red-lacquered thumbnail. It seems rather incongruous that it's an autobiography of Shirley MacLaine. 'A charming memoir', says the back-cover blurb.
Maybe it's the ageless maturity or the quietly cross-cultural clothes that give her the look of the future. Something from Blade Runner or a William Gibson novel. Easy to imagine a set of implants behind that black bob, cradling the base of her skull across the occipital ridge. Silicon nanofoam permeating vat-cast hydroxyapatite, set into channels cut into the natural bone. Flush with the skin just below the hairline, they show as rounded oblongs of silky brushed aluminium. Spring-loaded slots crown the finials behind each ear, guarding sockets for memory wafers. At the centre of the curve, pointing down the spinal cord, an inverted teardrop of power electronics, finned in a fractal fern shape to disperse the heat of the circuitry.
Back in the 21st century - and doesn't that still sound like science fiction? - she's probably in fashion. Nobody else could get away with that razor-cut sharpness or the smooth futurism of that black neoprene. As the train slows into my station I slip an old ticket into my novel, a new Iain M Banks, and shift to get up. She looks over at me, her finger keeping her place in Shirley MacLaine, and raises her eyebrows.
'Gonna nick your seat, now,' she says, softly, and grins. Twenty years fall away from her face.
He's asleep with his head back, is my first though. But on a second glance, he's lost in the music humming and ticking from his earphones. Eyes firmly shut behind the late-period gold Elvis shades, the sort with the wide stems with holes in them, and lips slightly parted. His hands rest on the armrests, fingers flickering with the chugging rhythm.
If it weren't for those sunglasses, he'd look scruffy, going on disreputable. Dark, frayed jeans, nondescript trainers, a dark beige hoody with the name of some American college on it. Almost certainly a pose; he doesn't look American. Something about the grooming always picks Americans out: a manicured look, even when they aren't. This bloke is pure North London, from the hair grown out just the fuzzy side of cropped, to the stubble like black moss over cheeks and jaw and the skin stretched tight over the adam's apple as his head lolls against the back of the seat.
The steady hiss and growl from the headphones is unmistakeably classic soul, and something about the combination of hair and shades catapults him back across the decades. He rolls his head from side to side in time with the music, his eyelids flickering. Just like Ray. Just like Stevie.
She's tall and slender and oddly ageless; mid-forties at the youngest, late-fifties at the oldest. Beneath the fringe of a sharp black bob, her face is a strong-boned triangle, with wide brows narrowing to a pointed chin and a short, turned-up nose. Angular glasses are saved from harshness by their deep burgundy frames; the arms blending into the top bar in a heavy, sculpted double swoop, arcing in line with her eyebrows, the rest of the frame narrow and dark, skimming her cheekbones. The lenses distort her eyes; she's severely myopic.
She's pushed her large bag, an upright wheeled holdall in matt black neoprene, against the glass panel beside the door and is half-sitting on it, half-leaning on the panel. Her long legs tense to support herself and her thigh muscles ripple the fabric of her black cheongsam, making the chocolate brown embroideries of ferns and small flowers catch the harsh carriage light. One black-stockinged shin emerges from the slit in her skirt; she swings it across the other leg and taps her toes on the carriage floor.
It's warm in the carriage, that stifling heat from dry air pumped up from the seat-backs, but despite that she's wearing a fur coat, old-fashioned with a wide collar, mid-thigh length. It looks like real fur, mottled brown and black, with the slight lumpiness that comes from many pelts stitched together. It would stand up to a St Petersburg winter; it must be sweltering inside it. But she wears it casually, open over the embroidered black fabric, showing off the regularly spaced brocaded toggles. The fabric gapes slightly between them, revealing black lace and pale skin.
She's engrossed in a book, carefully flicking the pages with one red-lacquered thumbnail. It seems rather incongruous that it's an autobiography of Shirley MacLaine. 'A charming memoir', says the back-cover blurb.
Maybe it's the ageless maturity or the quietly cross-cultural clothes that give her the look of the future. Something from Blade Runner or a William Gibson novel. Easy to imagine a set of implants behind that black bob, cradling the base of her skull across the occipital ridge. Silicon nanofoam permeating vat-cast hydroxyapatite, set into channels cut into the natural bone. Flush with the skin just below the hairline, they show as rounded oblongs of silky brushed aluminium. Spring-loaded slots crown the finials behind each ear, guarding sockets for memory wafers. At the centre of the curve, pointing down the spinal cord, an inverted teardrop of power electronics, finned in a fractal fern shape to disperse the heat of the circuitry.
Back in the 21st century - and doesn't that still sound like science fiction? - she's probably in fashion. Nobody else could get away with that razor-cut sharpness or the smooth futurism of that black neoprene. As the train slows into my station I slip an old ticket into my novel, a new Iain M Banks, and shift to get up. She looks over at me, her finger keeping her place in Shirley MacLaine, and raises her eyebrows.
'Gonna nick your seat, now,' she says, softly, and grins. Twenty years fall away from her face.
He's asleep with his head back, is my first though. But on a second glance, he's lost in the music humming and ticking from his earphones. Eyes firmly shut behind the late-period gold Elvis shades, the sort with the wide stems with holes in them, and lips slightly parted. His hands rest on the armrests, fingers flickering with the chugging rhythm.
If it weren't for those sunglasses, he'd look scruffy, going on disreputable. Dark, frayed jeans, nondescript trainers, a dark beige hoody with the name of some American college on it. Almost certainly a pose; he doesn't look American. Something about the grooming always picks Americans out: a manicured look, even when they aren't. This bloke is pure North London, from the hair grown out just the fuzzy side of cropped, to the stubble like black moss over cheeks and jaw and the skin stretched tight over the adam's apple as his head lolls against the back of the seat.
The steady hiss and growl from the headphones is unmistakeably classic soul, and something about the combination of hair and shades catapults him back across the decades. He rolls his head from side to side in time with the music, his eyelids flickering. Just like Ray. Just like Stevie.