There was a tall lanky bald gentleman sitting opposite me reading a book entitled 'Polish in Four Weeks'. The arms of his glasses curved around his head as though he had absently sat on them that morning.
A man in black jeans with blue trainers, a 'Hard Rock Café' t-shirt under an old and grey-fraying leather jacket stood unnecessarily by the carriage doors looking shiftily around the faces of the other passengers from underneath a baseball cap. His beard was greying and his face crumpled, weathered. He moved around at stops, standing in different places, hanging off different handles, looking at different faces.
An elegant middle-aged woman wearing warm pastels was having a conversation in French on her mobile phone, sitting on the edge of her seat with her knees tight together to one side, tense but laughing occasionally and showing her yellowing teeth, her spare hand idly rubbing backward and forward across the white metal logo of her handbag.
A man in dark stiff clothing and a small coloured and coarse fibre back pack with a rolled rug squeezed under the top sat on a large blue bag behind the plastic partition on the floor next to me. His hair was in compact dreadlocks tied with scraps of red cloth. He was listening to music and staring through the windows in the doors.
A weak sun rilled over the windows of an office building as the tube train shook through a dark concrete trough and under the city.
It wasn't quite a state of shock, but an anaesthetic of thought.
The only thing after she had left and I had got myself together that made me feel was the dry, laconic announcement at Heathrow as the Jubilee Line train was about to leave the station at Terminal One.
"Passengers are reminded not to leave any of their belongings on the baggage trolleys. Do not leave baggage or belongings unattended. Do not leave your children unattended. We will collect the baggage trolleys. Unattended baggage may cause a security alert resulting in closure of this station and the Bomb Squad carrying out a controlled explosion of the item of baggage concerned. Unattended children will be made to work."
The thin man learning Polish laughed at this.
I smiled.
It won't be long before I see the spark in her eyes again.
So, she's gone, and we're both back into this daily routine of work and longing...but with a new fresh and exciting bundle of memories from an amazing five days together.
I'm feeling a bit sad, obviously, but happy at the same time - we're getting where we're heading, one day at a time.
So your sympathy is not required, really, although greatly appreciated.
This duo are doing just fine.
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