Under The Ground 6: Parallel Lines

They must have just come from some David Cassidy convention or fan club meeting. Festooned with memorabilia of the acned 70s heartthrob, several fortyish women are reliving some happy memories, and not just of this afternoon. Sitting opposite, but otherwise miles away, I’m replaying an unhappy conversation, exchange, encounter I’ve just finished. I smile involuntarily at something I said, while my radar picks up a nostalgic paean to tight trousers with wide flares from across the carriage. They think I’m listening. “He knows what I mean. Look, he knows. You know, don’t you?” My sadness, and the comfort of my daydream, hold me back from joining in their harmless banter. But now they’ve got me. I’m complicit, I’m hooked in. I spend the distance to the next stop lashing my features into a parade of forced smiles, shrugs, snorts and puffs of artificial laughter. Nothing against Cassidy. I just thought the tube was my refuge.