Marylebone Platform 2: Connection

Meet on the concourse beside the flower stall. Midday. He’d been very specific about it which was unusual; they typically met at Marylebone anyway and just found each other under the departure boards. Five dates now, six if you counted when they met, and the station was equally convenient for both of them. Bakerloo from Willesden for her, mainline from the Chilterns for him. Jane thought that he quite liked the romance of meeting at a station as well, the second time they had met there he’d enthused about its Edwardian architecture and would have possibly still been talking about Neo-Baroque features now if she hadn’t interrupted and suggested they get a drink. She hadn’t found it dull, she liked that he was passionate about something, but she had always found the people at stations more interesting than the buildings. In transit, intersecting briefly, thousands of stories to imagine.

Jane was slightly late and took the escalator two steps at a time, the posters on the adjoining walls passing in her periphery. Jersey Boys. Multivitamins. Clinique. The Mamma Mia movie. Mental note to not see that. eHarmony. Mamma Mia again. Her phone vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans, it would be Paul wondering where she was. She slowed for the final few steps, partly to navigate the end of the escalator and partly as she didn’t want to arrive flushed and out of breath. Date five felt like it might be the time to be flushed and out of breath but at the end of it, not the start. They’d kissed last time, briefly, he’d been rushing for the last train, and it was evidently an audition they had both passed as here they were.

Paul stood, as arranged, in front of the flower stall. White shirt, blue jeans, he’d had a hair cut since last time and Jane was relieved that he’d abandoned the fringe that he’d kept running his fingers through for something closer cropped. He smiled as she approached.

“Sorry I’m a bit late. Tube was busy, seemed like everyone was trying to get out of Willesden today.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Paul replied with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve only just got here anyway.” He took a step towards her and leaned in to awkwardly kiss her on the cheek. “Hello, you”.

Jane looked up at him, saw that he hadn’t moved away. She wasn’t sure if it was in hope, expectation, or if he had committed to a pre-rehearsed greeting that hadn’t quite gone to plan and was now stuck in no-man’s-land, wanting the ground to swallow him up. She put him out of his misery.

“Hey, you. I think we’re a bit past that now, don’t you think?” She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, closed her eyes and took in the scent of his aftershave. One of the CK ones, maybe One, she wasn’t sure and was having a hard time concentrating on anything other than keeping her balance as she was up on her tiptoes and whilst he seemed to be enjoying the kiss it hadn’t extended to him putting his arms around her. She sank back on to her heels and pulled away. “Hello. I should’ve worn heels.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be. Just, next time, you are allowed to touch me. Even if it’s just to stop me falling on my face. It’s not a Jane Austen novel.”

“Makes sense and, er…,”  he tailed off. “I was going to say something clever about sense and sensibility but it got away from me.”

“Points for trying,” said Jane. “Pride and Prejudice is the one people usually know so I’m mildly impressed that you didn’t go for the obvious.”

“It was on TV earlier this year,” he said with a grin. “BBC. I watched the first episode but it wasn’t for me. Someone twisted an ankle, that seemed to be as dramatic as it got.”

“The drama is in the relationships. What’s said, what’s unsaid. It’s a delicate dance of manners and protocol. I should warn you that I really like that stuff so you might want to change the subject if you’re about to reveal that you thought Pride and Prejudice would be better if it was called Pride and Extreme Prejudice. Some action movie about a former Marine who did jobs for the downtrodden and wronged, killing his enemies with excessive force and pithy one liners.” 

“That sounds pretty good. Too similar to the A Team but Hollywood doesn’t have a problem with reusing old IP so you could be on to something.” He was laughing and raised his hands, palms up. “Don’t worry. I’m joking. Half joking at least. My cultural bandwidth takes in a range of frequencies. I am not a total meathead.” 

“Cultural bandwidth?”, said Jane, eyebrow raised. “Has someone been reading the Saturday Guardian supplements?”

“Perhaps I just have hidden depths,” replied Paul. “Still waters and all that. Anyway, now that you’re here and we’ve established your love of formal courtship rituals…”

“I didn’t quite say that…”

“Close enough. Now that we’ve established all that. What’s your favourite flower?” He gestured at the stall behind him, a blaze of colours popping like a firework display, frozen in place. “I don’t know anything at all about flowers so I thought I should consult you before I bought you something.”

Jane walked up to the stall and smiled at the woman behind the counter, gave a gentle shrug to acknowledge that she seemed to have heard most of their exchange. There was a large bank of peonies,  pinky white, in the middle of the stall surrounded by, variously, lilies, some red roses, burnt orange tulips, and several taller stems she didn’t recognise. Gladioli maybe. Had she been the heroine in an Austen novel then clearly she would have learned all of them after long afternoons flower arranging or practicing the piano whilst the gentlemen talked business and smoked cigars. She liked looking back at it but had no interest in being anyone’s accessory or adornment. 

“It’s a lovely thought, Paul, but let’s not get flowers now,” she said. “We’ll have to carry them round all day and they need to be in water. You know that much, right?”

“That’s about the extent of my knowledge,” he said. “You sure? This was my whole plan to impress you at the start.”

“I’m sure.” She saw him waiting for something else. “And, okay, I’m mildly impressed and noting that this is the second time on this date that I’ve been mildly impressed.”

“There’s got to be some kind of multiplier on it. Two lots of mildly impressed equals quite impressed?”

“Nope, just two lots of mildly impressed. Otherwise what incentive have you got to raise your game?”

“I see,” said Paul. “Okay then, we won’t get the flowers but for future reference, what would you have chosen?”

“Probably the tulips,” said Jane before pointing at them as she realised that he didn’t even seem to know which ones they were. “The orange ones. But, for future reference, they can come in many colours.”

“Confusing. I like the ones that are easy to remember. Sunflowers. Looks like the sun, is a flower. Easy.”

“Hidden depths, eh?,” laughed Jane.

They walked out of the station and made their way along towards the main road that cut right across the top of London, from the Westway through into the heart of the City. It was busy, cars concertinaed between traffic lights, stopping, starting; the occasional angry horn, electronic beeps from the pedestrian crossing. They crossed to the south side of the road and walked past some office buildings before Paul stopped them outside the Town Hall, by one of the stone lions, faced raised into the noon sunshine. A small group of people, dressed in suits or summer dresses, hats and fascinators, stood clustered on the stairs leading up to the entrance.

“Imagine getting married here,” said Paul. 

“It’s a little early for a proposal,” replied Jane. “You haven’t even bought me flowers yet. But I think you’re right about the venue, it’s great. Wonder what it’s like inside?”

“We could sneak in,” suggested Paul. “Join this wedding party and check it out.”

“I’m not really dressed for it,” said Jane. “I would definitely have worn heels if I’d known we were attending someone’s wedding. Come on, we should get out of their way.” Whilst they’d been talking a vintage double decker bus had pulled up and more guests, along with the groom and his immediate entourage, were alighting from the opening at the back. On the other side of the lights, further up the street, they could see a black cab adorned with ribbons. The guests had seen it too and quickly began to make their way into the hall.

“Last chance,” said Paul. “I’m sure I’ve read that they can’t legally stop you attending services in public spaces.”

“Legally, no,” said Jane. “But I’m not about to crash someone’s special day just to see what it’s like where Paul McCartney got married.”

“Really? Did he? Which time?”

“To Linda. He was local I think at the time although I’m not quite sure. He was definitely living with Jane Asher round here before that so I guess he must have stayed after they split up. It’s not that far to Abbey Road.”

“Paul and Jane,” said Paul. “What are the chances?”

“Given they’re pretty common names I’d say the chances are quite high,” said Jane. “Besides it didn’t end that well for Paul and Jane, you need to be looking out for your Linda if you’re after the love of your life.”

“I’d never be able to give up bacon,” said Paul.

“That wasn’t really my point,” said Jane, smiling. “Speaking of bacon we should get some food.”

They ate lunch in a small cafe on Marylebone High Street, chatting idly about work and plans for the rest of the summer. They stepped around it lightly, each of them hinting that there was enough space for the other in those plans but neither presuming that it would play out like that. After lunch she dragged him into Daunt Books, it was her favourite shop in London and she wanted to show him. Maybe she wanted to stress test those hidden depths a little too. She watched as he browsed the sports section, picking up various cricket biographies of people she didn’t know. Ian Botham. He sounded familiar. Otherwise she was stumped. She lost sight of him as she flicked through the latest Kate Atkinson which had been stacked on a table towards the front of the shop, a handwritten note of recommendation from one of the booksellers detailing its virtues. 

She saw him again paying for something at the counter and walked over to join him.

“I got you something,” he said, handing over a book, freshly placed in a canvas tote bag, emblazoned with the shop’s logo. She took it from him, said thank you, and slid the book out. It was a copy of Pride And Prejudice, a Penguin classics edition. “I was going to write something inside but you caught me too soon.”

“Tell me instead,” she said. “What were you going to write?”

“I hope not to lose your good opinion, for I suspect it would be lost forever,” he replied, smiling.

“How very Darcy of you,” she said, gently bowing her head in what she hoped was a mock approximation of Elizabethan courtesy and courtship. “You haven’t lost it yet.”

They mooched around Marylebone for the rest of the afternoon, she hooked her arm around his   and they wandered with no fixed destination in mind. He wanted to find John Lennon’s blue plaque but neither of them knew where it was and so they speculated, instead, on where he might have lived, where Paul and Jane lived, in some imagined, heady, swinging sixties version of the streets they were walking now. They stumbled into hidden mews, small, brown bricked Georgian houses, tightly packed in the midst of the city. A film crew had set up in one of them and they peered over barricades trying to catch a glimpse of someone famous, looked for hints of what they might be making. It’ll be something like Notting Hill, something that makes the rest of the world think that all of London is like this. As they were discussing the perspective that the rest of the world may or may not have on the capital city she pulled in a little closer to him.

“Maybe I should show you something a bit more real, then. Would you like to see Willesden?” In her head it had sounded more flirtatious, more casual. Out loud it was difficult to imbue Willesden with much by way of sexual intrigue or mystery. 

“I never thought I would say this but I would really love to see Willesden,” he said. “We’d better get a move on though, I don’t know what time all the trains back run.” It hung there a moment.

“You won’t be needing the trains back,” said Jane. “Not tonight at least.”

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Next instalment in the series nobody is calling The Marylebone Six (as there are six platforms). Happier times for Paul and Jane. Apologies to Willesden but I did used to live there so it’s meant with a certain degree of affection…

This is another in the series to write 26,000 words for Great Ormond Street Hospital in July ’23. All donations, however small, welcome here.