the young man with the old suitcase
has an unusual style
unusual but
successful

his trousers are grey and black speckled wool and his shirt is a very dark brown
so dark it almost seems charcoal
just not quite
it sits firm but not tight on his compact sinewy body
with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows

he must have at least three friends because he wears
on his left wrist
a vintage watch with a light brown strap and
three friendship bracelets of three different types in three different colours

on his little left finger is a plain silver ring that might just be white gold but probably isn’t
and on his right ring finger there’s a broad silver ring
matt
with two dark grooves, one each side by the edge
it’s impossible to tell whether this is a symbol of friendship or love, or just
an adornment

his face is small but endearing
a little mousy, in a nice way
and his hair is dark blond and probably smells of
apple
(on second thought it probably doesn’t, it probably smells a little of musk from a decent but  not overpriced shampoo he used just a short while
ago)
in his left ear he has a tiny diamond-type stud and another, slightly bigger one
under his lip, not in the centre, but to the right, which is both a little unusual and
also
not unattractive

the young man with the old suitcase peels the foil off a lid of a tub of pasta and releases from it a tiny black fork, he unfolds it and opens the tub and slowly starts eating the pasta. every so often he looks up at the panel above the seats opposite to check on the progress of his district line train: wimbledon to the centre of town. when he does so his small but endearing forehead frowns into four even folds, curious rather than worried. his eyes are a little uncertain but mild and you think any moment now he is going to smile. but he doesn’t. he seems quite content and the pasta, while not exactly delicious, is clearly doing the trick.

he’s a fastidious eater and he doesn’t like it when some of the sauce or dressing or whatever it is on his pasta gets on his fingers and he doesn’t have a napkin to wipe his hands and i’m with him on that because i don’t like that either when it happens to me. he doesn’t lick his fingers and i’m glad he doesn’t because that, on a tube train, would be both unhygienic and crude.

on his lap he has a parka that’s black or a very dark grey with a brownish bit of fur around the hood the way you normally see in the winter. it’s august. but it has been raining a lot and although it’s not raining now it is going to rain again soon. he doesn’t want the sauce or the dressing or whatever it is that he has on his fingers from his pasta to get on the parka and i’m with him on that too, because that’s just a nuisance.

he finishes his pasta and puts the little black fork into the tub and replaces the lid and now
he doesn’t know what to do
he looks around for a bin but there isn’t one and so he puts the tub
carefully down
between his feet behind the old suitcase
on the floor

his boots which are ankle high and probably leather or suede are sheepskin or fur-lined but it’s hard to see them properly because they’re
hidden
behind the suitcase

i wonder what’s in that suitcase

it’s light brown, almost beige, made of leather, with two belt buckles and straps to fasten it shut and no wheels or extendable handle, it’s
the kind of suitcase my grandmother would have taken to italy
from switzerland
on a train
it’s about that size too, a third the size of a normal big suitcase, the kind of case you’d have for a short trip or a week end
but it’s loosely, sparingly packed and rather than bulge on the sides it actually has
some slack

maybe it’s empty.

i feel tempted to lift it up just to check, but that would surely alarm him

i wonder where he’s going with his empty
or half-empty
suitcase
and i wonder where he’s from with his successful albeit unusual style that’s a little fastidious but still very cool, maybe
eastern europe

a man with no style at all but maybe a very big heart enters the carriage and sits down nearer the doors and starts talking on the phone in polish. a flicker of recognition registers on the young man’s face, but he doesn’t really look polish to me and also maybe i’m imagining this having just thought that he might be from eastern europe. maybe he’s czech. 

i should probably just lean forward and say
excuse me young man
you have an unusual style that is very successful
where are you from?
and what, if anything, is in your suitcase?

but i don’t because we’re now at earl’s court and i need
to get off
so i leave him to his style and his case and his
mystery


i hope
he doesn’t
forget
to pick up
the tub
when he leaves
and bin it

(because that would just ruin everything)

the boy with the sore shoulder blade sounds remarkably chirpy: ‘it hurts like hell when i touch it.’

his tone, his inflexion suggest that he’s found a fiver in his shorts.

he had to brake hard on his bike to avoid being run over by a car at a crossing, the car was going way too fast, he reckons.

the chap on the bike right behind him wasn’t so quick, so he crashed into him, supporting himself on the boy-in-front’s shoulder.

‘no worries, man, i told him; if you hadn’t done that you’d have been run over yourself by the car.’ what his voice suggests is: ‘hey good to meet you; sure, i’d be glad to have a beer any time.’

he’s now on his way to hand in his apologies for tonight’s training in person. there are, after all, three goal keepers now, and the weather is wet, so training will probably be taking place on the astro-turf. it’s important to him, this, so he does it in person. he doesn’t say it’s important to him, but the way he says that he’s going to hand in his apologies in person, and the way he says it three times suggest that it is. you don’t just phone in your absence, his voice is saying, you go in person, and make your apologies. because of the bad shoulder. the shoulder, though, his voice also says, will be all right, it’s nothing to worry about. at least the other chap didn’t get run over, that would have clearly been worse.

and he’s doing well with his marks, he’s got a five in art [six is the best], and nadia has an average 5.5 across the board now, so he told her ‘you see, you didn’t even know how good you are with your marks’.

it’s not clear whether nadia is his sister or girlfriend, what he says sounds more like the latter but his tone is more that of the former.

now he’d like a zopf please for a brunch he’s having on sunday. (a zopf is a plaited loaf of white bread that tends to taste a bit sweet and is very popular on sundays in switzerland, though not necessarily for a brunch.) it’s not entirely clear where he’s having his brunch, but he’d like his interlocutor to bake him one please, for sunday.

he signs off, with a chirp still about his whole being, but the choice of his words is both casual and strikingly grave: ‘ciao mother!’ i have a feeling she may just oblige...

on a suburban train
bound
for another corner of nowhere
the boy dressed in white
attracts
my attention
he’s no better looking than most, no more
attractive, i doubt
he is cleverer than they, let alone
eruditer
but
he does have
a style.

the boy dressed in white takes a seat facing mine, one removed down the carriage, he sits on his least white item of clothing, his jacket, making sure that his brilliantwhite trousers don’t get stained with the grime of the train

his shirt is half sheer and somewhere between, in whiteness, the trousers and jacket, it has a pinkish hue, perhaps from the lilac white pink of his skin, his skin is milky and soft to the
touch
i imagine
(i don’t walk up to him to find out, lest he take
umbrage)
his hair is the black of a boy whose hair just isn’t quite black, but
a dark mousy brown, dark enough to seem black though against the white of his
temples. his shoes are white, i don’t see his socks or his
underwear
but chances are they are
white.

the boy dressed in white sits on the train out to nowhere playing a game on his phone. only once or twice does he look up and our eyes meet
on both occasions
without meaning. i interest him less than he me but then i am twice his age and not wearing white, but he’s not
quite
indifferent. nor is he put out, he turns his attention back to his game and if i were to have a guess at what he was feeling i’d say
confident
at having had
some effect. (maybe as
desired)

the boy dressed in white has a future i reckon and i reckon he reckons so too. his phone rings, the one he’s been playing a game on. it’s the wrong kind of phone but he’s ‘good’ and what’s more he’s had some good news. the good news is that a manager, the manager, no less, of mcfly wants to hear his songs. he’s been talking to him in a bar and he’s told him that he has a good look, which he does, his look is what’s caught my attention too and i too, if i were a manager of young pop stars, would take an interest in him
and his songs.

relating his good news to the friend on the phone (not girlfriend not boyfriend nor mum, by the tone of his voice, but a friend) he gets off the train at someplace out nowhere, out in the suburbs, assured
in the knowledge
that though nowhere may be where he’s now
he’s got style he’s got songs he’s got people’s attention: he’s
clearly
got somewhere
to go.

petra, the girl on the train from berlin to dresden, is much put out to miss her connecting regional service (owing, we hear, to a signal failure resulting in a 'twelve minute delay') which would have taken her to the important meeting at the family planning centre. (i don't ask petra why the meeting is important or in what capacity she was meaning to attend it. being a complete stranger to her, i fear such a line of enquiry may be found unwelcome or intrusive, or possibly both.)

using her friend's mobile she phones her brother - at work, apparently - and asks him to google (she uses the verb 'google', in german) the number of the centre and then instructs him to ask sebastian (another sebastian, obviously, not me) to phone a certain man there to tell him that she won't be coming to the meeting because she can't make her train.

she's very cross. in a peculiarly restrained way. she doesn't shout or scream or use expletives. she just says 'this makes me very cross', and suggests she ought to complain. after all, she has made plans. 'when you plan things', she says. there is a righteousness in her voice. and rightly so, one feels: it makes one cross. 

i tell her i live in england where you never make your connecting train and this sort of thing happens all the time and it's best not to make any plans at all but to just build in one or two hours slack and see what happens. this makes her laugh. she is in a much more cheerful mood now and finds this even more peculiar: 'this is peculiar', she says, not to me, to her friend, 'being angry and laughing at the same time'. i think she finds it good peculiar, rather than funny peculiar. or bad peculiar. i'm sure she does.

the elderly lady opposite me who'll be met by somebody at the station to then travel on to somewhere in the country smiles knowingly. she has seen it all, perhaps?

the train gets into dresden twelve minutes behind the original schedule, bang on the new one. petra smiles and wishes me a good time in dresden.