Interview (1) – Goodge Street

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Goodge Street is one of the remaining stations on the Central London Tube where the platforms are served by lifts. As he looked at the back of the person in front of him, Jim wondered why he had bothered to take the lift, with a little additional effort he could have climbed the emergency stairs, in fact he had considered walking from Euston but had decided against it. In either case, the exercise would have contributed to a New Year’s resolution of “taking more exercise”.

The station’s décor of dark wood and glazed tiles gave it a retro feel. Come to think of it, this wasn’t retro at all – this was mostly the original look from Edwardian London! In contrast, the lift was lined with some sort of grey laminate with the joints trimmed with aluminium strips. He supposed this was in the interests of it being hard-wearing. High in one of the corners, beneath the ceiling, Jim could see a CCTV camera staring blindly at him.

The previous evening, he had decided to that he might find a reasonably priced hotel and treat himself to an evening out in town before going home tomorrow. As a result he was trailing a small wheeled suitcase and he felt awkward in the crowded lift.

A gentle drizzle was falling when Jim emerged from the station entrance. He ducked into a shop doorway and checked the location of the street he wanted in battered London A to Z. He had marked the page with a paperclip.  It was only a couple of hundred yards from the station to his destination. He turned away from the crowds of Tottenham Court Road in the hinterland of back-streets and set off steadily along the damp pavement.

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 8th January 2017 – 291 words)