Michele Martinelli Michele is an Italian/ Irish writer, who has spent the past five years in London. Born in Brussels, he spent 15 years in Belgium before heading to Sussex University. After four years of law, he realised he wanted to write for a living. That’s what he’s been doing ever since.
I did my best to stop looking at her, but I couldn’t convince my neck to turn away.
She was wedged between three other commuters, each of whom bore expressions which suggested they were heading to war. She caught my eye because she was smiling. It’s rare to see anyone smile on the Jubilee line, let alone at 7am.
She must have been about 24 and was dressed in a well-worn, but clean, pink woollen jumper with dark skinny jeans. She wasn’t particularly attractive. There was nothing unusual about her at all except for her smile. What, I wondered, was there to smile about?
I was more irritated than usual that morning as someone was balancing a newspaper on my back. I had considered scolding the offending reader, but realised I was doing exactly the same thing to another passenger. I decided instead to make the journey as uncomfortable as possible for the person using me as a coffee table and reached down to put on my backpack. A few seconds later I took it off. I heard a newspaper ruffle and an angry grunt as I did so. In my mind I was smiling.
That was when I noticed her. She had her face struck between two armpits and was also being used by a commuter as a table. Her smile wasn’t of the common ‘grin and bear it’ variety. She was beaming. Suddenly I saw why. She was eating doughnut.
One of her arms was snaking its way up and down from her waist to her mouth, feeding it a large pink doughnut. She looked like a child on Christmas morning. Two stops later and the doughnut was gone. She immediately took out a white doughnut. Her grin widened as she enjoyed her second sugary treat. Then she ate a chocolate doughnut and followed it with a multi-coloured one.
When we arrived at Canada Water, I got off the train and so did she. I paused to let her overtake me as we walked through the station. I saw her pull out a fifth doughnut. She finished it in a few mouthfuls and then scrunched up the brown paper bag the treats had come from. I left her and headed to work.
Later that day, I saw her from my office window. She was leaving a plastic surgeon’s office and was no longer wearing a smile. That evening I got home and checked Facebook. One of my friends had commented on a photo from a group called ‘Women who eat on tubes’. Her eyes had been covered by a digital pair of sunglasses, but I recognised her.
The photo wasn’t very flattering and nor were any of the 32 comments, but, for a brief moment between Bond Street and Canada Water, she had been truly happy.
