Travelling in 30C heat and memories from 1994

I left home at 5pm yesterday to make my way to an event in Gloucester Road.

The sun was beating down on earth with gusto, with few people scattered around hiding in the shade, under the merciful trees, waiting for the bus. I was thinking: this is the time people come back from central London, it should be a breeze…

As it turns out, in London, it is rare that you don’t get squashed like a sardine on public transport at any time of day and night. The bus was rammed, with people and their multicultural cuisine smells (yuck!)

The tube was better but I got lost on the Hammersmith & City/Metropolitan/Circle/District line – you never know which one it is unless you’ve studied the London Underground System, for that side of London, as if you were preparing to perform brain surgery.

The event was OK, probably a lot more enjoyable for everyone who had not decided to give up alcohol and embark on an extremely calorie controlled diet.

But what I really enjoyed was the brief walk afterwards.

I lived in Fulham when I first moved to London in 1994. My first job in McDonald’s Earl’s Court. This part of London holds a great deal of value in my brief passage from this planet and I wanted to revisit some of the places that were so familiar all those years ago.

After walking from Gloucester Road to Earl’s Court, I entered McDonald’s. It sits there, unchanged, except for the modern computers now used to order and pay for food.

I went up the steps and I could vividly remember two events that took place on those steps.

Number 1: One of the managers, a British born and raised Egyptian with a big presence and an even bigger sense of self importance, had taken a shine to me. In fact I think the reason he gave me the job is that he fancied me right from the word Go. I was pretty rubbish at my job, as a dining area hostess (clearing up tables, emptying rubbish bins, cleaning toilets). Anyway, so rubbish the manager in question very quickly promoted me to dining area manager. Nothing really changed, the duties were the same, but the pay was slightly higher and most importantly, I was able to wear a much more distinguished uniform which signalled to all the strangers walking in and out of the place that I was going places in my life.

Back to those steps… one day a very worried, nice looking blonde woman, came to talk to me as I was making my way down the steps with my usually stinky mop. She asked my name and then introduced herself as Mr Personality’s wife.

I was stunned! I asked her to follow me to the crew room, the place where staff took their breaks, and once we were in a more private space she started crying and told me that not only he was married to her, but they had a small child and she was basically begging me to let him go.

He had told me about a wife, he told me their relationship had ended some time prior to us meeting and that he was divorcing the wife, and sleeping on the floor in the meantime. He was a compulsive liar. Once he felt the need to tell me he was a Christian rather than a Muslim. Back then I could not have cared less, and for that reason, I had never even hinted at a religious preference of any sort during our various conversations, I wasn’t interested. Unsolicited lie, weird.

Number 2: having been promoted, and having assumed a new persona with a shiny new all important uniform, I had to buy shoes. These were usually moccasins. My sister was visiting from Italy and she took me shopping. We bought a pair of very expensive shoes. Back in McD’s, this time I was making my way up the steps sweeping them. She commented on how lovely my shoes were and then told me that I should not waste my money on work shoes. I wasn’t going places after all. Definitely not in those shoes, they were so hard and uncomfortable I had to take them off never to be worn again.