Underground Tales for London

She Deserved It: A scrap of memoir set along the Hammersmith & City Line

Autobiographical jewels of mine hang from that pink ribbon as it ambles across the city. Think of them as coloured lightbulbs strung along frayed electric flex over a market stall; a long twist of Chinese lanterns glowing in the dusk; damp-stained gems of coloured diamanté dangling at intervals from a cheap foxed chain. A rosary of things that happened. The stations of the King’s Cross to Hammersmith stretch.

Think of London lying naked by the river, wearing everything that is inflicted on her. Decorated, damaged, ignited, weighted, chained, wounded, loved, undermined, traversed, surviving…