Many Happy Returns
Entry by: rodgriff
15th April 2016
It was my birthday on Tuesday; people said, "Many happy returns" in the usual way, but after seventy one years of the phase I find myself questioning what it means.
There are things I remember about birthdays, but they can't return, like Yuri Gagarin going into space on my sixteenth birthday. They said "Many Happy Returns" that day but I've never wanted to go on being sixteen and Yuri Gagarin died long ago.
In my thirties I used to travel from Euston to the Elephant and Castle on the underground so often that it became routine. You know what that means, nothing about the journey sticks in your mind, one trip is the same as the next. There’s no anxiety about missing the stop, no worry about being overcrowded and hassled because you know exactly how long you have to put up with the crowd. Those journeys are returns alright, but happy might be too strong a word – most of the time anyway
I happened to do that run on my birthday one year and that's when I saw the woman. I was walking down the platform towards the way out, the train had pulled away a half a minute ago. I was carrying my briefcase, full of so many papers that it was heavy, and I had a raincoat over my other arm and an umbrella. I was weighed down enough that I deliberately walked slowly, lagging behind to let the crowd clear in front of me; aiming for an easy walk up the stairs and through the barriers without being jostled and dropping something.
When I was twenty yards from the end of the platform almost everyone had gone. A woman emerged from the tunnel ahead, running down the last few steps and slowing as she saw the empty platform ahead of her. The only sign of the train was a rumble in the distance. It was probably that noise that made her run.
Disappointment was etched on her face as she stopped, clearly just a little annoyed, feet planted eighteen inches apart, hips thrust slightly forward. She was wearing pale slacks but it was hard to say the exact colour for sure in the dim light at the end of an underground platform. She wore a green T-shirt. A kind of olive green and again the light probably didn’t do it justice. I think in sunshine it would have been a lively colour but even down there it had some charisma, a look that had been chosen, not just thrown on.
She was breathing hard, so her shoulders were high and thrown back, giving her lungs a chance to catch up from running down the stairs and that pushed her breasts forward maybe a little more than she would normally carry them. She had a tan, and in the dark I had no idea if it was a sun tan or if she’d inherited great skin with a built in colour; either way it looked great and even in this light it glowed enough that you’d want to kiss it if you could.
The fabric of the T-shirt looked expensive, the way it draped made it clear that she was not wearing a bra and in the right circumstances you could imagine a queue of classical sculpture artists begging her to pose. Through that fabric I could see two nipple rings. I guess they must have been twice the size of her actual nipples, which were prominent enough, but the rings were something else.
I was walking towards her, so I had maybe six steps before I would pass her and she would be behind me. It’s rude to stare, so I guess for one of those steps I looked away, just for civility sake. On the other hand someone who has gone to so much trouble to look awesome deserves some appreciation, so I looked.
My guess is that the rings were about 10 gauge wire, thick enough to be in no doubt what they were. For one of my six steps I had to look at her face because she might have given the slightest hint that it would be worth stopping to talk to her. It was my birthday after all.
There wasn’t any hint.
She looked completely sure of herself, not arrogant or haughty, just sure, and she was probably five years older than me, so although I was an adult, married with two children by then, for that moment I was just a kid and she was way out of my reach. I used my remaining four steps to look at those rings and forty years later I still remember them like yesterday.
If happy returns were possible I'd go back to that moment. I still wish I’d spoken to her to say how great she looked. Since then I’ve complimented countless women on their dress, their colour choices, their hats, their hair and they always smile and hopefully it improves their day.
Maybe those are happy returns, giving happiness and getting it back must surely be counted as a return or some sort. I often wonder if I made any of those women feel better about themselves and whether they would be shocked to know that they owe their compliment to a pair of nipple rings glimpsed in dim light through a T-shirt on the Northern line forty years ago.
There are things I remember about birthdays, but they can't return, like Yuri Gagarin going into space on my sixteenth birthday. They said "Many Happy Returns" that day but I've never wanted to go on being sixteen and Yuri Gagarin died long ago.
In my thirties I used to travel from Euston to the Elephant and Castle on the underground so often that it became routine. You know what that means, nothing about the journey sticks in your mind, one trip is the same as the next. There’s no anxiety about missing the stop, no worry about being overcrowded and hassled because you know exactly how long you have to put up with the crowd. Those journeys are returns alright, but happy might be too strong a word – most of the time anyway
I happened to do that run on my birthday one year and that's when I saw the woman. I was walking down the platform towards the way out, the train had pulled away a half a minute ago. I was carrying my briefcase, full of so many papers that it was heavy, and I had a raincoat over my other arm and an umbrella. I was weighed down enough that I deliberately walked slowly, lagging behind to let the crowd clear in front of me; aiming for an easy walk up the stairs and through the barriers without being jostled and dropping something.
When I was twenty yards from the end of the platform almost everyone had gone. A woman emerged from the tunnel ahead, running down the last few steps and slowing as she saw the empty platform ahead of her. The only sign of the train was a rumble in the distance. It was probably that noise that made her run.
Disappointment was etched on her face as she stopped, clearly just a little annoyed, feet planted eighteen inches apart, hips thrust slightly forward. She was wearing pale slacks but it was hard to say the exact colour for sure in the dim light at the end of an underground platform. She wore a green T-shirt. A kind of olive green and again the light probably didn’t do it justice. I think in sunshine it would have been a lively colour but even down there it had some charisma, a look that had been chosen, not just thrown on.
She was breathing hard, so her shoulders were high and thrown back, giving her lungs a chance to catch up from running down the stairs and that pushed her breasts forward maybe a little more than she would normally carry them. She had a tan, and in the dark I had no idea if it was a sun tan or if she’d inherited great skin with a built in colour; either way it looked great and even in this light it glowed enough that you’d want to kiss it if you could.
The fabric of the T-shirt looked expensive, the way it draped made it clear that she was not wearing a bra and in the right circumstances you could imagine a queue of classical sculpture artists begging her to pose. Through that fabric I could see two nipple rings. I guess they must have been twice the size of her actual nipples, which were prominent enough, but the rings were something else.
I was walking towards her, so I had maybe six steps before I would pass her and she would be behind me. It’s rude to stare, so I guess for one of those steps I looked away, just for civility sake. On the other hand someone who has gone to so much trouble to look awesome deserves some appreciation, so I looked.
My guess is that the rings were about 10 gauge wire, thick enough to be in no doubt what they were. For one of my six steps I had to look at her face because she might have given the slightest hint that it would be worth stopping to talk to her. It was my birthday after all.
There wasn’t any hint.
She looked completely sure of herself, not arrogant or haughty, just sure, and she was probably five years older than me, so although I was an adult, married with two children by then, for that moment I was just a kid and she was way out of my reach. I used my remaining four steps to look at those rings and forty years later I still remember them like yesterday.
If happy returns were possible I'd go back to that moment. I still wish I’d spoken to her to say how great she looked. Since then I’ve complimented countless women on their dress, their colour choices, their hats, their hair and they always smile and hopefully it improves their day.
Maybe those are happy returns, giving happiness and getting it back must surely be counted as a return or some sort. I often wonder if I made any of those women feel better about themselves and whether they would be shocked to know that they owe their compliment to a pair of nipple rings glimpsed in dim light through a T-shirt on the Northern line forty years ago.
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