Seen on public transport: woman, 20s, bruised, dishevelled. What would you do?

Saturday, early evening. It’s 5.20pm and we’re on the Northern Line, travelling north from London Bridge. High Barnet branch, if you were…

Credit: Alexandre Dubiève

Saturday, early evening. It’s 5.20pm and we’re on the Northern Line, travelling north from London Bridge. High Barnet branch, if you were wondering — not that it matters, but details add a little something, don’t you think? Je ne sais quoi. Evocative.

I wish I could recall how it smelt, but I don’t. In the context, that’s probably a good thing; the Underground’s ‘signature scent’ isn’t exactly roses and sweet nothings. There’s no smoke without fire; there’s no sweat without exhaustion. Piccadilly Line strikes aside, the city lumbers on, despite everything.

It’s a Saturday night, or at least the beginnings. To my right, across the carriage, is a girl — young woman, early 20s — in a very short skirt and sheer black tights, with prominent bruises across the backs of her upper thighs. The sight accosts me, catching me by surprise. It feels violent and violating to witness; I feel uncomfortable looking, but I can’t unsee what I have seen.

But what have I seen? And what do I do about it?

She’s beautiful, indisputably. She doesn’t need the heavy makeup and false eyelashes, but she suits them nonetheless. In another life, I’d ask her for tips; read it not as a mask, but a warrior’s pledge. Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Fuck your narrow constraints.

But she’s dishevelled, too. Double-glazed eyes for a faraway figure; one that’s easy to recognise, but easier still to idealise — the subject of fantasy, ‘not for this world’.

I know this, because I have been one; been ‘her’ (or what I know of her and perceive her to be), so I think I know how it feels. But I may be wrong. I do not know her, nor her story; I just know my own.

I go back to my music; to my writing and to the questions swirling; to the fear and nagging unease and sense that I should do something, that something is better than nothing, that I cannot just sit back having witnessed this…

But I do.

Inertia killed the cat; and so she gets off at Camden Town, answering my question for me.

I did nothing.

But I wondered whether I should; what the ‘right’ thing to do is, or would be, in this situation.

I did nothing, but I thought about it, and I shared it — case in point — and I care about it, and that’s something.

But am I just excusing myself?

I’m wary of making assumptions about others, or making snap judgements about what and who I perceive people to be based on how they come across at face value. I know all too well that, whilst good intentions are king, they are not necessarily conducive to positive outcomes; and here I am reminded of old shame, old pain, just walking the dead — and so I remember, lest I forget.

A few years ago, summer days and summer dresses, resplendent, daring, hope and self-consciousness swirling in the breeze, JUST EAT screamed at me from a passing car, because ignorance is bliss, and judgement is easy, and people do not stop to think, much less understand. The indignation: I do eat, I did eat, but it wasn’t enough. The body is a vessel, but it is also a battleground.

So: whilst well-intentioned, strangers’ intrusions are often at best well-meaning, and sometimes actively counterproductive. Yet.

There is a full stop after the yet because there is something else: a niggling feeling. A sense of implicit (relative) culpability. A desire to reach out to a fellow human being, and say that she was seen — that I had observed x and this had alarmed me, whilst give her the opportunity to share, explain, or bat my concerns away. There could be a perfectly innocuous explanation, and I would be happy to accept this — I just wanted to check, for my own peace of mind, and the values I wish to live by. I cared, and I wanted her to know that I — or someone — did; that she was under no obligation to tell me anything she didn’t feel comfortable with, but that I was here if she needed. It’s about engaging with one’s humanity; and, with that, with one’s fellow brethren. It’s about operating with a sense of basic decency. And yes, it’s what I would’ve wanted.

In this context, tone is everything. Don’t pry; use a delicate (proverbial) touch. Respect the other person’s boundaries. Speak only to understand better. Above all, listen.

I just hope she’s okay.