Elissa

Her orphan Annie hairstyle-- mismatched pearly barrettes holding back two uneven swatches of white hair--catches my eye first. It surprises me to see an older woman wearing her hair like that but then I see more of her, and it somehow makes sense. A sea of purple and flower patterned fabric flow unevenly on her small, saggy frame. It’s both garish and dazzling.

She looks a bit unhinged, and I don’t really want her sitting beside me in my current state. Struggling to keep my cool amid travel mishap after travel mishap. Thirty-five minutes to my next GWR transfer at Plymouth, then on to Bristol Airport. I avert my eyes as though this nano-act might prevent her from sitting beside me. She says something about finding a seat while leaning into the space near my row, maintaining gentle but purposeful eye contact with me.

I move my grey neck roll thingy from the empty seat to my left, where it sits curled up like a protective foamy snake. She sits down and I revert to being a calm and closed off fellow passenger. I notice what looks like a large opal ring on her right middle finger, set in gold with dark red and light pink stones around it. A huge flower ring sits on her left middle finger, possibly jade for the petals and amethyst for the center.

As a big ring maiden, I’m immediately intrigued. Those are rings I’d wear. A thought flashes in my head, ‘what if I asked her for one of them?’ Like I used to do with my Aunt Helen, when I’d coyly circle around a crystal candy dish or one of her Japanese lacquered vases—so popular in the 80s—and wonder out loud if I could have it.

My fellow traveller regales her wildly circuitous route of buses and walking routes en route to getting on the train. Stairs are too difficult for her because of the arthritis throughout her body (she also has IBS), and she’s afraid of heights. So, walking up and over the train tracks are out. She missed her one bus by just 2 minutes, which she repeats several times. I feel very silly for getting worked up about my travel woes.

“When you’re on time they’re late, when you’re late they’re on time.”

My seat-mate then explains why she was late, which was, as it turns out, the fault of the spiders that live in her apartment. She normally baths at night, when there are usually fewer spiders, but there were some and so she didn’t bath until the morning. This unexpected blip in her schedule made her late.

She details getting dressed, bringing her arms around her chest to the front of her body when telling me that her bra does up at the front. She pauses and says “and pulling up the knee highs when it’s sticky and muggy out.” We both sigh and I nod my head in agreement.

“It all takes time.”

One spider has been in the corner of her bedroom “since March and I’m not sure if he’s dead or alive…It’s the worst when it’s dark and the lights are on. They’re so black, that’s probably why I hate the colour black.”

When she finds out I’m Canadian she immediately tells me that a Canadian woman hosts a night-time show at 10pm on Boom radio and asks if I know of it. I laugh and she asks: “Why are you laughing?” I tell her that I know of Boom radio, but I was actually thinking of a Canadian show (or channel?) by the same name not the UK one she’s talking about. “Her voice is soothing for that time of night”, she says knowingly. I like that she asked why I was laughing, it alerts me to the fact that she’s attuned and not some mad hatter as I’d assumed.

I begin to look at her more deeply. Her eyes are a milky turquoise colour, and she has a very original teeth arrangement. A few of the top ones are bucked, and about four teeth along the right side and two in the front are missing. Then I see the tiny sliver tooth in the middle, like a little waving friend. I’m here, not much to look at, but I’m here.

She smells a bit musty with a pinch of body odour. It’s not gross, just that sort of smell that seems to universally waft off the bodies of elderly people. She then says something about an argument or incident with a neighbour of hers in the building she waited seven years to get a flat in.

“She’s a high-strung Maltese woman.”

I scream and slap my hands on my thighs. This is the most unforgettable description I’ve heard of someone in a long time. She seems a bit thrilled and mystified at my response, and then we really get rolling and she tells me about the alpacas.

Apparently a few of the animals inhabit an upcoming hill, which she explains while motioning upwards with her right arm and eagerly looking out the window. But, because it’s so warm, “they might not be out, they might be in their sheds.” Then she shares that on a previous trip she was sitting beside another woman and told her about them, and then there they were.

I wonder if she says this to signal to me that they’re real, the alpacas, and maybe also her story. Maybe also her. She is a person who has travelled and seen these animals and shared this cute sight with someone else. A story is an anchor in the world. I also get the sense that she is aware of how she might be perceived as a bit nutty or “mad”, as she says later.

The reason she tottered down the isle in car C looking for a window seat was to get a clear view of the alpacas. Together, we peel our eyes towards the green hills and look for them. I tell her that I love animals, seconds later she gets excited and says loudly: “There they are.”

I quickly look and glimpse two fat donkeys leaning against a shed. Grinning, she asks if I’ve seen them. I look at her, peering through her thick glasses into her huge blue eyes, which are open wide and look about three times the size of normal eyes.

She smiles widely and waits for me to reply. Do I say I saw alpacas? She asks me again what I saw, and when I tell her that I saw two fat donkeys she is silent for a moment.

“I wasn’t sure what I saw…two blurs of brown” she says.

Satiated with our sighting, the woman leans back into her seat. Still grinning she says: “I’m going to make you jealous.” I’m so ready for it, “tell me, make me jealous” I say, having no clue what’s coming next. She explains that at her apartment animals like deer and foxes gather, sometimes together.

“They don’t mind each other. Don’t make no fuss. Why can’t we be like that?”

I nod quietly as she describes a little hedgehog. She only sees the one and added: “There’s no babies about…what are they called?... Hoglets.” Who knew?! Apparently this little animal has a particular route in her garden and even though she’s not sure if it’s the same one after all these years, she thinks it might be. She giggles when sharing that she’s named the animal Hetty.

Next tattoo.

Then the woman says that at one time she had “large mice”, and I ask her to show me how large they were. She places her hands, palms facing one another, about 8 inches apart.

“Those were the big ones, I preferred the little ones. I didn’t have any children you see, and so I used to feed them like a parent would. You’ll think I’m mad. It’s no wonder they were there. But then my neighbour got rid of them, all twenty.”

When she said this she turns her mouth upside down, a wrinkly C frozen in momentary sadness as she remembers her deceased rodent children. I coo and say that’s too bad, adding that we once had a hedgehog named Jeremy. She gasps: “You have them for pets?”

We near our transfer point and I ask where she’s going. Turns out my new friend is headed to a music festival, which is so rock and roll I can’t believe it. It’s a traditional or folksy kind of event, and she really enjoys the bagpipes. I ask if we can get a photo as our journey comes to a close, and she says yes and then cups her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my teeth.” I playfully butt her with my elbow and say it’s ok while taking a cute pic.

I ask her name-- Elissa (short for Elizabeth)—and get her email. She’s pleased with this and waits for me after getting off the train. We drift around a bit aimlessly on the track and go in opposite directions, saying to one another how lovely it was to meet.

When the email bounces back I’m shattered. How will I contact this stranger who I came to adore in a mere thirty-five minutes? The same stranger I prayed wouldn’t sit beside me. Maybe I can contact the people at Boom radio and putting a message out to her on the airwaves. ‘Hi, ElissaX, it’s me, Treena, your friend from the train.”