PLATFORM 1 SOUTH
Bag
Lucy Brown
It was a bad habit. I was nosy, always had been, but poking my nose into other people’s business – and especially other people’s bags – was going to get me into trouble one day.
Maybe this was the day.
After I nudged the bag a few times with my foot and it hadn’t exploded I called the guard over. He gave me a weary smile, equating me with all those worrisome women who saw danger in a tin can. But we were told to be vigilant, after all, and this was a black holdall on a station platform. It just screamed danger while the lines in front of it screeched with the sound of an incoming train.
The guard did what he probably wasn’t meant to – he unzipped the thing. Well, first he gave a perfunctory warning to the nearby passengers that he was about to open a mysterious package. He probably shouldn’t have done that either.
A few people took a step back but most didn’t bother. Two girls, sixteen or so, carried on giggling at the semi-lewd pictures they were showing each other on their phones. I’d noticed what they were up to when I circled the bag looking for its owner.
When the guard pulled the zipper I held my breath – then let it out in a huff. What I’d hoped might be a mess of wires was in fact a holiday bag, the top two items being a deflated beach ball and a pair of In the Night Garden pyjamas, adult-sized.
‘Another storm in a teacup,’ he muttered, maybe to himself more than me.
‘What will you do with it?’ I asked.
He just looked at me. ‘Thanks for your help. Better to be safe than sorry, love. That’s your train,’ he concluded, voice muffled as he bent down.
Panic overtook me. I’d been so intent on the bag that I’d forgotten my day in Doncaster. I jumped on, just as the beeping started, watching the door slide shut with a degree of satisfaction.
Then something struck me. The guard had said ‘that your train?’. A question, not a statement. As we pulled out of the station, I looked around for some logo, a carpet colour or something I recognised. I didn’t find it.
Probably because I was on my way to Penzance.
