One day after work, I sat on a tram looking out of the window at the city parks that lined the route between the office and home. My newly acquired aloneness felt all the more accute, amid a crowd of homeward bound passengers, with no-one waiting at home to greet this city worker. Surrounded by strangers and inspired by the familiar scenery my thoughts harked back to happier times when Mottsu and I would share the detail of the one act dramas that unfold between tram stops. All alone with memories*, I recalled when we’d sit together on a tram, in collusion, observing the other passengers and enjoying the diorama of public transport.

A chorus of school children who’d filled the aisles with unwieldy backpacks loudly discussed their emerging interests in the other gender. The ubiquitous talker took up a soap box stance and berated the Prime Minister, our political system, and humanity in general. There was also the extra, the one that no-one else would sit near or make eye contact with. The soundtrack was underscored by one-sided mobile phone conversations that predictably opened with the line “I’m on the tram” and then went on to share more than the talker realised about themselves.

From my seat in the stalls I saw a woman teetering on stilt like heels almost unable to balance as she negotiated a transaction with a machine to secure a ticket, she tripped clumsily before heavily landing in a seat. I smiled inwardly.

Mottsu would have enjoyed these displays of humaness. I looked out of the window missing the intimacy of his company.

Involuntary tears welled and gently spilled, responding to the pull of gravity and leaving a tiny pools of longing on the empty vinyl seat next to me. I was conscious that by crying I became one of the players in the vignette of tram theatre, a part of the drama. I resisted wiping my cheek not wanting to draw attention to the overflow of emotion. The tears liberated themselves from somewhere within and continued to gently flow and I felt a little liberated too, free to cry or maybe just unable not to.

I also felt conspicuous, becoming a member of the cast on the tram carriage stage. The audience were watching from behind a façade of disinterest secretly spellbound, perhaps imagining what might be unfolding in front of them and all the possible reasons for the quiet sorrow of a fellow commuter. I sensed the scrutiny of their questioning looks and focused on my lines “keep it together, keep it together…”

*lines borrowed from Memories – Andrew Lloyd Webber