The People on Platform 5 (2022)
A story about commuters who break the stereotype and start talking to each other, with a bunch of feel-good moments toward the end.
This is a story that changes viewpoint between different commuters who often sit near each other on a train, who gradually start talking to each other after one of them (Piers) nearly chokes on a grape, and is saved by another (Sanjay). As they start talking to each other, they learn that their new friends don’t match their preconceptions of what they’d be like, and they find ways to help each other.
Our characters include:
- Iona, a magazine therapist who’s being forced out of her job, and whose social circle has contracted since she moved her partner Bea into a care home for dementia;
- Sanjay, a nurse who has panic attacks at work and a crush on Emmie, a fellow commuter;
- Emmie, who works in an unfulfilling corporate advertising job and has a controlling boyfriend/fiancé Toby;
- Martha, a teenager who’s been humiliated at work when a nude photo was leaked;
- Piers, a City banker who’s been hiding his redundancy and wants to become a maths teacher;
- David, a lawyer whose marriage began collapsing when he became an empty nester.
They start talking and befriend each other on the train, then their group breaks unexpectedly when Iona stops turning up – after quitting her job. The group resolve to track her down, show her how she’s helped their problems, and help her in turn.
She sets up Emmie and Sanjay; coaches Martha in acting to distract her peers; sets up Piers as Martha’s maths tutor; helps David find a new spark in his marriage. When Emmie discovers that Toby has tricked her for their entire relationship – including the theft of her purse that led to their meet-cute – she flees, and Iona takes her in.
In return, David brings a constructive dismissal case against her old employer; Emmie finds her an alternative job in online video; they throw her a birthday party on the train.
It’s a sweet story about how people don’t always match our expectations. I had a bit of second-hand embarrassment towards the start, but I quickly got into it, especially Sanjay and Emmie’s romance.
Quotes and highlights
P92 “Sanjay”, after Iona invites him to Hampton Court maze to set him up with Emmie:
‘I thought you’d enjoy it,’ said Iona, ignoring him. ‘I thought you might like to spend the morning with me. But of course you wouldn’t. You have far more interesting things to do than spending it with a boring middle-aged lady, I’m sure.’ Iona sniffed and looked scarily as if she might be about to cry.
Sanjay felt awful. Iona obviously didn’t have many friends, and it was very flattering that she’d chosen him to invite, and now he’d just made her feel bad. His mum would be so disappointed in him. She’d told him it was incredibly bad manners to turn down a girl who’d plucked up the courage to ask you to dance or go on a date. Sanjay didn’t think Iona was who she’d had in mind when she said that, but even so.
P122 “Emmie”, when Emmie is discussing Iona with her friend Fizz:
‘I had no idea she was still around, let alone commuting. How unlikely. I assumed she’d been killed in some tragic but terribly glamorous accident, like Isadora Duncan.’
Emmie had looked up Isadora Duncan. She was a dancer who’d died at the age of fifty when her headscarf had been tangled in the wheels and axle of the convertible she was riding in, on the French Riviera. Fizz was quite right. If Iona were to die, that was exactly the sort of way she’d go. On the other hand, it was quite possible that Iona was immortal. Maybe she’d just regenerate like Doctor Who, and come back in the body of Scarlett Johansson.
P259 “Martha”, as she’s starting to learn lines for the school play:
She’d roughly translated this in the margin as please don’t go yet. Shakespeare, she’d discovered, never used four words when twenty-six would do. He might be good at the whole play thing, but he’d be useless at writing the emergency evacuation instructions for an airline.
P270 “Piers”, when his wife Candida announces that she’ll be leaving him now he can no longer provide her with the lifestyle of a banker’s wife:
Candida pushed her chair away from the table, leaving him surrounded by dirty plates and the remnants of a destroyed life. The white roses were still in their cellophane, abandoned in the kitchen sink. She paused at the door, looked over her shoulder, and said, with a tinkling little laugh, ‘You know, Daddy always said you were my starter husband.’
P311 “Sanjay”, after Emmie has left Toby and is hanging out with Sanjay, in a mirror of an earlier scene when Sanjay discovered Emmie had a boyfriend:
Sanjay’s phone pinged on the table.
‘She’s a very wise lady, your mum,’ said Emmie. ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been wanting to do.’
‘She is, but I wish she’d stop texting me all the time. She does love to interfere. In capital letters,’ said Sanjay, putting his phone in his pocket, but not before Emmie read the words DID YOUR FRIEND ENJOY THE BIRYANI? She wondered who Sanjay’s ‘friend’ was, and felt a tiny pang of jealousy. She slapped it down like an irritating fly.
Of course someone as lovely and gorgeous as Sanjay would have a girlfriend. She was sure it wouldn’t stop him spending time with her. She was delighted for him, obviously.
P333 “Martha”, after the debut performance at her school play where all the train friends sat in the front row:
‘Were you terrified, before you came on stage?’ asked Sanjay, still sporting a smattering of blood from the smashed nose.
‘Totally!’ said Martha. ‘I’d expected there to be way less people, to be honest.’
‘Way fewer,’ said Iona. ‘Fewer, not less. Sorry, sorry, it’s just after decades of working with words I have a bit of an obsession with grammar.’
‘I couldn’t care fewer about grammar,’ said Martha.
P353 “Martha”, when Sanjay is discussing how to approach Emmie and attempting to be subtle about it:
‘The only way to be guaranteed of failure, dear boy, is not to try,’ said Iona. ‘Love is the greatest risk of all, but a life without it is meaningless.’
‘That’s really poetic, Iona,’ said Martha. ‘Who said that?’
‘I did, dear girl,’ replied Iona. ‘Just now.’
They moved on to a quick discussion about the emails asking for help with exam stress, then, as the train pulled into Waterloo, Sanjay dashed off to make his shift, leaving Iona and Martha collecting all the papers together.
‘Iona,’ said Martha. ‘I didn’t want to butt in or anything, and you’re the expert, obviously. But are you really sure it’s a good idea to suggest someone makes a grand romantic gesture on a train? I can’t think of anything more embarrassing.’
‘Oh gosh, you may be right, dear child,’ said Iona. ‘The problem is, I’m just so desperate to watch. Having been so intimately involved since the beginning, I couldn’t possibly miss the denouement.’
Martha had no idea what Iona was talking about. The email had been anonymous, so how on earth was Iona expecting to get a ringside seat?
Martha herself gets a role in Sanjay asking Emmie out on a date – he stages various friends along the route to hold up cards for her, asking her out on a date. She says yes, moments after swearing off men because of Toby.
P367 “Sanjay”, when he’s helping Emmie move into her new flat:
‘What did you think of Mrs Danvers?’ Sanjay asked but, just like the last time he’d asked her that question, she didn’t answer him. Instead, she just leaned over and kissed him, so hard that it made his head swim.
The room, with its half-emptied boxes and piles of Emmie’s belongings, fell away. All his senses were focused entirely on the two of them – the touch of her fingers on his skin, her breath on his neck, his lips on hers.
Sanjay knew now that he hadn’t loved Emmie when he’d first seen her on his train, all those months ago. He’d loved the idea of her. The fantasy he’d created around all her perceived perfections. But now he loved the actual her, with all her quirks and imperfections. All the things that made her uniquely Emmie.
Sanjay wasn’t thinking about what might go wrong, or what the future held. After all those hours listening to the Headspace app, trying to master mindfulness, he’d finally achieved it. There was no moment except this perfect one, right here and right now. He ran his hand through her hair, twining it around his fingers, breathing in the scent of her, and knew he’d never want to be anywhere else.
(That’s the line he tried to use when he chat her up the first time, a meet-cute interrupted by Piers choking and the fact she was no longer reading Rebecca.)
P369 “Iona”, when she’s visiting Bea in the care home:
‘I love you, Iona,’ said Bea.
Iona wasn’t sure if Bea was talking to her, or to the memory of her, but right now it didn’t really matter. Either way, those words belonged to her, just as they’d always done, just as they always would.