I’ve got a new regular. J- a small neat slightly balding elderly man, who always wears a grey pullover over a series of attractive floral summer dresses. He’s friendly and we’ve swapped names, but he doesn’t have much conversation. He just stands outside the station barelegged in the freezing wind, smoking strong smelling black market tobacco. I felt relieved yesterday when he showed up wearing stockings under his usual ensemble, but the effect was undermined by the fact that they were held up with obviously uncomfortable garters and he kept lifting his skirt to adjust them. He has fabulous legs – dancer’s legs – and nice little flat shoes. I see him walking along the bike path sometimes, trailing behind someone who I suspect may be his social worker. “Look out for the bikes, dear,” she calls back to him.
J is not my only regular cross dresser. There’s also a wheelchair man from further up the line who goes past the station in the train. Sometimes he’s in women’s clothes, sometimes in men’s, sometimes in a mix. But always he wears these dreadful unbrushed bird’s nest wigs that look like they’ve just been taken out of a drawer and plonked on his head. But he has a lovely smile and we always wave as he goes past.