The Gold Card’s other perks revealed themselves slowly: 1/3 off leisure travel on weekends. She took her mother to Oxford for the first time. She visited a friend in Bristol without calculating each fare. The season ticket bled into her life outside the tracks.
The rain hadn’t stopped for three days. It tapped against the window of Priya’s flat in Reading as she calculated the same column of numbers for the fifth time. On her screen: the annual cost of a National Rail season ticket to London Paddington. £5,368. national rail annual season ticket
The rain stopped on the day she handed in her old office keys. She took one last train from Paddington to Reading. Carriage 4. Row E. Window seat. She didn’t read. She just watched the wet fields slide past and thought: Five thousand pounds for a year of knowing exactly where you stand. Not bad. Not bad at all. The Gold Card’s other perks revealed themselves slowly:
But the real story came in December. A sudden redundancy. The kind that lands on a Thursday and asks you to clear your desk by 5 PM. Her first thought—after the shock—was the season ticket. £5,368. Gone. The season ticket bled into her life outside the tracks