Gallantry?

It was dark. She had been away all day...going to a destination she had never been before. It meant two trains, a bus and doing it all again in reverse to come home again. Her mobile phone was out of battery charge. She called from a public phone, "I'll be at the station at 9:23pm," she said. "Can you come and pick me up?"

Of course I would pick her up. Being stranded at that station at that time of the night was a dangerous situation to be in.

I managed to get to the station just as the train was pulling in. I watched from the station house as she was helped off the train and get into the glass lift that would get her off the platform. I was nervous too. A gang of young men were loitering in the station.

Finally we were together and we made our way to the car, talking loudly to keep the nervousness at bay.

I noticed we were being followed by a lone figure.

We continued talking, but walked at a slightly quicker pace.

Just as we drew up to our car I heard a deep voice behind us.

"Hello."

My heartbeat quickened. I reached for my car keys.

"Do you ladies need some company?"

No thank you. We're fine.

He continued walking.

We breathed a sigh of relief.

The sad thing is that maybe he was concerned that there were two women walking in the dark near the train station. Maybe he had concerns for our safety. Maybe he wanted to accompany us to our destination to make sure we reached it without mishap.

We will never know because we had already reached the sanctuary of the car and we needed to go no further.

I think it's sad that we as human beings have a tendency to suspect the worst in a stranger in an unfamiliar and scary situation. He really could have been a protector.

However what if we did have a little further to go and we did allow him to accompany us and the worst did happen?

We will never know.

I do like to think he was being gallant....but that's easy to think from the safety of my computer chair.....