Of the ten fingers splayed out before her, the little one on the right hand seemed at least reasonably clean. Laurie used it to hook a loose strand of hair out of her eye and tuck it behind her ear. That was the fifth time her chain had come off in the last two miles; she’d spent an hour on a journey that should take twenty minutes.
Enough: there must be something wrong with the bike that roadside repairs could not put right. It had sounded a bit creaky yesterday. Perhaps that solitary adventure along the Parkland Walk on Sunday had been too much for it. Well, at least she’d got to within spitting distance of Euston. She could take the Tube to Green Park and walk to Berkeley Square from there.
Laurie pushed her bike up the steps from Eversholt Street, locked it to the racks outside the main concourse, unhooked the pannier, checked she still had her Oyster card, and set off for the entrance to the Underground. She was going to be late for work and she’d be travelling on the Tube when the morning crush was at its worst.
There was an attendant by the turnstile into the toilets. Laurie considered explaining that she only wanted to wash her hands, that she’d been cycling and had no change, but thought better of it. Until she got into the office, a wet wipe would have to do.
The Victoria line platform was as bad as Laurie had feared. A mass of commuters lined the edge, waiting to squeeze onto the next train. Behind them there was more fluidity; people moved along looking vainly for a space. Laurie joined the flow, heading gradually for the far end, trying to ignore the way her cycling shirt was sticking to her back. It would be a relief when she could finally change into the dress in her pannier.
At the end of the platform, by the tunnel’s mouth, things were marginally quieter; there was at least a prospect of getting on the next train. Laurie positioned herself near the edge and stared down at the tracks beneath her feet. The heat and the crowd were not just physically oppressive; she felt the weight on her soul too. The frustration she had been feeling after her abortive cycle ride was magnifying into an awful, all-encompassing lassitude. The sense of despair that came in its wake was familiar but no less unwelcome. What if she were just to let herself go, fall onto those tracks, leave it all behind?
Once, in the terrible months after Mum died, Laurie might have followed through on her impulse. But not now: that behaviour belonged a decade in the past. She pulled her gaze away from the tracks and looked around, deliberately reconnecting with the world around her.
Almost as if he knew what was required when she caught his eye, the man beside her smiled. He was too old for it to be a come-on and Laurie felt her cheeks crease in response, pushing away the wisps of depression before they could take hold. He was wearing a surprisingly smart but quirky suit, with patch pockets and pleated trousers – a bit out of place among the more uniform offerings of Laurie’s fellow commuters, and a sharp contrast to her own Lycra.
The man was trying to talk to her; he was leaning over and pointing at his nose. Something shiny was hanging from his hand. Laurie watched it swing as she bent her head towards him, straining to hear against the sound of the station tannoy, continuing her smile in response to his. Then the mood of the crowd around them changed. The roar from the tunnel to their left increased; the next train was approaching. People were moving into position, jockeying for spots where doors would soon be opening.
The swell of humanity seemed to catch the man by surprise. Laurie saw him shift his stance to accommodate the sudden pressure and was still looking at him when he realised that one foot was no longer on the platform. She just had time to register the change in his expression from amusement to horror, time to see his hand reach out in an attempt to regain his balance, and time to scream – an involuntary reaction to her own helplessness – before, with shocking suddenness, he was gone. The southbound train came out of the tunnel, slammed into his falling body, and carried it relentlessly into the station, before screeching to a premature halt halfway down the platform.
Laurie stood there, her scream stopped as rapidly as it had begun. She stared at the train carriage that had appeared in front of her where the man had been only moments before. Inside, she saw faces turn from shock to bewilderment: this was not how their train was meant to stop. She saw commuters recover the dignity they had lost from being thrown into each other by the unexpected deceleration. She heard an announcement that due to an incident at Euston, Victoria line services were suspended until further notice. She watched passengers gather themselves together and leave the carriage, joined by those from further down the train, still stuck in the tunnel. She felt the platform start to empty around her.
A chill spread from Laurie’s scalp, leaving a numbness in its wake that only amplified a sudden and overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. She had to leave. She had to be ahead of the crowd, be out in the open air. She raced down the platform, spared only a glance for the rubberneckers gathered round the front of the train, and began to shove her way through the queue for the up escalator, ignoring the mutterings around her.
Whatever Laurie might have wished, the journey up was painfully slow. With both escalators packed solid, she could only stand on successive slowly rising staircases, waiting her turn. Forced into immobility, she began to calm down. Now she recalled her earlier panic with embarrassment. She looked around, wondering how close she was to people she had been pushing aside only moments earlier.
Finally, Laurie reached the top. Another wave of her Oyster card brought her into the ticket hall. In forty seconds she was back in the plaza outside, looking across to the bike she had abandoned only a few minutes earlier. Nothing had changed. The sky was the same deep blue it had been for days. A helicopter overhead was pulling a banner advertising insurance; she had seen that earlier too. People were still rushing to work with the same air of hurried purpose. None of them caught her eye, let alone smiled like the man below had.
The tiredness Laurie had felt underground came back upon her, but this time it brought no suicidal thoughts in its wake. Somehow, seeing the man fall had put paid to them. She walked over to her bike. It looked forlorn, with its chain hanging useless – like a horse that had cast a shoe. There was only one thing to do. Laurie pulled her mobile phone out from the pannier, swiped the unlock pattern, and pressed the green button twice. ‘Home’ flashed up on the screen. She could hear the ringing at the other end, and then the answer: ‘Laurie love. What’s up?’ She managed to get as far as, ‘Oh, Dad.’ Then she burst into tears.
Dad was useless on the phone really. Laurie had known that before she called him. But even the sound of his voice made her feel better, and she had to smile when he suggested coming to her rescue, all the way from Somerset. Her breathing returned to normal. Eventually she was able to speak with a measure of self-control.
‘I’ve just seen someone fall under a train at Euston.’
As Laurie told the story, standing there in the open air, only a few hundred feet from where the accident had happened, the tightness within her began to release. By the end, she was still exhausted, but with an accompanying sense of relief. She did not, of course, pass on the thoughts she had been entertaining just before the man fell – no need to burden Dad with that. She had moved from home; she was doing OK, honest.
Dad didn’t reply for a while. Feeling the silence down the line, Laurie suddenly realised what she had done. Of course he would be thinking of Mum. Laurie had never seen her body after the accident, but he had. Was that the image that would now be forcing its way into his brain? Was that what she had brought upon him by calling home so unthinkingly?
‘Dad. I’m sorry,’ she began.
‘It’s all right, darling. I’ll be fine. But I’m still worried about you. Why don’t you come back here? I’ll meet you off the train. Get a bit of fresh air. You know.’
‘Dad. I’m not fifteen any more. I can’t just run away. I need this job.’
‘What, you mean you’re still planning to go into work?’
‘Isn’t that what you always say? If you fall off the horse, get straight back on.’
‘This isn’t quite the same thing. Still, you might be right, I suppose. But you’re probably in shock. Lots of sweet tea is the thing for that. Don’t rush anywhere until you’ve got your blood sugar up. And of course you’re still coming down this weekend, aren’t you? I imagine Fitzbillies can spare you then.’
‘It’s Fitzalan, Dad, Fitzalan Capital.’ Laurie was more amused than exasperated, but she had heard the note of entreaty in his voice. ‘And yes, of course I’m coming down. I’ll call you this evening.’
‘Good.’ Dad sounded more like his usual self now. As if to prove it, he threw in two final pieces of advice. ‘By the way, you might be a material witness to the accident; I know you don’t have particularly happy memories of the police, but you really should give them your name. As for your bike, it sounds to me as though your back wheel’s misaligned. That will be why the chain keeps slipping.’
‘Dad! That was years ago, and didn’t they swear there wouldn’t be anything on my record, as long as I went on that course?’
‘Well, I guess this will be your chance to find out, and to show that you are now a fine, upstanding citizen.’
Laurie thought about things for a few moments after breaking the connection. Then she squatted down beside the bike. Dad was right. The axle at the back wasn’t fully engaged in its brackets. A spanner would put it right, but that could wait. She straightened, ready to go to work – and was instantly light-headed. Dad had been right about that too, of course. Sugary tea held no appeal, but some other treat would do the trick.
Laurie was eating chocolate Brazil nuts as she walked through the station to the British Transport Police office. There, a buzz lock let her through to an anteroom dominated by a glass security screen: nothing like her memory of Cambridge police station, and all the better for it. The yellow-jacketed WPC behind the screen looked doubtfully at Laurie’s cycling shorts and t-shirt, but heard her out to the extent of taking down her contact details and promising that if an investigation was required then an officer would be in touch.
That done, Laurie considered how to get to work. She couldn’t face going underground again: the inevitable announcement that ‘due to an earlier incident there are severe delays on the Victoria line’, the crowds even worse than before, the smell and the memory it would provoke. She would take the bus.