One man is really, really angry. He swears. He says he’s going home to bury his father and if this fucker doesn’t get himself out of there he’ll personally go down there and kill him and bury the pair of them together. Another joins in and suggests it could be settled if the train rode over him. He’s on his way to a music festival and there’s a girl involved and he’s sorry, he’s not being funny like, but if a guy is determined to kill himself this isn’t the way to do it, so this guy’s obviously a faker and all they got to do is start the train and he’ll hop up on the platform and that’ll be it. Over. They can all carry on.
There’s a bang. People turn. It’s just a woman struggling with a suitcase that slipped out of her hand as she tugged it. Sorry, she says, lifting her shoulders a bit for emphasis. It turned on its wheel. The angry brigade budge back from the gate to keep one eye on the board, but not far enough back to admit defeat. It’s like they are half-watching a football match while cooking the dinner. They want movement. They’re primed, the angry brigade, because most members of the angry-when-the-train-is-late brigade haven’t contemplated throwing themselves under or onto the tracks. They just want to get on the fucking train, which is the right of every man or woman who ever thought about getting on a train. Trains for riding, beds for lying in.
Late to the scene: the pelters. Those who are running at full pelt, who know if they aren’t already on this train, which they aren’t, it is probably gone or about to go so they just push and shovel through the crowd. The ticket inspector hears them approach and moves forward to instruct them to stop, except they think he’s generously moving up to scan their ticket and assist them on the fly. Stop, he says. No, you can’t go through, there’s a delay. There’s a problem with a passenger. They only stop when he says emphatically there’s a passenger on the line and if you go through there you will die, I mean he will die.
Nobody likes being told they’ll die. It’s a human brake moment. No matter how pumped, how primed, how indignant you are, if you are told even by mistake you could die… well even John Smith pauses a moment.
Ambulance men stand bored. One has bought a fizzy drink, looks like Iron Bru. Another is eating a doughnut. Procedure demands nothing will move until procedure ascertains it can move. Nobody can do anything until procedure has its demands met. Procedure demands that nothing be done until procedure exaggerates its demands. What are procedure’s demands? Procedure doesn’t know, but there are protocols. They are being followed and thus nothing is happening. The plain people are unhappy.
The woman who left the crowd declaring she was going to stop this is back. She has bought three bottles of Lucozade or possibly more since she has two under one armpit. Excuse me she says to a man in front of her. She aims one of the glass bottles at Martin John’s head and fires it onto the track. It misses.
“Why did you do that?”
“I want him to move his arm,” she says. “I think he’s holding something in his hand. He could be armed. I want him to move. I want him out of there.”
She puts two bottles into her pocket and shuffles her alignment. She is squinting and concentrating hard.
“If they’re not going to move him, I’ll move him,” she rasps. She lifts another bottle of Lucozade up and hurls it even harder. It hits the side of the train, smashes to clinking glass, liquid, and draws the attention of the procedurals. They move in and remove the Lucozade-throwing woman, who attempts to chuck two bottles at the same time, one of which lands on her own foot.
“He moved, he’s moving,” some voices say.
Martin John is not moving.
Martin John has issued his demands.
He says he will not come up from the train wheels unless the entire station is emptied so he can do his circuits alone.
“What about your job? They will be wondering where you are.”
He likes that she imagines he has a job and that a job is waiting on him. That he is useful and people are waiting on him to be useful.
Is there anyone whom it might help him to talk to?
Maybe when he sees the phone, he’ll know whom to ring?
Is there someone she should phone in his house?
Martin John does not like the words home and telephone.
Now she has mentioned Baldy Conscience.
Baldy Conscience is in the station.
Snipers in the roof. Armed and waiting.
They probably have the girl out there too.
Waiting to identify him.
To say he is the one.
Who did the thing.
None of them liked.
But not ’til they noticed it.
And threw the tea.
This will be a problem.
They didn’t notice. They never notice and when they do they do not move and he has liked this about it before. That no one moves on him. That he can always be assured of the human capacity to be passive.
There are a few problems down here. He is whispering now because if they know there are problems down here… well. And another thing, the smell down here is not good. Nor the cold. Nor the metal. He has positioned himself so his legs are threaded behind two wheels. If the train moves it will cut his legs off. The hospital gown is caught on something. Things are digging into various parts of his body and he has his face towards the undercarriage. His wrist has gone so numb he can’t imagine it will work again. The stones that line the railway tracks are embedding themselves absolutely, with some finality, into his flesh. Agony. It’s the kind of pain that’s poking euphoric. Martin John has tunnelled beyond uncomfortable. But the best thing is his bladder is fuller than even he ever imagined it could be. This, he likes.
Martin John is happy for the entire train service to grind to a halt.
He cannot go up. If he goes up, she will be waiting and it will be over.
Over for you, Martin John, he can hear mam saying.
Can’t save you now.
Big boyos likely bouncing around the station with plans to topple him. The whole of Euston’s full of policemen on horses waiting to greet him. Would they form a circle while he walked his circuits? Horse nostrils can be disconcerting. He remembers the smell of wet straw and piddle at Hyde Park.