Mary will wait it out.
It is the mad mesh of all these bodies running into and away from each other, carrying explanations rather than progress, that further frustrate her. Mary is a woman who likes to get things done. Mary is a woman who can get things done. Mary has worked more consecutive hours on this station than some of the light bulbs. She also hasn’t eaten for thirty-six hours and is hyper.
A what’s happening? only gives her: there’s a guy under a train. A guy under the train is not good, thinks Mary. A guy under the train can mean delays. Is he dead? she asks Anthony, a handsome Nigerian ticket collector with whom she sometimes chit-chats and who is always tired and complaining about his wife, while happily implying Mary could join him anytime for a variety of indulgences. By reply she traditionally provides Romans 10 3–4, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God,” which usually calms his ardour.
Anthony, on this occasion, has more information than Mary.
“No he’s not dead. He’s not moving, but he’s not dead. Stupid guy! Train could have killed him. Trains can kill you. Bam!”
He tells Mary this like she may not have realized trains can kill her. But he is animated. Mary appreciates that he is animated.
Mary, on the verge of sending up an appeal to the Lord, sidles over to have a look. She must ascertain whether there’s something going on down there worth burdening the Lord with. She parks the bin out of the way and moves closer so she can neck a peek and see what’s going on.
She knows him. Even from this squint she recognizes him. It’s the pain au chocolat perv. The one she’s resorted to discussing scripture with.
“It’s him,” she thinks. “Damn.”
“I know him.” Mary says loudly. “Let me talk to him. He knows me. I can get him up.”
No useless official in charge of the situation believes or trusts Mary, but Mary has long since grown used to being disregarded in both London and by the brotherhood that surrounded her husband in Abuja and now pile into her hallway every Sunday to shout at each other over her. She doesn’t listen to them when they crowd out her flat and she won’t listen to these clustering spouters who say she can’t go down there. Mary is powered by the Lord, not railway officials. So she calls across the waist-high glass which houses the public from the buffers below. She calls out to the back of Martin John’s head.
“You! Get up here now and stop being so stupid!”
Mary has a good reason to call across to the man on the tracks. He’s in her way. He’s holding up the trains. He needs to get out of her way. Tonight is Mary’s chance. For weeks she’s awaited her turn. Several women in her Watford Women’s Ministry were ahead of her. There’s a roster. She has listened to her sisters. She has nodded at the sisters and delighted in each sister’s response to a selected Bible reading while secretly counting down to her moment. A sister’s talent for lifting the word of God off the page is not created equally. She may get up on the horse of God but can she hold her saddle? Can she lute his words? Because the simple fact is yawning can set in. She has seen it. She has yawned it and tonight’s her night to present her practiced preaching. How she has silently prepared these words while putting a hundred ham-and-cheese croissants inside paper bags for indifferent passengers.
Last night she barely slept, her tongue locomoting its way around the words-upon-words that must accumulate to form her exhortation. She’s spent seven weeks waiting to strike at Satan. In spite of the fact that she’s merely been asked to talk lightly on a reading of Mark 5.9, she has tasked herself to wholly and vigorously rev up the Watford Women’s Ministry. To go beyond the polite sharing of readings, biscuits and the passive desire to repent amid side discussions on waxing and buying a washing machine on tick. There must be more! She wants to inspire! She has fasted in anticipation of more.
Usually no sister stands up. Heads down, they struggle to find the line in the Bible, they mutter apologetically, they mumble out more apologies and eee-nough. Enough! Tonight will be different. It’s time to bust out the Lord. She knows where and how her crescendo will land. Boom! She has left nothing to chance. Bust him out! Boom! BUST HIM OUT is where she’ll terminate. For dramatic effect her arms will lift to the ceiling, her Bible will drop to the floor. This is her plan. Except this duffer lying on the railway track of Platform 6 is threatening the primary lift-off from that folding chair. Without a launch there can be no landing. Also, she needs to wash her hair. How can she be urging the five other women to bust the Lord out if she’s stood with lackluster hair. Lackluster, she rumbles to herself.
Gone, gone, gone, get Satan gone. Satan get gone. Get gone Satan, Satan get gone. Mary pecks out in guttural whispers. Bust him out. First, though, bust him in. The Lord is in touch. This is real. This is it. This is why she slept so lightly last night.
I am open, Mary thinks. I am open to whatever the Lord sends me.
Here it is, craven-curled before her. In this surprising location the Lord has sent her a numpty-headed nutter whom she must raise from the rails. It is unfortunate. Inconvenient. But Minister Janice has warned that the Lord strikes in mysterious ways and here he’s striking beyond mysterious, here he is boldly challenging Mary to tread the turbulent water, canoe through and defeat the prospect of the 4:12 pm train to Watford Junction being further delayed.
It has been a long shift since 6:30 am. She’s been fasting for 36 hours ahead of tonight’s meeting. Caged and overheating in the cramped bakery, she is tired of invisible interactions with fleeing passengers, endlessly frustrated by the limits of the human hand. She is irked by Florence, her supervisor, who today potted Mary up at the back, washing baking trays clamped in grease and burn. If Mary is to reach into the hearts of heathens, God’s unbelievers, no matter that they are rude, distrustful, dismissive and, not uncommonly, demented, she must be out front, handing over paper bags. Her plan to inscribe biblical quotes on a stack of them during her first tea break had been punctured by Florence informing her that, because they were a person short on the late shift, there will be no breaks, unless Mary wants to work the double shift. We have to get ahead, said Florence after Mary had told her no, no way, not as long as there was air in her lungs can she work a double shift today because tonight she has an important event.
“What’s that then?” smirked Florence, “you rushing off to get married or something?”
Florence is an unbeliever. Florence doesn’t have Jesus in her heart. Mary’s compassion that Florence could one day be saved diminishes the longer she has to share this kennel of a bake house and endure Florence’s unrepentant digs at her faith. There are only three topics she can discuss with Florence and one of them is Debenhams. The other is Flo’s grandkids and the third The Menopause. Flo uses the latter to argue she can’t stand too close to the oven or she’ll melt. To prove her point Flo once faux-fainted and Mary had the brilliant idea to kick her in the kidney to find out if she really was a-faint. The kick brought a howclass="underline" Why’d you do that? I thought you were dead, said Mary. I wanted to wake you up. Her slick response further solidified Mary’s faith because she had never been this quick in the past. Florence takes her supervisory role very seriously when it comes to ordering Mary to take the giant rubbish bin down and empty it. No disrespect, she’ll say. I went to Catholic school and it was shit and I’ve had it up to here with the Pope, can you take the rubbish down for me, love? My back’s bad and you’ve got Jesus on your side.