Саймон Морден - Down Station

That’d been a disaster. The M3 had locked solid, and they’d barely had time to eat fish and chips in some formica-countered sea-side shed before piling back in the minibus for the trip home. Eight teenagers with a broad spectrum of emotional and educational problems, four carers. It was a wonder that any of them made it back alive.

Again, the five-second image: a white beach and blue sea, and a lone woman, just about in a bikini, lithe and tanned and happy, running into the waves. Visit Greece, it said.

Mary didn’t have a passport. She didn’t even know if she had the documents to get a passport. She knew she’d need a birth certificate, and if one existed for her, she’d never seen it.

She imagined it, for a moment. That she was the woman. That the white sand was hot under her feet and between her toes. That the water was clear and bright and broke like diamonds as the wave hit her shins.

She stumbled off the end of the escalator, nearly falling in the process.

It was a dream. A pipe-dream. The woman in the jeweller’s would one day meet a rich man who liked her enough to take her on holiday to Greece. And good for her. Nothing wrong in that. If she had the opportunity, she should grasp at it with both hands, and get out while she still could.

Mary took the stairs down to the westbound platform of the Piccadilly line. The last train was still ten minutes away. She was early.

There was nowhere to change. Literally, nowhere. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it here on the platform, amongst the drunks and the stoners. She could wait, but then it was always a rush to get kitted out, Mr Nicholls with his clipboard chivvying and tapping and looking at his watch.

So she walked down to the far end of the platform, right to where the jumpers usually positioned themselves for their one final step across the ill-minded gap, and dropped her bag to the ground.

The CCTV could see her, so she turned her back as she shucked her jacket. All she was wearing underneath was a thin tan vest that was a shade lighter than her skin. It got hot, working in the tunnels, and the first day, against all advice, she’d made the mistake of wearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants.

She’d cooked, and she wasn’t going to do that again.

From inside her bag, she dragged her thick orange boilersuit. Ironically, it made her look like she was on a chain gang, or she was one of those Guantanamo inmates. She shook it out, kicked off her shoes, and quickly dragged her jeans down to her ankles.

The rumbling she felt through her feet told her that a train was due. Probably eastbound on Piccadilly, as it was too solid a hit to be the nearby Northern line.

Someone wolf-whistled. She ignored them, and sat on the platform, on the boiler suit, to pull her jeans free.

With a few practised moves, she had the bright orange suit up to her waist. Left arm, right arm, and she was covered up, the zip-up front open to her navel but nothing showing.

She had a pair of heavy work boots in the bag too, steel capped, solid, thick rubber soles. She stepped into them and crouched as she laced them up. Now she looked down the platform, at the men where the whistle had come from, and studied their gelled hair and sharply ironed shirts. They could have been anything during the day◦– brickie, office drone, city trader◦– but here, at night, together and full of drink, they were all the same.

Now she had the uniform on, the oversized sexless boiler suit and the big brown boots, perhaps she was a less of a catch, though she knew it wasn’t the catching that mattered. For men like that, it was about the chase, a quick fumbling conquest, and move on.

She tied her unruly curls up in a red bandanna and piled her discarded clothes into her bag.

Five minutes until the last train.

The platform should have been filling up, but it was still sparse. She perched herself on one of the inadequate seats to wait, feeling the distant passing of other trains reverberate in her bones.

There should have been others of her shift down on the platform by now. She couldn’t explain their absence. She chewed at her already gnawed fingers, hunched over.

The overhead sign ticked down the seconds and the minutes.

And suddenly they were all there, walking in a loud phalanx out of one of the connecting corridors and into her sight.

The meeting. She’d forgotten the meeting.

Her sudden relief was replaced by burning panic. She jumped up as if hearing a shot and took a step forward to explain to the clip-board wielding Nicholls. But what should she say? Some flannel about being late because of… what? She hadn’t been late. She’d just forgotten. Tell him that she’d blown the meeting off as a waste of her time? She was supposed to be avoiding the snark and triggers for confrontation.

She’d have to apologise. God, she hated doing that, especially to little weasel-faced Nicholls and his stupid ratty moustache. Mama was with him, matching him stride for stride, rolling her body like a ship at sea. If Mama was there, it’d be fine.

It was Mama who called to her first.

‘Mary! Where’ve you been, child? Mr Nicholls,’ and the way she said ‘Mr Nicholls’ always managed to convey just how much she’d like to scrape him off the underside of her shoe, ‘Mr Nicholls was worried about you.’

‘Sorry. Sorry. I was here in plenty of time, and I was just used to the routine.’ Mary raised her gaze for a moment, and looked at the reflections of the overhead lights in Nicholls’ black-rimmed glasses. ‘I missed the meeting and I’m sorry.’

Nicholls stopped in front of her and consulted his clipboard. ‘Mary. All staff are required to attend such meetings as management see necessary to facilitate the smooth running—’

He was interrupted by an almighty boom, like someone slamming a heavy steel door. It echoed forever along the tunnel.

When it had faded, he clicked his biro and started again. ‘All staff—’

‘Oh, let’s not worry about that now, Mr Nicholls. Mary’s a good girl and a good worker.’ Mama was in full flow. ‘She’s fine and strong, and she was here early. She’s always on time and never misses a day. She’s one of the best on this team and she said she was sorry and I can tell her what we all talked about while we work, which is what we’re not doing now.’ She turned to the rest of the shift and shooed them into action with her thick fingers. ‘Come on, people. We’re keeping Mr Nicholls waiting.’

Nicholls might have the clipboard, but Mama seemed to run the show.

As the others put their bags down and started on suiting up, the last train was called. It seemed to settle matters, and Nicholls found it necessary to consult the top sheet of the sheaf of paper he had in front of him.

‘Get changed, Noreen,’ was all he said, and went to the locked telephone box on the wall.

Mama waited until their supervisor was otherwise occupied, then took Mary by the elbow.

‘What d’you want to do something stupid like that for, girl? You know he’s just itching for the chance to report you.’

‘I forgot, all right?’

‘Well, don’t you go forgetting again.’ Then she added. ‘Help Mama into her finery, girl.’

Mama was short, but wide, and wore nothing under her boiler suit but a pair of hefty knickers and a bra with more cross-bracing than Tower Bridge. Her wide legs filled the trousers, and she held in the rolls of chocolate-coloured flesh while Mary zipped her up.

‘You’re okay, girl. But you got to pay more attention. Doesn’t matter if you do the job nine times out of ten. Folk like Nicholls, he’s watching for that one time you don’t.’

A waft of hot, steamy air presaged the arrival of the tube train. It rattled and squeaked into view, and the carriages flashed by. Then it slowed, and the blur of windows resolved into discrete images of people mostly standing, even though there were plenty of empty seats.