Chapter 22

Soft light, urgent squabbling and vivid stenches woke me slowly but firmly. I grudgingly poked my head from out of the bundle of filthy rags and gazed over at the clock through cruddy eyes; I didn't want to wipe them clean with my filthy hands. Well past eight; morning or night, I had no idea. I gazed up at a tattered Tube advert for "The Mousetrap, It'll Run Forever!" and rolled over to look along the platform. Some of the station lights flickered dimly. Filthy, ragged people glided sluggishly around the station, occasionally stopping to argue and tussle with their fellows.

A small bundle not far away from me shifted. Debs sat up. She scratched her matted blonde hair furiously and shot me a filthy look. She staggered upright and crabbed her way over to the edge of the platform. She peeled her frayed jeans down to her ankles. She squatted wide and swung her scrawny pale bottom over the side of the platform. I turned away quickly to miss any further visuals; the audio track was bad enough. I was glad I hadn't managed to crawl that far down the tracks last night, much less had my way with her, as offered.

Trace crawled over to me and flicked her cropped head towards the tracks. 'Dead elegant down here, ain't it, mister?' she giggled. 'A right old holiday camp, a right old Butlin's.' She gave me a big smile, 'Hey, look, can you spare me a smoke or two, mister?' she whined.

'Sorry, Trace, I don't smoke,' I replied, shaking my head.

'Oh,' she said, as if she didn't believe me. She tugged at the spiky ends of her short brown hair.

'Look, call me Dick, huh?' I said. 'And I really don't smoke. OK?'

'Sure, Dick, whatever you say,' she replied uncertainly. 'But have you got a lighter on you I can have, then?' she asked eagerly.

I shook my head and made a regretful face. 'Sorry, I don't smoke, so no need for one, see.'

'Not even a few matches?' she wheedled pathetically.

'No.'

'A torch?'

'Look, Trace, what's all this business about cigarettes, matches and lighters?' I asked crossly.

'Well, you see, we run out of ciggies down here ever so long ago, mister, haven't we?' said Trace. I had a suspicion she was putting on the coarse accent and grammar for the show. 'Lighters and matches is in real short supply, too. Natural, enough here in the dark, to want to have anything that'll make a light, inn't it?'

'Yeah, I guess so,' I agreed.

She reached into her filthy red bomber jacket and took out a small chocolate bar, wrapped in deep red. 'Martin dug up a chockey machine this morning. You want some?' she asked. 'It's part of my share.'

I nodded eagerly. 'Oh, yes, please.'

She broke the chocolate bar across her dirty knee and handed me half. 'You sure you got no lighter, mister? Please?'

I shook my head again. 'I suppose I can see it makes sense to want lighters,' I agreed. 'But the lights are on now, aren't they?' I crammed the chocolate into my mouth and crunched it up. I let it melt to a sticky mass in my mouth and sucked it down slowly. God, it tasted good.

'Yeah, well, anyway, you never know when the lights'll go off down here or when they'll come back on, do you?' Trace replied. 'I mean one day, maybe they'll just go off and stay off, won't they? Huh?' She nibbled her chocolate daintily. 'Then we'll need lighters, see?'

'Well, look, why don't you just get yourself out of here, then?' I asked.

'Well, where would I go?' Trace asked plaintively. 'There's no place that's safe up above, is there?'

'Debs said there were some trains were going out of Euston,' I suggested. 'You could take one to somewhere else. Up north.'

'Yeah, well, maybe some of the trains are running, but how do I know I'd be better off somewhere else than I am now in London, like?' she asked sceptically.

'Believe me, Trace, you'll be better off getting out of London as soon as possible. No matter where you end up,' I advised sincerely. Poor girl, she wasn't much older than my sweet Cathy. I'd have liked to have warned her properly, but long-practised secrecy is a very hard habit to break. Even when there's no serious reason for keeping it going any more.

'Naw,' she said shaking her head, 'I guess I'll see it out through here in London, mister, thanks anyway. These storm's will just have to stop soon and then everything'll be all right again, won't it?' Her face brightened with the hope. 'I mean, those storms can't last forever, can they?'

'No, maybe not,' I agreed helplessly. I suddenly realised, with suppressed panic, that I only had a few days to get myself out of London and north up to high ground. I remembered the wallet in the jacket I'd made as a pillow. I picked it out. There was no money, but there were credit cards and a driver's license. 'Hey, Trace, you know there's a wallet in this jacket?' I said, gesturing with it.

'Sure, big deal,' she replied carelessly. 'There must be a million of them lying around down here in the Tube, so what?'

'But what about the owners?' I asked, mystified. I slipped the wallet back into the jacket.

Trace shrugged. 'They won't be missing them,' she said, offhandedly, but finally. 'Money's just a sort of bad old habit. It's no real use to us down here, is it?'

'Why not?' I asked.

'Nothing to buy, is there, guv?' she replied. 'Everything wrecked up above, inn't it?'

'But how did you start living down here, Trace?' I asked.

She shrugged. 'Like everyone else, right? I commuted into London every day from St Albans to the office. One night, I commuted home, except it wasn't there any more. So I commuted back down to London, except London wasn't really there any more, either. So I just stayed down here in the Tube with the other commuters. Where else could I go to get away from the storms, huh?'

'What about the others?' I inquired.

Trace looked confused. 'Who?'

'You know, Mick, Martin, the others here,' I said.

'What about them?' she asked.

'Where do they come from?'

'Oh, same as me, I guess, commuters,' she replied vaguely. 'Why shouldn't they be here?'

'They don't really sound English,' I explained. 'They, well, they sound sort of American.' This was true. They all sounded as if they came from Texas and not a socially superior part of it, either.

'I dunno, really,' she mused, 'Maybe they seen too many cowboy films as kids, Chainsaw Massacre. Know what I mean?' It made sense, I suppose, if they were reverting back to Nature - trailer trash - Nature's lowest common denominator. Suddenly, Trace pricked up her ears to a distant rumble.

Turning, I felt the faint breeze of a train against my face. 'Christ almighty!' I cried with surprise, 'There's a train coming!'

'Oh, yeah, sure,' said Trace casually. 'There's still some of them running, sometimes. It won't stop here, though.'

I could hear it coming now. I had to get on it. I looked at her. 'Why not?' I demanded, jumping to my feet.

'They're dead afraid to stop here, mister,' she said flatly. 'No one to pick up or let down here. That's why, isn't it?'

'That's ridiculous!' I snapped. Bloody hopeless girl. 'Of course it'll stop!' I jumped up and darted over to the edge of the platform. The train moved slowly through the station. I signalled frantically at the driver to stop. He shook his head grimly and looked straight ahead. There were only a few people on the train. They ignored me totally, one of them was reading a paper. The train just kept on rolling past until it disappeared. 'Stop, you bastard!' I shouted after the train. 'Stop!'

A hairy, squat man appeared at my side. It was Martin. He seized my arm roughly. 'What's the matter, feller? Our hospitality not good enough for you or something?' he growled. 'You thinking of changing platforms on us, mister? You gonna do something like that to us, huh?'

I turned and smiled widely. 'Oh, gosh, nothing at all like that, Martin,' I babbled enthusiastically. 'It's just that I really do need to get moving on along on my way again. I want to catch a train up north. Get back home. Family and kids, you know, that sort of thing.'

'Yeah, well, you're staying right here with us, feller,' snarled Martin glumly, pressing even harder into my arm. 'Whether you like it or not. You got to share. So you're not going nowhere, no how.'

I was getting a bit fed up with this stuff by now. 'Look, dammit,' I snapped, shaking his hand loose, 'I've offered you my money already.' I held up my wrists and shook them. 'I haven't even got a watch on or you could have that. If you want more money than I've got on me, then you'll have to take me to a bank or a cash point or something like that. Otherwise I've got absolutely nothing worth having.'

'Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that now,' said Martin menacingly. I braced myself in case he decided to have a go at me. The confrontation was stopped by a sudden uproar down at the other end of the platform.

'Martin!' boomed Mick. 'Hey, Martin! Look at what I got here, Martin!' he bellowed happily. 'Lookit, lookit here, lookie!' He swaggered up to us and held up a stubby black pistol in his great, grubby paw. 'Got me a shooter, Martin! How about that, huh? Got me a real six-gun! We're gonna clean up around here, boy, kick ass. Bang, bang. Gonna scrag some assholes down here, for sure!' He crouched low. 'Pow, pow!'

Martin's eyes bugged with admiration. He whistled loudly through his wide-gapped teeth. 'Fuck a bleeding duck, Mick,' he breathed softly, 'Where'd you get that beauty?'

Mick laughed and reached into the crowd following him. 'Well, now, I caught me a copper, I did, Martin,' he crowed. 'Sodding plainclothes copper, he is. Armed, too. Nasty, nasty.' He jerked a bulky man forward by the collar and slammed him down on to the platform. 'A bunch of them bastards was nosing around our patch. Up to no good. His bloody mates got away, but I collared this sneaking old twat.' Mick gave the cop a solid, cracking boot in the ribs.

I flinched inwardly. But far better this poor, doomed chap than me, I reasoned. I caught a glimpse of handcuffed arms, tightly and painfully pinioned behind his back. I winced. A bloody face raised itself from the filth-caked concrete. My sympathy vanished instantly. I wouldn't have minded stepping right in and giving that copper a couple of vigorous kicks myself. It was Peters, the sneaking old twat!