The limbless, serpentine monster slid out of its labyrinthine lair, eyes blazing, with a snort and a high-pitched shriek. In this hollowed-out subterranean space, it disgorged the contents of its insides; then hungrily, it fed on fresh meat.
As the giant metal and glass snake hissed-squealed-juddered to a halt, all the doors on the platform side of the train opened, and he climbed aboard.
He took a seat in the sparsely populated carriage, pulled the worn paperback from his jacket pocket, and began reading. A brief interruption as he was politely reminded to mind the doors as they closed, then he returned to the text as the train smoothly slid away out of the light and back to the thick blackness of the tunnels.
The journey, and his reading, was punctuated by the train stopping at each station. After a while, he realised he wasn’t concentrating on the story, so he tucked the book back in his pocket.
A minute later, the train stopped again. Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Line. A busy station on London’s Underground, but tonight, strangely quiet. At the end of October, summer was over and the frantic build-up to Christmas chaos was still, thankfully, a few weeks away.
Carl gazed idly through the window, bored. The journey was one he made regularly, so even if the view from the windows of the tube train had been somewhat more visually stimulating than the interior of pitch-black tunnels punctuated by milkily-lit stations, he would still have been bored. He was returning from the British Museum, one of his favourite haunts in the capital, although he could be found at many others: the National Gallery, both Tates, the good old V&A, even, on occasion, the Transport Museum. But always he returned to Great Russell Street and the grand imposing edifice, a forest of pillars protecting the treasures within. Walking through those doors was almost guaranteed to lift his spirits; today, however, when he was most in need of popping a few cultural uppers, it had failed to lift his gloomy mood.
Why was Charlene treating him in such a way? She said she loved him, yet behaved towards him as though he were an annoying stray mongrel that followed her home. If he was affectionate, she told him she needed space. If he gave her that space, her accusation was one of being unfeeling and uncaring towards her. Confusion was his steady state these days.
The train doors opened, admitting an unwelcome ghost of cold air. That was the trouble with underground trains: because they always stopped at every station, and since the stations were no more than two or three minutes apart, the temperature inside could never be maintained. The stations were almost always draughty, and the bitter wind fell over itself to tumble into the warming carriages the instant the doors opened, almost as if it were trying to warm itself up.
The old chap climbed aboard. Later, when he thought about it, Carl would swear that he hadn’t been waiting on the platform. And yet there he was. He took a seat not quite opposite Carl.
As the doors closed again, Carl couldn’t help sneaking a look at him. An oldish guy, without being elderly. Carl put him in his sixties, though ageing him was difficult. He wore a thick tweed overcoat, a small porkpie hat, and clutched tight to a carrier bag proclaiming “Harrington’s Cheese Shop” to the world. But the most striking thing about him, by far, and the thing that drew Carl’s gaze despite his concern for propriety, was the man’s eyes.
They were a deep, almost sapphire shade of blue, but that wasn’t the significant aspect. They were misaligned. Carl knew there was a medical term for the condition, but he either couldn’t remember it or had never heard it. Whilst the left eye looked straight ahead, the right seemed more interested in what was above and to the right.
Initially, Carl found this rather unnerving, since he was unable to know exactly where the man was looking. It was a little like looking at someone wearing impenetrable sunglasses; you could never be sure whether they were looking at you or not. But strangely, the more glances he sneaked at the man opposite, the less uncomfortable he felt. His expression seemed to be one of ‘amused bemusement’, the phrase that came into Carl’s head to describe it. There was something else there, maybe a certain melancholy, but it was slight, and played a minor role to the happier nuances in his face.
Knightsbridge; South Kensington; Gloucester Road; Earl’s Court; West Kensington. The station names were as familiar to him as the liturgy to a priest. They provided their own metronomic rhythm, and he found his thoughts returning to Charlene. What should he do? He loved her, he was in no doubt about that. The eighteen months since they met had without question been the happiest of his life. Frankly, he couldn’t believe that a girl, a woman, as beautiful as she would even look twice at an extraordinarily ordinary man such as he. But look twice she had, at that party they had both been invited to. Actually, as parties go, that had been one of the dullest he had ever attended. Some aspiring artist in Holland Park had thrown the soiree to showcase her ‘talent’. Carl was strictly of the “like what I like” school of art criticism, and this artist had definitely fallen outside of that criterion. But whilst working his way politely through all the pieces, he had been surprised to find himself standing next to the most attractive woman in the universe, whose opening gambit had been, “What a load of crap.”
He couldn’t remember quite when he’d fallen in love with her, but it was either during her first sentence or very shortly thereafter. Amazingly, extraordinarily, unbelievably, she had fallen in love with him, too. Each morning, without fail, from that occasion until this very day, he had thanked whatever higher power, supreme being, or quantum event had brought the two of them together. The intervening year and a half had passed by as quickly as the underground stations were passing the train tonight, and all but the last few weeks had been Arcadian. But for some reason, though she professed otherwise, she did not seem quite so close to him as she always had. And now he had a decision to make which it seemed could not lead to a happy conclusion for him either way. Did he just try and stay with it, hope that she returned to him? Did he confront her with it? Or did he walk away? For this moment, he had no idea.
Abruptly, he realised the train had stopped. Looking up, he spotted the station logo on the platform wall: Hammersmith. He jumped up from his seat, and was almost to the door when he heard the old man speak.
“Talk to her.”
Carl swung round, saw no one else in the carriage, and realised the man had been talking to him. “I’m sorry?”
The old man smiled, and his eyes, just for a second, seemed both to look at him and through him, beyond him. “Talk to her. You must. Otherwise you’ll lose her. Talk to her, Carl.”
“How the hell…?” The doors began to close, and he leapt through the narrowing opening, onto the platform, minding the gap as instructed via the loudspeakers. He spun round to look back into the train. The old man was still there, but Carl couldn’t tell whether he was looking at him or not, since his eyes had again gone their separate ways. But the faint, bemused smile was still firmly in place.
How the hell did he know my name? And how did he know what I was thinking about? The second question, he supposed, might be fairly easily answered; he must have looked pensive, possibly anxious, and it might not have been a particularly inspired guess that he had “relationship problems.” But the first question remained, as it still did years afterward: How the hell did he know my name?
~*~
Raymond Vincent Jones was going home. Whilst to some, homecomings might be pleasant journeys, filled with warm thoughts of welcoming fires, parents and hot meals, the images that filled Raymond’s head as he travelled were quite the contrary: arguments, the odd punch in the face, and at best, cold indifference to his arrival.
The middle of three brothers, he had neither the respect of which the first child could usually boast, nor the fondness often shown towards the youngest. He was just another. Not that he could see either parent dishing out much in the way of either fine sentiment. His father certainly hadn’t found much in the way of the milk of human kindness, despite years of searching for it in countless bottles, and his mother had long since given up the fight. So why was he going home at all? Simple: he couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
The train rocked and rattled violently. Why did they always put the shittiest trains on this line? Why was he asking himself such a ridiculous question, when he knew damn well what the answer was? They put the least valuable rolling stock on this line because it carried some of the least valuable inhabitants of the city.
Back to his thoughts. The only reason he was making his way back to Bethnal Green, the only reason he wasn’t on the other side of the city, was money. Or lack of it. But that was about to change. Gil Brooks wanted him on the next job. And Raymond wanted in. Brooks, with two others, had already broken into at least a dozen shops. Now they were going into banks. They’d already pulled one off, last week. Got away with ten grand each. But Dave Landers had pulled out, and Brooks needed someone else. He asked Raymond. And Raymond said yes. By next week, he’d have enough to be able to tell his parents where to stick it, and he intended to do just that.
The ugly old bastard got on the train at Tottenham Court Road, and sat not quite opposite Raymond. Raymond immediately felt uncomfortable. He was sure the bloke was staring at him, yet every time he looked directly at him, he could no longer be as certain. The problem was the man’s eyes. They were all over the place. One was down at the floor, the other was out the window. One was at him, the other was up at the fucking roof. Yet each time Raymond looked away, he could feel at least one of the eyes staring straight at him.
He was already anxious enough. He was pretty much convinced he’d get a beating off his dad when he walked through the door, unless of course he’d drunk himself unconscious by then. His mum certainly wouldn’t be around. It was after eight, so she’d already be spotting her Bingo cards with that bloody ridiculous marker pen, hoping to win enough cash to fund her sixty-a-day habit for a few weeks. Not that she’d be any good if his dad decided he wanted a fight, anyway.
Coupled with this, he was thinking about his upcoming debut as a bank-robber. The money would be wonderful, but Gil Brooks didn’t mess around. He used sawn-off shotguns. Loaded sawn-off shotguns. Raymond had never handled a gun in his life, much less fired one. If someone rushed him, would he be able to shoot them? He supposed that was something you only found out when it happened, pretty much like being in the army. And anyway, it wasn’t likely to happen. Was it?
All in all he was pretty wired, and as the old train rattled and shuddered through the dank, brick-lined tunnels, the old bugger opposite was getting under his skin. By the time they reached Liverpool Street station, he’d had more than enough. He looked up, and though the man’s eyes were still showing no signs of a desire for common purpose, he knew that he was being looked at.
“What you starin’ at, mister? You want a fuckin’ photo?” He snarled, exaggerating his already thick East London brogue.
The man said nothing, just looked at him, a slight smile on his face.
“You wanna watch ‘oo you’re laughin’ at too, you old bugger.”
No apparent response to the threat. In black leather jacket—ripped—denim jeans—stained and ripped—and black welder’s boots—scuffed, and with three rings in each ear and one in the nose, Raymond knew he was a pretty frightening sight, especially to the generation of which this old git was a paid-up member. And yet, for all the reaction he saw in the man’s face, he might as well not have spoken. In fact, he actually began to feel a little embarrassed, so ineffectual had his posturing been. This made him even angrier. Fortunately for him, the train lurched to a halt at Bethnal Green station, and Raymond stood. He stared at the man a final time, intending to pass to the man, via the severity of his look, the message, One stop further and you’d’ve been in serious trouble, mate.
Except that while he was thinking this, the old bastard had the cheek to speak to him. “Don’t do it, son,” he said. “It’s not worth the risk. You’ll be caught, I’m telling you. Don’t risk it, Raymond.”
What the fuck…?
Raymond was off the train before he’d even registered what had been said to him. By the time he turned round, the train was already halfway into the tunnel and he couldn’t pick out the carriage he’d just alighted from. He stood for a moment in the draughty platform chamber, then made his way up to street level, the man’s words echoing in his mind as his footsteps echoed around the tiled walls of the station.
~*~
Damn it, she was late. It was always the way; whenever you were two minutes late leaving the house, there were more people than ever in the station, which meant you were even later getting on the train. The train would then, as if in conspiracy with unknown forces, travel slower than usual, not only depriving you of the chance of making up lost time, not even running the same number of minutes behind schedule, but later still. She wondered if this seemingly unbreakable rule of the universe had anything to do with the Third Law of Thermodynamics. Very possibly, she concluded; the tendency towards chaos and disorder was a consequence of this law, so why not a law of lateness? She formed the principle in her mind. In the customary scientific manner, she dubbed it after her own name: Gregory’s Lateness Principle: In any given day, lateness tends to increase as the inverse square of the time available. Pretty good for seven-thirty on a Monday morning, she allowed.
And why was she thinking such nonsense at this early hour? Could it be in order to block out the thoughts she knew would come flooding into her mind if there were any signs of a void? Too late; here they came.
Though she knew he loved her, and of course she loved him, the fear was undeniable. Even now, some three weeks after the home pregnancy testing kit had revealed the truth she’d already known, she felt a strong echo of that bolus of pain in the pit of her stomach that had come to her then. She hadn’t told him; couldn’t tell him. Because if she did, and if he was angry, and if he walked out on her…well, if all those conditionals took positive values, the unconditional result would be that her world would fall apart. She couldn’t bear to consider the possibility, and so she denied the reality by not speaking of it.
But she wasn’t naïve. She had a degree. She worked in an investment bank, for God’s sake. She knew it was only a matter of time, and not very much time, at that, before he would find out. And if that happened before she told him, then how would he feel?
And now, on top of this, he’d told her this morning that they needed to talk. Tonight. Important, he’d said. His face contained none of the humour she loved in it. He was serious. Despite her questions, he had refused to tell her what was on his mind. And now she had a new worry, a twin for the existing one: he wanted to break up. He’d found someone else. Notwithstanding his frequent declarations of his feelings towards her, he was going to leave her, right now when she needed him the most. The God to which her father had devoted his life to teaching others about seemed to have abandoned her, just as she had turned her back on His service in favour of a more materialistic career. Though she still believed, she had a profound feeling that she was out of favour with Him.
She looked at the man on the other side of the train. He’d been the only person in the carriage when she’d climbed aboard at Shepherd’s Bush. But now, as they approached Oxford Circus, all the seats were taken, and there were several strap-hangers. Normally she would pass up her seat in favour of someone either older or less hale. But today, her mind was not focused on the here and now. When she did think about it, she realised that she was now precisely the sort of woman to whom other people gave up their seats. The concept gave her such a jolt she thought the train had actually collided with something. Looking around, she realised that the only impact had been inside her own head.
The man looked back at her, or at least, she thought he did. With his strange eyes, it was difficult to tell. But he seemed to be smiling at her, too. She found herself returning the smile, though she knew it hadn’t been much of a smile, since it was probably the least appropriate expression of her current turmoil. Several stations merged together, the incessant ingress and egress of passengers a blur, and she found herself automatically getting ready to stand as the train approached Bank, at the heart of the Square Mile, London’s financial inner sanctum. As she did, and above the metal-on-metal rattlings of the train and the dozen morning conversations buzzing between commuters, she heard a voice directed towards her. The old man with the funny eyes was talking to her.
“Tell him, Charlene. You must tell him. He’ll be overjoyed at the news. Don’t worry about it. But you must tell him, tonight.”
The train had stopped, people were squeezing out, others were squeezing in, and suddenly she realised the warning to mind the doors had been issued, and she had only a second to get out. She jumped up, threw her bag over her shoulder, and plunged out through the closing doors.
For a moment she stood on the platform, her heart trying to beat a way to freedom through her ribs. Had that really just happened? How could a complete stranger know so much about her? As she wandered towards the escalators, being barged and buffeted by the morning crush, she tried to make sense of it. And a small, insistent voice inside her told her that, however the man had known what was in her head, he was right.
~*~
Two weeks later, Barnabus James sat at the kitchen table, reading the Hammersmith Gazette.
The Reverend and Mrs. Desmond Gregory are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, Charlene, to Mr. Carl Preston, of Notting Hill.
Shortly afterwards, in the previous night’s London Evening Standard, he read the article on page five:
Three held after attempted armed robbery.
Three men are in police custody tonight after being arrested whilst attempting to rob the Natwest Bank on New Bond Street. Gilbert Brooks, 23, of Peckham Rye, along with Robert Marshall, 22, also of Peckham Rye, have been charged with armed robber. A third man, Raymond Jones, 20, from Bethnal Green, was additionally charged with actual bodily harm. Mr. Brooks accidentally fired his illegally shortened shotgun whilst attempting to avoid arrest, shooting woman police constable Sally Evans in the leg. She was taken to hospital, where her condition is said to be satisfactory. All three men are expected to appear before magistrates in the morning.
Barnabus removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. The strabismus with which he had been born meant that his eyes tired quickly, particularly when reading. But it was this very affliction which allowed him, somehow, to see into people.
He had stopped questioning his ability many years ago. The closest he’d got to an explanation was in the understanding that, in animals, the eyes were positioned at the front of the head to afford deeper perspective and distance judgement. His conclusions were that the non-alignment of his eyes in some way gave him the ability—and occasionally the curse—of being able to see things normally hidden. He had no idea whether that was anywhere near the mark. Many times, he had wished not to be blighted with such a talent. He had seen things in people he could not, even in his most evil and lurid nightmares, have dreamed could exist in the depths of the human soul. But now and again, he found he could help.
Carl Preston and Charlene Gregory would make a fine couple. And Carla, when she came along in about seven months, would have her mother’s beauty and her father’s humour. As for Raymond Jones...well, he had tried. He couldn’t have done any more. Maybe one day, after Raymond was realised from prison in about six years, he would happen across him again on the tubes. And maybe he’d get another chance.
Later, the bitter wind tugged at his tweed overcoat as he walked towards Mornington Crescent Underground station.
A story inspired by a curious gent I saw once on the Underground. The strabismus was real. Whether or not it gave him this particular gift, I can't say...
