again and carrying on through the station without stopping. Then he heard the squeaks that sounded like hundreds of mice. He realised that the creatures were coming up the stairs towards him.
Not mice - but rats. Horrible big rats. Black, ugly.
He moved surprisingly fast for a man of his bulk. He cleared the few stairs he’d descended in two bounds and headed for the ticket office, slamming the door behind him. He leaned back against it for a couple of seconds, fighting for breath and giving his heartbeats a chance to slow down.
He made for the phone and with trembling fingers dialled emergency.
‘Police. Hurry! Police? This is Shadwell Underground, Stationmaster Green speak...’ He looked up as he heard a scuttling noise. Staring across at him from the ticket-office pay window was a huge, black, evil-looking rat.
He dropped the phone and ran to the back of the office.
The windows were barred, preventing any escape. He looked around in desperation, his gross figure shaking with fear. He saw the cupboard set back in the wall, where brooms and buckets were kept for the cleaners, pulled it open and pushed himself inside, closing the-door behind. He crouched, half sitting, whimpering, wetness spreading between his thighs, in the darkness, scarcely daring to breathe.That scream ! It must have been Errol or someone, waking for a tram. They’d got him and now they were coming for him!
The driver of the train hadn’t stopped. He’d seen them and driven on. And there’s no one else on the station. Mother-of-God, what’s that? Gnawing. Scraping. They’re in the office. They’re trying to eat their way through the cupboard door!
Chapter Ten
Eight-thirty. The Monday morning rush was in full swing.
The passengers on the underground train read their morning papers or novels; slept or dozed; chatted or thought; stood or sat. Some even laughed occasionally. Accountant clerks rubbed shoulders with financial directors; typists with models; tea-ladies with executives; filing clerks with computer programmers; black with white. The men stared boldly or secretly at the girls’ legs; the girls stared, back or pre-tended not to notice. Minds filled with the coming week; minds reflecting on the weekend past; minds almost blank.
Jenny Cooper sat reading the problems page of a women’s magazine, occasionally smiling at the ridiculous situations some girls seemed to getthemselves into. She scoffed at some of the answers too.
Flicking over the page, not really interested in the words before her, her thoughts returned to the previous Saturday night and the party she’d gone to. She was impatient to get to work to tell her friends about the fabulous boy who’d taken her home - especiallyMarion, who always had hundreds of blokes and never let the other girls forget it. Jenny considered herself to be a little bit plain; her eyes were too small and too close together, her nose just a fraction too long. Her legs were good though; long, not too thin and not too fat. Her hair always looked nice.
Nice curls, nice soft colour. And her face was quite attractive if she didn’t smile too broadly. Anyway, this boy really fancied her - he’d told her. She’d had boyfriends but none of them up toMarion’s usual standard. She’d liked them but always felt slightly ashamed of them when they’d taken her out. But this one was different. He was just as good-looking as any ofMarion’s, in fact, better than a lot of them. And he’d asked her out again! Tonight. Pictures. She couldn’t wait to show him off to her friends - she’d makeMariongreen.
Violet Mckay, sitting next to Jenny, read her historical romance. She always became so engrossed in romantic fiction, always knowing exactly how the heroine felt in every situation, suffering with her, experiencing her disappointments, her happiness. She sighed inwardly as the hero, having lost his wealth, his wife (who had been so wicked and conniving), and his right arm in a hunting accident, now returned to the woman he really loved, the heroine, so soft, so pure, so willing to have him back in her arms and comfort him in his grief, ready to sacrifice everything for him, this man who had betrayed her trust and who now needed her so much. Violet remembered how romantic George had been.
In their courting days, he’d given her flowers, small gifts, little poems. How thoughtful he’d always been.
But now, sixteen years and three kids later, he was more inclined to pat her back than tickle her chin. He was a good man though, very straight, but very soft.
He’d been a good husband to her and a good father to the children, ever faithful, ever patient. Their love had mellowed over the years, not really fading as most couple’s seemed to.
But if only he wasn’t so sensible. Every problem was tackled with logic rather than emotion; and emotion was carefully measured, never just let loose. If only once he would surprise her. Do something startling.
Not have an affair – but perhaps flash his eyes at another woman. Or have a flutter on the horses. Or come home drunk. Or punch his brother Albert on the nose. But no, she wouldn’t really change him.
It wasn’t his fault that she had urges now and again for a bit of romantic adventure, a bit of glamour. At forty-two, she should have got over her wilder impulses for adventure.
Now, with the kids at school and able to look after themselves, her only outlet was her part-time job in an insurance office. The men were pretty stodgy but some of the girls were a laugh. It kept her busy for most of the day anyway and she had enough to do when the kids got home from school and George from work. She reminded herself to go into Smith’s at lunch-time for a new book.
Henry Sutton clung to his strap as the train lurched round a bend in the tunnel. He tried to read his folded paper but every time he attempted to open it out to turn a page, he nearly lost his balance. Eventually, he gave it up as a bad job and looked down at the woman sitting in front of him reading a book and wondered when it would be her station.
No, she’d stay on for a while yet; the book-readers always had long journeys. The young girl next to her.
No. Works in an office, won’t get off until we reach the City or theWest End, and it’s onlyStephey Green next stop. Over the years of rush-hour travel, Henry had become an expert on where people lived. It didn’t work so well in the mornings – he rarely got a seat - but in the evenings, he would position himself in front of a person most likely to get off fairly soon. For instance: the scruffier the person, the sooner they reached their destination; coloured people never went further than West Ham; well-dressed people often changed at Mile End for the Central Line. Twenty years as a solicitor’s clerk, mundane but comfortable, had taught him a lot about people too. Life proceeded at a steady, regular pace; not very exciting - the odd interesting scandal - but one day pretty muchlike another. No cases of murder, rape or black-mail - mainly divorce, embezzlement, or house purchasing.
Steady stuff. Mostly monotonous, often dull. Secure. He was glad he wasn’t married and able to lead his own life without worrying about children, schools, neighbours, H.P., holidays. Not that he really ever got up to much on his own. He believed in keeping himself to himself and not getting involved in other people’s problems. He had enough of that at work, although he never became emotionally involved. The church choir was the only social outlet he enjoyed, meeting once a week to rehearse, and Sunday morning singing his heart out, the only form of exhibitionism he allowed himself. He raised his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Mondays were neither depressing nor exhilarating for Henry Sutton; one day was much the same as any other.
The train suddenly gave a lurch and screeched to a halt, throwing the surprised solicitor’s clerk on to the laps of Violet Melray and Jenny Cooper.
‘Oh, excuse me,’ he stuttered, his face red alerting as he pulled himself up again. Other passengers were in the same predicament and were now picking themselves up, some laughing, others tutting angrily.
‘Here we go,’ a voice was heard to say. ‘Another twenty- minute delay.’ He was wrong. They sat or stood for forty minutes in a state of agitation, trying to hear the shouted conversation between the driver and the guard over their intercom. Henry Sutton, Violet Melray and Jenny Cooper were in the first carriage so they could hear the driver’s replies to the guard’s questions quite plainly. He’d seen something on the line, not quite sure what, but it had been quite large, so he’d jammed on his brakes and cut his power.
Having decided that whatever it was man or animal, it must have been killed by the train and there wasn’t much he could do about it now, so the obvious thing to do was to go on and send a crew back from the next station. The only trouble now was that he couldn’t get any juice. No power. It could be that whatever he’d run over had done some damage to the train although he doubted that, A faulty cable maybe?
He’d actually heard of rats chewing through cables.
The driver, or ‘motor-man’ as he was officially called, had been on to central control and they’d advised him
