PART ONE
Hell is for children.
And you shouldn’t have to pay for your love With your bones and your flesh
Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years?
One
If he hurried, he might just make it, thought Peter Hyde as he scuttled across the crowded concourse of Euston Station. He glanced at his watch, apologising as he bumped into a woman dragging a large suitcase on a set of wheels. It looked as if she was taking the luggage for a walk, Hyde mused, weaving his way through the maze of bodies which thronged the busy area.
He was torn between the options of using his briefcase as a weapon to clear a path through the milling throng or holding it close to him in case he accidentally struck anyone with it. Ahead of him he saw a young man with an enormous back-pack turn and slam into an older man in a grey suit who was sweating profusely, perspiration beading on his bald head. The suited man slapped angrily at the back-pack and marched towards the platforms.
Hyde glanced beyond him and saw what he sought.
He had minutes if he was lucky.
Would there be time?
He pushed past two porters who were standing pointing at the huge departures and arrivals board which towered over the concourse and he heard them speaking loudly to a foreigner who was having difficulty understanding their accents.
Hyde thought that it would have been hard enough for someone English to decipher the words of the porters, jabbering away as they were in a curious combination of South Asian tinged Cockney.
Not far now.
Another few yards and he should make it.
He saw his objective come into view.
Up above him, the huge clock on the board clicked round to 18.00 hours.
Now or never.
The doors were actually closing before him.
Hyde slipped through the narrow gap and smiled broadly at the assistant in the Knickerbox shop.
‘I know you’re closing,’ he said, smiling even more broadly. ‘I won’t keep you two minutes.’
The assistant, a girl in her teens wearing an enormous pair of Doc Martens, nodded and returned to her till where she was cashing up.
Hyde glanced around the rails at the array of silk and cotton underwear.
He began to browse.
He knew that Maggie loved silk. He wasn’t averse to the feel of it himself.
Especially when it was wrapped around his wife’s slender form. He smiled to himself as he gently rubbed the material between his thumb and forefinger, running approving eyes over the range of lingerie.
Basques, body suits, camisoles and knickers.
Heaven, he thought, almost laughing aloud.
He selected a camisole in burgundy.
Very nice.
Now, which size?
Oh, shit. Ten or twelve? Or maybe even fourteen?
No, if he took a fourteen home she’d go crazy. She wasn’t that big, he was sure of it. A twelve should do it.
He selected a pair of knickers to go with the top, and crossed to the cash desk, laying the garments beside the till, reaching for his wallet.
The assistant dropped them into a bag and took his money, watching as he slipped the underwear into his briefcase.
She smiled at him and then he was gone, once more part of the crowd heading towards the escalators like some immense amoebic mass.
As Hyde stepped onto the escalator he glanced at his watch. He had arrived back in London earlier than he’d expected. For once the train from Birmingham had been on time and the meeting he’d attended there had finished two hours earlier than scheduled. Maggie would be surprised to see him. He glanced down at his briefcase, amused by the thought of its secret silk contents, and wondered what her reaction would be to his little present.
As he stood on the crowded moving stairway, he smiled to himself, picturing her in the flimsy attire. All around him, stern faces met his gaze, and Hyde felt he was the only one who looked happy. Two or three men were attempting to read newspapers as the escalator carried them deeper into the bowels of the earth. He glanced across to his right and saw several people pushing their way hurriedly towards the top of the up escalator. Late for a train, Hyde reasoned, or perhaps simply rushing out of habit.
The ticket area was even more crowded.
He moved as swiftly as he could through such a dense mass, and headed for the next set of escalators, glancing back to see a man trying to push his suitcase through the automatic gates, ignoring a porter’s attempts to help him.
Hyde didn’t stand on the next set of steps: he followed the line of hardier souls who had decided to walk down.
At the bottom he turned to the left, and was hit by the warm air of the subterranean cavern. The familiar stale smell, tinged with what he recognised as the smell of scorched rubber, clawed at his nostrils.
He made his way down onto the platform, groaning inwardly as he saw how crowded it was. It was going to be sardines all the way to East Finchley, he thought. He’d left his car at the station there; it was a short drive from the tube once he got there. Hyde wondered if the Northern Line would be plagued by its usual delays. He moved down the platform a little way, pushing past a tall man wearing a Walkman and tapping his fingers on his shoulder bag in time to the inaudible rhythm. Close by, another man was reading his strategically folded broadsheet. Somewhere further along the platform, Hyde could hear a baby crying, its shrill calls echoing around the cavernous underworld. He decided to head back the other way: he didn’t fancy making his journey crushed up against some howling infant.
A couple in their early twenties were kissing passionately, oblivious to the dozens of eyes turned in their direction, which quickly turned away again when the couple paused for breath. Hyde ducked past them, glancing back momentarily.
The girl was pretty. Tall, dark hair.
A little like his Maggie, only not as good looking.
He’d thought, when he first met her, that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and even now, after eight years of marriage, he still thought the same way. She was perfect.
And she’d look even more perfect in this silk stuff, he thought to himself, glancing down at his briefcase as if the underwear inside were some kind of illicit secret which only he knew about.
He heard a rumble, felt a blast of warm air from the tunnel mouth, smelled its familiar odour of dust and metal.
The train was coming.
About bloody time.
The mass of people on the platform prepared itself for the impending squeeze onto the tube, ready to fill every available gap.
Hyde saw lights in the tunnel, heard the rumbling grow louder.
Soon be home now.
The train burst from the tunnel like some oversized, jet-propelled worm, the blast filling the station.
