Run

Staring at her feet through open-toe sandals, she notices a splash of paint, red, spattered across her left foot. God. She left in such a hurry, it looks like blood. It could be blood. People might think it’s blood. Maybe it is blood. She can’t tell any more, the stress of the last few hours still ringing in her ears, like tinnitus, high pitched and panic inducing, fogging her vision and pumping her heart.

She dares to glance at the other passengers on the Northern line tube, clattering its way towards Edgware, the end of the earth. She catches the eye of a scruffy guy with Bose headphones and a neck tattoo that she can’t quite read. She focuses on it, trying to decipher the inky letters escaping under his collar. G…U… “GUilty’? “GUtted”? “GUn”? Her eyes strain under the pressure of this forced distraction, watering and gritty, unblinking until the jolt of the train snaps her out of it and she’s met with a cold, questioning gaze from neck-tattoo man. With a smirk and the glint of a metal-capped tooth from between the bony line of his lips, his inked hand slowly starts to reveal the rest of the letters one by one, pulling the raggedy edge of his T-shirt down over his collar bone. G..U.. She looks back down at her feet once again, embarrassed. Oh God this journey is agonising. She just needs to get to St Pancras. Get on that train and glide away from it all. She intently reads the Poem On The Underground, positioned conveniently in her direct eyeline above the head of the passenger opposite her. Reading it over and over and over again until the words are echoing around her head like a comforting mantra, drowning out the incessant rattle of the train and fighting to dull the discourse of voices raging in her skull.

“I love dis overcrowded place

Where old buildings mark men and time

And new buildings all seem to race

Up to a cloudy dank skyline,

Too many cars mean dire air

Too many guns mean danger

Too many drugs means be aware

Of strange gifts from a stranger”.

Benjamin Zephaniah

She loves this city. The awareness and resentment of what she is running away from hits her in a fresh wave of anxiety and nausea. Why is she running? What injustice has led her to this point of being forced from her hometown? I’ve always paid my council tax, never been in trouble with the law, lived by the book in every way. Except for the one time she got caught smoking weed on Brighton beach, but that doesn’t count. Why the fuck has it come to this?

There should be a credit system for good deeds, for living a wholesome life. Ten points for recycling your plastics, twenty for helping an old person across the road, fifty for partaking in a charity fun run. Then all these points added up gives you currency to do a few bad things once in a while, just to balance things out a bit. Minus 20 for jumping the barriers on the tube, 35 for nicking a car, 50 for smoking weed on Brighton beach.

How much for murder though?

She fixates again on another passenger. An old lady, brave and noble to be battling the London tube at her age. Her serene elegance and lush white hair exude the blasé cool of a ‘lifer’ in this challenging metropolis. Her weathered hand gently holding an umbrella, a proper umbrella. Not one of those pop-out ones that flip inside out at the slightest puff of wind, but a crafted beauty with an intricate carved handle, an ocean blue canopy and a mechanism that screams quality engineering. I bet she bought that from James Smith & Sons she muses, momentarily distracted and nostalgically grasping memories and places held dear in this city, before they slip from her mind like tiny golden fish. Including that of a quality umbrella shop that she visited once but couldn’t afford even their most standard of brollies, leaving the shop feeling like a window-shopping tourist, rather than a born and bred Londoner. There should be discounts for locals. Just saying.

Her gaze lifts to meet the kind pale blue eyes of the old lady who holds her look intently and gives her an understanding smile, as if she is reading her mind. Can she hear me? Am I thinking out loud? Does she know what I’ve done?

She had raced onto the tube at Morden, otherwise known as Mordor, with only slightly less Orcs and Hobbits than it’s fictional counterpart, but equally as dark and menacing. She had been living there as a last resort, driven to the extremities of the London tube map by her dwindling finances, over-inquisitive neighbours and the relentless threat that, in recent years, has constantly loomed over her. The train’s stopped. Last stop was London Bridge. Shit that means we’re under the Thames, I hate this, why has it stopped? Why does it have to stop under the bloody river? Her anxiety levels rising again, her breath shortening. She closes her eyes, the orbs fluttering manically under their fragile shutters as if searching for a way out. The lack of sleep from the past few days overwhelms her and she drifts momentarily.

A large gob of water splats on the crown of her head. She’s imagining it surely. Another splat and another. She opens her eyes to a rain of globlets escaping from around the light fittings, pouring down the walls. The entire tube carriage is filling with water, gushing in through the rubber seals of the double doors. Fellow travellers are bobbing about on the rising surface, swirling in an elegant dance, seemingly resigned to their fate. Neck-tattoo guy floats past, his wet t-shirt dragged back by the water to finally reveal the word GUPPY wrapped in a sensitively inked image of a fish. What? She thinks. Why would anyone tattoo that on their neck for fucks sake. Although it seems appropriate considering current circumstances. Let’s hope GUPPY has gills.

The river water has lifted her from her seat and she too has joined the aqueous whirl, gently spinning as she holds onto the end of the old lady’s umbrella, their eyes meeting once again across the rising level of surprisingly clean Thames water. There’s a strange and languid calm in her eyes, that gentle, ephemeral blue as pale as the water that nudges and laps at the papery lid which gives one quick, knowing wink before slipping gently below the surface.

A sudden sharp thwak as her head hits the ceiling of the carriage, and she starts with a jerk, nodding back to consciousness. A brief embarrassed glance around the carriage to confirm no one noticed her momentary lapse. No one cares, this is London. The train lurches back into action and the journey commences. Clacking and screaming its way to freedom.

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Someone is staring at her. She can feel it. She can feel her cheeks flush in response to the silent interrogation. Who is it? She dares not look, but the eyes, like lasers, are making her face glow. The red, creeping like ivy down her neck and across her chest in prickly blotches. Even if she isn’t guilty, she certainly looks it now. It’s a man. He’s standing at the end of the carriage, leaning against the wall by the adjoining door. This much she can tell from the corner of her eye, a shadow dominating her peripheral vision. The reflection in the window only reveals hints of dark clothes, maybe a suit, a leather bag. Who knows? It’s too hard to tell. For God’s sake don’t look.

She studies her hands intently, as if something very important is written in their lines and creases. She’s never liked her hands, they’ve always looked chunky and inelegant and rings never fit her. She doesn’t bite her nails, but the skin around the nail. A disgusting habit and painful to boot. Often leading to bleeding and the need for plasters, only emphasising their ungainliness. Now they are looking sore, suffering under the duress of stress-nibbling. She bites again, just need to get this hangnail off then that’s it. Damn it! She wipes the small ball of blood on her jeans.

Morgate. The besuited spectre remains in position. She feels his gaze weigh heavy on her and the swell of fear returns. I wonder if they’ve found him yet? Is this guy one of them? She had left without a moment's thought, finally pushed into action and with no choice but to attack and flee, like a cornered rat. She hadn’t planned this. They will find him, and then they will find her. Tears start to sting in her red rimmed eyes, the saline against raw flesh is almost too painful to bear and she just wants to let go. To give up, give in, to stop fighting and succumb to it. To hold her hands up, collapse on the floor of this tube train, curl up and allow whatever will happen to happen to her now. I’m so fucking tired.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the reflection, distorted by the curve of the glass. There is nothing recognisable, as she scans herself from paint-splattered foot to scarecrow hair. The stretched and warped image across the aisle presents a character she does not know. The ordeal of the last few days have clearly taken their toll. Darkened eyes, bruised maybe, their red edges clearly evident under the light of the harsh fluorescent. Hollow cheeks hover above cracked lips. She puts her hand to her face to feel her mouth, wincing at the touch.

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Where are we? What stop is this? What time is it?

Old Street. Nearly there. The air is suffocating and she fidgets. Impatient, claustrophobic and desperate to get off this train. Those screeching wheels against the metal tracks like tiny knives of noise penetrating her ears. The Northern line makes such a racket. Rackety racket, rackety racket, rackety racket. She holds her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the noise.

Oh God no. The shadow man is moving, creeping down the carriage towards her. She’s there, head in her hands, studying the linoleum floor, begging it to open up and save her, her fingers gripped around the outside of her ears as if clinging to life itself. She’s making a sound, something is escaping from her, like steam from a kettle, she can’t control it. A high-pitched cringe of a sound.

Next stop Angel, Islington. I can get off at Angel, I can run to St Pancras from there, have to get off this train. Can’t stand it anymore. The shadows shoes have stopped in front of her. Is she still making that noise, or is that the train? The shoes are shiny. Black, unimaginative, pedestrian. The sharply ironed cuff of the trouser is a little too short, just a little, not short enough to warrant a mention if it were a friends trouser, not that short. But would benefit from maybe another centimetre of slack, just for comfort, especially when sitting.

She feels the train breaking as Angel beckons. Hold your nerve, don’t look at him, head straight for the door and keep moving. Don’t look at him. DO NOT look at him.

As the train bursts from the darkness of the tunnel and into the light of the platform, posters and the blur of waiting people flash through the windows, she prepares to stand, hoping that her legs don’t fail her. He’s standing so close she may have to touch him as she squeezes through the now oh so crowded tube, to make her way to the doors. Don’t look him in the eye. Rising slowly from her seat, her eyes lifting from shoes to belt, silver buckle and worn leather, to shirt, black. That’s interesting. A black shirt and trouser combination. Oh Jesus he’s a professional. I’m dead meat. Rising further she is nearly standing, ready to make a dash. The train veers and stutters and losing her balance she is unwillingly thrown against him, his hand, strong and firm, steadying her as she looks up, following the line of neatly fastened plastic buttons, past the white collar scooped around his neck, and instinctively into his eyes.

Are you OK? He asks with genuine concern, his kind face studying her intently.

She pulls away abruptly, the sensation of a mans hand on her arm, even that of a priests, is too much to bear and she pulls away, escaping the tube, running through the tunnels, up the never ending escalators and out into the air of the streets of Angel Islington.

Angel, Angel, Angel

Now, run.