On the way home from work, the tubes were all over the place because some selfish bastard had killed himself at Hainault. I’ve never been to Hainault, and I probably never will, but my eyes have ignored the name a million times. It’s near the end of the Central Line, and it sounds like the kind of place where you would throw yourself under a train. I imagine Newbury Park as being very pleasant, all tree-lined avenues and double garages, but Hainault is another matter. In reality it’s probably just another identi-kit suburb, but in my mind, it’s a bleak and ugly place, all low-rise estates and burnt-out Cortinas, full of alienated youths listening to bad American heavy metal and wishing they dared to develop a smack habit. Its sole redeeming feature is its proximity to Grange Hill. A disembodied voice made some superbly euphemistic announcement, and we waited. I don’t know how long it was that we had to wait, but it seemed like a very long time. When you have to wait it always does seem like a very long time. It’s because it’s difficult to think about anything else. Your mind has a definite focus, namely that something hasn’t happened yet, so all you can think about is the fact that it hasn’t happened yet, and the fact you’re waiting. You can’t relax, and you can’t start to do something else, because the thing you’re waiting for might happen, and you wouldn’t be ready for it. You’re forced into doing stupid things, like staring at your watch far too often, or pacing around in little circles, or saying inane things to your fellow waiters. You can tell a few things about people by the way they wait. There are some definite types that can be observed. Some people become angry, and demand to know why they are being kept waiting. They have an inflated sense of their own importance, and will rant at some underpaid underling who knows nothing, until they have their way, or until they become so irate that they run out of words and begin to turn purple. They seem to develop the belief that a station cleaner has the power to repair any fault on the national transport network, and that he is deliberately refusing to make use of that power in a calculated personal insult. Sometimes there is quite a satisfaction to see them come up against a jobsworth who will take a great delight in putting them in their place. Some people become anxious, and they will fret about the fact that they are missing some appointment or other, and how everything is going to go wrong for them because they have been kept waiting. They won’t complain very much about the wait, because they don’t dare have a confrontation. Besides, the angry type will usually have made enough of a fuss about things for everyone. They will repeatedly ask questions of anyone in the area, just in case it turns out that they have missed a vital announcement. Some people appear relaxed, either because they are, or because they are putting on a relaxed front. This will result in a placid resignation to one’s fate, or a stoical approach to adversity. They may joke about having to wait, and say things like “Bloody typical British Rail”. Often this is part of an attempt to stop themselves becoming angry or anxious. Some people seem to love the solidarity engendered in waiting, as it gives them a chance to attempt to engage people in conversation. They consider themselves to be maintaining the traditional British determination, and the embodiment of the blitz spirit. Generally, they just get on everyone’s tits, and they will usually be received with the traditional British frosty reserve. So I waited, standing on the Central line platform at Bank, and I fiddled with my phone. I looked at the list of calls. At two o’clock in the morning I’d called someone called D. Who the hell was that? I dredged my memory for a while, but it was no use. At least I hadn’t called my mum. I let my eyes drift across the adverts. I wondered if the advertising companies were paying somebody off at London Underground to delay as many trains as possible to make sure that people saw the adverts. Here in the City, they were of a very different class to the ones at Mile End. Instead of action films and Indian restaurants, the consumers here were being enticed with business hotels and vintage port. Then a movement caught my eye. Small dark shapes shot back and forth beneath the rails. It was a few moments before I realised that the shapes were rats. The unexpected sight of wildlife shocked me. Here among the steel and glass, the ordered modernity, the thrusting commerce, were vermin, medieval plague carriers. My student self made various satirical juxtapositions, which I tried to cast out of my mind. I half-remembered a statistic that had often been fired at me, the one about how you’re never more than eight feet away from a rat in central London, or something like that. It stands to reason, I suppose, all that food being thrown away, all that sewage, all those other things that rats love so much, but I had never actually seen any before. I watched them for a moment, going about their business beneath the electrified rails. They seemed alert, nervous. How many of them had been killed by the place they had made home? Was someone employed to go down and clear the tracks of dead rats? Where else did they go? Was there some other London somewhere, unseen, dark and dirty, under the ground, full of the life that wouldn’t fit in the London that we knew? What was it that was hidden from me? For a moment, I wanted to join them, slip between the tracks and disappear into the dark belly of the world. As the musty wind that precedes every train blew along towards me, the rats scurried off out of sight, and my mind returned to the grim task of getting on board the train. We thronged around the doors, eager to get the chance of a seat, ignoring the announcer’s request that we let passengers off the train before attempting to board. Every second counts when you’re trying to get out of the city. Eventually I made it home, and heated up some lifeless slop to feed myself before numbing my mind to the world with gameshows and bad comedy.
The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas.