Christina's Journey

Every day, I take the underground from, Mile End, in east London to, Charing Cross Station, in central London. From there it's only a ten-minute walk to the fashion boutique where I'm a paid slave. Most days this involves a ten-minute dash in High heels, which is nine minutes too far. Lately, I've started bringing a pair of flats in my handbag and changing into the four-inch foot killers when I get to work. I've been here for six months, on minimum pay and extra-long days. The main reason I'm doing it is for the huge discount I get on designer clothes.

Mile End is a lovely place. I have a tiny studio apartment overlooking leafy, Mile End Park. I’ve not always lived in the city and having this little patch of green to look out on reminds me of the rolling pastures of home.

My first trip on the underground during rush hour was an experience. It was still dark at 7.40am, when I closed my apartment door and faced the cutting wind and mist. Bundled up in a thick winter coat, cut too fashionably to be effective, I clip-clopped into the miserable November gloom in my killer heels. The sounds of the city are different than you might imagine, the constant road noise forms a backdrop to everything else. What is unexpected is how little other noise there is. Hundreds, even thousands of people, walk along in silence, the occasional buzz of music from ear phones or hushed conversation, but mainly just the sound of feet on pavement.

This silent throng condenses in places like train platforms or subway stations. Silent armies stand mute, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to launch themselves at the next arriving train. The high-pitch sound of the electric motor, whirring down under breaking, followed by the whoosh of hydraulic doors springing open. At Mile End, only a few disembark but a great herd of humanity surges forward, cramming themselves aboard. The train is packed so tight, only the thickness of your clothes separates you from the next person. This orgy of morning movers, do so, in complete silence and without ever making eye contact.

Whoosh goes the doors, and everyone holds on. The carriage rocks forward and back, as the electric motor takes the strain. The whine begins low, building steadily to a welcome hum. Clickety clack, clickety clack, clickety clack. The tracks beat out the time of our progress. These are the sounds that let us know all is right with the world.

Behind me, a man's briefcase is rammed, corner first, into my rump. An arm-pit, freshly washed thank God, curls behind my ear and grasps a handrail, all around I’m hemmed in with human flesh, damp clothing, and bags. I stand like all the others; uncomplaining, unmoving, in silent acceptance of this short enforced intimacy with the great unwashed.

Ten stops and twenty minutes later, we arrive at, Charing Cross Station. The doors open and the unstoppable tide of morning workers charge fourth, it is as if the train vomited multicoloured moving creatures. I shake myself mentally, rushing toward cool fresh air, ridding myself of the touch of others. Perhaps it’s due to this unnerving, and unwelcome, closeness with strangers that I’m so repulsed by the sight of the tramp sitting on a bench with his begging cup held aloft with little expectation. I can still feel the thick vapours of unwashed humans drifting in my delicate nose. I look away and hurried past the man, like everyone else.

This twice daily baptism of humanity continues mostly undisturbed for six months. Every day, morning and evening, the dirty tramp is a permanent fixture. This morning just like all others. Working in the shop for more than six months has elevated me to the rank of senior member of staff. With such lofty heights comes added responsibility, which is the reason my trip home tonight has been delayed. A delivery coming after closing and of course, the boss, couldn’t stay to check it in herself. She passed me the bunch of keys, and the security code for the alarm, like a royal bequeath.

"The truck will be here about seven, just check off the boxes and we will do the unpacking tomorrow," she instructed. "I’d trust only you, Christina," she said, fixing me with cow-like vacant eyes. Truth was, she’d have trusted a semi-competent monkey if she had one. At six, we locked up, and I went to a nearby wine bar to wait for the delivery. Two glasses of Pinot Grigio and forty minutes late, they arrived. Ticking off the delivery was not straightforward either. The invoice was itemised individually, and the boxes were unlabelled. In the end, I was forced to open them all.

It was nearly nine when I finally entered the code into the security panel and turned the key on the steel shutters. Feeling jaded, and cheated, I treated myself to one last glass of vino before catching the late train home.

Comfortably shod in my flat shoes, I descended into the bowels of the earth to catch the tube. It was my first time here outside of rush hour, and it was eerily different. The tiled walls reflected each footfall, echoing away into the distance, with no soft human bodies to impede their progress. I reached the platform and the tramp was in his normal position but this time he had slipped to the side and was snoring openly. I walked to the far end of the platform, away from him, to wait on the train.

Around the corner came three men, all dressed in clothes way too big for them. Puffy jackets and thick gold chains, swinging in time with their exaggerated walk. Two were dark skinned, one was white, but all wore baseball hats pushed high over spotty, cruel, faces.

"Brov what have we got here? banging gyaldem," the middle one said to his minions, as he sauntered up to where I stood. I tried not to look at them, hoping they would go away and leave me alone. No such luck, he moved even closer, with the other two hemming me in against the curved tiled wall of the station. He reached out, placing his hand on the wall over my head, getting very close.

"You look like a bitch that knows a thing or two," he leered, grabbing my breast through my coat. His touch broke the spell that held me.

"Leave me alone," I screamed, slapping away his hand. More hands pawed me from all sides, grabbing at me, and my bag. I hold on tight, screaming and lashing out, but I was alone on the platform and at their mercy.

From nowhere, a dirty hand punched the middle thug, sending him flying. It was the tramp from the top of the platform. He pushed the others back and stood in front of me, blocking them.

"Brave boys, ait you, against one little girl," he said, in a surprisingly cultured accent.

"Kotch, brov. This ain't your beef. Sketch, or it be dred, in-it," the downed yob snarled at the tramp. God knows what he’d said, but I prayed the tramp wouldn’t abandon me.

"Then dred it will be," said the tramp.

He was buried in an avalanche of fists and feet. He fought back but was soon overpowered. The steel of the blade flashed bright as it arched towards his body, glinting in the cold light of the florescent bulbs high above the platform. It thumped into the soft giving body of the tramp. I screamed, but couldn’t run. I screamed, and no help came. The blade pulled back and a fountain of red splattered my legs and coat. The knife sunk into him again, its hilt covered in the ruby blood of this poor man. The high whine of an approaching train filled my ears, the hoodie scum faltered and ran.

I kneeled beside the old tramp. I was a sobbing mess of snot, tears, and blood. I tried to hold back the flow, but it came from everywhere. The tramp looked at me with clear eyes and did the strangest thing. He smiled.

"Help is coming," I told him. "Help is on the way."

"It is alright, darling. Everything is going to be alright now. I’ve made it right again," he said in a weak voice but still smiling at me. The lake of blood spread across the tiles at an alarming rate. I waited for help that would never come. I cried as he closed his eyes, and watched helplessly as the growing puddle of blood reached the edge of the platform and cascaded away.

That had been three days ago. I’d spend hours answering questions, looking at mug-shots and filling out statements. Since that night I’ve not been able to leave my flat. I couldn’t face what might be out there. Today, I watched the park from my window, and knew if I didn’t go out, right now, I’d never leave the flat again.

I walked slowly through the surprisingly quiet mid-morning streets, naturally ending up at the train station. I had let my feet go where they would. I boarded the next train and it started its journey, like it always had, but today I got a seat. Counting down the stops, I neared my destiny, and my nightmare. At last, the train slowed. I saw the signs saying Charing Cross and my skin crawled. The doors opened with their customary whoosh, and I nearly didn’t get off. I steadied myself before stepping out on the platform. I looked to the left, at the spot, but the platform was unmarked. It was as if nothing had ever occurred and a life had not been taken so savagely.

I was pulled to the spot by an irresistible force, no stains remained, no mark of a man passing, or a life destroyed. Nothing except a single shirt button nestling against the base of the wall. I collapsed to my knees and dug the button out. I don’t know if it was his, or not, but seeing that button in the palm of my hand broke the last string of control I had.

I don't know how long I sobbed, lying on the cold tiles, but the warmth of a hand stroking my hair invaded my desolation.

"There, there, darling," cooed a soothing voice. I wiped my eyes on my jacket sleeve and looked into a kind, but grief drawn face, a few years older than mine. In her hand she held a bouquet of flowers. I watched as she laid them against the wall, a card sellotaped to it said, Dad Xxx. She kissed her fingers and brushed the card with them, all the time holding me loosely with her other.

"You must be, Christina, the girl my Dad helped," she said with a sad smile. I nodded searching her face for some shadow of the tramp I’d passed time and again, but his face was a blur of sideways glances, half remembered.

"I’m so sorry, it was all my fault," I sobbed. "He would be alive if I’d gone home earlier." I said, giving words to the feeling of guilt that I was suffering.

"My Dad, died years ago," she said. "You brought him back to us at last. Thank you," she said, cryptically.

"I don't understand."

"Fourteen years ago, Dad was coming home. It had been a double shift and he fell asleep at the wheel. He woke up without a scratch, but the car had crashed through a bus stop. He killed a young nurse. In Court, he received a suspended sentence but he would have preferred if they gave him life. Dad never would, or could, forgive himself. Outside the court house was the last time I ever saw him. He took off his tie and hugged me, he told me he loved me very much and I would be fine. He said he hoped I would understand, one day. He said he had to make things 'Right Again'. I never saw him again. All he took was the clothes he was standing up in."

"He said that to me, before he died," I said, putting the pieces together. "He said, he had made it right again."

She bent over me and kissed the top of my head. She whispered in my ear, "You are his angel, you gave him peace. Thank you. Thank you from us all."

I cried again, but this time it felt different. It was not coming from such a dark place. This woman, whom I’d never met before, but who I owed so much, helped me to my feet. Together we took the first steps on my new journey, a journey to live up to a brave man's sacrifice.