Mind the Gap

Ted’s tense. Most of the time he enjoys his job. “Too damned much,” he hears his wife say, in his head. “You’d stay there forever if you could, and me left here crawling the walls with boredom.” He winces. That’s part of it, he supposes. It’s peaceful here in the cab, no voices except the occasional message crackling over the intercom like something from another world. Necessary, too. He likes the comforting certainty that drivers like him make a lot of people’s days go more smoothly.

But Monday evenings are the worst time, especially rainy ones. The platforms are heaving with homegoing commuters, macs and umbrellas steaming, their faces grim and exhausted, territorial. Looking for a fight with someone, anyone, really, to release the stress of the day.

He knows it, that feeling. Didn’t used to. Used to come home damn near singing each evening, he loved the job so much. Until the first one happened. The first jumper.

A lot changed after that. Shook him up. They give you counselling, nowadays, of course. None of it back then, when he started. Get back in the saddle, or the driver’s seat, and get on with it. Stiff upper lip. Push all of it down deep, so deep you could almost pretend it didn’t bother you anymore.

Of course, that came with its own problems. She could tell.

“You never talk to me,” she’d say, or “I feel like you’re shutting me out.” Or “why don’t you just tell me about it? I’ll understand. I need to understand.”

He knew she wouldn’t though. Couldn’t. How could you, if you hadn’t seen it yourself? So he clammed up, changed the subject, changed the channel on the TV.

“You’re pushing me away,” she’d complain. “I can stand anything but you pushing me away. I feel like I’m invisible.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” he’d tell her. “I see you.”

But he couldn’t meet her eyes, because, if he was honest, he didn’t want her seeing him. Seeing what he’d seen. So they’d sit there in silence, except for whatever nonsense was on the TV, and they’d both pretend everything was alright, after all.

Mind the gap. He should have taken the warning, reached out to her, before it was too late, and she’d slipped away.

He pushes the thought down, along with all the others. Distraction’s the key. Think about other things, cheery thoughts. He always tried to cheer them up too, the passengers. Raise a laugh, if he could.

“Move along please, ladies and gents. We don’t charge you extra for being further from the door!”

“Please remember to take all your belongings with you. The Lost and Found office says they’re full up with forgotten briefcases and children.”

These days though, he can’t find the heart for any banter. He’s too busy scouring the faces, anxious, scanning for signs. He’s been on the job upward of thirty years now, and you learn what to look out for. Toes over the platform edge. Fidgeting backwards and forwards, like they’ve got ants in their pants. Hunched shoulders. Shiftiness. Mind, there’s not much you can do even if you do see it coming. The emergency brake takes a few seconds too long, if they’re determined.

And you never forget the screech. Screech of brakes. Screeches of horror from the people on the platform watching it happen. Screech of agony from the poor sod under the wheels who didn’t think that part through.

He’s had counselling for it now, of course. Years too late. And that screech – it haunts you anyway.

Something flickers at his peripheral vision, and his fingers fly to the red handle, but it’s just one of them, the other kind, he realises with a grimace.

Whole underground’s full of them, worse than the rats. Well, all the years it’s been running, he’s not surprised. Violent deaths, unquiet souls. There must be a jumper haunting every platform on the network by now. Most of the old timey drivers have seen them. They’re common knowledge, if you know who to ask. Where to look.

This one’s a woman, in a pink business suit the colour of ripe cherries. He’s seen her before, even given her a nickname. Mabel, he calls her, on account of her big eyes with their teary mascara reminding him of an old black-and-white cat his auntie had, back in the day.

He knows what’s going to happen, but it’s still impossible not to flinch when she stares up at the windscreen of the train as it turns out of the tunnel, into the station. Then she takes a deep breath and steps off the platform before the great hulk of metal can lose its momentum. He doesn’t think anyone but him sees her, or hears her scream, and the train doesn’t even tremble. Well, why would it? She’s nothing but shadow and regrets now, poor lost soul.

Sometimes he’ll see three or four of them in a single day, at different stations. At Piccadilly Circus, late at night when the only ones left are stragglers from the theatres, and drunks, there’s an old lovey type, some washed-up actor still in his greasepaint and costume. As you pass through Mornington Crescent on the Northern Line, there’s a dapper gent in a pinstriped suit and bowler hat, his umbrella neatly furled. He always steps out with a firmness that gives Ted the shivers, determined like, as if he’s late for a meeting.

Ted often wonders why they did it. Not just why they’d choose to end it all, but why this way. There are quicker, surer methods, ways less painful. Ways that cause less trouble for the unfortunate buggers who have to clean up the mess afterwards. Ted feels a little surge of anger. They never think, do they, about the poor bloke driving the train, helpless to stop it, but with a front-row view? He pushes the thought back down, reaches deep for his sympathy. Maybe they wanted to make an impact on other people, one last time. Maybe they needed to feel seen. There’s a bitter taste on his tongue that’s a lot like guilt, but he refuses to think about it. Reaches over to turn the radio on, and lets his mind flitter off as he hums along to the dated old tune.

He's coming up on Monument when he feels it begin. The sweat’s beading out on his forehead even before he sees her. This one’s the cruellest. He’ll never get used to it, he knows. Not if he has to see it a million more times.

His hand goes reflexively to the emergency brake, and there’s a screech of wheels on metal, but she doesn’t scream, doesn’t make a sound as she stares up at him, and her eyes aren’t sad but angry, resentful. She steps out from the platform with her head held high and her gaze never leaves his face, as if to say “do you see me now?” Then she falls out of sight into the screeching metal darkness below, as she always does, and he’s helpless again, and again it’s all his fault this time, as her blood splatters up across the windscreen like an accusation.

Now his heart’s hammering, the same way every time it happens, his chest like a vice squeezing so he can’t breathe, can’t suck in even enough breath to whisper her name, to whisper that he’s sorry. And he doesn’t wonder for a second why she did it, because he knows.

The pain’s a searing blade, and he’s clutching his chest and falling from his chair and gasping, and then there’s nothing but blessed darkness until he wakes again, back at the depot, the windscreen clear, the wheel cool in his hands.

Ted sighs and picks up his cap from where it’s dropped to the floor. He eases the handbrake off and sets out for the first station of the day.

Maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe today she’ll have second thoughts. Maybe today’s the day the emergency break works in time and it won’t have happened. It will never have happened, and maybe then, at last, he’ll be free.

The tube trains go round and round on the London Underground like a great clockwork machine that never winds down, humming with energy as if it’s powered by the thousands of people who use it every day: their stresses, their secrets, their guilty stories.

Sometimes you can feel the rush of air along a platform from a train that never appears. Most people don’t even notice.