Chapter Three

Now 8.47am Lacey and her fellow commuters had been held in the blackened carriage for the best part of an hour. Passengers were beginning to get restless, bitching to each other about the failures of London’s public transport service. The driver could again be heard over the intercom announcing that there had been a power failure of sorts and more news would follow shortly. More grumbles followed and they were once more alone in the darkness. Somewhere in front of her Lacey heard the onslaught of an asthma attack as one girl’s panic gave way to jagged, rasping breaths for air. A haunting concerto kicked in on her iPod play list, as though echoing the drama unfolding before her as the girl’s breathing became distinctly shallower as she choked for breath. Calls for a doctor rumbled through the carriages as those around the suffering girl attempted to help. Lacey wondered if she should offer the girl a drop of her Rescue Remedy, but thought better of it and was relieved when word made its way back to them that a doctor was indeed on board and was making his way down now.

A cramping sensation suddenly attacked her calves as the pressure of balancing on heels threatened to overwhelm her pain threshold. She gripped the seat in front of her, the commotion around the asthmatic gaining force as the doctor arrived on the scene. Lacey watched shapes manifest in the darkness and a cacophony of soothing voices rallying round the girl whose breathing had begun to steady somewhat, aided by an inhaler.

The driver’s voice came over the intercom once more to say that he would be making his way through the length of the train. The passengers would now have to be escorted through the tunnel to the previous station but not before he secured the line. Murmurs of disbelief abounded and the checking of watches created a frisson of activity. Asthmatic girl had since calmed with her breathing regulated and even. Though Lacey feared this development would provoke a second attack and shot her a worried look. However, it appeared the man on crutches beside asthmatic girl was the more likely of the two to have a problem.

Two and a half hours of standing in one spot had reduced Lacey’s body to a vestibule of pins and needles. Still shrouded in near-darkness, her eyes had grown accustomed to the strange surroundings so when a set of emergency lights flickered to life in the tunnel alongside the train she felt a mild burning sensation behind her retinas. Squinting, she surveyed the carriage, her fellow passengers doing the same and shifting irritably in their places. Four policemen, accompanied by transport staff, made their way through the train now, imposing a red sea-like split of passengers and forcing Lacey to compress herself against the seats as they passed.

She caught the eye of the last policemen as he brushed past. Ruggedly handsome beneath his official cap, he smiled at her. Startled, Lacey smiled back too late and inwardly kicked herself for missing an opportunity. She was soon distracted as the driver’s voice could be heard once more. ‘Ladies and gents thank you for your patience this morning,’ he said. ‘If you will now begin slowly making your way through the train…’ People began shuffling forward further along the carriage and Lacey waited for the throng beyond her to show signs of movement before levering herself off her vantage point to join them.

Progress was slow with people waiting for those in front to navigate the darkened carriages, discarded newspapers and uneven tracks of the tunnel. When Lacey finally stepped down onto a wooden plank, the first of many stretching away before her, interspersed with large stones, she almost toppled over. She held out her arms for balance as she maneuvered herself along the uneven pathway, looking like a demented tightrope walker.

And then it happened.

Chapter Two

The clanging became more insistent. ‘I have to get out of here,’ Lacey thought. Suddenly, her eyes flew open. Heart thumping; her eyes roamed wildly, searching for the source of the ringing. She alighted on the illuminated device on her bedside table. It was 7am.

It was a dream. It had all been a dream.

Frantically, she threw herself out from under the covers and began pulling out garments from drawers and cupboards. A rush of dizzying nausea washed over her and she slumped back onto the bed for a moment, regaining her centre. She continued with her morning routine, slipping into her shirt and trouser suit, which she had ironed and pressed the night before. Her mother, a nurse, had already left for work, leaving Lacey alone in the house. Her head throbbed as anxiety and panic gripped her. Doing her best to ignore it, she shouldered her handbag and retrieved her portfolio from the dining room table.

‘I’m going to get this job. I’m going to get this job.’ She repeated her mantra the whole way down the road, inwardly buoying herself along as she made her way into the train station.

Plugging her headphones into her iPod she stood back as the train roared into the station. Joining the crush of people flowing on, she squeezed herself into a space and leaned against the seats of the train carriage prepared to just immerse herself in the music. No such luck, at the next stop an inordinately rude girl stepped onto the train. Lacey tried not to listen as she spewed profanities and verbal abuse into her mobile directed at some poor sod who was apparently at home and thereby unhindered by the affliction of rush-hour tube travel. Phone call over, angry girl then turned her fury on some poor fellow standing in front of her. Blasting him for his McDonald’s-own coffee breath and abject proximity to her in such a small and confined space; she muttered that situations such as this explained how people were convicted of ABH. Lacey exchanged an alarmed look with the lady standing opposite. Coffee breath tried to explain there was little manoeuvrability for him as angry girl pointed out some space behind him. To her irritation he refused to move into it. She huffed and puffed until the train finally pulled into Finchley Road where to everyone’s relief she alighted – Lacey assumed to wreak havoc for the community of the Jubilee Line.

A deluge of people replaced angry girl and others who got off and the train continued forward on its journey. A few minutes after departing the next station, the train heaved to an untimely stop somewhere within the tunnel. Most people didn’t particularly notice this fact, engrossed in morning headlines and assorted literature. Then the lights went out plunging the train into darkness. Lacey looked up at the carriage ceiling, expecting the overhead beams to come back on. But nothing happened. Trying to ignore the unease tugging at her consciousness, she studied her fellow passengers in the muted light. People on top of people. Bags pressed into the backs of others. Sighs of irritation. The hands on so many watches ticking down the minutes as they stood and sat in unfriendly silence, willing the train to move forward so they could attend to appointments, meetings and other working commitments.

The driver’s voice crackled through the intercom. It sounded alien and far away.
‘Sorry for the delay to your journey Ladies and Gents, I’m just waiting to hear what the problem is but hopefully we’ll be on the move again soon.’ A murmur of discontented grumbles passed through the carriage. Lacey tried to peer out, beyond the double layered windows into the tunnel but recoiled at seeing the red brick of wall mere inches from the train’s exterior. Breathing heavily she fished in her bag for the bottle of Rescue Remedy she had plucked from the bathroom cabinet before leaving the house. Her trusty aid for the nerve-inducing ordeal of the interview; she slipped a few drops onto her tongue now, relishing the taste of the calming ingredients as they dissolved in her mouth.

She swallowed and shifted slightly on her 4” black Louboutin heels. Discomfort was beginning to settle on her limbs as the time passed, slowly.

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Strike Three...

They claim they’ve no power, financial or real, as we daily clamber aboard,
Fighting for space, a metro or seat, just to be told to get off!!

Windows get fogged in the cold winter months as viruses make use of the space,
Reluctantly people crack open the windows, though not before coughing in your face.

Silence typically settles as people choose not to converse,
Rather to sleep with headphones on ears or get lost in their favourite book.

Only when stuck in tunnels for hours on end do Londoners engage with their peers,
Sharing in common dislikes for the tube and discussing frustrations and fears.

You’d think for £169 a month they could deliver a service to boot,
I certainly don’t expect to complete, my morning commute on foot.

Millions of Oyster cards swiping us through as we head straight into rush hour,
Faces are dark, expecting the worst, turning ever so slowly more sour.

Delays, signal failures, people falling on tracks, the problems just seem to get worse,
At this rate, any hope of arriving on time will more likely come thanks to a hearse.

Huffing and cursing, in-fighting abounds as priority seats become sparse,
Forcing earlybirds up from their comfortable perches to make room for those old and knocked up!

As the third of three strikes takes effect on this eve, the buses will be crammed to the hilt,
I stop for a moment and consider just how TFL staff can sleep with the guilt,
Of causing such ‘mares for us London folk who rely on the carriages and wheels,
To transport us to work and meetings and such, where we’ll bash out our deadlines and deals.

Facing epic treks to locales far and wide most would prefer to stay home,
But bosses alike will hear none of that, ignoring our pleas and our groans.

With tube staff loitering outside the closed stations directing angry mobs away,
Bus drivers revel in the unadulterated need that commuters have for them this day.

Pushing and shoving to get on at their stop, getting thrown every time the bus halts,
We’ll all stand together, clinging on for dear life, bitching of all the tube’s faults.