Stations

------- Bernard Mayfair stumbled down the broad steps, breath rattling and sides aching like they hadn't since his long-gone rugby days, just in time to see the train pull out of the station. The green sign on its back that proclaimed Upminster as its destination receded into the darkness of the metro tunnel like laughter. Behind him, some fellow swore and flung his newspaper onto the ground. A younger man, no doubt; Bernard just sagged a bit and looked around for a bench as his legs and lungs slowly resumed normal functioning. It was not the first time he had botched the changeover by any means, but at least he was coming home, not going to work.
------- Monument Station was still quiet at 4:46 in the morning, though it wouldn't be like that for long. As he cleared a few pop cans off the bench and took a seat, he could feel the pressure of weariness try to pull his eyelids down. The morning rush was due to begin soon, and it would not do to fall asleep before catching the next train. As of yet the station was nearly empty, a few vendors blinking sleepily under the fluorescent lights and the occasional early riser or extreme nightowl loitering with a sandwich or the paper. Bernard's stomach growled a bit, and he patted the bulge like a child.
------- "Don't worry now, just a few more minutes and we'll be on our way," he said as he glanced around. There was a paper folded up on the bench nearby but it was Monday's; he pulled it over anyway. The vendors got the news in at five, usually, and he had long ago decided not to waste his change; he could always get a used copy from Robert when he went in to work. He shuffled through the paper, though, to see if whoever bought it had done the crosswords. While he had never finished one himself, the results were always suitably impressive for him.
------- Grumblings in his innards disturbed him again, and he pinched up his face and adjusted the waist of his uniform pants. Lunch was not sitting as well as it used to, apparently, not since Lizzy stopped making his sandwiches and started giving him the pre-made ones from the store to take to work. There was something about cheddar and Branston pickle that just did not combine well in a little triangular box, not to mention that they always tasted faintly of plastic and the inside of the old refrigerator. Beside that, his stomach objected to that rubbery cheese they used. Having survived to the ripe old age of fifty-two, Bernard thought, he deserved the right to be picky about such things.
------- He peeled open the paper to the crossword section only to find the ink runny and much of the back of it damp, and quickly folded it back up and set it aside fastidiously. It was probably just a spilled drink, but one could never be so sure about London after dark, and he wiped his hands briskly on his pants. A glance to the cheap chrome watch that had been one of his Christmas presents from Lizzy told him the train ought to be coming soon. No sooner than he had noticed, the speakers crackled to life with the tinny, but politely pleasant voice of the announcer.
------- "The eastbound train heading to Tower Hill, Aldgate East, Whitechapel, Mile End and Upminster will be pulling into terminal B shortly. Remember to stay behind the yellow line until the doors open, and please mind the gap. Thank you for riding the London Underground, and have a nice day."
------- Bernard brushed at the seat of his pants reflexively as he stood, a bit of a smile returned to his tired face at the woman's voice. When he was younger he had always thought she sounded like one of his chum's girlfriends: desireable but distant, and more than a little standoffish. These days, she was more like a good, upstanding daughter. Sometimes he wondered who she was, or rather who they were, the whole succession of voices who had greeted the riders of the Underground over the years.
------- What he liked about the metro early in the morning, he reflected as the train rolled up like a great silver worm, was the fact that there were no crowds shoving around to get on. He could step across the yellow warning line and the gap without fear of being shoved off balance and maybe slipping through, which he was just sure had happened to some poor victim of the metropolis at one time. That, and he didn't have to worry about being proper and giving up his seat to widows and orphans. There was plenty of space for a tired, balding, middle-aged man to sit without feeling like a bastard.
------- He picked a spot close to the doors and sank into the vaguely uncomfortable plastic seat with a sigh. A scant few more passengers clambered on, one man opting to grip onto the handrail rather than sit; he must have the next stop, Bernard thought in passing, remarking only that much after the fellow before looking out the window at the terminal. The announcer chirped out her warnings from the speakers once more, then the train lurched to life, the lighting within the cars flickering a little then smoothing out as it picked up speed. Bernard did his best to get comfortable, but the motion and his upset stomach were conspiring to make him a bit dizzy, and the walls of the Underground blurred by with their strafings of fading advertisement papers and light fixtures. He squinted his eyes shut to see if that would help any.
------- Perhaps he drifted, because the next time he opened his eyes the standing fellow was nowhere to be seen, and the only other person in the car was a young lady seated across from him with a book. He glanced out the dark window again, trying to spot any sign of a terminal, but there was nothing more than the tunnel scenery. Certainly he couldn't have passed Mile End, he told himself, and sank back down in his seat with just a slight moue of worry creasing his face. The last thing he wanted to do was find himself in Upminster and have to wait for the train to take him back the other way.
------- The young lady across the way shifted in her seat, smoothing her skirt across her knees, and he found his attention drift to her legs. He glanced away quickly, scolding himself inside for being a nasty old man and checking his face in the reflection on the window to make sure there was no leer. So far there was no 'lecher' expression stamped on his face, he noted with some satisfaction, and flicked a look back to her to ough the passages that connected the two stati
s. Certainly nothing for a proper young woman to worry about. She seemed quite absorbed in her book, and it was curious, he thought, how well her hair hid her expression. It was dark, a nice plain warm brown tugged back in a loose tail, and he could barely see her eyes at all, just her mouth when a bit of a smile tugged on the edge of it. Her fingers were long and fine, pale against the cover of the book, and he squinted to catch the title but his brain seemed too fuzzy to register the words.
------- The train rocked over a particularly rough length of track, making all the lights flicker, and when he looked back at her after gripping onto the nearest bar he could swear she was looking back at him, but with an expression so blank it could have been painted. At least, that was what he tried to tell himself, but the truth was he just could not make any features out of her face. His stomach turned over at the next jolt of the train, and he cupped one hand over his mouth, quite sure he was about to be sick. She had no face! God help him, she must be a ghost, some poor sorry thing who had leapt onto the tracks or-- Cold pinpricks danced across his face, drawing out beads of sweat. Perhaps they had passed Whitechapel while he was not looking and picked up a ghost there. He shrank back in his seat, thick fingers clenched around the bar until his knuckles were bleached with stress.
------- The train rattled again, then slowed; he could see a station pulling into view in the windows, but his attention was locked on the faceless woman and his legs felt cast in stone. As the train slid to a stop, the woman closed her book and rose fluidly, skirt fluttering around bare ankles as she moved toward a door and rested a hand on the bar like any other living passenger, just inches from his own straining fist. It felt like there were needles being shoved in the backs of his eyes. Then the doors scrolled open and ver, he was exhausted, and had to run up and down the stairs and thr
------- He sat frozen for a long moment, swallowing like a landed fish, before he shook himself enough to move his eyes and check out the name of the station. Stepney Green. The small station between Whitechapel and Mile End.
------- "Sir?"
------- The nearby voice nearly made him jump out of his socks. He looked back toward it quickly, and he must have looked bad because the young man who was reaching out to nudge him recoiled with a look of distress. Bernard stared up at him, feeling like he had been whacked in the back of the head several times with a hammer; nothing was connection. He turned his head slowly to look about the car and saw a few other passengers seated around, mostly fellows in cheap suits or staff uniforms. When had they all come on?
------- "Are you alright, sir?" said the startled young man again, standing back a good distance now. Bernard rubbed at his face with both hands, then his sleeve, trying to wipe off the clammy sweat.
------- "Yes, yes, fine... Thank you for waking me."
------- "You ought to be careful, sir, you don't look so good."
-------"It's nothing... Nothing, just an upset." Bernard dredged up a reassuring smile- -from where, he had no idea--and that seemed to placate the young man, who gave him one last look of mixed worry and nervousness then went back to his own business. Bernard felt like a plague victim, and shivered and wiped at his face again. When the train lurched to life once more, he held onto the bar and refused to loosen his grip until Mile End came into view.
------- Legs shaking, he stepped off into the very beginning of the morning rush and pulled his mackintosh closer about himself as he tried to avoid touching anyone. Up the stairs, and through the turnstile, and then he was out into the soggy grey dawn, only giving the ticket clerk a curt nod instead of the usual smile and wave. The streets seemed to flood by, and more than once he had to stop and get his bearings on a route he had known by heart for well over twenty years. The little gate that led up to the flat came into view at last, and he swung it open and clattered up the fire escape and had his key in the door as quick as he could think it.
------- Lizzy was already at the table when he staggered in, and looked up from her eggs with a familiar expression of disgust. Her fork clicked reprovingly against the plate as she set it down. "And where have you been? Missed the train again, I suppose." She glanced significantly to the clock, then back at him, her beady mouse eyes all squinted up at the edges.
------- "Yes, yes, the train. Dear, I'm sorry but I'm just not as fast as I used to be, you know." The smell of the grease rising off her eggs was making him ill all over again, and his attempt at a pleasant smile was more than a little painful.
------- "You've thrown off my whole schedule now, you know. And what's the matter with you?" She snapped her napkin and resettled it on her lap, eyeing him up and down like a lamb shank at market.
------- He worked his tongue around in his dry mouth, fingers picking at the buttons of his mackintosh. "It's nothing, my love, really. Only I thought... Well, it's nothing."
------- "Of course it was nothing, Bernard, really." His attention dropped from her face to her teacup, which was much easier on the eyes than her scowl. "Come now, don't be an idiot, tell your wife what you thought." She deftly removed the cup from his line of sight, and he raised his eyes regretfully. The button he was tugging at started to twiddle free, and he stopped messing with it immediately.
------- "I thought I saw a ghost," he blurted at last, and looked down at his feet ashamedly.
------- There was a moment's silence. Lucian the tabby cat took it as a sign his voice was needed, and miaowed and leapt onto the table. Bernard brushed him off with a soft murmur of "Bad."
------- "You thought you saw a what?" Lizzy said a last, and Bernard cringed a little. Her tone wasn't a shriek, but rather the step worse than that: the chilly, by-God-what- an-idiot-I-married tone that she always took when she knew she had the upper hand. "Lord Almighty, Bernard, I knew the night shift would go to your head. Next it's going to be goblins and little folk. Really, ghosts?" She gave an indelicate snort and stabbed her egg with her fork, letting the yolk bleed slowly. "What are you, a child?"
------- "No, dear," he mumbled lamely. "Sorry, dear. It must've been a dream."
------- "Come now, get your supper from the fridge and we'll have no more talk of that." Bernard watched blearily as she segmented the fried egg into little triangles with the edge of her fork, and his stomach roiled again.
------- "Actually, I think I just want a little toast."
------- She looked up from the massacre in order to gve him the baleful eye again. "Not having delusions of dieting again, are we?"
------- "Of course not, dear. Just a bit of an upset tum."
------- "Well then." And he scuttled off to the breadbox.
------- Later, after she had pulled on her work outfit and gone and he had showered and felt more human, he returned to the kitchen. His stomach was still in an uproar, and the revolution was threatening to spread to other functions, so he avoided the refrigerator. Lucian twisted himself around Bernard's ankles and did his piteous imitation of a kitten, and the man sighed and cracked open a tin of catfood. The tabby leapt up onto the counter, butting Bernard with his head and purring until the mush was all scooped into his bowl.
------- "At least someone in this house loves me," Bernard said as he scritched his fingers down the cat's back. Lucian arched as he ate, making clotted-sounding rumbles of pleasure. "She even feeds you better than me. That soft stuff's no cheap kibble, you know." The day's shakes were wearingon him, though, and after he busied himself with a few more slices of toast with Marmite and a peremptory scan of the channels on the little black-and-white in the kitchen, he collapsed into bed and drifted into uneasy sleep.


------- Breakfast--or dinner, for her--that evening was a typically quiet affair, with both of them paying far more attention to the television than to each other. This was a perfectly good arrangement for Bernard, who was sure, now that he had some time to reflect, that the ghost girl was just a figment of his imagination. When he thought about his state on the train, he nearly cringed in embarrassment. His appetite had returned enough for him to work through a helping of cold meatloaf, and Lizzy was concentrating enough on the television that he could slip a bit of it down to Lucian from time to time. The tabby lay on his foot and purred until he could feel the vibration all up his leg.
------- He watched Lizzy as she watched the television. Her face changed so fluidly, he thought, from disgust and outrage to pity, but her eyes never changed their pinched, beady look. He had noticed this many times--he watched her far more often than she watched him, for she hardly seemed to pay attention to him when he was around unless he seemed to need a scolding--but never really absorbed it. Back when they were courting, he knew he'd seen it as a sign of strength and cunning, and her scoldings as a tease, but, well, those had been very different times. The scoldings and gripes had grown less lighthearted as time went on, but he could not pinpoint just when she had become so foul. Perhaps when she had decided to make him eat the sandwiches with the plastic cheese rather than expend energy and make them herself. They never even slept in the same bed anymore, at least not at the same time.
------- After cleaning her plate with a certain ruthless efficiency and rinsing it off in the sink, Lizzy clicked off the television and stretched a bit. At least she still has her figure, Bernard thought with a quick flush of warmth, which was just as quickly doused by the look she turned on him.
------- "I'm going to bed, Bernard. And I swear, if you come back tonight talking about ghosts, Dr. Mallory is going to have a look at you." She shook the remote at him like some sceptre of office, or maybe a nun's smacking ruler.
------- "It was just a dream, I'm sure, just a fancy, nothing to worry about," he said hastily, and she gave him another look that would chill a spectre before setting the remote down and striding off toward the bedroom. He watched her recede admiringly, then sighed and mashed up the meatloaf on his plate and set it down on the floor for Lucian to clean.


------- The train ride to work was a loud, frantic, jostling affair, with everyone and their cousin fighting for enough space to breathe. It seemed to be a law on the London metro that the stop you wanted to get off at required you to be at the opposite side of the train from where you were, so that you needed to battle your way through the entirety of the crowd fast enough to leap off before the doors closed. It was a madhouse, but at least the movement of the crowd tended to shuttle him through the changeover from Monument station on the District line to Bank station on the Central line faster than he could normally do it himself. That, or he was simply more alert when going to work than when returning. Either way, he reached his stop at Oxford Circus with plenty of time to spare, and made his way down the street and to his job under the bright lamps of one of London's main drags.
------- He smoothed the lapels of his uniform carefully, checking his reflection in the window before he entered the Marks & Spencer. People were still flooding in and out, and milling about everywhere among the clothes racks in the entry level and down below where the grocery was. The roving security guards gave him nods in passing as he strolled down the aisles, looking over tiers of sandwiches in their triangular packages and apples in foam netting to keep them from bruising, and eyed the deli selections with longing. At the back of the grocery level was a locked door that he had a key to, and he descended another flight of stairs beyond it to the basement, with the storage facilities and the surveilance camera screens.
------- Robert was there still, kicked back in the chair with his feet propped up on the desk and scooping candied nuts out of a small sack a handful at a time. He glanced over and waved a full fist at Bernard at the sound of the closing door, and the older man smiled briefly as he shed his mackintosh and dropped it over another chair. The watchroom was a cluttered place, a pair of sagging couches shoved up against the wall opposite the screens and various other bits of furniture scattered around, as well as magazines and old newspapers piled on the dented coffee table. The scent of cigarette smoke hung thickly in the air even though there was no one currently down there for a puff. The department store staff all found their way down here eventually, for lunch breaks or just to sneak off and ignore the yammering customers for a little while. Before the security screens were installed, it used to be a grand place for a quick little make-out and some store scandal, but that was rather complicated when there was a watchman in the room at all times.
------- Dragging a chair over to the screens, Bernard settled down, careful not to look too awkward in front of the other man. Robert wore his security uniform much better than his elder counterpart, without the pregnant bulge and with nice, neatly combed hair that had yet to show a sign of grey or hairline recession. A bit of a snaggled lower front tooth was his only marring feature, and that just gave him what Bernard had heard a foreign visitor dub the 'British charm' once. By God, the boy even had roguish dimples. If he were young enough to be in competitive range, Bernard would be profoundly irked, but those days were well over.
------- "Any shoplifters today, eh Robby?" He gave the screens a passing glance. Everything looked normal.
------- "Not a one," the younger watchman said through a jawful of almond bits. "Some odd old bat had a fit in Hosiery though, had a whole medical team up in here and everything." Robert tipped his head back and flicked a nut in the air, tilting his chair with expert precision to catch it in his mouth. Bernard looked on with a dull species of envy before returning his attention to the screen.
------- "Anything in the paper then?"
------- Robert waved back at the table with one hand. "You can look for yourself, but I can't recall anything noteworthy. Just the usual wars, politicians, all that."
------- "There weren't any..." Bernard trailed off, frowning to himself slightly. He'd told Lizzy he wouldn't think about that girl anymore, but the question was inching up his throat and into his mouth regardless of his attempts to ignore it. "No strange deaths yesterday or anything, were there?"
------- Tipping back in his chair once more, Robert cocked a brow at him. "Why do you ask?"
------- "Well..." Bernard fidgetted, toying with the cuffs of his uniform. "I was on the train past Whitechapel Station, and..."
------- "Oh ho, old Bernie thinks he's found another Springheel, does he?"
------- "No, no, nothing like that, but--"
------- Robert had his sly look on, though, and ran right over Bernard's protestation. "Or maybe old Bernie's the next Jack the Ripper himself, eh? Bernard the Ripper, though...doesn't have the same ring. Alright, chap, spill it, how many ladies have you killed today? And do you pounce their bones before or after the deed?"
------- Bernard rubbed at his temples, unusually irritated by the younger man's jibes. To his smarmy reporter-like expression, he gave a weary smile. "Come now, Robby, you know you're the lady-killer here, not me."
------- "Too true, too true." Another almond flicked into the air, only to disappear into his mouth. "But anyhow, what's the problem?"
------- "Nothing, nothing." He grimaced, feeling like a monumental fool; Lizzy had already told him what an ass he was, and now here he was telling the same story to a coworker. Well, he'd started it and he would have to finish it. "It's just that I thought I saw a ghost on the early train past Whitechapel."
------- Robert's brows rose disbelievingly. "Alright, Bernie, if you want to believe that. Just as long as you don't go dressing up in the ladies' clothes on your shift, you can believe whatever you like."
------- "Don't you have somewhere to be?" Bernard scowled at the younger man's superior expression as Robert slowly uncoiled himself from the chair and stretched. And not even a single pop of vertebrae. A little pot of envy seethed at a slow boil in Bernard's mind. Robert clapped Bernard's shoulder companionably before snagging his own coat and slinging it over his arm, and tipping the older man a salute.
------- "Don't take the night shift so seriously, eh? You'll end up hurting yourself. Or someone else, Springheel Bernie." The watchroom door clicked shut to cut off the sound of Robert's snickers, and Bernard groaned and thumped his forehead on the surveillance desk a couple times. Give Robert a day, and the entirety of the Marks & Spencer staff would be calling him 'Springheel Bernie'. Just what he needed.
------- He exchanged his chair for the more comfortable one Robert had been using, gathered up an adequate supply of magazines, and settled in for the night. The store slowly emptied out, the flood of shoppers drying up to just a trickle and then nothing. On the screens, the clerks in their uniforms scurried through the rows of shelves and racks of clothing, making sure everythig at least looked like it was in place so they could all go home. At about eleven-thirty, the last of the clerks slipped out the front doors and the night security guard locked them behind her. Bernard flipped pages idly, not really paying attention to what he was reading.
------- He knew, with a certainty like a ball of lead in his stomach, that the phantom woman would be on the train again this morning. He struggled not to think about it, but it was like not thinking about white elephants; he knew what he was avoiding, and it kept sneaking in every time he'd thought he'd sublimated it. More than once, he glanced up to the monitors in quick panic, thinking that he'd seen something flit between the shadows of the clothes racks. Each time, it was nothing, but the tension just kept winding up and up until he felt dizzy with anxiety. The magazine pages blurred together, words and faces growing alien and incomprehensible. he did not dare to open the sandwich bag in the pocket of his mackintosh, for fear that just the smell of the plasticky cheddar would send him hurtling for the bathroom.
------- The morning shift nearly gave him a heart attack when he finally did catch motion on the screen. He tried to will the hairs on the back of his neck to settle down as he gave the morning watchman--Wallace, a flat-faced lad who looked like he shouldn't even be in college yet--a rather wan smile and the usual offhand banter. His heart wasn't in it at all, and Wallace gave him an equally weak and timid chuckle at all his attempts to be lighthearted. With a sigh, he bid his farewells and stepped out to the street.
------- On his way to the station he was seized by the desire to flag down a cab, or maybe take an alternate route. The Central line made it all the way to Mile End without the changeover at Monument, after all, but the Monument route was faster which was why he usually went that way despite the hassle. And if he took the Central line, he thought regretfully as he descended the steps into the Underground, he would be late again and Lizzy was sure to press him as to why. Admitting that he was still nervous would get him raked over the coals in no time. When the contest was between a ghost and his wife's wrath, it became no contest at all.
------- Oxford Circus Station was busy despite the early hour, and it was all he could do to get a spot and hold it for the first leg of the journey. Once he was settled in, though, the prickles started on the back of his neck again. He kept glancing around the car, peering through the slight crowd of people for anyone who looked like the young lady even as he was telling himself mentally that it was silly, that she was just a figment of his imagination and that she'd be on the District line anyway since Central didn't go through Whitechapel. By the time the train pulled up at Bank Station for the changeover, he was exhausted, and had to run up and down the stairs and through the passages that connected the two stations with sides and legs that felt like they were on fire. He skidded into Monument Station and onto the train with only moments to spare, and collapsed into a seat with a great sigh.
------- Before he even opened his eyes, he knew she was there. It was like the quality of the air had changed, or something had warped and now he was in some dimension only a half-step away from normal reality, but a significant half-step. It was peculiar, but he had worried so hard and for so long that now that she was there, he thought he felt numb more than anything else. He cracked his lids slowly, eyes moving furtively beneath them for the first glimpse.
------- She was looking right at him with her shadowy blank face, and he just stared at her, heart galloping up in his throat. Her hands were folded in her lap, no book in them this time, and the hem of her skirt seemed to stir in a breeze outside time or place. Bernard blinked, then blinked again; sitting like that, she was almost the perfect figure of Lizzy back when she was Mary Elizabeth Compton, not Mayfair. The position, the primness, even the cant of her head all sent little echoes through him, of courting days in the park, nights in the pub with their friends, the Scottish countryside on honeymoon. Even as he thought of these things, his mouth went sour. What was there at home that loved him now, except the cat? Somewhere in the depths of her shadowy face, it seemed that she smiled.
------- It felt like just a moment that he sat there, staring transfixedly at her, but then the train rumbled into Stepney Green Station and he shook himself and looked back to the seat where she had been. It was empty, and he frowned at the doors, which were still closed. Maybe it had just been a dream after all; even now it was misty, woozy and unclear. He got to his feet absently, one hand on the bar as the doors scrolled open.
------- The station beyond the train was empty and cool under the pale fluorescent lights, and for a moment it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. Somewhere new. Never in his life had he gotten off the train at Stepney Green, close as it was to his own stop. And somewhere beyond this new place was another, and another he'd never been to, and more all spread out across the island and the ocean and even further, too many for a baffled man like him to count. There was still time, he knew for one brief moment, and he almost smiled.
------- Then the doors slid shut again and the train lurched to life, and he had to cling to the bar in order to stay on his feet. Stepney Green Station flew by through the tinted windows and vanished into the darkness, and Bernard slowly slumped back into his seat, the same one he always rode in, and awaited his usual stop.


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