Five(16)
Mrs. Worth is on the ground with Sonny supporting her on one side and Medical Student on the other.
“I beg your pardon,” she wheezes out with hostility to Medical Student when he loosens the buttons on her coat and unties the bow of her high-necked blouse.
“That’s absolutely none of your business,” she says to Sonny, when he asks if there’s someone he can call for her.
Despite her cantankerous words, she finds the two young men comforting. She won’t give straightforward answers to their questions, but they both notice that she is tightening her grasp on their hands. She is saying nasty old lady things because it is her default position while her chest tightens and her mouth dries and she is filled with panic. Medical Student is familiar with the portents of death in the eyes of the aged, and her aggression suggests to him that she has a lot of life still left in her. Or that she will die very soon. And if that should be the case, he thinks it would be nicer for everyone if she left this world with a better attitude than she is currently displaying. Or perhaps she could just speed it up.
Meanwhile, To Do List is click-clacking in her heels up the station stairs as fast as she can, determined to find a member of station staff to take charge of the situation. She’s wearing the wrong shoes for running upstairs, and her high-waisted tummy control undergarments are making breathing difficult, but she reaches the top of the stairs at 7:03 and thirteen seconds.
“Hello?” To Do List calls out in an authoritative voice. “We need help!” she shout-speaks to the empty ticket office, receiving no response.
Due to privatization of the railway, labor unions, the prioritization of profit, advances in technology, and most people’s preference for having fewer interactions with other people because other people are awful, many train tickets are bought online. Consequently, the ticket office at this small, suburban station has limited hours: weekdays, 6:30 to 13:00. This station is also a Category E, Small Staffed, because of its size and location, which means that even at the best of times, it only ever has one staff member for only part of the day. Even with this limited schedule, the office often has its roller blinds drawn with a sign in the window. To Do List reads such a sign now: Due to a member of staff being taken ill, the ticket office will not be staffed until 08:30. We apologise for the inconvenience. Unfortunately for the passengers on Platform 1, everything is going to happen long before then, actually in just a few minutes from now, so To Do List has to make a decision.
As To Do List thinks about her next steps, Emma yells, “Goddamn it!” at Gideon and “What is wrong with you!” at Liam in the same breath.
“Here, Jesus Christ!” Liam exclaims, throwing the phone to Emma, and puts his hands up. “I’ve done it, lad. Now get down,” he says with his voice still raised, standing on the tracks against the platform edge so Gideon can slide off him back onto the concrete safely.
Medical Student, seeing the escalation of the scene with the addition of the child, prioritizes vulnerabilities and leaves Mrs. Worth with Sonny to help guide Gideon to safety.
Gideon releases his grip on Liam and shrugs away Medical Student’s unfamiliar hands. “That was Emma’s!” Gideon says boisterously, then giggles and runs to the station stairs.
White people, Medical Student thinks at 7:03 and thirty-six seconds and exhales at what he believes is the result of Western, European permissive parenting. His own children would never behave this way. He misses them dearly.
Emma, her hands on the platform lip, tries to push herself up from the tracks, and Medical Student approaches her next. He looks for someone who might assist or care that there are still two people on the rails. He stares meaningfully at Bad Back, wondering how he can just stand there looking at his phone.
He does not know that Bad Back has just received a text from his wife that says, I’m going to my mother’s. Don’t call me.
Bad Back suddenly feels Medical Student’s glare, looks up, and says, involuntarily, “Sorry, mate, bad back,” gesturing at his back.
But he does not have a bad back. Those are just the words that come out before he can stop them. He does not know why he said them, but now that he has, he can’t rescind them. He starts to bend this way and that so that Medical Student doesn’t think he’s lying. Why am I like this, Bad Back thinks, shaking his head. This is why she’s leaving me. He would kick himself if his back didn’t fake-hurt him so much.
He looks up at the digital information board. The clock flicks from 7:03 to 7:04. And the word delayed flashes up. The 7:06 to Victoria is now expected at 7:09. Bad Back checks the train app on his mobile phone and murmurs Oh, for fuck’s sake to himself.
Perhaps you are relieved. There is too much going on to possibly complete the death before 7:06, now that three full minutes have passed. Or perhaps you feel cheated. You expected the death as promised, between 7:01 and 7:06, and isn’t that a convenient little delay, you’re thinking, an extra three minutes written in to assist with the plot.
Your skepticism is understandable, but please remember where we are. In Tokyo or Geneva, the train would be on time. The death would happen on schedule. But this is England, home of milky tea and suppressed emotions, superfluous royalty and dry humor, excellent hats and dysfunctional transportation. A recent study of the UK rail system found that only 56 percent of trains are ever on time. The BBC said so. Go ahead, look it up. We’ll wait. We do a lot of waiting here. For staff shortages, signal failures, general malaise, acts of God, leaves on the tracks, and existential crises in the tunnels. This morning all trains on this line are required to travel at a reduced speed on a stretch of track that is broken and has been temporarily clamped, extending all arrival times by three to five minutes. In a story such as this set in Britain, there is really nothing more realistic than passengers on a platform all muttering, quietly and with restraint, because their train is delayed.