'How do you get out of this place? He spoke like an inmate in a POW film, casting an eye around to see if the guards had noticed', writes John Butler
IT IS ANNOYING HOW, more often than not, my homeward tube terminates a single stop before my destination and I have to wait for the next train to take me one further stop, a distance that could nearly (but not quite) be walked with ease.
There is a choice, but it's a prisoner's dilemma - wait at Piccadilly for the right train to take you home, or take the train fast approaching and get off close to home, and wait there.
Usually I take whichever train comes first. I would rather do my waiting closer to home. There, I can argue with myself about whether I should be walking the rest of the way home instead of waiting around, and this internal dialogue occupies me on the platform until the right train arrives.
That's where my mind was on a dark Wednesday night when out of the corner of my eye I saw a homeless man approaching the person farthest away from me, examining them in silence and then moving along, slowly.
He was not speaking to anyone, merely walking up to them deliberately, sizing them up, arriving at some conclusion about them based on their appearance, then moving along. He was maybe 50, cleanshaven but with matted hair and a Lord Anthony anorak with a fluffy collar.
About eight of us were waiting, equidistant from each other, facing the tracks. We weren't talking, nor searching for eye contact, because those are the rules of train waiting.
And fascinatingly, this man was breaking the rules. What was he was looking for? Was it in the set of a jaw, or the colour of hair, or the type of clothes that the people were wearing? I was still listening to music when he came near me, but I had turned it down to hear if he was saying anything to the person next to me. He said nothing to them, then came towards me and stopped a few feet away. I felt a twinge of nerves.
My turn. Along the platform I could see one or two of the other people waiting glancing down to see what he made of me.
For some reason, I wanted it to go well. The wind whipped along the platform as the man looked into my eyes and, finally, I looked into his.
Then, wordlessly, he extended a gloved hand, not with the palm facing upward, but to shake hands. Without thinking I put my hand in his and we greeted each other in silence. I shook firmly - so I would feel good about myself. Also, I found myself noting that he hadn't shaken hands with the other people, and I was flattered that he had chosen me. His acceptance of me and my passing of some test he had set, made me feel smug.
I smiled because the moment was awkward, and when I did, he took a half-step towards me, threw his eyes up the platform furtively, then whispered out of the corner of his mouth, still holding my hand.
"How do you get out of this place?" He spoke like an inmate in a POW film, casting an eye around to see if the guards had noticed. The effect was almost funny. It might have been the furtive manner in which he delivered it, but I was completely thrown by the question. I hadn't the faintest idea what he meant.
Maybe I was thrown because he hadn't asked me for money. I had been prepared to tell him I had none on me (which happened to be the truth) but I was thrown too because the exit was clearly marked at the end of the platform.
"This place?" That was all I could manage, pointing my fingers down between my legs, at the wet, litter-strewn concrete of the platform.
"How do you get out of here!" He let go of my hand and threw his arms open wide as if to say, "the station. The neighbourhood. The entire transport SYSTEM", and I noticed that he had an Irish accent. Maybe he was referring to England.
Then he let his hands drop to his sides and his shoulders slumped. He was exhausted by the effort. I leaned forward to share my point of view with him, then I cast an eye up the platform. I pointed out the exit at the far end of the platform to him. It was clearly marked, but maybe he was blind.
He narrowed his eyes at me. He was neither blind nor deaf.
"Where in Ireland are you from?"
Nobody has heard of my suburb, so I mentioned the one nearest to where I grew up.
"Is that where the mental hospital is?"
He gave a crooked smile. He was managing to slag me off for growing up in Dundrum, and as soon as I acknowledged the joke with a smile of my own, his smile dropped.
"Are you a smackhead?"
" No."
"Do you do smack?"
" No."
"You wouldn't make it in Moss Side. Do you know what they'd do to you in Moss Side?" He drew a gloved finger across his throat. Then he leaned in and hissed in my face.
"They'd cut your throat open, and they'd leave you to die."
I take a step back. My train rolls into view behind him as he takes a step forward, grabs my hand and shakes it again. This time I'm not shaking his hand as firmly. He quits the shake and steps away. The train doors open and I make to walk on. Five paces off, he turns around and points his index fingers at me like guns.
"Mind yourself."
He smiles again and I smile back, as the train doors close between us. I do. I do mind myself.