Sottopassaggio Read Free Page B

friends are so often jealous of my freedom, jealous precisely of the free-electron aspect of my existence, and I wonder briefly who actually gets the better deal.
    I descend a small flight of steps and catch a glimpse of a poster advertising the National Gallery, which my father loved with a passion. As a child of course I thought it was boring and would watch my own feet scraping along the floor as he dragged me around the building.
    As I head out onto the deserted platform, I decide, in memory of my childhood, to take my eyes, which are in some way his eyes too, not only to the Tate Modern, but to the National Gallery as well. I wonder if other peoples’ childhoods are as intense, as all consuming as mine was. Can they too pause at any moment and sense in every atom of
their
being, the events of childhood that made them what they are today?
    It’s a shame we didn’t organise this differently, I realise. Owen would have loved to visit the National gallery too. It’s going to be hard without him. I knewthat of course, but it’s just hitting me now, quite how difficult everything will be.
    I wonder if even Owen realises. I wonder if
even he
understands that I can do anything, go anywhere, and that in some way it matters not one jot. For what’s the point in going to the National or the Tate on your own? What’s the point of spending a day in London if you have no one to tell about it when you get home?
    I take a deep determined breath. I will snap out of this. I will make this OK. I will get myself to the National, and then the Tate, and then back to Brighton, and it will all be
fine
.
    The platform is deserted. There are only four of us: three standing waiting for the train, and a wide-eyed tramp on a bench muttering to himself.
    â€œI can do this. It’s easy,” I tell myself. “Life is just one step at a time.”
    Wind from the tunnel blows a crisp packet along the floor and a distant screeching announces the train’s arrival.
    As the headlights of the train appear in the darkness, I absently note that at exactly the same moment the two other people standing on the platform move in opposite directions. The man in the sombre suit with the fluorescent pink tie steps backwards, and the ashen grey woman in the woollen coat forwards; it looks almost as though their steps have been choreographed.
    As the train bursts from the tunnel, at the precise moment its leading edge thrusts into our presence becoming a rumbling, shrieking reality, the grey woman – for everything, her clothes, her hair, even her skin is grey – takes another step forwards. It’s onestep too many.
    With unexpected grace she drifts and tips and pivots over the edge of the platform. In a strange weightless movement, drifting like an autumn leaf, she tumbles and vanishes beneath the hulk of the train.
    The train shudders to an early halt halfway along the platform. The man in the suit sprints past me, tie flailing, to an intercom beside the tramp. My own mind is empty, possibilities of action have not even started to form, so I stand mouth open, staring at the space where the grey woman once existed as the image of her fall, of the weary elegance with which she tumbled out of life plays over and over in my mind.
    A driver jumps, green-faced and shaking from the front of the train. Two staff in yellow jackets push me towards the exit. A tannoy bursts into life with a recorded message.
    â€œEvacuate the station,” it shrieks.
    People from other platforms are flooding up the escalator, running terrified from an unknown menace.
    â€œA track incident,” the tannoy echoes. “Please leave by the nearest exit.”
    I let the machinery carry me slowly upwards and watch the people stream past.
    â€œWhy did she do that?” I wonder. “What can make someone so desperate, so completely hopeless that falling in front of a train seems like the best option?”
    As I reach the top of the