End Of The Line

“If you ask me” said the Ticket Collector, tapping his blue biro absentmindedly against the lapel of his uniform jacket, “something’s not quite right here”.

The Catering Assistant looked up from her mug of steaming tea, giving the man a sideways glance. “What do you mean by that, exactly?” There was a distinct element of doubt in her voice.

“Well, what do you think?”

The Platform Supervisor, an officious looking individual somewhere in his late fifties, pecked precisely at the stem of his pipe and gazed sternly at the clock on the Waiting Room wall. “I know what I think. That bloke is like the two-fifteen to Charing Cross. He’s long departed”.

“Trust you to state the bloody obvious!” The voice, somewhat cynical in it’s tone, belonged to wiry individual of indeterminate age, dressed in a set of mismatched garments that positively screamed ‘Clothes Bank’.

“What would you know, stuck outside on the pavement all day”? The words were delivered with a marked sense of hostility that suggested previous disagreements. “You and your magazines. Big Issue? You’re not wrong there!”

“Now, now, boys. This is no time to be arguing, especially after what’s happened to that poor man”.

“Why don’t you get back to your instant coffee and stale rock cakes,” sneered The Platform Supervisor, a man very obviously unused to having his wisdom questioned. “All I’m saying is, at the end of the day, there is an issue. A very big issue…”

“And your point is?” The voice, somewhat haughty and condescending, cut through the conversation with the precision of a guided missile. The Flower Seller had spoken.

“The point is, he’s littering up my station, day in, day out…”

“C’mon love, you’re being a bit harsh there”, suggested the Catering Assistant, slipping seamlessly into the role of self-appointed mediator.

“And the worst of it is, they let him get away with it”. There was no stopping The Platform Supervisor now. Just like that two-fifteen to Charing Cross, he was most definitely on a roll.

The Ticket Collector put down his pen like a hanging judge would put down a gavel on a serial killer. “And who are they exactly?”

“You want to know who they are?” snarled the angry young man, cramming his unsold magazines into a long faded carrier bag. “ I’ll tell you who they are. They’re the ones who hold the power, pull the strings, tie us down. Come the revolution, they will perish in the flames!”

“Was he one of them?” enquired The Flower Seller, as if addressing a naughty schoolboy.

‘Well he was a real diamond. A pearl. Used to talk about the wife and kids all the time. A real family man, he was”. The Catering Assistant positively glowed at the sincerity of her words.

“Family man?” said The Platform Supervisor, throwing a look of derision in her direction. “When all’s said and done, he was a lone carriage. That’s how he travelled”.

‘You’re not wrong there!” laughed The Big Issue Vendor. “See that boozer across the road? He used to roll out of there every night with a different girl on his arm. Right lookers they were, too!”

The Ticket Collector looked positively puzzled. He picked up his biro and stared at it, as if somehow expecting it to reply. When it didn’t, he spoke. ‘St.Peter’s. That’s where I used to see him. Second pew on the left. Every Sunday, without fail. As God is my witness”.

“God? More like The Devil!” The Flower Seller retorted sourly, as if someone had just forced a very large lemon into her mouth. “The only thing he worshipped was those oiled up chaps in that despicable establishment.” She spat the words out as if they were venom on her tongue. “Saying that, he always bought a carnation for his buttonhole. Very smart, he was. Always well turned out. I suppose he had to be, considering the executive nature of his work”. In an instant her manner changed to complimentary.

“Well if you want my opinion, he’d have to be smart, selling burglar alarms door to door”. The Platform Supervisor wore a look somewhere between smug and sarcastic.

“Burglar alarms? Door to door? You’re having a laugh! He was a lecturer at some polytechnic. Can’t remember where exactly, but I should know. After all, he got his decaf off me every morning”.

The Big Issue Vendor paused momentarily, his bag stuffing temporarily on hold. “Lecturer? I don’t think so. A mate of mine used to see him collecting clothes bags for some African charity. Can’t remember what they were called. Tumani? Tsunami? Origami? I dunno. Something foreign sounding. Very right on”.

“Very right on? Right off, more like!” The Ticket Collector mumbled. “ Last time I set eyes on him he was walking down the High Street wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the end of the world was nigh. His end more like!”

“End? Listen sweetheart, you shouldn’t talk about end. Not today of all days. To think, I’ll never sell him another Eccles Cake”.

‘Just as well”, scoffed The Big Issue Vendor, shrugging half heartedly, as if the effort involved was unworthy of his consideration.

“We need to get back on track,” offered the Platform Supervisor, ever the one to see things running smoothly. “After all, what he did was so very un-British”. At this juncture his voice adopted the tone of a regimental sergeant major.

“Un-British? If anyone should know what British is I think it would be me. After all, I was educated at one the finest girls schools a fathers money can buy.”

“So how come you ended up as a florist?” grinned The Big Issue Vendor, flashing an uneven smile. Her muted response, all icy stare and stony silence, spoke volumes. “Besides”, he continued. “He was as Gallic as a croissant “.

“Croissant? He was as German as a plate of sauerkraut. I should know love, after all, catering’s my thing”.

“Call that catering? I’ve had better meals out of supermarket skips”. No prizes for guessing whose mouth that came out of.

“ As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, he was most definitely Italian. It was the suits that did it for me. You don’t get quality like that at Marks & Spencer’s. That, and the fact that every time he bought a carnation for his buttonhole he insisted on kissing my hand. Sent shivers down my spine, it did. I still get a tingle just thinking about it”. As if to further emphasise her remark, she shuddered somewhat melodramatically.

At this point The Ticket Collector raised himself to his full height like a best man at a wedding. “Typical Americans. Always taking the easy way out !”

It is here, as our five witnesses, gathered together in the waiting room of a small suburban railway station to remember the life and mourn the tragic death of Derek Smallpiece, a season ticket holder they all claimed to know intimately, recently departed having been killed instantaneously under the wheels of the two-fifteen to Charing Cross, that we must bid you adieu. But, dear reader, like the aforementioned train, we depart three and a half minutes late with one final, but potentially life saving, thought.

Always mind the gap.