On Bethnal Green station

Sometimes it’s a person under a train, an expression I think they need to do some work on. I feel special contempt for the inconsiderate suicides who disrupt the movement of those of us who choose to go on living, and believe official terminology should reflect this. Sometimes it’s over-running engineering works, which usually attracts sceptical enquiry about late-finishing sporting events the night before. Once, recently, it was explosions – that’s how they described them. But usually it’s signal problems.

It was signal problems today. Peak time, and no prospect of arriving at my desperate job ahead of the unnecessary meeting I was expected to attend. My absence would be noted, and I was this close to getting another patronising pep talk from my younger and stupider line manager. Then I’d have to tell him to fuck off, then I’d get sacked, then I’d be unemployed and then I’d take the first, even shittier job that came along and be unhappier still. All because of signal problems at Shepherd’s Bush, and the butterfly effect of this fluttering down the line to this cold and damp East London morning.

I could only do what everyone else was doing, and try to do it quicker than a fair percentage of them: push my way to the surface, instinctively seeking air, and in an equally animal fashion try to elbow onto any bus heading west. I turned my music player up and found something suitably aggressive and uptempo to fuel the surge. Head down, I made for the escalator.

Then I saw him, stood at the platform’s edge. I saw him from the back. Stooped, shabby, looking nowhere in particular. Thin grey hair scraped across piebald scalp, all his clothes dark grey as well. Hard to guess from the back the number of layers he might be wearing. But as the only still point in a theatre of selfish movement, he looked peaceful, and this is what made me pause and take note. Then, of course, as the crowds thinned around him, I saw the white stick and the dog.

You never know what to do about blind people on the tube. Are you supposed to help them, or respect their independence? Just the sight of them makes me nervous. Approaching a platform, I’ll find a burst of speed to elude them, or suddenly slow down to avoid falling into step in case I’m expected to help them get on the train. I won’t sit next to one in the carriage for the same reason. I’ll stand in preference. I use my sightedness to my advantage.

I suspect what it comes down to is that I know people who have something wrong with them are unlucky and I don’t want their bad luck to rub off on me. Misfortune is surely contagious. And then of course I feel guilty about thinking this.

Guilt makes you do strange things. So I found myself going to help this man. Clearly, there could be no liberal dilemma here. Everyone else was moving, he wasn’t, and so he needed my help. I could score some quick points here, maybe enough to cloak myself in virtue for the rest of the day. I could trade the points for drinks in the evening.

Should I tap him on the shoulder or speak loudly? But blind people have super sensitive powers of hearing, right? I spoke at normal volume, but for good measure gently tugged at his arm so he knew I was there.

“Are you alright mate?” I asked.

“Eh?”

“I said, are you alright?” Silence. “Do you need a hand?” Just my luck, deaf as well. So what heightened sense would he have by way of compensation? Touch? Taste? And how was that going to help me here?

“What?”

“It’s just, everyone else is leaving. Because of the, of the signal failure. Severe delays. Signal failure at Shepherd’s Bush.”

“Right.”

“So, you see, you see…” Bollocks! Still, bet he gets that all the time. Press on. “Everyone else is leaving. To try and get buses. So…”

More silence. Should I do this in Braille? The station was emptying around me. Even the dog was steadfastly ignoring me. What did it have wrong with it? Soon it would just be me, this statue of a dog and my new friend, the blind-deaf-mute. What was the etiquette here? What does one do when trying to help someone too insensible to be helped? Could I just walk away? If I did it quietly, would he notice? Would he have even known I was there in the first place? Had he imagined me?

One last effort, perhaps. Look, if I left now, would I still get the points? Did a failed attempt to be good still count? How much of an attempt had to be made? Just what were the rules here anyway?

“So I don’t think there’s a right lot of point you staying here, mate. Going to be nothing moving for a long time. You’re best of getting yourself onto a bus.”

I realised too late that I had been getting louder and louder as I sought to convey this essential information, building up to a kind of roar as I suggested the option of a bus. It was the echo of my advice around the now otherwise empty station that underlined this for me. Even the dog almost turned to look at me.

“No need to shout.”

“Sorry.”

“So that’s what’s happening?”

Yep. That’s, what…”

“Only I couldn’t bloody tell.”

“Right. Anyway.”

“Couldn’t bloody tell a word she was saying.”

“Ah.”

“Not a bloody word. Can’t speak English half of them. God knows where they come from. Whatever bloody jungle they come from.”

Oh shit! Now where’s the handbook on this? How do I deal with a blind racist? Blind equals good but racist means bad. Do they cancel each other out? Does that make it neutral? Or is racism worse than blindness? What’s a well-meaning liberal supposed to do with this one? Is there some kind of advice column on the Guardian website you can access?

“Err, the thing is…”

“Might as well have been speaking Swahili or whatever they bloody speak. Probably was Swahili. What I say is, if they can’t speak English they shouldn’t bloody be there. Shouldn’t be here anyway. Should all go back to where they came from.”

Clearly, I needed to fight back. I had hoped to earn points from helping a blind man, but now I was in danger of losing them for failing to take on racism. My head was beginning to hurt with this.

“Right… but listen.” A thought occurred to me about how I could win the argument. “How do you know I’m not one of them too?”

“You? You’re not. You’re as white as me. I can tell.”

“Erm…”

“You’ve a bloody funny accent and you’re not from round here. But at least you’re English. I can tell.”

I gave up. There was no fight in me. Sod the points. This wasn’t going to happen, was it? Maybe there was something else I could do later in the day. Perhaps I could help an old lady across the road, providing we could first agree that a conversation about how Enoch Powell had been right all along would not be appearing on our agenda.

“Okay, well I’m going to go now, so I hope you can manage on your own. You and the dog.”

And with that I pushed him off the platform onto the electrified tracks, where he met with a quick but painful death.

Not really, although not a day goes by when it doesn’t pass across my mind even briefly to do this to someone. The station might be deserted but there would still be cameras. The fear of going to prison stops me doing so many things. Plus I wasn’t sure if the dog deserved it. So I just left him there, and swept out of the station with as much dignity as I could muster. I never looked back. Perhaps he’s there still, mumbling to himself about how they can’t even bloody speak English. Perhaps the first black guy who came along pushed him off, and he became a person under a train, causing further delays.

I exited the station. I had a very long wait for a bus. I was late for work. The day did not improve.