Okay commuter (2)

I woke up with various muscles and nerves in my body screaming in alarm. Christ, where was I, asleep on a floor, a hard, sticky floor. I felt behind me; I’d been using an empty whisky bottle as a pillow. And beside me – I was sleeping with a strange man.

“I gotya tea,” a voice said, another man, a tramp no less.

Oh yes, the tramp we’d given a duvet to, it was all coming back to me. We were at the station, sleeping on the floor. The trains had all been cancelled because of the tiger.

“Thanks,” I said, sitting up. The tea was sweet and weak, but warm.

“Gor, yer don’t arf snooze,” the man said, “I’ve been up since seven?”

“What’s going on?” I asked, hoping the man would have picked up the latest news.

“Nuffin’. Nuffin’s going on. There’s nobody here.”

“Nobody? Not even staff?” He was right though. I got up, put on my suit and coat and looked around the station. The three of us were the only ones there. What had happened to the hundreds of thousands of commuters who used the station?

The boards all read ‘No trains until further notice’. There were no staff, the ticket office was closed, with the same ‘no trains until further notice’ message, this time in bright red lettering.

As I was touring the station, John was waking up, I returned to find him drinking tea and on the phone to his wife.

"Jeez," he said when he'd hung up, "the whole of London's shut down, just cause of one fuckin' tiger."

"Closed down," I said, "what do you mean, all the trains and buses."

"All the trains, buses, shops, factories, offices. All the companies are relocating workers elsewhere until the tiger's caught."

I tried phoning work, but got an answerphone message saying that the offices are closed. "I'm going to walk to work," I said, "it's only five minutes away and I want to see if I can get in, get a shower, change into my spare shirt, find out what's going on."

"I might as well walk with you if you're going to have a shower," said John, you're not the only Mr Stinky around here."

We left our duvets with the tramp, who promised to guard them with his life. The walk to my offices was eerie; it's a trip I've made every day for a number of years, yet this time it was like the end of the world had come early. There was nobody about, not a soul, no traffic, no cyclists, a few cars parked by the side of the road, many of which had their windows smashed.

"What happened to London?," asked John, "it was here yesterday."

We walked on in silence, both of us wondering how one single tiger could close down an entire city.

We passed the pub we'd eaten in the night before - closed, the shop where we'd bought a bottle of whisky - closed and boarded up.

There were some signs of life in some of the houses near my offices, twitching curtains, lights left on, but that was all, everything else indicated that London was empty.

My offices were shut and though I had keys to the inner door, I couldn’t open the main door, which I had never previously known to be locked, we keep a 24 hour caretaker.

Things looked bleak as we walked back to the station. "Sharon offered to drive in and pick us up," said John, "but I ain't having that, it's not safe for her to drive into London, just look at it."

I looked around, I didn’t see what he was scared, after all a tiger can’t get into a moving car, and there wasn’t anyone else about to cause trouble, but I didn’t like to disagree with him.

"So what shall we do?"

"Walk." We had established the previous night that we both lived in the same town, so we could travel together. However, it was over 40 miles away.

"That'll take ages," I said.

"It's the only option," he said. He was right.

We collected our duvets from the tramp and explained our plans to the tramp.

"Salong way where you're going, what with the tiger an all. I'll be your guide."

"It's very kind of you," I said, but we can't afford to pay you and it will take several days."

"Ah, you're alright, I've walked there dozens of times over the years. Just let me keep the duvet and we're quits."

John shrugged his approval, so we had a plan.

"Right, I said, where do we go." I looked at the tramp, but instead of moving he just held his hand out at me. "Cecil." He said.

"Pardon?"

"The name's Cecil. If we're gonna be travelling together we should be on first name terms."

"Good point," I said. We all introduced each other formerly. "Right, let's go. Which way, Cecil?"

"The leisure centre's this way."

"The leisure centre?"

"You said you wanted a shower."

"Ah, yes," I said, "but everything's closed, we might as well press on."

"Leisure centre never closes, I've got a pass."

He held up his Total Leisure card and neither John nor myself had the heart to argue with him.

It was only ten minutes walk to the leisure centre, but it seemed much longer, itching as I was to get our journey underway. We passed more desolate building, empty streets and nobody at all. At the leisure centre Cecil swiped his card in the doorway and it opened. We walked in, unchallenged.

We walked around, there was nobody here, just the three of us. We followed Cecil to the showers. "The council gives the homeless a free pass see," he explained, "likes to keep us clean for the tourists. Doesn't let us use the other facilities though."

The changing rooms were like a Marie Celeste, people's suits, jackets and shirts were hanging unclaimed on numerous pegs, along with towels and shower gel.

"Where is everyone?" asked John.

"That stuff's always 'ere, they leaves it so as they can pop in from work, 'ave a change of clothes lined up. No-one ever nicks nuffin' 'ere." I was heartened by the fact that trust remained 100% intact in a changing rooms frequented by tramps and the homeless, maybe there is hope for humanity after all.

We took advantage of some of the abandoned towels and, given that we'd just spent the night sleeping on the station floor, John and I decided to borrow a shirt each as well. We vowed to bring them back when the tiger was caught.

We left the leisure centre feeling highly refreshed and ready for our long trek. "Right, let's be off," I said.