For some reason, although she had left her train and climbed up a staircase or so from the platform level, she couldn’t quite continue her ascent. Other passengers brushed past her as she stood, her back to the passageway, facing a vast metal grille, peering into the workings of the station. She’d been catching and changing and catching trains beneath the city for a while this evening – for a long while, it seemed, now that she checked her watch. The system had taken her into itself at Leicester Square, pushed her north to King’s Cross and she’d let it. She had drifted up the Northern Line, then rolled back down, nudging all the while between the eddies and jolts of more purposeful commuters. Then she’d transferred to the Circle Line. Gets you nowhere. Round and round. It no longer was quite possible to ride the Circle Line and find yourself back where you started without ever leaving your seat. A break had been inserted annoyingly at Edgware Road and carriagefuls of humanity would wait about there to make connections which had once been unnecessary; the Edgware atmosphere was permanently thick with irritation and murdered plans.
