Nemesis
By: Mark Kelly
Tags: Crime, London, Fiction, UK, Short Story

Nemesis

Gold rings and dirty nails

Photo by Josh Wilburne on Unsplash

I’m standing on the platform, waiting for the District Line train which will take me across to see Father Paul. The indicator board tells me that I have three minutes to wait.

Milonga Sentimental is playing cheerily in my head. I’m looking forward to seeing Father Paul again. I’ll enjoy indulging in some more intellectual showing off, unveiling a few more of the interests which I’m sure he’ll turn out to share. It sounds as though he has some interesting snippets of his own to divulge.

I’m wondering how to tackle the issue of guardian angels and counsellors, whether to tell him about Mae and Damon immediately or spin it out in some way. I’ll probably take my cue from how much he says about his angels.

The indicator board tells me I have two minutes to wait. The platform is filling up. I am standing forward of the safety line, so I take a step back, checking behind me with a glance.

A man with his back to the wall is watching me intently and smiles broadly when he sees I have noticed him. He is wearing a scuffed brown leather jacket and has a full head of oily black ringlets. I’m used to people staring, but I fall to pondering as I turn back to the adverts in front of me.

The smile doesn’t look healthy, somehow. It’s as though even in that brief glimpse I had been able to detect advanced caries, or as if even at this distance I had been blasted by malodorous breath.

By the indicator board I have one minute to wait. Someone has put a friendly arm around me and, confused, I look over to my left shoulder, as if the person’s hand, resting there with its gold rings and dirty nails, could enlighten me as to what is happening.

I turn the other way and am sharp up against the face of my friend from the back wall who, with smile still intact, is leaning in to whisper something in my ear.

The platform is full now and I think I am being moved by the tide of bodies. But no, I am being punched in the ribs of my right side by my smiling friend, while at the same time he holds me steady with a firm grip around my left shoulder.

The train has now come out of the tunnel and is storming along the platform. As clear as can be, he speaks into my right ear. “Disease for a whore” he says. I mentally cut short my reaction to being punched, to try to assimilate his words.

Then he is gone, making his way through the crowd without looking backwards. I am waiting for the train to stop, hoping that I am opposite one of the doors when it opens.

By reflex I am trying to rub my right side with my left hand, sure that it must start to hurt soon, even though it isn’t hurting at the moment.

The doors have opened just in front of me, but my legs aren’t moving forward. The crowd is flowing round me like a stream around a rock, taking my place, not giving me time to get on board.

One lady is standing looking at me now. She wants to get on the train, but she can’t. Like me, she is stuck on the platform. The blood is draining from her face. As the train doors close, she bends over and throws up energetically, some of her vomit bouncing off the platform to soil the bottom of my trousers.

My left knee buckles involuntarily and I lean over towards her. As the train moves away, dozens of ghostly faces are pressed close up against the glass, looking out at our little tableau.

My left hand is wet as I reach out to help the vomiting lady.

It is wet with the blood seeping out through my jacket from the wound in my side where the man plunged his knife.

Realisation of what has happened comes in this serial form, as slowly as though I were reading from a book to a very young child. And now my left leg has gone completely and I am falling over. And I am thinking, and possibly saying, to no-one in particular,

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Would you mind calling an ambulance?”