Chapters (50)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Ninteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Letter From the Author
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
To enter Oxford Circus station, there are several stairways that lead down from the intersection of Oxford and Regent Street. We were lined up six across to get into the station. I wondered if it would be more sensible to get a bus back to Tulse Hill. But I was caught up in the crowd now, bodies pressing behind me. It was like leaving a football match or stadium gig, everyone trying to get into the station at the same time. I hoped commuting wasn’t going to be like this or I might regret my decision.
I finally reached the front of the crowd at the top of the steps that led down into the belly of London. From in front of me I could hear shouting; someone had slipped on the concrete steps.
A voice shouted, ‘Hold up!’ from below. I stopped, allowing the stairs to clear in front of me. I was stuck in the middle of the crowd, halfway between the wall on one side and the central handrail on the other, unable to use my hands because of all the bags I was holding. I hesitated – and as I did I felt the crowd surge behind me, could hear shouting, the pedestrian equivalent of cars sounding their horns in a traffic jam, the thin veneer of civilisation being torn down by impatience and anger.
What happened next has replayed itself in my dreams many times since. I started to descend the steps, putting one soggy foot in front of the other, head down, treading deliberately and carefully.
And then I was falling, arms flailing, a whoosh of air in my belly as I went down head first, unable to stop my fall because of my full hands, and in a blur of darkness and light, I tumbled, fast, trying to grab hold of the rail, my foot jarring on a step, knee twisting, the bright flash of agony shooting up through my leg, and then I was lying on the ground at the bottom.
I remember flickers of what happened next. How most of the people in the crowd poured past and over me, so that I seriously feared I would be trampled to death. How a young black man pulled me to one side and his girlfriend fetched a couple of Underground workers, who acted like I was causing them a massive inconvenience. Then someone was asking me if I could walk. I couldn’t; my knee felt like it was on fire and the slightest pressure sent spears of pain through me. I was carried out of the station by a pair of paramedics and taken to the nearest hospital where I joined a queue of people in A&E who’d slipped in the snow, the nurses looking harassed as the walking wounded were brought in one after another.