A handful of coins chinked onto Lear’s coat, thrown by passers-by, who walked on with a smile on their faces and a spring in their step. The marquis lowered his pennywhistle. “I owe you, then, you old rascal,” said Lear, nodding.
“Yes. You do.” The marquis took the paper—the train schedule—from Lear, and scanned it, and nodded. “But a word to the wise. Don’t overuse it. A little goes a very long way.”
And the four of them walked away, down the long corridor, surrounded by posters advertising films and underwear, and the occasional official-looking notices warning musicians playing for coins to move away from the station, listening to the sob of the saxophone, and to the sound of money landing on a coat.
The marquis led them to a Central Line platform. Richard walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down. He wondered, as he always did, which one the live rail was; and decided, as he always did, that it was the one farthest from the platform, with the large whitish porcelain insulators, between it and the ground; and then he found himself smiling, involuntarily, at a tiny dark gray mouse who was bravely prowling the tracks, three feet below him, in a mousy, quest for abandoned sandwiches and dropped potato chips.
A voice came over the loudspeaker, that formal, disembodied male voice that warned “Mind the Gap.” It was intended to keep unwary passengers from stepping into the space between the train and the platform. Richard, like most Londoners, barely heard it anymore—it was like aural wallpaper. But suddenly, Hunter’s hand was on his arm. “Mind the Gap,” she said urgently, to Richard. “Stand back over there. By the wall.”
“What?” said Richard.
“I said,” said Hunter, “mind the—“
And then it erupted over the side of the platform. It was diaphanous, dreamlike, a ghost-thing, the color of black smoke, and it welled up like silk under water, and, moving astonishingly fast while still seeming to drift almost in slow motion, it wrapped itself tightly around Richard’s ankle. It stung, even through the fabric of his Levi’s. The thing pulled him toward the edge of the platform, and he staggered.
He realized, as if from a distance, that Hunter had pulled out her staff and was smacking the tentacle of smoke with it, hard, repeatedly.
There was a faraway screaming noise, thin and mindless, like an idiot child deprived of its toy. The smoke-tentacle let go of Richard’s ankle and slid back over the edge of the platform, and it was gone. Hunter took Richard by the scruff of the neck and pulled him toward the back wall, where Richard slumped against it. He was trembling, and the world seemed suddenly utterly unreal. The color had been sucked from his jeans wherever the thing had touched him, making them look as if they’d been ineptly bleached. He pulled up the trouser leg: tiny purple welts were coming up on the skin of his ankle and calf. “What . . . ” he tried to say, but nothing came out. He swallowed, and tried again. “What was that?”
Hunter looked down at him impassively. Her face could have been carved from brown wood. “I don’t think it has a name,” she said. “They live in the gaps. I did warn you.”
“I’ve . . . never seen one before.”
“You weren’t part of the Underside before,” said Hunter. “Just wait by the wall. It’s safer.”
The marquis was checking the time on a large gold pocket-watch. He returned it to his waistcoat pocket, consulted the paper Lear had given him, and nodded, satisfied. “We’re in luck,” he pronounced. “The Earl’s Court train should be coming through here in about half an hour.”
“Earl’s Court Station isn’t on the Central Line,” pointed out Richard.
The marquis stared at Richard, openly amused. “What a refreshing mind you have, young man,” he said. “There really is nothing quite like total ignorance, is there?”
The warm wind began to blow. An Underground train pulled up at the station. People got off and other people got on, going about the business of their lives, and Richard watched them with envy. “Mind the Gap,” intoned the recorded voice. “Stand clear of the doors. Mind the Gap.” Door took one look at Richard. Then, apparently worried about what she was seeing, she walked over to him, and she took his hand. He was very pale, and his breath was coming shallow and fast. “Mind the Gap,” boomed the recorded voice again. “I’m fine,” lied Richard bravely, to no one in particular.
The central courtyard of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar’s hospital was a dank and cheerless place. Ragged grass grew up through the abandoned desks, rubber tires, and bits of office furniture. The overall impression given by the area was that a decade before (perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of frustration, perhaps even as a statement, or as performance art) a number of people had thrown the contents of their offices out of their windows, high above, and had left them there on the ground to rot.
There was broken glass there, as well, broken glass in abundance. There were also several mattresses, some of which looked like they had at some point been set on fire. Grass grew up through the springs. An entire ecology had evolved around the ornamental fountain in the center of the well, which had for a long time been neither particularly ornamental nor a fountain. A cracked and leaking water pipe nearby had, with the aid of some rainwater, transformed it into a breeding ground for a number of little frogs who plopped about cheerfully, rejoicing in their freedom from any non-airborne natural predators. Crows and blackbirds and even occasional seagulls, however, regarded the place as a cat-free delicatessen, specializing in frogs.
Slugs sprawled indolently under the springs of the burnt mattresses; snails left slime trails across the broken glass; large black beetles scuttled industriously over smashed gray plastic telephones and mysteriously mutilated Barbie dolls.
Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar had come up for a change of air. They were walking slowly around the perimeter of the central yard, broken glass crunching beneath their feet; they looked like shadows in their frayed black suits. Mr. Croup was in a cold fury. He was walking twice as fast as Mr. Vandemar, circling him, and almost dancing in his anger. At times, as if unable to contain the rage inside, Mr. Croup would fling himself at the hospital wall, physically attack it with his fists and feet, as if it were a poor substitute for a real person. Mr. Vandemar, on the other hand, simply walked. It was too consistent, too steady and inexorable a walk to be described as a stroll: Death walked like Mr. Vandemar. Mr. Vandemar watched Mr. Croup, impassively, as Mr. Croup kicked a sheet of glass that had been leaning against a wall. It shattered with a satisfying crash.