The other day I was catching the train to Leeds and managed to miss it. This I blame on delays on the Piccadilly Line, but truthfully I was already running late by the time I reached the underground. This was due to an inability to get ready until the absolute last minute. It's a form of micro-procrastination. Why get ready five minutes early when I could cycle through my social media a couple of times instead? Inevitably this takes longer than expected, and so I'm amazed to find myself leaving the flat ten minutes later than I'd intended, all impotent haste and ready to shift my guilt onto the blameless Piccadilly Line. The Piccadilly Line can't help being slow from time-to-time. Its trains are 50-years-old now. Imagine how tired they must be, trundling between Cockfosters and Heathrow, day-in, day-out. Some of them even have to go to Uxbridge.
With time to kill until the next train to Leeds, I bought a packet of chocolate digestives (plain) and a flat white. Since it was a nice day I sat outside the station, amongst the skateboarders, pigeons and resting tourists. I deliberately chose a spot on the end of a bench with an empty seat next to it, so that I could selfishly block it with my bag, preventing anyone else from sitting there. All good practice for the train, I considered, as I carefully opened the biscuits and pushed a few loose so they protruded from the packet, ready to eat. A nearby pigeon eyed this motion beadily, but pigeons are genetically disposed to beadiness and it's quite hard to tell what they're looking at from one moment to the next. I ate one of the digestives and watched the pigeon, daring it to approach.
The pigeon was of course oblivious to me. I ate another biscuit and thought a bit about a plot hole I was trying fill, but only crumbs and feathers loomed in my imagination. Neither were adequate plot fillers. I reached for a third biscuit and was surprised that there were no more protruding from the packet. I was sure I'd loosened three or four of them, but maybe I was mistaken. Clearly I was mistaken, how else could there only have been two of them? I looked around warily for a ninja pigeon making off with a digestive but saw none. There was however an elderly gentleman next to me eating a biscuit. I stared at him incredulously. It was indeed a chocolate digestive. He seemed no more aware of me than the pigeons were and looked remarkably like Jeffrey Archer. He finished the biscuit, and with barely a pause shook another one from the packet.
I was speechless. What kind of a man so brazenly eats another man's biscuits? Aggrieved but unwilling to confront, I made a great theatrical display of taking another biscuit from the packet. I then crammed the whole thing into my mouth and snorted involuntarily as I struggled to chew it. This caught his attention. He recoiled at my grotesque performance, snatched up the packet of biscuits and walked briskly towards the Euston Road tube entrance. I watched his retreating figure in disbelief. Even the pigeon appeared taken aback by this development, and tilted its head to one side momentarily before continuing to peck amongst the fag ends.
I snapped to my senses and headed after the biscuit thief, who by now I was fairly certain was in fact Jeffrey Archer. I followed him down into the underground foyer, where saw his back disappear down the escalator to the Victoria Line while I attempted to touch in at the gate line. The barrier flashed red at me. Panicking, I tried again but to no avail. I slipped across the next barrier, cutting up a young man who tutted loudly. The barrier flashed green and let me through. I raced down the escalator as fast as my knees allowed and ran towards the platforms. I saw him make a left onto the southbound platform. Immediately after that I heard the beeping of the closing doors. My heart sank as I reached the train, its doors closed and ready to depart. But then the doors sprang open again. Something must have jammed one of them. Seizing my chance, I leapt onboard before the doors closed again, which they did as soon as I was in. I grabbed a pole as the train lurched into motion and scanned the carriage for the man who was at that moment in time definitely Jeffrey Archer. He wasn't anywhere in sight. Could he have boarded a different carriage? I made my way to the door at the end and peered through his window. There he was, sitting in a priority seat and eating my biscuits. Incensed, I pulled the door open. At this point heads turned and faces frowned. Moving between carriages is the province of beggars, unruly youth and the just plain crazy. I could feel them judging me, no doubt as fitting the latter category. No matter, I was on a mission. A somewhat alarming mission, as now the door was open I realised opening the door on the other carriage involved a leap of faith. I flung it open and stumbled into a carriageful of more strangers who were making the same determination. Nothing good ever appears through the carriage doors.
I ignored their stares and made my way to the biscuit thief. He regarded me with idle curiosity while stuffing his face with another chocolate digestive.
"Those are my biscuits," I said, a little hysterically if I'm honest, but I was surging with adrenaline after the chase. "Give them back to me please."
The man looked at me curiously. "I sorry," he said in a thick Eastern European accent, "my English not too good."
At this point I had to concede he wasn't Jeffrey Archer, and thinking about it he looked like I remember Jeffrey Archer looking something like thirty years ago. Nonetheless, he still had my biscuits. Now fully vexed, I grabbed at the packet but the man who was definitely not Jeffrey Archer pulled it away and hissed at me.
"Look," I said as reasonably as I could muster in the circumstances, "just give me the biscuits and that'll be the end of the matter."
"Leave him alone," said a voice behind me. I turned and was met with a fierce stare from a heavily-built man in an Arsenal shirt.
Further along the carriage, I saw a suited young man take out his phone and start filming me. The train began its screeching deceleration into Euston and I considered my position. They were my biscuits, that fact is indisputable. However I didn't want to end up being the next TikTok sensation and branded the Victoria Line Biscuit Mugger or whatever the low courts of the internet decide on. The biscuits weren't expensive. I could just buy some more. Also, crucially, I had cast myself into the role of biscuit mugger the moment I entered the stage via the crazy door.
The train stopped at Euston. I waved goodbye to the camera and stepped off. As I departed, a pigeon swooped down and hopped into the carriage. How on earth had it made it all the way down there? Just before the doors closed it turned and looked at me, and for a moment I was convinced it was the same one that had stalked me at Kings Cross. Maybe I was going crazy after all.
As the train departed I realised that it would be the pigeon enjoying all that TikTok fame. I felt a pang of jealousy. Maybe being the Victoria Line Biscuit Mugger wouldn't be that bad if it sold a few books.
