Our columnist accompanies Father Christmas onto the Tube at the worst possible moment and lives to file the report
The Sleigh Was in for Repairs
The sleigh, Santa explained to me with the resigned air of a man whose car is in the garage, was in for its annual service, and so he proposed to complete his Central London deliveries by Tube. I tried to talk him out of it. I have lived here long enough to know that the London Underground on Christmas Eve is not a transport system but a stress test, a vast subterranean experiment in how much indignity the human spirit can absorb. Santa, ever the optimist, was undeterred.
The North Pole dispatches had made it sound straightforward. A few stops on the Victoria line, a quick change, deliveries completed by midnight. I knew better. But I am a journalist, and a journalist follows the story, even when the story involves descending into the Victoria line at the exact moment the entire population of London has decided to go somewhere else.
The Oyster Card Incident
Things went wrong at the barrier. Santa, who has never needed a ticket for anything, did not have an Oyster card, a contactless payment method, or indeed any of the apparatus that modern London requires before it will let you through a gate. He attempted to explain to the gateline assistant that he was Father Christmas and therefore exempt. The gateline assistant, who had clearly heard every excuse known to humanity, was unmoved. There is no exemption for being Father Christmas. There is no exemption for anyone.
I tapped him through on my own card, an act of charity I felt was at least thematically appropriate, and made a mental note to claim it back somehow. Fare information I later confirmed through the Transport for London information service suggests I will not be claiming anything back, because the system is designed by people who have transcended the concept of refunds. Santa thanked me with the warmth of a man who does not understand what he has just cost me.
The Platform Was a War Zone
The platform at Oxford Circus on Christmas Eve is a place where civilization goes to be tested. We stood, pressed against strangers, as a disembodied voice apologized for delays caused by an earlier incident, which is the Tube’s way of telling you nothing while sounding like it is telling you something. Santa, who is accustomed to moving through the world unobserved and at supernatural speed, found himself doing what we all do: standing very still, breathing other people’s air, and waiting.
When the train arrived it was, of course, full, in the way that only a Christmas Eve Victoria line train can be full, which is to say beyond any reasonable definition of the word. We did not board so much as get absorbed. Santa’s sack, containing the gifts of central London, became a point of considerable tension with a man in a Santa hat who was, ironically, having a worse Christmas than the actual Santa. Travel updates via the London Evening Standard described the network as experiencing high demand, which is journalism for chaos.
He Made It, Somehow
Against all odds and several laws of physics that even Santa usually respects, the deliveries were completed. He emerged at Brixton an hour later, slightly crushed, his hat askew, having experienced the London Underground in full festive flood and survived. I have rarely seen a man look so changed. He had crossed the entire world that night without incident; it was the Victoria line that nearly broke him. Local listings at the regional events register cheerfully advertised Christmas events he was now far too traumatized to attend.
What the Tube Teaches
There is a lesson in this, and it is the lesson the Tube teaches all of us eventually: that no amount of magic, status, or goodwill will spare you the shared indignity of London transport. Santa, the most exceptional being on the planet, was, on the Victoria line, exactly as powerless as the rest of us, jammed into a carriage, breathing through his beard, waiting for a gap that would not come. There is a strange democracy in that, and I found it almost moving.
The Underground is the great equalizer of this city. It does not care who you are. It will press the billionaire and the barista into the same carriage, subject them to the same delays, deny them both a refund with the same serene indifference. Santa learned this the hard way, and I suspect he will be having the sleigh serviced rather more promptly next year. Some experiences you do not need twice.
For those of you facing your own festive Tube ordeals, I can offer little comfort beyond solidarity, though the resources at the commuter society and the status updates aggregated at the public registry may help you plan a route that minimizes your suffering. And if all else fails, the diversions at the games index will at least pass the time while you wait, motionless, for a train that the board insists is two minutes away and has been for eleven.
Santa flew home the next day, the sleigh repaired, vowing never again to descend into the Underground. I watched him go with a certain envy. He, at least, has an alternative. The rest of us will be back on the Victoria line on Monday, pressed against strangers, breathing the recycled air of eight million people, waiting, as we always wait, for the gap that never comes. Merry Christmas. Mind the gap. There is, as ever, no gap to mind.
SOURCE: https://santaclaus.top
