Small arrow and stroke tattoo on a finger

I'm writing this on the back of a maintenance docket because the cab of the Tower Hill lift has no paper left, and I have been sat on the inspection hatch since eleven. The city goes to sleep from the top down, you know. Offices darken floor by floor, and I count them from the shaft, lights clicking off like a tally being crossed through.

Tonight the car stuck between nine and ten for forty minutes with a night porter called Dessie inside it, humming hymns to keep his nerves level. I talked him down through the intercom while the cable creaked overhead. Two short strokes for the brake and the drop, then the arrow, which is what we chalk on the doors to say up, this way, the thing still works. You taught me that mark, remember, back when you swore a lift only needed a steady hand and a bit of nerve.

Dessie came out at quarter past twelve grinning like a lad who had been to the moon. He pressed a boiled sweet into my palm and said the arrow looked like a bird trying to get out of a cage. I told him that was rather the point.

I'll be home by two if the Northern line behaves. Leave the porch light on, love, and I'll bring you the rest of the docket, the one with the hymn scribbled on the back.

Yours in the shaft, Ted