.
I am undecided what to do, to walk all the way back to Clapham Junction, or to try to catch a bus or a taxi.
Still feeling rather lonely and scared, I am longing to see a friendly face, and I decide to go off in search of Gail who I eventually find in the boardroom watching the news with others from her group. Together we go down to the canteen and sit in the corner, drinking a coffee. She looks terrible, as white as a sheet, and yet I suppose I look no better myself.
“Have you heard that they think it was done by suicide bombers?” she says, the stress showing in her face.
“Yes, and if it is, then apparently they are the first suicide bomb attacks on the British mainland ever.”
“I can’t believe that anyone has actually gone and done this. I know that they’ve been worrying that this could happen for years, but that someone would actually sit on a train in rush hour and blow themselves up to deliberately kill as many people as possible...” her voice tails off.
“How are you going to get home?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. I’m just going to walk, I think. The whole of London is probably going to walk home tonight.”
“Is Luke alright?”
“Yes. I spoke to him about ten o’clock. He cycles to work, and he was fine.”
“Do you think it is over, Andrew, or will there be more bombs this evening? Are more people going to be killed?”
“I hope not,” is all I can reply.
When we get up to leave the table, she comes around to me and gives me a quick hug. For a moment I hold her close to me, squeezing her and giving her as much strength as she gives to me. Ordinarily, a woman giving a hug to a man in the canteen may have raised a few eyebrows, but today, no one else pays any attention: all day long people have been comforting each other, hugging each other or holding hands.
.
It takes me almost two and a half hours to walk home later that afternoon. An afternoon in which the streets are full of people, all trudging back to their families, all thankful to be alive and uninjured, but scared of what still could come. As I walk through the busy streets, I can sense a communal spirit that is shared between us all, and I wonder if what we are feeling now is anything like what the people felt during the German’s Blitz on London in the 1940’s. The London I walk home through this afternoon is very different from the London I woke up to this morning. I don’t think it will ever be the same again. No one yet knows exactly what has happened today, and confusion is everywhere. But today the nightmare that everyone has been dreading for so many years, has finally come home to us all. The nightmare has become reality.
.
As I turn to walk along Battersea Rise towards the building where my flat is, I pass a newspaper shop, and for the first time the significance of today’s date hits home. The evening headline points out that today is the 7th July 2005: Now the UK has it’s very own 9/11. Except for us it’s a catchy 7/7.
.
It’s then that I remember that I’m meant to be meeting Sal tonight at 8.30 pm.
.
Chapter Twenty-One
.
.
The answer phone is blinking when I walk through the door. There are three messages, all from Guy.
“Andrew, are you alright? I’m watching the news just now. Please call me. And please try to get hold of Sal. I’m trying to call her but the mobile network is absolutely jammed. Make sure she’s ok, and call me back.”
The second message is a little more excited. “Andrew, where are you? I’ve tried calling you at your desk all day, and you’re not answering either. I still can’t get hold of Sal. Can you try calling her flatmate Mandy and see if she knows where Sal is?”
The third one was only five minutes ago: “Andrew, you’ve got me scared now. You’re mobile is not working, you don’t seem to be at work, and you’re not at home. And neither is Sal. Oh, and I’d better give you Mandy’s mobile number, just in case you don’t have it,” and he reads it out to me on the message, and then finishes by giving me a contact number where I can reach him at a desk in New York, which he forgot to do in the first message.
Without even taking my jacket off, I immediately try calling Sal. Not only do I want to make sure that she is safe, but I also need to confirm that we are still meeting for a chat this evening. By now the mobile network is freeing up, and I manage to get through to her phone, although it goes straight through to voicemail. I leave a message. It occurs to me briefly that given the events of today, that tonight is perhaps not the best day to give Sal the ultimatum. Then I think of Guy coming home this weekend to get the answer to his marriage proposal and I realise that I have no choice. Suddenly I am kicking myself for not being more pushy and insisting on meeting her earlier on in the week.
I try calling the switchboard at her work, hoping that someone may still be there, but there is no reply. Next I try calling Mandy. She picks up straight away.
“Mandy, hi it’s Andrew. Are you alright?”
“Andrew? Hi! Yes, I’m fine, but I’m not in London just now. I’m in Germany this week. I’m in a hotel in Berlin at the moment, just about to go out. Is Guy okay?”
“Yes, he’s still in the states. Listen, do you know where Sal is, or have you spoken to her today? Guy spent all day trying to reach her on her mobile and in the office and he couldn’t get hold of her.”
“Yes, I called her and spoke to her this morning. She was on the way to visit a customer outside London. She was fine. She would have had her phone switched off whilst she was with the customer, and she wouldn’t have gone back to the office afterwards. I wouldn’t worry, Andrew. She’ll be okay. Just send her a text and ask her to call you as soon as she gets it. And don’t forget that the mobile network is completely useless today, and everyone in the world is trying to call their friends and relatives in London to make sure they are fine.”
“I hope you’re right. Guy is really frantic. Do you have her parents number, so I can call them, just in case she’s called them to say she’s fine?”
“No. Sal’s an only child, and her father is dead, and her mother is in a home. It’s probably better not to disturb her, just in case you upset her unnecessarily.”
“Ah, I didn’t know.”
“I’ll try calling her too, and as soon as either one of us gets through to her, let’s send each other a text message, okay?”
“Good idea. If you do speak to her, let her know that I’m still on for tonight. I’m meant to be meeting her for a quick drink. Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe. When are you coming home?”
“Next Tuesday. I’m staying for the weekend and I have to visit another customer in Munich on Monday.”
When I call Guy, he picks up the phone straight away, and practically shouts at me when I say “Hi!”
“Thank God you’re alright. Have you spoken to Sal? Is she okay too?”
“I haven’t spoken to her yet, but Mandy say’s not to worry because she was meant to be visiting a customer outside London today, and wouldn’t be in the office or have her mobile switched on. It’s only 6.20 pm here. She may not be home yet. It took me two hours to walk home from the office. There aren’t any tubes, trains or buses tonight…”
“I know, the bloody terrorists blew them all up. It just said on Bloomberg that there were four confirmed separate bombs, and they think about ninety people have been killed. All the bombs look like they went of about the same time.”
“I know, they’re saying it was a sophisticated operation and well planned. Probably Al Quaida.”
“Bastards. Everyone in New York is glued to the TVs here. No-one is doing any work. It’s like 9/11 all over again. People are scared of an another attack happening here too.”
When I hang up, I promise to call him back as soon as I know anything, but don’t tell him that I am meant to be meeting up with Sal later.
Trying Sal’s mobile, and then her flat number, I get answering machines again and no-one is picking up, so I grab a
beer from the fridge and go and have a short cool shower. As I am towelling myself down afterwards, the phone rings and I dive into the hall to catch it, tripping over my towel.
It’s Hannah, checking I got home safely.
“Whatever you do, don’t go out tonight!” she instructs me, “...And maybe you shouldn’t go into work tomorrow either. It’s not safe yet. They still don’t know what happened, or if it’s even over.”
“Hannah, I’m fine. I have a job. I have to go to work tomorrow. I’ll just walk in or catch a bus. But I’ll be okay,” I promise her.
.
.
--------------------------
.
.
I’m lying on the couch, the cordless phone on my lap. I’ve been glued to SkyNews and the BBC, watching endless footage of the injured coming out of the tube stations and being helped by other passengers, and some darkened video shot on someone’s mobile phone of people walking along the underground tracks as they escape from the wreckage of one of the bombed tube-trains…Above ground on the surface, the imagery is dominated by pictures of red-fire engines, ambulances and people in orange jackets helping victims receive medical attention. The most incredible image of all is a single picture of two people standing upright at the front of the top-deck of the bus that was blown up: the explosion has just happened, the roof has just been blown off, and the two people at the very front of the bus have just stood up from their seats, apparently unscathed. Someone passing by caught the image in the seconds after the blast. The rest of the bus is twisted and burnt, others are dead and wounded, but they are fine…just looking around them …wondering what just happened.
It occurs to me that death is so random, and life is so accidental.
.
It’s twenty past seven and an announcement has just been read on the news on behalf of the world leaders gathered at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in Scotland, denouncing and deploring the atrocities of today: George Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin standing side by side, united in the fight against international terrorism. I have just finished eating and am about to leave to go to Covent Garden to try and meet Sal when the phone rings. I’ve been calling Sal’s phone repeatedly over the past couple of hours, and I’m hoping it is her.
I pick it up, hit the green answer button and put the receiver to my head. It’s Guy. He’s crying.
.
“Andrew, Sal was on the underground train at Liverpool Street. She was blown up by the first bomb…she’s in hospital…” is all he manages to say that I can understand, before he breaks down incoherently.
“What?” I shout back at him, jumping to my feet. “Guy, is she okay? Is she wounded? Will she be alright? Guy? Talk to me!”
“I...I don’t know...” He replies between gasps.
“How do you know it is her? Maybe it’s a mistake? Who told you?”
“Someone called me from her mobile a few minutes ago. It was a police officer…she was just trying to track down a next of kin…my number was the last number she called last night just before she went to bed.”
“Where is she? Is she going to be alright?” I ask, beginning to panic.
“The police-officer wouldn’t say. She just said she’s in a serious condition in intensive care, and that she would encourage the next of kin to go to the hospital as soon as possible. I told her that she is an only child and that her mother has got Alzheimer’s and that for all intents and purpose I was practically the next of kin…her mum doesn’t even know who Sal is anymore… Even if she did, the shock of this would kill her. When I told her that I was in New York, the policewoman asked if she had any friends in London that could identify her and come to the hospital. I told them you would go…You could go with Mandy if you want.”
“Me?...”I reply in surprise without thinking, but immediately regain control of myself. “Sure…absolutely…I’ll go straight away. I’ll go by myself. Mandy is in Berlin just now. She won’t be back till next week.”
“Andrew, as soon as you have seen her, you must call me okay? I need to know how she is. If it’s serious? Is she going to be okay…?” He starts to sob on the other end of the phone. “I love her so much! We’re meant to be getting married! Shit, I need to get a flight back home immediately. I’ve got to get to the hospital…”
“I don’t know if the planes are flying to the UK from the US just now. I think they may have stopped them…”
“If that’s true I’ll go via Canada…Andrew, take your mobile with you, so that I can speak to her when you get there. Tell her that I love her and that I’m coming home, okay?”
“Sure… Where is she?”
“The police officer told me that she was taken to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. She gave me a number to call…”
I take the number down. We speak for a little longer, with Guy struggling the whole time to prevent himself from crying again. He promises to call me back as soon as he knows when he will be getting back to London, and I promise to call him as soon as I have seen Sal. Then I call a taxi to go to the Royal London.
Part Two
.
.
Chapter Twenty-Two
.
.
The taxi takes forever to arrive. I call the company twice, demanding to know where it is. Apparently most of the trains are not working and the tubes are all out of commission so every taxi in town is busy taking people home out of London. There are no taxis to be had anywhere. Infuriated and desperate I eventually tell them where it is I want to go and why, and the lady in the taxi company promises to have a taxi pick me up in ten minutes.
True to her word, fifteen minutes later I am on my way to the Royal London. I sit in the taxi trying not to think what I will find when I get there, hoping that she will be okay. My thoughts become abstract and weird: it was a bomb, will she be maimed? Was she one of the people I saw on television being carried on a stretcher out of the tube-station? Will she die?
Shaking my head and physically trying to snap myself out of it, I try chatting to the taxi-driver, wondering if he knew any more about what had happened today.
“Bloody terrorists,” he shouts back at me as soon as I give him the invitation to speak. “They should bring back the death penalty, that’s what I say. Find the bastards, then tie them all to a big bomb and blow them all up.”
It occurs to me that there is a certain irony in what he says, given that this is exactly what the terrorists do to themselves. But I don’t say anything.
“I know,” is all I can muster in reply. “My friend is one of the people on the first underground train to be hit,” no sooner having said the word ‘friend’ than realising how hypocritical I am being.
There is little traffic in London tonight, with everyone wisely staying at home and tuned to their TV’s. Most of the streets are eerily quiet for this time of year, but as we near the Royal London on Whitechapel Road suddenly the roads are full of blue flashing lights, ambulances and televisions vans and camera crews.
“I’ll have to let you out here, mate,” the taxi driver turns to me and says. “That’ll be eighteen pounds, pal.”
I hand him over a twenty and as I wave away the change, he replies “I hope your friend is okay.”
“So do I,” I reply without thinking. As I start to walk past the cameras and police-cars and fight my way through the commotion, an evil and shocking thought hits me: “Do I really hope she is alright? Wouldn’t it be simpler if…”
The thought shocks me, and I stop dead in my tracks and shake my head in disbelief as if in an attempt to wipe the brutality of such a thought from my mind. What is happening to me?
.
A policewoman stops me at the entrance and I explain to her who I am and why I am here, and ask for guidance as to what I should do next and where I should go. She points me through the doorway into the hallway where a makeshift table has been set up, and several policewomen and nurses are busy answering questions from distraught members of the
public, now queuing up like myself and waiting to be directed as to where to go next. As the people in the queue in front of me come up to the desk, one of the nurses takes their name and refers to one of the clipboards. As the names are located on the clipboard, another nurse and a female police-officer step forward and gently guide the relatives to a private room further down the corridor. Others, perhaps the more fortunate ones, are simply given instructions as to which ward to go to and where it is, and they walk away by themselves.
Am I going to be one of the escorted or the directed?
People are crying all around me, and from the bottom of the corridor where some of the others have been escorted to, a spine-tingling scream erupts and echoes around the tiled walls of the hospital. Suddenly I am really scared. I am sweating and my heart is beating faster and faster. I am beginning to feel like I have walked onto the set of a disaster movie, except unfortunately, I know that this is all only too real.
“Hello, could you please give me the name of your relative?” a nurse asks me gently.
“Sally Wentworth,” I reply very quietly, having to cough and clear my throat once before repeating it more audibly for a second time. “Sally Wentworth.”
“Are you the next of kin?” The nurse looks back at the list and runs down it with the tip of a pencil. She finds the name on the list and then looks up at me very seriously. “Are you the next of kin?”
“Not exactly,” I reply, and explain the situation to her. “ I was told the police were expecting me.”
“That’s okay,” she says, handing a piece of paper to one of the other nurses, who reads the instructions on it and politely invites me to follow her. “Oh no,” I think to myself. “I am being escorted to one of the rooms to get bad news.”
The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Thriller (Omnibus Edition containing both Book One and Book Two) Page 12
