by B P Walter
With all this in my mind, I switched to Facebook Messenger and sent a quick message to her:
You may have seen that there’s been another attack in London. Hopefully it won’t affect your train journey home tomorrow, but let us know if so.
I tapped send, then, worrying it sounded too calm and distant, added a touch of caution as an afterthought:
If anything looks wrong or unusual or if you’re unsure of what to do, please phone me or your dad immediately or speak to a police officer. Don’t want to worry you, but I’d prefer it if you message me when you’re on the train and then when you’re passing through London Bridge. Just so I know you’re safe. No detours!
I felt uneasy as I went to my home screen and opened the National Rail app. Maybe I should offer to drive down to Somerset to get Jessica tomorrow, I thought. It would take hours and hours, though. And she already has her return ticket, too. The National Rail departures list to Sevenoaks made it very clear: major disruption until end of service. After some more research (via The Guardian and the Daily Mail), I discovered that most major train stations in London had been evacuated pretty soon after it became clear there was a coordinated attack on Stratford station. Many of them were still closed. London Bridge had reopened but services were far from normal and people were being advised to seek alternative transport. And, to be entirely honest, I wasn’t sure a train station platform was a place I wanted to be lingering at that moment.
I messaged Alec, telling him I was going to get a car home – I couldn’t face the train commotion. I then ordered a car using the dedicated app on my phone, bought a panini from the smiley young woman at the counter, and walked while eating towards Langham Place, near the BBC, where the car was collecting me. It took longer than advertised, and I spent the time looking at Twitter, seeing the hysteria unfold. Both #PrayForLondon and #PrayForStratford were trending. I thought we’d abandoned the ‘Pray For’ hashtags, but they seemed to have started up again. I rarely used social media myself; just occasionally, to retweet trailers of TV series I’d worked on and keep an eye on viewers’ reactions to them when they aired. The idea of using it – actually updating one’s status or posting photos – in the midst of an emergency situation rather baffled me. I couldn’t imagine taking out my phone to tweet, as one woman had:
OMG I just saw a woman got stabbed in front of me when coming out of the cinema in Westfield – never seen something like that in real life before. So horrible. I’m so shaken. #Stratford #StratfordAttacks #PrayForLondon.
Another person had tweeted an image of what appeared to be bodies, photographed from afar, lying on one of the station platforms. The user, named @OddJobJimmy1991, had included the words:
So fucking sick. Slaughtered like animals. This needs to be SORTED.
He’d tagged in a few notable politicians, including the prime minister and home secretary, along with two far-right journalists and social commentators, perhaps hoping for a retweet from them.
The car eventually arrived, and it was only once I was inside its warm interior that I realised how frozen I was. I felt my icy fingers start to regain feeling as I continued to swipe my phone, typing out another message to Jessica:
Hi, did you see my message?
It was a bit pointless, as I could see she hadn’t seen it. She was probably busy Instagramming some big hill she’d just trekked up with her friend, or the meal they’d just had in a gastro-pub. I checked her account to see, but there was nothing – the last thing she’d posted had been the cover of a large fantasy novel by Sarah J. Maas, along with the caption:
It’s official: I’m addicted and in LOVE with this.
But that was yesterday, before she’d left for the West Country.
Suddenly, I was filled with an overwhelming need to speak to her. Hear her voice. Everything will be fine, I tried to tell myself. She’d been out of Kent and London for hours and hours. Long before the whole commotion happened. And besides, she wouldn’t have needed to go anywhere near the East End. I tapped the ‘call’ button on her contact details and her face filled the screen. The dialling tone went on for what felt like an age, and then a woman’s voice said, ‘Welcome to the O2 messaging service,’ and I cut the call.
‘It’s going to take quite a while getting back,’ my driver said in a bored-sounding voice. ‘Everywhere’s seized up. The main task is going to be getting out of London. Normally it should take just over an hour, but today – well, I think you’re in for a bit of a long ride. And there’s trouble on the A13.’
‘Great,’ I murmured, trying Jessica again. This time, at the sound of the voicemail, I didn’t hang up: ‘Hi love, it’s me. I don’t know if you’ve seen my messages, or the news, but there’s been another attack in London and I just wanted to speak to you – hopefully it won’t affect your trip home tomorrow, but… well, can you just give me a call? I love you.’
A few seconds after I’d cut the call, the driver said, ‘You got family in the area?’
I shook my head. ‘No, my daughter – she’s in Somerset but will be travelling back tomorrow. Shouldn’t be a problem, but you know what it’s like – neurotic parent and all that!’
I saw the young man shrug. ‘Don’t have kids. Never found a girl I’ve liked longer than six weeks.’
‘Right,’ I said, unsure what to do with this information.
‘But my mum was the same. Always calling me, checking if I’m dead.’ He seemed to have got onto a subject he liked and started waving his hands, imitating someone I presumed to be his mum, saying, ‘Text me when you get there! Call me to say you’re safe!’
I made a small half-laugh sound, hoping to put an end to the conversation, but he carried on:
‘I mean, I’m thirty in July and she’s still like that. Never stops. Is your mum the same?’
My stomach gave a small lurch. ‘No,’ I said, looking down at the dark screen of my phone in my hands. ‘No, she was… something else.’
He seemed to take this as an end to the chat, and I was relieved when we started to inch our way down Haymarket in silence.
The young man was right: what should have been an eighty-minute journey became two and a half hours. By the time I stepped through the front door and into the lounge, I’d already worked myself up into something of a state.
‘Caroline,’ Alec called from the lounge, ‘you’ve been ages. I had to eat without you.’
How can he be thinking about his stomach at a time like this? I thought to myself as I walked through into the lounge. He was lying back on the sofa in his jeans and a casual light-pink shirt. My eyes flicked over him and even in my distracted state I noticed three things: his slightly flushed appearance, the lack of socks on his feet, and, from where his shirt had ridden up at the side, the fact that the waistband of his underwear was a different colour to the pair he had been wearing when making breakfast that morning. To many people, these details would hardly be perceived, but to me – to the experienced eye – they shouted out, loud and clear. He had the TV on, playing BBC News, with a reporter speaking from somewhere outside, with flickering blue lights in the background.
‘When there wasn’t an attack over Christmas, apart from that Eurostar thing, I thought maybe that was it,’ he said, his eyes on the screen. ‘But I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened again.’ He pointed the control at the screen, lowering the volume. ‘Was the journey dreadful?’ he asked, turning his eyes to me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I can’t get hold of Jessica.’ I tried to make the words sound as light as possible, but sensing the rise of tears behind my eyes, I walked away from him and into the kitchen. I reached for a large glass and filled it with water, my eyes flicking to the drying rack, loaded with plates and a saucepan. And two wine glasses. Two of them. Just sitting there, upside down. I turned my back on them, wishing I hadn’t seen them, and took a long, deep glug of the cool water.
Alec must have wandered in behind me, because when I turned back towards the doorway, he w
as standing in front of it, looking confused and concerned. ‘Jessica? But she’s in Somerset.’
I nodded, ‘I know. But I’d like to speak to her. She might be… upset.’
He looked even more confused. ‘Yes, but, well, this isn’t the first thing like this that’s happened. She’ll be getting used to it now. Like the rest of us.’
I felt my eyes flare. ‘Are you implying I shouldn’t be upset with the idea of a bunch of sociopaths gunning down innocent people? That our nearest major city is fast becoming a warzone?’ I was talking quickly, my bottled-up worry about Jessica flowing freely into my diction, making me garble my words.
Alec watched me, his eyebrows raised. ‘Christ, you’re sounding hysterical. London isn’t a warzone.’
I didn’t have the drive to fight him. I took out my phone and went back to the lounge. Once inside the room, I stood in front of the now muted TV and phoned Jessica again. Voicemail. ‘Hi, it’s Mum. Getting a little worried now – just phone me so I know you haven’t fallen down a ditch or something!’
I knew the closing few words probably sounded manically bright and happy, but it was too late. Jessica would hear the message, roll her eyes and tell me she was fine, and then she’d return home as normal tomorrow and all my concerns would be for nothing.
Welcome to the O2 messaging service…
I turned back to the TV. The news announcer was issuing us with an update: the newly calculated death toll stood at seventeen.
It was the middle of the night when we heard the doorbell. Some parents speak of denial when they’re told the worst. Their brains refuse to believe it. Mine didn’t. I knew, as soon as I heard the doorbell at two in the morning, that I wouldn’t be seeing my little girl ever again. I knew it throughout every fibre, every muscle, every bone.
Part of me expected them to tell me Jessica had been hit by a car on some road in Minehead. Or perhaps fallen over and fatally injured herself on some long country walk. But it became clear very quickly, from the first words the two kind police officers said to me as they sat down in the living room, that this wasn’t an accident. My daughter had been murdered in the terrorist attack on Stratford station. They had checked her debit cards, and her 16–25 Student Rail Card, which included photo ID. They were sure they hadn’t got it wrong, but they would need either me or Alec to formally identify her.
‘This… this must be… this can’t be…’ Alec said in consternation, running his hand through his bed-ruffled hair. ‘There must… But she’s in Somerset…’
I couldn’t speak. The young police detective was saying something, but it had all started to blur and slow down, and I couldn’t make the room stay still. I just sat in silence. Eventually I became aware that Alec was trying to talk to me – something about if Jessica had told me she was going back to London. I shook my head. ‘She wasn’t supposed to be there… She wasn’t supposed…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. I walked over the soft carpet to the large windows that faced onto the garden. I looked out into the darkness, and for a second I thought I could see the outline of a slide and a swing, which we had bought when Jessica was a child. But as I took a step closer to the glass, I could see the lawn was empty. As it has been for years.
‘Caroline?’ Alec said, as if he’d just asked me a question and he was prompting me for an answer.
After a moment or two, I stepped away from the window, and walked back to be with my husband so we could listen to the two police officers describe how our daughter died.
Chapter Five
The Boy
When I was six, maybe seven years old, my dad pulled me from the back seat of his van from under an old blanket. I was in pain and had been crying, and he told me to ‘grow up’ and ‘get in the house’. Inside he ran a bath for me and lifted me in as I was still too short to climb in myself. I told him then that it was the worst day – the worst day of my life. And I didn’t want to go in the van. Ever again. He told me to shut up. To have my bath and be quiet. Then he said that I would know lots of bad days. Many worse than this one. And one day, when I was older, they would all blur into one.
There was one bad day though, years later, that would never blur into all the others. It would stand out as if written in fire on my mind.
I saw it on the BBC News website. That red globe with the rings round it that alerts you to a breaking news story was at the top of the page. Reports said shots fired at Stratford Station, East London. I watched as the facts became clearer. The Met were at the scene, along with special armed first responders who floated around London waiting for things like this to happen. I had to go and be sick for a bit. I knelt on the bathroom floor and let my dinner from earlier pour out of me. I’ve always hated being sick – I mean, no one likes it, but I especially don’t. But this time, I didn’t really think about it. I just thought of her.
I kept the ‘Live Updates’ feed open on my desktop for the rest of the evening and into the night, watching the news roll in. Sometimes, when the BBC updates were slow, I switched over to Twitter where rumours spread like STIs, but disturbing details had a habit of floating to the surface quicker than on the official news sites. It was all a mass of opinions, retweets, videos and photos that may or may not have been taken from the scene. They started to fill my newsfeed. Some showed police and dancing blue lights outside the entrance of Stratford station. Others had images of people being evacuated from the Westfield shopping centre next to the station, their hands held above their heads. Some photos even showed bodies and people running over them, desperate to get to the exits.
At around half past midnight, nearly three hours after the news alert popped up on my screen, the BBC website updated the headline to say the police had confirmed ‘multiple fatalities’. The Metropolitan Police hadn’t yet released an official death count, but the word ‘multiple’ hit me between the eyes and then sank in, slowly and horribly, like a slow-burning headache, spreading across my temple, making my whole face vibrate. She’s going to be OK, I told myself. She will be OK. I’ll text her, I decided. I reached for my phone and hit the Facebook Messenger app icon.
I’m worried. I’ve just seen the news. I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you. Please tell me you’re safe.
More hours passed and the message went unseen and unanswered. The Daily Mail was leading its homepage with the heading ‘TERROR STRIKES THE EAST END’. The text underneath said a group of masked men with machine guns opened fire on people waiting for a train at Stratford station, East London and that explosions had been heard coming from the Westfield shopping centre. The Guardian’s report was similar, though didn’t mention the rumour of explosions.
My message remained unanswered. I typed:
Please. I get that you’re probably mad. I’m really sorry. I can explain why I didn’t meet you. Please can you just tell me you got home safe. Please?
And clicked send.
Three hours later I returned to the bathroom and was sick again, even though I had very little left to throw up. A small knock at the door made me start.
‘What’s going on?’ It was my mum’s voice.
I told her I was OK and she should go back to sleep.
‘Were you being sick?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but I’m fine now. Just go back to sleep. It must be flu or something.’
A few moments’ pause, then I heard her say, ‘Or those dodgy fish fingers,’ and then the sound of her moving back to her bedroom. I went to the sink and turned the cold tap on and threw handfuls of water onto my face, soaking my clothes, the cold temperature making my face tingle. It felt good. As if it was giving me strength. Brought me back to my senses.
I tried to tell myself everything was going to be OK. I was just being silly. The attack happened an hour after we were supposed to meet. I couldn’t imagine anyone would linger an hour, waiting for a date to show up. It wasn’t just a date, though, was it? I ignored the little voice in my head and left the bathroom. On the landing I paused to remove the sodden T-shirt and boxers
and threw them into the washing basket we keep near the airing cupboard, then grabbed some old pyjamas that had been in there for ages and pulled them on. They felt soft and smelt clean and comforting. Reminded me of when I was a kid. I walked quickly back to my room and almost yelled with shock when I saw my brother sitting at my desk.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I hissed at him, trying to keep my voice low.
‘I saw your light was on. Have you heard about Stratford?’
‘Yes. Can you go? I’m not feeling well.’
‘It was on your laptop screen. It says seventeen dead.’
I thought I was going to be sick again.
‘I need to sleep.’ I tried not to shout. I just needed him to leave.
‘Why are you wearing those?’ he said, looking at the pyjamas.
‘I was sick on my clothes,’ I lied. I couldn’t be bothered to explain about the water. ‘I want to sleep.’
‘OK, OK.’ He took his hands away from the keyboard and walked out, closing the door behind him.
Back on my computer, I saw the BBC’s site had been updated with the new death toll, as he’d said. They also had one of those bullet-point timelines summarising the confirmed information. I clicked on the link and read through it – every single one. Each paragraph of the article felt like a physical pain. I stumbled away from the computer and realised I was shaking. From the floor I found a hoodie and pulled it on and then collapsed onto my bed. Instead of going properly under the sheets, I backed myself into a corner and pulled the duvet around me so I was cocooned in.
I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes. No dreams came to me that night, surprisingly. They would arrive another day.
