She realised a little too late that she hadn’t paid. She heard the driver call out, ‘Come back, you bloody woman . . .’
She could see far down the street that Knightsbridge was cordoned off. She was sure she could smell death. She ran toward Beauchamp Place, where she regularly lunched with her friends, ran until the balls of her feet smarted and breathing hurt. Outside Harrods was mayhem. Police, panicked people, camera crews, ambulances, more panicked people, people on foot, people in cars, people on stretchers – she couldn’t look, and yet she looked, and searched and couldn’t see him. She asked an officer how bad it was. But she was just one panicked woman in a crowd of panicked people. As hard as she pushed to get closer – ‘How many hurt?’ – she was propelled back, authority figures growing stern, hands gripping her and telling her she couldn’t be allowed closer; there might be another attack.
Another attack.
He’s dead, she thought. While he was probably out buying her Christmas present, he had lost his life. Somehow, none of this would have happened if she had just been happy with him.
She stood in the middle of the push and shove of things, as police attempted to evacuate the whole area, inhaling the smell of blood and black smoke, wanting to vomit. She’d give anything for him to be alive. Anything. She would forget Eddy. She would stay. She’d be the wife Mark wanted her to be. She would never look back. She was freezing cold, and wet on her lower half.
She heard some American tourists talking about the bomb going off in Hans Crescent, about a mangled police car. Distantly, more sirens.
And then she saw him.
It seemed impossible, given the number of people. It was as though she had summoned him up and he had appeared on cue – maybe because, in the strange way that things fall, he had just heard her silent pledge that she wouldn’t leave him if he did. He was walking down Beauchamp Place, toward Knightsbridge, where she was standing like a lost puppy. He saw her a moment or two after she saw him. He was carrying a small green-and-gold Harrods bag. He didn’t seem hugely surprised – as though she made a habit of standing in the middle of Knightsbridge looking fraught.
He smiled.
She saw him, briefly, through the eyes of the young girl she had been when she had met him. As the intelligent, kind man she had looked up to, and loved. Who wasn’t her ideal. Who was flawed. But neither was she a perfect human being.
‘Evelyn,’ he said, as she walked toward him. He had the slackened posture of someone who’d had a drink, or three.
He held out his arms. She was numb when he circled her. He pressed his warm cheek lightly to hers. ‘What a thing!’ he said. ‘What a thing to happen!’
She could have cried at the tender feel of his cheek against hers. His skin was hot. He always burned up when he had been drinking.
‘You’re all right,’ she said, and looked up at him. ‘Thank God you’re all right. I had an awful premonition that you were going to be one of them . . . I was so worried!’
He kissed the centre of her forehead. ‘You shouldn’t have been, silly. I knew exactly what I wanted to buy, and was in and out of there in a few minutes. I went to San Lorenzo for something to eat.’ He hugged her tightly, the kind of embrace he hadn’t given her in so many years. She could feel every beat of his love for her in that hug. Even if he never said the words I love you again, she knew he did, that he always had and he always would.
When he let her go, he looked curiously at her face. ‘What’s wrong?’ He squeezed the thin tops of her arms. ‘And where’s your coat?’ He immediately took off his, and placed it around her shoulders. ‘Come on. Chin up. We’re safe. Life goes on. I would suggest we go home and have a drink. But don’t you have a flight to hurry off for?’
‘What flight?’ she said, her voice catching.
TWENTY-SIX
Alice
On Friday at 5:30 p.m., I have no choice but to go out for dinner with Victoria and a few of the girls from marketing. The fact that it’s Victoria’s birthday had completely skipped my mind. I’d popped out in my lunch hour and grabbed a card and a bookshop gift voucher. When she told me that she’d picked the same bar where I was first introduced to Justin’s friends, it seemed like one more reason why I should have just said I couldn’t go.
As is the way of these things, we don’t end up ordering right away because some of Vic’s friends are late and she wants to wait. My eye is constantly on my watch, and by 6:10, our main courses haven’t even arrived, and I am almost eating my own nerves. I have to get out of here. But how? The music is loud. The girls are chattering and looking at me, but I’m sure they can see I’m not here. I am searching for the waitress. Where is the bloody food? I’m lip-reading rather than listening. The smile is dying on my face. Someone is making a toast. Everyone is raising their glasses. I raise mine. All I can think is, I will be seeing Justin in less than an hour. In less than an hour, I will know.