Swimming Upstream

15

A few days later Catherine and I caught the tube down to the Barbican where Catherine was meeting her friends for rehearsals. I had tried ringing Zara but got no answer. As it was a Saturday I decided to travel down with Catherine and surprise her instead. I knocked on the door and Shelley answered.

“She’s up in her room,” she said. “She’s been up there since yesterday. I can’t get her to come down.”

When I got upstairs Zara was curled up in bed, crying. She looked exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept.

“Zara? What’s wrong?”

“It’s James,” she said. “He didn’t want to see me last night. We had a bit of a row.”

“Why?” I sat down on her bed.

“He said he had important things to do today, a flying exam or something, and he had to get ready. And he made me go.”

“Well, you should understand that Zara. You’ve got your own exams coming up soon.”

“I don’t believe him. I think he was just giving me the brush-off. He’s had enough of me.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I’ve changed. I need him now and he can sense that. And now he’s rejecting me. I can’t bear the rejection. It hurts so much.”

“Zara, listen, darling,” I said, bending down and stroking her back. She had always been thin, but I hadn’t realised quite how bony she had got lately. “You’re reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just as he says, it’s an important day for him.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I know what it is. I told him I loved him. And now he doesn’t want me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Why? Have you spoken to him?”

“Well, of course not. I just meant…”

“He gave me a look, Lizzie. As if to say “I know”. And that’s why.”

“That’s why what? What are you talking about, Zara?”

Zara said nothing.

“Look, lying in bed’s not going to do you any good,” I said. “Get yourself dressed. I’ll go and make you a cup of tea.”

There were three cups of tea in the room already, all cold, sitting on the mantelpiece. I gathered them up and poured them down the bathroom sink. I went downstairs and put the kettle onto the stove. When it had whistled, I poured water into the teapot.

Suddenly there was a rumbling like thunder outside, which went on continuously for several seconds, getting louder and louder, as if it was getting closer to us. Then the windows rattled hard and the kettle wobbled on the gas ring.

“What the bloody hell was that?” yelled Shelley, running into the kitchen. Zara appeared in the doorway in her nightdress.

“I don’t know. Can I use the phone?” I asked.

“Of course.”

I picked up the phone and called Sandy, my boss.

“Can you get in?” he said.

“What is it?”

“A bomb. Bishopsgate. Outside the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Apparently it's massive.”

“I’m in the city, not far away from there.”

“Perfect. Can you get yourself straight down there? Tom will meet you there in the radio car as soon as possible.”

“I’m on my way.”

I glanced over at Zara, who looked petrified.

“Zara? Are you okay?” said Shelley, putting her arm around her.

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “Sorry.”

I grabbed my jacket and ran out into the street. A black cab passed and pulled up to my frantic waving. As I opened the door, another loud explosion hit the air like a giant gunshot and the cab rocked visibly in front of me.

I leapt in and shut the door. “Bishopsgate,” I said. “As fast as you can, please.”

“Bloody hell,” said the driver.

We drove quickly through the quiet streets of Clerkenwell and onto London Wall. It was easy to find where we were going. A huge cloud of smoke sat above the City skyline, like a beacon, or some sick parody of Hiroshima.

There were at least nine or ten ambulances on the scene when I arrived and two double-decker buses which had been commandeered to take the injured to hospital. Teams of fire-fighters were standing by and the police had already begun cordoning off the area. Nobody stopped me, however, as I picked my way through the street-long devastation of injured bodies and sheets of broken glass.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to witness and certainly not three years at a small radio station in Cambridge. They didn't teach you on journalism courses what a hundred people shouting or crying out in pain sounded like, or about the sight of people lying bleeding, possibly dying, right before your very eyes.

There were people everywhere trying to help, lifting panels of glass, fallen scaffolding and metal from on top of the injured bodies. One man was holding another man's head with his coat wrapped around it, despite the blood that was matted into his own hair and splashed over the back of his shirt. A woman was sitting on the kerb and holding the hand of a younger girl who was lying in the road, her skirt pulled up above her bloodied knees. She looked about fifteen; she could have been her daughter. Her ankle looked as if it was on back to front.

Windows had exploded in every building within a five-hundred metre radius of the Bank, blowing debris from the bigger buildings and offices through basement windows into the local cafés and restaurants. A middle-aged man in a suit was stumbling towards me. His eyes were wide and terrified and there was blood running out of both of his ears.

“I can't hear!” he called out, turning his head from side to side, scanning the streets frantically for help. “I can't hear anything!”

I stopped him and took his arm, and pointed in the direction of one of the ambulances that was edging its way through the barricades of fallen bricks. He gripped onto my arm tightly and I walked with him, tripping through the dirt and broken glass.

A few yards from the ambulance I stopped in horror. A man was lying in a crumpled heap, blood seeping from cuts all over his body. He was jerking and twitching, his limbs moving rhythmically, involuntarily. His eyes looked frightened, but unfocused. My stomach tightened and I caught my breath. Memories flooded back, making me sick to the stomach. It was my father lying there. I could see it all perfectly clearly. The road. The car. The man who had hit him, standing beside me, saying “Oh my God. I didn’t see him. I’m so sorry.” My father was lying there, dying before my very eyes while I stood there beside him, paralysed with fear.

And then he was gone and it was a man I didn’t know, a young man with dark hair and a dark coat, laying there on the pavement. I could feel myself trembling, but it was nothing in comparison to the relentless shaking of the man before me. I bent down beside him and my legs gave way, so that I fell onto my knees on the pavement. I steadied myself with one hand on the ground and tentatively reached out an arm to touch his coat. I noticed one of his shoes was missing.

“It's okay,” I told him. My voice came out all high-pitched and squeaky. I cleared my throat. “It's going to be okay,” I said again.

I looked around, desperately. A paramedic arrived and took his arm. “Do you know his name?” he asked me. I shook my head. The paramedic bent down to face him. He took his arm and felt for his pulse, speaking reassuringly all the while. A few minutes later a second paramedic arrived and placed an oxygen mask over his mouth. I tried to stand and move away, but my head was spinning, so I sat down again on the pavement.

“Okay, my love?” asked the first paramedic.

I nodded.

“Alright,” said the second, as between them they lifted the man and strapped him onto a stretcher. “Off we go.”

“Will he be okay?” I asked, weakly, from where I was sitting.

I didn't hear the answer.

A policeman had stopped behind me. “If you’re not injured I'm going to have to ask you to move back away from here,” he said. I nodded and stumbled towards the cordon and wobbled down the street.

I met the radio car in Leadenhall Street, not far from the Baltic Exchange.

“Thought to be a ton of explosives,” said Tom, poking his head out of the driver’s side window. “A truck bomb, they reckon.” I went round and got into the passenger seat next to him. “Jesus Christ,” he added. “You're looking a bit green.”

I leaned my head back against the seat.

“What time is it?”

“Twenty-five past.”

“Time to call the studio. They'll want a two-way.”

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“Let's get it over with,” I said.

After the news was over Tom sat beside me in sympathetic silence while I leaned out of the car and was sick on the pavement.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, finally.

I nodded. “Let's get out of here.”

“Do you want me to take you home?” asked Tom.

I shook my head. “Next stop, Scotland Yard and then ... St Bartholomew's A & E.”

I got home at eleven that night. Catherine was up waiting for me. I sank down onto the settee. Catherine got up and poured me a large brandy.

“I've been listening in,” she said. “And watching the news. I can't believe it. It's just… unbelievable.”

“I've just seen Shelley and Tim,” I said.

“Where?”

“At the hospital. They're working flat out. There just aren't enough staff; so they've both been called in. But it's still not enough. There are no beds. There were people just lying on stretchers in the corridors, some of them had been there for hours.”

“I just can’t believe it’s happened again,” said Catherine. “Although I guess there must be a reason,” she continued.

“A reason? Are you trying to tell me this is the Universe unfolding as it should, or something?”

Catherine turned away defensively. “Well,” she said, after a few moments. “Maybe. Maybe there are things we just can't control. Maybe this was meant to happen for some reason we don’t yet understand. Maybe it is just destiny, I don't know.”

“Nice destiny,” I said.

“Look, I know how you're feeling,” she said gently. “I understand - I feel the same as you do. But I can't give up believing that there's some higher power at work. Otherwise it makes a mockery of our existence; then, there'd be no point to anything.”

“Maybe there is no point,” I said. “Maybe it's all meaningless. Maybe this is all just some sick joke.”

“This isn’t like you,” mumbled Catherine. “You’ve got bitter,” she said. “You used to be a bottle-half-full person.”

“Well, sometimes it’s just not looking that full,” I said.

We sat in silence for a while.

“So have you seen Zara?” said Catherine. “Did she go in to the hospital?”

“No. She wasn’t there,” I said. “I hope she’s okay. She seemed a bit fragile this morning.”

At that moment there was an urgent tapping on the window next to the fire escape and Zara’s head appeared. I opened the window and she climbed in and fell into my arms.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” I asked, hugging her. She had no coat on and she was freezing cold. “Why didn’t you come round the front?”

“It was James,” she said, shivering. “Or, should I say his real name, Mickey Finn.”

I stifled a laugh. “That’s not his real name, Zara.”

“Yes, it is!” she protested. “He told me.”

“It’s a joke,” I said.

“Oh, this is no joke,” said Zara, shaking her head violently. “You have no idea.”

“What was James?” Catherine wanted to know.

“The bomb,” said Zara.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

“It was him!” Zara screeched impatiently, then checked herself. She ran over to the window and pulled back the curtain. She spun round and faced us, solemnly. “He’s IRA,” she said.

“What?” Catherine and I both said, in unison.

“Shhh,” hissed Zara. “They’ll hear you.”

“Who?” I turned round and glanced at the window. “Who are you talking about? Who are ‘they’?”

“I told you,” said Zara, sighing and rolling her eyes. “They’re IRA.”

I said, “I don’t think so Zara.”

“It’s true. I have evidence. I saw them yesterday. I saw James. Mickey. Talking to his house mate, this guy, whose name I’ve never even been told - it’s like you said, it’s all hush-hush.” Zara was speaking so quickly, I could barely follow what she was saying.

“And?”

“And he said ‘all set then’, and James scratched his head - which was of course the signal - and that was it, James says ‘yes’ and that’s when he told me to go.”

“Because he had an exam today,” I reminded her.

“But that’s just it, it wasn’t! It was just a smokescreen, like Martin said.”

“Martin didn’t mean it,” said Catherine, who was sitting on the sofa looking baffled.

“He rang me,” said Zara, her eyes wide. “He told me it all went well, that it was a success.”

“His exam,” I insisted.

“No!” yelled Zara. “He wanted to see me, to celebrate. But I know he knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That I know,” said Zara, going to the front window, pulling back the curtain again and peering out. “He gave me a look. And I looked back. And he knows.” She paused. “That car shouldn’t be out there,” she said.

“What car? Why?” I said, going to the window. I looked out, but all I could see was my neighbour’s Volvo.

Catherine stood up and went into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with a glass of brandy.

“Here,” she said to Zara. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” said Zara.

“Just brandy,” said Catherine. “Come on sweetheart. Sit down and drink it. And then you can tell us everything, from the start.”

Zara looked at Catherine for a moment with something that almost looked like hostility. But then she seemed to change her mind, took the glass, and sat down on the sofa. She kicked her shoes off, and folded her legs underneath her, and took little sips at her drink.

Catherine and I sat and watched her.

“Strong,” she said, smiling.

“I think we all need a strong one,” I said. “I’ll go and get the bottle.”

Zara smiled and laid her head back against the cushion. I got up and went into the kitchen. When I came back in again with the brandy bottle, Catherine had her finger to her lips and Zara was asleep.

“What did you give her?” I whispered.

“Liquid morphine,” Catherine whispered back. “Had it for my tooth. It’s done the trick. Anyway, she was exhausted.”

“Good thinking.” I got up and fetched a blanket, and folded it over Zara’s small frame. She was out for the count. I sank back into the sofa opposite. “Sorry for being grumpy,” I said. “I guess I picked the wrong week to give up smoking,”

Catherine smiled and shrugged. She held up the brandy bottle. “So. Is this half full or half empty?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I held out my glass. “Let’s make it easy. Let’s just drink it all.”