When I call Bruce he’s shocked and concerned, says it’s best to go with the system at the moment, frustrating as it is. He’s going to keep in touch and asks if there’s anything he can do, or anyone he can call. I don’t know. I don’t want it to become a big thing, maybe let one or two mutual friends know.
There’s a passenger talking to a reporter outside Edgware Road, sounding shaken and describing what he can remember. As the tube pulled out of the station his eye was caught by a girl at the opposite end of the carriage who was standing by the doors reading a book. He was looking at her immersed in her book; he said she glanced up for a moment and smiled, he noticed her big eyes and how attractive she was, then the next moment there was a blast and he watched her fly backwards out through the window or door.
I can only stare at the screen in horror and disbelief. He could be describing Jenny. Don’t be so ridiculous, I tell myself. It’s not Jenny. It couldn’t be Jenny. The train was going in the wrong direction; he said it was going to Paddington. Jenny would be travelling away from Paddington, not towards it. But it sounded so like her, head buried in a book, everything he described. The reporter and camera have gone to another passenger. No, I want to scream at the television, come back to him; I want to find out more. I look around the room to say something and find I’m alone, no one to share it with. The moment has gone. When my mother and aunt come back into the room, I tell them about the interview and they watch with me for a while in the hope that it will be repeated. A number of eye-witness accounts are retold or rerun, but not this one and I wonder if I imagined it.
No one has mentioned going out since lunchtime. We all know the possibility has long gone.
I’ve looked at train times but connections are not good at this time of day, I wouldn’t arrive in London until late tonight and there’d be lots of hanging about on station platforms. My mother and aunt ponder the alternatives with me as we sit in front of the television.
Police release the promised casualty hotline number for people to call. It’s just after 4 p.m. I copy the number down from the screen and go into the dining room to call from the landline but when I dial the number nothing connects. Perhaps it isn’t activated yet? I go back into the sitting room and double check I’ve taken the number down correctly and try again. Nothing!
I keep trying, and finally get an engaged tone. Over and over again I try to get through and all I get is engaged, engaged, and engaged.
‘Can’t you get through?’ my mother asks.
‘No,’ I answer, slightly impatiently.
Vanda calls again; she’s spoken to James and had much the same conversation as I had earlier. It doesn’t make any logistical sense that Jenny could be caught up in the explosions. We keep telling each other the same thing. She’s also spoken to a friend whose husband works in London. He doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to get home because of the transport situation. Vanda said she’s been trying the casualty hotline number also, as has James. Apparently operators can’t deal with the level of calls.
I keep trying and finally get through. Someone takes down Jenny’s name and details plus some details from me. I’m given a reference to quote. As soon as there’s any news someone will be in touch; meanwhile if I hear from Jenny can I call and let them know, quoting the reference? End of call. I don’t know what I expected but, after the ardours of getting through, it seemed so matter of fact and all too brief.
My cousin Sharon calls from Manchester and I tell her about wanting to go to London and the difficulty with connections. She’s back on the line a few moments later saying her husband Mike and middle daughter Joanne were looking up train details on the computer, and then asks if I’d like her to come with me to London. There’s a pause, I can’t speak and nod my head before getting out an emotional ‘yes’. In that second’s pause time rolls back to another phone call, in the middle of the night, when I picked up the phone to hear my cousin’s voice telling me her baby Matthew had died. That time it was me asking ‘Do you want me to come?’ Simply that, and Sharon answering, ‘Yes.’
I stop off to tell the others that Sharon is coming with me to London and then head for the bathroom, locking the door and sitting on the side of the bath. I feel the tears rising up and spilling over and I don’t know who or what I’m crying for: Matthew, Sharon, or myself. I wash my face and go back to the sitting room to answer what seems like twenty questions about the whys and wherefores of meeting up with Sharon and getting to London. ‘I’ve decided not to travel tonight but to leave as early as possible in the morning.’
‘I’m glad Sharon’s going with you.’
‘Is she coming here?’
‘Are you going to meet her?’
‘What will Sharon do about Megan?’ Megan is Sharon’s youngest daughter.
They ponder the questions between them while I fetch a notebook and pen from the bedroom to begin making a list of numbers and things to take with me.
My friend Yvette gave me a small leather-bound notebook for my birthday. I carry it around with me and use it for jotting down thoughts or names of authors and ‘must read’ book titles, music, CDs, things like that. Leafing through the pages looking for a clear sheet I come across a note to myself: ‘The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón’, followed by some hastily scrawled notes and publication details, then finally at the bottom of the page: ‘Destiny doesn’t do home visits!’ I stare at the words, remembering.
It was a phone conversation, telling Jenny what I was reading and about my determined efforts to get Shadow included in the book list of a reading group I belong to – there’s often a fierce contest! Jenny said she’d bought the book but hadn’t started reading it yet, she was in the middle of something else. I was telling her about a passage I’d just read about destiny. ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ she said, ‘you’ll spoil it.’ About a week and a half later I was in the kitchen, cooking, when the phone rang.
As I lifted the receiver Jenny’s voice rang out, no preamble, proclaiming loudly and delightedly, ‘I’ve just got to that bit about destiny, profound or what!’ I can hear her laughing voice as though it was a moment ago, not months.
Time has no meaning in memory.
I slowly turn over to a new page and carefully flatten the spine with the palm of my hand, almost reverently, before taking a deep breath, picking up the pen and writing: ‘Casualty Hotline 0870 1566344 Ref: N75 Met Police Hendon.’
However tentative, having a task to focus on helps; it provides a purpose and eases the tension. There are practicalities to attend to and a new set of activities to occupy the mind. My mother and aunt sit beside me while I make a list of London hospitals and telephone numbers, details of friends and contacts in London; together we check and double-check relevant family numbers stored on my phone. It’s methodical, doing what has to be done. Television becomes part of the background, reporters have nothing new to offer and so the news goes round and round in circles, with more time spent on commentary and analysis of the situation. The web of reporting is wider, advising the public that the Union Flag is flying at half mast over Buckingham Palace, productions in the West End have been cancelled, something that hasn’t happened since the end of the Second World War, apparently. We all pause, collectively, when something – or someone – specific and relevant catches our attention; moments of possibility that we cling to with hardly a breath between us.
My mother asks whether I have enough cash on me. There’s about thirty pounds in my purse so there’s a general emptying of purses and wallets to ensure I have enough ready money for the journey and don’t need to worry about looking for cashpoints. Practicalities! My purse is bulging with bits of paper and rubbish, receipts mostly, the odd paperclip and safety pin, a stub of pencil even. I sift through it all on the sofa, coming across a couple of stray five-pound notes folded amongst a distinctive green M&S receipt. Supermarket receipt