I was shaking as I phoned the police. ‘There’s rioting all over London,’ the police operator told me. ‘So it might be some time before anyone gets there. Just stay in your flat. Whatever you do, don’t go outside.’
I moved away from the window after speaking to her, and was crouched in the hallway when my phone rang. ‘Dad and I have been listening to the news,’ Mum said, sounding less worried than she would have done if she’d known the true situation. ‘Is there rioting where you are?’
‘It’s fine,’ I told her, walking from the hallway into my bedroom at the back of the flat and closing the door as I spoke, so that she wouldn’t hear the sounds from the street.
I didn’t know the neighbours, who’d only recently moved in to the flat next door. But after I’d reassured Mum, I knocked on their door and asked if I could sit with them for a while, because I didn’t want to be on my own. Something had been thrown through their living-room window just a few minutes earlier, and after they’d shown me the shards of glass that covered the carpet we sat in their bedroom, as far away from the street as we could get, and waited for the police to arrive. In fact, things had already started to calm down a bit by the time they got there, and I decided to go back to my place and try to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
It felt as though my head had only just touched the pillow when my phone rang again. It was Connie this time, and her voice was tight with anxiety as she asked, ‘Are you in the flat, Alice? It’s on TV. I’m watching it now. They’ve set fire to the shops underneath. You’ve got to get out.’
I’d been so tired I’d fallen into bed fully clothed and I was just grabbing my suitcase when there was a knock on the front door. The fireman who was standing there when I opened it told me, ‘We’re evacuating the building. They’ve fire-bombed the shop on the corner. You need to leave – now.’ So I followed my neighbours out on to the smoke-filled street, where the last of the rioters were being herded past the burning buildings and around the corner by police.
Someone had opened up a café a few doors down from the flat, to provide a refuge for people who’d had to be evacuated from their homes. It was about four o’clock in the morning by that time, and all the other people there looked as exhausted and dazed as I felt. Fortunately, the fire didn’t spread to my flat, and when the fire-fighters eventually got it under control, I was able to go back and try to sleep again for a couple of hours.
Someone from the letting agency was due to do an inventory later that morning, but I was so tired by the time he arrived that I left him to it. Cara was away for a couple of days, so she’d given me a key to let myself in to her flat, and although I had been planning to go there first to drop off my bag, being at work suddenly seemed like a much better option than sitting there on my own.
I worked at that time for a company that owned several art galleries, and when I emailed my boss to tell her what had happened and that I was going to be a bit late arriving at the office, she answered immediately, asking if I was all right and telling me to take the day off. I don’t think what had happened had really sunk in by that time. The adrenaline was still pumping around my body and although I was incredibly tired and shocked I wasn’t yet feeling particularly distressed, and my boss seemed to understand when I said I wanted to keep busy. So I did go in to work, and when I got there I was sitting at my desk talking to some of my colleagues about what had happened when Joe came over.
Joe held a senior position as head of a department at the company I worked for, and although I knew vaguely who he was I hadn’t ever spoken to him before. ‘I heard about your experience this morning,’ he said. ‘And I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’ He seemed genuinely concerned, so I assured him that I was fine, apart from being tired and finding it a bit difficult to process what I’d seen – the overturned cars, smashed windows, looted shops and people running riot through the streets. ‘I still think you need to go home,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a shock and when it catches up with you, home is the best place for you to be.’
He was right about the shock catching up with me. The adrenaline was already starting to subside and, as it did so, I was overcome by an almost paralysing weariness. So Joe got me a taxi, which the company paid for, and half an hour later I let myself in to Cara’s flat, with barely minutes to spare before exhaustion finally kicked in.
I sent Joe an email before I fell into bed, thanking him for the taxi and telling him he’d been right about home being the best place, which he answered immediately, saying, ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Just have a good rest. Joe X.’
I don’t sign off emails or texts with a kiss, except to family and close friends. But I know a lot of people do. So it probably wouldn’t have seemed particularly odd that Joe had done so if it hadn’t been for our relative positions at work and for the fact that we’d only spoken to each other for the first time that morning – although I was too weary to wonder about it by then.
I had just finished reading Joe’s email when Cara’s mum phoned to check that I’d been able to get into the flat and that everything was okay. It was while I was talking to her that the impact of the whole traumatic experience finally hit me and I had to end the call because I couldn’t stop sobbing. Then I went to bed and slept without waking until the following morning.
Joe made a point of coming to see me the next day, to ask if I was feeling better and if I’d managed to sleep. He sat on the edge of my desk in the large open-plan office for about half an hour, talking about what had happened and studying the diagram he asked me to draw to show exactly where the flat was in relation to where the rioting had kicked off in the street below.
Part of my job involved setting up exhibitions of paintings and sculpture at various galleries around the country, and although I hadn’t had any direct contact with Joe before then, he was ultimately responsible for my team. So there was nothing unusual in the fact that we were both included in the emails that were sent round to everyone a couple of days later suggesting we should all meet up for a drink after work one evening. We didn’t get the chance to talk to each other on that occasion, however, because I was held up at the office and didn’t make it to the bar until after Joe had left.
Meanwhile, what only a determined optimist would have referred to as my ‘love life’ was barely ticking over. Anthony, the married man I was ‘seeing’, had only been to my flat once during the few weeks prior to the night of the riots. But, based on the emails and texts he occasionally sent me – and on a great deal of wishful thinking – I still considered myself to be in a relationship with him. Not that my situation with Anthony had any relevance to how I felt about Joe. Although Joe was friendly and seemed very pleasant, I wasn’t interested in him in that way. So I was surprised to receive an email from him one day when I was doing some research in a large art gallery in London, asking if I’d like to meet for a quick coffee after work.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t,’ I emailed back. ‘I’m meeting some friends.’
His answer came almost immediately. ‘That’s a shame. I’m going to Berlin in the morning. I’ll be away for a week. Of course, we could always meet there for coffee …!’ To which I responded in the same jokey manner and was flattered when he suggested we should have a drink when he got back.
I did see him the following week, after his trip to Berlin, but he didn’t say anything about the emails or about getting together for a drink. So I sent a text to my best friend, Sarah, asking whether she thought I should mention it to him, and she answered, ‘Go for it! Just see what he’s like. You’ve been really miserable