Swimming Upstream (22 page)

“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.”

When I woke at four the next morning, Zara was still
curled up on the sofa. She was so still that I started to worry that something
had happened to her in the night, but when I bent down next to her I could feel
her breath gently tickling my cheek and I realised that my worry was
irrational. People didn’t just die like that, in the night, for no reason. All
the same, I poked my head round Catherine’s door. She too was asleep on her back,
snoring gently.

I showered and dressed and headed off to work.

I was producing the Breakfast Programme that week.
Sandy, my boss, looked round the studio door. He was a kind, tired, grey-haired
man in his early sixties. He was of the old school that still believed in life
after work and thought that people who wanted to take a lunch break or go home
after an eight hour shift had a point. “You here again?” he said. “I must sort
those rotas out.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

“How are you getting on?” he asked.

“Clive's down at Leadenhall Street with Tommy now,”
I told him. “We’ve got a piece lined up on the damage to St Ethelburga’s and
the double hit on the Baltic Exchange. And we've got the Home Secretary on cue
after the headlines.”

“Well done,” said Sandy. “Great work.” I gave him
a half smile and put my headphones back on. Sandy held the door open. “You
okay?” he mouthed at me. I smiled again and nodded.

“Good morning, and welcome to the Breakfast Show,”
said Jo Castle, the morning presenter, into my headphones.

I waved my arm at Sandy, who stuck his thumb up at
me and closed the studio door.

''This last year has been the worst for terrorist
attacks,” Jo was saying. “In January the IRA breached security for the second
time to strike at Whitehall minutes after the Prime Minister had left. And it’s
barely more than a year since the City was rocked by the biggest explosion ever
on the mainland, which left three people dead and eighty injured.”

“Home Secretary on line three,” said Nikki
Sanders, the show's PA, into my headphones.

“... and finally,” said Jo, “The manager of one of
London's leading teaching hospitals has resigned less than a fortnight before a
report was due to go to the Health Secretary naming his hospital, St
Bartholomew's, as one of the four facing closure under the NHS internal market
...”

“Back to the bomb,” I said to Jo. “Home Secretary
on cue.”

I flicked the intercom off and sat back. Then I
leaned forward and flicked it on again. “Ask him about Barts as well!” I said. “Where
will they take the injured next time? Ask him that!” A sea of faces looked up
at once and stared at me through the glass from the newsroom. I realised too
late that I'd pressed the wrong switch and was loudly and clearly on air.

Sandy poked his head round the door again. “You
okay?” he asked again.

I nodded at Sandy, and mouthed the words “sorry”.

The phone rang. “It’s for you,” said Nikki.

Sandy closed the door. I pulled my headphones off
and picked up the phone. It was Zara.

“You blame me, don’t you?” she said. “You think I
was involved.”

My heart flipped in surprise at her tone. “In
what?”

“The bomb.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Because I work at Barts.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I heard you just now,” she said. “On the radio. That
was meant for me. Why can’t you just say it to my face?”

“Say what?” I sat back in my chair, baffled.

“Forget it,” said Zara, and put down the phone.

When the programme was over I telephoned Zara
back, but there was no reply.

At the end of my shift Sandy wanted to see me

“You don’t seem yourself,” he said kindly. “Is
anything bothering you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’m just a bit
tired.”

“What you witnessed yesterday… well, it was a big
thing. You may be suffering from some sort of post-trauma shock.”

I considered what he was saying. I didn’t want him
to think I couldn’t handle this sort of pressure: one big story and I collapse.
And I was beginning to realise that it wasn’t just yesterday’s trauma that I
was re-living when I closed my eyes. Everything was coming back to me, in
waves.

“I’ll be fine, Sandy. Honest.”

“Well, go home. Get some rest. But if you find
yourself feeling low, you come and find me, okay? There are people you can talk
to,” he said. “It’s not a sign of weakness. This sort of thing happens more
often than you might think.”