i-want-more

7/7

Thursday 7th July

Following the DS, I was hungover, tired and deaf in my left ear (much more deaf than usual, I should add). Not a great start. I wandered into work like an animal that had just got out of hibernation. I was just settling in to a morning listening to Anthony and the Johnsons (nice and soothing) when it started.

There’s a major tube/train problem at Liverpool Street.
There’s been an explosion at King’s Cross.

One of my staff rings in: I’ve been in some sort of a train crash. I’m not hurt, but I’m shaking, and I’m covered in some kind of black powder. Go home, I say. Please ring when you get back there.

Mrs. West rings in. Are you OK? There’s something going off up there. I’m fine, I say. All in one piece, nothing to worry about. Only by that point, I am beginning to worry.

I text two of my sisters (the other two are abroad) to let them know I’m OK, in the hope that one will contact my mum.

A colleague comes round. Her husband is up at Tavistock Square. There are bodies everywhere, he’s told her. The top deck has just been blown clean off a double decker bus.

Tavistock Square. That’s where JJ works.

I begin to panic. I check my mobile (which hadn’t rung) – a voicemail message from JJ. There’s been a bomb blast. I’m fine. Please call me when you get this message. I try to return the call. Nothing. And again, and again, nothing. The fatigue and the hangover combine with the stress, and I cry.

Another staff member makes it into the office. He says, don’t get too comfortable. The word is that the police station next door has a suspect package in it.

My Mum rings. Are you alright? Sort of. Well, not really. Then the fire alarms start up. I have to go now Mum. Sorry. I put the phone down, put my fire warden jacket on and pick up my bag.

We get ushered into Red Lion Square. It’s chaos, albeit the polite kind. I try to keep department members together, while intermittently calling JJ. No luck. People ask, are you alright? To which I say, yes, I’m fine, but it’s obvious that I don’t look it. I keep getting hugs from people I never would have expected to care, which is nice, but it sets me off even more. A puffy red face and a yellow high-vis jacket is not a great look.

I call Niece number 4, she is the only person I can reach. I sob down the phone. She is petrified.

A woman in a suit approaches me and asks, can I get to Oxford Circus for my meeting, do you think? I shrug, you can go if you like. Not safe, though. She doesn’t really believe me. Can’t say I blame her - I wouldn’t believe me either.

From there everything becomes a bit of a blur. We are given conflicting instructions about what to do. Meet by which Sainsburys on High Holborn? There are THREE in half a mile of each other, for Pete’s sake! Stay away from buildings with glass. HOW? Every building near us is constructed of glass and virtually nothing else! Me and Timbob manage to keep a pocket of thirty-forty workmates close to the MD, who keeps everything together.

We get the word that the building has re-opened. The suspect package may indeed have been the ‘box of kittens’ that one of my more moronic colleagues suggested it was. I finally make contact with JJ. He makes it over to my office and we begin a slow trudge through the drizzle to Waterloo, with a deputation of my colleagues.

The fast train is held for us to run across the concourse to catch it. We get a double decker bus home and JJ refuses to sit upstairs. He saw the destroyed bus in up close earlier that day. The subsequent TV footage shows blood up the exterior walls of the BMA building, next to the entrance that JJ frequently uses.

At home, we have a stiff drink and run through the what-ifs. The rest of the day merges into one long minute of rolling TV coverage and phone and text messages from all over. By the time we can bear the thought of emerging into the world, it’s evening. And it is beautiful. The sun is shining and it’s hard to comprehend exactly what has taken place just nine miles up the river.

For the record, I was absolutely terrified. And part of me will never forget how that felt.

posted by deafdisco @ 9:02 pm