So it wasn’t my favourite place. But this, this was terrible. My mouth was dry, I kept trying to swallow but I couldn’t. My heart was racing and the rush of adrenalin had made my wrists prickle and the back of my neck burn.
This was real, this was savage. Standing there in the almost silent crowd, realisation dawning. Murmurs, whispers. ‘A bomb.’
Turning to each other, looking into each other’s eyes and finding our own disbelief and horror mirrored there. There was clamour from the sirens and the alarms, the helicopter above, but we were quiet. Quiet and calm.
I stood for ages, bewildered. I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. The police asked us to leave, to clear the area. It finally sank in that there was no way I’d be meeting up with Debbie Gosforth today. A clutch of German football supporters in Lederhosen and multi-coloured knitted top hats asked me the way to their Princess Street hotel in subdued voices.
At long last I turned and began to walk home. It would be pointless waiting for a bus. As I made my way down Wilmslow Road people were stopping to exchange stories. Strangers in the city talking to each other with ease, united in crisis.
I’d no idea how many people might be dead, dying, hurt. Shocked rigid that this had happened here on a bright Saturday morning in a place always thronging with people.
The news hadn’t reached my household. Ray Costello and his son Tom were in the garden, along with Maddie and Digger. I stood there, waiting for some reaction. Nothing. Ray finally clocked that I was behaving peculiarly.
‘Sal?’ he enquired, throwing the ball to Tom and walking my way.
‘There’s been a bomb,’ I said, ‘in town.’
He paled. ‘Oh, God.’
I was so glad that there was someone at home to tell. It wasn’t always easy living as we did, two single parents, each with a child, but I realised how much of a family the four of us were and how important that was to me. Ray and I don’t have a relationship, not a sexual relationship, though people often assume we do. We started out as co-tenants, sharing the rent and the chores and taking turns to baby-sit, but over time we’ve become good friends and the arrangement has grown into something solid. We’ve built a home together, somewhere we belong, safe and welcoming. A good place to raise our children.
The kids picked up the vibes immediately. Maddie looked over at me anxiously.
‘I’m fine,’ I reassured them. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Ray followed me in. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘The Arndale, I think. It was all blocked off.’ I put the radio on.
I couldn’t stop shaking.
I listened to the local radio all afternoon, my eyes brimming with tears each time they read the headlines. It seemed as though no one had died though there were many people injured. Sunday was Father’s Day and town had been full of children off to get something nice for Daddy. My mind kept turning to the people who’d have to live with the results of today for the rest of their lives. Had Debbie Gosforth been caught up in the blast? I’d leave it over the weekend, try ringing her on Monday.
Mid-afternoon, our lodger Sheila rang; she was visiting friends in Blackburn for the weekend. Were we all right? What was going on? They’d heard about it on Radio 4 news. We exchanged words of shock. She would delay returning home, she told us; apparently there were no trains in or out of Victoria Station.
By the end of the day they were still talking about the injured rather than the dead. The first witnesses were on television; shoppers, medics.
The coverage rolled on all weekend. No one had been killed. It was a miracle. And in the teeth of all the chaos they went ahead with the football at Old Trafford – Germany versus Russia.
On Monday I rang my client.
‘It’s Sal Kilkenny, we were going to meet on Saturday. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I got stopped on the way in. It’s a shock though. Where I work, it’s on Deansgate – it’s in the cordon, you can’t get in. I rang the boss to see what was happening. Even he can’t go in yet. He’s no idea if the shop’s all right or when he’ll open up again. It’s awful. He doesn’t know if the insurance will cover it. He doesn’t even know if he can pay us.’ She sighed.
