Incendiary

  Jasper Black was staring at me.

  —Are you alright? he said.

  I looked up at him. I realised I’d been grinning at Mr. Rabbit. I took a deep breath I could feel the emptiness inside me growing again.

  —I don’t understand. How come he isn’t burned?

  —It isn’t nice to say, said Jasper Black. But a lot of things survived because they were trapped under bodies.

  —Oh. Do you think these black stains are my boy’s blood then?

  —It’s impossible to say, he said. I think you should try not to think about such things.

  I hugged poor broken Mr. Rabbit. I was crying again.

  —How can I not think about it? Please tell me how I can stop thinking about it because that’s all I can think of. I can’t think about anything else not for one second it’s horrible horrible horrible. And I’m so scared all the time. I look at people and I see them blown to bits. Every teaspoon that drops sounds like bombs. I’m too scared to carry on even one more day. How can anyone carry on living in a world like this?

  Jasper Black sighed.

  —People keep themselves busy don’t they? he said.

  He turned to look out over London.

  —Look at all that, he said. Under each lightbulb is somebody keeping themselves busy. Exfoliating and applying the anti-wrinkle cream. Writing long sales reports people will only ever read the last page of. Agonising whether their cock is shrinking or the condoms are getting bigger. What you see down there is the real front line in the war against terror. That’s how people go on. Staying just busy enough so they can’t feel nervous. And do you know what they’re mostly busy doing? DIY. For a whole week after May Day the airports stayed closed and the DIY stores stayed open. It’s pathetic. People are laying their fears to rest under patio slabs. They’re grouting against terror.

  I looked away from the city and back at Jasper Black.

  —You don’t think much of people do you?

  He shrugged.

  —I’m a journalist, he said.

  —Well I’m a person. Pleased to meet you. My flat smells of chips. I do very ordinary things like go down the shops and get my family blown to bits. I don’t think you’d know the first thing about it. I really don’t know what you want with me Jasper Black. I suppose you get a thrill out of slumming it do you? Do you want us to have sex again is that it? Maybe you haven’t noticed I’m half dead with tubes sticking out of me. Or maybe you really do just want to help. Well if so then you can start by showing some respect for ordinary people because I am one.

  —I don’t think you’re being quite fair, said Jasper Black.

  —Oh really. Look me in the eye and tell me you just came here to help. I don’t think you know the meaning of it. I don’t think you have an unselfish bone in your body. I WISH YOU’D BEEN AT THAT GAME I WISH YOU’D GOT BLOWN UP INSTEAD OF MY HUSBAND AND MY BOY.

  Jasper Black stood up and stared at me. He stood there very tall and pale with the lights of London glittering below and the sky all red from the sunset.

  —Fine then, he said. Fine.

  He turned and walked away down the ward. I couldn’t bear it. The emptiness went mad inside me. I could feel its teeth biting at my stomach and its hands scratching against the inside of my skin. I shouted at him.

  —Stop. Oh please don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone. I’m so sorry Jasper. Don’t leave me here I have nobody. Nothing. NOBODY.

  Jasper Black stopped but he didn’t turn. He just stood there very still. I stopped shouting and I watched his back and I wondered what he was going to do. All the ladies on the ward and their visitors were gawping at us. You could see their sick eyes going between me and him. Their heads swung back and forth like in the crowd shots you get of Wimbledon. And it was your kind of Wimbledon Osama. The crowd was mostly dying and there weren’t any strawberries.

  Jasper Black took one slow step forward and then another one and there were tears streaming in my eyes by then so I didn’t see him walk out of the ward I just heard his footsteps on the lino slow at first and then getting quicker and then I heard the big safety-glass door of the ward open and swing shut behind him. After that it was very quiet for a bit and then a horrible sound began it was the sound of the ladies on the ward ooohing to each other at the scandal of it all in their sick little whispers. I put my hands on my ears to block the vicious cows out but I could still hear them so I started screaming to shut them all up and that’s when a doctor came and gave me a shot of something. After that I just lay very still and looked at the red glow on the inside of my eyelids.

  * * *

  Jasper came again the next night. I didn’t think he would. I smiled so wide I thought my face would snap in half. He brought fancy chocolates and we sat there for a while not saying anything just eating those chocolates and looking out at the view.

  —I’m sorry Jasper. I shouldn’t of made a scene.

  —Forget it, he said. I was condescending.

  —I felt bad because I cheated on my husband. I still do.

  He made a face.

  —Oh please. You loved your husband and your boy. That was never in question and what you did with me had nothing to do with it. You were scared. You just needed a little human contact. We all get scared.

  —Not you Jasper.

  —Especially me Jasper, he said.

  —What of? What does someone like you have to be afraid of?

  —Same thing as anyone, he said. Being alone.

  —What about your girlfriend?

  —Petra? said Jasper Black. Let me tell you a story about Petra. After you and I got separated I looked for you but then I gave up and I drove in to the paper. The front end of the car was a mess but it still went. All the way to work I was thinking why doesn’t Petra ring? As far as Petra knew I was at that match. So I was wondering why she didn’t call my phone to see if I was okay. I called her but all I got was the busy signal. I thought maybe the network was saturated. So. I arrived at the paper and the place was absolutely chaotic. I mean the last thing a Sunday newspaper wants is actual news to happen. Right? On any day of the week really but on Saturday afternoon especially. And when the news is that big. Well. The place was going nuts. They decided to spike the whole paper and go to press with just 4 pages. Anyone who’d made it in to the office was set to work. I was one of the last to arrive. There were roadblocks everywhere by this time. The tube was out. People couldn’t get around. So we had junior court reporters knocking up profiles of the possible terror suspects. The football editor was doing 15 hundred words on I SAW HELL. They had bloody 16-year-old interns for Christ’s sake pulling together REACTION FROM AROUND THE WORLD. There were 3 hours till deadline. The chief sub had a heart attack. He actually fell down dead on his keyboard. It was insane. You should have seen it.

  —Nah. You’re alright. It doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.

  —Nor mine, said Jasper. I just wanted to grab Petra and get us out of there as soon as humanly possible. But Petra wasn’t in her office. I asked around and nobody knew where she was. I started to worry. I was beside myself. I thought maybe something had happened to her in all the panic. And it had. Of course. Petra being Petra.

  —Was she alright?

  —More than alright, said Jasper. I found her in the editor’s office writing the leader. She was the only person in the building not running around like a headless chicken. I saw her through the glass wall. She was sitting there very calm and composed drinking a Diet Coke and writing 500 words on A NATION UNITED IN HORROR. I watched her nails clicking on the keyboard. Petra has lovely nails. I tapped on the glass and she looked up at me. That’s when it hit me. She looked at me as though I were a complete stranger. There was just this look of absolute blank incomprehension on her face. Then slowly I watched it change. I could see the precise moment when she recognised me. Me. Her partner of 6 years. Then I saw her raise one of those lovely manicured hands to her mouth and gasp. And I knew. She wasn’t gasping because I looked a mess w
ith my broken nose and blood on my jacket. She wasn’t gasping from relief that I’d survived. She was gasping because this was the first moment since it had happened that she had even remembered my existence in the world. And she knew that I saw this.

  Jasper wasn’t looking at me any more. He was looking out of the window. He was talking quietly.

  —So I stepped in to the editor’s office. Petra took her hands off the keyboard but she held them hovering just above it. As if I were interrupting her for fuck’s sake. We didn’t say anything. We just stared at each other for a minute and then I walked out. I walked all the way home 5 miles through the chaos. My face was swelling up and people were saying things to me that I couldn’t hear. It was like watching fishes in an aquarium. I just walked home and sat there very quietly on the sofa and when it got dark I just sat in the dark. Thinking. Petra turned up around 10 p.m. and switched the lights on. Look she said I’m sorry okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m glad you’re fine. I’m not fine I said to her. I can’t believe you would go to work before you even thought about me. Oh god Jas said Petra. I’ve said I’m sorry. But they let me write the leader. The leader Jas. Don’t you understand? They ran my leader word for word. This is just the hugest thing for me.

  Jasper sighed. He looked pale green in the fluorescents on the ward.

  —I just looked at her, he said. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so low. I looked at Petra and I thought god you are so pretty and so clever and so much fun and such a total fucking cold heartless bitch. And I could see her looking at me and thinking don’t do this to me you prick don’t make me feel guilty when I know damn well you’ve been playing away from home. She knows you see. She knows about you and me. God knows how but she knows. Maybe she just saw it in my eyes. So there we were. Looking at each other and hating each other but not saying anything. And that’s when I started to feel afraid. I looked at Petra and suddenly I realised it wasn’t just her. Everyone I know is cold and heartless. Nobody rang me that night to see if I was okay. And you know why? Because I am a fucking cold heartless cunt too. Why would anyone ring me?

  Jasper Black shrugged.

  —I think you put it rather more delicately, he said. When you said I didn’t have a selfless bone in my body. But it amounts to the same thing. My life is pointless. I have the kind of friends who aren’t that curious whether or not I have been destroyed by suicide bombers. Still. There’s always cocaine.

  I looked at Jasper’s face pale and sick under the striplights. Behind him in the night a million other lights flashed like cheap jewellery. I sighed. Bloody London. Jasper stood up from the chair and kneeled down by the bed. He laid his head on the covers by my knee.

  —This world is all fucked up, he said.

  —Yeah but we were born here so what can you do.

  I couldn’t move. I just watched him lying there. We stayed like that till visiting hours were over and then Jasper went off to spend the night with Petra Sutherland.

  * * *

  I slept even less after that. You burned up sleep Osama when you burned up my husband and my boy so I just used to sit in the brown plastic chair looking out over London. Jasper came back a couple of times and he brought me vitamins and things from my flat. I didn’t need all those things half as much as I needed him to lay his head on my bed again but I never could seem to tell him.

  One night I sat looking out. Jasper was meant to of visited that evening but he never turned up. It was full moon and the barrage balloons shone very still in the sky. It was Friday night but the streets were empty. There was a curfew on and it was just the police vans drifting up and down. They had numbers on their roofs and they were driving round in a pattern. I counted them coming round again and again but I still wasn’t sleepy. They say to count sheep when you can’t sleep Osama well I hope they work better than police vans. Where you are you probably have sheep or goats or little dead hostages to count I bet you sleep like a baby.

  I lay awake and I listened to the ladies on the ward coughing and snoring and moaning for the nurse. I was so miserable that night Osama. I had no one. I looked down at the lights of London switching off one by one. I never knew there was so much light to go out. About 3 a.m. I couldn’t stand it any more. Normally I would of put the telly on to take my mind off it but there wasn’t any telly on the ward only Radio 4 so I decided to kill myself.

  It isn’t easy to kill yourself in Guy’s Hospital. I suppose they make it that way on purpose I mean I probably wasn’t the first girl who’d had enough. For starters the nurses don’t leave anything sharp lying about. I wanted to cut my wrists but the nearest thing I could find to a knife was the edge of a plastic food tray. I snapped it in half and sawed away at my veins with the broken edge. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cut your wrists with a hospital tray Osama well I wouldn’t waste your time if I were you. It’s more itchy than anything and after about 10 mins your wrists will be a bit red and sore but that’s it.

  I looked around the ward for something else to try. I’m a simple girl Osama there isn’t much to me. Once I get an idea in my head I don’t think about it any more. So now I’d decided to kill myself it was making me nervous that I was still alive. I decided to poison myself and quick sharp. I crawled up the ward collecting all the other ladies’ pills and I ground them up into powder under the wheel of my IV stand. There must of been 20 pills at least in all shapes and colours. They made a nasty grey powder. I pricked a little hole in the top of my drip bag and I poured the powder in and gave it a good shake. The powder swirled around and the nice clean liquid in my drip bag went all mucky and vicious-looking. I was very pleased with it and I lay back down on my bed and looked out of the window and waited to die.

  I was never scared. Not for one second. While I was dying there was just me and the streetlights below and this orange glow overhead like I was all alone between heaven and central London. It was very peaceful and it gave you shivers like being in church. I started thinking about my boy and whether I was going to see him in heaven when I was dead. Funny really because I never did believe in heaven. I believed in my chaps and my chaps believed in Arsenal football club and I don’t know what the Gunners believed in. That’s where the trail goes cold.

  I closed my eyes and I saw my boy smiling at me. My boy had this extra special smile he did when he wanted to show you all of his teeth at once. He threw his head back and his mouth went wider than his whole face so he looked like one of those monster fish you see in the aquarium. Remembering my boy doing his monster smile I started laughing and then I opened my eyes and I saw the tall towers of the City standing out all solemn against the orange light. I smiled because it was pretty. Then I started to wonder what I was smiling for when I was supposed to be dying. And that made me laugh. I was feeling so good all of a sudden. I looked up at the drip bag with all those crushed-up pills trickling into my arm. That’s when I realised the stupid thing wasn’t killing me at all it was making me feel brilliant.

  Then I started feeling angry that I was feeling so brilliant. None of this was getting me dead. I decided to stop mucking about and throw myself out of the window. Like I say Osama once I get an idea in my head I stop thinking about the whys and wherefores. I suppose you could find plenty of work for people like me. So anyway I got out of bed and crawled over to the window and pulled myself up on the frame. I turned the handle and swung the window wide open. Cold air came in and I shivered.

  It’s funny because when it comes to the moment you don’t think right okay here I go then and plummet 30 floors to your death. You think oooh isn’t it chilly out? Cold is a funny one. It’s impossible to remember it until you actually feel it. I don’t know if you’ve ever jumped into freezing cold water Osama? Well it’s easier to imagine yourself doing it than actually to do it. Don’t you find? Once you’re standing there on the edge of the mountain lake shivering in your Kalashnikov and Speedos I mean.

  So I stood there for the longest time holding myself up on the window frame and shiver
ing in my hospital nightie. Another thing. You don’t notice it getting lighter do you? You just suddenly realise you can see certain things. Now I could see the outlines of the towers at Canary Wharf with the sky all milky behind them. I just stood there with the drip bag dribbling the last of those powdered pills into me and feeling better and better. Soon the sun came up. Flashing through all the brand-new concrete and glass. The dawn crept up on me and I was still alive. And that’s when I saw it all. Everything.

  London is a city built on the wreckage of itself Osama. It’s had more comebacks than The Evil Dead. It’s been flattened by storms and flooded out and rotted with plague. Londoners just took a deep breath and put the kettle on. Then the whole thing burned down. Every last stick of it. I remember my mum took me to see the Monument to the Great Fire. London burned WITH INCREDIBLE NOISE AND FURY is what the monument has written on it. People thought it was the end of the world. But the Londoners got up the next day and the world hadn’t ended so they rebuilt the city in 3 years stronger and taller. Even Hitler couldn’t finish us though he set the whole of the East End on fire. Bethnal Green was like hell my grandma said. Just one endless sea of flames. But we got through it. We built on the rubble. We built tower blocks and the NHS and we kept on coming like zombies.

  You’ve hurt London Osama but you haven’t finished it you never will. London’s like me it’s too piss poor and ignorant to know when it’s finished. That morning when I looked down at the sun rising through the docklands I knew it for sure. I am London Osama I am the whole world. Murder me with bombs you poor lonely sod I will only build myself again and stronger. I am too stupid to know better I am a woman built on the wreckage of myself.