I suppose you could say it all
started when the London Eye fell. Unlike the usual somewhat theatrical
tendencies that went alongside Acts of Terror, the great mass of a metal wheel
splashed into the Thames at 3.52am on August 17th 2017 and no one was there.
Only a few people noticed straight away; the early morning joggers, the
pissheads, the pigeons. And then the authorities. It was all over the news
first thing of course, spreading across all of London like it was trying to
push the perimeters of the screens wider with its importance. This was vast
end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it type news.
I think I first caught it on the
BBC around 10. I'd had a lie in cause of a late shift the night before. I was
living in a warehouse at the time and woke up with a stronger than usual
imagined smell of coffee in my nostrils. I followed the craving to the kitchen
and there it was. All of my "housemates" were gathering around the TV
like a shrine. It was the most silent we had all collectively been. Tina's usually
on page 2 of her "I haven't prepared it, honest!" stand-up routine by
now. But today her hands were glued over her mouth, her dark morning eyes wide,
staring. I have never seen her eyes look truer with the pure unprepared emotion
of utter fear.
They played CCTV footage on loop of
the slow motion (painfully slow) fall of the Eye. Someone told me once that the
money invested in it was made back every four rotations. Mad. So it wasn't just
the structure or the economical loss we were mourning, it was the uneasiness of
this ambiguous act. No one had died, it hadn’t happened in the middle of the
day on a crowded summer Southbank. Why? What were they doing? It was almost
more unnerving the prospect of a twisted plot in the making. It felt like a
warning.
After twenty minutes or so there
was no new information. I largely kept silent. People have a tendency in a
crisis to become absolutely identical. What use is it to say "terrible
news!", "3.52 in the morning?" and "thank God no one was
hurt"? These were all incredibly obvious reactions. Not that I'm
suggesting these aren't universal truths, but don't bother saying them. So I
watched the news, looked somber, had my coffee, and got ready for work.
Five months later I was still
working at Somerset house as a gallery coordinator. Hilarious job title. I'm
one of those people that stands in the corner of the room looking bored and
sporadically staring at you until I freak you out. It's a pretty dull job, but
flexible and allows me to write songs in my head all day. Some days though,
nothing will come or you don't want to be imaginative and that's when those
hours really drag. They're bad ones, and it's very hard to shake yourself out
of them.
I had moved the November before to
a three bedroom flat in Balham. One girl I knew vaguely from a few years ago,
and the other her friend. The days of finding it fun and hip to live with
fifteen other arty annoying people were done. I'm 28 now, I wanna have my
coffee and granola in the morning in peace. Yes I eat granola. With almond milk.
Go ahead, judge me.
So it's February 8th, I'm walking
up the Strand to work from Charing Cross and it's bearable because it's 11.00.
The perfect time to miss the rush hour morning and the rush hour lunch and ease
into the day feeling smug you don't play to any of the normal people's time
frames. And not feeling as smug walking past Topshop knowing you could only
afford a pair of practical but inevitably “funky” and “fun” pop socks.
It's very cold, seeing as we've
apparently passed through the worst of the winter months. I thought I was being
clever with my apparel today, wearing for the first time a snood my Aunty Cathy
bought me for Christmas. They're "very in" she'd told me at the
time, as I incessantly searched for the ends and the tassels. No tassels. It
just goes round and round. So cold was it (even on the tube) that I had wound
it one too many times. Now it had gone past any kind of possible fashionable
label and looked more like I had an incredibly thick stiff lilac neck. At one
point, I had a macabre thought that the snood was in fact completely holding me
up, and once I unwound it, my head would simply flop off. Smiling at the
secrets in my head that no one could get to, I picked up the pace and soon
clocked in at work.
11.30 brief meant doing lunch
breaks. Over quickly this shift, but you spend a whole day's energy and earn...
too depressing. Fred was on, he's always a laugh if occasionally slipping into
the irritating sector of my unforgiving
brain. And Anna as well. Anna never said much but was one of those people I just
intrinsically liked. Couldn't tell you why. We were given our rotations, a
quick brief and off we went. Fred was being very friendly today, and had that
annoying habit of still talking, joking, shouting after you when had actually
had to walk away. So awkward that, I really didn't wanna be rude, but I had to
go and do my job now. Breathing a sigh of relief as I turned the corner and was
released from laughing and "yeah"s, Anton stood looking broodingly at
the floor. I tried to arrange my face imperceptibly on the thin line between
sultry and warm.
"Hiya Anton, I'm here to save
you," I said, determined to pass some cheer on today.
"Thanks Becky" he said.
Have I told you my name's Becky?
Sorry, I have a habit of missing important details out of stories. Not that I'm
particularly important, snood or no snood. But yeah, Hi, I'm Becky, back to
Anton.
"Been busy?"
I hate myself for asking such a
mundane, obvious question but I kind of have an absurd crush on Anton so wanna
keep him chatting. Absurd in that the future would us be never talking and feeling
awkward, so not quite the ingredients for life-long happiness. Damn that
intriguing brooding quality which is so attractive and ultimately completely
useless. My downfall over and over.
"It's been fine, yeah" he
said. Not a sniff.
"Great, I look forward to my
half an hour in the red room then!"
"What?"
"From Jane Eyre. You know when
she's... Banished to the red room. Cause - all the photos in here are kind of
red..."
"Oh right yeah"
"Good book"
"Not read it"
"Cool."
I think he thought I was gonna say
something else, but I'd admitted defeat that the above had definitely been our
incredible world-changing full of sparks and fireworks converse of the day. When
he left, I breathed a sigh of relief that I couldn't fuck up anymore. Well, at
least not for another 30 minutes. It's so much safer being on your own.
The red room (I giggled to myself
at my own genius) was pretty small, pretty grim. I didn't really know
much about photography to be honest, I just fell into here and it seemed no
better or worse than anywhere else. So yeah. The first ten minutes of my shift
passed calmly, I even came up with a half decent melody for a chorus of a folk
song I'd been thinking about. As always when this happens, I reached for my pen
and paper at the speed of light to get it down. Ideas are slippy and you've got
to focus and write incredibly quickly.
When I looked up again there was a
boy in the room. It made me jump slightly cause I hadn’t seen him come in, but
I don't think he noticed. I say boy - he was probably about 16 or so.
I smiled at him as I like to do. My
little triumph at making everyone feel included in the arts and challenging
pre-conceptions. It's the little things for me.
He didn't smile back. He stared at
me for a moment too long with a purposeful look in his eyes. Just before he
broke the gaze, there was a subtle but unnerving look of the crazed about him.
He looked at the first photograph.
I could tell from his back that he wasn't looking at it at all. I see that kind
of back all too often. Young couples on early dates, old couples happy to be
out the house, children dragged along by fiercely cultured parents. Always the
inert back, as if standing really still will actually help them be affected by
the art in front of them.
I was on edge and I couldn't tell
you why. I was annoyed at myself for being on edge, following my own stupid
judgements I judge so much in others. But I watched him very carefully, all
dreams of remembering the folk melody gone. That could have been my
breakthrough hit, I laughed bitterly to myself.
He walked fast and sharp to the
next photo. Did the same absent stare. Took out his phone. It was only when I
saw him hold his phone that I saw how much he was shaking. His hands were a
slightly grey-ish brown, and the tremor was unmistakable. He reached into his
bag.
"Don't do it"
He physically collapsed into
himself at the sound of my voice. It looked like the vertebrae of his spine
slid out one by one and he could only just keep himself up.
He turned around to face me, and
then I must admit, I felt fear like I'd never known.
His face. His poor young petrified
face. His hair was dipped in sweat, his cheeks sallow and his eyes threw
themselves into every angle of the room. I had never seen a face so scared, so
desperate.
"Don't do it," I said
again in a gentler tone.
What 'it' was I didn't dare to
think about, but I knew. I was in history right now. This was an Act of Terror
and it was my job to stop it. How I had made this unflinchingly bold conclusion
you may wonder. I have no answer for you. I just knew. I suppose if you'd seen
this boy's eyes, maybe you'd have just known too.
"I am dead now," he said
in a voice I don't like to think about too much. Describing it would bring it
too far forward in my mind, which I can't handle, so imagine it yourselves.
"No no no" I had no idea
what I was saying "no, you're not. You've done nothing. I will protect
you." What on earth I thought I could have done I will never know. Words
spilled out and I hoped they were good ones. I hoped they were enough. "I
promise you, I will help you, the police-"
"Not police. Them. I am
dead."
I rushed over to him. To do what?
To hold his hand, tell him everything would be OK? This was a scale of trauma
and life that my mini Bradford-born brain couldn't fathom. But I had to help
him. That's all I knew.
A snapping sound. He died
incredibly quickly, when I was only about a meter away from him. The scream
that came from me fell out of every single pore. I looked around. There was no
one there. He fell onto a photo and took it with him, the red of the print
flowing seamlessly into the real darker than red blood now making a lake across
the floor.
Other staff ran into the room.
Apparently I kept screaming. A 16 year old boy had just died in front of me, by
some mechanical remote group of people who had the power to flick a switch,
stop his heart, and down he fell. For some reason I couldn't accept that he had
died. I didn't know this boy, but he seemed to represent that I'd failed.
Later, people would tell me that I'd saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives.
I couldn't find peace in that. This boy, I felt sure, had endured terrible
hardship, pressure, stress, poverty, loss of family, maybe indoctrination,
maybe brainwashing, torture, I don’t know. It's hard to know.
But his voice. There has never been
a voice more filled with remorse and fear as well as a deep longing for a
painless peaceful life. The grit of an acceptance of heart-break, the wobble of
the child he could never be, the low tones of a happier life he could never
even bare to imagine.
There. You've made me describe it.
Are you happy?
A lot of people talked about why
they didn't set off the bomb remotely too, instead of (or as well as) killing
him. They clearly had the power to do so. I don't know if we'll ever know why.
Timing, or the element of surprise, or letting something else build.
I moved back to Bradford. London
was too much for me after that. I talked about it a bit too much, my mum said,
but I thought that was a positive thing. Maybe it was hard for her to hear it
all the time, in various degrees of description depending on the day.
I thought about trying to find out
more about the boy. But after all the press and police and stress and move, I
needed to try and move on. I couldn't help him. And it wouldn't help me to keep
re-living the past. My failure.
But at least I wrote this story.
This one's for him.
