Strangers (15 page)

‘I was eight, or nine perhaps. Too old for Father Christmas. My mother had forgotten I was growing up. She must have thought I was still six. But we went, anyway. All the way, on the bus. I remember everything about it.’

He hadn’t been very interested in Father Christmas. An old boy with cotton wool stuck all over his chin. But the rest of it had been like a vision of Paradise. They had ridden on the escalators past mirrored pillars that reflected the stately lines of shoppers gliding upwards. He could look down at the floors below him, acres of things spread out for him to admire, lit and scented and brilliantly coloured. No one else, even Nan, had seemed to be surprised by it.

‘It’s all right for some,’ was all Nan had said.

But he could have stayed there all day, just wandering about, looking at things. And at the people, all brushed and glossy and furred. When Nan dragged him away at last they had walked along Oxford Street, looking into every glittering window. They had tea in Lyons’, and he sat at a table in the corner by the door so that he could look out at the taxis and big cars.

It was then, on that day, that Steve decided where he would live. And how he would live.

‘I can remember, when we got back to Nan’s, how grey it looked. Grey and bare.’

After that, it was just a matter of how long it took to get away.

Annie was so quiet. He stroked her hair again and whispered, ‘Did you hear all that, Annie? Are you still here?’

She had heard it, and she could see the children ahead of her. They stopped running to look in at a shop window. There was a Christmas tree in the window, hung with clear glass balls that captured the colours of the rainbow. There were presents all around the tree, wrapped in shiny scarlet paper and tied with scarlet satin ribbons.

She couldn’t see their faces, but the children looked so small and vulnerable, silhouetted against the bright, white lights. She wanted to reach out and draw them into her arms, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even put her arms around the man in return for his warmth and the comfort of his voice. She turned her head a little and felt him tense, listening to her.

‘Children,’ she said again.

Steve nodded in the darkness, exhausted.

‘That’s right, Annie. Hold on to them. They’re coming for us. Can’t you hear?’

She could see them, still looking at the Christmas tree, but she couldn’t hear their voices. There were other noises, scraping and rattling, drowning them out. But she said, summoning up her strength, ‘Yes.’

They were working in silence now. They bent in a circle under the glare of the lights. Every minute or two they stopped work and listened, and when the silence settled around them, unbroken, they began again, burrowing downwards. In his trailer the police commander waited with his finger touching the corner of his moustache. Martin waited at his point on the barricade, never taking his eyes off the tarpaulin screen.

Children
, Steve was thinking.
If I had a daughter
.

His face was wet, and he thought how stupid it was to cry for her because she had never been born.

I’d buy her a pony, he thought. And ballet lessons, and white satin shoes with ribbons to go dancing in. And when she’s seventeen I’ll buy her a car, and take her downstairs on the morning of her birthday to see it parked outside the house. I’ll open the front door, he thought, and say,
There it is
…

As the door opened inside Steve’s head, he saw a beam of light.

It shone straight down on to his face and the brightness of it was as sharp as pain. He closed his eyes because the light hurt so much and he saw the dazzle of it inside his eyelids. When it had faded a little he opened his eyes again, and the patch of light was bigger, and still brighter.

He opened his mouth and through the dust caked in his throat he shouted, ‘Here. Down here.’

The light blinked and went out and he felt a second’s terrible disappointment, but then he understood that it was a head, blocking the light to look down at them.

‘Down here,’ he said again. And then, ‘Please. Come quickly.’

‘You’re all right,’ a voice came back to him. ‘We’ll have you out in no time.’

‘Come quickly,’ he begged. ‘She’s bleeding.’

He turned his head to look at Annie. Her eyes were closed and she looked as if she was deeply asleep. Her eyelashes showed dark against the dust that masked her face.

‘Annie,’ he whispered to her, ‘we’re all right. They’re here now.’

She didn’t answer but he held her tighter and with his free hand he tried to brush the coating of filth off her face.

The ragged circle of light grew wider. He could hear people talking, giving orders, and the quick movements and the clink of their tools as they worked. The girl in his arms looked so defeated. He was afraid that now, after all, it was too late.

‘Please hurry,’ he begged them.

They wanted him to talk, and now that it was over he was too weary to speak. The questions came one after another as the men came closer. Steve saw the light glinting on their helmets and their shiny boots.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Is she your wife?’

‘Do you know the woman’s name?’

‘I’m thirsty,’ Steve said.

A moment later they lowered a little bottle of water down to him. He reached up with his free hand and then lifted his head just enough to tip the bottle to his mouth. It ran out between his lips and down his chin, clear and cool. He let his head fall back again.

He told them his name. ‘Her name is Annie. I think she’s badly hurt. When the collapse came.’

‘That’s all right, don’t worry.’ They were trying to soothe him, he knew that. ‘We’re going to try to put a doctor in beside you.’

A moment later someone came sliding downwards and the dust rose chokingly. Steve braced himself, waiting for the extra shock of pain from being touched. Since the light had come, the pain had intensified. He wondered if he could bear it without screaming out.

The doctor crawled into their tiny space.

‘I’m Tim,’ he said, and Steve thought it was just like at a party. He would have laughed, but for the pain in his leg. ‘And there’s Dave, and Tony, and Roger and Terry up there. They’re all wonderful diggers. They’ll soon get you out.’

They lowered a bag down to the doctor. He had a torch, too, and the light burned into Steve’s eyes. It was so bright that he couldn’t see Annie’s face any more, and he didn’t see the flash of the hypodermic either as the doctor slid the needle into his arm.

The pain receded after that. Steve lay and watched the doctor’s black shape hunched between them. He bent over Annie, touching her, and the sticky patch in her coat. Steve heard him rummage in his bag and the tiny, metallic clink of his instruments.

‘She won’t die, will she?’

After a moment the doctor said quietly, ‘I don’t know yet.’

Hurry up, damn you all. Why does it take so long?

‘Okay, Steve,’ someone called out to him. ‘Hold on just a few minutes longer.’

The police commander crouched at the lip of the hole. Under the lights he could see the colour of the woman’s coat. It was blue, and she was wearing black boots.

‘The descriptions tally, sir.’ One of his men had checked the computer-stored descriptions of people reported missing through the long day. ‘And the man is conscious. He says her name is Annie.’

The commander nodded. For a moment he had been thinking of his own wife, and seeing her crumpled amongst the debris.

‘How long?’ he asked the fire chief.

‘Ten, fifteen minutes.’

The men were working in frantic silence now. There was a girder to be lifted and hoisted away before the smaller chunks of rubble could be moved. Once that was done the victims could be lifted out on to stretchers.

The commander looked down at the doctor’s head, and then glanced at the stretcher party, waiting. The ambulances were drawn up beyond the tarpaulins.

‘Her husband’s waiting at the barrier,’ he said. One of his men was already moving, but the commander said, ‘Wait. Leave it for another five minutes, until they’re ready to bring her up. He’ll be in the way here, and if she’s unconscious he can’t help her. Take him into the trailer and tell him, will you?’

Steve didn’t know how long it took, in the end.

The doctor waited beside him, holding up a bag and tubes that ran into Annie’s arm.

The firemen tried to joke as they came closer.

‘You’ll be tucked up in bed with a nice nurse in good time for
Match of the Day
, mate.’

‘What time is it?’ he asked them.

‘Ten past six. You’ll have to leave now, the store’s closing.’

He was laughing now, weak laughter that didn’t begin to express his happiness. He loved all the firemen, and the doctor. It wasn’t all ending. There were still chances.

When the men in their boots and helmets were almost beside them, Steve turned his head to look at Annie again. Her eyes were open, fixed on his face.

‘You see?’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘I knew we’d be all right.’

He saw her look at the doctor and the fireman and the whites of her eyes showed startlingly in her dirt-blackened face. Then she came back to Steve again. Her lips moved and he heard her say his name, just once.

‘Ready?’ the fireman asked. The doctor nodded, his mouth tight with anxiety.

‘We’re taking Annie out first,’ they said to Steve. ‘You’re fit enough to wait another minute or two.’

It must be hurting her. Steve clenched his fists, futilely trying to absorb some of her pain as they slid the harness under her body. He wanted to hold her hand, but the doctor’s fingers were at her wrist. They began to winch her upwards and he saw the dark, ugly mark where she had been lying. Her eyes were closed again. She swung for an instant before the doctor and the firemen steadied her and the tubes dangled at her side.

Her hair fell back and he remembered how he had seen it brushed back over her shoulders, so long ago, when he had reached to open the door. It was grey with dust and ragged where she had torn it free.

Everything was dark again, and he had an instant’s recall of the hours they had clung together.

They were taking her away now.

Steve blinked up into the painful brightness of the lights.

‘Annie,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

Martin followed the policeman down the trailer steps.

He knew, now. She was here, and she was alive. Just.

His fists clenched in his pockets so that his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. The blue tarpaulins made a blur in front of him. They held the stiff curtain aside and he ducked between them. There were cold, bright lights here and people intently watching a knot of men clustered around something that came up into the light. Martin stumbled forward and saw Annie on a stretcher. There was a doctor supporting her head and her arm lay pale and bare where they had cut her coat sleeve away.

Martin looked down past her and saw a man lying on his side. The space where she had been was tiny. The man’s hand clenched and unclenched, on emptiness.

They were carrying Annie out of the terrible place. Martin ran to the other side of the stretcher and walked beside them, his heart thumping out wordless prayers.

Please. Let her live. Let her live. Please
.

Back through the blue screen.

As they came out of the ruined store front Martin was assailed by different lights. These were the cameras, flashing after them. He felt the upsurge of anger but there was no time for it. They were into the ambulance and the double doors thudded shut. He saw the reflection of the blue light beginning to turn over their heads as they slid away.

They were working on her already, two nurses and a second doctor, but Martin found a place at her side.

Annie opened her eyes again. They were glazed with pain, but they moved and then settled on Martin’s face. He saw the flicker of bewildered disappointment. It was as if she had expected to see someone else.

He took her hand and held it, but it lay limp and cold in his.

Four

The doors of the accident department swung open ahead of the ambulance. Annie’s stretcher was lifted out and laid on the waiting trolley. Martin ran beside it with the doctor. He felt the brief coldness of the sleet on his face and then the hospital closed around them like a white tunnel.

They were wheeling Annie away out of his reach. He stepped awkwardly forward and saw her face. It was so white, so withdrawn into itself, that he was afraid she was already dead. A little involuntary shudder of fear and grief escaped him.

A sister wearing a blue dress with white cuffs put her hand on his arm. ‘Are you her husband?’

He nodded, unable to speak.

‘Come and sit in my office. I’ll get you something while you’re waiting.’

They put him in a wooden-armed chair in the corner of the little room. The sister brought him tea in a plastic cup, and Martin sipped it without tasting it, grateful for its warmth.

She won’t die, will she?
The words kept hammering in his head, but he didn’t speak them yet.

The casualty consultant and his senior registrar were with Annie.

The consultant had been off duty when the hospital put out its special major accident alert to everyone from the pathologists to the porters. He had arrived in his unit thirty minutes later, and he had been at work ever since. With his team he had treated forty-five people, and he had heard from the police that another casualty would soon be on his way. They had just confirmed that he would be the last. There was another man still buried in the wreckage, but he was dead.

‘The last but one,’ he told his colleague. He rubbed his hand quickly over his face and then pulled his gloves on to begin the examination.

Annie’s skin was pale and clammy, and her breath was coming in shallow gasps.

‘Blood pressure?’

‘Seventy over nothing.’

Her pulse was fast. One-forty.

The consultant pulled Annie’s coat open and undid her blood-stained dress. Her stomach was dark with bruising, and it was rigid to the touch. The doctors glanced at each other and then the consultant said quietly, ‘O-neg blood up at once. Urgent cross-match. Theatre immediately.’