Chapter Eight

The Community Centre

“All right, everybody!” shouted the man in the paramedic gear.

The crowd in the community hall were in no mood to listen. Someone, somewhere, began to weep, and that set the half-dozen kids crying, too.

The paramedic climbed up on to one of the plastic tables. It wobbled beneath him and he did a tightrope walker imitation with his arms at either side before it settled.

“Everybody!” he yelled again. “Listen!”

This time the hubbub began to quieten. Now there were only the muffled sounds of weeping.

“When the hell are they coming?” shouted a man from the back of the room. His remark set everyone off again; all hundred and fifty packed into this room, all frightened, all traumatised. The paramedic began waving his arms and yelling for quiet once more.

Alex Stenmore ran both hands through his hair, remembering his fight with Candy at home, just before the ceiling fell in and their lives fell even further apart than he’d believed possible. He looked down to where she half sat, half crouched against the community hall wall. She was staring at her hands, chewing her bottom lip. The sight of her stirred something inside, and he moved to touch her. But he knew what her reaction would be; could see in his mind’s eye how she would slap his approach away. He knew that she was suffering; knew that she needed a drink. He couldn’t get close enough to her to discover whether she was suffering withdrawal, or whether she was still in a state of shock. She had said very little since they’d staggered out of their collapsing house and into the main street. From a safe distance, they’d watched it fall apart. First, the front wall caved in, blowing the garage doors out across the street. When the dust had cleared, the ceiling had gone, all of the windows had been shattered. There were other people in the street, all milling in confusion and staring at the devastation. No matter how hard Alex thought back to it, he couldn’t remember how they’d got out of the house. Everything had been blurred by the nightmare. Trapped in that milling throng, they had also got caught up in a stampede through the smoke-filled streets when the gas main under the house across the road had ruptured and exploded, engulfing the windows in a gigantic fireball. Later, in shock and drained of strength, they had sat at the side of a fractured pavement with a crowd of others, waiting for help to come.

But there had been no wailing of sirens, no police cars or reassuring blue uniforms telling them where to go or what to do. Eventually, hours later, only two paramedics in a battered ambulance, both with expressions of shock and bewilderment; the vehicle filled with the broken and the bleeding and the dying as it crawled and bumped along the ruptured street with its blue light slowly blinking in silence. The paramedic hanging out of the back doors had told those on the street to follow behind. Some had tried to climb up into the ambulance, others had tried to drag the paramedic out as anger overcame them when he refused to jump down and help their injured loved ones. The man had lashed out with his feet, hanging in the doorway, barring anyone else from climbing in, yelling at them to follow and bring the injured with them if they could. If not, to leave them. They’d be back for them in a while. But the ambulance hadn’t led them to a hospital or an army station or a clinic. It had led them to this community centre.

Just an ordinary red-brick building that had somehow survived the tremor. The roof was intact, the walls hadn’t caved in. The only damage had been to one of the three large windows, which had cracked and splintered. Someone had managed to nail hardboard covers on it and had swept away the glass. Inside, the building looked more like a school gym. There was a serving area of sorts at one end where a bar was set up for local dances. Bare-board floors. Strip lights. Notices of forthcoming events. 

When Gordon Tranwell had shuffled in with the others, his guitar slung over his shoulder, a woman with a bandage across her forehead and the beginnings of two spectacular black eyes had asked him for his name and address. He had seen her taking names from the people in front of him and knew what was going to happen. When it came to his turn, he tried to speak but knew that nothing would come out.

“Name and address, please?” asked the woman in a flat monotone.

Gordon waved at his throat and shook his head.

The woman looked up from her clipboard. Gordon repeated the action.

“Can’t you tell me?”

Gordon shook his head again.

“I know it’s been a shock for you. For everyone. It’s terrible. But we have to know who we have here.”

Gordon tried to push past, head down.

“Please, can’t you…?”

Anger, shock and plain resentment flooded Gordon. It was the necessary fuel he needed.

“Tranwell! Gordon! Got it?”

The woman flinched as Gordon pushed ahead into the main area. He didn’t look back. His face was burning. Now he hated himself and struggled to control tears. His aunt was dead, buried beneath the falling rubble in her own kitchen…and he couldn’t even tell anyone about it. He elbowed through the crowd and found a place against a wall. Bracing his back against it, he sank to his knees, slinging his guitar across them and listening as the paramedic on the wobbling table tried to get some attention. People had been laid out in the middle of the floor, on makeshift mattresses. There were a couple of IV drips set up on makeshift cradles. But there was something wrong here. Why were people being brought here? Why hadn’t they gone to the hospital? Where were all the doctors and nurses?

Gordon looked across at the two middle-aged women and the white-faced little boy. They were trying to catch the attention of a woman with a pile of what seemed to be gauze bandages and medical supplies in her hands.

“It’s the boy,” said Annie, to the woman. She tried to push past, but Lisa caught her arm and made her stop. “Something’s wrong with him,” Annie went on. “He won’t talk, won’t do anything but stare. I think it’s shock, and he needs to be seen. His parents…”

“I’m sorry,” said the woman, and now they could see the look of distress on her own face. Hair straggled down over her red-rimmed eyes. She could barely speak. “I’m not…not a nurse. I don’t know what to do or where everyone’s supposed to be. My husband, you see. And my little girl…” The woman pushed off through the crowded room, taking her anguish with her, and was lost from sight.

“Will you be quiet and listen!” yelled the paramedic from his insecure perch on the plastic table. It was not so much the sound of his voice which did the trick as the fact that, as one of the few authority figures in the room, his tone betrayed a sudden loss of control. And with so few here in control, with so few authority figures, the sense of shock was palpable as the room quieted, apart from the wailing of one baby and the sniffling of a child. The paramedic pulled himself together, loosening a collar beneath a suddenly purple face. He wiped one hand over that face, breathing deeply, before continuing.

“That’s better. Better. Now…I know you have lots of questions, but if you’ll just…”

“Where…?” began a man from the other side of the room.

“Just…” The paramedic caught himself again, regaining control. “Just…wait a moment. Now, look, I know everyone’s frightened, and there are people here who are hurt. But there’s only me and Sean over there in the corner at the moment, and the stuff we’ve got in the ambulance outside.”

“When can we get out of here?” wailed a woman. “When can you take us to a proper hospital? My husband needs a hospital.”

“The radio in the ambulance still isn’t working. We don’t know why, because it wasn’t damaged. But at the moment there’s just static. We’re still trying to get through…”

“Why don’t you just take us to a hospital?”

“Because,” said the paramedic, fighting to keep control, “you know and I know that something isn’t right here. Something isn’t right about that dust cloud that’s got us all hemmed in. We daren’t risk driving into it. Have to wait until it clears.”

“Why doesn’t somebody come? Where’re the police, for Christ’s sake?”

“Look, we just have to hold out and wait. Give the emergency services a chance to organise.”

“You know more than you’re letting on, don’t you? You’re deliberately keeping us here…”

Alex turned away from where the paramedic tried to maintain order. Everything was too confusing. The aura of fear in this room was very real, and despite the fact that the man on the table was trying to act in a rational, caring manner, anyone could see just by looking in his eyes that he was terrified, too.

“Alex.”

He looked down to where Candy sat, cross-legged. For a long time she had been staring down at the floor.

“Yes, love?” he asked.

“I’ve got to have a drink.”

“There’s a water cooler over there, I think…”

“You are such a stupid fucking bastard, Alex. I’m talking about a drink.”

Alex was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. Distress, helplessness and seething anger. “Can’t you…?” He gritted his teeth, not wanting to lose control. “Can’t you just wait? I mean, until everything’s sorted out here.”

“I need a drink now. I’m not wanting an argument about it. I want one. I need one.”

“Where am I going to find alcohol right now, Candy?”

“Don’t call me Candy.”

Alex looked back at the paramedic, straining to hear what he was saying, needing to tune out of this conversation.

“It’s not smoke, no,” said the paramedic. “There are no fires. We’ve checked everything out in these two blocks. There’ve been no electrical shorts. No problems with gas mains after the first explosions. Nothing like that. The stuff we’re seeing all around us is…well, it’s dust.”

“But dust doesn’t act like that,” said an elderly man, head swathed in bandages. “It’s all around us, and it just keeps…just keeps…swirling and moving. Dust is supposed to settle after a while, isn’t it? That’s smoke, it’s got to be.”

“It’s not. I’ve been right around the periphery. We’re in a half-mile-square area here. Bounded by Wady Street on the west. Part of the shopping precinct to the north, although most of that has been destroyed. The A19 on the east. And Main Street to the south.”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s really happening?” asked someone else. “You know, don’t you?”

“I’m as much in the dark as anyone else. Look, we just have to sit tight and wait for the emergency services. Whatever’s happened, it won’t take them long.”

“Twelve hours is long enough! Why isn’t there anyone here? Why aren’t you taking us out of here?”

“That’s all there is to say!” snapped the paramedic. Steadying himself, he jumped down from the table, asking himself the same question he had been fielding since the ’quake.

“Why doesn’t anyone COME?”