Part One

When we arrived at the town hall Rhona and Sky started fussing over me like a couple of mother hens, their anxiety bringing out their natural rivalry. No sooner had Rhona straightened my tie than Sky was saying it looked better the way it was. Where Rhona was keen for me to make a good showing, present myself in the best light, Sky cautioned against putting on airs and advised me to be natural. This caused an argument between them and I was forced to act as referee, which increased my nerves even as I was trying to settle theirs. And all this was in full view of the Mayor, the invited guests and several national newspaper journalists

It was a small but decent turnout, about fifty people in total. The afternoon began with everyone milling around the high-ceilinged entrance hall, chatting in cliques and enjoying a pre-reception tipple of cheap white wine. Curiously, the middle-aged Mayor, who seemed weighed down as much by his chain of medallions as by his responsibilities, hardly had a word to say to me before things got under way proper. After an initial handshake and a brief summary of the afternoon’s agenda, he abandoned me. And as if taking their lead from the big man, none of the other guests approached me either, not even the journalists. Maybe they thought it wasn’t correct protocol, like speaking to the Queen without officially being invited to, but still it felt strange standing in a corner with Rhona and Sky and thinking I didn’t belong there when in fact I was the guest of honour. Not since I first arrived in Duddenham had I experienced such a sharp sense of disconnection. At that moment I felt a pang of nostalgia for London like never before. It was physical, a kind of dull ache in the pit of my stomach, and what with the wine and my frayed nerves and the fact that I hadn’t eaten a proper breakfast, I started to feel nauseous and feared that I might actually retch. Luckily the feeling died down, but it never went away completely and for the remainder of the afternoon I prayed that I wouldn’t embarrass myself and everyone else by throwing up.

I spent the next two hours sitting at a long table on a podium in the company of the Mayor and a handful of other council officials. I felt uncomfortable sitting up there looking down on the guests. As I scanned their faces I wasn’t sure that all of them were as taken with me as the Mayor had claimed. In fact most of them seemed quite indifferent to what was happening; even bored. And yet they had put on their best clothes and come along anyway. I know that had it not been in my honour, Rhona and Sky would never have attended such a dreary event. As it was, those two were sitting proudly in the front row, smiling up at me, as if I was about to receive the Nobel Prize.

Standing at a lectern, the Mayor kicked off the proceedings by thanking everyone for coming and mentioned, on my behalf, how much I appreciated it and how proud I was for such a strong show of support. I had told him beforehand that I would not be making a speech, so he was doing his best to speak for me without misrepresenting me. This required him to preface almost everything he said with, ‘I’m sure Simon won’t mind my saying,’ or ‘I’m sure Simon would agree with me when I say,’ after which he would turn to me to get my assent and I would nod at him to carry on. After a few minutes I started to relax and allowed myself to be swept along on the tide of all his praise and plaudits. I believe I even exchanged a smile or two with Rhona and Sky.

All in all the Mayor did a very good job on me, except once when he said, ‘I’m sure Simon would agree when I say that from the first day he arrived here he has been shown nothing but warmth and hospitality…’ Not true, Mr Mayor. Not true at all.

When I first came to Duddenham, feeling lonely and practically wandering around with my chin on my chest, a time when I yearned, physically yearned, for a bit of human contact, I found the majority of the people I came across to be cold and standoffish. Yes they would smile and nod – when they were not openly gawking – but only in the most mechanical way and only in passing. They were certainly not interested in talking to me. For a bit of much-needed conversation I had to rely on the few words I was able to exchange each day with my local newsagent, a sprightly old guy called Len.

Even now, after seven years of being in the town, I had never been invited to a party or to a neighbour’s house for dinner or even for a cup of tea. Then again, it worked both ways. What exactly had I done to try to meet people? Not very much. I once went to my local community centre – a prefab building on a piece of litter-strewn scrubland near my house – to see what community activities I might get involved in, but, snob that I am, I just couldn’t bring myself to join the local bowling club or the bird watching society or to take part in the preparations for the annual sofa race, a spectacle that, had I not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed. The truth was, the town had little to recommend it. It was the sort of place you drove through, or around, on your way to somewhere more enlivening. Of the few thousand inhabitants, all but a handful lived outside the town centre in crumbling, pebble-dashed houses or on drab, low-rise housing estates. It got few visitors, wasn’t known for anything, had no famous sons or daughters. I discovered it purely by chance.

On my way to drop off a parcel – I was working as a deliveryman at the time – I took a wrong exit on the motorway and had to do a detour through the town centre. The shops along the high street told me I was in a deprived part of the country: Poundstretcher, Iceland, Mr Chippy’s Chip Shop, Corals, Cash Converter. ‘I could live here,’ I thought, which says something about the state I was in at the time. A few days later I went back and checked into a B&B. The next day I began looking for work. It took me a week to find a job and a further week to find a house, which I still occupy. After his first visit to see me, Theodore shook his head and said, ‘Why do this to yourself, bro? Why punish yourself like this?’ But that wasn’t how I saw it. Living in that town suited me just fine. It was cheap but more importantly, it allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be, to re-invent myself. In fact, I’d been feeling more peaceful and settled in my life than I had done in years.

After the bombing, my life, on every significant level, turned upside down. I became, as the saying goes, an overnight celebrity. I was held up as a hero, with my face plastered all over the local and national papers. Imagine that – me, a hero. It would have been frightening if it hadn’t been so absurd. The upshot of this new-found fame was that suddenly everyone wanted a piece of me. I now had to contend with complete strangers approaching me in the street with requests to recount the gory details of my so-called heroics. To walk into my local pub was to be subjected to the kind of intrusive, in-your-face attention that would have sent Gandhi into a rage. A week after the bombing I was in there having a quick one with Dave when two old geezers who were sitting next to us leaned across and, without so much as a by-your-leave, practically demanded my autograph. When, with gritted teeth, I scribbled my illegible initials on their beer mats, one of them beamed at me and said, ‘Who says there’s no more heroes? God love you, son. God love you.’ Of course Dave saw the whole thing as one big joke and spent the rest of the evening teasing me with an over the top rendition of the Superman theme tune, but I was struggling to see the funny side.

No-one likes to have their privacy invaded. It was nothing compared to the attitude of the press, though, especially the tabloids. No matter how many times I turned down their requests for an exclusive interview, which came with everincreasing financial inducements, they refused to take no for an answer. At least they had finally decamped from my doorstep, but I knew that for as long as the bombing remained in the news – and it showed no signs of going away – they would keep calling me. They were nothing if not persistent. I had changed my mobile number twice since the bombing but they always seemed to get hold of it.

After the Mayor had finished his address, we were shown a short video of recorded interviews given by some of the survivors of the bombing, including Stuart and Latonya, the girl who had been trapped under the beam. I had spoken to both of them since the bombing, they had contacted me to express their gratitude. In the video, Latonya described her escape as a miracle. According to her – and this was corroborated by the emergency services – my efforts to dislodge the beam had been successful. I had moved it, only very slightly, but enough for the paramedics to pull Latonya free. Several of her ribs had been crushed, and she’d suffered a lot of internal bleeding, but she was well on her to making a full recovery. Both she and Stuart claimed to owe me their lives. I felt utterly undeserving of such sentiments.

It came upon me without warning. Towards the end of the video my vision suddenly went hazy. Panicking, I blinked several times to try and regain focus, but if anything it made the problem worse. I didn’t think anyone had noticed. The room had been darkened for the video, so I used that to my advantage and started rubbing my eyes. And then, as quickly as it had left me, my vision returned. But now there was another, more worrying problem. When I looked again at the screen I did not see what I had expected to see. Instead of the film we had been watching I saw something that made me get up and head for the exit. Outside the hall I was quickly joined by Rhona and Sky and not long after that by the Mayor and the other council officials. They found me leaning against a wall, shaking like a freezing puppy. I waved everyone away except Rhona and Sky. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I told them. Straightening up as best I could, I apologised to the Mayor and the others and we left. On the way home I suddenly remembered that the audience, including the assembled journalists, had been denied their Q&A session with me and that the Mayor was supposed to have presented me with the keys to the town.

We headed towards the town centre to get a cab, at my suggestion. The walk home was only about forty-five minutes, but I didn’t feel up to it. It was a hot, sunny afternoon in August and I was sweaty and faint and desperate to get home. At one point Rhona insisted that I loosen my tie and unbutton my collar and every now and then Sky would ask if I wanted to stop and rest for a bit. To reach the cab rank we had to walk along the high street. As usual for a Saturday, it was clogged with shoppers and noisy, most of the noise coming from a three-piece brass band who always busked outside the Marie Curie charity shop. Normally I didn’t mind them, but that afternoon their instruments sounded maddeningly loud and out of tune.

As we got to the rank I suddenly felt really thirsty. Sky offered to go into the nearby Greggs and get some drinks but I told her it was a waste of money. ‘Blockbuster is only two doors down, remember? Dave’s in today. Just tell him what you want and he’ll put it on my account.’ She went off and left me and Rhona to queue up. It was only then that Rhona asked me to explain what had had happened at the town hall. To avoid being overheard by the other people in the queue – some of them had recognised me and were trying not to stare – I whispered, ‘Can we talk about it when we get home?’ Rhona stroked my back and said, ‘Sure.’

Just then Sky returned carrying three bottles of Fanta. She handed one to me, one to Rhona and kept one for herself. She was accompanied by Dave, who was wearing his Blockbuster uniform. Short and stocky, I’d always thought he looked like a bouncer. After kissing Rhona on the cheek, he looked me up and down and said, ‘I hope you don’t think you’re getting out of your shift tomorrow.’ I rolled my eyes. Rhona put her arms around Dave’s shoulder and said, ‘Any new games in?’ He shook his head, ‘’Fraid not, love, nothing you’d be interested in anyway.’

A couple of cabs pulled up, people got into them, they pulled out again. We shuffled a little further along the pavement. Dave said to me, ‘Never seen you suited and booted before. You look almost handsome.’ That made Sky laugh. I was feeling too out of sorts to banter with Dave. I did my best but I couldn’t muster the necessary bite. ‘I see you’ve locked the store again during opening hours. That’s against company policy isn’t it?’ Barely hiding his annoyance, Dave came back with, ‘What are they gonna do, sack me? I wish they would.’ We’d reached the head of the queue and our cab arrived, stopping directly in front of us. I stepped straight from the pavement into the front passenger seat, which had more room for my long legs. Through the open window, Dave said, ‘Oh by the way, got a bone to pick with you, sir. How come I didn’t get an invite to your big day?’ It was an awkward moment. I felt it, Rhona and Sky felt it, even the cab driver felt it. I started stuttering but Dave said, ‘Only joking you lemon. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ The cab driver visibly relaxed and said, ‘We all set?’

Twenty minutes later the cab pulled up outside my house. Narrow, curved, tree-lined and deadly quiet, the contrast between my street and the town centre was marked. Just being in it made me feel better. I turned to Rhona and said, as a joke, ‘Coming in? I tidied up specially.’ She laughed. ‘No, you’re alright. I’ve made my yearly visit. That’s plenty for me.’ She had come round a few days earlier, for the first time in months, and only because she’d wanted to butter me up. As I got out of the cab she became serious. ‘You gonna be OK?’ I nodded and she added, ‘Why not swing by later? I’ll cook. You can bring booze.’ I touched her arm through the open window and said, ‘Done.’ I then winked at Sky who smiled at me and said, ‘Bring me a bottle of cider?’ I looked at Rhona. ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. The cab driver was getting impatient so I tapped twice on his roof and he drove off.

I got in, undressed and went and stood under the shower, amused at the thought of how much Rhona hated coming to my house. At first she had used the excuse of not wanting to leave Sky alone in the evenings, but it was no longer valid since Sky, at sixteen, was now capable of looking after herself and could stay at Trevor’s if necessary. I’d once suggested that they come over more and occasionally spend the night but Rhona had claimed she didn’t want to impose on me. Eventually I had it out with her and she admitted she found my house depressing. I had no defence. My house is depressing.

Two-storeys, brown, pebble-dashed, with rotting bay windows, a gravelled front yard used for the bins and a narrow back garden with a weed-choked lawn, it was by far the worst kept property in the street. And that was just the exterior. It was even worse on the inside. How many times had I told myself to change the stained shower curtain and the wonky toilet lid? How often had I sworn to throw out the broken down sofa and splash out on a new one? I could barely stand to look at the ancient net curtains, the moth-eaten drapes, the grey, threadbare carpet and the peeling, wood-chip wallpaper, and yet I did nothing about them. Even the landlord had said he was prepared to reimburse me for whatever I laid out, within reason, but not even that had stirred me into action. Initially I told myself that as a temporary stop I would be foolish to spend time and money on refurbishments, but when did temporary end and permanent begin? I’d lived in the house for seven years. Anyhow, since Rhona confessed that she couldn’t stand the place, she rarely called round, despite the fact that we lived at opposite ends of the same street. I can’t say I blamed her.

In structure, her house was identical to mine but in a much better state of repair and far more homely. She and Trevor had taken out several home improvement loans to do it up. As well as a new roof, they’d added an extension to the back that swallowed up a big piece of the garden but had put thousands on the market price. In summer, with the back door open, it was the coolest part of the house and functioned as both lounge and dining room. It had dark heavy drapes on the windows, wooden floors, a ceiling fan, a three-seater upholstered sofa-bed stuffed with coloured cushions, a home entertainment system that included a game console, and a pine-wood dining table with four matching chairs. Rhona loved it so much she seemed to spend all her spare time there, mostly playing computer games but occasionally reading – she liked Ann Cleeves – or watching TV. Sky didn’t like it as much, said it looked like an old people’s home, but I was with Rhona in thinking that it had a relaxing effect which no other room in the house possessed.

Whenever I stayed over and didn’t fancy going to sleep early, I’d hang out there watching TV and snacking, making regular runs to the kitchen and the toilet. The next morning Sky would come down, usually on her way to school, and find me asleep on the sofa-bed. She’d never leave before putting a sheet or a blanket over me, depending on the time of year. If I was still asleep when Rhona came down, I’d jump up and start clearing away my half-eaten snacks and restoring the room to its former state. Rhona was house-proud, she liked her living space to be just so, whereas I was a slob. It was one reason why she and I had decided not to move in together. Another was the desire to maintain our independence. Two years after her bitter marriage split, she wanted to avoid becoming too entangled with another man, both materially and emotionally, and I was wary of literally stepping into the space vacated by her ex. We were comfortable with the arrangement, which wasn’t so much casual as informal, but we knew we couldn’t go on like that forever, we knew the situation would have to change eventually. And it had.

Since the bombing, there’d been a slight but noticeable shift and we had moved a bit closer together. The media attention had left me feeling exposed and vulnerable and Rhona had been very supportive, especially in the first couple of weeks after the bombing when I was having counselling for post-traumatic stress. I’d made her proud, which hadn’t always been the case. My lack of worldly ambition used to be a source of contention between us. She thought I could do better and could never understand why I didn’t demand more from life. I wasn’t made to feel inadequate, but every now and then, as a way to motivate me, she would talk about how Trevor had started from nothing and now ran his own firm of builders. ‘If he can do that, and he’s a bird-brain, imagine what someone with your intelligence could achieve if you go at it.’ These references to Trevor always put me on the defensive. She claimed to hate the man yet admired his achievements? It made no sense to me until I realised that everything she did was in some way designed to impress Trevor, to make him see that she could live without him. If I was a success, she could hold her head up in his presence, and that explained why her attitude towards me had changed since the bombing. Trevor had a bit of money but I had achieved something much better than that. I had acquired fame. That it had happened accidentally and as a result of a terribly tragedy seemed of no consequence to Rhona.

Trevor. I hated to think of myself as being in competition with him. I thought he was pathetic, immature. He and Rhona were divorced yet he wouldn’t leave her alone. Once I came on the scene, he seemed to go out of his way to make things difficult for us, regularly showing up at the house unannounced and demanding to speak with Sky. Rhona had no right or wish to deny him his legal visitation rights, but anything outside of that she flatly refused. It was an ongoing battle and Sky was caught in the middle. She loved both her parents but was old enough and sensible enough to know that they didn’t work together as a couple. In an ideal world, she wanted to divide her time between them equally, but it wasn’t practical.

During the divorce she had been asked to choose which of them she wanted to live with. Not unnaturally, she chose her mother, though she felt guilty about it. Trevor didn’t take the snub lightly. He accused Rhona of poisoning his daughter’s mind against him and they’d been at each other ever since. I tried as best I could to stay out of it, and I tried to be civil to Trevor. I even invited him out for a drink once. I had gone round to his house to make the offer but he wouldn’t let me in. Standing on the doorstep, he waited till I’d finished speaking, then said, ‘What sort of bloke are you? Why don’t you fuck off and get your own family?’ I was about to reply but he slammed the door in my face. Since then, we’d barely exchanged two words. I told Rhona about the incident and she called him a child, said he was spiteful and vindictive and that I should try to avoid him. That wasn’t easy. I was part of his life, whether I liked it or not. Unless I stopped seeing Rhona, which wasn’t going to happen, I had to deal with him.

Mostly I was able to rise above his pettiness, but occasionally I allowed myself to be dragged down to his level. Like the other day. He’d come round to get Sky for the weekend and I answered the door to him. He was his usual charming self. ‘Fuck you doing ‘ere? Told you, don’t want you in my house. Now come on, sling it!’ I stepped back a bit, in case he tried to put his hands on me, but Rhona appeared in the nick of time and averted a potentially worse confrontation. ‘Give it a rest, Trevor,’ she said, wearily. ‘This isn’t your house any more, remember? Sky! Get a move on.’ Sky showed up and, familiar with the scene, rolled her eyes at the three of us. ‘Honestly,’ she said, then flounced out. Before he turned and followed her, Trevor fired me a parting shot: ‘Won’t tell you again. Don’t want you in my house. Got it?’ Rhona was about to say something but I shut the door before she had a chance.

Feeling much better after showering and changing my clothes, I went round to see Rhona. It was about six o’clock in the evening and the temperature, though still hot enough for an outbreak of flying ants, had fallen to a manageable level. Rhona cooked a pasta bake with a green leaf side salad, one of her favourite dishes, and we ate it in the extension, the ceiling fan whirring above our heads. To accompany the meal, I had beer, Rhona had white wine and Sky had a pear cider, a reward for all the studying she’d been doing ahead of her next round of exams. In the middle of dinner, Rhona asked whether I had thought any more about selling my story. We’d had an argument about it a few days before so I was surprised she brought up. ‘Not really, no.’ It was a lie. I had all but made up my mind, but I resented the way she was badgering me over it. She seemed disappointed with my answer and started sulking while trying to give the impression that she wasn’t.

Immediately after dinner, Sky went to her room to speak to her friend on the phone. She, the friend, came round about an hour later. Her name was Chloe, and, like Sky, she was thin and fashion conscious. That evening she was wearing gold hot-pants and black, patent leather Doc Martens boots. She came in and said hello to us then went up to Sky’s room and didn’t come out again till she was ready to go home, around nine thirty. Sky was never seen again that night, at least not by me. At eleven o’clock Rhona went up to say goodnight and apparently found her fast asleep, her Blackberry in her hand. Later, with the door to the extension locked against Sky, Rhona and I had muted sex on the sofa bed. I wasn’t really in the mood, it was the second week of the football season and I had hoped to watch Match of the Day, but Rhona, who always got randy after drinking wine, never stopped pawing and pulling at me till I gave in.

Afterwards, she asked me again to explain what had happened at the town hall, saying that she had been shaken up to see me looking so frightened. ‘It was all a bit much, really. Hearing those people talk, seeing all those images again. I felt like my nose was being rubbed in it. Too many bad memories, I suppose.’ She accepted my explanation, saying it was a logical reaction, but what I’d told her was only partly true. Yes, the occasion had got to me, had brought me back to the horror of the bombing, but I didn’t mention the other things I’d seen, the sudden, jarring visions that had flashed into my mind. I used to get them all the time but hadn’t had one in years. Why they should have returned now, and with such intensity, was a mystery too deep for me to fathom, but it felt as if the two things, the memory of the bombing and the visions from the past, were somehow linked, if not in reality then at least in my mind.

Whatever had caused their return I hadn’t been able to shake them all day. Like the after tremors of a massive earthquake, the later ones had less of a devastating effect on me but were no less vivid. I’d actually had one at the dinner table but somehow managed to conceal my reactions from Rhona and Sky. They were having a conversation about Sky’s grandmother on her father’s side. Sky had promised to visit her but had forgotten and wanted to get her a gift to make things up but couldn’t decide on what. Rhona said, ‘Flowers. You can never go wrong with those.’ Sky made a face and said, ‘Boring.’ And that’s when the visions began. Clear, detailed, horrifying. I saw Mitch. He was staring at me; he wanted to harm me. Benjy was there, too. He had another kind of look in his eyes, the scared look of someone who was in over his head and didn’t know how to get out. They were both naked. I saw the room. It was bare, dark, the curtains were drawn. There was a smell in the air, something fetid, rotten, evil. Mitch was arguing with me, swearing at me, threatening me. My head was spinning. Too much coke. I was having to keep my eye on Mitch, in case he tried to jump me, but I was losing it, losing my nerve, losing control of the situation, losing my will to live. I wanted to put the gun to my head and pull the trigger but I couldn’t do it. And that’s where the vision ended. More things happened that night, a lot more, but I wasn’t getting any of it. I’d been blocking so effectively, for so long, the full picture was taking time to re-emerge. I didn’t want to think about any of it and I certainly didn’t want to tell Rhona about it. I couldn’t tell her or anybody.

* * *

The following morning, on my way to work, I popped into Len’s, bought a few of the tabloids and stood in a corner reading them. The story of the aborted reception featured prominently in all of them. The headlines were a variation on ‘Bomb Hero Honoured’ and each article mentioned the fact that I’d taken ill and that the reception had been cut short. No surprises there. What did surprise me was the extent to which the journalists had embellished their stories. One paper stated that I had collapsed on stage. Another said I had cried out in anguish before running from the room like, and I quote, ‘the Elephant Man fleeing his tormentors.’ Still another had it that I went ashen before keeling over backwards on my chair. As I read, I kept shaking my head. Even the quotes were unsubstantiated. I couldn’t believe the number of townsfolk who, lying through their teeth just to get their names in the papers, had been quoted as having had personal dealings with me over the years. And then there were the pictures, which made me look as if I was about to stab someone. I couldn’t have appeared more threatening if I had been auditioning for the role of ‘Thug Number One’ in the latest idiotic gangster flick. Normally the sight of a black man in a daily newspaper looking menacing would have caused me to be no more than mildly irritated, but to see myself so portrayed almost made me call the Press Complaints Commission. When I considered everything as a whole – the inaccurate reporting, the insidiously racist photographs, the unchecked quotes – it was little wonder I was so wary of getting involved with the media.

I made sure to arrive for my shift ten minutes early. Dave was impatient to leave but when he saw that I’d brought the papers, he stayed behind for a while and read a couple of the articles, whistling the Superman theme tune throughout. Eventually he finished reading and said, ‘Right, I’m off. Don’t work too hard now.’ We looked out across the empty store. Sundays were normally quiet, which is why I always volunteered to work them. As soon as Dave left, I put on Shawshank Redemption then went and made myself a cup of tea. My shift started at midday and finished at eight. In that time I served a total of six customers and watched three films, my feet up on the counter.

When I first started working at Blockbuster, I did so hoping that I would get to sit around all day watching films. It’s the assumption everyone has about the video store employee and it was the one I had when I applied for the job. I was pleased to discover there was some truth to the myth. I got to watch a lot of films, but after three years I was beyond saturation point and had actually gone off them, especially the big, overblown, Hollywood rubbish that we specialised in. And since I no longer enjoyed that benefit, it had become clear to me that there was very little else to recommend the job. In fact I found it so silly that sometimes it was all I could do not to stop in the middle of my shift and laugh out loud. Take my job title for example. I was officially a Customer Services Representative, or CSR for short. Quite apart from being vague, it was misleading. The ‘S’ in the title should really have stood for ‘Sales’, since a significant part of what I did was trying to flog things to people. The customers could barely get in the door before I was bombarding them with special offers of one sort or another. ‘Did you know that if you rent another movie, you can get a third free? Also, our popcorn is on offer at the moment. Two for two pounds. Wha’ d’you say?’ Not surprisingly, I had a few people telling me where to stick my offers.

These humiliations were starting to take their toll. I knew it was only a matter of time before I quit the job, I knew I couldn’t go on doing it forever, but until then I tried to concentrate on the perks. There were several. First, the hours were flexible. If I didn’t fancy working, I could take a few days off, provided I could arrange cover. Second, the job was physically undemanding. I’d had enough of back-breaking work and was pleased to discover that the only lifting I was expected to do was when the boxes of confectionery arrived each week and had to be stored away. I could handle that. I treated it as a bit of exercise, which was needed given that I spent most of my shift sitting behind the counter drinking cups of tea and eating biscuits. Third, I didn’t have a boss telling me what to do. Dave, at thirty-five, was my junior by a couple of years, but he was also my manager. In practise this meant nothing since he never gave me orders. Whenever we worked together, all he ever wanted to do was talk about football. Away from work we had become close – we went to the pub a couple of times a week – and I regarded him as my only friend in Duddenham.

She’d hate to hear me calling it a perk, but I met Rhona at Blockbuster. She used to come in to the store at least three times a week. I remember she struck me as being different from the other female customers in that she didn’t go in for idiotic rom-coms, but was in fact into computer games. And I don’t mean the namby-pamby type of game that so many of the other women were into, but the ultra-violent, shoot-em-and-chop-em-to-death variety that was almost exclusively the preserve of the guys. Over time our banter became increasingly flirtatious. I found her confidence sexy, or was it the fact that she regularly wore super tight jeans that flattered her long legs and pert buttocks? She and I still joked about the time we first spoke to each other. While I was busy trying to interest her in one of our many laughable offers – two packets of cheese puffs and a movie for a fiver, I believe it was – she had her eyes on my pecs.

She no longer came into the store. There was no need. She called and told me which games she wanted and I brought them over after work. Free of charge. I teased her about the fact that I had saved her thousands of pounds over the years, but I was careful not to go too far as she was very sensitive on the subject of money. Before we got together, a significant percentage of her earnings had been spent on her gaming obsession. How she managed that and kept the wolves from her door, I had no idea. Even now, with all the savings she made through me, I wondered how she coped financially. The little she earned as a dental receptionist could barely keep her and Sky in food, let alone pay all her bills. I knew that Trevor made a contribution to the mortgage and to Sky’s upkeep, but apart from that, she had to do everything on her meagre wages. Money was a constant worry for her. More than anything she wanted to be financially independent of Trevor. ‘I’d love to buy him out of this house,’ she once told me, ‘and if I had my way, I wouldn’t accept a penny of his money for Sky.’ To this end, unknown to me, she had been working on a plan.

A few days before I was honoured at the town hall, she had called me from the surgery, as she often did during her lunch break, to say she had something she wanted to discuss with me. She didn’t want to give any details over the phone, but I was curious and I pressed her to give me something, anything, a clue. She refused, was being deliberately cryptic. For a crazy moment I half-suspected that she was plotting to rob a bank and wanted me as her accomplice. I almost said as much. Sensing my frustration, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything tonight. But at yours. Don’t want that bloomin’ nosey daughter of mine eavesdropping on us. I’ll come over around six if it’s all right with you.’ As soon as she mentioned coming over I knew she was going to ask for something, a favour, something requiring me to put myself out on her behalf. If she had to stoop so low as to come to my house, it had to be something significant.

On the day she was due to come round I made sure to get up early so I could do a bit of cleaning. It had been weeks since I last tidied up and I was daunted by the size of the task facing me. It certainly felt strange to be breaking a sweat trying to get the place ready, as though I were expecting the visit of some foreign dignitary. There was so much to do I had to begin the clean-up in the morning before I went to work and rush back home immediately afterwards to complete it. And even then I was still doing last minute bits and pieces when Rhona showed up.

She arrived a few minutes early, which increased my already jangly nerves. At the front door she handed me not one, but two bottles of red wine. When we entered the living room, her eyes widened. ‘Good God! Someone’s been busy. Wait,’ she had a quick look around, ‘I’m in the right house, aren’t I?’ It’s strange how the things we first admire about a person end up becoming the very things we loathe. I used to find her sarcasm entertaining, now I found it dull. ‘Funny.’ I said, and went off to the kitchen to open one of the bottles of wine.

When I returned Rhona was sitting, or should I say reclining, on the sofa. She had one leg up under her bum and was flicking through my cable listings magazine. As I entered the room she said, ‘All this stuff on TV and not one decent programme anywhere. And you wonder why I’m into computer games.’ She tossed the magazine aside. I handed her a glass of wine and sat down beside her at what I thought was a safe enough distance. She noticed the gesture, but let it go without comment. ‘Cheers,’ she said, looking deep into my eyes. She had quite a penetrating stare, unnerving, but I didn’t avert my eyes as I was determined not to be wrong footed by her. She was being at her most seductive, evidenced by the low cut top that exposed her ample cleavage and by the fact that she had practically showered in perfume. The room was filled with her floral scent. ‘Cheers,’ I replied. We touched glasses, put them to our lips, and then I came to the point. ‘So come on. Out with it.’ She smiled. ‘OK. But you have to promise that you’ll hear me out before you say anything.’ That confirmed it. I was not going to like what she had to say. ‘Do you promise?’ she said, in her best little girl voice. She even gave a little pout for good measure. I sighed. ‘Yes, yes, I promise. Now get on with it.’

She said she had been mulling over my situation with the press and their constant requests for interviews. While she understood my reluctance to have anything to do with them, while she was proud of the fact that I wanted to protect my privacy and, by extension, the people in my life who might also be affected, the fact remained that I was in a position to capitalise on my fame and I should seriously consider selling my story to the papers. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and if I didn’t exploit it I would live to regret it. I thought she had finished but she quickly added, ‘And if you don’t want to do it for yourself, then do it for me. You know what it would mean for me to be free of Trevor. You’d be helping me. Sky, too.’ So that was it. She wasn’t interested in my welfare, but her’s and her daughter’s. I lost my temper, we rowed and she stormed out, calling me a fool and other names besides. Not long after she left I began to feel guilty for the way I had reacted. Once I had calmed down and looked at the thing rationally, I could see the sense in what she was suggesting. The sums of money being offered for my story would have made a significant difference to my life. It would have enabled me to do those things I’d been dreaming about for years: buy my own home, set up a business of some kind, go travelling. All that was now in reach.

In fairness I had been thinking about selling my story long before Rhona made her suggestion but had been delaying it in the hope that the interest in the bombing would die away and the decision would be taken out of my hands. In fact the story, which was now being universally referred to as 7/7, had gathered such momentum that I was now getting phone calls from all sorts of people wanting to exploit my celebrity: join this movement, become the public face of that charity, support this cause. In this area alone I could have written my own cheques. These people were prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege of using my face and name. But I feared getting involved with them almost as much as I feared the media. For one thing, a lot of the stuff would have involved appearing on TV, which I would simply not consider under any circumstances, and for another, it would have meant going to London. I hadn’t been back since the bombing and was very nervous about doing so. But I hadn’t ruled out the possibility of giving one big interview to either a newspaper or magazine. It wouldn’t have required too much of me to answer some questions and pose for a few photographs and I felt sure I could dictate when and where. When I thought about it like that it almost began to seem easy and I felt foolish for not having done it already. Rhona had been right. In her cack-handed, self-serving way, she had helped me make up my mind.

Two days after the reception at the town hall I had gone back there, at the request of the Mayor, to complete the key-giving ceremony. That time there was only a handful of people present, the ceremony took place in a nondescript ante-room, and the only media in attendance was a reporter from the local weekly paper who waited patiently for everything to finish and then, with cheeky glint in his eye, asked if I would consider giving him an exclusive interview. When I turned him down, with a smile and a pat on his young, dandruffed shoulders, he said, ‘Oh come on, Simon, where’s your sense of local pride?’

After leaving the town hall I went round to see Rhona and Sky. They hadn’t been able to attend the rescheduled ceremony due to work and boyfriend commitments respectively and were keen to hear news of how it had gone. When I said, ‘Nothing to write home about,’ they were visibly relieved not to have missed out on anything. When I showed them my ‘key’, an outsized thing made from aluminium, they laughed. Sky then told me that she had bought one of the papers that morning to show the article to Chloe. Apparently Chloe thought I looked ‘well fit’ and that given the chance she would ‘do’ me.

At the reception I’d been approached by a man called Richard Bottomley who claimed to be an agent. He had, he said, travelled from London to meet me in person and he wanted to make me a promise. ‘If you allow me to represent you, I’ll make you a fortune.’ He was in his early thirties, with a fleshy, slightly pockmarked face. He was wearing a sharp pinstripe suit and shiny brogues and seemed very sure of himself without being cocky. I was impressed by him and made a point of telling him so, even as I was turning down his offer. Fortunately I had kept his card. Now feeling guilty at the way things had gone with Rhona, I decided to call him. When he heard my voice, he shrieked with excitement down the phone and a day later he came to visit me again.

We went to my local pub for lunch and he talked excitedly about what he described as my ‘earning potential’. I must admit that he seduced me with all the figures he bandied about which, in my current financial situation, wasn’t saying very much. It didn’t take long for us to reach an agreement. Before we parted company he made me sign a contract, which he had been presumptuous enough to bring with him, and then told me to leave everything in his ‘capable hands’.

‘From now on, you don’t have to do anything. If any offers come your way, let me know and I’ll deal with them. Direct all enquiries to me, all right? Now, then, as far as the interview’s concerned, I’ll contact the editors myself to see who’s offering the most dosh. My bet is that it’ll be one of the Sunday tabloids. You wouldn’t mind that would you?’

I did mind. I minded very much, but at that stage I just wanted to grab the money and run.

‘No problem,’ I replied. ‘But I’ve got a couple of stipulations. They have to come to me and I get final say on any photos they use.’ Richard made a quick note of my demands then said, ‘The press are usually very sensitive on the issue of editorial control, for obvious reasons, but I’ll see what I can do.’

Richard came up trumps. For an exclusive interview, the Sunday Mirror offered me a hundred grand. I could hardly believe it. Even without Richard’s ten per cent commission that still left me a tidy sum. The paper had initially offered eighty thousand but, using the other papers’ interest as a bargaining tool, Richard had persuaded them to raise their offer. ‘They really want your story. I can’t be sure of the exact angle, but from what they said, I think they’re keen to hear about those moments between you and the girl.’

‘Why those moments in particular?’

‘As I said, I can’t be sure, but my guess is that they want to focus on what made you stay with her so long and how you found the strength to move the carriage.’ He laughed down the phone then went on, ‘You’re a hero now, but by the time they’re finished, you’ll be a super-hero. We might have to get you a pair of tights and a cape.’

‘Oh please. Don’t you start.’

Now that I’d made the decision, I felt even more nervous and conflicted. Instead of withdrawing from the spotlight, I was now consciously stepping into it. And for money. I was proud that I would now be able to help Rhona in her ongoing struggle to get out from under her bullying ex-husband, but if I was being totally honest, that was a by-product of my decision to sell my story. In a strange way, I felt deserving of all the attention I’d been getting. For once in my miserable life I had done something to be proud of, and I wouldn’t have been human if I didn’t wanted some kind of recognition for my actions, some kind of praise.

* * *

The Mirror interview took place a week later at my flat. Once again I attempted a bit of tidying up before the journalist arrived. In the end the effort was wasted as the interview was conducted in my back garden. Having spent the previous night in a stuffy B&B near the town centre, the journalist – a stragglyhaired forty-something woman called Susie Lowencrantz – was keen to sample a bit of the early-morning sunshine. She arrived at nine a.m. sharp and we talked almost non-stop till midday. She began by asking me about my life before I moved to Duddenham and I spun her yarn about a guy who had been born and brought up in a tough neighbourhood of London, who’d left school early and who, after years of doing ‘nothing in particular’, had grown tired of life in London and decided to sample the waters elsewhere. ‘But why this place?’ asked Lowencrantz, to which I replied, ‘I was looking for a change, somewhere out of London, somewhere cheap.’

Backtracking slightly, she asked me to provide more details of my childhood, at which point I became extremely wary of her. Why was she so keen to know about my past? Was she up to something? Was there was more to her than met the eye?

‘There’s not much else to tell. Like I said, I went to a normal secondary school, left at sixteen, looked for work, couldn’t find any and started signing on. Between that time and when I came here, I’ve been in and out of work. I’m working at the moment.’

She didn’t seem convinced but I’d to put an edge to my voice, making it clear that I wasn’t delving any further into my past. She scribbled my response and asked, ‘Where do you work?’

‘Blockbuster.’

Her eyes widened in surprise, which was how people usually reacted when I mentioned my job.

‘You enjoy the work?’ she asked, trying to keep the judgement out of her voice. The more she spoke, the more I disliked her.

‘Not really. I used to, but now I hate it. I’ll probably get fired after saying this, but even a chimp could do that work.’

‘Why don’t you leave if you hate it so much?’

‘I’m going to.’

From then on her demeanour seemed to shift, she became more focussed, her questions became more specific and they were all to do with the bombing. She wanted blood and guts, she wanted gore, she wanted graphic details to titillate her readers. And so, playing the game, I gave her enough to keep her happy but held back from the truly horrific stuff. As Richard had thought, she asked me to describe the time I had spent with Stuart and Latonya and made me talk her through my efforts to move the carriage. She didn’t seem to care how difficult it was for me to dredge it all up again. She was no shrink. She was a hard-nosed hack who’d come to do a job and was not going to allow sentiment to get in the way.

When I started talking about Stuart and how I’d had to bind his legs, I began to shake visibly at the memory, but Lowencrantz either didn’t notice or she did and ignored it. She also asked me about Mohammad Sidique Khan.

‘You say you saw him?’

I nodded, no longer willing to co-operate with what had now turned into an interrogation. She asked me to describe him, which I did, to the best of my memory, and afterwards she said, ‘And how do you feel about what he did, what they did?’

I didn’t know what to say besides, ‘It was wrong.’

She noted my answer, taking a little too long over it. I couldn’t wait for her wrap things up and I realised I’d made a huge mistake inviting her into my house. At last she said, ‘OK, I think I’ve got enough. Just to remind you that the photographer’ll be here day after tomorrow. He’ll contact you directly.’ She folded her notepad and switched off her Dictaphone. I observed her for a few moments as she hastily stuffed everything into her bag. She had what she wanted and suddenly seemed in a great hurry to get away. Just as she got up to leave I said, ‘You didn’t ask what I’m gonna do with the money you’re paying me. The reader might like to know that, don’t you reckon?’ It was a sly dig but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to see her squirm a bit. She flashed me a condescending smile and said, ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Why? That not part of the story, too?’

‘Yes, but it’s not a part the reader’s interested in.’

* * *

I used my next shift with Dave to hand in my notice. It was a Friday evening, one of our busiest times. The customers were coming in by the minute, renting their films for the weekend and taking advantage of our special offers. Ideally I’d have waited till a more quiet time to make the announcement but I was keen to get the thing over and done with in case I changed my mind. I’d been in that position before, on the verge of leaving, only to back track out of fear. Jobs as cushy as those didn’t grow on trees, which made it both a blessing and a curse: the ease of the work is what had trapped me.

Later that evening, while we were tidying up ahead of closing, Dave said he was happy that I was leaving. ‘At least one of us is escaping, eh?’ He had been at Blockbuster for eight years, and whilst he had often thought about quitting, he had so far lacked the courage to go through with it.

Trying to console him I said, ‘Well at least you made manager.’

‘Big deal. I get almost the same money as before but with three times the responsibility. I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes I miss being a CSR. You guys don’t know you’re alive.’

For a moment he went almost misty-eyed with nostalgia. And then he snapped out of it.

‘But you’re out. You’re free. We should celebrate.’

I’d been feeling guilty since he mentioned not being invited to the reception and it felt like a good moment to apologise. ‘Sorry about the other day.’ He looked puzzled, so I explained.

After he’d heard me out, he said, ‘Don’t worry. I was working that day, anyway. Remember?’

‘I know, but you could have booked it off if I’d given you notice. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

He slapped me on the back and said, ‘You’re not gonna get all mushy on me are you? I hate mush.’

I smiled and he went round the back to put the alarm on. While he was gone I started thinking about our friendship. It was a strange one. We were close without being intimate. We didn’t confide in each other or speak about anything of real importance. Though we lived, roughly, in the same area, I’d never been to his house and he’d never been to mine. We went to the pub, usually after work, sank a few pints while either watching football or talking about it, then went home. I didn’t need anything more from him, and until he made that comment about the reception, I had assumed he felt the same way. He hadn’t given me the slightest indication that he was interested in going, even though I had talked to him about it. To me he was the ideal friend, respectful of your space without being standoffish. He had never pried into my personal life or history and I had taken that to mean that he would like me to extend him the same courtesy.

In the beginning, we had provided each other with the basic facts our lives and things had never really moved on from there. I was from London, I had an older brother who was a Christian, my parents had retired and moved back to Jamaica, I had come to Duddenham for a change of scenery and a lower cost of living. He was born and raised in Duddenham and had spent most of his life there, he lived alone, he was close to his parents and saw them daily, he had always worked and always in retail, he had two friends he had known since school. I’d met them but had never socialised with them as Dave liked to keep us apart. One was an old flame called Stacie, a sullen, peroxide blonde whose roots were always showing, and the other was a guy called Paul, a biker who wore leathers all year round. They sometimes came into the store to get free rentals on Dave’s account. If Dave was on shift, they’d stay and talk with him a while; if not, they couldn’t get out of the store fast enough, especially if I was working. I had the impression that they didn’t like me, that they saw me as some kind of rival for Dave’s attention. He was that type, he had the ability to make you feel like the most important person in his life. That’s certainly how he had made me feel, before the bombing but even more so after it. He was proud of what I’d done, but, in keeping with the nature of our friendship, the only way he could show it without causing us embarrassment or inflating my ego, was to poke fun at me. Rhona thought he was just being jealous, but I knew better, I knew that the more cutting his put-down, the deeper his affection.

A couple of evenings after I told him I was quitting my job, we went to one of our regular haunts for a few pints. It had been a while since we’d gone for a drink together and I’d forgotten just how much I enjoyed it. For midweek, the place was quite busy. As we walked in, a couple of the regulars nodded and smiled at me but not everyone in the pub was happy to see me. Trevor was in that night, sitting in a corner with a friend. When he saw me he all but hissed. I said to Dave, ‘There’s a bad smell in here tonight. Let’s go somewhere else.’ He spotted Trevor and said, ‘Why the hell should we? Last time I checked, this weren’t his pub.’ And with that he practically marched me up to the bar and ordered the first round from Sabina, the young Polish bar girl.

Dave and I made sure to sit as far away from Trevor as possible, but such was the layout of the pub that we couldn’t completely avoid seeing him or vice versa. Trevor and I spent a lot of time giving each other dirty looks. Dave did his best to occupy my attention, but no matter what topic of conversation he tried to interest me in – Champions League football, the latest gossip about the other staff at Blockbuster, the parlous state of the rental film industry in the age of illegal downloads – I just kept eyeballing Trevor. In the end Dave got frustrated. ‘Just ignore him, will ya? The bloke’s a waste of space.’ I downed the last of my Guinness and said, ‘You’re right. Same again?’ Dave nodded and I went off to the bar. While Sabina pulled the pints, I couldn’t help myself and shot a quick glance in Trevor’s direction. He noticed, gave me the finger, then he and his mate started chuckling like a couple of five-year-olds. I don’t know why it should have happened then, and not on some previous occasion, but something in me snapped and I strode over to where Trevor was sitting and said, ‘You got something to wanna say to me?’ His friend said, ‘Look, let’s all calm down, eh?’ Trevor then stood up. We were practically standing nose-to-nose. I could smell the booze on his breath. In weight and height, we were about the perfect match. For a few moments neither of us spoke, and then he said, ‘Why don’t you fuck off back to where you came from?’

‘You what?’

‘You heard. You’re not welcome round here.’

‘And yet I’ve just been given the key to the town. It’s hanging above the bed in your ex-wife’s bedroom.’

His nostrils flared. ‘I’m warning you, don’t push me.’

‘Or else what?’ He clenched his fists and stared at me. He was all ready to go but then seemed to have a change of heart.

‘Your problem is you’re blind. You can’t see what’s right in front of your nose. You can’t see that Rhona’s only using you to get back at me. I could have her back like that…’ he snapped his fingers, ‘…but she can go and do one. If it wasn’t for Sky I wouldn’t go anywhere near that filthy slag.’

I punched him flush on the jaw. He staggered backwards like a man who’d had one too many and fell flat on his back. Sabina screamed from behind the counter, which alerted everyone else in the pub to what was happening. Dave came rushing to my side. I knew that if it kicked off he’d probably come up short, but having him next to me was reassuring all the same. I stood waiting for Trevor’s friend to do something but, obviously afraid, he backed away and started trying to revive his still prone friend. Trevor swore, brushed him aside and staggered to his feet, holding his jaw. He then tried to come at me but this time his friend held on to him and simply refused to let go, as if he feared for Trevor’s life. Dave and I stood and waited to see what would happen next.

By now a handful of other drinkers had gathered around and one woman said to me, ‘Go on now, leave it. It’s over.’ Like an adult who steps in to separate two warring kids, her words brought matters to a close. I said to Dave, ‘Told you there was a bad smell in here. Can we go now?’ He didn’t need another invitation. We turned and walked away. Just as we were about to leave Trevor shouted, ‘This isn’t over you black cunt!’ I immediately turned around, ready to do some serious damage now, and it took the combined force of Dave and the other customers to prevent me from having my way. Trevor was standing a few tantalising feet away, leering at me, satisfied with himself for having evened the score, if only verbally. I wanted to smash his teeth down his throat, but in the end I wriggled free of my captors and stepped outside. I gulped down a few quick draughts of the humid night air and then, accompanied by a very concerned-looking Dave, set off home.

I walked Dave to his flat, which took me completely out of my way. When I finally got in it was after midnight and I went straight to bed. I needn’t have bothered. Sleep just wouldn’t come. I couldn’t stop thinking about Trevor and what I wanted to do to him but after a while my anger burned out and I began to reflect on why I had gone to the pub in the first place. I had done it. I was leaving Blockbuster. I had taken the big step. The money I was set to receive from the paper had been the deciding factor but I hadn’t mentioned that to Dave out of respect for his situation. He didn’t need to hear that I was getting almost five times his annual salary in one go and could afford the luxury of taking a few months off work before deciding my next move. In the pub earlier he’d asked me how I intended to cope for money while looking for a new job and, jokingly, I’d said, ‘I’m gonna sponge off you, of course.’

Still unable to sleep, I got out of bed and went into the living room and put the TV on. Flicking through the channels I settled on a cop thriller. It held my interest for about twenty minutes and then I got bored and switched it off. I fell asleep, still on the sofa, around two a.m. I had my usual nightmare. I saw Stuart lying on the tracks. After sawing both his legs off he handed me the saw and invited me to do the same with mine, laughing at me and calling me a coward when I start to run away. Next I saw myself in the bombed out carriage, surrounded by cadavers, maggots squirming from their eyes. One of them, who sometimes looked like Latonya and at other times like Theodore, was pointing a crossbow at me, getting ready to fire. I had to keep dodging and ducking, waiting for the moment when I was hit, but it never came. I woke up, as I always did at that point, gasping for breath, my heart hammering in my chest. I sat up, looked around. The front room was in darkness. Convinced I could see shapes lurking in the corners, I got up and switched on the light and felt silly when I saw that there was nothing in the room but the usual items: the broken down sofa and the matching armchair, the knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, the torn paper shade covering the lightbulb, the TV in its plywood cabinet. I decided to go back to bed, thinking that a change of rooms might bring about a change in my mood. The opposite happened.

While lying in bed, with the radio on as a distraction, the visions started. Just as they had at the reception, and later at Rhona’s, they suddenly flashed into my mind. The oppressively dark room. The horrible smell. Mitch and Benjy with no clothes on. Mitch desperate to attack me but wary of the gun in my hand. Benjy looking scared and unsure what to do. These visions, coming so soon after the nightmare, gave me violent convulsions. Thinking I was about to die, I had to get up and walk around to try to rid myself of the terrors. I paced about the house for more than an hour, going from room to room, my senses heightened, my nerves shredded, paranoid and jittery. I’d never felt more alone in my life. I almost called Rhona, but didn’t want to disturb her ahead of her shift at the surgery, which was only a few hours away. I would have called Theodore but I had burdened him so much over the years with my problems I just didn’t have the heart to weigh him down further. The poor guy deserved a break. That only left Dave. I knew he would have been happy and flattered that I had turned to him in a crisis yet I didn’t because my ego wouldn’t allow it. He had just seen me lay out Trevor. I couldn’t then call him to say I was feeling scared and jumping at my own shadow.

Around five o’clock the birds started cheeping. Never had I heard a more soothing sound. The dawn broke soon after that, the half-light seeping in through the uncovered window in the kitchen, where I happened to be at the time. Feeling better, I went back to bed and fell asleep quite quickly. Only to be woken up a few hours later by the sound of my mobile ringing. It was Dave, calling to remind me that I was supposed to have opened the store that morning. He had turned up for his shift expecting to find me and had had to open up himself. Several customers had already called up to complain about the store being closed and he was not happy to have spent the first hour of his shift apologising to people for my oversight. I was annoyed with him. He seemed to have forgotten the night before and the fact that it may have had something to do with my no-show. But then that was one of the things I liked about him: he was conscientious almost to a fault.

In all the time he and I worked together I couldn’t remember him ever missing a shift. ‘Sorry, homes,’ I said, ‘completely forgot.’ He accepted my apology, but added sarcastically, ‘I don’t know if you’re trying to make me sack you, but if you are, it won’t happen. I expect you to work out your two weeks’ notice. And get your arse here asap, will ya? The price changes happen today remember? We’ve got a lot of stickering to do, my friend. And in case you’d forgotten, the ice-cream gets delivered later on and there’s no way I’m putting that shit away by myself. And don’t even get me started on the cleaning. You seen the state of the place recently? In fact, when was the last time you got the hoover out, Simon?’ I was about to say that I never did the hoovering as no-one else seemed to bother, but then I remembered that he was only joking and that I would soon be out of there. And so I allowed him to prattle on till finally I could take no more and said, ‘OK, OK, don’t get your G-string in a twist. I’ll be there shortly.’

* * *

‘So, tell me, how much d’you need to buy Trevor out?’ Rhona bit her lip and looked at me uncertainly. Despite all her questions, I hadn’t told her how much I was getting for my story because as far as I was concerned the sum was obscene and I was embarrassed to mention it. ‘At least ten g’s,’ she said, her voice heavy with regret, ‘but I’ll take whatever you can afford. Even a quarter of that would help, actually.’

We were sitting on the sofa-bed in the extension, sharing a beer, the door open to let in a bit of the cool evening air. Her back garden, a narrow patch of grass dotted with clumps of dandelion, was alive with bugs. I had not long finished my shift and had brought round a couple of games for her – the latest versions of Assassin’s Creed and Modern Warfare – which were still lying on the table where I had put them, still in their Blockbuster plastic bag.

‘You can have the ten grand.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Come again?’

I took a sip from my glass of ice-cold beer.

‘I said you can have the money. Just as soon as I have it, of course.’

She stood up and came over and sat on my lap. As usual in that situation I became nervous.

Unlike Rhona, I was always worried about being interrupted by Sky, who at that moment was in the front room watching Eastenders with the volume turned up way too high. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting her to appear. I had never liked showing affection to Rhona in front of her. The funny thing was Sky didn’t mind, and certainly Rhona didn’t, but all the same there was something about it that made me uneasy. She kissed me and said, ‘You really mean it?’ I held her round her waist, shifting her weight slightly so as not to impede my hard on. ‘Of course I mean it, woman. And I was thinking, if it’s alright with you that is, I was thinking of putting a little something into an account for Sky: you know, for when she turns eighteen? What do you reckon?’ Rhona smiled, put her arms around my neck and kissed me again. I was getting more and more turned on. But for the thought of Sky, I would have taken her right there in the extension. At last we broke for some air and Rhona said, ‘Now come on, Simon. All joking aside. Exactly how much is the paper paying you?’ I laughed. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out.’

* * *

The photographer showed up equipped with everything except his manners. His sullen, can’t-be-arsed attitude was the complete opposite of Susie Lowencrantz’s hard-nosed professionalism. I had the feeling he thought he was some kind of artist who should be taking pictures for an exhibition rather than for newspapers. Long-haired, pale-faced and hollow-cheeked, he was wearing a washed-out black T-shirt, black skinny jeans and a pair of battered red Converse. But for his age – he must have been fifty if he was a day – he could have passed for an indie-rocker. I made it clear to him right from the off that I wouldn’t pose for any pictures that made me look like a thug. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’ he asked, which was either an innocent remark or an attempt to insult me.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Well, for one thing, I intend to be smiling in all the photos. So if that’s a problem for you, we might as well end this right now.’

He didn’t have a problem with me smiling, but warned that it might not reflect the serious nature of the article. I said, ‘That’s not my problem,’ and then quickly added, ‘and another thing, no pictures of me standing next to run-down council estates or walls covered in graffiti. In fact, I think we should get out into the countryside for the shoot. We could take your car.’

I was really laying down the law, and I could see that he was having to grit his teeth to avoid giving me a piece of his mind, but in the end he agreed to my suggestion. Once we were out in the countryside, and once we had agreed on a location – a shaded patch of grass beside a stream filled with shiny pebbles – we both relaxed and I started to enjoy the photo-shoot. I felt like quite the star. At one point an elderly couple driving by stopped their car in the middle of the road to see what was happening. ‘Who’s this black man having his photo taken? Must be somebody.’ It amused me to see their puzzled faces. At that moment I believe I finally understood the attraction of fame. I had to admit it to myself, I was starting to enjoy all the attention.

* * *

When I received my cheque, minus Richard’s commission, I stared at it for ages. It had my name on it, yet I couldn’t escape the feeling it had been sent to me by mistake. As if I feared getting a call to confirm the mistake, I hot-footed it into town to deposit the money into my near-empty Barclays account. When I approached her cubicle, Maureen, the bespectacled, middle-aged cashier, said, ‘Morning, Mr Weekes. How are you today?’

I did my best not to stare at her ample bosom. ‘I’m good, thanks. And you?’

‘Mustn’t grumble, as they say.’

I handed her the cheque. When she saw the amount her eyes widened momentarily, but she quickly composed herself, processed the cheque, stamped it, filed it away, gave me a receipt and said, ‘Now don’t you go spending that all at once.’ She winked at me over her quarter-moon glasses then looked past me to the next person in the queue. ‘Can I help?’

I walked towards the exit and was about to step outside when, from a side door, I saw the branch manager, Geoff Walker, approaching me fast. I stopped to wait for him. The bank had no air-conditioning and it was a hot late summer’s afternoon, yet Walker was wearing a creased, grey, pinstripe suit and a tie. The heat had turned his face a crablike pink and there was a bead of sweat on his tall forehead and another across his thin top lip. He extended his bony, blue-veined hand and said, ‘Mr Weekes, good to see you.’ I shook his hand. It was sweaty. ‘How’s it going?’ I asked. He shrugged and had a quick look around, as though fearing he might be overheard.

‘Got a few minutes?’ I didn’t, as it happened. I had a train to catch. ‘Not really. Why?’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, ‘Well, when you have a bit of time pop in and see me. I’d like to talk to you about some of the ways you might like to invest your money. In all conscience, I couldn’t allow you to have such a sum sitting in a current account doing nothing for you.’ I thought that was priceless. ‘You mean doing nothing for the bank.’ He flushed even redder than before. He was about to say something, no doubt in his defence, but I interrupted him. ‘Look, I’m off to London just now, be gone a couple of days, max. I promise I’ll drop by when I get back.’ He flashed me a crooked grin, we shook hands again and I turned and walked away. When I got outside, I looked back to make sure Walker wasn’t watching then wiped my palm on my jeans.

The unreliability of my old Golf, coupled with the hassle of having to find somewhere to park, put me off the idea of driving to London. That was half the reason. The other half was my desire to conquer my fear of getting on a train again. And it was very much fear. Just the idea of it set my heart racing. The train journey to London was going to be bad enough, but how would I feel about getting the tube from Kings Cross to Ladbroke Grove?

As it turned out, the train ride to London was not as bad as I had feared. The views into London – flat green fields, undulating hills, big blue skies – worked on me like a balm. After a panicky quarter of an hour or so, I managed to relax and passed the four-hour trip in contemplation of what it would be like to spend a bit of time with my brother. I missed him. I needed him like never before. With our parents now out of the picture, he was all the family I had left.

If the train ride into London had been manageable, then getting on the tube proved to be a severe test of my mettle. As I stood at the top of the escalator on my way to catch the Hammersmith and City Line I was not just afraid, I was terrified. People pushed past me, giving me dirty looks. On the journey into London I had been steeling myself for the moment; now that it had arrived, I didn’t think I could go through with it. I tried to think rationally. Nothing was going to happen to me. I wasn’t going to be blown up. And yet my knees were shaking. I dilly-dallied like this for several minutes until, suddenly, I found myself being swept on to the escalator by a huge throng of commuters.

Instinctively I stepped to the right to avoid the moving traffic, gripping the handrail for all I was worth. I took several deep breaths to try to open my lungs, but so hot and acrid was the air that I started to hyperventilate. The distance from top to bottom couldn’t have been more than thirty metres but if felt twice as long. To ease my anxiety, I glanced occasionally at the ads on the wall, but all the while I was conscious of going down, ever down, as if I was heading into the very depths of hell.

As soon as I reached the bottom I jumped off the escalator and stood to one side to avoid being stampeded, still unsure whether to continue my journey. With my back against the wall, I felt a blast of cool air caused by a train entering a tunnel. I was glad for it. It helped my breathing a little, even if it did nothing for my shakes. I started talking to myself: ‘If you can make it on to the train, you’ll be fine.’ I set out along the tunnel towards the platform. By the time I got there I was a bundle of nerves. I slumped down on the first bench I came across, practically falling into the lap of a young American couple who, not surprisingly, immediately stood up and moved some distance away from me. From the electronic timetable I saw that my train wasn’t due for another seven minutes. In my current state that was an eternity. I gritted my teeth, determined not to buckle under the pressure.

Everywhere I looked I noticed people in full possession of themselves: laughing and joking, reading the Metro, listening to their iPods, gazing absently at the ads on the tunnel wall. A couple of kids were pointing at the tracks and giggling, maybe at the sight of mice. To my eyes, the people didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Their composure seemed to be mocking me. I couldn’t be sure how I appeared to them, but I guessed from their indifference that I seemed normal. It was a small comfort to know that I didn’t look unhinged, even if that’s how I felt. Even the American couple, who had initially kept a wary eye on me, were now ignoring me. With these thoughts in mind, my breathing evened out a bit. I was calming down. But the instant I saw my train approaching I got an attack of prickly heat and my throat became excessively dry.

Slowly, the train came squealing to a standstill. The noise was so distressing I involuntarily covered my ears. As usual, the commuters made a mad dash towards the edge of the platform and started bunching up on either side of the electronic doors. I remained rooted to the bench. I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to get up. My legs felt numb. The train finally spat out the exiting passengers and those boarding scrambled forward to replace them. At the last second I stood up and shuffled the short distance from the bench to the train. I left it so late that the closing doors almost squashed me. But that was the least of my problems. There was not a seat to be had anywhere, so I had to support myself with a combination of my rubbery legs and the overhead railing. When the train suddenly lurched into motion, a surge of bile rose from my stomach up to my throat. I had to swallow hard to stop myself from vomiting.

For the next few stops I clung onto the overhead railing and planted my legs as firmly as I could to avoid too much swaying about. With so many people crammed into the carriage and with the ever-changing motion of the train as it wound its way through the tunnel, this was no easy feat. Waves of nausea washed over me. Having a seat would have helped, but I was never quick enough or in the right position to grab any free ones. And then things took a significant turn for the worse. Due to what the driver announced as ‘signal problems up ahead’, the train stopped in a tunnel. At this point I felt myself swoon. Convinced I was on the point of collapse, I took the desperate measure of sitting down on the carriage floor. Squeezing myself between the throng, I positioned myself so that my back was flat against the Perspex partition and then slid down on to the floor, drawing my knees up to my stomach to make myself as small as possible.

I drew a lot of stares from those around me, scornful, judgemental, even hateful stares, but by then I was beyond caring. Clutching my small backpack containing a change of clothes and a few toiletries, I sat and waited for the train to get going again. Looking around, I had the sudden macabre thought that if an explosion were to go off just then, dozens of people would be blown to smithereens, and that thought prompted me to examine some of the faces of the people standing near me. I don’t know what I was looking for, some sense of who they were I guess. Maybe I was trying to connect with them on some level, trying to get past the barriers, barriers that rarely come down except in a crisis or a catastrophe. When I thought back to the bombing and how close I had felt to all the survivors and even to the dead, I could hardly believe that only a few weeks later I was sitting on the floor of a tube train, feeling scared out of my mind, hoping to be ignored.

In the middle of having these thoughts, the visions began, flashing before my eyes in rapid succession. Once again I saw the room, that dark, depressing room where it all took place. I saw Mitch, his eyes wild with rage, his knife drawn, yearning to tear me apart for my betrayal but afraid of the gun in my hand. I saw Benjy, looking lost, his loyalty hopelessly divided between his two best friends. And I saw myself, ordering them around, high on coke and power, full of self-loathing and the desire to blow my own brains out. In between the visions I struggled to get perspective on my surroundings. My spatial awareness became shot. I couldn’t work out where I stood, or rather sat, in relation to the other passengers. At first the man standing in front of me seemed to be within touching distance, and then he appeared to be out of reach. Likewise the little girl holding his hand. I almost reached out my hand to test the distance between us. But I didn’t. I didn’t because I was desperate not to appear crazy or threatening. I fought like the devil to keep a lid on things.

I felt like crying out, but my pride wouldn’t allow to me to behave that way in front of all those hard-faced Londoners. I didn’t want to give them the added satisfaction. To them I must have seemed like a nutter sitting there on the floor, but I didn’t want them to start treating me like one by moving away from me. Normally on a tube I wanted as much space for myself as I could get, but in that situation, the closer I was to my fellow passengers the better I felt. It meant I was normal. It meant I was sane. Some of them were clearly scared of me. I couldn’t say I blamed them. They didn’t recognise me, they didn’t know who I was or what I’d done, and even if they did, it wouldn’t have mattered. It hadn’t been two months since the bombings, they were still on edge, still wary of anything or anyone that looked suspicious or out of the ordinary. I felt the same. As soon as I stepped into that carriage I started looking around for anyone, man or woman, with a backpack. Who was to say there wasn’t another suicide bomber lurking in the carriage? For all those passengers knew, I could be one. I wasn’t Asian, I didn’t fit the racial profile, but neither had Germaine Lindsay, a black guy like myself who’d blown up the train at Kings Cross.

At last the driver apologised for the delay. Soon after that the train hissed and sighed and juddered to a start. Within a few minutes the visions ceased and the agitation I had been feeling started to wane. Just to be on the move again had given me a shot in the arm. But still I remained on the floor. With each successive stop the train became emptier and more and more seats became available, but I remained on the floor. When it pulled into Edgware Road, I became so scared I couldn’t even open my eyes but there was no escape from the memory. I was right back there. I saw it all. The train pulling into the station. The doors opening and staying open. The people getting on, the others getting off and crossing to the platform opposite, but mostly I saw the faces of the people who’d been in the carriage with me that day, none clearer than Mohammad Sidique Khan. As soon as I pictured his face I opened my eyes, half expecting to see him sitting in front of me, but the first thing I saw was a pigeon. It had wandered in and was walking around looking for food. Outside the carriage, people were milling about, looking up at the notice board, checking which train they needed to catch and on which platform. I sat on the floor and watched them, impatient for the train to get going, more impatient than I’d been on the day of the bombing. The doors seemed to take an age to close. Finally, I heard, ‘This train is now ready to depart. Please stand clear of the closing doors.’ The doors slid together, trapping the pigeon. It didn’t seem to mind. It waddled along the carriage in my direction, its head bobbing up and down and jerking back and forth. It didn’t seem to notice me and when it did, it shot me a quick sideways glance then continued on its way, pecking the ground as it went. It came so close to me I couldn’t fail to notice that one of its claws had been damaged, was essentially a stump, and that its eyes were very milky.

As the train pulled out of the station, I began to wonder whether I would be able to get off at my stop, which was drawing ever closer. When it left Westbourne Park and began its approach into Ladbroke Grove, I realised I had to do something or face the very real prospect of riding it all the way to Hammersmith. I had to act. Turning to a black teenager who was sitting nearby, I said, ‘You couldn’t gimme a hand, could you? I’m having a bit of trouble standing up.’ At first he looked at me as if I was a turd, but then he began scrutinising my face more closely and I saw the light of recognition appear in his eyes.

‘Wait a sec, ain’t you that brer from the papers…the one who saved all them…’

I nodded and he immediately leaped forward and helped me to my feet.

‘Rah! What happened to you?’

‘It’s long,’ I replied. He tried to usher me into a seat but I told him I was getting off at the next stop. When he said, ‘Me too,’ it was music to my ears.

He held on to me till the train pulled into the station and then helped me first onto the platform, and then out of the station altogether. Before we parted company he said, ‘You gonna be alright from here, blood?’ I nodded, we touched fists and he bounced off down the road. I had been leaning against the station wall and when I tried to walk my legs wobbled, but they didn’t give out. More staggering than walking, I made my way to my brother’s flat, cursing the fact that he had, for what he had described to me as ‘a change of scenery’, decided to move all the way from Hackney to Ladbroke Grove.

Before I went to see him, I had confided in Theodore about my anxiety over travelling on trains again. Not only had he said, ‘You gotta get back on the horse, bro,’ he’d been most insistent on the point. Yet when he opened his front door and saw me, his first words were, ‘Maybe you should have driven after all. You look terrible.’ It was intended as a piece of gallows humour. He had no way of knowing what I had just been through, but even so I resented his blasé remark.

Theodore had come a long way since the days when he and his gang went around brandishing sawn-off shotguns and demanding money with menaces. In many ways he had led a very charmed life. For all the crimes he had committed he had never spent so much as a day in prison. Then there was the small matter of him cheating death. I once told him that he was a ‘jammy git’ and he replied that luck had nothing to do with it, that it was all God’s work. When I asked him if it was God’s work that he had been stabbed to within an inch of his life, he said, ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’ That was him. Everything he said or did was shaped by his belief in God. He once showed me something he wrote for his church pamphlet, which was a good example of how steeped he had become in his faith.

‘The most important thing for me now is to live a pure life. To strive for anything less would be unworthy of me. From now on I aim to be righteous in all my thoughts and actions. The cynic would say, ‘’Don’t be a fool, Theodore. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect,’’ and straightaway I would say, ‘‘Maybe not, but He loves a trier.’’ And that is now my purpose in life. I want to please God. He has given me a second chance and I want to show Him that I’m worthy of it. To do that I must first accept that I exist only through His grace and then live my life in strict accordance with His laws.’

He was a Christian. Pure and simple. He believed, with all his heart, that Jesus was the son of God and that He had been sent from heaven to redeem us from our sins. On that his position was fixed and I never once saw him deviate from it. His faith was strong and complete and I have to say that I envied what he got from it, the security it gave him. If we’re all searching for something to believe in, something to give meaning to our lives, his search had ended. As a result, he was the most peaceful person I knew. He wasn’t constantly straining at the leash like I was. He had none of my cravings. If he hungered after anything it was to have a closer relationship with God. He certainly didn’t feel any guilt or shame about the misdeeds of his youth, unlike me. He had, he said, been to the Holy River and washed himself clean. What did he care about being judged by people when the Supreme Judge had absolved him of his sins? From what he had led me to believe, he had but two bugbears. He was slightly dissatisfied with his job – he worked for a big DIY store – and was frustrated by his inability to find the right woman to settle down with. In that sense he was not unlike millions of other people, but he was unusual in that he never complained, he never whined, he didn’t believe in shaking his fist at the world. ‘I bring everything to the Lord in prayer.’

I had made up my mind not to burden Theodore with my ongoing problems. For the first evening I spent with him I kept to that promise, we talked about everything except the bombing, but I couldn’t keep it up and by the end of the second day I had confided in him about the visions and how badly they had been affecting me. ‘There are people you can see for that, you know? Counsellors and such. I’m sure you can even get that kind of thing on the NHS.’ I also told him that I was fed up with leading a double life and that I regularly felt the urge to unburden myself of my ugly secret.

‘Confession is a part of healing, Simon. If you don’t confess what you’ve done, if you don’t own up to it, you’ll never be free of it.’

‘Yeah, but who do I confess to?’

‘To God.’

‘But I don’t believe in God.’

‘Then you really are lost.’

He then ordered me to bow my head and, as he always did whenever I went to see him, he offered up a prayer for my salvation.

Before I left him, I asked Theodore whether he needed money for anything. ‘I got quite a bit for the article, so I was wondering…’ I had barely finished my sentence before he started shaking his head. ‘I’m good. But I know a couple of people who could always use a few extra quid. You could send them a cheque. Better still, why not take it to them in person?’

It was a familiar tactic. He wasted no opportunity to try to push me in the direction of our parents. He was never so direct as to say, ‘Things are not right between you and those guys, they haven’t been for a long time now, do something about it, Simon,’ but he would allude to it. He spoke regularly to Mum and Dad on the phone and would call me immediately afterwards to pass on their regards, even if they hadn’t asked him to. More recently he had been trying to get me to go to Jamaica. ‘You should get out there. I’m sure it would do you good to spend some time with the folks.’ The child in me, the one who liked to do things his own way and in his own time, always resisted these promptings, but underneath I was happy that Theodore took the trouble, for no matter the distance between us, no matter that I hadn’t seen them in years, at the end of the day I had a responsibility to my parents. If I sometimes forgot that then Theodore was always on hand to remind me.

To spare myself the ordeal of travelling back to Kings Cross on the tube, I opted to take a mini-cab to Kings Cross station. In the cab on the way, and then later on the overland train, I mulled over some of the things I had discussed with Theodore. By advising me to talk to someone about the visions I was having he had given me much food for thought. Counselling. I couldn’t see the harm in it. I had to do something and that seemed as good a thing to try as any. What did I have to lose? Theodore had seemed certain that I stood to gain by it.

He had also been pretty convinced that I would benefit from spending a bit of time with the folks. I felt the same. Over the years I had become virtually estranged from my parents, but since the bombing their pull had been getting stronger and stronger. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to try to find a way to re-connect with them, and as a matter of urgency. They were not getting any younger. The fact of their mortality was something I could no longer turn away from. It was time I went to see them. The only problem was I had no particular desire to go to Jamaica. I had no interest in the place. In contrast to Theodore, I didn’t regard going there as some kind of pilgrimage that had to be undertaken before I kicked the bucket.

I had always been uneasy about my Jamaican heritage. As a child I resented it. I wanted to be English. That’s how I saw myself and that’s how I wanted others to see me. For my parents, the matter was a bit more complicated. They encouraged us, the younger generation, in our Englishness, but at the same time wanted us to acknowledge our Jamaican side and were scandalised if ever we tried to deny it. This was something we regularly did, especially at school, where a lot of the white kids would tease us and call us racist names and tell us to go back to our country. As we got older we began to realise that no matter how hard we tried, in the eyes of certain sections of white society we were not and never would be English. I couldn’t speak for Theodore, but it made me sad to be denied something I felt belonged to me. But I wasn’t going to beg. If I wasn’t welcome in the club then it couldn’t be worth joining. And so, feeling rejected, and with my tail between my legs, I turned towards the very thing I’d been running from, towards Jamaica. The music, the food, the lingo, the attitude: I embraced it all. And yet for all that there remained the issue of authenticity. When it came right down to it, I was not the real deal. I was not born in Jamaica. I had never even visited the place. So how could I call myself a Jamaican? In the end I came to accept that I was neither one thing nor the other, neither English nor Jamaican. I was something in between, something vague and indefinable. I had accepted it but I wasn’t happy. I doubted I ever would be.

* * *

The guys at Blockbuster had left the choice of pub up to me. My leaving do, my privilege. To avoid any chance of bumping into Trevor, I chose a bright, noisy sports bar in the centre of town. The evening was a success, meaning there was a lot of alcohol and a lot of juvenile behaviour. And the whole thing only set me back about two hundred quid. When I got home I could hardly get my key in the door and no sooner was I inside than I sparked out, fully dressed, on the sofa. I slept fitfully, disturbed by bad dreams. In one I was drowning and in another I was being dragged, screaming, towards a guillotine with a masked executioner standing beside it. I woke up around noon the next day with a parched throat, a pounding head and a feeling of having been in the wars, yet grateful that I had at least been spared my usual nightmares. I staggered to the bathroom to empty my bursting bladder and when I saw myself in the mirror I had quite a shock. Someone, probably Dave, had written the word ‘Fanny’ in black marker on my forehead.

About an hour later, with a cup of instant coffee and some toast inside me, I went out and bought a copy of the Sunday Mirror. Rhona had invited me round for lunch and had asked me to bring along a copy of the paper so we could look over the article together, but I couldn’t wait and ended up reading it on the pavement outside Len’s newsagents. Several people passed me on the way into the shop, and I heard at least one of them say, ‘Afternoon’, but I was so engrossed in the paper that I didn’t even lift my head, much less return the greeting.

The interview came with a lot of illustrations. In the absence of photos, a sketch artist had been hired to try to capture the scenes of carnage as I had described them. The busted up carriage and the expressions on the faces of the survivors were skilfully, if melodramatically, done. I wasn’t sure why, but the images seemed the more effective, the more powerful, for being drawn. As to the article itself, Susie Lowencrantz really went to town. If she had been a bit restrained in the first part of the piece, if she had kept herself in check whilst describing the less eventful build up to the bombing, by the midpoint her voice was in full, exaggerated cry. No sentence was complete without an ‘incredible’, or an ‘astonishing’ and my efforts to help Latonya were described as ‘superhuman’. Time and again she would bring a particular piece of action to the point of climax, then drag the reader off on some tangent or other, all in the name of building tension. It was hard to tell if this was tabloid journalism at its gripping, suspenseful best, or sensationalist, manipulative worst. Certainly I was hooked from the first sentence to the last, but whether that was down to good writing, or my own vanity, I just wasn’t sure.

Rhona didn’t have much to say about the article except, ‘I found it a bit full on, to be honest.’ When I asked her to explain, she said, ‘It just seemed a bit too much all that stuff about people having their arms and legs blown off.’ She turned up her nose as though she had smelt a dead rat. I became defensive. ‘They wanted details, I gave them details. That’s what they were paying me for.’ Sensing I was spoiling for an argument, she deflected the blame on to the paper. ‘Honestly, that Sunday Mirror’s a blooming rag. Hungry?’ I nodded and she went off to the kitchen.

While she was out of the room I thought about her reaction to the article, which had been out-and-out squeamish. The irony of this was not lost on me, even if it was on her. She was obsessed with ultra-violent computer games, but went white at the thought of real violence. I saw the relish she took in hacking the heads off her virtual enemies, in gutting them like fish, but if she saw a couple of guys scuffling in the street she had to look away. I once invited her to a football match but she turned me down because she thought there was too much fighting amongst the fans. I tried to convince her that those days were over, that the violence in English football was now mostly conducted away from the stadiums, but she wouldn’t have it. ‘I’m not interested, Simon. I want nothing to do with those chavvy yobs.’

Later that week, as a thank-you for all the support they had shown me since the bombing, I offered to take Rhona and Sky out for a meal. I almost changed my mind as it took us ages to decide where to go. Rhona fancied an Indian, Sky was up for an Italian, while I wanted a Chinese. We spent a long time arguing the merits of each country’s cuisine, as though we were trying to prove a case in court, but in the end none of us got our way. We went to an Angus Steak House instead. Sky invited her boyfriend, Euan, a self-styled EMO with lank, greasy hair and a face full of spots. Throughout dinner he must have spoken two words.

On our way back from the restaurant, while he and Sky were walking hand-in-hand in front of us, I said to Rhona, ‘What’s she doing with that boy? He’s proper weird.’

Rhona stifled a giggle and said, ‘What can I say? She loves him.’

I snorted. ‘Love. She’s sixteen, for crying out loud.’

That stopped Rhona in her tracks. ‘You old cynic, you. You mean you don’t believe in young love?’

I didn’t answer but later that night, in bed, with Rhona asleep beside me, I thought some more about her question. ‘You don’t believe in young love?’ This led me to thinking about her and Trevor. She had once told me that their marriage had been made in heaven. Childhood sweethearts who wed at eighteen, they were seen by their friends and family as the golden couple. But according to Rhona, it was a façade. Almost from day one she realised she’d made a mistake in getting married. ‘I was young and in love. It seemed like the normal thing to do. After two years I was bored out my mind.’ She was ‘young and in love’. Sky was ‘young and in love’, but the question was: would the daughter make the same mistake as the mother? Would Sky get married too soon, have a child while she herself was barely out of nappies, then repent at her leisure? I couldn’t see it. She had a lot of her mother in her, but Sky just didn’t strike me as the type to throw her life away.

Maybe I was projecting my own failed hopes and ambitions on to her, or maybe I just had too many depressing memories of teenage mothers from my childhood. Like my old girlfriend, Beverly, for example. She’d had a child while still at school and her life was over before it had begun. I didn’t want that for Sky. I was horrified at the thought that she wouldn’t go on to live a full life. I wanted her to travel, to have adventures, to leave her mark on the world. What I did not want was to see her get hitched to the first spotty teenager that happened along and settle down – in Duddenham of all places – to a life of drudge. For a girl as intelligent as her, for a girl with her spark, that would have been nothing short of a tragedy. And it would have been all the more tragic if Rhona had sat idly by and let it happen, which she seemed hell-bent on doing.

* * *

Now that I wasn’t working, I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. This gave me ample opportunity to think. On the whole I thought things were going well. Having survived the bombing without a scratch, what did I really have to complain about? I had mental wounds, it’s true, but they would heal. Before releasing me from hospital on the day of the bombing, the doctor had warned me that, in the weeks to come, I may well experience symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress. ‘You’ll have nightmares, that’s almost a given, and you’ll sometimes feel anxious, especially in public, and that may lead to full-blown panic attacks. All perfectly normal. Your brain has received a massive shock. It will recover in time. But you must look after yourself. For the next few months I want you to take it easy, get plenty of rest and don’t do anything too stressful.’

I’d had my fair share of nightmares and anxiety attacks, as well as sudden fits of rage and insomnia, but it could have been so much worse. Unlike some survivors, I had yet to experience the intense guilt at being alive, I hadn’t suffered impotence or a drop in my libido, I hadn’t lost my hair, I wasn’t crying all the time, I hadn’t taken to my bed and refused to have any contact with my friends and family, I knew nothing of the compulsion to visit the relatives of the deceased, I hadn’t fallen victim to claustrophobia, I didn’t hate all Muslims or even some of them, and I had no desire to find a quiet place in the world where I could see out the rest of my days in peace and security. I was doing alright.

It was in this state of optimism that I decided to write to my parents. I rarely called them in Jamaica because I always struggled to get through. It seemed incredible to me that in the twenty-first-century their village was still not hooked up to the island’s national phone grid. They had a shared mobile – their first, bought specifically so Theodore and I could keep in touch – but it was very expensive to call and had a crap reception. I hardly ever got a proper connection, and when I did the line would be so faint and crackly as to make conversation virtually impossible. None of this seemed to bother Theodore. What mattered to him was the frequency of the conversations he had with our parents, not the quality. For me it was the other way around. If I took the time to contact mum and dad it was because I really wanted to talk to them, because I actually had stuff to say to them. That’s why I preferred writing. Old fashioned it may have been, but it was the ideal way for me to express myself to them without interruption.

At a dozen pages, the letter was very long. I hadn’t intended it that way, but once I began writing, thoughts and sentiments just flowed and flowed. I imagined my parents were going to be embarrassed by my emotional outpourings, and I knew for certain that their return letter would be as brief as mine had been long-winded, but frankly I didn’t care. In the end, writing to my parents was just another way of communicating with myself. With the letter written and ready to go, I decided I would kill two birds with one stone and make arrangements with my bank to transfer some money into my parents’ account in Jamaica. The idea was for them to receive the letter and the money at roughly the same time.

On my way to the bank I popped into Len’s newsagents to buy an envelope and some stamps. I didn’t want to trek all the way into town to queue up at the post-office. It was just after ten on a Monday morning and the place would have been thick with OAPs cashing their pensions. As I entered his shop I said to Len, ‘Stick ‘em up!’ It was my usual greeting, but Len didn’t give his usual response. Instead of saying, ‘I can’t, I’m too old,’ he said, ‘Oh. Simon. I didn’t think…sorry…you surprised me…I was just…’ He did something under the counter with his hands, something furtive. He seemed very nervous and for some reason couldn’t look me in the eye. ‘Everything OK, Len?’ At that point he stopped fidgeting and our eyes finally made four. He said, ‘You don’t know, do you?’ I studied his face. His expression couldn’t have been more grave. ‘Know what, Len?’ From under the counter he brought out a copy of The Sun, which he had obviously been reading. He put it down on the counter so that I could get a good view of the front page. And there it was: BOMB HERO IS CONVICTED GANG RAPIST.