It was the eleventh of September 2001. I would not normally be able to pinpoint the date of an interview so precisely without referring to a relevant diary, but this day would turn out to be memorable for everyone.
I was due to visit an English woman who was married to an Iraqi man and was telling the story of her life. Their home was north of Hyde Park, a part of London heavily populated by immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, their culture spilling out onto the streets from open-fronted shops and cafés in a heady mixture of scents and sounds and stacks of tempting, unfamiliar products. She and I were talking upstairs while her husband redecorated downstairs. To distract himself while he laboured he had the television on.
It was early afternoon and my client and I had been talking for three or four hours when her husband shouted urgently for us to come downstairs. When we got there we found him standing in front of the television, paintbrush in hand, staring at a cloud of smoke that was billowing from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The three of us stayed transfixed for an hour, trying to work out what was happening as the second aircraft hit the other tower and the commentators said there were other attacks expected.
The children needed picking up from their school round the corner and so my client’s husband hurried off to collect them. When they returned the television was showing scenes of the buildings collapsing down onto the streets below, enveloping the city in an apocalyptic cloud of dust, smoke and debris.
‘What’s happening?’ their eight-year-old asked, his eyes wide and serious.
‘Someone is attacking America,’ their mother explained.
‘Serves them right,’ the little boy shrugged, ‘after all the things they have done to us.’