Krystal – Thursday: Plague Day
She was oddly warm. And she could smell something that wasn’t her. She woke and stared at the blackness, trying to work out what she was looking at. It was only when he stirred and his hair stirred with him that she realised it was Ed’s head. Her arm was wrapped around his waist and she could feel his body pressed against hers.
Her breathing quickened and she couldn’t decide why. They’d fallen asleep on different bunks, so nothing funny happened. Had she climbed in with him or vice versa? She was pretty confident he’d made the move and if she could just start breathing again, it probably wouldn’t be that bad, or that big a deal. They’d spent every second of the last two weeks together.
It was part of the deal. He didn’t kill his rapist and they hung out. And actually, it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. Once he was over the whole ‘I want to die, I want my mummy’ thing, he became surprisingly good company. And having someone to talk to was better than she’d expected.
He smelled pretty good, now that he was washing. There was something faintly Indian about his scent but maybe that was just from the tint of his skin. His eyes reminded her of an Indian girl she’d gone to school with, big and brown and soulful. He had long lashes that guarded his thoughts and distracted her just as she was asking the important questions.
Not that there were any important questions. The big ones were ‘how are we going to eat’ and ‘where are we going to sleep?’ Beyond that it was all details. But now they were lying in the same bed and her boobs were crushed against his back and her nose was tickled by his long dark hair and she was far more comfortable than she should be. Or wanted to be. This was dangerous.
She extricated herself and climbed over him, thankful for once he was a deep sleeper. They were on the bottom bunk and she felt a strange flush of relief that he had climbed in with her. It was easier to push away when she’d not done anything. She sneaked into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Krystal amused herself by making a list of the things they’d do today.
Quick trip to Harrods for some ice cream
Open-top bus back into the centre and then a ferry ride down the Thames.
Jump off at the London Eye and take a trip on that.
Into the Royal Festival Hall to see what was on.
She got bored pretty quick. There was too much to do. She was like one of those people who moved to London because of all the things they could do but never actually did them. They just replaced their home town local with the nearest one to them and went into Richmond or Ealing or Shoreditch once a year to remind themselves where they lived.
Maybe that came at the end of the list. Pub crawl down the river, grab a meal along the way. She sneered and poured herself a tea. She’d be happy with some money in her hat and another cup of tea before bed.
They were out before most, wandering in silence down Embankment. Ed had been blushy and mumbling when he came into the kitchen, but she’d laughed it off and warned him not to get any ideas. She hadn’t mentioned that she’d had some of her own and they felt like pretty good ones.
Now they seemed to have run out of things to say. She could vaguely remember talking to friends about TV shows and music and books and all sorts. Now there was nothing. They could compare detailed notes on the others in the hostel, guessing why they were there, but they’d already done that to death.
They contented themselves with finding a bench and commenting on the passers-by, creating stories for them. Ed was quick and funny and his stories were invariably better than hers. His was always more optimistic as well, at least at first. His men were going to find the woman of their dreams and marry them. Her men were angry and bitter and off to rob a bank or throw themselves from the top of The Shard.
That was when the idea got her and she couldn’t shake it off.
‘Let’s go to Canary Wharf.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go to Canary Wharf. Let’s go there now and get in a lift and go to the top and look out over London. I want to go to the Shard, but they’ll never let us in. But the Wharf’s got a cafe and stuff at the top. And neither of us smell bad and you actually look pretty good—’
‘Thanks.’ He blushed.
‘Not like that. I mean, you don’t look totally homeless.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ His blush became a frown. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because the sun’s out and I woke up next to you and didn’t slit your throat on reflex. I think my counsellor would have called that growth or something. Whatever, it’s reason to celebrate.’
He blushed again and examined the tips of his shoes until she nudged him with an elbow in the ribs. ‘C’mon.’
He shrugged and let her pull him off the bench. They stomped along the Thames, listening as the city woke, shook itself and came to life. The city changed as they walked. They reached the Tower of London and the Bridge and tried to imagine being locked up in the dungeons. Ed muttered something about the two of them being in close quarters not sounding that bad and she asked him what he thought he’d do if they were.
That led to more blushing and scuffing his feet which made her laugh. Laughing wasn’t something she remembered all that well. She’d certainly forgotten how good it felt. They moved on through Shadwell and the city got grubbier. She rarely came out this way, too much competition and no one she knew, no where she felt safe.
Then it suddenly got new again and the pavements and tattered buildings were replaced with glass and elevated roads and lots of bored people in suits. There were docks as well, water stolen from the Thames and hemmed in for the sake of people with too much money. She stopped herself spitting and made an effort to stand up straight and look deliberate. It was odd, trying to hide her homelessness. She hadn’t bothered in a long time, not since her pride about that sort of thing slunk off with her first night outside.
Canary Wharf loomed high above them, surrounded by confusing roadways, but they made it to the front door. She grabbed his hand on impulse and they made it to the lift and up to the cafe. She had cash, enough to buy a cup of tea, so they shared it and stared out over the city.
Dad brought her here, way back when. Not the Wharf, but the city. It was why she’d headed here instead of Reading or one of the other places closer to her home. She’d always dreamed about London and what she’d do when she grew up. Then Dad stopped wanting to just hold her hand and mum had gone away with the fairies and she’d stopped having dreams.
She shook her head and refocused her eyes on the steam rising from the cup. Ed watched her.
‘What?’
‘You looked thoughtful for a minute. I mean, more than usual.’
‘Is that a compliment or an insult?’
‘Um, don’t know. What were you thinking about?’
She sniffed and glanced around. The cafe was quiet on a Thursday morning and no one was staring at them. It made a pleasant change.
‘Thinking ‘bout what London used to mean. I used to dream of coming here and making my fortune.’
Ed grinned. ‘Didn’t we all? This was, like, my Mecca—’
‘Your bingo hall?’
He burst out laughing. ‘Mecca’s like another name for a holy place. The bingo people stole it.’
‘Oh yeah, of course.’ Her face heated up. She’d known that. Ed seemed oblivious to her squirming.
‘I mean, I was gonna come here and study art and become this famous artist and stuff. Now I’m…’
He looked out the window and she noticed how his hands gripped his knees. His fingers were thin and she’d thought of them as bony and spider-like. But now she wondered whether they weren’t artist’s fingers. She reached over the table and squeezed his arm.
‘Now you’re my friend. And hey, we made it.’
She swept her arm wide to encompass the whole city, spread out below a crisply blue sky. He managed a laugh. ‘Yeah we did. How long do you think we can stay here?’
‘You got money for another tea?’
He shoved his hands in his pockets and she watched his forehead crease. Finally he shrugged and hauled his cash out of his pocket. As he laid it out on the table, she flushed. He’d learned quick about keeping your money to yourself. Showing it to her was a big deal. They counted it and without knowing why, she pulled hers out and added it to the pile until she no longer knew whose was whose.
They had enough between them for a couple of cups of tea and maybe even a sandwich at lunch. The sun was shining in from the far side of the tower and they were warm and had somewhere to sit. They settled in, naming landmarks and sharing more stories about what they had planned to do. Always what they had planned, never what was actually happening.
It was close to lunchtime when Ed spotted the police cars. It was like a procession and they both searched for the black car that meant visiting dignitaries, or maybe the queen. Then they realised the cars were going way too fast for that. Ambulances came too, from three different parts of the city, snaking their way in from the main hospitals.
It was like a map with all the police cars acting as arrows, pointing toward a central point, Big Ben. She’d heard somewhere that the tower wasn’t actually called Big Ben. That was the name of the bell inside it, but the tower was called the Elizabeth tower. Whatever it was called, something was happening there.
Smoke rose from between the buildings, thick and sticky and she grabbed Ed’s arm. ‘There’s been a bomb. Has to have been, what else?’
‘We didn’t hear anything though.’
‘We’re bloody miles away, why would we?’
He rocked his head from side to side. ‘Don’t know. I’m sure we would though. D—’
He cut off as they both gasped. One of the police cars, visible for a moment as it sped along the river, careened off to the side, struck the barrier and flipped over into the Thames. It landed with an almighty splash, sending murky water up onto Embankment. Someone else looking out the window saw it as well and Krystal shared a wide-eyed look with them.
When she turned back, she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. The next police car had also swerved, but gone the other way and disappeared from sight. The cars behind kept going but it was clear the drivers had lost control. They slammed into parked cars and buildings, bounced off street lamps and rolled into the garden behind Cleopatra’s needle. She watched, hands covering her mouth as someone on the pavement was tossed across the road, limp and unresisting as one of the cars took them out.
The people were tiny dots, but she could imagine the screams as they scattered. Many of them were just throwing themselves to the ground, lying still in the hope they wouldn’t get hit. In fact, everyone was doing that. The streets were covered in prone figures, spreadeagled and still.
They heard nothing. It was like watching TV with the sound off, some horrible disaster movie filming before their eyes. She looked elsewhere and saw the same thing. A row of ambulances got halfway across Westminster bridge before losing control. The first two went straight into the river, taking pedestrians with them. The others piled into other traffic until the entire bridge was consumed with burning cars.
She turned away and stared across the restaurant. If she looked out the other window, the world would be normal and there’d be nothing wrong. She shook her head and bit her lip. The world had ceased being normal three years ago. Looking out a different window would do nothing to change that.
Ed was still watching, vein in his temple pulsing. His eyes were wet and she shook her head. He was so young. He wasn’t that much younger than her, but he’d been on the streets all of six months and she thought he maybe still dreamed of being rescued. She put her hand on his shoulder and his eyes met hers. They were wide and tear-filled and disbelieving.
Back in the centre of town, she saw something far worse. All the cars were doing the same thing. They weren’t moving as fast as the police so mostly they just slammed into walls or lamp posts, but within a few minutes there wasn’t a single vehicle moving all the way from the Houses of Parliament to Waterloo Bridge.
Next Installment Monday 1st September
