give you something for the pain.’ He had stroked this woman’s thigh. He wanted her out of his surgery as quickly as possible.
When Juliet arrived at the gallery that afternoon, there was a note from Tania asking her to pick up some contracts from an insurance company whose offices were near Chancery Lane, in that uncertain area where banks and newspapers hovered close to what had for centuries been their home. There were many parts of London that Juliet did not know and this was one of them. She had found her routes, her places and her perspectives, and it was not in her nature to wander. She hated getting lost and was cross to find that she had, emerging from the Tube station confused by a choice of exits. Still phased by the handsome doctor’s touch and the residual pain from his examination, she followed other pedestrians as they made their way between traffic cones and scaffolding, realised she was heading in the wrong direction, turned a corner and found herself at the back of Smithfields meat market, which had already closed for the day. The tall doors looked as if they hadn’t been opened for years but splashes and clots, theatrically scarlet, persisted in the sluiced gutters and among the cobbles. She could not see a way past the market, nor was it going to let her in, so she turned back to the station.
As Juliet approached the company’s offices at last, she was thrown to the ground. She had heard a profound boom and a large hand, an enormous hand, had pushed her. She lifted her head and looked back. There was no one, nothing behind her, but she had felt the force of something heavy and close, as if a building had collapsed at her shoulder or a skip full of earth had been dropped at her heels. She pulled herself up onto her feet with the sensation of having to peel an electrified swarm of something off the ground and pull it into shape. It was as if this sound, which travelled so unnaturally through her body, had separated every cell.
Around her, the noise of the city was changing. The dragging tension of grid-locked traffic broke up as drivers pounded their horns, wrenched steering wheels and scraped their tyres in a bid to inch their way out. There were footsteps, someone running, cries and shouts, sirens, odd silences. A man she couldn’t see almost singing it: ‘A bomb! A bomb!’
In ten years, Juliet had absorbed the insecurity of the city. She did not avoid declared targets or the scenes of past explosions but was after all not much interested in Christmas shopping in the West End or royal tournaments or Lord Mayor’s shows; nor did she spend time in embassies, barracks and department stores, but she never passed them without being aware. She took note of emergency exits when in crowded or official places, and she acknowledged the briefcase left on the Tube or the van parked outside a bank. She listened.
With some effort, Juliet began to walk. She was trying to get home but while she thought she was heading west, she was making her way south towards the river, confused by the sirens that bounced off tall buildings and made it seem as if a fire engine or ambulance were hurtling towards her round every corner. She had not been close by and had seen nothing but could not seem to get away from it either. Later, she would see in a newspaper the office block with its blown-out windows holding their broken blinds like handkerchiefs. A bomb. She did not recognise anything.
Jacob had not been going to open the door but was made curious by the silence of whoever it was and the way they kept rattling the handle. He had been listening to the radio and had heard the news. Juliet looked alright, just a bit stiff. Then she held up her scraped hands. He led her to an armchair and noticed, as she sat down, that her knees were bleeding. He wrapped her in a blanket, fetched a cup of warm water and pulled off his t-shirt, which he used as a cloth as, tenderly and minutely, he cleaned her cuts. He gave her whiskey by the teaspoon, and then sweet tea. They each recognised the rituals of shock and enjoyed them. He laid her down on the army cot and when she turned away, placed a hand on the small of her back and said, ‘Breathe’. The pain disappeared instantly. Jacob sat beside her all night, one hand pressing her head to the pillow.
Juliet woke at six, whimpering and saying that she wanted to go home. She was worried about Fred. Jacob soothed her and called a cab. He held her hand all the way to Khyber Road and when they arrived, helped her out and knocked on the door.
It was thrown open by a tall woman with a wicked face and splendid red curly hair. She nodded at Jacob, hugged Juliet and propelled her through to the kitchen where Carlo and Fred were waiting.
Fred threw himself on Juliet and burst into tears. ‘I thought you too!’
Juliet was embarrassed. ‘What is this? I’m sorry if I had you all worried. I couldn’t get back. This is Jacob.’ He was standing beside her. ‘You’ve met Carlo, this is Fred and my sister, Clara.’
The woman nodded again but did not speak. No one spoke. Juliet was bewildered. ‘Christ, Fred, I should have rung. I was close to it, I fell down and then I walked. I fell asleep.’ His greater distress made her feel strong and, her voice restored, she said firmly, ‘We’re safe. We’re all safe now.’
Fred raised his head. She watched his mouth. He was saying ‘Tobias’.
‘Tobias? The bomb?’ Something deep in the earth reached up and pulled all her substance downwards.
Fred gave a peculiar laugh, as if this were a novel idea, a connection he would never have made himself, and shook his head.
Juliet fell into a chair. ‘Thank god for that. I think I’m going to be sick.’
Clara knelt by Juliet, holding her bruised hands too tightly. ‘After the bomb, there was another alert. Tobias was on his motorbike, going through the Hyde Park underpass just as they cordoned off the road ahead. The traffic in the tunnel backed up. He came round the corner into the back of a car. Too fast.’
‘We don’t know that!’ shouted Fred.
Juliet drew herself in. Carlo put his arms round Fred. Jacob stood in the doorway, watching.
Eventually Clara got up. ‘I’ll make some tea. Would you like a cup, um, Jacob?’ she asked and Jacob shrugged, a gesture that in such absolute circumstances enraged Fred.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he snarled, like something small and cornered.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Carlo half-heartedly.
Clara was standing at the sink under the window with her back to them and her extraordinary hair with its several reds seemed to float in the light. When she turned, Jacob found her face no longer witchlike. It was stunningly ugly.
Jacob crossed the room and began to take cups down from a shelf and pass them to Clara as if he had been doing such things for years.
‘Make yourself at home,’ said Fred.
‘Oh for god’s sake,’ snapped Juliet.
‘Well what’s he doing here anyway? No one should be here now except us.’
‘He looked after me,’ admitted Juliet. ‘All night.’
‘While we thought you were dead. You should have come home. I would have looked after you.’
‘I couldn’t get home.’
Everyone in the room, except Jacob, was crying while they tried to be doing something else, even if it was just looking at the floor.
Fred saw Jacob glance at his watch. ‘Don’t let us bore you,’ he sneered and then, formally, making a point of the presence of this stranger, ‘Where are our mother and father?’
