2
AFTER WHAT SEEMED like hours but must have been minutes I could just about make out the sound of Rosa screaming above the ringing in my ears and the apocalyptic soundtrack coming from outside. I reminded myself to breathe and willed myself to get a grip. Slowly I sat up with my back against the door, hugging the radio tight to my chest. I didn’t even remember bringing it out of the kitchen with me, don’t ask me how I was able to keep a hold of it. I slowly blew out the air from my aching lungs and released my white-knuckled grip on the radio. It clunked to the floor beside my swollen ankle. Dread washed over me as I began to comprehend what had just happened. I felt the overwhelming urge to throw up.
Rosa, who would likely now be almost purple with crying was my first concern. Pushing down the feeling of nausea I tried my best to make her out in the dark. I couldn’t. I couldn’t see anything. I started to feel the panic rising in me again. I knew that I was opening my eyes, but there didn’t seem to be a difference. Just take one thing at a time. It’s totally natural for your eyes to take time to adjust. Think about when you moved from one unbearably bright room to a tiny dark one with no light. Right?
Calming myself I began to fumble around my legs for the floor and then out in front of me, feeling for the edge of the top step leading down into the small pantry. There was not much to the room itself. It was more of a cupboard which sat in the space under the stairs, built down into the foundations of the house. There were three deep steps going down from the small raised area by the door. The steps led down into a two-meter wide space, with shelves stacked full of food either side.
Using my hands as a guide, I was able to crawl my way down the steps and over to her without too much trouble, managing to keep my throbbing foot away from the ground. I followed the muffled sound of her screeching. I didn’t know if it was the effect of the explosion on my ears or whether she was screaming out while buried under tangled blankets. The single mattress was pushed right to the back of the room against the wine rack which covered the back wall of the space. In front of the mattress, there was just about enough room on the floor before the steps for me to sit with my injured leg outstretched comfortably. That was it.
I took some comfort in my ability to get down the steps without further injury. My hands outstretched, still searching blindly when the coarse material of the bare mattress came into contact with the tips of my roaming fingers. I scooted on my knee to the edge of it and leaned over. Being as careful as possible I felt for Rosa. She flinched as I touched her cheek with the back of my hand. Just as I thought. She was red hot. Her cheeks soaked with tears. She was unused to being left to cry, and she wasn’t taking it well.
Pulling her to me, I cradled her in my arms and tried my best to soothe her. I could hear the blasts coming from outside further in the distance. The first one which had left me hard of hearing had felt so close. The way the house shook it left me wondering where it had hit. To have an effect like that it must have been close to us, maybe within 10 miles or something. I had no idea about the radius of damage a bomb like that could cause. Would it have been London or as close as Brighton? The fact that there were still rumblings going on around us confused me further still. At first, I feared that it was more bombs going off around us. As the volume of the ringing in my ears began to subside I tried to make it out, could it be the sound of buildings falling down?
Rosa was clearly as distressed as I was by the rumblings coming from outside. Then I remembered that I hadn’t closed the pantry door behind me when I went into the kitchen to retrieve the radio. Which meant that the bright blast of light which had caused me such discomfort had shone in down here. I sighed at my mistake. If that were true, I prayed that it hadn’t done any lasting damage to her young eyes.
At eleven months old Rosa was becoming a little person in her own right, not just “the baby” anymore. She had started saying her first words just last month and wasn’t that far from toddling around without us to support her. The reality of how difficult this was going to be with her in tow hit me. Even if we survived the initial bombardment, then there was the fallout. That would make everything around us a hazard. Something I recalled from that history lesson on the Cold War told me it was usually in the form of radioactive rain and that it was important to stay inside for at least two weeks. But to be honest, it had been over twenty years since I had left school and more recently after having Rosa my brain felt like it had gone to mush. More from lack of use and not enough sleep than anything else. I didn’t have a great deal of faith in my knowledge of what to do after a nuclear attack. But it would have to do.
Sitting there in the darkness my thoughts drifted to wondering how long it would be until we would be safe to go outside. Two weeks didn’t seem long enough. Without knowing the extent of the damage out there and the area closest to us which had been hit, it could be anybody’s guess. I made a mental note of what pieces of information I had. It seemed like common sense to me that London would have been hit pretty badly. My heart ached. Matt had been in the city today. I had no way of knowing if he was alive. My head swam with images of him trapped beneath a falling building, lying by the side of the road somewhere burnt from an explosion.
I pushed the distressing images away instead prompting my brain to think of what a resourceful man I had married. He would be alive somewhere. I needed to believe that. Today he had been visiting the building site of a new high rise just East of Wembley stadium. It was his latest passion project. Matthew was an architect and a top-notch one at that. It was how we’d met.
Before the days of being on maternity, I had worked in the Houses of Parliament. Just as I fell pregnant with Rosa, we had been due an election and after careful consideration I had decided to step aside for another candidate. Which allowed me to take some guilt-free time to concentrate on my child. I always had the full intention of getting back into government once she had started school. Not that that seemed likely now.
I spent the majority of my time as an MP working on the housing committee. A few years ago Matthew had been brought in as an expert to consult on a project which I had been asked to oversee. We were trying to build affordable housing on the marshlands around the Thames estuary. Looking back it seems odd now, but the moment we shook hands at that first meeting I had felt a little uncomfortable, but in a good way. Sweaty palms, the works and for some reason, I couldn’t stop touching my face. I had been transported back to my awkward days at school, my bumbling teenage self.
It was ridiculous. I was a successful, well-appointed government minister. He was an up and coming city architect in a snappy suit with broad shoulders and a playful smile. But I felt fifteen again.
It wasn’t long after we met that he had asked me out for a drink after a meeting and by the time the next one rolled around we were playing footsie under the conference table. Amongst other things. There’s an awful lot of closets in that building. Not very professional on my part really, but there we are.
Rosa had quietened down now and so had the din from outside. The ringing in my ears was still there although I could feel it dissipating. If I was going to get through the next stage of this thing, I needed to believe that Matt was fine somewhere and that he was coming here for me. For us. So that’s what I told myself. I was sure that he would be holed up somewhere safe outside the city. But the question was where?