Fractions

Morning. The 7^th of July 2005, an ordinary Thursday by all accounts. As per usual, I was running late for work. This time quite literally. 

My train was late into Luton and then again coming into King’s Cross. By the time the train finally pulled in, people were practically leaping out of their seats. Passengers racing and jostling, all elbows and shoulders. Moving toward their next destination like cattle.  

I was heading for South Kensington, the V & A. Back then I was doing some work for an exhibition. Just part-time work to tide me over when teaching had ended for the summer. At 9 am I was due for a meeting with the higher-ups.  

At 8:45 (or thereabouts) I got through the gates. I could barely move. Even as I verged off for the Piccadilly line, the crowd seemed to follow. I guess that’s why they call it rush hour.  

I always loved the tube. The feel of it mostly. Sort of dank, slightly grimy. In the summer especially you get these warm gushes of air as you go down. It’s full of all smoke and residue but for some reason I find it exhilarating, in a way.  

As I got through to the southbound platform I looked at my watch: 8:54 am. Still time.

I turned the corner running: there was a train still there but it was making the final pips before leaving… 

The doors shut in my face.  

Embarrassed, I pretended not to notice. It’s a peculiar sign of Britishness I think, embarrassment, alongside awkwardness, and dreariness. Then there’s also the propensity to ‘keep calm and carry on’. Admirable in a roundabout way.  

By then, my lateness had now been confirmed. Keep calm and carry on. Five minutes and I’d be on another train.  

My one consolation was that the train really did look packed. The faces of hundreds of people were near pressed up to the windows. They looked out forlornly as the train departed like kids when they don’t want to go to school. I seem to recall there being a cancelled service somewhere along the line. There’s always something like that… 

I was just beginning to think of my excuses at the time… late, late, late….  

A sudden groan enveloped the tunnel. Strange noises echoed.  

The platform shuddered as if in an earthquake and wafts of smoke emerged, thick and visible. An eerie silence passed over the platform broken by the continuing station announcements. It was 8:56 am.  

I used to read a bit of H. P. Lovecraft when I was younger: At the Mountains of Madness and The Dunwich Horror. The horror of the unknown, I hated not knowing. There were cries and screams that echoed down like the sound of ghosts. 

Panic set in.  

The sound of sirens. There were police officers down our end too soon enough.  

We were herded back up the escalators, waving the platform goodbye, it’s now-pristine façade concealing something far more terrifying. We made our way through what felt like a poor imitation of King’s Cross Station: a pure lack of ‘rush’ that was its main characteristic. We were ushered outside and told to wait for replacement bus services that were running in place.  

On ground level, the sirens were louder. It wasn’t far away from where they were coming from. Russell Square, walking distance. My stomach felt like it was being eaten.  

In the crowd there were rumours: a power surge, multiple incidents. Edgware Road and Aldgate Station. I’d discover all this later, just half-heard rumours back then. Someone said there were six explosions. They used that word ‘explosions’ as well. Then someone said the word ‘terrorist’… 

At 9:35, the number 30 bus approached. By that point I’d called to say I was late. They’d seen what had happened so I was off the hook but they still wanted me in. I was about to get on until in sudden fashion I was pushed out of the way. Quite literally squeezed out of what was understandably an over-subscribed service. That was the second time that had happened that day.  

As the bus pulled away a man onboard caught my attention. He had a frightened look on his face and his eyes darted about as if he was waiting for something. We made eye contact, just for a second: his face dropped. The pit in my stomach grew larger.  

Ten minutes passed in waiting… 

Something exploded. It was like the sound of a shotgun splitting a thousand pieces of metal, a shatter or tear. It was terrifyingly loud but still about 500 metres away. Tavistock Square near to Russell Square. This was no power surge and it was no coincidence. 

After that they told me to go home. By the time I got back, I couldn’t think of anything else but to watch the TV. The coverage was non-stop.  

It wasn’t long until they declared it a terrorist attack and it didn’t take long for Blair to weigh in. He called the British people resilient but I just felt scared.  

All four suicide attacks had been carried out by British-born nationals. On the train to Russell Square, 26 people died. I should have been on that train. Of the four bombers, only one failed their initial target, 18-year-old Hasib Hussain. As the other bombs went off, he was seen in a Boots store near King’s Cross. I was certain he was the same man I had seen on the 30 bus, the bus I should have been on as well. 

In the days after, I became obsessed with what could have been, the certainty that had things been a fraction different, I would surely be dead. Matters of chance and coincidence had determined my fate. This terrified me.  

For days, I didn’t leave the house and I just watched the news 24/7 instead as it all began to sink in. There was no mistaking that the war had come home; life would never be the same.  

Bibliography

‘‘‘I thought we were going to die. I was waiting for a fire’’’, The Independent, 8 July 2005, p. 2. 

Koster, Olinka, and Sam Greenhill, ‘The haunting scream 100ft below ground: Please help us’, The Daily Mail, 8 July 2005, pp. 8-9. 

Mass Observation Archive, 2005 Summer Directive part 4: Bombs in London, Directive no. 75D, respondent A2801, SxMOA2/1/75/4/1/2, University of Sussex Special Collections. 

Mass Observation Archive, 2005 Summer Directive part 4: Bombs in London, Directive no. 75D, respondent B1654, SxMOA2/1/75/4/1/7, University of Sussex Special Collections.  

Mass Observation Archive, 2005 Summer Directive part 4: Bombs in London, Directive no. 75D, respondent B1771, SxMOA2/1/75/4/1/8, University of Sussex Special Collections.  

Mouland, Bill, and Colin Fernandez, ‘Escape from a Tunnel of Hell’, Daily Mail, 8 July 2005, pp. 12-13. 

North, Rachel, ‘Coming Together as a City’, BBC News, 15 July 2005.  

‘’Terrorists will never destroy what we hold dear’’, The Independent, 8 July 2005, p. 5.