She leads me over to a small bench on the street and we sit there together as a host of formalities go on around us. My skin begins to feel prickly. I don’t know what I thought I’d achieve by coming here or how I might benefit, and I begin to think that maybe my father was right. Maybe this is just a way of reliving the horror again, of opening up old wounds. Maybe I should have focused on how far I’d come rather than take this step back in time again. Maybe I should leave.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Lesley asks me. ‘I need something to cool me down a bit. Would you like an ice cream?’
I shake my head. We are at the very back of a crowd of thousands and the heat and atmosphere is somewhat stifling.
‘No, I don’t want ice cream.’
I don’t know what I want right now, but it’s far from an ice cream. Her very suggestion reminds me once more that my mind and hers are on opposite planets sometimes, plus it brings my mind back to the shop I used to work in with Aaron and my hands begin to shake.
Do I want to stay? Do I want to go? I feel like I’m in some strange place of limbo, like a fog; like my body is here but my mind isn’t, or maybe it’s the other way about.
Lesley slips into a shop behind us and comes back out minutes later with an ice cream for herself. I catch her in the corner of my eye, doing my best not to begrudge her for not having lived through what I have and for being ableto think of something as simple as an ice cream right now. She sits there, looking around her, oblivious to my feelings, and my father’s face comes into my head.
None of them has a clue. They don’t know. How could they? They weren’t there. They have absolutely no idea of the torment that I live with on a daily basis. Her complacency as she sits there like a fish out of water reminds me so much of my father and his lack of support over the past ten years. He should be by my side today. He should be showing his face and supporting our community instead of hiding away and pretending it never happened. He was never there when I needed him, yet he felt it his place to preach to his followers about the evil behind the act. If he’d spent more time helping his community heal instead of focusing on the hatred in his heart, it would have been much more helpful.
And all Lesley can suggest is a bloody ice cream. She too is so far removed from all of this. She just doesn’t get it at all.
‘Lesley, I need to take a walk,’ I say, and she stands up immediately to join me. She sits back down again when she sees my face. ‘Alone.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry, but do you mind?’ I ask, even though I don’t mean it as a question. ‘I just need to try and absorb all of this. Wait here if you want? I won’t be long.’
I leave her there before she can answer, unable to feel anyguilt or sorrow for doing so, even though she made this trip to be by my side. I just need some time out. I actually don’t know where I’m walking to, but within minutes I find myself standing at the doorway where Kate, Shannon and I sheltered together, staring at it with tears dripping down my face.
I hear the screams again, I smell the burning, I feel the trembling air, I taste the soot on my tongue, and I see black and red and grey everywhere.
I think of Aaron and how he couldn’t bear to live with the mental scars it left rooted on his fragile mind and my hand goes to my mouth as I try to smother the heaving sobs that come from deep within me.
I try to remember the colour of the door as it was then, but I can’t. It’s blue now, and wind chimes hang on the other side of the glass. Little trinkets with inspirational quotes and dream catchers of all colours stand in neat displays where people browse around, so far from the history of this very place, where the three of us held each other and waited for someone to come to our rescue.
I gather myself and turn to go back to Lesley, to run away from this all again and, just as I do, I see her.
Oh my God, I see her.
6.
KATE
‘David? David Campbell, is that you?’
Just seconds ago, I’d found myself wandering away from the huge crowd, when the emotion of what was being said on stage became too much for me. I made an excuse to my family that I needed some water and then, as if on autopilot, I walked until I came to this doorway. David was staring through the window.
‘Wow,’ he says, squinting in disbelief. ‘Kate?’
He smiles, wide eyed now. I do the same in return.
‘I can’t believe this,’ I whisper. ‘How have you been?’
I knew him instantly and the rush of emotion that fills me as I look at him now is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
He looks distracted and exhausted, though the past ten years have been kind to him overall – well, physically at least. He is still so handsome in his features, his dark hair and blue eyes, his cheekbones that define his beautiful face now lined with a very sexy dark stubble – the strikingface and strong physique that first caught my eye and made me do a double take in the ice-cream shop where he worked back then.
But even though I ask him the question, before I hear his reply I see already a storm in his brooding eyes that tells me it isn’t just today that has triggered his trauma. I know simply by looking into David’s eyes that he has held onto a lot of bitterness and anger that I – thankfully – have learned over time, and with a lot of work, not to let go of totally but to manage as best I can.
‘I … I’ve been OK,’ he says. ‘I still have flashbacks to that day, but I’ve done my best to cope with them. I’ve had a lot of counselling, which helped me, but—’
David pauses and breathes. I want to reach out to him physically when the pain overcomes him here where we stand as a whirlwind of activity goes on around us. For both of us right now the clocks have stopped and the world has stood still.
