‘Sorry, sorry, university what?’ he replies, wiping the juice of the apple from the side of his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Look, no harm to your desperate dilemma, David, but at least your parents care what you do, yeah?’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah, I think,’ he replies as we saunter along the pavement, away from my drum-kit of dreams. ‘I definitely think. Put it like this. Every time I mention my acting ambitions at home I can see my ma’s eyes glaze over and she says something totally irrelevant like asking me what I want for dinner or she tells me to go and put the bins out. I’d love her to be just aweebit pushy, ye know. Just a wee tiny bit of interest would go a long way.’
We walk and chat, window-shopping as we go along and stopping only to admire clothes in shops we could never afford even if we clubbed our wages together, or to contemplate more food or snacks for me as I’ve to go back to the shop to finish my shift, while Aaron goes home to prepare for our big night out on the town.
‘It’s constant pressure, I swear it is,’ I tell him, already dreading going home to the inevitable interrogation that awaits but also excited about our antics later when we get to let our hair down in town. ‘Like, don’t get me wrong. I love going to Belfast and getting away from them for five whole days, wrecking around in student accommodation before coming back on the weekends, but—’
‘Ow! Watch where you’re going! Ow!’
A man who seems to be in a frantic hurry bumps into Aaron not once but twice and mumbles something, drawing our eyes further down the street to a sight that stops us in our tracks and puts my moaning firmly where it probably belongs.
It’s Saturday afternoon and it’s always busy in town on a Saturday, but this is a different type of busy in the near distance.
People are coming towards us, in trickles at first, but within what feels like three seconds it’s like a small stampede, and before long it feels as though we’re on a one-way street going in the wrong direction for reasons we don’t understand.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask someone. ‘What’s happening?’
I look at Aaron. He stops. He has gone paler than usual.
‘Run!’ they tell us as they flurry past. ‘Just run! This way!’
But run where? I’m not running. I’ve no idea where they’re telling me to run to.
A girl around my own age bumps into me and spills hot coffee over us both and I gasp as it scalds my chest through my T-shirt, but it’s the desperation in her face that alarms me most. I look around for Aaron, but he’s gone, so I cop on at last and I do as I’m told.
I run.
I have no idea why and I’ve no idea where I’m running to, but I run.
KATE
People are pushing past us and I don’t know what’s happening. I’m knocked to the side and I lose my grasp on Shannon’s hand as my stomach churns with bile at fear of the unknown. I can’t lose her! Mo will kill me! It’s her birthday! Oh my God I feel so sick. What on earth is going on?
‘Shannon!’ I cry out, my shoulders bumping against men, women and children coming towards me. ‘Shannon, where are you?’
‘Go that way!’ someone screams in my face. ‘There’s a bomb about to go off! Quickly! Go that way!’
A bomb? How can there be a bomb? There must be some mistake. There can’t be a bomb!
‘Shannon!’ I scream, my hands holding my face as the force of their bodies spins me around. I start to cry uncontrollably. How can there be a bomb? My God, please let me find her.
I look upwards into the blue sky to see the ribbon and balloon my niece was carrying float aimlessly upwards and out of reach, and I stretch out my arm to save it for her, knowing it’s impossible to do so and then it’s gone.
‘Shannon!’ I cry out again. ‘Where are you, baby? Can you hear me?’
People scramble past and I shuffle and wobble at first, then I follow them like I’m caught up in a herd of frightened deer, my eyes skimming unknown faces. I crouch down in the crowd, trying to control my panic and to pick out her bright pink T-shirt amongst the fleeing figures. Terror rises, threatening to suffocate me. I can barely breathe. Where is she?
‘Shannon!’
I’m so scared. But then I see her nearby. She gazes around, fat tears falling down her pretty face. If anything, or anyone hurts her—
An almighty, thunderous crash explodes through the air.
The noise is furious, and I fall to the ground as the sound of the deafening blast rings in my ears. Something stabs medeeply in the leg before I’m thrown into a shop window, shards of glass falling down round me like rain. A gush of water forces a torrent, bringing a wash of red blood past me. It’s like an earthquake – no, worse. It’s like a volcano erupting – no, worse. It’s enough to have blasted my whole body into mid-air before I land with an almighty, excruciating thud inside a fog of smoke that fills my nostrils and stings my eyes.
The world has gone grey around me; everything is in slow motion. My senses are numbed for what feels like minutes but is probably only seconds – I can’t see in the darkness, I can’t hear anything, only silence. I try to move but I can’t. I call out for Shannon, but I can’t even hear my own voice.
