To the Ends of the Earth

I told him. “I’m a reporter on the Bristol Gazette. Do you want your name in print? I’ll write it up as soon as they’ve got you into an ambulance. Front-page news.” I had an idea that I had to keep him talking. He was looking pale and drawn.

“Yeah. I’m just over from Sydney for a holiday, Europe and here—and now this!”

“You’ll be out of hospital before you know it. And if ever you’re down in Bristol, make sure you look me up.”

More ambulances arrived, and a paramedic took over my charge. “Thanks, cobber,” Ozzie said. Do they really say that?

One of the boys was crying, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. Broken, I thought, but unless there was some other injury, he would be okay, though in pain.

I shuddered at the thought of the pram and its crushed contents.

As I did so, I heard sirens, Police cars arrived, blue lights flashing.

I didn’t seem to be able to do anything else constructive, so I took some more shots and then phoned a not-very-coherent account back to the paper, mentioning the doctor, the Australian guy, how many wounded I could see, the crushed pram. They would sort it out.

A sergeant had a few words with the doctor, who pointed in my direction.

He came over. “I understand you called the ambulance?” He took details, and I told him that I was actually a reporter and had taken a movie of practically the whole incident, including the picture of the driver, who had fled the scene.

“There’s actually a shot of him turning back to look. I think I’ve got his face.”

He seemed pleased and asked if he could have my phone. Now I guarded that with my life, so I said, “Better than that, I’ll phone the whole lot to your station.” And when he looked a bit doubtful, I added, “It’ll be much quicker. They’ll have everything immediately.”

Eventually he agreed but watched me carefully as I sent everything through to his station, except my phone call to the paper. Mistrustful these London coppers, unlike our Bristol lot, who go around telling people the time and patting stray kids on the head. Not! They’d have you in an armlock soon as look at you, and touching a kid stood a great chance of an abuse accusation. What a life we live in, and then I remembered the guy in Alexandra Palace park and thought, Perhaps it always has been. I was becoming a cynic in my old age.

So that was my second great scoop. Our local paper even got it out before the dailies, especially online. Only thing was I couldn’t see the MP because Parliament had become a crime scene with, for the time being, no one being allowed in or out.

Before I went home, I paid a sentimental visit (You see? I’m not all cynicism.) back to Alexandra Palace. The building itself was as I remembered it—big and imposing, standing on top of its hill—but the clump of bushes where Jacob and I had played and been accosted had been tarted up and turned into a rose garden. No more playing tag there (you’d be scratched to pieces), and presumably no more lurking pervs. I sent a pic to Jacob with the palace in the background. Remember this? Where I saved your life, or at least your cherry!

Got an answer almost immediately. Of course I remember Ally Pally, but what’s this about saving my life? He’d completely forgotten the incident.

“TERRORIST ATTACK in London” screamed the headlines “by our special reporter on the scene” (my italics). Pictures were suitably cropped to exclude the dead and dying. My Ozzie got his name in, as did my photo of the face of the perpetrator. “Have you seen this man? The police need to interview him on possible”—Possible?—“terrorist charges. Do not approach. This man may be dangerous.”

Lex of course knew about it immediately. He knew everything. I got a text from him in the afternoon. “Hear you’re the flavour of the month. Come back without a scratch, and I’ll kiss you all over.” Slightly embarrassing, but at least no one else saw it except perhaps GCHQ in Cheltenham, which I believe receives copies of every email sent. That must be the most tedious job ever, though I expect they’ve got a special computer that searches for any possible radicalizing words and reports them. Of course Lex’s message could have been a code!

Slightly worn out and ravenously hungry, I arrived home, where Lex cooked me a marvelous meal and then fulfilled his promise.

I of course was on top

of the world. Nothing could touch me. I forgot that “O Fortuna” from Karl Orff’s Carmina Burana warns that aspects of life are continually changing, either for good or bad.

You’d think I could stay on a high for at least a couple of days but… I guess it was my fault, but I was up there, and I thought, bumptious arsehole that I was, that I could do anything, including that thing that had rankled with me ever since I’d moved in with Lex. I asked him, perhaps even demanded of him, that he tell me what his job was.

He tried to be reasonable. “You know, during WW II, those girls at Bletchley Park kept their work secret from everyone until years after the war ended. I really can’t. You must understand.”

But I wasn’t being reasonable. “You’re not a silly girl. You know I’d never tell anyone. We’re not even at war.”

“Aren’t we?” And he tried to grab me in a hug, but I pulled clear.

I knew I was behaving like a spoilt child, but I couldn’t help it. “I share every fucking thing with you. I think you should do the same. None of this stupid ‘If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’ nonsense.”

“Look, we’ll have a long talk when I get back.”

“Get back? Get back? You haven’t even told me you’re going away. Where is it this time? Spain for another load of drugs?”

“It’s just up to London. I’ll be back the following morning.”

“Tell me before you go.”