When You Are Mine
Michael Robotham
To Tony Doherty
Book One
Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
1
I was eleven years old when I saw my future. I was standing near the middle doors of a double-decker bus when a bomb exploded on the upper level, peeling off the roof like a giant had taken a tin opener to a can of peaches. One moment I was holding onto a pole and the next I was flying through the air, seeing sky, then ground, then sky. A leg whipped past me. A stroller. A million shards of glass, each catching the sunlight.
I crashed to the pavement as debris and body parts fell around me. Looking up through the dust, I wondered what I’d been doing on a London sightseeing bus, which is what it looked like without a roof.
People were hurt. Dying. Dead. I spat grit from between my teeth and tried to remember who had been standing next to me. A tattooed girl with white earbuds under hacked purple hair. A mother with a toddler in a stroller. Two old ladies were in the side seat, arguing about the price of cinema tickets. A guy with a hipster beard was carrying a guitar case decorated with stickers from around the world.
Normally I would have been at school at 9.47 in the morning, but I had a doctor’s appointment with an ear, nose and throat specialist, who was going to tell me why I suffered so many sinus infections. Apparently, I have narrow nasal passages, which is probably genetic, but I haven’t worked out who to blame.
As I lay on the street, a man’s face appeared, hovering over me. He was talking but he made no sound. I read his lips.
‘Are you bleeding?’
I looked at my school uniform. My blue-and-white checked blouse was covered in blood. I didn’t know if it was mine.
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
‘Three.’
He moved away.
Around me, shopfront windows had been shattered, covering the pavement and roadway with diamonds of glass. A pigeon lay nearby, blown out of the sky, or maybe it died of fright. Dust had settled, coating everything in a fine layer of grey soot. Later, when I saw myself in the mirror, I had white streaks under my eyes, the tracks of my tears.
As I sat in the gutter, I watched a young policewoman moving among the injured. Reassuring them. Comforting them. She put her arms around a child who had lost his mother. The same officer reached me and smiled. She had a round face and brilliantly white teeth and her hair was bundled up under her cap.
My ears had stopped ringing. Words spilled out of her mouth.
‘What’s your name, poppet?’
‘Philomena.’
‘And your last name?’
‘McCarthy.’
‘Are you by yourself, Philomena?’
‘I have a doctor’s appointment. I’m going to be late.’
‘He won’t mind.’
The police officer gave me a bottle of water so I could wash dirt from my mouth. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said, as she continued moving among the wounded. She was like one of those characters you see in disaster movies who you know is going to be the hero from the moment they appear on screen. Everything about her was calm and self-assured, sending a message that we would survive this. The city would survive. All was not lost.
*
Standing in front of the mirror, sixteen years later, I remember that officer and wish I had asked for her name. I often think about bumping into her again and thanking her for what she did. ‘I became a police officer because of you,’ I’d say. ‘You were my childhood hero.’
I laugh at the thought and stare at my reflection. Then I pull a face, which is supposed to reduce my chance of wrinkles, but makes me look like I’m busting for the loo. My mother swears by these exercises; and recommends them to all her clients at the beauty salon, most of them older women who are desperately clinging to their looks, while their husbands get to age gracefully or disgracefully, going to seed without a care.
Leaning closer to the mirror, I consider my face, which looks heart-shaped when I bundle my hair up into a topknot. I have grey eyes, a straight-edged nose, and an overly large bottom lip, which Henry likes to bite when we kiss. My eyebrows are like sisters rather than distant cousins because I refuse to let my mother near them with her tweezers and pencils.
I am working early today, with a shift starting at seven. Henry is still in bed. He looks like a little boy when he sleeps, his dark hair tousled and wild, and one arm draped across his eyes because he doesn’t like to be woken by the bathroom light. Henry could sleep for England. He could have slept through the Blitz. And he doesn’t mind when I come in late and put my cold feet on his warm ones. That must be love.
I glance at my phone. It’s not even six and already I have four voicemail messages, all of them from my stepmother, Constance. I don’t normally refer to Constance as my stepmother because we’re so close in age, which embarrasses me more than her; and my father not at all. What a cliché he turned out to be – running off with his secretary.
I play the first message.
Philomena, sweetie, did you get the invitation? You haven’t replied. The party is on Sunday week. Are you coming? Please say yes. It would mean so much to Edward. You know he’s very proud of you … and wishes … She doesn’t finish the statement. He’s turning sixty and he wants you with him. You’re still his favourite, you know, despite everything.