The man paused in front of a door and glanced at Katie. ‘I think this is the safest place we can be right now,’ he said quietly.
Katie looked at the sign on the door and was astonished to see it was the entrance to a gym. ‘We’ll be bombed,’ she said in a faint voice. ‘We’ll die.’
The man shook his head. ‘This is my gym – it’s underground. There will be food and water inside and we can hide here until the bombs stop.’
Katie wasn’t sure they’d be safe, but as the man took his wallet from his pocket and unlocked the door with a swipe of his membership card, she knew she had few options available to her. She could leave and search out somewhere else to sit out the bombs…but she knew she wouldn’t. The moment the man had taken the bicycle from her had been the moment she’d put her life in his hands. She hurriedly followed him through the doorway and as she ran down three levels of narrow staircase, the noise of the war outside disappeared. All she could hear were her petrified footsteps, her shallow breath.
Unnervingly, the gym was deserted of human life. Of course the reception staff would not still be standing at the front desk, but nobody else was there – not staff, not body-conscious gym bunnies, nor people looking for refuge. The whole complex had been abandoned; kit bags had been left in the changing rooms, a shower had been left running and a treadmill moved in its slow, rhythmic way. Whoever had been walking on it would have jumped off, grabbed their stuff and run into the unknown of outside.
‘Fools,’ the man muttered to himself. He stalked around the gym – through the free weights area to the sauna and steam rooms and then to the swimming pool – before he let himself into the manager’s office. There he took a bundle of keys that hung from the wall and methodically worked his way through each one until he happened upon the keys that opened the vending machines. Katie estimated they had a week’s worth of water and enough food to keep them sustained for just as long. So long as the bombs didn’t reach them they would survive.
Katie opened a bottle of water and drank until she could drink no more, then she glanced at the man who’d sat at a computer. ‘There’s no internet or phone line,’ he commented when he noticed her watching him. ‘I suspect the power will go soon too – and then we’ll be in darkness.’
Katie had never been scared of the dark – but she was afraid of what was happening outside. For the first time since the bombs began she could fully take stock: London was being destroyed – and with it her home, her friends and her family. She began to shake.
‘There’s no way of contacting anybody, is there?’ she whispered. She’d lost her handbag – and with it her iPhone – in the struggle to escape Oxford Street, and she had no idea of what anybody’s number was. She thought of her family in west London, of her friends and colleagues who’d been in their offices, and she wanted to collapse in a heap and cry. For the first time in her life, Katie wanted to be rescued. She’d so far had a successful career, and apart from too many drunken nights out and an inability to eat as many vegetables as she should, she considered herself to be a relatively responsible adult. But right now she felt as small and as helpless as a child: she didn’t know what to do with herself.
The man stood up and passed Katie a protein bar. ‘Eat this,’ he said evenly. ‘You need the energy.’
Katie eyed the food listlessly. She knew she should eat something but she wasn’t hungry. ‘Do you have a mobile phone?’ she asked the man instead. ‘Do you have a way to contact your wife? Your friends?’
The man shook his head. ‘It must have fallen out of my pocket,’ he said and Katie noticed a flash of raw, unbound emotion cross his face. ‘And besides, I doubt the mobile networks are up.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Katie asked. For the first time since they’d met, Katie noticed uncertainty under the dirt and ash on his face. He shrugged.
‘I’m going to have a shower to clean this dirt off me, and then we’re going to sit it out. That’s all we can do.’
Katie nodded, but as the man walked away from her and into the wet area of the gym, she felt the terror she’d so far kept coiled up into a small, tight ball, begin to consume her. For the first time since the bombs had begun to rain down on London, Katie was alone. She wanted to scream.
New Havana, Cuba, June 2075
In the quiet of her apartment, Harper put the letter down after reading it yet again and tried to picture what her grandmother had gone through, tried to imagine what her own life would be like if everything she held dear was destroyed. How would she cope? It was unthinkable that a whole city – a major city, like London had once been – could be destroyed and erased so suddenly, but it had happened only sixty-one years ago. Her grandmother had been one of the few who’d survived the attack and had gone on to live a full, happy life despite what had happened to her – but Katie had never spoken about the bombs and how it had shattered her life. Harper thought about losing her friends, her family, and having to move to the other side of the world to start everything again. It was unthinkable - but Katie had done it.
Harper shifted her gaze from the pile of letters in front of her and instead looked around her one-room studio. She’d lived in Alamar – a suburb of New Havana – for as long as she could remember, but despite spending most of her time in her unit, it remained impersonal and nothing like the apartment in which her grandmother had made her life. Aurora had purchased the studio for Harper on her tenth birthday, and her upbringing had been left to the digital assistant, who’d ensured that Harper had eaten proper meals and had been schooled to a decent standard. Harper hadn’t missed Aurora – who’d left Cuba and had gone to live in Europe – but that was, in part, because her grandmother had always been there for her. Now Katie was gone, Harper felt a little bit lost. She had her career, her friends, and her digital assistant…but she no longer had family.
Harper told herself to stop feeling so self-pitying. When Katie had been her age she’d lost everything. She’d been orphaned and all the communication threads between Katie and her friends – thought to be so robust, so safe – had been destroyed forever. In the midst of so much horror, Katie had had to start her life again and by herself. It was only after Katie had escaped London and moved to New Havana that she’d been able to track down what had happened to friends and family on that fateful St. Valentine’s Day. But hardly anybody she’d known had made it out of London alive.
The more Harper thought about Katie and her experience in London, the more she wanted to see the city where her grandmother had grown up. Harper pressed several buttons on her watch, and instantly a satellite projection of London appeared on her digital wall. The former city was dark – for it was early morning in Europe – but there were enough gloomy lights for Harper to see the grey, dusty bomb craters and the few buildings that had been built around them. If Harper didn’t know she was looking at London she’d have thought she was watching another town being built on the surface of the moon.
Harper split her digital screen and played some video footage of London that had been taken in 2010. The fashions were ridiculous, and the majority of the people who’d been caught on camera looked cross that they had, but London had been so vibrant, so colourful, so energetic. London had been one of the major cities in the world, but now… Well, now it was silent. Few people seemed to scurry across the uneven streets, and an air of despondency hung over the city. At the time it had made more financial sense for London to be abandoned – there was not the economy to try to rebuild everything that had been destroyed – and the survivors of the bombs had moved to Cuba. They had discovered a city that was warm, friendly and needed to be revitalized: they’d formed New Havana and made it into one of the most powerful cities in the world.
But what remained of London? Harper zoomed in on the streets as the former city began to wake up. It had taken decades but London was slowly being rebuilt – it would never be the capital of England (a place named Manchester now held that title), but the city was creating a new identity from with
in the rubble. The more Harper watched London, the more she felt it call to her. Without thinking, Harper told her digital assistant to book the next jet to the UK. She was going to see Katie’s former home.
London, England, February 16th 2014
The bombs continued to fall. It was two days after the first attack, but every time Katie and the man ventured up the stairs of the gym to see if the bombing had finally stopped they discovered it hadn’t. Through her numbness, Katie kept on telling herself that she was fortunate: so far she was safe.
In the days that they’d hidden in the underground gym, Katie and the man hadn’t spoken much. On the first day the man had returned from his shower – clean and in clothes he’d found abandoned in the changing room – and Katie had attempted to make conversation. She’d stumbled over her words as she forced several questions out, but despite her attempts to be friendly the man had been evasive. He’d not wanted to speak, and Katie had understood that – what good was small talk in the midst of what they were going through? But she needed company, needed to distract herself from the devastating thoughts in her mind.
Since then they’d settled into some sort of routine. The man made sure that Katie ate protein bars and drank water, and Katie tried to be optimistic for both of them. She’d made them beds from piles of yoga mats and had even been able to make something resembling pillows from the floating aids that children had used in the swimming pool. They didn’t have blankets and since the power had gone they’d not had heating, but being cold was a small price to pay for staying alive. Katie told herself again and again that this wasn’t forever: the bombs would stop and they would be able to leave their refuge soon.
The man spent most of his time pacing. He behaved like a caged animal – Katie supposed they both were. ‘The bombs will cease soon,’ she told him quietly. The man didn’t stop walking, didn’t pause to acknowledge her. ‘And maybe when they do stop we can go and search for our loved ones. Do you have a wife? Children?’
The man stopped walking and turned on his heel. Despite the lack of light, Katie could see anger on his face. His hands were balled into tight fists, but before she had the chance to be scared of him the moment had passed and the man’s expression relaxed into something more neutral.
‘I have a son,’ the man said. ‘And an ex-wife. It’s killing me that I don’t know what’s happened to them.’
Katie swallowed hard. The thought that she’d probably lost her parents and her friends was so incredibly painful that she could barely bring herself to acknowledge it. But to have a child out there – that was unthinkable.
‘Where was he on Valentine’s Day?’ Katie asked gently.
‘At school. He’s seven. But he’s the adventurous sort – he wouldn’t have stayed in the building if he thought it was dangerous…’ The man’s voice trailed off. He couldn’t speak.
‘If he’s anything like his father he’ll have found his way to safety,’ Katie said as reassuringly as she could. She tried not to think how likely it would be that a small boy could dodge thousands of bombs intent on harm. ‘He’ll be OK.’
The man didn’t speak for several minutes. Katie watched him as he collapsed within himself, sinking onto the makeshift bed that she’d made him. ‘It’s taking everything I’ve got not to go out and find him.’
Katie went and sat on the yoga mats and took his hand in hers. He trembled with cold and with terror.
‘You must wait until the ceasefire,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s too dangerous for you to go outside. But as soon as the bombs stop I’ll come with you. I’ll help you look for him.’
The man nodded slowly and turned his gaze to the ceiling. They were so deep underground that they couldn’t hear the demolition of the buildings above them, but they could sometimes feel rumbles deep inside the concrete walls. Katie knew there was a good chance that the staircase that lead into the basement gym could be destroyed, but she couldn’t face worrying that they’d become trapped. All she could do was to live in the moment, and at this moment she knew she had to comfort the person who’d saved her life.
‘I just realised that I don’t know your name,’ Katie said abruptly. They’d spent so much time trying to stay alive that it hadn’t seemed important. ‘I’m Katie.’
The man shifted his gaze at her. ‘Hello, Katie,’ he said gently, and then he squeezed her hand. ‘Would you consider laying on my mats with me to keep me company?’
Katie nodded and shifted closer towards him. She could feel his body heat as she lay down next to him, could feel a change in the atmosphere between them, but she didn’t let go of his hand. Instead she talked quietly about herself and her life, chattered about her hopes and dreams and what she’d do when the bombs stopped and they were able to return to their lives again. She talked so much that her mouth became dry, but even when the man eventually fell asleep she didn’t stop talking and she refused to let go of his hand.
London, England, June 2075
London was grey, bleak and cold. Harper had started to shiver the moment she arrived in the city, and she found she couldn’t stop. The weather was appalling – of course it was – but the landscape was even worse. Everything was a dirty, dusty grey.
Although the flight on the jet between Havana and London had only taken two hours, Harper found she was exhausted: the combination of dealing with her grandmother’s death – coupled with the unfolding realisation of just how awful it had been for Katie during the London bombs – had drained her emotionally. She’d originally planned to explore the city straight away, but instead Harper checked into her hotel and poured over maps of how London had looked before the bombs. The more she examined the maps, the more Harper wished that digital footprints had been invented when Katie had lived in London. Harper took it for granted that she was automatically able to see every location that she’d ever been to, but when Katie had lived in England hardly anybody had been micro-chipped and nobody had selected to track their every movement. Now, of course, it was illegal not to be chipped, but in 2014 it had been considered against human rights for people to know everyone else’s movements. Katie understood the argument, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been easier for Katie to find her friends and family after the bombings had the technology existed back then.
After a brief nap, Harper was ready to explore the city. She still had several of Katie’s letters to Blue left to read but she wanted to visit the locations that Katie had mentioned when she’d cycled away from the bombs. Harper found her way to where the remains of Waterloo Bridge stood, and as she watched the dirty, blackened Thames flow underneath it, she felt inexplicably sad. It was the same at the site of the Old Vic: the rubble had been cleared away, but nothing new had yet been built on the site. Instead there was a silent, gaping crater – and Harper could only imagine what the theatre had looked like; she could almost picture the actors who’d trod the boards night after night.
‘It’s depressing, isn’t it?’ an elderly female voice said. Harper turned around and saw she wasn’t alone, that a woman who had an electronic map in her hands was standing next to her. The bright red of the woman’s jacket stood out against the grey of the landscape: she looked like a poppy that had grown in-between slabs of concrete. ‘My family is originally from London,’ the woman continued conversationally, ‘and my parents used to come to the theatre that was on this spot. If they were alive today they’d be devastated to see what had happened to it.’
Harper nodded. ‘My grandmother saw the Old Vic get bombed,’ she said quietly as she stared down at the rubble. ‘I can’t imagine what that must have been like.’
‘Terrifying, I bet,’ the woman said. Harper identified her voice as American. ‘But she managed to escape?’
‘She did,’ Harper acknowledged. ‘I found some papers that she wrote about her experiences during that time, and I’m visiting the places that she described.’
The woman nodded knowledgably. ‘You’re not alone – most of the people who visit Lon
don do so because they have personal links to certain places. They want to be where their relatives were – regardless of if they survived or died.’
Both women looked at the hologram flowers that had been placed where the theatre had once stood – they would remain there eternally as a tribute to those who’d lost their lives there.
‘My grandmother found refuge in an underground gym during the first wave of bombs,’ Harper confided. ‘I’d love to be able to know where it was, but all I know is that it was in South London.’
The woman beamed and placed her hand on Harper’s arm. ‘Do you mean Atlas? In Peckham?’ the woman sounded so excited that Harper couldn’t be annoyed at the unwanted, over-familiar physical contact.
Harper stared at her. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied slowly. ‘Was Atlas an underground gym? And how do you know of it?’
‘Everyone’s heard of it!’ the woman laughed. ‘It’s the only gym in London that wasn’t destroyed at the time. It’s a museum of what gyms looked like in the 2010s, but it’s also a memorial to those who died in the bombs in Peckham. It’s like going back in time, and it’s a must-visit for the tragedy tourists on their pilgrimage.’
‘Maybe it’s the gym that my grandmother wrote about,’ Harper mused. She desperately hoped it was, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. Until she finished reading Katie’s letters to Blue she wouldn’t know if the gym had been destroyed or not – if it had provided both Katie and the man sanctuary until London was safe again.
‘I bet it is,’ the American woman said perkily. ‘But there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’
SUNLOUNGER 2: Beach Read Bliss (Sunlounger Stories) Page 26