BU21 Read online

  So were the two terrorists. ‘Londoners.’ From fucking Bermondsey. That was the fucking problem. Should never have been allowed to be Londoners in the first place.

  Newspapers said that the bombing raids were so severe that they picked them up on those seismic – you know, the earthquake machines? All across the world, you could pick the bombing up on the Richter scale.

  And I don’t want to be a cunt about it, but basically, I think the whole Islamaphobia thing is just a bit –

  In the Second World War, right, we fought the Nazis – and nobody was accusing us of being Nazi-phobic, were they?

  That would have been completely insane.

  Yes, I’m against people who shoot down airlines onto cities, just like I’m against people who gas Jews in concentration camps.

  I’m against evil people who do evil shit.

  But this place, there’s just this – (Puts two fists together.)

  Unity, you know? London is basically made up of groups of people who hate each other: rich people versus poor people, immigrants versus locals, North London versus South London, Arsenal versus Chelsea – but when the crash happened, for a moment, all of that stopped.

  And for a second we were shoulder to shoulder. United.

  I’m really fucking proud – of us all. Apart from the Muslims. They can fuck off.

  And after a couple of months there was this Romanian girl, Anna – Ana, Ayna or whatever – joined the group – and I’ve never been a fan of East Europeans but – she was a waitress. And she’d been terribly burned. And the two of us just – I cried my fucking eyes out every night, thinking about what she’d gone through.

  She was just so brave, and dignified – and she could barely move, she was in so much pain all the time – and in my heart I was just like ‘you’re as much a Londoner as I am, my darling, no matter what nightmarish gypsy-infested fuckhole you’re from’ – I’d have hugged her, only I didn’t dare, what with her injuries.

  And over the months we became close, me and her.

  And every time I went home – and I’m not being funny – my heart was just full.

  ANA. So I spent nine weeks in hospital in the end. Two of them I was in an induced coma.

  A month after the crash I broke up with my boyfriend. He’d been visiting every day – every single day – but –

  He’s twenty-four. I didn’t want him having to look after a cripple in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It wouldn’t have been fair.

  If you love people, sometimes you’ve got to set them free –

  Which I think is probably a line from like Free Willy or something – which means you probably shouldn’t accept it blindly as a philosophy for life – but in this case, you know –

  I’ll have to have operations for the next five years. I’ve had twenty already this year.

  He was broken-hearted, but hearts heal quick enough.

  Faster than burns, it turns out, you know?

  Now I’ve only got me to worry about, and I never worry about myself.

  Never. Because I’m strong. Always have been. Nothing gets to me. Ever.

  I come here every week now, to this group.

  Obviously it’s a waste of time.

  As if you can talk what happened to me away?

  I mean, you can’t set a bone with sympathy, can you? Stitch a wound with concern? So it’s naive to think you can heal my mental injuries that way, isn’t it?

  The people are kind, I guess. Kinder than they used to be around here.

  When I was waitressing there, in Fulham – it was so unreal for me – I used to walk past the estate agents, and the house prices were more than everybody I know will ever earn in the whole of their lives put together –and sometimes the customers would, you know, make these arrogant jokes that I had to pretend to laugh at – and their children often behaved very poorly and I had to pretend to laugh at that too – and people were often rude in this offhand way, like I was this bug or something – so it wasn’t always a happy time for me.

  But since the crash – there seems to be a little more feeling of solidarity, I think. A little less division.

  Of course there are some people you don’t – like anywhere – there’s this lorry driver who is just this patronising, bigoted, absurd man –

  But some of the others, you know – they’re not so bad.

  CLIVE comes onto the stage. He stays away from the rest of the group.

  CLIVE. Of course I regret what happened. I’m not a total fucking –

  A couple of years back I’d got a place at Warwick to study law – I was going in October that year –

  And I was home one night, watching telly, and on the news there was this film of these kids, in Syria, that Assad had gassed. You know the film? Kids, man. Who the fuck gasses kids? Cunts.

  And for me, that was the thing. This guy was a fucking cunt and he was gassing kids. And I wasn’t going to stand for it any longer. Something in my mind just went snap. I was going to go. To help. Not to fight, necessarily. To help.

  This is before ISIS was such a massive thing, you know – where that choice was still a realistic possibility –

  And by then things were really shit with my dad – and we were arguing every night, pretty much – and I thought – fuck it – let’s put aside our differences – let’s do this as an us thing.

  And I said to him – ‘Dad, let’s go together. You and me. Let’s go and help. You’re a doctor, and I can help you as, like, a stretcher-bearer or something.’

  And he just looked at me. Like I had tentacles or something.

  And I was like – ‘Dad. These people need our help. Fellow Muslims, Dad. People dying. They need medics. I – ’

  And I just look at him, imploring.

  And he went mental. Totally freaked out. He was just screaming that I was a simpleton, that he hadn’t raised a son to die as a suicide bomber, that he was ashamed of me –

  He may be a doctor, but he certainly isn’t a fucking psychologist, is he?

  And he forbade me from going, and we both got really, really worked up – and I said some things that I regret – really regret – to this day.

  And things changed between us.

  But in the end, of course, I did what he said – I’m a pussy – my parents just piled and piled this pressure on me – totally rubbed me fucking out–

  So I went to university, stayed in the UK, but I massively resented it, and him. I’d make excuses not to come back during the holidays, all that stuff. Hated him.

  And then one day my mum turns up at the restaurant where I’m waitering for the summer, and she tells me that Dad’s died in a plane crash on his way back from a cardiology conference in New York.

  It tears me to pieces, the fact that we never made it up, me and Dad.

  Tears me to fucking pieces.

  FLOSS. And then one week I go in, sit down, and Derek says hi, and we say –

  ANA/GRAHAM/FLOSS. Hi, Derek.

  FLOSS. And he starts going on and on in his passive-aggressive little Napoleon way about biscuits – literally, biscuits in group-therapy groups assume this fucking insanelydisproportionate significance – like they stand for everything you’ve lost –

  (Derek voice.) Have as many biscuits as you like.

  (Rolls eyes.) But every time you actually take one he looks at you like you’re a serial killer and you’re ripping his baby’s heart out and eating it in front of his face.

  True say.

  Anyway, we’re in the middle of this absurd introductory-biscuit shit for the millionth time, and I look up – trying to catch Becks’ eye to – you know – roll our eyes –

  And all of a sudden I just literally –

  (Can’t continue.)

  And I thought that I’d finally lost my mind, and I’d gone, you know, psychotic for ever, and I start shaking, really shaking, and I can feel the sick in my throat and all this adrenaline is just –

  Because Sunny fucking Mir is sitting in the sea
t, just there, in a fucking hoodie, next to Ana the Roasted Romanian, and Alex the Priapic Banker, and he looks up at me, and he’s like –

  CLIVE sits down next to FLOSS.

  CLIVE. You must be Florence.

  FLOSS (very agitated). What the fuck? Get the fuck away from me –

  CLIVE (confused about this reaction). Florence? I’m really sorry I –

  FLOSS (shouting). Just get the fuck away from me.

  CLIVE. Florence!

  She runs out. Followed by CLIVE.

  ALEX. And so Derek the pencil-dicked psychologist chases them out, but they’re gone, and we carry on for a little bit, but it’s all a bit weird.

  Oh, and, by the way, you guys – classic – you’re fucking racists, yeah?

  Brown guy? Must be a terrorist.

  Who knew theatre audiences were so fucking BNP, man? I thought you were all supposed to be champagne socialists? But Sieg fucking Heil!

  Anyway, we’ll come back to Floss and the dead guy later. For now let’s check in on some suffering.

  Come on, I’m going to narrate this shit properly:

  (With an ironic Jackanory edge.) ‘So the months have passed, and some of our support-group members are dealing with their heavy hearts and wounded limbs with courage and plucky determination.

  ‘Others amongst our number, sadly, are finding it harder to bear the burden of their pitiless tragedy.’

  You like that shiz? Anyway, a lot of what they chat about is just a circle-jerk of self-indulgent misery-porn, but you might just learn some shit from some of it.

  (Game-show-presenter voice) Let’s give it a go.

  THALISSA (to the group). Hi, everybody.

  ANA/GRAHAM. Hi.

  THALISSA. So Mum’s funeral went off better than expected.

  My sister’s in events management, so, you know – professional touches – I don’t want to call it slick,because it was a – but it was, you know – well executed.

  It was Mortlake, you know, Crematorium. Horrible 1950s building, looks like a telephone exchange.

  It’s next to a recycling centre. Which I suppose is some kind of sick town planners’ joke.

  Dicks.

  There’s the most amazing rose-garden thing at the back – and there was this old gardener there, like he’d been there for like a hundred years, and I was going to ask him how on earth they did so well with them – but then I looked at the earth and kind of realised – ah – human ashes.

  Nice.

  And during the service the priest, who didn’t know her at all, was busy making my mother into this heroic, saintly, you know – based on the scant biographical details provided by my sister in a bullet-pointed email the day before – and I saw it there, the coffin, and it seemed like some kind of ridiculous joke.

  Her broken body, just there. My mum.

  And what made it so very raw was that – the plane engine had bounced down the King’s Road and it’d killed only her. There’d been dozens of other people on that street. But it’d killed only her.

  Like God was out to get her.

  Or was just really shit at bowling, I suppose.

  You know, it’s not like I’d have wanted more people to be killed by it, obviously, but the fact it was just her – it made me angry with the priest, and what he stood for. Like God should have prevented it from happening – not that I even believe in God –

  And I know that’s irrational and stuff, and I expect you’re judging me for it but –

  ANA. Of course we’re not judging you.

  GRAHAM. I think what you’ve just said is the bravest thing I’ve ever heard and – I’m sort of welling up here.

  ALEX (to us). What do you reckon? I mean, I’m fucking her, so I’m probably biased, but to be frank, I sort of had to stop myself laughing at one point there –

  I even went to the funeral. Her sister’s vastly hotter than her – but cracking onto your girlfriend’s younger sister at their mum’s funeral – I kind of draw the line there –

  Or would that be the most legendary pull of all time?

  Anyway – try this – which was the next up –

  GRAHAM. Thanks, everybody, for being here today, and for continuing to be so supportive.

  ANA. Hi, Graham.

  THALISSA. Hi, Graham.

  GRAHAM. So yesterday I went back to Fulham for the first time. I felt I was ready. It was hard. I can’t pretend it wasn’t hard.

  They were winching the nose of BU21 out of the park. Putting it on the back of a lorry.

  It was just so fucked – sorry for swearing – a crazy ball of twisted metal, wires like blood vessels or something hanging out everywhere – dried mud and tattered seat fabric.

  You could see the seats inside. With these stains on them.

  You know – blood and stuff.

  There were a lot of people there, outside the fuck-off wooden walls they’d built around the crash site.

  I was right at the front.

  And when it drove through the streets, the nose, surrounded by all the police motorbikes and stuff – it was the last big piece of the plane – they were taking it to a massive hanger for the investigation –

  And the crowds were just silent. Like nothing I’d ever seen. And the tension was fucking palpable.

  Like the air was going to explode.

  And then this one woman starts clapping.

  (Claps.) And then somebody else, and another –

  And I don’t know what the fuck they were clapping for – and I was thinking a bit like – shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch –

  And then everybody was.

  And then I was too.

  And it was –

  It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

  (Breaks down.)

  THALISSA (somewhat wearily). We’re here for you, Graham.

  ANA. Yes, we’re here for you.

  GRAHAM. Thanks, darling –

  He goes to hug ANA. She bristles. He doesn’t.

  GRAHAM. Yeah, I’ll just – (Gestures to sit down.)

  ALEX. Graham, the grinning moron on every Union Jack tea towel in Daily Mail land.

  So, so far, I’m not sure I’m finding any of this cathartic, to be honest. I’m not sure I’m learning anything. It’s just like people talking about being unhappy – and I’m like, what’s that to me?

  What about you? How you finding it? Good?

  But then there was this – from Ana – who to be honest, I actually sort of respect.

  I sort of bet she was even a little bit hot before – the meds make you puffy –

  I wonder how much of her is actually, like, scarred? Under that jumper?

  That’d be a night to remember – down by the fireside, tipping her out her wheelchair onto the sheepskin rug…

  Look, just because she’s disabled, that doesn’t mean you should exclude her from being a sexual being, okay?

  You guys are fucking prejudiced, okay?

  ANA. So I’ve stripped my life back to basics, you know? I’ve cut out everything I don’t need.

  My day is now much simpler and more manageable, because I just eat, sleep, and control my pain.

  I don’t even watch the TV any more. So many of the programmes were, you know, about BU21 –

  It’s like maths. Limiting the variables.

  My mother and father phone me every single day. On Skype, you know.

  They ask me how I’m doing – check in. They can’t afford to fly over, and planes are kind of not great for me –

  So I invent a lot of things I’m doing. I say ‘tonight I’m going out for drinks with people from my old work’ or ‘yesterday I went on the pedalos in Hyde Park with a friend’ –

  And they inevitably ask – ‘boy or girl’ and I pretend to be all coy.

  I tell them I’ve got job interviews. They tell me not to push myself too hard, and to concentrate on getting better first.

  I tell them ‘you know me, can’t just sit around the house a
ll day!’

  Of course none of it’s true.

  I don’t want them to worry.

  When I’m telling the stories, I’m actually enjoying them, in real life, like they actually happened.

  Because the life that I’ve invented for myself is fun, you know?

  I think maybe they don’t always believe the stories, but they need to hear the fiction of my happiness as much as I do.

  Because the truth is, it’s not always so good.

  ALEX. And she’s right.

  When something like this happens, you spend all your time escaping from the truth –

  You create yourself an alternative reality – one that’s liveable.

  This support-group shit – it’s fucking nonsense.

  I mean, it’s clear than Derek goes back every night and boshes one off over every misery-porn story –

  (Porn accountant voice.) Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, have as many biscuits as you like. I’ve jizzed on all of them, you little sluts.

  (Normal voice.) Seriously, I never touch the lemonade. A little bit too cloudy not to have spunk in it. Just sayin’.

  So yeah – if your life has been torn to pieces, build yourself a new one.

  Step the fuck up.

  It’s fucking simple as. Don’t whine about it, change it.

  So Thalissa and I are moving in. Together.

  Three-bedroom mews house off the Fulham Road. Her dad paid, obviously.

  She’s grieving and desperately vulnerable, and I have nowhere to live and very few scruples.

  Match made in heaven.

  Yeah, I know.

  She’s – well – (Makes so-so gesture.)

  No, she’s good, you know?

  Her father’s a partner at Goldman. Massive guy to know in case things ever go Hiroshima at work.

  Ghastly fucking wonky tits on her though. Like the left one’s had a stroke or something.

  Tilly had the most perfect tits. Like a fucking Canova sculpture.

  Turned out they were glazed in Will’s spunk, whenever I wasn’t looking, but you know –

  The point’s still valid.

  But there’s no point getting too worked up about it, is there, because they’re both just ashes now, aren’t they?

  They’re gone.

  I don’t think about them. I train myself.

  And if you think that sounds inhuman, that ‘feelings are what makes you human’ –