‘Oh, yes, please.’ Jane took out her notebook out of her bag, wrote down her home phone number and tore out the page to give to him. ‘Thank you, Michael.’
‘Good to meet you, Jane. Have a safe journey home.’
Jane walked away, smiling. He was so nice and she hoped she would hear from him again. Michael had been honest about why he had chosen his career, but she hadn’t been as open with him. Jane hadn’t told Michael about how she’d had to fight her mother’s opposition to her joining the police because she hadn’t wanted to share what had happened to their family. It was something from her childhood that she kept to herself. Jane’s brother, who was also called Michael, had drowned when he was a toddler. He had been given a fishing rod by her father, and had been too impatient to wait for her father to take him fishing. He had squeezed through the hedge in their garden to go next door, where he knew they had a fish pond.
Sitting on the train as it rattled towards Maida Vale, Jane closed her eyes as she recalled what she remembered of the awful tragedy. They had found her brother face down in the pond. His lifeless little body had been carried home and when the ambulance arrived, accompanied by police, her mother had become hysterical, refusing to allow them to take Michael from her arms. There were uniformed officers everywhere, asking questions as if there had been a crime instead of a tragic accident. This began her mother’s deep-seated hatred of the police, because she felt they had blamed her for her son’s death. She only recovered from her breakdown when her younger daughter, Pam, was born, but for years afterwards the sight of uniformed police officers made her freeze with anxiety. At the time of her brother’s death, Jane had been too young to understand why the police were involved. She now knew they were just doing their job, but their manner of dealing with the situation should have been more caring and understanding.
Jane sighed. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t opened up to Michael, when he had been so honest with her. Truth was, Jane never went into depth about her life with anyone as, like her father, she was always protecting her fragile mother.
Shaking off her thoughts, Jane got off the train at Warwick Avenue, and walked along Clifton Gardens towards Maida Vale. She passed a row of shops, the Evening Standard displayed outside showing the headlines about the IRA bomb. She didn’t stop to buy one and instead turned onto Maida Vale, passing the large Clarendon Hotel on the corner. From there it was a short walk to Clive Court, the big building where her parents’ flat was situated.
Jane had her own key but she rang the doorbell first. When no one answered she used her key to open the front door.
‘Is that you, Pam? We’ve still had no news. I called Scotland Yard but they didn’t have a report and—’
‘It’s me, Dad… it’s Jane!’ she called, shutting the door behind her.
Her father came hurrying down the corridor from the bedroom, his face ashen.
‘Jane! You’ve no idea what you’ve put us through today! Didn’t you get any of my calls?’
Jane put up her arms to hug him, but he was white-faced with anger. She was so shocked that she stepped back as her mother came running down the hall.
‘She’s here… she’s here… she’s all right,’ he said.
Mrs Tennison let out a cry, then her legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed in the hallway. Mr Tennison quickly gathered her up in his arms.
‘It’s all right, darling… she’s safe… she’s here… Come on now, come and sit down on the sofa. Jane, help your mother, quickly.’
As Jane guided her to the sofa, Mrs Tennison burst into tears.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I tried to call but it was engaged, and then I got caught up in the… I’m so sorry.’
‘You should be! We’ve been at our wits’ end because we knew you often used that Covent Garden station. We’ve called everyone we could think of…’
Just then Pam arrived, using her own key to let herself in. On seeing Jane, she threw up her arms.
‘I don’t believe it! We thought you were dead, for God’s sake! This bombing’s been all over the news and it’s in all the evening papers… Why didn’t you call?’
‘I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I tried but this number was engaged. I was at the station when the bomb exploded… But I was so lucky… I wasn’t hurt.’
‘I can’t cope with you being a police officer… it’s too dangerous,’ Mrs Tennison exclaimed, as her husband handed her a small schooner of sherry.
‘Mum,’ Jane said, doing her best to reassure her, ‘the bomb wasn’t aimed at police officers. The injured were all innocent… one man saved my life because he shielded me from the explosion; he saved—’
‘I don’t want to hear the details!’ her mother snapped. ‘Your work brings you into contact with murderous people like the IRA. We’ve been worried sick about you since the day you joined up.’
Pam sat beside her mother as she sobbed again. It was a difficult half hour until her father suggested that she should get something to eat. He eventually persuaded her mother to go and lie down and by this time Jane was completely drained.
‘Are you going back to your flat?’ Pam asked, as they went into the kitchen together.
‘I don’t know… I’m totally wiped out.’
‘Maybe you should stay the night here and talk to Mum in the morning? I’ll make you a sandwich and a cup of tea.’
‘What I’d really like is a hot bath…’
‘Well, you go and have one. I’d better be going back. Tony was worried about you as well.’
Jane nodded and sat down on one of the breakfast stools. She wasn’t hungry but Pam had buttered two slices of bread and was peering into the fridge.
‘So, what happened? I mean, were you in the thick of it?’
‘Yes, I was right there. It was dreadful. I haven’t really got my head around it. One minute I was walking out through the ticket barrier, and the next—’
‘Will a ham sandwich do? And there’s tomatoes and lettuce?’
‘Yes… thank you.’
‘Or there’s some cheese?’
Mr Tennison walked in. ‘Your mother’s lying down,’ he said. ‘She’s taken a sleeping tablet. I don’t think I’ll bother waking her up, now — she can sleep in her clothes tonight.
‘Jane wants a bath, Daddy… she’s staying here tonight. I’m going to go back to Tony. I’ve made her a sandwich. Do you want one?’
Jane didn’t have the energy to argue about staying, and found it difficult to even start a conversation as her father and sister were talking across her as if she wasn’t there. She got down from the stool and said she would run herself a bath, and eat her sandwich later.
Her bedroom was almost as she had left it, with her old towelling robe hanging on the back of her door. As she slowly undressed she could hear Pam and her father talking in the kitchen.
‘She said she was just coming out of the ticket office when the bomb went off,’ Pam said. She heard her father reply that he would talk to Jane after her bath.
Jane almost crept to the bathroom, not wanting to face either of them. She locked the door and sat on the side of the bathtub, watching it fill. She poured in some bubble bath and watched as the water became frothy. When it was almost to the overflow, she turned off the taps, slowly stepped into the water and lay down, submerged in the warmth with her eyes closed.
The sudden realisation of how lucky she was not to have been maimed or killed at the Covent Garden explosion hit her like a massive wave crashing against rocks. She didn’t know the names of the dead, not even the young mother or the man who’d saved her. After controlling her emotions all day, she began to tremble and then started to weep. She placed a wet flannel over her face, pressing it down over her mouth to stop anyone from hearing her cries. Her breathing turned to small gasps.