‘I had a brother who was much younger than me – I still have, I should say, but he doesn’t need me to wipe his arse any more…’ He scowls at me, still rooted inside the cubicle. ‘I helped a lot, once upon a time. I had to, anyway. Can we go now, please? Unless you want to stand around by the bogs, sniffing piss in the wind until we get there? There’ll be enough of that later. If you won’t trust me on anything else then at least trust me on that.’

I lift my face into the wind thudding through the open lobby window as he pushes past, willing it to smack some sense into my head. I don’t know this version of Dominic. I don’t think I ever have. But I sense myself, in contravention of every defence I have, starting to feel like there’s the tiniest of chances I might be able to.

200

Carly ~ London ~ 2001

I’m halfway out of the supermarket storeroom, lever trolley in one hand, clipboard in the other, when I see it. Two skyscrapers, billowing impossible-looking amounts of smoke into a clear blue sky. I squint at the grainy television screen perched on the desk just inside the door, its acid-orange casing no match for the horror unfolding in black and white inside. A stack of papers fall all over the floor as I reach for the volume knob, jumping before I can turn it as one of the flaming towers collapses in clouds upon clouds of dust, like it was only ever made from sand to start with.

‘Disgusting,’ Darren mutters from behind me.

‘What happened?’ I say as the screen flickers. Suddenly the towers are back, belching smoke and ash into the sky.

‘Just playing it again and again on a loop like that … wankers,’ he says. ‘That’s hundreds of dead people, right there. It’s a fucking tomb.’

I stiffen as he moves to my side. Darren seems alright, but he’s still just some guy who stacks supermarket shelves on the nightshift like me. So he’s running from something.

‘What is that – a film?’ I freeze as the building collapses again, millions of tonnes of glass and steel disappearing quicker than I can blink.

‘Where you been all day, under a rock? Thems the twin towers. The World Trade Center. In New York. Planes crashed into them…’

‘Planes? Do you mean aeroplanes?’

‘What other kind are there?’201

There’s another flash on screen and the towers are up again. I lean for the volume knob.

‘Don’t work,’ Darren says. ‘Never has. Least not since I’ve been here.’

I twiddle with the dial, twisting it back and forth. Down the building goes again.

‘Was it an accident? The plane crash?’

He laughs. ‘Course not,’ he says. ‘There were more planes n’all. One crashed in a field.’

‘How do you know?’