Chris Cleave - Incendiary

My boy was holding some woman’s hand. The woman was taking him into a newsagent’s. It was my boy alright. It was his beautiful ginger hair and his cheeky little smile. He was pointing at something in the window of the shop and you could tell he really wanted it. It was Skips probably. He always did love Skips I mean kids do don’t they? They fizzibly melt you see Osama. In one second all the emptiness in me was gone. They’d made a mistake. My boy was alive. It was so wonderful.

I went straight across the road with my crutch. A cab nearly killed me. The cabbie screeched his brakes and he called me a stupid slapper. I couldn’t of cared less. I went in the newsagent’s and I saw my boy straight away. He had his back to me. He was on his own looking up at the drinks fridge. The woman was at the counter buying ciggies. I went straight up to my boy. I dropped my crutch and the carrier bag. I turned my boy round I kissed his face. I picked him up and I gave him a huge hug and I buried my face in his neck.

—Oh my boy my brave boy my lovely boy.

My boy was shouting and kicking against me. He didn’t smell right either. I suppose it wasn’t surprising. The woman probably hadn’t been feeding him right. My boy always was fussy you see. He would eat his vegetables but you had to cook them just right for him. Did I say that already?

—Oh you poor brave boy. Mummy’s here now. Mummy’s back and she’ll never let you out of her sight again. I bet you miss Mr. Rabbit so much well he’s been missing you too. We came all the way across town to find you. Me and Mr. Rabbit. We did have an adventure! We took the 705!

Then it all went wrong. My boy got pulled away from me. One second he was in my arms and the next second the woman was holding him. She was screaming and screaming at me. My boy was screaming too. Both of them were bright red and screaming.

—Give me back my boy.

—E int your boy, screamed the woman. Git chore ands off im yer crazy car.

—Give me back my boy. Hand him over.

—But e int yours! Carn choo see? Look at im fer Christ’s sake! Ave a good look at im!

The boy was sobbing. The woman was holding him right up to my face and shaking him like my eyes couldn’t focus on him if he wasn’t moving.

—See? she said. E’s mine. Ain cher Conan?

There was snot running down the boy’s face. His nose didn’t look right and his eyes were the wrong colour. Suddenly he wasn’t my boy any more. Suddenly he didn’t look anything like my boy. I couldn’t work it out.

—Oh god. Oh god oh god I don’t know what I’m doing I’m so sorry.

Then the woman started ranting at me with the boy sobbing in her arms. She just went on and on. I could see her mouth moving but the words didn’t make any sense. I was hypnotised just watching that mouth moving moving moving in her angry red face. She looked like one of those live crabs on the market with their pincers done up in rubber bands and their mean little mouths moving moving moving.

I turned round and I picked up my crutch and my carrier bag and I walked out of the newsagent’s clack clack clack with the woman still screaming effing blue murder behind me.

You’d think it would of got better after that but actually it got worse. There I was walking down Lower Marsh Street with my heart thumping and now my poor sweet boy was everywhere. I saw him getting onto buses and going into shops and walking away down the street. It was always the back of him I saw and there was always some woman holding his hand taking him away from me. He was every little boy in London.

I don’t know how you did it Osama but you didn’t just blow my boy to bits you put him back together again a million times. Every single minute ever afterwards I watched my boy walk off with Sloaney mums and traffic wardens and office girls out on a shopping break and I never thought any of them looked like they could of made his tea the way he liked it. Choc-chip ice cream! I wanted to shout at them. I wanted to tell them he loved choc-chip almost as much as he loved his dad but there’s no point telling people things when you’re stark raving mad is there? They won’t listen.

I walked across Westminster Bridge watching the empty river sliding past underneath. I shivered. It should of been nice and quiet on the bridge because it was closed to traffic but there were 2 helicopters hovering low above the Houses of Parliament. The noise was horrible. They were shocking vicious things those helicopters. They were like fat black wasps looking outwards through their glittering eyes.

There were 2 Japanese walking in front of me. Their T-shirts said 23 BECKHAM and OXFORD UNIVERSITY. They started to video the helicopters. A copper walked up to them very fast. You could tell he was trained to walk not run. He made the Japanese stop filming and he took their cameras off them. The Japanese were going nuts and mouthing off at the copper in foreign. The copper just stood there very patient and calm. He was wearing a thick bulletproof vest and a thin black moustache. I walked past the 3 of them. The copper smelled of nylon. He had a radio clipped to his jacket and there was a voice coming out of it like a bossy child shouting through a hurricane. TANGO TANGO NINER it said PROCEED TO SECTOR SIERRA 6 AND STAND BY. It did make me nervous.

Parliament Square was closed to traffic too so I walked straight down the middle of the road past Churchill and Smuts and all those other bronze chaps. The traffic started again on Victoria Street. I didn’t have far to go. New Scotland Yard had a row of coppers stopping anyone from parking or loitering in front of all the metal and glass and that silly spinning triangle on a stick that always looks like it could do with a clean. One of the coppers tried to move me on when I stopped there but I wouldn’t leave.

—I’m here to see Superintendent Terence Butcher.

—I’m sure you are madam, said the copper. Now move along please if you would.

He looked down at me with my crutch and my Asda bag. It’s true I didn’t look quite right.

—Please constable. My husband was blown up on May Day. Terence Butcher used to be his boss.

—What did your husband do? said the copper.

I told him and I gave my husband’s warrant number.

—Open the bag if you would please madam, said the copper.

I showed him what was in the bag.

—Alright madam, he said. Wait there just a moment if you would.

He turned away and he spoke into his radio.

I won’t tell you the questions they asked me Osama. I won’t tell you how I got in to see Terence Butcher. I’m not going to give you anything you could use to blow up Scotland Yard. A lot of my husband’s old mates still work there. I won’t tell you where Terence Butcher’s office was. I won’t even tell you his real name. Terence Butcher will do it’s close enough anyway. I mean all those coppers have meat-chopping names don’t they? Like Peter Slaughter. Francis Carver. Steven Cleaver. All the coppers in there had names you could take a grindstone to.

Scotland Yard was just like you’d expect inside. All nerves and notice boards. A constable took me down god knows how many grey painted corridors. The whole place smelled of sweat and Dettol on the lower floors and coffee and Dettol on the upper ones. Terence Butcher’s office was high up I won’t tell you how high exactly. The pale green gloss paint on his door was chipped and grubby but the metal sign was bright and new. CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT TERENCE BUTCHER it said. I don’t know anything about police ranks but the constable who was taking me was so worked up he could hardly knock. ENTER said a voice and we did.

The office smelled of new paint. There were bare shelves all over the walls and cardboard boxes all over the floor. Terence Butcher was sitting against the window behind a long wide metal desk. There were 3 phones on the desk and a photo of a wife and kids. I supposed they were his. I mean it’d be wrong for any man to have a photo of someone else’s wife and kids on his desk but especially for a copper. Terence Butcher was wearing a white shirt with black shoulder tabs with silver crowns on them. No tie. He was talking into one of the phones.