Chris Cleave - Incendiary

—No you don’t. Who’d have you then?

—You would, said Jasper.

—Don’t be daft.

—Why not?

—Listen Jasper you’re an alright bloke but you’ve got to pull yourself together and let me make a new start.

Jasper turned round and put his hand on my bum and started stroking my neck with his other hand.

—So why not make a new start with me? he said.

—Cause you smell of death and I’m late for work.

He took a step back and stood there scowling at me in his socks and boxers.

—You’re still seeing that policeman aren’t you? he said. Mr. Timberlands.

—Yeah. I’m seeing him today.

—Isn’t he married?

—We go to a hotel. Monday lunchtimes.

—How romantic.

—Says Prince Charming.

I looked Jasper up and down and Jasper looked at the floor.

—It’s this godforsaken world, he said. It’s brought me down.

—Nah Jasper it’s the coke bringing you down. You ought to try looking on the bright side.

—Ah yes, he said. The bright side. Every week I have to write 800 words about a world that’s turning to rat shit but never fear dear Telegraph readers because the bright side is that we can all watch the world turning to rat shit on our plasma TVs while we enjoy our ebullient housing market and our preemptive action against tyranny.

Jasper spun round and smashed the side of his hand into the mirror above the basin. A big ugly star of cracks spread across it.

—Oi! Calm down will you?

—How exactly am I meant to calm down? he said. There is no fucking bright side. Barrage balloons go up over the city? Let’s do DIY! Curfew keeping us cooped up indoors? Big Brother ’s ratings soar! How do we react when they intern the Muslims? Who cares when this year’s hot new thing is threesomes!

—Jasper. Listen to yourself.

Jasper stared at me and suddenly laughed. It was a horrible laugh.

—God I’m sorry, he said. You’re right. I’m ranting again. Listen you don’t have any coke do you?

—You know I don’t.

—No, he said. Of course you don’t. Still. No harm in asking.

He sniffed. He wiped his nose with his hand all cut from the mirror. Blood dripped down onto his lips. It was real blood. It wasn’t just in my head for once I didn’t know whether to be sad or happy about that. The blood ran down onto his teeth while he talked.

—People have forgotten the horror, he said. Do you remember the noise of the explosion?

—Don’t.

—It rattled the windows, said Jasper. It echoed and echoed through the streets. I can still hear it in my head. And then there was your face. Your poor little face when you started to realise. That’s horror. You realising you had no one left to grill fish fingers for. That’s what it all boils down to after all the politicking and the posturing and the 800 balanced words from pompous cunts like me. Horror.

Jasper turned round and held on to both sides of the basin. He dropped his head and blood dripped on the white enamel. I took him by the wrists and I led him out of the bathroom into the bedroom. He was muttering.

—Sleep Jasper. Try to get some sleep now there’s a good boy.

I wrapped a towel round his cut hand and I tucked the duvet in around him. I stroked his hair.

—Hush now my darling boy. Hush.

He closed his eyes and I sat with him for the longest time till he seemed to sleep. His eyeballs rolled under the eyelids. His fingers twitched. There were broken things in his dreams and they were after him. I went and fetched Mr. Rabbit out of my bag and I tucked him in next to Jasper. Mr. Rabbit always was good for nightmares. I sat there for a long time stroking Jasper’s hair. You never really lose the habit of looking after a boy I suppose it’s like riding a bicycle. Or cleaning a Kalashnikov if that rings more of a bell Osama I mean who the hell knows what a boy like you got up to after school?

When Jasper was calm and still I went back to Petra’s dressing table. I put her earrings back in the drawer. I used her makeup remover and a cotton pad and I scrubbed her face off mine. I took her clothes off and hung them in her wardrobe. I took off her bra and her knickers and I put them back in her drawers and I stood there naked and shivering. The clock said 8:45 a.m. It was time to put my own life back on.

I was late in at work that morning and I wasn’t the only one. The buses weren’t running properly and mine just didn’t turn up at all. Something to do with bomb scares left a hundred of us waiting in the cold grey rain on Bethnal Green Road. There are so many bomb scares now. You can’t leave a ciggie butt unattended these days without someone coming and doing a controlled explosion on it.

Everyone was late for work and complaining to people on their mobiles. Loudly so that the rest of us could all get an earful. People took it in turns. That’s how the English have a good moan these days Osama. Heaven forbid we should actually grumble to our neighbours in the bus queue. We’re not like you hot-blooded Arab types. That’s what Terence would of said. It’s the climate you see. It’s the rain on Bethnal Green Road that makes Britain great and I stood in it for half an hour before I gave up and walked to the tube and the tube was closed too so it was your typical bloody London good morning.

There was nothing for it I had to walk to work 5 miles through the rain and the 3 million other people whose buses hadn’t come. It was a struggle I don’t mind telling you. I don’t know what it is with London and umbrellas it’s like everyone’s trying to have your eye out. Rain makes us vicious. People were bumping into each other and giving it the old lip and stepping into puddles and all the traffic was jammed and as if all that wasn’t enough it was effing Monday wasn’t it.

Halfway along the Embankment I saw this man lose it. He was crossing too close in front of a bus and the bus driver hit the horn. The man jumped back and dropped his briefcase and it burst open. His computer and his papers and all his little gadgets fell out into a puddle. The man crouched down and started trying to grab all his stuff up but the crowds didn’t give him a chance they just carried on walking on his papers and his iPod and his fingers. OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE the man was shouting. CAN’T YOU FUCKING ROBOTS GIVE ME A CHANCE HERE? HAVEN’T YOU HEARD THIS IS MEANT TO BE A CIVILISED FUCKING COUNTRY?

A few of the crowd gave him this look like civilisation was one thing and Monday morning was another. OH BOLLOCKS TO ALL OF YOU THEN shouted the man. He stood up and he was holding the one thing he’d managed to pick up off the road and it was his biro. The end of it was smashed and black ink was running down his hand and spreading down his white shirtsleeve with the rain. The man lifted his face up into the sky then and just screamed BOLLOCKS TO THIS! BOLLOCKS TO BOMB SCARES! BOLLOCKS TO THE TERRORISTS AND BOLLOCKS TO THE POLICE AND BOLLOCKS TO COMMUTING!

The crowd around him started laughing and clapping. It was a little miracle in the middle of a great wet misery like when the English and the German soldiers played footie in No Man’s Land. The man was still angry at first but then he started smiling too and bowing to the crowd and waving his smashed-up biro like a conductor’s baton. You might think I was smiling too Osama but I wasn’t. The whole thing made me feel a bit poorly. One minute that crowd was robots and the next minute it was human beings and the next minute it’d be something else again. Ever since May Day people’s moods could change faster than the traffic lights.

When I finally got to work the sky above Scotland Yard was low and grey and moody. You couldn’t see a thing. You couldn’t even see the balloons in the Shield of Hope. You just saw the cables disappearing up into the clouds like the weather was bolted onto them.