Winman, Sarah - When God Was a Rabbit

‘Charlie, it’s me. I’m watching it. Phone me; please tell me you’re all right. Please phone me, Charlie.’

My phone rang immediately and I picked up.

‘Charlie?’

It was my mother.

‘I don’t know. I’m watching it now. I can’t get through either. I’ve left messages. Yeah, of course keep trying. Let me know. Of course I will. I love you too.’

The café was packed, silent. Strangers comforted strangers. The impact zone was lower than the North Tower and that was a bad thing. Maybe he was downstairs buying a newspaper or in the bathroom, not at his desk. Not at your desk, Charlie.

People were now waving at the windows, looking for rescue. They were leaning so far out, straining away from the black smoke creeping towards them. I dialled Joe again. Fucking voice mail.

‘It’s me. Call me. We’re all worried. I can’t get hold of Charlie. Tell me he’s OK. I love you.’

They tumbled out, just a couple at first and then more, like wounded archers from distant ramparts. And then I saw them, the two people of my future dreams. I saw them hold hands and jump; witnessed the last seconds of their friendship and they never let go. Who reassured who? Who could do that? Was it done with words or a smile? That brief moment of fresh air when they were free, when they could remember how it was before; a brief moment of sunshine, a brief moment of friends holding hands. And they never let go. Friends never let go.

I picked up.

‘No I haven’t,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

I sounded tired, I knew I did. I heard the fear in her voice and I tried to reassure her, but she was a mother and she was scared. She’d heard from Nancy, she was trying to get from LAX to New York but the airports had shut down. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

‘Joe,’ I said again. ‘Call me – just a quick, I’m OK.’

‘Charlie, it’s me again. Call me. Please.’

People all around were on their phones, the lucky ones had located friends; others waited, pale; I was one of them.

Two fifty-nine p.m. South Tower sucked to the ground amidst a flurry of millions of bits of paper, of memos and drafts with names of those now lost, until it was gone, and all those inside were gone and their nightmare was over, now handed to those who were left, those left waiting, now mourning by their phones.

I rang again. No voice mail now, nothing. Another plane had crashed outside of Pittsburgh; a rumour that it was shot down – conspiracy was starting already. Conspiracy breeds conspiracy . That’s what Jenny Penny would have said.

The Tower is falling. Nothing can be the same.

Three twenty-eight. North Tower gone. Scenes of dusty moonscape where once was an avenue of people holding coffees, and smiling and rushing to work with thoughts of lunch maybe, or what they’d be doing later, because at that time of the morning they still had later. And as the dust cleared, survivors from the street crawled out dazed and covered in ash, and a man whose shirt had ripped across his front revealed a bleeding chest, but he was oblivious as he concentrated on smoothing his hair to the side, because he’d always smoothed his hair to the side – it was something his mother had started when he was young – so why should that day be any different? It was his search for normality. Call me, Joe. Call me, Charlie. I want normal again.

And that’s when I could’ve done it. Could have wandered down to the Vermeer and reminded myself of beauty. I could have gone down there and been normal. I could have lost myself in a joy I could still remember from that morning, because it was still so close, and I could remember everything before the world changed.

I could have done all that and would have, had I not picked up my phone instead and heard his voice and I started to shake when I heard his voice, and he was talking fast, and he sounded panicked but he was OK. He’d never gone to work that day, had got up late and couldn’t be fucked, and I was telling him about the reports here, stuff I’d heard, but he kept telling me to stop, and I didn’t hear him at first because I was so happy. But then he shouted at me and I heard.

‘I can’t find Joe,’ he said, and his voice broke.

I sat on the roof as the light faded. No more remnants of summer. The murmur of the television rose from below. I felt so cold. I wrapped an old picnic blanket around me; it was my parents’ and I’d never returned it because I never knew when I might need it. It smelt of grass and damp wool. It smelt of Cornwall. I remembered again the silence of the call with them, when the numbing possibility descended upon their thoughts, when I told them, Your son can’t be found.

I tried to get on a flight, but most were grounded or diverted to Canada. A couple of days and then back to normal, the operator said. That word again. I put my name down on the reservations list. I’d be first out, I’d be there to see for myself, because I couldn’t go back to my parents without something to shatter their silence at least. Either a scream or a smile.

I finished another glass of wine. Waited for the phone call he’d promised to make. I watched the trucks arrive and park, heard the soft drone of the engine feeding the refrigeration. I poured out more wine; emptied the bottle.

It had been hours, must have been. I looked at my watch. He’d said he was heading to Joe’s house, the police had cordoned off below 14th street, but he’d get there, he’d said, just to check. The smell, Elly; that was the last thing he’d said to me. The smell.

My phone rang. The battery was low. It was him at last.

‘Hey,’ he said, his voice thin and empty.

‘How are you?’

‘OK.’

‘What is it, Charlie?’

‘I found his diary,’ he said, his words barely audible. ‘It puts him there.’

Duke/Office/8.30.

The diary entry was brief. Written in turquoise ink, the turquoise ink from the pen he took from me last February. We called around, of course, but there were not many to call. Those who were there, the ones who got out, could barely remember him, still in shock. ‘Yeah, think he was there,’ they said, or, ‘No, didn’t see him.’ We were left none the wiser, left guessing.

Duke didn’t make it. Some said he was at the point of impact, others said he’d gone back up the staircase to look for a colleague. That would’ve been like Duke; gone back to help someone else. That’s why they called him The Duke.

By the time I got to New York, Nancy and Charlie still hadn’t touched anything in the house. They didn’t want to move anything in case I saw a clue, an overlooked clue to his missing. But all I saw was a full fridge and a half-drunk bottle of his favourite wine, both clues that said, I am coming home, going nowhere.

They’d checked hospitals, Nancy in Brooklyn, Charlie in Manhattan, took turns in New Jersey, took turns in the temporary morgues. She left his name, said it twice clearly, but was asked for it again as voices battled with phone lines. She leant against a wall outside and tried to cry, but tears, like comprehension, were stuck and of the past. She was comforted by no one. Everyone had a story of grief. Everyone else’s was worse than yours.

The smell was acrid: burning rubber and fuel, and the other unmentionable that sat in the nose and sent images of horror to the mind. Charlie had warned me about it, but I could still smell it every time I went out, even in the garden, because there was nothing in bloom to mask the stench, because ultimately it was the smell of shock that dosed this city, a sour smell as potent as week-old urine. I pulled out one of his old foldaway bistro chairs and wiped it down. It buckled as I sat on it. The left hinge was broken; he still hadn’t mended it.