even the bell, the namesake.

...

Another rumble is heard, it passes.

Greensides:                   I was supposed to see her tomorrow and give her the present then, maybe I should’ve waited until the morning.

                                                     

            Pause.

                                    I only give her things because she needs them. I hate seeing her upset.

                                   

            A distant explosion is heard.

            The dog whines and barks.

Greensides lights a cigarette and begins to smoke.

Silence.

Boyce:                         What was it like?

Greensides:                 What?

Boyce:                         Tonight, what was it like?

Greensides:                 Dark.

On the train I sat opposite a man with a dog...Collie I think. It had its black eyes on me the whole way, quiet and still as we sped past the estates near Bermondsey.

Charing Cross was packed to burst…a lot of people being moved by police back into the trains but the place was so busy and chaotic…

Outside there were horns, car horns of course but a brass band must’ve been there somewhere because I caught glimpses of men and women in red uniforms, all playing trumpets and trombones and tubas...God knows why they were there, but I followed them all down Whitehall to Parliament Square...and never in my life...the size of it all there, all those faces glowing in the light, all staring up at the clock-face and that music hanging in the air. People lined the statues, draped around Churchill and Mandela while the crowds pushed together on the grass. Blue lights flashed from the edges, a few faint sirens, but it felt like nothing, all of us anxiously watching the tower. My phone said five to ten.

A woman, must’ve been in her fifties, pressed up close to my side. I could feel the back of her hand against mine, her skin warm and I felt her move it up and down, just slightly but it was such a tender thing…so small in that place. 

                                    My lights gone out.

Boyce:                         Help yourself.

            Greensides helps himself to Boyce’s lighter, re-lighting his cigarette.

Greensides:                 It was a minute to ten; I could see people checking the time on their phones. I don’t know what we expected, nothing I guess.

Just a glowing circle up there with twelve numbers, no countdown, no movement, nothing. I could hear the woman next to me breathing, deep and low against my neck, her hand still pressed against my own…If I’m honest I felt myself get hard, just a little but hard nonetheless…all the blood down there tightening up like a knot….It was ten o’clock…and then, above our heads… the sound of it…The noise shot from the empty face…like thunder cracking amongst the sounds of its wound, split down the looming form; Big Ben’s open mouth choking on all that came from that hole.

            Greensides puts the cigarette out on the ashtray.

I tried to go back to the station, but it was too late then.

I didn’t see the woman again.                       

Boyce walks towards the floor and begins to pull up the boards with his hands.


Greensides moves to stop him.

...