Page 7 of 59 Minutes

CARRIE

It normally takes Carrie a few seconds to cross Waterloo’s concourse but she’s still only halfway to the nearest exit.

Just in front of her, a man in a wheelchair is swallowed up by the crowd, she can just see the dome of his head and his shoulders busily working, trying to manoeuvre.

She’s seen this man many times before. He always wears the same colour palette as a base – navies, greys, camels – but always with a little sprig of something bright.

Mustard brogues or a vibrant red scarf. It should clash with his auburn hair, but instead it elevates it to gold.

She’s almost commented on it before, ‘I love your style,’ but worries it would sound patronising.

A female member of staff who was talking into a walkie-talkie a few moments ago muscles past Carrie and towards the man in the wheelchair, who she thinks might be called Daniel but can’t remember why.

The uniformed woman pushes Maybe Daniel with her thick strong arms, her air of officialdom buying her more space than the rest of them.

Carrie follows immediately in their slipstream, gripping onto the woman’s coat like she’s making her way to the toilets in a crowded pub, conga style.

With the wheelchair at the front, people automatically give all three of them a fraction more space.

Carrie clings shamefully as the convoy reaches the wall near the exit but then the uniformed woman unlocks a staff door, its ‘No Entry’ sticker rubbed and faded.

Carrie lets go as the woman pushes the man and his wheelchair inside.

An institutional darkness swallows them up and the door locks behind them.

The exit archway is just a few feet away now, Britannia waiting on the other side. Once out, Carrie will turn right and run through the taxi rank, dodging whatever is happening there. She can almost taste the air outside, sweet and smoky from exhaust fumes.

There is a staircase down to the back of the station that’ll bring her out near the beginning of Kennington Road and she can simply follow it all the way home, turning at the last moment into Prince’s Street and then finally Prince’s Square, the cluster of Georgian houses and converted apartments in which they live, huddled around a little communal garden.

She can almost see their front door, can smell Pepper’s cooking from upstairs, can feel Clementine’s jacket potato warmth in her arms and can picture Emma, Zoom-smart from the waist up, crying.

Because Emma cries at everything, she’s even worse than Carrie.

Sad films, happy endings, Christmas adverts, dogs in jumpers, videos of baby goats.

She cried when Carrie first said that, yes, she did love her like that .

Like more than friends. Like together forever.

Emma cries in panic and fear too.

Carrie doesn’t jog as much as she used to pre-baby but today she can feel energy prickling, an impetus growing in her chest to suck in oxygen and pump it out through her legs.

To run, as hard and fast as she can, the way she and Emma used to thunder down the path between each other’s houses, or freewheel on their bikes.

If she runs, she will get back home with enough time to do whatever you’re supposed to do.

Maybe Pepper has already started sorting things out.

He lived in Eastern Europe in the seventies when the threat of nuclear war danced all along the border with the West. Not that he talks about it much – preferring to brag about assignations with household names and other dubious claims – but he’ll know what to do.

Hundreds of heads, elbows, knees and bags block the way out.

There are only fifty-three minutes until a missile devastates this part of the country, but people still talk in low voices and murmurs.

No one is screaming, although some are crying.

A pregnant woman is pressed against the front of Foyles bookshop, holding her stomach, protecting it from the surge of people.

The woman’s face is shiny with tears but her mouth is clamped shut.

She doesn’t ask for help and no one is offering it.

Inside the doorway, people press themselves against the old ticket booths repurposed as pretty book displays.

Would Carrie have asked for help if she was still pregnant? She puts a hand on her empty stomach and thinks of Clementine. She cannot help this woman, and hates herself for it, but she leans in and wishes her luck as she passes.

Surprisingly, people part easily as she reaches the exit arch. And then she sees why. The thick glass doors are closed. Locked. Four police officers stand on the other side of the glass, at the top of the steps, holding large and complicated-looking guns.

Climbing up the external steps on their knees, getting as close to the police as they dare, is a crouching, begging sea of people.

As she reaches the glass from the inside, she sees a sketch of herself reflected.

Pale white skin, slipped make-up, bleached hair, puffy coat.

Nobody special, nobody more important than anyone else in here or out there.

‘Those people outside are all trying to get in,’ a voice says in her ear. ‘But there’s no space.’

Carrie bangs on the glass. ‘Let me out! Please!’ Only one of the officers out there turns to look over his shoulder into the station, his gun still faces forward at the people on their knees.

‘Please! One of those people can have my place!’

‘Miss, use your head.’ That voice again.

Carrie turns to see a teenage girl in school uniform, navy with royal-blue piping.

Fierce eyes, pretty brown face and curly hair pulled into a tight knot behind her head.

The girl shifts her schoolbag back onto her shoulder but it’s immediately knocked off again.

‘If they open the door to let you out,’ the girl says, like she’s explaining complex physics to a small child, ‘all of them out there will rush in’. Carrie stares at the glass doors and then back at the girl whose frown softens, her voice wavering slightly as she says, ‘And then we’re all dead.’

Carrie tries to look across to the other exits but all she can see is more people.

‘Are all the doors closed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Surely not? What about the bridge to Waterloo East?’

‘Yes, we’re completely shut in so please, please stop banging, miss.’

Carrie looks again at the girl’s face, her eyes. How easy it was to mistake fear for fury. This child is terrified.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, but the girl has turned away.