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Page 5 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Five

The world solidifies around me, and I find myself braced with my hands against a rough stone wall in the perfect dark. Feeling my way forwards with a few faltering steps, I realise I’m in a low, narrow tunnel. The nothing behind me nudges me on.

There’s something else: I am not alone down here.

My hearing seems to come back to me in increments: first the sound of my hands grazing the stone, then my soft, tentative footsteps.

Quiet murmurs emerge in the dark, woven with soft sobs.

A piercing infant’s cry cuts sharply through the dark and is swiftly stifled.

Feet shuffle; bodies shift and sigh. Somewhere ahead, there are people crammed together.

Even after a few minutes, my eyes can’t make out any shapes in the gloom.

Still, I know one thing for sure. I’ve been in perhaps a dozen places that sound and feel exactly like this: it’s a place for the terrified and weak to take shelter.

The air fills with a roar of crashing, erupting noise. A direct hit. The world trembles and lurches. Screams crescendo as I’m flung hard against a wall, banging the back of my head. I crumple downwards, lost in fear. Rafts of dust rain down; I taste grit and blood.

Memory pulls me back through time, and I’m in Syria: Ma’arat al-Nu’man.

A building collapses; we are entombed. Is this real?

Am I there again? In that underground parking garage with a whole building concertinaed overhead.

Stuck in those last few seconds before I realise the horror of what is buried beneath me in the rubble.

A wail rises in my throat. I clamp my hands over my mouth, battling it back with determined silence. This isn’t then. This is a flashback of that day, not the first I’ve had.

This is different; this is now.

Understanding that brings little comfort, though.

Taking a deep breath of pulverised stone, I listen.

The pounding of bombs has receded a fraction, moved on a little.

The tunnel shudders and buckles but holds.

My trembling legs refuse to let me stand again for several long seconds until I find a gap carved into the wall, a handhold I can use to drag myself up. I must find a way out.

Logic dictates that I should be able to go back the way I came, up those stairs towards the burning oil lamp, out into a morning filled with warmth and song – but nothing is logical here.

Another ear-shattering noise rushes through me with a physical shove.

Stumbling along the wall, I find another handhold and then another, guides in the dark to lead me on, though I don’t know where I’m going.

There’s a sensation of small spaces crammed with people, shoulder to shoulder.

I see the dim glimmer of wide eyes, smell the scent of sweat and urine.

Pushing myself off one wall, I grope towards the room opposite and am met by shoulders and backs.

‘ L-ebda spazju hawn .’

I don’t need to understand the language to know I’m being told to get out.

Then something low tumbles into me at speed, making me stagger backwards. I brace myself and feel small, narrow shoulders under my hands.

‘Hey,’ I whisper, trying to calm the frantic, small body that is desperate to crawl around me. ‘Hey, it’s OK. You’re OK.’

‘Mama!’ a thin, light voice cries out as the child tries blindly to tear away from me.

‘Are you lost?’ I make myself sound calm. ‘I’m lost, too. How about we stick together until we find out where we are supposed to be? Does that sound good?’

‘English?’ the young voice asks.

I pat the top of a small head, hair cut short. A little boy, I think. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m scared, too. So will you stay with me, kid?’

His slim frame twists under my hands and then stills. ‘I will stay.’

A bony hand wends its way into mine, dry and hot. I hold it tight as much for my sake as for his. At least the worst of the pounding has receded now. The sound of explosions rolls continuously, like thunder growing distant.

There’s footfall in the direction the child came from. I place myself between him and the sound. Then I see the flare of a match, and a moment later, a small lamp is lit. Its light is feeble, but it’s enough to reveal the rough niche it’s placed in and the tall figure that lit it.

‘Out?’ I ask incoherently, pretence of any calm snapped like a taut thread, as I take two steps towards the stranger. ‘How do I get out?’

‘You don’t want to go out there yet, ma’am,’ says a male voice – American.

He moves into the glow of the lamp. His shadowy figure is bent almost in half in the tight space.

‘From your accent, I guess you were trying to reach one of the military shelters? Me too – but seems like our friends up there don’t much care where we are when they try to kill us. ’

‘This kid is lost; we need to find his mum. Can’t you tell me which way is out?’ I ask again. I can just about tell he’s wearing some kind of uniform, and a cap with a bent peak sits on the back of his head. ‘Point me in the right direction?’

‘Ma’am, please stay calm. The raid will be over soon. We’ve just got to wait it out. You don’t want to alarm the good folks down here, do you?’

Somehow, his good-natured calm only serves to peak my anxiety. The last thing I need is some stranger mansplaining trauma to me. I know trauma.

‘This isn’t right. I need to get out, and you can’t stop me. This boy needs his family. What happened? When did this start?’

I can’t see his expression in the dark, but I see him shake his head and sense his bewilderment. His shoulders square.

‘Look, lady, you’ve got to keep it together.

’ He moves a little closer. I get the impression of light eyes and a long, roman nose.

‘You Brits like to lead by example, right? These people are scared. The last thing they need is some delicate English lady losing her you-know-what when they can barely keep it together themselves.’

‘What the—?’

Another rumble, another tremor, and I stumble towards him.

His hands catch my elbows, and he tilts me back onto my feet.

The boy clasps my arm in a bear hug, and I see the child’s face clearly for the first time in the orange light.

Two huge, dark eyes stare up at me, full of fear and sorrow.

I know that look, I’ve seen in the eyes of so many children trapped in wars they don’t understand.

‘Get me out of here,’ I tell the American.

‘Fine,’ he says, short. ‘If it means you will relax a little, I’ll take you close to the entrance. Maybe we’ll pick up the kid’s mom on the way. But the warden’s not going to let you out, not even if you turn out to be Princess Elizabeth, which you sound like you might be.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Wait—’

He blows out the lamp, and we’re blind once again.

‘It’s dark as hell, and there are tunnels upon tunnels down here,’ he says, his voice soft, ‘so you keep hold of my jacket hem, OK? You hold on to me, and make sure the kid’s got a hold of you, and we might just avoid breaking anything.’

‘Fine.’ I take a couple of inches of the rough cloth between my thumb and forefinger, and he starts to shuffle forwards, with me in tow. The boy holds on to my wrist with both hands. There is nothing to do but follow; all I can think about is being close to the exit, close to escape.

To consider how this happened only tilts me even further out of my mind.

Not that long ago, I was standing in the ruins of a temple in a peaceful, sunlit morning.

Wherever I am now is far from there. Could this be another ghost of PTSD?

They said psychosis was rare but possible.

But what does a psychotic person consider reality?

‘Which . . . which war is this?’ I ask.

He stops abruptly, and I walk into the back of him.

‘Do you mean which front?’ he asks.

‘Er . . . yes.’

‘Well, we’re trying to keep Malta from the Axis powers. If they get hold of this rock, that’s the end of North Africa. Don’t you know where you are?’

‘I hit my head in the first impact,’ I tell him. ‘Things aren’t clear.’

‘Hell, hold on.’ He stops, turns and strikes a light.

His face, younger than I imagined – he’s maybe in his twenties – appears in the glow of the flame.

Worried eyes scan my face. When he takes my chin with his thumb and forefinger, I don’t flinch.

He turns my head from side to side, winces when he spots something and fumbles in his pocket with a handkerchief.

When he presses it to the side of my head, pain burns down my neck.

‘That was a hell of a bump,’ he says. ‘Can you keep it compressed and keep a hold of the kid?’

‘I can,’ I say.

‘Good, stay close to me, OK? We’ll find a doc to look you over.’

‘Doctor!’ The little boy leaps at the word. ‘Doctor! Mama!’

‘Your mom hurt, too, son?’ the American says as we resume our slow journey. ‘Don’t you worry. We’ll get help to her – we’ll get you both help. Almost there.’

I keep my eyes fixed on the shape of his back.

Strong but supple, it fills out the rough material of his uniform.

I follow him for what seems like an age, my arms grazing against the stone walls again and again.

We pass signs in English and Maltese: no smoking, no swearing, no spitting .

Gradually, the air gets a little fresher and the light stronger.

Eventually, we reach a sort of cubby office, lit by a lamp, with a wooden desk and a rickety-looking chair. There’s a chart on the wall and an ancient-looking radio system, as well as one of those old-fashioned telephones.

‘What you doing ’ere?’ An older Maltese man with a bald head and grey moustache looks my guide up and down. ‘You should be up there giving Jerry hell!’

‘I’m supposed to be on rest leave, for all the good it does me,’ the American explains. ‘Got caught out, I guess. Ducked into the first port of call, sir.’

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