Gobsmacked

We saw it on the News. Of course we did – everyone did. It was on every channel, every day, it was all over the internet, it covered every page of every newspaper, and it was talked about – well, everywhere.

I remember quite clearly – we were sitting on the sofa, me and my dad – he was drinking a bottle of beer and I was reading. Dad switched on the TV.

At first I thought he’d got some sort of disaster movie, what with all the ambulances and the police, and the smoke and stuff. But it wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t made up. It was real. Somewhere in London, someone had put a bomb in a pub, and then just left it there to blow up. Nice.

It must have been a pretty powerful bomb. The inside of the pub was a smashed and gutted shell. I could see that, because the front wall had been blown completely off and was crashed down like a lumpy carpet all across the street, like a doll’s house where you can open up the front and look inside.

Dad switched off the TV. Not, actually, to protect his son (me) from the bloody shocking images. My dad hates to see stuff like that. He hates the News anyway. He’d only switched it on by accident, and he would never, ever, watch it on purpose. Says it’s too upsetting. I’m not quite the sensitive petal that he is, but this time I agreed – there was nothing interesting in other people’s misery. And misery there was – the screen was littered with people crying, with stretchers, and with big tough policemen – white-eyed and shaken. Very unpleasant.

We complained for a while about how horrible it all was – the bombers for their evil act, and the TV companies for inflicting it upon us. A bit of complaining always cheers me up, and since I don’t actually know anyone in London, by the time I was ready for bed I had pretty well shrugged it all off – just like all the other disasters you hear about – the floods, the murders, the wars and the famines – all shocking and awful of course, but all quite unrelated to my own little world.

Or so I thought.

Two days later my dad got a telephone call.

“Hello,” he said, “yes. Who? . . . yes . . . no . . . what? My sister?”

My ears pricked up there. I knew dad had a sister, but he never talked about her and I knew next to nothing about her.

“Yes. And her husband? Both of them?”

This was getting more and more interesting, but my dad took the phone into the other room and I couldn’t hear any more. But I got the summary a few minutes later.

A rather pale and shaky Patric Crafton (that’s my father) sat me down at the kitchen table and explained.

“OK Sean (that’s me) I’m not sure where to start this – but you remember the bombing, a couple of days ago in London?

I nodded – how could anyone with functioning ears, eyes or brain not remember.

“Well, it seems that some of my family – er our family – were caught in the blast.”

His sister, I supposed, stretching my brain to one millionth of its full potential. He has a sister – an aunt I have never met, who was in the bombing – found and lost in the same breath. Why even bother telling me.

“I have a sister, Libby,” he went on, “ I don’t talk about her very much, but I have a sister. She’s married, and she and her husband and their daughter, it seems, were walking past the pub, when it exploded.”

“They’re dead, aren’t they,” I said, “all dead.”

“Well, actually, no – er, well Cathy’s not – she’s alive. She’s a bit bashed up. She was blown right across the street, apparently. But she is alive.”

Cathy, I thought – that would be my cousin. I didn’t even know I had a cousin.

“But her parents – your aunt and uncle –” and here he looked just about ready to cry – he didn’t though, he just ploughed straight on, “probably the blast left them, er, a bit difficult to identify. The police are doing DNA checks right now.” He took a deep breath, and went on. “But whatever – Cathy’s parents are dead, and we are the only family she has left. It’ll be hard for her – she has to start a new life – but I’ve said she can come and live with us.”

The technical term is, I believe, ‘gobsmacked’. And I was completely gobsmacked. But I’m not a complete and utter idiot, so I said;

“Great dad. We can look after her.”

He heaved a sigh, and grinned.

“Thanks Sean. I knew I could count on you.”

Obviously I’d said the right thing. But I was worried – seriously worried. I mean, what can you say to someone – a girl of unknown age – who has just had her parents blown up in front of her, and who has then been dragged off to live with an uncle and a cousin she has never met, and has probably never even heard of before. I mean, I’m not a psychiatrist or a councillor or anything – I don’t know how to talk to disaster victims. I’ll just say something dumb, and mess her up even more. I mean, is it even OK to say ‘Hi, how are you, are you alright?’ since the honest answer must obviously be something like ‘no, I’m not alright, I’m bloody awful’.