Just after 8am, seven July 2005

“M…u…m!”

It was amazing how many syllables Matthew managed to pack into that one word. I balanced the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I kicked off my shoes and unbuckled the belt of my nurse’s uniform. “I suppose you’ve missed the bus.” I had just finished a twelve-hour night shift, and this was the last thing I needed.

“Well… yes.”

“Where are you?”

“At the bus stop! Duh!”

“Well, Matthew, I was about to go to bed…”

“He’s always missing that bus!” snapped my husband, Hugh, from the bathroom, where he was shaving. “No one would think he’s seventeen years old and at work!”

“Couldn't you drive me to Finchley Central so I can get the Tube?”

“Matthew, I'm really tired and…”  But my feet were slipping themselves back into my shoes. I tried not to look at the duvet.  When he made the bed in the morning after I had been on night shift, Hugh would turn the covers down for me, as they used to in old fashioned hotels, inviting me in.  

“No!” cried Hugh, as usual, second-guessing Matthew’s words. 

 “I don’t want him to start being late for work,” I said, covering the phone with my hand.  “After everything we’ve been through with him.”

“What shall I do, Mum?  I've missed my normal bus.  It’s gone.  If you won't drive me to Finchley Central, I'm going to have to ring in sick?”

“No, Matthew!” I cried.

“Tell him he’ll just have to wait for the next bus!” cried Hugh, stomping into the room in just his shirt and underpants.  

“Yes, but… the next bus won't get him to Marble Arch to catch the Number 30 to Tavistock Square.”

“Well,” said Hugh, shoving one leg into his trousers, “he’ll have to get the next Number 30, won't he?”

“Muuum!” shouted Matthew down the phone.

“Give that phone to me,” said Hugh, snatching it. “Matthew?  Dad here.  You can't expect Mum to keep running round after you. She’s been working all night. You’ll just have to ring what’s-her-name at work and tell her you’ve missed the bus. Now, I've got to go to work myself, so just do it, Matthew!”

Not knowing whether to feel relieved or uneasy, I undressed and climbed into bed.  “I hope he’s all right,” I said.

“You must stop worrying about him.  You can't keep driving him around.  You did it all last year when he was at school, because he wouldn’t get up in time for the school bus.  And, why couldn't he get up?  Because he wouldn’t go to bed at night.  Too bloody busy being on MSN Messenger and listening to bloody awful music.  Even with you driving him, some days he didn’t arrive – as we know.  From the letters we got the letters from school - “unacceptable”, “inappropriate”, “unauthorised absences”.” 

School never got round to telling us that Matthew was being bullied.  Matthew himself had told us that, only a few months ago.

I heard Hugh go downstairs and make breakfast, the hiss of the kettle and the clank of crockery. He always remembered not to put on the television or radio when I had been on night shift.   A few minutes later, I heard him shut the door and the car engine starting up outside, then, for some time, I lay in bed, following Matthew’s journey in my mind.  I half-expected a call at about nine, when he was supposed to make his connection at Marble Arch, but, when none came, I allowed myself to sleep...

I awoke from a deep sleep with a jolt, wondering why.  The phone was ringing.  I let it ring, willing it to stop and cursing double-glazing salesmen the world over, but it went on and on.  I picked it up.

“Linda…”

“Hugh?  I've been on night shift.  Had you forgotten?”

“Linda, Linda, listen. Matthew… the bus…”

I looked at my watch.  “It’s five past ten. He must be at work by now.”

“Listen to me, Linda. What number bus did he get at Marble Arch?”

“Number 30.  Why?”

Silence on the end of the phone. “Oh my God.” More silence. “I was hoping I had got the number wrong.” More silence. “You don’t think he would’ve bunked off, do you?  Not got the Number 30, I mean?”

“No… no, I don’t. He’s growing up. Please, Hugh, can I get back to sleep?”

“Linda, you don’t understand. There’s been a bomb.”

“Where?”

“In fact, there’ve been several bombs, three of them on the Tube and…”

The Tube!  Matthew had asked me to drive him to Finchley Central but I hadn't done so. 

“Linda, there was a bomb on the Number 30 bus… outside Tavistock Square.”

“Oh my God.”

“I'm coming home. I've tried to ring Matthew on his work number, and on his mobile. I can't get through on either. He appears to have switched his mobile off. You know what he’s like, always out of credit or running out of battery.”

I sat up in bed and reached for my own mobile. I found Matthew’s number in my address book and pressed the green button. In a moment, it would be all right. In a moment, I would hear Matthew’s voice.   “Mum, stop ringing me. I’m OK. I arrived. All right?”

The phone bleeped at me and a red shape appeared on the screen. No network coverage. “Everybody’s trying to ring. That’s why we can't get through,” I said, in a small voice, then, “You are coming home, aren’t you, Hugh?”

He arrived about half an hour later, by which time I was downstairs, watching the television - a red mangled bus, ambulances, fire crew, police, the jarring sound of sirens.  The doctors at the BMA, some of whom hadn't practised for years, were tending the wounded passengers.  I strained at the pictures, desperately searching for Matthew, the black jeans and black denim jacket he had been wearing this morning. Then the programme moved to the other bombings, at Liverpool Street, Kings Cross and Edgware Road, and I screamed in frustration.  In the back of my mind, I knew I mustn’t be selfish. Other relatives would be watching the other bombings as frantically as I was. But, oh, please show Tavistock Square again!

Hugh put his arm around me and we watched without speaking.  “There’s an emergency number,” I said.  “I saw it on the telly.  I rang it but they have no information yet.”

Please, BBC, show me Matthew. I would settle for seeing Matthew carried out on a stretcher. Yes, I really would, just to know where he was.

It was my fault that Matthew was in Tavistock Square.  Hugh had spent most of last autumn shouting, “You must get a job, Matthew!   What are you doing to get a job?”

“Why? What’s the point? I don’t need money. I'm living here with you.”

“You can't stay here for ever!”

“Why not? Are you going to throw me out?”

Some teenagers regarding being “thrown out” as a trophy, but, as much as Hugh might fulminate, we would never give up on Matthew. Working on a psychiatric ward, I see what happens to “problem” teenagers who are “thrown out”. I discussed Matthew with my colleagues. I had to. It was my only release, because sensible discussion with Hugh was impossible.

“He’s depressed,” said one of the doctors.

“I’ve always been depressed and I think I always will be,” Matthew replied, when discussed this with him. “You just get to accept it, Mum.”

“You must see a doctor.”

“They just give you pills.”

“What he needs is a kick up the backside,” retorted Hugh, “and a job.”

“Viewpoint is looking for someone to help in the office,” the same doctor said to me a few weeks later. “They’re a mental health charity. They’d give Matthew a bit of support.”

“Oh,” I said. “Does Viewpoint have an office locally?”

“No.  In London, in one of the offices rented out at BMA House.”   

So Matthew applied and got the job, at Viewpoint… in Tavistock Square.

Outside our house, sirens shrieked past in the street. I didn’t see the vehicles. It was as if the sirens drove themselves.  Hugh went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, but never got round to making tea. 

“Finchley Central.  There were no bombs on the Northern Line,” he said.  “But I could see you were tired.  I should’ve taken him to Finchley Central myself.” 

“Hugh, Hugh… we couldn't have predicted…”

“I wish he hadn't left school at sixteen.  If he’d been at school now…” 

“He was bullied, Hugh.”

“Well, he would wear those awful black clothes, dye his hair black and wear that black nail varnish.” 

“It was a phase.  He doesn’t wear it so much now.”

The carpet needed hoovering.  I could see bits of fluff under the radiators. And Matthew had left a dirty coffee cup by the window. 

Hugh rang the emergency number again.  Still the same message.  “I wish he’d  text us.  He’s always bloody texting!”

Maybe I should go in the kitchen and make tea, I thought.  But I hovered in the living room doorway, my eyes fixed on the television.  We saw a figure in a black denim jacket and Hugh caught his breath, but it wasn’t Matthew. 

I re-boiled the kettle, the sound of it so loud it drowned out the television.  It was a relief to be in the kitchen for a moment, to stare out the window, at the bold reds and yellows of the roses, the pale blue pom-pom heads of the hydrangeas.  Would roses and hydrangeas always remind me of Matthew?  No, no, don’t think about that.

I poured boiling water into the mugs, and wondered why the tea looked so weak. Oh! No tea bags.

“Linda!  Linda!...” 

I almost dropped the mugs on to the kitchen worktop.  Boiling water scalded my fingers. I rushed into the living room.

“I saw him!  At least, I think I saw him!”

“But was he all right?”

“Oh God, I hope it was him.  He was texting on his phone.”

The television pictures had moved on, to the Kings Cross bombing.

A few moments later, my mobile bleeped.  “Crashing round Darrens 2nite.  Bus blew up btw.  After I got off.”