I nside the Dome at Greenwich, Amanda was almost relieved when the arena show was cut short by the evacuation announcements. Everybody stood up and streamed into the aisles, excited despite the distant ringing of fire alarms. It was nearly the end of a long day anyhow, Amanda supposed, and she knew kids; most of the audience here would be ready for the bright lights of the tube station or the warmth of their buses, ready for home. As for Amanda herself, whiskery boy bands singing Elizabethan madrigals for “educational” purposes, as mandated by the national curriculum, wasn’t her idea of a fun way to spend the afternoon.
But Amanda and Benj sat on either side of an empty seat. Kristie had gone off to the loo. Uncertain, Amanda glanced across at Benj. “She’ll have the sense to come back here, won’t she?”
But Benj didn’t reply. He sat back in his chair, a dreamy, absent look on his face. She had put an embargo on his Angel during the show, but he had snapped it on as soon as the evacuation order came over
the PA.
Amanda worried vaguely. She didn’t even know what the alarm was about. She’d heard people muttering about terrorist scares, but she was willing to bet that the filthy weather had something to do with it. A flood on the Jubilee Line, the underground route that had brought her here with the kids; that was more likely it. But she fretted about what it would mean for her if the tube was flooded. The underground was the main way you got off the peninsula. There must be buses, but they would be packed. They faced hours waiting around, maybe in the rain, and the kids would be fractious.
She glanced around. Most people had gone already, this two-thousand-seat “Indigo2” arena draining remarkably quickly, only a few stragglers remaining. No sign of Kristie. Amanda wondered if she should go to the toilets to find her.
It occurred to her to try her phone. When she called Kristie she got a “no signal” message.
She paged around news services, trying to find out what was happening. There was no reception from the local services, even the BBC. She got a CNN feed, but that didn’t feature whatever was going on in London but the latest problems in Sydney, Australia, where the flooding had worsened markedly. Amanda stared at pictures taken from the air, of water spilling from the harbors deep into central Sydney, and a panicky evacuation from the glass needles of the CBD, Sydney’s central business district. The highways out of the city were jammed, and there was a crush at the main rail station, though reports said that the trains had already been stopped. Even now the cameras lingered on the postcard icons. The Opera House stood on a kind of island of its own, cut off from the mainland. It was like looking at movie special effects.
She shut her phone down and glanced around. No Kristie.
A Dome staff member walked up the aisle toward them. He was a young man with vertical red hair. He was chewing gum. “Sorry, Miss. You have to go. We need to clear the venue.”
Miss. Amanda smiled; he was only a few years older than Benj. “I’m waiting for my daughter. She’s in the lavatory.”
“I’m sorry but you have to go now. It’s my job to get the venue clear.”
“I’m waiting for my daughter.”
The boy backed off, nervously, but he seemed distracted; he must be getting instructions from an Angel of his own. “Please. I’ll have to call security. I have to clear the venue. It’s the evacuation plan.”
Benj stood up. “Oh, come on, Mum, there’s no point winding him up. She’s probably hanging around outside the toilets anyhow. You know what’s she’s like.”
She felt oddly reluctant to stand up, to leave the seat without Kristie. It meant a definitive break with her normal day. But she supposed this boy was telling the truth about security; she had no choice. “All right.” She stood and followed Benj out of the row of seats.
They made their way to the main entrance area. This was a cavernous plaza facing a row of glass doors, lined to either side by ticket offices and shops, a deserted Starbucks. The Dome roof itself loomed over her, a faintly grimy tent that trapped hot, moist, stale air. She could hear the drumming of the rain on the canvas panels high above. It was always gloomy in here, enclosed.
There was no sign of Kristie outside the loo. Another staff member, a hefty woman this time, wouldn’t allow her to go and look inside.“The toilets are clear, ma’am.”
“But that’s where my daughter went.”
“The toilets are clear. She can’t be in there.”
“Look, she’s eleven years old!”
“I’m sure you’ll find her waiting for you at your party’s emergency assembly point.”
That threw Amanda from anger to a feeling of inadequacy, of helplessness. “What assembly point? I don’t know anything about an assembly point.”
“I do, Mum,” Benj said. “It was on our tickets. Car Park Four.”
The woman pointed. “It’s signposted, very easy to find.” Her walkie-talkie squawked, and with an apologetic glance at Amanda she turned away.
Benj took the lead again. “I know the way, Mum. Come on.”
“Let’s try calling her again.”
Benj lifted his own phone. The screen flashed red: no signal. “I’ve been trying. I can’t even leave a message. Look, she’s not completely thick. She knows where to go.”
“Well, I hope so.” She followed him, reluctantly, but she knew there was no choice.
They were among the last to leave the Dome; the crowds had streamed out quickly. As they crossed the floor of the entrance plaza they were joined by the last stragglers emerging from Entertainment Avenue, the big circular shopping mall that curved around the arena at the Dome’s core, a corridor of shops and restaurants, fancy lamp posts, even trees flourishing in the tented gloom.
They emerged into rain driven almost horizontally by the wind. Amanda glanced back at the Dome. The rain ricocheted off its dirty fabric roof. She could see only a little of it; it looked oddly unimpressive, for its curve created a horizon so close to her eye it hid its own true scale. Bad design, she thought. And when she looked away from the Dome, toward the car park, she saw massed, chaotic crowds. She had no way of judging numbers. There might have been tens of thousands here, a mob like a football crowd. Her heart went cold as the scale of what was happening began to press on her.
Benj took her hand, holding his hood closed around his face. “This way to the car park.” They made their way forward, splashing through water that puddled on the concrete and tarmac and gradually formed more extensive ponds. People milled everywhere, shuffling along in their raincoats. But nobody seemed alarmed. The younger children were excited. Nobody seemed upset except Amanda. Benj and Amanda tried their mobiles again, but there was still no signal.
There was some kind of emergency going on around the tube station. The station itself had been fenced off by a barrier, manned by bedraggled police. Amanda stared at a steady stream of soaked, frightened-looking passengers, emerging on foot from the deep tube line. Paramedics in Day-Glo coats, working in pairs, forced their way in through the emerging crowd, and came out again carrying stretchers.
The sight of the drenched people, the bodies on the stretchers, horrified Amanda. She found it impossible to believe that only half an hour ago, less, she had been sitting in an arena, warm and relaxed with her kids beside her, listening to a boy band murder madrigals. And now, this. Had people died?
And if the Jubilee Line was flooded, the tube network was probably shut down entirely. Travel was going to be a nightmare, even once they got off Greenwich. Bit by bit the day continued to unravel.
Benj pulled her hand. “Come on, Mum, I’m getting cold.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” They hurried on.