Till the Dust Settles

1

The last sound Lucie heard was her own scream.

She lost her footing and pitched forward onto the hard ground. As if somebody had flicked the switch on the city, the light went out. With the blackness came silence.

When Lucie opened her eyes, the world was monochrome. White shadows drifted through a strange, cloying darkness she could smell and taste. A weak beam of light swung towards her, a halo through the dust. Didn’t dying people speak of a tunnel of light? Lucie wasn’t ready to be drawn in to whatever lay beyond. She closed her eyes to concentrate on staying alive, leaving her brain to scan for memories.

Images flickered and faltered on her eyelids like some old movie. Gaping mouths screaming silently, pedestrians spilling off sidewalks into the path of cabs, disgorged drivers pointing at the sky.

Where no sky should be.

Just a thunderhead of smoke billowing upwards, filling the blue space. Blotting out the sun over Manhattan.

Lucie lay on the street, trying to make sense of it all, head throbbing, breath rasping. There was something wrong with that picture. Only smoke where the South Tower should be. Then she remembered the collapse, right before her eyes. The tsunami of smoke had raced towards her, funnelling between blocks, stealing the air. The sound wave, loud enough to feel, crashed down a canyon of tall buildings.

Men and women were running in a hurricane of paper, a storm of detritus. Lucie stood, frail as a sapling, till a man bundled into her, his mouth shaping an apology as he stumbled away. A teenage boy, bandana clutched to his mouth, grabbed her arm as he passed, trying to drag her with him. Her legs refused to move. He ran on, saving himself. An elderly couple jogged sedately into her line of vision, and disappeared into the windstorm.

But her feet were set in concrete.

A running snowman swooped like a hawk to snatch a young child up into his embrace and ran on, without breaking stride. A dark-haired woman, chic and slim, stopped by Lucie’s side. She removed her shoes and cast them away, their red soles gazing at the sky as they fell onto the dusty concrete to lie with the others. She caught Lucie’s eye, tearful, then ran on.

Lucie looked down at her own shabby courts. She was loath to leave the only pair of heels she possessed, but knew the other woman was right; she’d run much faster without them. So Lucie broke into a run, clutching her shoes to her chest until someone crashed into her, knocking her to her knees. People piled up behind her, logs in a river.

A strong hand took her elbow, pulling her to her feet. Galvanised, she ran on. At last she was keeping up with the crowd, racing the unraceable.

She sensed the cloud catching up. Felt its force push her in the back, propel her forward. Getting closer. Then she smelt it, saw it, tasted it. Was engulfed by it. Swallowed up. Cut off from everything and everyone around her. And still running. Her legs, once so reluctant to move, now refused to stop. Running and running till blinded and lost, she tripped and hurtled into darkness.

How long had that been?

She opened her eyes. The beam of light had gone and the murk was clearing. Around her, shadowy outlines moved, grey ghosts in the silence. Blinking hard, she tried to clear her vision. Her throat hurt when she tried to swallow and she tasted bitter ash on her tongue. She tried to spit but her mouth was dry-coated and no saliva would come.

Then the silence became sound with a brutality that hurt her ears, a cacophony of sirens, alarms, and screaming. And more screaming. A baby cried and random names were shouted over and over. One persistent voice was finally answered with a weak, ‘I’m here, Bob. Over here.’ And tears.

The whole city was crying.

Lucie wiped away a stray tear, temporarily blinding herself with the ash and grit she rubbed into her eyes. Her hands, arms and legs were all coated in a thick layer of fine, grey powder, as if her whole body had been dredged in talcum.

Lucie looked around, desperate for an explanation. Vague, indistinct shapes stirred and moved, every one the same pale, greyish white. All colour had been erased in an instant.

She tried to sit, disentangling her legs from the obstacle that had sent her sprawling. Through the ash rain Lucie made out a woman’s legs, slim, tight-skirted and splayed at odd angles. No shoes.

With a muttered apology, Lucie pushed herself away. When the woman did not move, Lucie knelt by her side and tried to roll her over but although she was pencil thin, she felt heavy. Dead weight.

‘Hey, you okay?’ whispered Lucie hoarsely, as she manoeuvred the woman onto her side. Despite how badly it hurt to talk, Lucie persevered. ‘Hello. Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?’ The woman’s eyes remained closed as if in sleep and, for the second time that day, Lucie thought she might be touching a corpse. Horrified, she let go and the woman flopped, face down, into the ash snow.

Feel for a pulse. That’s what she should have done this morning, instead of running away. With tentative fingers, Lucie touched the woman’s neck. Nothing. She moved her fingers leaving petal patterns in the fine dust on the warm skin. There was no movement beneath her fingertips, no reassuring beat of life, nothing to feel.

Lucie needed to find help.

The grey ghosts had moved away and for a moment the world seemed strangely empty.

Then, the sound of another voice, indistinct, but close by. A huge white outline of a person appeared, barely visible.

‘Help me,’ Lucie said, her voice rough. The shape did not react. She coughed and tried again, ‘Please?’

‘Somebody there?’ The diffused, muggy beam of a flashlight shone in her face, the same light she’d seen earlier. ‘Ma’am, you can’t stay here.’

‘This woman needs help.’ Lucie’s words came out in a pathetic whisper.

‘You have to leave. Go north and keep moving.’

Lucie was hauled to her feet and given a push. She tried to resist, then saw the man’s face, shocked beyond belief. His eyes were empty. ‘We can’t just leave her.’

‘I have to clear the street.’ He pushed her again, none too gently, then pleaded, ‘Please. Please get going …’

‘Just let me get my purse.’

He stood while she dropped to her knees and crawled around in the ash, scrabbling till her hand snagged a leather strap, then she got to her feet and started to run.

Lucie ran till her rasping lungs told her she could run no more and she slowed reluctantly to a walk, joining the ranks of a grey army that marched forward while glancing back every few seconds as if afraid of being followed.

She couldn’t remember dropping her shoes, but they’d gone. Her bare feet stung from slapping against asphalt and every bone in her legs ached.

‘What the hell just happened?’

Lucie found herself face to face with a human snowman. Every part of the man’s body was dusted in fine, grey powder. Only the deep voice gave a clue to his gender.

‘What the hell was that?’ he asked her. Lucie stared at him. Inside grey lips his mouth was an obscenity of bright red. Lucie looked at his eyes, two hollows in day-old snow. A tear carved a clean channel down his cheek, only to disappear like a raindrop in the desert. ‘What’s going on?’

Lucie shook her head but the man paid no attention; he was dazed, staring somewhere over her shoulder, deep into the dust cloud, his senses trying to make sense of something that made no sense.

Lucie walked past him, she needed to keep moving. There was nothing she could say, and her mouth was so dry she doubted she could form a word. The dust ate at her throat, her nose, her lips. She badly needed to sneeze, she reached for her handbag to get a tissue. When the bag wouldn’t open, she dusted it off with her hand and realised why. It wasn’t hers. The shape was much the same, a brown leather bag on a single shoulder strap, but this bag felt softer and more expensive, even with its coating of dust and ash. Hers was a cheap, drugstore imitation, a very rare gift from Curtis.

She’d picked up the other woman’s bag. ‘Oh no,’ groaned Lucie. She couldn’t afford to lose her bag. Not today. Her entire life was in that bag. She needed to get that bag.

Fighting off her panic, Lucie turned and raced back the way she’d come. She felt like a minnow swimming against the tide. Struggling to make headway through the masses heading north, she charged and shoved.

‘Hey! Watch out,’ scolded a small man as she barrelled into him and bounced off like a pinball.

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed and ran on into the dust cloud. It was thicker here, catching in her raw throat. Every instinct told her to turn back to clearer air. Spectral figures appeared out of the ash fog for a few seconds then vanished again. She was the only one heading south.

Lucie took a few more steps then stopped, covered her mouth with her hand and looked around. She could see nothing. The bright blue sky had disappeared and with it the tall buildings that defined the skyline. Lucie had no point of reference other than the flow of people heading north. She might never find the woman. Even if she were still lying in the street, Lucie had no idea where. She was lost and Lucie’s bag was lost with her.

Wandering around like this, breathing ash into her lungs, was solving nothing. She started to cry, everything was gone.

When the next surge of people passed, Lucie joined them.

Running north.

2

Dylan had just scored the winning touchdown in the Superbowl when his phone woke him. He buried his head under the pillow but the tinny ringtone was too insistent. He cursed the phone’s inventor and checked caller ID.

Why was Mom phoning on his day off? She knew he never surfaced before lunchtime.

‘Dylan. You awake?’

‘I am now. What’s up?’

‘Switch on the TV, right this minute.’

‘I’m trying to get some sleep here, Mom. Can I call you back?’

No answer.

‘You okay?’

‘Dylan, you’ll never believe this. One of the Twin Towers just collapsed.’

‘No way!’

‘It’s gone. A plane flew right into it. People were trapped. Inside of it. Some were jumping. It was awful. Lanie next door called to tell me to switch on the TV and I saw a man jump. With my very own eyes.’ Her voice spiralled into a wail.

‘Hey, Mom, it’s okay,’ Dylan had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe she’d made an early start on the cocktails.

‘Switch on your TV, son. I need you to see this.’

‘I don’t have a TV. Maddy took it. Remember?’

‘Go find a television. Oh my God. Sweet Jesus, no!’

The line went dead.

Dylan was torn between comforting his mother and making sure Lucie was okay. In the end he decided his mom would have Lanie next door to keep her company and besides, Curtis and Lucie’s place was quicker to get to. He tried their phone but couldn’t get through. Curtis never paid the damn bill on time.

The screen door was hanging from one hinge. Same as the last time he’d been here. Dylan pushed it aside and banged on the front door. Flakes of paint peeled off like dead skin and dropped at his feet.

He tried the handle. It was never locked. Nothing worth stealing, Curtis said.

‘Anyone home?’

The living room seemed dark after the bright sunshine. The smell reminded him of the locker room at the end of a hard circuit session. Dylan tried to breathe through his mouth.

Somewhere a bluebottle buzzed. When it stopped, the house fell silent.

A rip in the blind admitted a shaft of light that slanted across the kitchen floor. Curtis lay face down, the fly droning round his head. Passed out and sleeping it off. Pretty normal behaviour for Good Ole Curtis these days, unfortunately.

Dylan bent and patted his shoulder. ‘Hey, buddy! Wake up. It’s morning.’

Curtis didn’t react.

Dylan batted the bluebottle away. It rose, circled and came back in to land.

‘Come on, pal. Wake up. We need to switch on the TV. Where’s the remote?’ He peered through the gloom towards the La-Z-Boy where Curtis spent his days. And sometimes his nights.

The TV burst into life, showing some crappy disaster movie. Dylan skipped to the next channel, then the next. Every screen showed a tower belching black smoke into a perfect sky. A plane appeared from nowhere and flew straight into the second tower. It burst into flames as Dylan watched in fascination.

‘Jee-suss, I don’t believe this.’

Dylan knew better than to wake Curtis, but Mom was right. He had to see this.

‘Curtis!’ he shouted, ‘You have to see this. There’s guys jumping from, like, a hundred storeys.’

Dylan knelt on the floor, unable to drag his eyes off the TV, where a shell-shocked anchorman was doing his best to describe the chaos.

‘Man, people are dying. In Manhattan. It’s like a horror movie.’ He shook his friend by the arm. The bluebottle flew off. And Dylan saw blood, dark as treacle, clotted in Curtis’s hair and congealed on the floor.

‘Shit.’

‘Lucie!’ Dylan got to his feet and stumbled to the bedroom door. The bed was empty. Its poor, threadbare covers lay jumbled on the floor.

He heard a groan and dashed back to the living room. Curtis hadn’t moved an inch.

‘Curtis, you okay? I got you, buddy,’ he said, dropping to his knees. He took Curtis’s hand and squeezed. ‘Curtis, it’s Dylan. Can you hear me?’

Curtis opened his eyes and blinked a few times. ‘Hell you doing here?’

‘You passed out. Banged your head. Looks pretty bad.’ He laughed nervously and sat back on his heels. ‘Shit, I thought you were, like, dead. You really scared me, man. I need to call nine one one.’

‘No, leave it. I’ll be okay. Give me a hand here.’

‘You sure? Your head’s bleeding. I think we should call an ambulance.’

‘I said I’ll be okay. Lucie’ll clean me up. Lucie? Lucie, you get in here.’

‘She’s not here, Curtis. I already looked.’

‘Well, where is she?’

‘How should I know? She’s your wife.’ A familiar anxiety gnawed at Dylan’s guts. ‘Tell me you didn’t hurt her.’

‘Aw, maybe I roughed her up a little last night. But man, she was asking for it.’

‘You’re an asshole, Curtis. Lucie’s the best thing that ever happened to you.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You planning to help me up or what?’

On TV the NBC reporter was shouting hysterically into camera.

‘What is this crap?’ asked Curtis.

‘A plane hit the Twin Towers. Looks like the second one just collapsed.’

‘No shit! Let me see.’ Curtis pushed up on his arms, as if he were doing a press-up, then crashed back to the floor.

‘Dylan, I can’t move my legs.’

3

Lucie ran, stumbling and lurching blindly through the dust. Hoping she was heading north. Following the snowpeople up ahead till they melted into white and disappeared.

Her throat was on fire, her feet stinging.

She heard voices. Women crying. Men shouting. She followed the sound, her arms held out in front. A sinister game of Blind Man’s Buff.

As the dust began to clear, it felt easier to breathe and she could see sky again. Bright, beautiful, blue sky.

The Manhattan street looked more like Vail in mid-winter. White powder lay inches deep on car roofs and their parking meters wore peaked caps. The blacktop of the road was white, confusing as a negative photo.

Lucie’s bare feet kicked up mini-clouds around her ankles as she padded through the dust. She leaned against the first wall she came to and her legs gave way. She sank to the ground and wept.

‘Excuse me? Could you tell me what street this is?’

Lucie looked up at the woman and tried to speak, but her mouth felt like she’d swallowed a bag of flour. She coughed and tried again. On the third attempt she managed to whisper, ‘Sorry, no idea.’

‘Pardon me?’

It really hurt to talk but Lucie persevered. ‘Heading south. On Greenwich. Before.’ She gestured at the alpine scene, the unrecognisable cityscape.

‘Speak up, dear. I can’t hear you.’

Lucie swallowed hard, soothing her throat a little. ‘Don’t know.’

The woman shook her head impatiently, cascading a flurry of dust onto Lucie’s face.

She covered her mouth with her hand and asked through her fingers, ‘Ma’am?’ It came out like a croak. She lifted a handful of white powder. ‘What happened?’

‘The World Trade Center collapsed. Some kind of plane crash. Young man I spoke to, can you believe it, he sees a plane fly right smack into one of those towers. We’re standing talking, the two of us, just looking up at the sky and he’s telling me all about it. The tower’s been lit on fire, by the plane, I guess, and flames are burning out the walls and chunks of metal are falling to the ground and pieces of paper, all floating around and then suddenly the whole tower just kind of crumbles and disappears. Right there, while we’re watching. Can you credit that? People are screaming and yelling. Some of them shouting cuss words. Some of them saying Oh my God, over and over, like it’s a prayer. Then all of a sudden this dust is coming at us. A huge cloud of it, coming along the street. And people are going crazy. It was bedlam. I just ran and ran. Till I could run no more.’

When Lucie was sure the woman had stopped talking, she asked, ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. Bless your heart for asking.’

Lucie leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes, considering her options. She was in the middle of the city, shoeless, covered in white dust and minus her bag. No bag meant no money. No money meant no way of getting home.

She pictured Curtis, flat out on the kitchen floor. She’d hit him pretty hard.

She should have checked on him. Instead of sneaking out in a panic in case he’d wake up and stop her getting to her interview.

He’d be fine. Of course he would. How many times had she seen him out of his face on drink and drugs?

Except this time was different.

One thing was certain. She didn’t want to be there when he woke up. If he recalled her hitting him with the skillet, he’d be mad as a bull with its balls in barbed wire, as he liked to put it.

It might be wise to lie low for a day or two, give him time to calm down a bit.

Maybe she could find some sort of refuge for the night. She had enough bruises to prove she was a victim of domestic violence. The black eye alone would be enough to cinch it.

Lucie looked up at the woman.

‘Ma’am? Would you know where I could find a Women’s Refuge?’

‘Oh my dear lord, no. I’m from out of town. I wouldn’t know anything about that kind of a place.’ The woman sounded offended.

Lucie took a deep breath which triggered a coughing fit. Spluttering and gasping for air, she rasped, ‘I’d never normally ask, but do you think you could give me ten dollars, please? I’d be happy to pay it back. It’s just that, I need to find somewhere to stay and I’ve lost my purse, my ID, everything.’

The woman looked down at the leather bag in Lucie’s lap and tucked her own tightly under her arm. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help one little bit. Sorry.’ She backed away, as if Lucie had become a danger to her. Lucie watched her grey figure disappear into the grimy air.

Lucie couldn’t sit here begging for money. She brushed the dust off the bag in her lap.

What harm would it do to take a few dollars? It wasn’t like she’d stolen the bag. And if the woman who owned it was dead … She let that thought slide away, not wanting to go there.

More and more white-dusted people were gathering, crowds milling around, though many continued to run past, pushing their way through. Lucie checked to see if anyone was watching her then flicked the catch and opened the bag.

She felt for a pocketbook or a wallet. Her fingers touched soft leather and she pulled her hand away as if she’d been scalded.

She couldn’t do it. She was no thief.

She tried to reason with herself. Don’t think of it as stealing. How about borrowing? She could take a note of the woman’s address and return the money later. Get it off Curtis, one way or another, when she got home and mail it. Nothing wrong with that.

She thrust her hand into the bag. Her fingers touched hard plastic. She pulled out an inhaler, like people take for asthma. Pictured the woman lying on the street, gasping for breath, suffocating, knowing she was going to die in the dust. If only Lucie had found her earlier, she could have helped, maybe saved her life.

Lucie couldn’t take this woman’s money. It would be like robbing a grave. She dropped the inhaler and searched the bag till she found a small, leather Filofax. The woman’s name, C J Gillespie, and her address, right here in Manhattan, were on the first page.

She could take the bag to the woman’s family, explain what happened and express her condolences. Maybe she could even tell them where to find their loved one’s body. Then, if they seemed kind, she’d ask to borrow the cab fare to a women’s shelter.

The dust was clearing from the air, and a bright blue sky was gradually reappearing above the tall buildings.

Lucie spotted a couple of cops running towards the World Trade Center, walkie-talkies in hand.

She scrambled to her feet and stepped into their path. ‘Officer, I’m lost.’ Her voice had all but disappeared again. ‘Can you help me, please?’

‘Lady, we don’t have time for this right now,’ said one and pushed by her. The other, a younger guy, stopped and asked how he could help.

‘Fitzgerald Square? It’s urgent.’ She held up the bag for him to see. Trying to save words. ‘Need to return this.’

The cop cut her off but gave her the directions she needed then sprinted to catch up with his partner.

Lucie walked as fast as she could through the dust. Every breath clogged her nose and coated her tongue. Her throat was closing again.

Progress was slow as people suddenly stopped, gasping for air, or stood around in dazed groups, but the further she got from WTC the clearer the air and the sidewalks became. Trees were dressed in white as if winter had come overnight and Christmas had moved to September. Nothing made sense anymore.

All the apartment buildings looked the same to Lucie. Black marble, stainless steel and glass. She caught sight of her reflection and stood, staring. A pale, grey ghost of a woman stared back.

‘Miss Gillespie? That you?’

A tall, elderly man in a doorman’s uniform clasped his hands as if in prayer and looked skywards. ‘Thank God you’re safe, Miss Gillespie. I thought for sure you must be gone.’ He shook his head as if in wonderment.

When he took her hand and clasped it in both of his, Lucie felt tears threaten. This unexpected kindness from a complete stranger was too much for her. With his hand on her elbow, he guided her into a stylish lobby. The conditioned air tasted like the top of a mountain and Lucie took a greedy breath, deep into her lungs. It made her cough and choke.

‘Pretty hard to breathe out there, huh?’

Lucie nodded. Tried to control the spluttering.

‘Don’t you worry, Miss Gillespie. You’re safe now. Come on.’

Lucie let herself be led to the elevator. She looked at her benefactor as the doors opened and he stepped back and waited for her to go in first. She was unused to such courtesy and hesitated for a moment, noticing how his sleeve was covered in white dust from her clothes. She tried to wipe the man’s arm, whispering a silent ‘Sorry.’ Her throat had closed up again. Her voice was gone.

‘Oh, that’s nothing. Old Tommy will soon get spruced up once he sees you safely into your apartment.’

A robotic voice announced ‘Fortieth floor’ and the elevator came to a smooth stop. Lucie hadn’t felt it move, but when the doors slid silently open she could see a different hallway. A mass of fresh blooms stood tall in a glass vase. She could smell stocks and lilies.

‘Here we are. Home sweet home.’

Lucie fumbled for the bag and held it out to him but the doorman said, ‘No need, Miss Gillespie. I have my pass right here.’

He unlocked a pale wooden door which swung open without a sound.

‘Now, is there anything Tommy can do for you, Miss Gillespie?’

Lucie stood dumbfounded, her brain struggling to keep up. She shook her head. He’d got it wrong. She wasn’t Miss Gillespie.

‘Is there anyone I could call for you? I don’t like to leave you all alone after what’s happened today.’

Lucie felt a gentle pressure on her lower back. Tommy ushered her through the door into the apartment. She looked at him and shook her head again, keen to explain that he’d made a mistake. She opened her mouth to speak but her throat was dry as Death Valley.

‘Lost your voice? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised with all that dust. Lordy, what is this world coming to? I never thought I’d live to see such a day.’

He reached for the door handle and drew it towards him. With one foot on the threshold he hesitated, seemed to change his mind and opened the door again.

‘You take care, Miss Gillespie. I’ll see you tomorrow. And if you need anything meantime, you know where I am.’ He smiled and touched one finger to his cap then closed the door.

Lucie stood and stared like she’d never seen a door before.

4

It was early evening before Diane would let him out of her sight. She’d been tearful all day, crying and clinging to him since she got back from the hairdressers,