London - 3

I was quite glad I'd had a couple of glasses of wine in the pub last night. I'd needed a large glass of white to help me get through the trauma of reading out the rough draft of the passionate opening to the new wip.

'So what do you think?' I asked the guys in our informal writing group.
'Think? Er... we were too busy enjoying the bodices being ripped.'

The wine also helped me sleep as I wasn't looking forward to getting up this morning to do the commute into London on the Thursday two weeks after the two weeks after 7/7.

There was a police van parked outside St Albans station and I counted at least eight officers inside the station and on the platforms. My train seemed empty. It wasn't empty, but it's usually sardines-in-a-tin and I managed to get a seat. Lots of people avoiding coming in today then. As we drew into London the sounds of 'copters filtered through. And sirens.

No one on the train was smiling. The usual bored-commuter look was absent. On faces instead a vague unease or apprehension. When a young man with a bag swayed through the doors from another carriage into ours everyone looked up. He had a too-many-beers-last-night look, unsteady, unfocused. The fear wasn't rational but it was there. I was glad to see him leave the train at the next stop.

I reached the office as my colleague was busy closing all the windows and doors. The sounds of 'copters and sirens were so loud but we exchanged glances and passing comment and we knew that some of it was psychological. Shut the noise out. It reminds us.

We've opened the windows again now. There is still at least one 'copter overhead but it seems more distant and the sirens are more intermittent.