WEARY pragmatism has collided with fear in Brick Lane. And, just after 3pm yesterday, mild anger.

At the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, a middle-aged bus driver leant out of his cabin, his bus blocking all traffic. “Move your damn car,” he shouted at one driver, his face swelling with rage. “Bloody move your car.”

Around him, Brick Lane’s stallholders, restaurateurs and minicab drivers gathered on both corners.

“People here are getting worried,” Muhammed Kamal, 30, a biomedical analyst, said. “I got a real sense of déjà vu when it happened. I thought, ‘Oh my God, here we go again’. The last two weeks have been difficult enough — it is going to be even harder for Muslims living in the area.”

He smiled weakly and walked away, looking uncomfortable. And life in the normally bustling street seemed to pause for a moment as workers and residents continued to gather on one corner to share their news.

Nural Amin, 28, standing, angry and anxious, near a local mosque with four friends, said: “The people that did this are not Muslims. The people who did this — we should kill them. They are enemies of humanity. The vast majority of Muslims have nothing to do with this, but these people are giving us all a bad name. We are all suspects now.”

Another friend, Shabir Ahmed, 38, predicted: “If you have two more bombings like this, and more bloodshed, you will see the rise of the BNP. Muslims will get deported from this country.”

Mustaq Ahmed, 39, who had stood near by listening, nodded. “It has been very difficult for Muslims for the past two weeks, now it is about to become nearly impossible,” he said.

At a newsagent’s shop, Shah Malik, 41, who has run the business for five years, stood behind his till, surveying a deserted store. Mr Malik said that lunch hour was his peak business time and, before the bombings on July 7, he would usually expect to have about 250 customers coming through his door.

“Business has been very bad for the last two weeks,” Mr Malik said. “I have seen my takings go down by around 40 per cent. People don’t come here any more. Maybe they are scared of another bomb. Maybe they don’t want to mix with Muslims any more.”

At the other end of the street, at the Vibe Bar, however, the area’s artists, designers and musicians sat dining at outside tables. Barbecues crackled with meat; ice-cold buckets groaned with bottles of beer.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen again,” said Zahrah Sadiya, 34, dressed in colourful Islamic dress. Her young son hung on to a nearby railing. “I thought that the people that did this had had their fun. They had caused a lot of trouble. I thought that we could get back on with the rest of our lives.”

Just around the corner, on the afternoon of July 8, local Muslims had gathered with church leaders at the East London mosque to walk up to Aldgate Tube station for a vigil.

Many locals spoke of a community that was bracing itself for looks of suspicion, perhaps even violence. Yesterday afternoon a sense of hopelessness set in.

“I am far from my home,” Joseph Rupeshgomes, 30, the manager at Café Naz and an immigrant from Calcutta, India, said.

“I avoid the Tube. I also don’t take buses anymore. Even then, if I have to die in this country, then I will accept that as my destiny. If I die on the Tube in an explosion like this, then maybe that is what has been written for me. I have come to accept such a fate.”

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