Autumn exodus, p.16
Autumn - Exodus, page 16
Sanjay did as he was told, as did his prisoners. He didn’t anticipate any trouble. All these skiving, treacherous bastards had ever wanted was an easy life. Now they’d got rid of Piotr and his heavies, they’d almost certainly capitulate. David watched him frogmarch them away.
‘Result,’ Steve said, disturbing him. ‘That did the trick.’
‘You can say that again.’
Ed wandered over. ‘We all good here?’
‘I think so. I’d do a roll call to make sure we got rid of Piotr and all his crowd of bastards, but I don’t reckon there’s enough left of them to be able to do any identifications.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Fuck the lot of them. They’re gone, that’s all we need to know. There’s about a hundred of us here now. If there’s any of them left, they’ll think twice about trying anything. We showed them.’
‘We showed them we could be as bad as Piotr, that’s for sure.’
‘Get over yourself, David,’ Ed said. ‘We did what we had to do. We did it to them before they could do it to us.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. We just need to—’
David stopped talking abruptly when he heard another engine approaching. Chapman and Lisa grabbed their weapons and sprinted back to the road by the warehouses to head off whoever it was, fearing another strike from the last of Piotr’s people.
Chapman relaxed when he recognised the van that had stopped on the other side of the blocked entrance. ‘We’re good. It’s Sam and the others.’
Sam stopped the engine and got out. He walked over to Chapman and shook his hand. ‘Thought you might have ended up here. We knew there’d been some activity round these parts, so we’d been loitering, didn’t want to stray too far. Then we heard all the commotion. What was all that about?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Let me guess. Piotr?’
‘Of course.’
‘Sounds like we missed a lot.’
‘Well, we clearly did,’ Chapman said as Dominic and Stan sheepishly got out of the van. ‘What the fuck are you doing with those shysters?’
‘An equally long story. I’ll tell you later. Are we all good here?’
‘Really good, actually.’
When Ruth saw Vicky, she broke down in tears. ‘Thank Christ you’re safe,’ she sobbed as she held her.
‘You knew I’d come back,’ Vicky whispered, not letting go.
Together, Vicky, Sam, Orla, Selena, and all the people they’d picked up along the way walked down into Yaxley. There was much to do, and much to catch up on.
#
Within a couple of hours – no one was sure exactly when – the van they’d left outside the carpark gates had gone.
26
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN
CHRISTMAS DAY
In the three weeks since they’d reclaimed Yaxley, much had been accomplished. Georgie was firmly back into the swing of things, recording important information in meticulous detail: who’d survived, who hadn’t made it, and who remained unaccounted for. She’d found a kindred spirit in Ed, a man whose penchant for minutia and precise record keeping matched her own. People had tried to persuade her it might be time to stop, that they’d reached their final destination and that the details she’d been keeping were no longer necessary, but Ed had urged her to keep going. Previously, Dominic Grove had wanted the information available to help justify his wild utopian daydreams. Ed argued that the future was less of a concern, that the details she’d been keeping would be invaluable to help sustain them in the present. How many mouths they had to feed, how much manpower they had available, who might prove useful now that they could claim some stability. Then the farming to feed the larger group, what crops they’d need to grow, how many animals they should try and keep, how much food they’d need to produce on an ongoing basis... these were the questions that Georgie’s data helped answer.
It was an unexpectedly positive time, though tempered with a pervading sadness that frequently threatened to overtake everything and everyone. This Christmas Day felt like the antithesis of everything Christmas last year had been. ‘It’s not like it was now,’ Selena explained when Ruth questioned her lack of enthusiasm for the holiday season. ‘This time last year I was at home with Mum and Dad. My uncle and aunt came up from Brighton, and Nan came around, and Mum cooked this massive dinner for everyone, and it was amazing. No offence, Ruth, but this ain’t a patch on any of it. I’m just sitting here thinking about everyone I’ve lost, and it hurts. The twenty-fifth of December is just another day now.’
But they tried to celebrate, regardless.
With the contents of the warehouses so accessible, people were tasked with finding a gift for another member of the group, their names picked from a hat. A forced, community-wide, Secret Santa. Selena had written a Christmas list at Vicky’s insistence, though gift-giving felt like hollow and perfunctory gesture, as did claiming material items. Last year she’d asked for money, makeup, and clothes. This year she’d only asked for two things:
1 – body armour
2 – a fucking big knife.
They held a communal Christmas meal in the village hall. A predictably meat-free, hotchpotch affair, Phillipa Rochester had done them proud and had cooked enough to feed twice as many people. Much booze had already been knocked back. Songs had been sung, and it had proved to be an unexpectedly emotional get-together. The word ‘Christmas’ was only occasionally mentioned. It was an opportunity to pause; to look back and to look forward. A chance to take stock.
‘Complements of the season,’ Taylor said, carrying another crate of beer into the hall that he’d procured from the stores.
‘Always the hero, eh, Tony,’ David said, half joking.
‘Hardly.’
‘Must feel good to finally be yourself, though, eh? To have dropped the Superman act?’
‘I’m still Superman, mate,’ he laughed. ‘It’s the Clark Kent bit I dropped.’
Chapman, mid-conversation, reached across between them and helped himself to a can. ‘The reason we’ve made it this far,’ he said, worse for wear, ‘is that we’ve played it safe and not done anything stupid. If you look back, all the times that Dominic and Piotr screwed up were because they overreached.’
Dominic was sitting in a corner with Stan, listening intently but keeping his mouth shut for once. He was in no position to argue. He’d finally learnt that the more he said, the more trouble he ended up in. A quiet life here was all he wanted now.
Chapman continued, in full flow. ‘What you did here, Ed, wasn’t that different from what we were trying, except that you got the scale right. Frigging Dominic was always trying to prove a point, weren’t you, Dom?’ he called across. ‘He didn’t realise that none of us cared about tomorrow. We just wanted to survive today. All the people who listened to him are dead now.’
‘Ignore him,’ Stan whispered. ‘He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.’
‘Dominic wasn’t completely wrong, though,’ David Shires said. ‘Back in London, we were always aiming for something, it just didn’t often work out. Might be we didn’t fully consider the precarious spot we were truly in at the moment, but I think you have to have something to aim for though, don’t you?’
‘I guess.’
Liz turned to look at David. ‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘What are you aiming for?’
‘I’d like to see everyone here settled and safe. I want Ed to be able to do everything he’s trying to do with the farm, and I want the dead to disappear.’
‘I’ll ask again,’ Liz said. ‘What about you?’
He hesitated, eyes brimming with tears. ‘I think I’m just getting all sentimental because it’s Christmas, but I still want more than anything to just go home.’
‘Home?’ Sanjay said. ‘What’s home these days? It’s just where you happen to be, I reckon.’
David shook his head. ‘It’s more than that. I want to go back to Ireland. And before any of you say anything, I know exactly what I’m likely to find there, but I still want to go. I have to go. I honestly think we’re going to be okay here, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough for me. No disrespect, but I can’t picture myself spending the rest of my days here, in a place I don’t know, with people I don’t know so well.’
‘But all that’ll change over time,’ Liz said.
‘Maybe that’s true, but if I don’t go back, I don’t think I’ll ever be completely satisfied. Do you understand where I’m coming from? Until I know for certain what’s happened to my family, I can’t give up on them.’
‘I get that,’ Ed said, trying his best to show some sensitivity, ‘but the reality is you’re never gonna really know, are you? My family is gone, and as far as I know, everyone else here is on their own now too. I think we just have to accept that’s the way it is. Play the hand that’s dealt us, and all that.’
‘I don’t know if I can. Even though there might only be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a per cent chance that my wife or any of my kids are still alive, I have to take it. Christ, the thought of any of my little ones being on their own over there... I just can’t stand it.’
‘Merry fucking Christmas,’ Dominic muttered under his breath.
27
Vicky, Ruth, and Selena had moved into a small, terraced cottage on a road opposite the village hall. Sam and Joanne had moved in together next-door. Vicky had neither the energy nor inclination to join the party in the hall, and the others took their lead from her. Instead, Sam roasted a couple of rabbits he’d caught over a fire-pit he’d dug in his back garden. He cooked over the open fire regularly. He’d removed several of the fence panels between the two houses and shared dinner with the neighbours most days. Tonight, Vicky had barely touched her food. She loitered by the fire, heat more important than nourishment, and chain-smoked cigarettes. Sam kept her company; the others having gone inside to play board games. He couldn’t think of anything more tedious. She watched him watching her.
‘Just do it,’ she said.
‘Do what?’
‘Give me your variation on the same hilarious joke everybody’s been doing since I got my hands on more cigarettes. Go on, I dare you. Tell me smoking’s bad for my health.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
She chuckled, and her laughter quickly spiralled out of control, degenerating into an unstoppable, hacking cough. Sam handed her a bottle of Scotch that he’d been keeping in his pocket. She swigged from the bottle of booze, its smooth taste and warming sensation better than any medicine.
‘I can’t get over you without any hair,’ she said.
Sam ran his fingers over his freshly shaved scalp and chin. ‘I know. It’s cold without that mop. I miss it.’
‘Joanne doesn’t.’
‘She told you?’
‘She did. You two getting on okay?’
‘It’s purely platonic,’ he said quickly. ‘We’re flatmates.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Believe me, the last thing I’m thinking of is a full-blown relationship. I don’t think I could handle it. If I let someone in, really in, and we broke up, I don’t think I’d cope.’
‘You serious?’
‘Deadly.’
Vicky watched the fire burn and pondered his words. She understood. In a world where so much had been lost and so little positivity remained, trusting anyone else with your happiness felt like a risk too far.
Sam felt obliged to keep the conversation going. ‘You never told me how you got on with Dr Liz yesterday.’
Vicky shrugged. ‘There’s not a lot to say. She can’t do anything for me.’
‘Then why do you go and see her?’
‘Because it makes her feel better. Because it stops Ruth and Selena from nagging at me. I’m serious, there’s not a lot of point, otherwise. She says she’ll be able to help me with pain relief when things get bad, other than that, there’s nothing anyone can do.’
‘Yeah, I get that.’
‘You know what keeps going around my head?’ she asked.
‘I can’t even begin to imagine. Seriously.’
‘It’s that frigging Wham song, Last Christmas.’
‘Ouch. Why?’
‘Because this is my last Christmas, why d’you think?’
‘You don’t know that for certain.’
‘Spare me. We do.’
Sam messed with the embers of the fire. ‘Have you talked about it with Ruth yet?’
‘Nope. I’m trying to keep things normal for as long as I can.’
‘Normal, Vic? Since when was anything normal around here?’
She shook her head. ‘You know what I mean. Ruth and Selena both know I’m ill, but they don’t know exactly how ill.’
‘It doesn’t take a genius.’
She ignored him. ‘Thing is, as soon as I admit it and it’s open for discussion, it’ll be all we talk about. Ruth will be fussing over me more than she already does, and everyone will start treating me different and... and I just don’t want that. You understand, don’t you?’
‘I do, as it happens.’ Sam paused and prodded the dying fire with a stick again. ‘So, is that what you’ve been preoccupied with all day?’
‘My own mortality? That’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘I know you better than you’d like to admit, Vic. I think there’s something else.’
She plunged her hands in her pockets and paced the overgrown lawn. ‘Hand over that Scotch, will you?’ She took a slug and grimaced, then took another before handing it back.
‘I’m getting itchy feet.’
‘Go on.’
Vicky looked around, as if she was sharing a grubby little secret she didn’t want anyone but Sam to hear. ‘I don’t think I want to stay here. The group’s done well, and Ed and the Yaxley people have poured their hearts and souls into this place, but I’m not ready to drop anchor. I just don’t want this to be the place where I die.’
‘You’re talking about Ledsey Cross again, aren’t you?’
‘Kind of. I know it sounds crazy to be talking about leaving somewhere so well-established and with as much potential as this, but it feels even crazier not to try.’
‘Do you really think there will be anything at Ledsey Cross that we don’t have here?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘The people?’
‘The people, the infrastructure, the location, the security... If I’m being completely honest, Sam, not going means giving up on the only goal I’ve ever really set for myself. I can’t stand the thought of dying before I’ve had chance to see it. Does that sound crazy?’
‘No crazier than anything else.’
‘On the day of the apocalypse, I was supposed to be at a hospital appointment. I was going to find out how long they thought I had left. And that was with all the chemo and other treatments they were going to propose. Now we’re three months further on, and I’ve had no treatments whatsoever. My diet is shit, I’m tired all the time...’
‘It’s not just about you though, is it?’
She shook her head.
‘No. I know how corny this sounds, Sam, but it’s about the kids too. Selena, Omar, Isabella and Emily... hopefully they’re going to be around long after the rest of us are gone, definitely after I’m gone. I want them to have the best chance possible, and I think Ledsey Cross could be a better option for them.’
‘Ruth doesn’t agree.’
‘I know.’
‘I heard her and Selena having a good old moan about it the other day. Her argument was that it’s all well and good going to somewhere self-sufficient like Ledsey Cross where there’s solar power and what have you, but when all the lightbulbs are gone, all the lightbulbs are gone.’
Vicky laughed. ‘She’s absolutely right about that! But we’ve likely got lightbulbs for fifty years! That’s a hell of a lot of books read, isn’t it? It’s philosophy studied, passions realised... it’s light in the darkness, for fuck’s sake. And who knows what will have happened by then? We’re human; we’re inventors, creators, and we can’t be alone on the bloody planet. They’ll find other people. Society might be functioning again by then, on some basic level. It won’t be the answer to everything but being at Ledsey Cross with the right people will at least give them the best chance possible. Sorry about the rant.’
Sam smiled at her. ‘How long do you think you’ve got, Vic?’
‘Weeks,’ she said without hesitation. Both the speed with which she answered and her answer itself took him by surprise. He had no reason to doubt her.
‘Does Liz concur?’
‘Yep.’
‘And there’s definitely nothing she can do to—’
‘There’s nothing,’ she said, cutting across him. ‘Look, Sam, my mind’s made up. I’m leaving here. I’m off to Ledsey Cross and no one’s going to stop me.’
28
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN
David could smell smoke. He sat bolt upright in bed, stirred with a start from a deep, booze-assisted slumber. The lighting in his bedroom was all wrong, flickering orange, not blue-black. He got up too fast, tripping over the piles of clothes and other things he’d not yet unpacked, pulling on his trousers and shirt as he stumbled across the cluttered room. He felt nauseous. The house was still unfamiliar, and his head was spinning. He crashed downstairs, pulled on his boots and grabbed his jacket, then burst out into the cold of early Boxing Day morning.
One of the cottages at the far end of the road was on fire.
A crowd of people had already gathered outside the house. Marcus’s place, he thought, and he could see him in the doorway, frantically passing his belongings to the handful of people who were actively assisting.
‘How did it happen?’ David asked, trying to squeeze into the line and help.
‘No idea,’ Ed said. ‘Marcus is a sensible lad. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t take stupid risks... I’m at a loss. He’s a lucky bugger, though. If he hadn’t woken up, he’d be a goner. It’s a good thing Barbara was up and about. She saw the smoke and started hammering on the door until he answered. He was away with the fairies, by all accounts.’
