Chapter Six
The laptop’s little green light fluttered bravely on even though its end was nigh. I cruised around the browser history, trying to squeeze out every last drop of information before I lost contact with the digital world. Julian had shown a frustrating lack of imagination for news sources, sticking only to the BBC and the Daily Mail. And, of course, the information ended as abruptly as he had. I still had questions. The main one being: “What happens now?”
I closed down the Internet browser. The laptop warned that it would shut off shortly. I scanned the room for its power cord, but of course, there was no power. Expecting things to be normal had become like a tic; I couldn’t stop myself. In any case, without Wi-Fi, the machine was obsolete, the entire World Wide Web rendered as impotent as a history book.
I had taken long enough. I should be catching up with Joni and the kids. But I ran the arrow across the icons, wondering if I could pluck out any last data from this virtual scrap: the calendar of events that were presumably “cancelled due to apocalypse”; an address book of acquaintances who would not be needing a Christmas card this year; and Julian’s inbox, which, unless it could connect to the other side, was equally useless. I launched the e-mail program anyway.
There was plenty of activity on Friday, but nothing since then. I scanned down a long list of social media notifications from people he barely knew emoting banal statements, everyone hoping that everyone else was “all right.” No wonder Julian never had time to get a job. There was no word from David, but was that a good sign or bad? It could mean the networks were overloaded in the States, just as they were here. Or possibly, safe and sound at his conference venue in New York, he hadn’t realized how serious the situation in the UK was until it was too late, and we’d already gone off-line. There was, though, a message from Julian and David’s little sister, who was in quarantine at Heathrow Airport after a terrorist incident: the usual stream of consciousness from a woman who lived so much “in the moment” she had no use for full stops. One of the news articles said bombs had gone off in each of Heathrow’s five terminals, which suggested that her moment had probably passed. My thoughts wandered to the scene—bodies propped against luggage as though waiting for a delayed flight, security officers slumped at their posts, the departures board going through the motions, urging all these Sleeping Beauties to wake up and get to their gates. My mind explored the scene until I realized I had edited out the panic, the fear, the buzz. I retreated from my own fantasy.
That was it for Julian’s e-mails: not much to show after dedicating nearly forty years to socializing. One sibling and a bunch of profile pictures. Where were all the mates from his ironic “darts league”? Just as the machine begged me again to plug it in, I clicked on his sent messages.
Two e-mails addressed to me—the ones I’d ignored on my phone. I wondered what I would have done if I’d phoned home as he had insisted. Presumably, driven back to the city, into the cool arms of my husband and the cold clutches of the virus. Nestled between those two e-mails, a rose between two thorns, was one addressed to Aurora.
Why had Julian written to my business partner?
He knew very well, or at least he’d been told—therein lay the difference—that I was camping with Joni, not Aurora. Like Aurora would go camping. She wouldn’t even go glamping. The mail had been sent late on Friday. The subject line was “Desperate to reach you.” I took off one latex glove to pick at the scab behind my ear as I read it.
Hi Rory,
Ive been trying to call, but cant get through, the network is overloaded. I don’t know WTF to do. I just tried to RUN to yours, but some military cordon in the high street turned me back. The guy had a gun.
Obviously Im not going to make it tonight. But we need to talk. About all of it. I cant get through to M. I dont even know where the kids are.
Fuck we need to talk. Maybe when its dark I can get to yours by the back streets or through gardens or something.
I’ll get to you somehow. Love Jules
The blood from my scab tasted tangy and fresh. I dug at the spot behind my ear, but it was clotting and withholding, already busy forming a new scab over the wound. I pulled my latex glove back on, stretching and snapping each finger into place. Then ripped it off again.
It was beyond belief that Aurora would lower herself to a thing with Julian.
I read the e-mail again, absorbing the details. A plan to meet. A need to talk. Since when did they meet? Or talk? My eyes came to rest on “all of it.” When I tried to read on, the sentences broke apart and re-formed into “all of it.” No meaning in the letters, just shapes of a secret code.
All of it.
The black hole of not knowing what “all of it” amounted to sucked me in. The light drained from the room into a dark place in my gut, where I could feel it gathering, fomenting. I dropped my head in submission, braced against my own ferocity, straining to keep it down. None of my thoughts had form beyond the pure energy that fueled rage. My mismatched hands, one a latex death pall and the other heaving with veins, gripped each other in my lap. I closed my eyes as white-hot fury shuddered up and over me in a rabid contraction, and I found that a metallic grating noise was my teeth grinding together.
The chaos passed. I was still there, sitting on the floor, holding myself. Everything was intact. I released my jaw, my breath, and my hands. In my lap, the palm of the latex glove flapped open like torn skin, shredded by my nails.
The laptop peeped a meek warning that it was shutting down now. Icons started to disappear, and I put my fingertip over the green LED as it flickered a couple more times in an irregular pulse. An hourglass turned. And then darkness. The light glowed for a while under my fingertip, but I knew it was gone. I had a last image of an action-man version of Julian, scaling fences to rescue his woman. I’ll get to you somehow! Although he obviously hadn’t fulfilled that promise, so “Rory” got a glimpse of what life would have been like as Julian’s partner and—the thought actually made me smile—at least they would start their new life in eternity with an almighty row.
The leather bag crashed into the wall as I threw it over the banisters to the hall below, taking a framed holiday photo and a mirror with it. I shrugged as the glass shattered into the carpet. I pulled my best running top out of the dirty linen basket and threw it down after the bag. It spread its long-armed wings and floated like a wraith down the stairs. Wading across the clothes-strewn carpet, I returned to the bed and grabbed my best pillow, which I lobbed in an overhead throw out the door and over the banister. “Whee,” I called out. I heard a thump and a tinkle of glass as it landed below. Finally, I went to my bedside drawer. Inside was the jewelry that I only ever wore on flights so it didn’t get lost in the luggage: my modest engagement ring, bought when we were just starting out, which got replaced by a garish eternity ring after I made both Charlie and a fortune; my mother’s huge brooch, whose provenance was assured by every single photo I had of her—always smiling without showing her teeth, beneath a broad sunhat draped with a scarf held in place by the jade. I wrapped everything into a soft fabric bag and tugged the drawstring tight, slipping it inside my pocket.
I went from kid’s room to kid’s room, pulling out clean clothes, shoes, weather-related kit. All of it went airborne to the ground floor. I grabbed from the airing cupboard towels and flannels and extra blankets and a bucket. I peered over the banister to see the pile below, which seemed to be crawling up the stairs to get back where it belonged. In the family bathroom, I stuffed a wash-bag with Band-Aids and bandages and toothpaste and disinfectant and DEET-formula bug spray and as many random medicines as I could find. Over the banister. From the sideboard in the hallway, I pulled out fleeces that we’d need if the weather turned, looking more stained and bobbled than when I’d packed them away, as though they’d started decomposing. In a drawer were hats and socks and gloves, but I couldn’t gather them all into one handful, so I dumped them back into the wooden drawer, pulled that out, and sent the whole thing sailing over the railing where it smashed onto the Minton tiles. I followed down the stairs, climbing across the mound of stuff to get to the kitchen door. I stood outside, pressed my forehead against the freshly painted wood, breathing hard. I listened to the buzz.
Trust him to die in the kitchen.
All the important stuff was in there. Pans and knives. Food. “We need to fucking eat, Julian,” I yelled, pounding at the door. The buzz swelled in reply, and the metallic sound needled my anger.
“Judas,” I hissed through the keyhole. “After fifteen years of bleeding me dry. Like a tick. All the shit-brained schemes. Pissing away your trust fund. You’ve not done a single thing in all that time. Not for us. Not for me. Not even for yourself. Not one thing.” I pounded the door three more times with my forehead. Not. One. Thing. The dull pain calmed me. “For fifteen years, Julian. How could you be such a—” I could hear the buzz receding. I pictured the flies, bloated and dopey. “Parasite.”
I slumped to the floor. Except, of course, for the first time, he had done something. He’d had an affair and decided to leave me. Finally, a decision—two whole decisions. “Well, you know what, Judas?”—I was back on my knees, spittling the keyhole—“I’m okay on my own. I’m fucking brilliant on my own. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?” My hands fell from the doorknob as a swell of laughter doubled me over. “Oh, God, sorry, that came out wrong.” I punched my thighs. “That sounded really bad.” My ribs hurt. Pass that woman a corset; her sides are going to split. I held myself together with my arms until it passed. Wiped the tears from my eyes. Got to my feet. I gave the door one last petulant bang and turned back to face the hall.
Do we need all this stuff? Or none of it?
The tears had washed me out, like an enema for the heart. I was hollow. Light.
I didn’t want all this baggage. Into my leather weekender, I pushed medicine and clothes. All the food was trapped behind the kitchen door, contaminated, so I’d have to find some elsewhere. From the console I picked up the car keys and my silver Burmese Nat. I walked out the front door and didn’t bother locking it behind me.
We made quick progress along the high street, Horatio and I. I leapfrogged the speed bumps, weaved around traffic cones that failed to calm me, jumped the lights. As the road widened, I watched my speed dial reach “100 mph” and pushed the Beast into the red. I swept through a spill of rubbish, scattering bags and wrappers into the air; they flapped to the ground behind me, like old ladies waving their hands in disapproval.
When I turned my eyes back to the road, I hit the brakes hard, and the car fishtailed to a halt, but not before we ploughed through a gang of a dozen or so dogs sunning themselves on the warm asphalt. I caught flashes of movement in the side mirrors as they dashed out of the path of my steaming wheels. They yapped in protest, while I sat with my knuckles bulging round the steering wheel.
Horatio hauled himself up in the back seat and gave a magisterial gruff. I told him to stay there as I got out. Most of the dogs backed away, though a couple of the more craven breeds approached on their bellies. I patted one on the head and immediately regretted it, as the musky scent of the pack reached me. Two of the bigger dogs started snapping at each other’s legs in a fussy dispute. The ones on the pavement hadn’t even bothered to move, just lifted their heads to check if they were required. Beyond them, I saw the reason they were gathered here: a pet shop, dark behind two glass doors. But I wasn’t sure if it was the smell of food they were after or the fat golden Labrador that lay flat on the linoleum, trapped inside her gilded cage. I made to turn back to the car, but the Labrador locked eyes with me. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I breathed and stepped up to the pavement.
I rattled the doors, but they were locked. One of the fighting dogs edged closer behind me. When I made eye contact his lip twitched, showing his teeth, like a cowboy raising his shirt to reveal a gun. The Labrador whimpered a plea, but I didn’t know how to help her. A growl made me whip round, but the fighting dog was snarling at Horatio in the car. That gave me an idea. “Go back”—I flapped my hands at the Labrador inside the store—“go on, move back!” She just scuffled her legs against the lino and remained prostrate. I went round the bonnet to get in the car, and reversed up onto the pavement, inching back against the glass doors: in the side mirror I saw the Labrador struggling away. I edged back, giving the accelerator more pressure when the car made contact. There was a second of resistance, and then the glass burst in a glittering shower that spattered down over my rear bumper. Right, that was it. I’d done my bit; she could get out and fend for herself. I’d grab some food for Horatio while I was here and get moving. I crunched into the shop.
The Labrador tottered forward on arthritic legs. I used my key to slice open a few sacks, spilling dog food across the floor. That would keep the pack going until the scavenging instinct kicked in. I pocketed some dog treats and heaved a bag of food over one shoulder before picking my way across the broken glass to the car. The old Lab followed me into the sunlight. “Sorry,” I told her, as she came up to the car, “you’re on your own now.” As though she understood, she doddered away along the pavement, while I stowed the food and treats on the back seat. But the fighting dog stayed, eyeing me or the food, I wasn’t sure. He was standing between me and the driver’s door, head low, lips drawn.
I lifted a piece of paper from the back seat, one of the kid’s drawings, slowly scrunched it into a ball, and threw it into the road. His eyes followed, but he didn’t. His focus swiveled back, and he pulled the trigger, lunging forward to grasp one ankle and whip my legs from under me. I sprawled hard onto the ground, realizing the dog’s massive strength as he gripped the leg of my jeans and dragged me along a foot or so, until I swung my loose leg and slammed my boot down onto his muzzle. He released me and started shaking his head frantically, distracted by a scrap of denim stuck between his teeth. I scrambled up and got into the car. Through the shock, my ankle started to sting where he’d broken the skin.
The car gave a shimmy as the engine fired. The fighting dog had selected a new victim and gone after the Labrador, who cowered, one front leg lifted in submission. I thunked the gear stick into drive. From the back seat, I grabbed the treats. I let the car roll closer and ripped a packet open, holding the meat sticks out the window, calling out—“Hey!”—to the big dog, who ignored the food even when it landed between his front legs. Maybe he wasn’t even hungry; maybe this was just pack mentality, the alpha male asserting himself. He loomed over the old Lab, up on his claws, tail high, teeth bared. The old girl gave a yelp, a cry of incomprehension or perhaps defiance. In a thrash of movement, he went for her neck.
An ammonia smell of dog and my own fear sweat filled the car as I over-revved the engine. No more heroics, I told myself: Get out of the city; stop for nothing; don’t look back. But I did look back, and as I pulled away I watched the Labrador haul herself onto her front legs and make it about six inches back toward the pet shop, before slumping onto the pavement, either dying or resigned to it.
Less than a mile along the motorway, just outside the city, Joni’s new car was parked at a careless angle on the hard shoulder. It rocked slightly, and I could see the kids climbing about in there. As I pulled up in front of it, Lola was picking her way delicately down the steep embankment from the direction of a bridge above the carriageway. I assumed she had gone for a pee, but then I saw Joni coming from the other side of the central reservation, shouting as she jogged, pointing up to the bridge.
“We must’ve scared him off,” Joni was yelling as my window rolled down. Lola made it over to me first.
“There’s a child,” she said, “on the bridge.”
Joni straddled the metal barrier and arrived in a few steps. Her cheeks were flushed, hands businesslike on hips as she scanned the surrounding fields. I restarted my engine.
“I can take Billy and the boys the rest of the way,” I said, putting my seat belt back on. “Are you okay to have a girls’ car again?”
Joni’s eyes swiveled round to my face and stopped there. “We saw a boy, Marlene. He ran off, but he’s here somewhere.” She and Lola watched me, as though waiting for a cue.
“I hate to say it,” I grimaced, “but I rather think everyone’s dead.”
Lola looked down at her feet, tossed her hair back up, and moved toward the other car. Joni pursed her lips. “We saw a child. A boy,” she said, “in pajamas. He was up there, and when we stopped he ran that way.” Her arm swept from the bridge to a copse on the far side of the carriageway. “And now we need to find him,” she finished in her best don’t-fuck-with-me voice. “Come on, Lola,” she called. “Now that Marlene’s here to watch her own kids, we can climb down to those trees.”
“Why?” I asked. They both stopped and turned back to me again.
“Pardon me?” said Joni.
“We can’t take him with us. He might be infected.”
I adjusted my rearview mirror so I could see my kids in the car behind. Billy in front, arms stretched across the steering wheel as though he were driving a bus. Maggie pulling her hair over her face, inspecting the strands. Charlie propped up over the back seat, looking my way and batting an upside-down Peter’s feet away from his head. I waved and he waved back.
“Infected how?” asked Joni.
They both stood in the middle of the motorway, arms folded, squinting at me like I was the sun and I was guilty of burning them. I told them about the terrorists, the bombs, the man-made virus. “We only survived because we were in the forest. We can’t risk making contact with anyone who’s been exposed.”
Lola looked back in the direction we had come. “You saw a body. Maybe you’ve been exposed too. Maybe we were all infected while we were in the city.”
The slight wind dropped, and the bordering trees stopped bristling. All living things held as still as the asphalt beneath our feet. I undid my seat belt. Opened the door and slid down onto the carriageway.
“Actually, I’ve seen several bodies. Three men. A woman in a car. My husband.” I paused to think if that was all. “A neighbor. A dog.” Lola winced at the last one, as though it were the final nail in the coffin. “But I didn’t touch them and if I’d been infected by those bodies yesterday, I’d be dead by now. We all would. I don’t know how this works, but I do know we survived because we were shut away in the forest. So I just want to get the kids back there, because we don’t know who’s infected and who’s not.”
Joni grabbed a gobbet of hair and started sucking on it. “You know how people always say they live day to day? Take it one day at a time? That’s what we’re going to do.” She spat out the hair and looked over to the copse again. “If we’re not dead because we were isolated, then maybe that kid was, too.”
“So why’s he on his own? Where are the parents?” I asked. Not giving them a moment to jump in, I carried on. “Dead, that’s where they are. Which means he’s been exposed and he’s not coming with us.”
“Shh,” said Lola, “he’ll hear you.” We turned to see a little Asian boy, holding a gray blanket, peering down at us between the bars of the barrier on the bridge. We all stared at him, until Lola gave a finger wave. The boy raised his gray blanket and waved it back.
“So,” said Joni, hands on hips, up on her toes to look down at me, “are you going to drive away and leave him there?”
“I’m thinking of all of us.”
In fact, I was thinking for all of us. I turned away from the child, back toward my own kids in the car. Billy had stopped “driving” and was staring up at the boy on the bridge. Charlie’s face was also pressed up against the glass, alongside Peter’s, both looking as stunned as the blowfish woman back in the village. I really wished the kids hadn’t seen the lost boy—I could cope with Joni and Lola thinking I was broken, but not my kids.
“I say he could have been exposed, and I’m not risking my kids’ lives,” I said.
But Lola was already marching toward the bridge. “And I say he’s just a little kid, and we’re taking him.”
Joni gave a shrug and jogged after her.
I let them go.
When I opened the door to get Billy and the others out of the car, the din drowned out any voices from the bridge. I explained that the child was lost and would come with us for now. By the time I installed the four of them in the Beast, Joni was coming back across the carriageway with the boy following a few paces behind. I got up into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Now that he was close, I could see that he was six or seven, about Maggie’s age, wearing supermarket pajamas and plastic shoes. A big leaf that had stuck to one sole scraped against the road with every other step, giving the effect of a pitiful limp. His lips were grayish and cracked. I opened the window just enough to throw a water bottle to Joni, who caught it and crouched down to help the boy drink. He choked and coughed, spittle flying everywhere, but got some down. Joni offered the bottle back to me.
“Don’t want it back.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s just dehydrated.”
“Maybe. You can take him in your car,” I said, “the kids are coming with me. What’s his name?”
“He doesn’t want to speak yet,” said Joni.
“Must be traumatized,” I added in a whisper, “from watching his parents die.”
Joni shushed me, but the boy was totally zoned out. “If he survived, then he’s immune.”
“Could be a carrier.” I started my engine. “Anyway, you’ll soon find out after being cooped up together in the car. I assume Lola’s riding with me?”
Behind us, Lola hauled open the back door of the other car and started shifting the detritus left behind by my kids, making room for herself and the boy. “I’ll sit in the back with him,” she called out.
“Really?” I said to Joni. “Like a canary down a mine shaft?” She gawped at me as I put the car into drive and rolled forward onto the carriageway.
“When did you get so hard, Marlene?” she said.
Hard. I slipped the car into reverse and backed up. How to explain to Joni the gradual process of my hardening. How it builds up without you noticing, like lime scale. How you steel yourself to sit rigid on the plane that might crash and leave your children motherless. How the long-distance phone calls make them cry, so you stop calling. Or should I tell her instead how I paid the mortgage each month for ten years? How I provided—provided everything—even a team of babysitters once Julian reneged entirely on his side of the parenting deal. How I did it because I never had a choice. All these much-celebrated choices that we have, apparently, us modern women. There are no choices, only higher expectations.
Except that now, sitting in the Beast with my kids, on the side of an empty motorway, I did have a choice. If I had to be hard, I would be hard for all of us. I would choose for all of us to survive.
“People aren’t hard, Joni,” I said. “But decisions are. It’s up to you, it’s your call.”
“Wait,” Joni said as she started off along the hard shoulder toward Lola. After several minutes of rapid hand gestures, Lola high-stepped over to my passenger door and managed to slide in without ever unfolding her arms.