Afterlight (25 page)

‘Yeah?’ she sighed. ‘Well, you make it sound so wonderfully appealing.’

They both laughed, a dry mirthless chuckle that quickly petered out. ‘Truth is, I’m not sure I can cope with another fifty or sixty years of eating boiled fish and potatoes, of longing for a steaming hot bath, longing for a million little luxuries that I’m never going to enjoy again.’ She nodded at the others playing in the pool. ‘They were all young children back then. They barely remember how wonderful life was, how much we had, how happy we all were.’

‘Were we?’

‘Shit, I was.’

‘Hmm . . . I remember how it was becoming normal to talk of a failing society. You remember that? No community, no sense of belonging, no one looking out for each other any more.’

‘I was happy, Raymond.’

‘Then perhaps you were an exception.’

‘Maybe I was.’ She looked down at the vegetable garden. ‘But I do know that I can’t be arsed with this any more, grubbing around in the dirt for my protein.’ She smiled. ‘I know it sounds sad, lazy even, but I’m happy in a way. I know what I want to do, and I’m on my way there.’

‘So the others . . . ?’

‘Don’t know. I’ll take them to London to see if we can find these lights. If it’s all a waste of time, then I’ll point them in the right direction to get back home. They’re big boys and girls now. They don’t need me to hold their hands.’ She sighed. ‘And then I’ll find my way home.’ She looked up at Raymond. ‘Do please keep this to yourself.’

‘Sure, all right.’

‘I mean it. Most of all, I don’t want Jacob to know.’ Her voice faltered slightly. ‘He wants to live on. You can see it. He’s so young. Him and Nathan, they’re so hungry for life, to fight on and to make things better again. You know? To rebuild things and have all those cool things we once had again.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘I feel like an old woman. I feel like I’m sixty-five.’

‘You’re younger than me, aren’t you?’

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s how I feel. Life just isn’t fucking well worth the struggle.’

‘That’s a shame. Particularly in someone like you.’

‘Why?’

‘Here you are, you made it through the worst of it. Ten years on, you’re alive, you’re not malnourished, you’re healthy and fit. You made it this far. Why give up now?’

She looked at him. ‘We’re different people. I’m just a . . . I’m just a normal girl who’d have been perfectly happy working in an office Monday to Friday and kicking back at the weekends. You, on the other hand, strike me as the kind of survival nut who gets a buzz out of making a go of it. The challenge of it.’

She looked up at the pale plastic sky. ‘I mean this is great. You’ve created a survival bubble and you’ll be just fine. But it’s a world for you,’ she glanced at the others, ‘and one guest. A little capsule for two. Meanwhile outside, the world is slowly being overgrown and buildings gradually crumbling and falling in. And there’s us eating fish chowder every day and getting all excited just because, for a couple of hours a night, we can turn on some light-bulbs.’

She pursed her lips. ‘Like I said, without Hannah, I suppose I have the luxury of saying, stuff it. You know?’

 

 

 

‘
I
want to stay,’ said Helen adamantly. ‘I know he fancies me and that’s really okay, despite the age thing, because I think he’s nice, too.’

Leona rested a hand on her arm. ‘I’m not leaving you here.’

She pulled her arm away angrily. ‘I’m not a
child
any more.’ She looked up at Leona. ‘And you’re not, like, my teacher any more. Okay?’

Outside the chalet they could hear the boys laughing, talking. And music. Raymond was playing tracks from his favourite-artists playlist over the newly installed speakers; attempting to educate Nathan and Jacob that the
really
old stuff - Nirvana, Chili Peppers, Zeppelin - was better than the plastic pop they’d been exposed to in their childhood. Part of Leona wanted to rush outside and argue the case for the Goo Goo Dolls but there was a more pressing matter right now.

‘Helen, you can’t just stay here. You
are
still a child. And Raymond’s a grown man.’

‘He’s just a few years older than you! And anyway I’m fifteen, nearly sixteen. And I really like it here.’

That was perfectly understandable. Perhaps under different circumstances, Leona wondered whether she might have batted her eyelids at Raymond a few times and earned that one spare space he’d hinted existed here in this finely balanced ecosystem.

Probably not. This was nice, it was comfortable . . . but it was a bubble. It wasn’t the beginning of a new future, the start of Britain rebuilding; it was an isolated chamber that could never change, grow, develop, expand; a little kingdom for two people and several thousand butterflies and insects, that’s all it could ever be - a time capsule in which Raymond was comfortably living. Waiting for the world outside to get a move on and fix itself; happy with his library of music and DVDs, and tending his acre of rain forest and his various vegetable plots.

‘I’m grown up enough to make my own decisions,’ said Helen firmly.

Think about it, she told herself, just a few months older in the world before and she’d be old enough to get herself pregnant, to be given her own council flat and cohabit with whomever the hell she chose.

‘If we leave you here, Helen, it’ll be for good. You know you’d be stuck here?’

She nodded.

‘And if it doesn’t work out between you . . . what then? Returning home on your own - making your way to Bracton, and the rigs, by yourself - you know how dangerous that could be?’

‘But it will work. I know he fancies me. And he’s got such cool things here. This is everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ll never get bored here.’

Bored? Leona shook her head imperceptibly;
bored,
as if that was the most important thing for Helen to be taking into consideration.

A thought occurred to her. ‘So, have you asked him if he wants you to stay?’

She nodded. ‘Last night. He said he’d like that.’

Leona couldn’t recall a quiet moment with the two of them alone long enough to move onto a conversation like that. They’d all been out in the middle at the table by the pool until long after the sun had gone down and the lights had automatically clicked on, illuminating the large fronds above with soft ambient green spotlights. They’d all been together until they’d decided to turn in for the evening.

Leona didn’t like the fact that Raymond had not mentioned something was going on. Perhaps the two of them had slept together. That felt wrong. But then she realised that was a judgement from another time. Different values then. Way different.

‘Helen, I’m not happy leaving you here. Not on your own.’

Her face hardened. ‘You can’t exactly drag me along with you, can you?’

Her question rang off the wooden walls of the cabin until it was silent. Through the chalet door she could hear the thud of a drumbeat, a base line and Raymond singing tunelessly along to lyrics she vaguely recognised.

Helen was right, though, they couldn’t drag her along.

‘All right,’ she said eventually, ‘all right, stay if you want.’

Her face brightened, the sulky curl in her lip straightening. ‘Thank you, Lee. I knew you’d see it my way.’

Leona offered a tight smile. ‘I hope it works out for you both.’

They stayed a second night, which pleased Helen, giving her another try-before-you-buy session with Raymond. But Raymond seemed less engaged with the rest of them, distracted as if the novelty of their company had finally worn off and he was keen to get back to whatever routine he maintained, albeit now with his newly acquired partner.

Leona couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d handed over a child bride to a man old enough to be her father. Sure, Raymond looked much younger than his thirty-five years, but the age gap existed.

The boys weren’t entirely surprised when she told them Helen was staying. Jacob was perhaps the most affected, surprisingly. He and Helen routinely poked and prodded each other with playground insults, but deep down, Leona realised, there’d been a tender sibling-like bond there.

The next day they packed their things aboard their trailer, still sitting on the back of the truck with their bikes, and Raymond drove them all to the junction beyond Thetford. An old army blockade of rusting loops of wire and flaking concrete barriers still stretched across the slip road leading onto the A-road. The road blockades were one of the measures put in place by the government, trying to restrict the mass movement of people by locking down the transport systems; railways, airports, block the motorways and A-roads to prevent logjams of traffic. It was the last thing they managed to do before the chain of command began to falter and they lost control of the situation.

Their last folly.

Jacob and Nathan hefted the trailer off the back of the truck between them, hooked their bikes up to it and made ready to lead the trailer around the blockade. Then there were tearful hugs between the boys and Helen as Leona stepped aside to talk with Raymond.

‘You’ll look after her, won’t you?’

He nodded. ‘I will.’

‘And what if it doesn’t work out? What if you two find out you don’t get on?’ she asked, realising she sounded like the mother of the bride cross-examining a potential suitor.

‘Different rules now. This is the Make-Do world, Leona. You make sure things work. There really is no alternative.’

She shrugged. It was probably the best answer he could have given. Perhaps Raymond would drum some common sense into that woolly young head of Helen’s.

She offered a hand and he took it.

‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘don’t get me wrong, but I actually hope you don’t find what you’re after. You know? Your home, your way out.’

Her smile was tired and worn down to a lifeless curve.

They watched the others for a moment. Helen was sobbing like a baby as she hugged the boys. They in turn were firm-lipped, competing with each other to hold back tears in as manly a way as possible.

‘Take good care of her,’ she said again, squeezing Raymond’s hand. ‘If the boys decide to return to the rigs after London, they’ll be sure to drop by and say hello . . . if that’s all right with you?’ There was gentle caution in her voice.

He pushed a lank tress of hair our of his face. ‘Of course. And they’d be most welcome. They’re a nice pair of lads. A good laugh.’

‘They are.’

‘And I’ll look forward to seeing you along with them,’ he added.

‘Bye,’ she said, letting go of his hand, turning and starting towards the others.

‘Leona?’

She stopped and looked back at him.

He grinned awkwardly, looking like a child about to play a prank. ‘I left you a present in the trailer.’

‘What?’

‘No big deal, just a little something.’

She cocked her head curiously. ‘Uhh, okay . . . well, thanks.’

‘I hope it makes a difference,’ he said. ‘Changes your mind.’

Her brows arched curiously and a half smile momentarily stretched her mouth. She turned back round and joined the others, grabbing the handlebar of her bike and lifting it up off the hard shoulder.

‘Come on you two,’ she said, wheeling the bike forward until the tow rope pulled taut on the trailer. ‘I’m not pulling this bugger on my own.’

They joined her swiftly; the three of them pushing their bikes forward, the trailer rolling behind as they curved round the edge of the blockade, past the small jumble of abandoned cars and vans that had been brought to a sudden cluttered standstill ten years ago. Some were still loaded with family keepsakes, photo albums, birth certificates and passports - slowly fading and yellowing.

Leona looked back and saw Raymond and Helen standing side by side at the back of his truck. She waved at them. Raymond offered a coy nod before turning away, rounding the truck and climbing back into the cab.

Helen stood where she was a moment longer, watching their progress up the slip road towards the A11. Then she, too, turned away.

 

 

 

‘I
t’s all right, I know, Walter,’ said Jenny, her voice croaked weakly. ‘I know Hannah’s gone.’ She licked her lips, they were cracked and dry.

‘Jenny . . . I’m so, so, sorry,’ he said.

‘Water please, Walter.’

‘It . . . it . . . was an awful bloody accident. I just—’

‘Walter, please, get me some water.’