Not Alone, page 17
‘The River Rother,’ Andy says. ‘So, Katie, do you know where you hope to find your man?’
The words are stuck in my throat.
‘It’s far!’ Harry says brightly.
‘Is that so? How did you get split up?’
‘We . . . missed each other,’ I say, Andy scrutinizing my face.
‘When’s the last time you saw him?’
The wind seems to drop, silent, as I conjure up the words. ‘Five years ago.’ I start walking again, Harry lunging next to me, the breeze and my sweat and all the doubt of last night and this morning making me feel suddenly cold.
Soon Andy’s clomping up the road behind us, and catching up. ‘You mean Before? Before the storm?’ His face is full of confusion, eyes sliding to Harry. ‘So he’s never met—’
‘He left me a message. I know it may be too late, I know how stupid it seems—’
‘It’s not stupid.’
‘He might not be dead after all . . . I have to try to find him,’ I say, though my voice wavers, uncertain. I start explaining about the letters and the car, the words tumbling out in a rush, my voice louder and more hysterical than I mean it to be, perhaps because I’m fighting to talk over my wheezing chest.
‘I know,’ Andy soothes. ‘Not knowing can eat you up.’
We reach the Cruiser in silence, our boots slapping over soft algae-covered ground. As soon as I stop, my wheezing becomes a hacking cough.
‘It’s a very fast, strong car,’ Harry tells Andy, as they wait for me to recover.
I sip from my flask and try not to let the strain show on my face.
Harry prods one of the big tyres with his shoe.
‘Well, let’s see if we can’t get your chariot fixed for you and your mum.’
‘I’m not naive,’ I blurt out when I can speak and my chest feels close to normal again, though there’s still that tightness in the cool air. ‘It’s not just wanting to find him, we need him—’ I spit out. Angry that my chest is failing me and that Jack still feels out of reach, after everything we did to get here. ‘Sorry.’
‘Katie, after all we’ve been through, you’re never going to offend me.’
‘It’s Scotland, where I think Jack is. I know trying to go that far north after all this time is . . .’ I grope for the right word.
‘Reckless?’ Andy suggests, a half-grin on his face.
I nod. ‘Too far’ – hundreds of miles – ‘to risk for a small hope of still finding him there.’
Andy goes to squeeze my shoulder, but thinks better of it and clasps his hands together instead. ‘Loads of people did the same in the first year, searching, constantly walking . . . Facing bad weather – killing weather – smog and rain, blocked roads, always living hand-to-mouth. Katie, just remember – some of them didn’t know how to stop. Just make sure you know when to call it quits, you know what I mean?’
I hold his gaze, dust in the air making my eyes watery. He’s right – it’s foolish. Stupid. And I was stupid to worry yesterday about finding Jack with someone else, having moved on thinking me dead. Him alive after all this time would be . . . everything, miraculous, and enough for Harry. Anything else really doesn’t matter.
‘Well, you don’t have to decide yet, let’s have a look at the Cruiser first.’ Andy hacks away vegetation and jacks the front end up, the wheels coming off with some difficulty. He squints at the axle joints.
‘The rubber’s split, grease all leaked out – no wonder it’s seized up.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘Nope, that’s why the wheels are too stiff to turn.’
‘Is it fixable?’ That might be it, over, if it’s not. I twist the ring on my finger as he lifts the bonnet and tuts over dark muddy engine oil and peers inside at the dash, nodding approvingly but nervously at the three-quarters-full fuel gauge.
He nods. ‘Yeah, if we can find the grease you need – you want a commercial garage for that though, none round here I’m afraid.’
Feeling deflated and fretful, we head back, Harry quickly fading and dragging his feet along the ground, dislodging particles, bugs and spores into the air. Breeze swirls around us, the air meter at the top end of the green level now, and I hurry Harry along.
‘If you’re serious about fixing the car, we’ll need to go into Sheffield – good few warehouses and garages in the retail parks to the north of the city centre. I doubt many people will be after axle grease, but you never know . . .’
Sue is waiting at the window as we finally traipse up the path, and she opens the front door to a basin and cloths set up for us just inside in the hallway.
‘We could try getting another car going?’ I frown at the electric and hybrid hatchbacks on the nearest driveways, skinny and rusted, bumpers sunk to the ground. Fragile, broken creatures – none of them comparing to our safe, solid Cruiser.
Andy shakes his head. ‘If I’m honest, Katie, yours is the first working vehicle I’ve seen since the first year. I tried years ago . . . nothing does well sat gathering dust.’
‘Especially this dust.’
‘Aye.’
We step inside and I strip Harry and myself of our outdoor gear.
‘What if this is as far as you’re supposed to go?’ Sue says, face full of worry. She has an armful of toys – trucks and dolls and Lego – and Harry twists away from me to look as I try to wash his face.
‘Sheffield’s not as bad as London, or so I’ve heard, I promise,’ Andy says to both me and Sue. ‘Or I wouldn’t suggest looking there.’ He smiles. ‘Come on, northerners were always friendlier than you southerners.’
We all allow a smile at that, even Harry, who can’t understand what we mean.
‘How far is it?’ I ask.
‘About a three-hour hike each way.’
‘Three? Are there people there?’
‘There were, years back, when I last went. Many folk who survived headed to the cities.’
‘Everywhere feels further now,’ Sue says. ‘Harry can stay with me, of course, if you want the grease – you wouldn’t want him outside all that time, would you?’ She smiles at Harry, engrossed in the new toys, looking sickly and tired, and she reaches to stroke his beautiful chestnut hair – my Harry’s hair – and Harry looks up sharply.
I shift uneasily, trying to weigh it all up in my mind, fingering the stones along the band of my ring. Maybe finding the grease or not will help me decide if I’m prepared to take Harry north. ‘We’d be back by tonight?’
Andy nods. ‘If we leave now.’
‘It’d be safer for Harry here,’ I say slowly. As soon as the words are out I feel the gravity of them – eyeing up that pile of toys, Sue’s smiling face, Andy’s capable figure by the door, the fireplace in the back room, and the racks of meat and herbs and jars of vegetables there, remembering how grim things felt in comparison at the end in Hitchin. I wonder how long until Andy tells Sue where I think Jack is – I doubt she would even consider the risk of going north, the hope of everything I want for Harry with Jack completely fanciful.
‘Of course, and better than having to leave him alone,’ she says, and I wince, guilt flushing through me. Better than the mother I was in Hitchin. Or the one I could be if we go north and find nothing.
Yet I can’t help feeling – we’ve come this far. I have to see if the Cruiser is at least fixable, then I’ll decide.
‘I’ll be back to kiss you goodnight, OK?’ I hug Harry. ‘I love you, wholeheart.’
‘Right from the middle to the edges?’
I nod. ‘Especially the soft centre.’
He smiles, but it fades quickly. And then Sue is leading him to the back room to lay train track out on the floor. I follow, biting my lip, taking in the open fireplace – unlit for now, knives on the sideboard and pitcher of unfiltered water by the unlocked back door.
‘Ready?’ Andy calls, hovering near the front door, shoving a mask – navy fabric with two large vents – into his backpack, and slinging a rifle over his shoulder, making my skin prickle.
I glance at Harry, feeling sweaty, head swimming with worry.
‘I’ll take good care of him.’ Sue squeezes my hands. The cut across my left palm stings as she does, but I try not to show it. ‘Just like he was one of mine.’
I find myself reminding her that his nose needs blowing while it’s still snotty, to make sure that he’s careful about washing his hands and touching his face, to keep him inside, to properly prepare water for him . . .
Sue nods, yes, but I say so many things that I can’t be sure she’ll remember it all. I leave in a blur. Houses and roads float past. I can’t help feeling that I shouldn’t leave Harry with a stranger. But ‘stranger’ is a funny word now, perhaps, even Sim felt familiar. We’ve all shared this massive traumatic thing.
We trek across a weedy park, the once-manicured ground boggy and squelching beneath our boots. I vaguely remember the pools and lakes as we pass them, once full of families and children paddling and ducks. Now the water everywhere is puke-green and quiet, the margins grown tall. Bulrush fluff dislodges as we brush past, rising up alongside algae spores and suspicious grey particles everywhere, catching the midday sun. The warm, wet air is thick with it, bitter and unpleasant, making it harder for me to breathe full breaths through the mask – the vents getting clogged. Andy’s lead soon widens. I can’t concentrate on where we’re going, stumbling, pausing to scan the way we’ve come, not certain at all about how exactly to get back to Harry, not sure I can imagine going north and getting stuck and Harry outside in a place like this. I can’t help fretting about what he and Sue are doing. I can’t believe I left him.
20
‘Come on.’ Andy waits for me and steers me as I cough – bitter, peaty smoke itching down my throat and into my lungs as I lift my clogged mask. We battle through thick papery-yellow bushes and down to a railway line where the air is thankfully clearer and sweeter.
Andy de-masks there too, and soon I’m gasping in lungfuls, feeling better.
‘Fastest route this, takes us straight to the northern business areas,’ Andy says.
The air is full of wax moths – in daylight and airborne they’re better, like tiny delicate grey-white fairies. Caterpillars inch along in the leaf litter, others hang from threads, cocooning. But even after we’ve walked over the gravel and sleepers for several miles, breathing the heavy sweet scent of the dense butterfly-bushes, I can’t help looking back to check for trains. Still that uncomfortable sensation of trespassing, even after all these years.
My steps falter as I check ahead of us. We’re approaching the pitch-black opening of a concrete tunnel.
Re-securing our masks, our boots crunch and splosh as we step inside, red glossy leaves drifting in with us to land in the dark amongst the thick carpet of dust and leaves already there, where the wind can’t whip them up again. As my eyes adjust, I see the fuzzy, deeply undulating surfaces of dust-caked walls and ceiling. I draw my elbows in and hunch, afraid of accidentally dislodging any dust. Both of us hold our breath and hurry towards the light at the other end, not slowing until we’re ten strides clear.
Tunnels and bridges become more numerous. Some are full of trolleys or bikes or debris that the dust and leaves have accumulated amongst, forcing us to squeeze past, upsetting flurries that stick to our clothes.
‘This’ll do,’ Andy says, as we come out of a long narrow one, both of us brushing great gobs of dusty spiderweb off our shoulders.
We scramble up the slope and over barbed wire, and then down through brambles and bushes and trees, over a brick wall, to a road. We head what feels like north and I veer wide past the grey-flecked grim spectre of a church, modern stained-glass windows smashed in. Andy does too, avoiding looking at it, pinching his nose as if it might still smell.
On the next road, grimy terraced houses and fast-food shops leer over us. Bushes have been cut to ground level, perhaps for firewood, and I hesitate.
‘Andy, was it friendly or was there a reason you didn’t join the survivors here?’
He pauses a moment. ‘It’s Sue – she rarely leaves the house – coming to meet you and Harry was an exception. It’s not just being outdoors, she’d feel . . .’ He scratches his neck, searching for the word.
‘Vulnerable?’ I say slowly.
He nods. ‘Outnumbered. She didn’t like the thought of it. I did try persuading her once – it can be tough, this isolation, alone with your own thoughts too much, her own grief – it’s such a visceral pain, isn’t it, losing children . . .’
I murmur an agreement, pulling the hood of my overalls up and tucking my ponytail right in.
‘Plus, bartering and sharing the load would have been nice. But I suppose you do get used to your own company, whatever it is. And you can’t keep wishing for a version of how things once were. In the end, you have to accept and learn to appreciate what you have—’
‘Maybe we should just head back?’ I cut in, on edge, and that sickly feeling rising again at Harry being such a long trek behind me, even if Sue is there with him.
‘We’re alright.’ Andy squeezes my shoulder. ‘Let’s just stay alert, stay focused.’
I stick close to him as we head on, constantly tripping over bulges in the concrete, until the road becomes a dense forest of Japanese knotweed. Violet stems zigzag right out of the grey concrete, their big heart-shaped leaves filling the street with shades of apricot and tangerine. The tight stems and leaves shake as we brush past, displacing dust.
‘This wasn’t here last time.’ Andy kicks at the hard ground. ‘Like triffids bursting from moon rock.’
I nod, out of habit cutting stalks as we thread through the least dense patches.
‘Edible?’ Andy asks.
‘Tastes like asparagus when it’s cooked.’
In the distance, over the sea of knotweed, I can make out corrugated warehouse roofs that must be the retail park Andy mentioned. Low clouds roil beyond them, grey and white, a definite haze growing on the horizon, cool wind flicking spots of rain into our faces, taking all the warmth out of the day. I sniff at the air – just sweet clear rain right now – and pull my mask back up, sliding my waterproof parka over my overalls too, hoping we find the grease quickly and looking forward to getting on the railway line and building up some heat marching back to Harry, though I haven’t yet decided what to do even if we do find the grease.
Delicate roe deer are nosing into the knotweed thickets and into alleyways, trying to find cover, increasingly frantic and skittish as spots touch them. The breeze brings their smell – of hay and singed fur.
Two dart right past me, making me flinch, and I step deep into the knotweed with a puff of loose dust. The deer snort, eyes wild, and Andy swipes at their legs with the barrel of his rifle to encourage them away.
‘Alright?’ he offers me a hand, but I step out of the leaves on my own and shake myself out. ‘Need to keep your eyes peeled. They’re unpredictable these days – like they’re in rutting season all year, each generation a little more pent-up than the last. I think the pollution affected their hormones. Makes them reckless.’
‘I know. And hard to hunt, I imagine, I never tried . . .’
‘You can see which might be easier pickings,’ Andy says, eyes excited and engrossed in the possibility. ‘Those three rubbing up against the brickwork and nipping each other – they’ve got caught out in bad smog and rainstorms recently: hides sore, fur falling out, bleeding from their mouths and noses . . .’
He shakes his head. ‘Just one bad exposure or the long slow creep of frequently breathing it in and getting it on their coats – no doubt it gets to them even when they try to find cover outside – and now they’ll just keep getting more ill.’
There’s a thin one at the back, panting, moving slower than the others. Andy points at it. ‘That one’s lung function is declining, heart’s failing, no doubt –’
I look away, my own heart seeming to flutter in response.
Andy continues, oblivious, ‘– that’s what’ll make it keel over in the end. Meat’s usually still good though—’
Shouts further up the road make me slow, putting a finger up to shush Andy.
‘I think we should be open we’re here,’ he whispers, ‘to at least avoid being mistaken for deer in this thicket? When I came years ago, they were OK with me taking things as long as they knew about it.’
I shake my head, sidling deeper into the knotweed and sinking low amongst the zigzag branches, frantically waving for Andy to follow and relieved when he finally does, fronds bouncing to cover us.
The voices become muffled and I wonder if we’ve been heard. Then the pounding of feet and shouts grow louder again, until I can see bodies moving through the stems, but I also hear the scuffing, heavy breathing and grunts of a fight. They tumble into view on a clear patch of pavement and it’s obvious the older guy has something – a silver cylinder – that the younger two say is theirs.
‘Give it! Or you’ll get a face full of this!’ The grey mud in their hands is balled tight, but frothing loose as it dries, drawn out by the growing breeze.
They throw one. It hits the man in the chest, bursting like a snowball. I watch in horror as he tries to turn away from the spray, covering his face with his hands.
‘Where’s your mask, old man?’ And I realize he is the only one without one.
The young guys kick him to the floor and somehow his trousers are ripped off. Adrenaline pumps through me. They do it just to humiliate and incapacitate him I think, and saunter off, with the cylinder swinging in hand, laughing and whooping.
‘Didn’t think there was much O2 to be found,’ Andy whispers. ‘Maybe they have their own respirators still?’
The old guy stays there, swearing, his hands stuffed over his mouth and nose. The wind aches round the buildings, the telltale rattling of particles sounding against brick and glass. The fisted dustballs are quickly dispersed downwind, like the men are aeromancers letting loose mist. Other people arrive, bundled up in hoods and masks, and more arguing echoes and distorts down the street.
