Breakdown, page 15
‘Good idea,’ says Tarquin. ‘Pack everything that’s gonna be useful. And then we gotta sleep. Tomorrow when we’re shot of London, we’ll figure out how we’re gonna get north.’
‘OK.’
‘At first light when we know the street dogs are gonna be tired, before they get the trackers out, we leave.’
I poke the fire. Watch the last book burn.
‘Can’t figure out much more than that now.’
I go round the place. I pile on the table things that might be useful. I heat up an old iron saucepan on the embers of the fire. I wrap it in the cloth hanging by the grate. I put it in the double bed like I used to for Nan and me. When I’m sure the bed is cosy and warm, I tell Tarquin.
‘Lift Lenny into the bed. We can’t keep the fire going all night.’
Tarquin lifts him in. He drags Nan’s old suitcase into the kitchen. We pack it. We put in thick clothes. We find three good-sized shoulder bags. I give him everything that was Dad’s. Everything that’s left: a hat, gloves. He finds the old pair of binoculars.
‘Take these?’
I nod.
There’s not much food left. Some potatoes.
There’s only one bed. We get into it. Me and him and Lenny in the middle, all warm and cosy. Lenny sighs and snuggles down. A little smile flicks across his face. The fire shadows play on the ceiling through the open door. I look across at Tarquin. It’s very dark. He looks across at me. The light catches his eyes. I imagine him smiling. I smile back. He reaches out a hand, finds mine and holds it.
I wake in the night; the fire shadows are gone. Just a dull glow. Lenny’s got his head on my shoulder. Tarquin’s got his arm flung over us both. I look at him sleeping. His darkened face, soft, just a shape. His locks tossed aside. Worry lines smoothed out into a blur. I could have liked his face.
I stare up at the ceiling.
This is the fourth time he’s saved you. Can’t you trust him yet?
But saved me for what? So that I can leave this place forever and go to some other place. A place that doesn’t exist. I stroke Lenny’s hair back from his face. I look at him instead.
Nan visits me in the night. In dreams she comes to me, out of that green hollow.
Her hand rests on the book of Greek stories. She wears a cloak of white cotton. ‘You have taken the Torch from Olympia,’ she says. ‘You must understand what that means. Prometheus stole fire. But he could not see the future. He brought only tragedy. Prometheus was punished.’
And from that place over the doorstep, another voice seems to speak. Like one of the Gods from Mount Olympus.
It thunders. ‘You have stolen from the Gods.
‘The time has come.
‘The past is gone.
‘There’s no way back.’
I turn in my sleep, only half awake.
Tarquin tosses in his sleep, murmurs, ‘Pour l’amour de Dieu.’
The past is gone.
Tomorrow we head north.
1. ‘A real friend, like none you have ever had before.’
32
We leave.
The sun isn’t up. The sky glows with a cold silvery light. The city hovers in the mist. It’s beautiful, sinister, all blurred edges, sharp underneath. The ground, cold and hard. Frozen solid.
Tarquin drags the suitcase.
Lenny wants to have a go. Tarquin says, ‘We’re going to have to pull this case a long way. Let me do it for you now. Soon you’re gonna be sick of it.’
But Lenny isn’t having that. He wants it now. Tarquin laughs and lets him. After ten minutes of pulling and pushing, Lenny is all puffed out.
‘See,’ says Tarquin. ‘When it gets a bit lighter it’s easier to pull.’
Lenny clamps his teeth and heaves all the more. It is snowing again.
We head north. Tarquin says it’s north. ‘At night you can get direction from stars,’ he says.
‘OK.’
‘And in the daytime from the sun.’
‘There ain’t no sun,’ says Lenny.
He’s right.
‘It rises in the east.’
Of course. Already there is a definite glow over the horizon.
‘North is that way.’
‘What’s outside London?’ says Lenny.
Outside London is hills and wild country. I’ve never been there.
‘Will they trail us?’ I ask.
Tarquin nods. ‘Obviously.’
‘For how long?’
‘As long as it takes.’
‘Why? What use are we any more?’
‘Ain’t about us,’ he says. ‘It’s the stadium. If they don’t bring us back and roll our heads out to show that running away ain’t worth it, then everybody’s gonna try. They’re gonna say, “Careem’s a pussy. He can’t make nobody do nothing no more.”’
‘So how’re we going to get away?’
‘They’re going to say, “You can get out of Games City and go the hell where you like,”’ adds Tarquin.
‘And then,’ pipes in Lenny, ‘they gonna go and Careem won’t have no gangs left to boss ’bout, and he’s gonna have to feed hisself.’
‘Well, everybody gonna have to feed themselves. By the time they remember why they stuck together in the first place, be too late. Careem’ll be done for. Them other gangs from the south, them ones getting up a bevy gonna take over Games City.’
Lenny laughs. ‘And all because of Missa.’
‘He’s taken payment too. If he can’t deliver you to the General, he’s gonna be seriously messed up. Everything’ll go nuts.’
I smile. Seems like I brought Games City to a standstill, overthrew Careem and pissed off the General all in one go. Without even trying.
‘So we keep running till then?’ I say.
‘Got a better plan?’ says Tarquin.
The sun climbs over the rooftops. Grey light behind grey cloud. Snow falls. Light. Barely covering the street.
‘When we gonna get there?’ puffs Lenny.
Tarquin takes the suitcase from him without a word.
‘Is Scotland big?’ asks Lenny.
‘Pretty much,’ I say. ‘Lots of mountains.’
‘Where zactly we going?’ He gets out his book.
‘Hadrian’s Wall first.’
‘Adrian’s wall,’ says Lenny. His eyes, big, round, like he’s imagining a wall encircling him, twice as high as the one round Games City.
I don’t know what Hadrian’s Wall’s like. The name popped into my head. Nan told me about a different holiday she went on. Long ago. With her aunty, to Hadrian’s Wall. It was an ‘outing’ she said. ‘We had fun, made a picnic there with hard-boiled eggs.’
‘We’re going to have a picnic there,’ I say. ‘When we reach it. We’ll have hard-boiled eggs.’
‘Ain’t Hadrian’s Wall contaminated?’ says Tarquin.
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Not the bit I’m going to though.’
He looks at me, perplexed.
I shrug. ‘I’m not going to any contaminated bits – which bits you going to?’
He smiles.
I change the subject. I need time. I need to figure things out. For a start, I’m supposed to know the way there. Maybe I should try and wean them off the idea.
‘Scotland’s a long way,’ I start. ‘It’ll take months to walk there. Maybe you’re gonna like some other place better?’ I put it to them.
Lenny shakes his head, holds up the book. ‘I’m going to my cottage. My ducklings is waiting.’ Then after a bit, ‘And I got the Torch.’
We tramp on. The pavement’s broken. Weeds have busted through cracks. Soon the pavement ends. We walk in single file down the edge of the highway.
Nobody’s out. Who’d be on the road anyway? Everyone’s bunkered down, exhausted after trying to grow a few vegetables, saving their coupons, hoping the spring will bring back the bees.
Hoping the army will stop taking everything for itself.
Maybe there’s another reason people aren’t on the road. I try to remember if I ever heard anything about travelling outside city limits. If it was OK to do that.
I don’t think I did. The curfews at dusk are nationwide. That’s standard. Though in London you never see patrols. They don’t care about protecting us. They got their own deals with gangs anyway. I don’t know anything about daylight patrols.
‘Where do all these roads go?’ asks Lenny.
‘Everywhere,’ I say.
‘How many other places are there?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Lots, I guess.’
‘How many people live there?’
‘She don’t know,’ says Tarquin.
I don’t. Since the bombs, the population has wasted. There might be hundreds of ghost towns, thousands of empty homes. A vast prairie of dead fields.
I can almost hear Nan’s voice. ‘Aristaeus upset the balance of nature, brought death, brought starvation. Wasted populations when he chased Eurydice. He hunted her with dogs. She fled from him, ran along a river, where a snake, which lay hidden by the bank, bit her.
‘There is always a snake, Melissa. In every garden there’s always a snake. Run swiftly, run fast, my beautiful child – but be careful – be very careful.
‘Find your Orpheus.’
‘How far is it?’ asks Lenny.
I don’t answer. I just gaze at the skyline of buildings, pale grey. A thin film of snow. Early morning haze, blurring roads and streets and sky.
After a while Tarquin says, ‘That’s a thought.’
He’s quiet again for another half mile.
I’m glad I’ve got shoes. Bless you, Nan. Thank you for the shoes. How did you know I’d need them? Did your Gods tell you I’d go on this journey?
‘The army use some railway to go north, don’t they?’ says Tarquin finally. ‘Heard ’bout it from a guy at Games City. He rode down the country on a coal train. Said he got off at Clapham Junction.’ He drags the suitcase round a pothole. ‘If not for Careem, we coulda waited for that train.’
I don’t say anything. I don’t know where Clapham Junction is. I suppose a train might’ve helped. But what’s the point in saying that?
‘Never mind. At least this way the army won’t see us.’
I’m still trying to remember the rest of the story about the bees, about the journey through the underworld and carrying the Torch and something about never looking back.
There’s no guarantee the army won’t see us.
And I’m still wondering about the snake and the garden.
By midday we’re clear of the city. We navigate empty suburbs, tangled weeds, slabs of broken tarmac. Graffiti on crumbling walls. A rat running across the road. Some people are out. They avoid us.
We climb up on top of a rise. We take a breath and eat cold potatoes. Tarquin can’t settle. He takes out Nan’s old binoculars, scans the way we’ve come. He doesn’t say anything straight away. He doesn’t have to. He just freezes up and doesn’t move.
‘How far is it to Scotland?’ says Lenny.
‘Shush.’
Something’s up. I swallow my lump of cold potato. It gets stuck in my throat, I can’t speak properly. ‘What?’ I croak.
‘Gangers,’ Tarquin says.
‘Where?’
‘Let’s go. They got dogs. Trackers.’
We shoulder our packs and grab the suitcase and set off at a run down the hill.
‘Tracking us?’
‘Hard to say, but yeah, probably. Careem don’t give up.’
We slow to a jog, leave the suburbs behind, the endless streets of barred and boarded up dwellings. Half of them burned out, broken gates, dead bushes.
‘I’ve got a stitch,’ complains Lenny. ‘Can’t we rest?’
‘Just a bit further,’ says Tarquin.
My heart’s banging in my throat and not just because of the jogging. People could’ve seen us. They could be hiding in the houses. Everyone knows you can trade information.
We hit the open highway. No more houses. We slow down a bit. A huge rusted road sign blocks part of the road. It lies buckled, its blue paint flaking. ‘M1 THE NORTH Luton’ and a picture of a white aeroplane.
Tarquin looks at me.
I nod. ‘We’re going the right way.’
Pulling the suitcase gets harder. The road isn’t a road any more. Just an endless stretch of broken surfacing, lumpy, cracked. Little hillocks of asphalt peak out, followed by huge potholes furrowed in icy mud. My heart is still racing.
‘We need to get off this road,’ says Tarquin after a few miles. ‘I ain’t sure we’re allowed outside city limits without travel passes.’
‘What’s them?’ asks Lenny.
‘Papers.’
‘Why?’
‘So the army can control where you go.’
‘Like Careem?’
‘Bit.’
‘But if we cut across country, we’ll get lost,’ I say. I think of the other road signs up ahead, lying rusted and broken, but still pointing out directions.
‘We’ll keep going north,’ says Tarquin. ‘Trust me.’
We leave the road, climb a hillside. It’s hard going. Months of ice and snow have frozen the old plough lines solid. I nearly twist my ankle. Tarquin has to carry the suitcase. At the top of the hill we’re surrounded by woodland. Wind has felled boughs off dead trees. They block our path. Years of decay makes them treacherous. Up here the breeze is sharper, colder.
We trudge downhill through a meadow. Everything frozen. The snap of desiccated bracken. Over a fallen wooden gate. We skirt a pond, long weeds like tentacles. Across a bridge made of old rotten tree trunks. Not a bird. Not a rustle of anything.
Tarquin stops, raises the binoculars. Desolate countryside, once the greenest of pastures. Pale. Inanimate. In the distance, the skeletons of pylons. The seared remains of a tree.
‘This is no good,’ says Tarquin. ‘We ain’t gonna get nowhere like this.’
We head back to the M1. Old bramble everywhere. Lenny looks at the hedgerows and pulls at the woody shrubs. He finds a spider. Long dead, but still a spider. It was alive, not seventy years ago when the power stations melted down, not fifty years ago when we got out of the long winter. Maybe only a year ago. That’s hopeful.
It means there were two spiders and they found each other. They got eggs and the eggs hatched and the spiders fed the babies and that means there’s still more insects around – living insects, getting caught up in spider webs, and that’s got to be hopeful.
One day the country’s going to recover. One day, when Lenny’s bigger, there’s going to be lots of insects.
One day the bees will come back.
Crops are going to grow, not just in the biomes, not just food for the army. Proper crops for everybody. One day we’re going to emerge from the underworld and find that garden.
We go a bit slower. Lenny drags at Tarquin’s arm, shows him the spider again. Tarquin’s not interested. He just grunts, ‘Yeah.’ He looks through the field glasses, scans around, leads us back to the road. We take turns to drag the suitcase. Lenny pulls out his picture book from where it’s hidden down his vest. He opens it up and jams it against his chest to stop the wind flapping the pages. He points to a picture. It’s one of the garden scenes. There, at the bottom of the page, all nice and tidy in the grass, is a picture of a spider.
‘See,’ says Lenny. ‘it’s one of them.’
‘A spider.’
‘An’ I found one. That’s a sign, ain’t it? Tarquin, ain’t it a sign?’
Tarquin says nothing. Lenny drags at Tarquin’s arm.
‘It means we’re going the right way. We’re on the way. We’re going to find everything in this book,’ says Lenny. He does a little dance.
I don’t know what to say. I cross my fingers. Send a silent prayer up to all Nan’s Gods.
‘Don’t get your hopes up too much, Len,’ Tarquin says. He tugs Lenny’s locks. ‘One dead spider ain’t much of a sign to me.’
33
We hear them first, deep rumbling engines. The stones on the road shake. Trucks. Covered canopies. Sludge-green. Filth of ages. Rattling down the bumpy road at us.
It’s not good. ‘Hide. We’ve got to hide,’ I yell.
They come spluttering through the drizzle. Jerking their wheels round the ruts, ploughing through the pitted mud. The canopied frames swaying crazily from side to side.
‘Shit,’ I mutter. I grab Lenny’s hand. ‘Quick. C’mon.’ Tarquin moves fast. He grabs hold of Lenny’s other hand, shoves the suitcase into a ditch. Lenny freezes in terror.
‘C’mon!’ We haul him.
‘Hide.’
Half carrying Lenny, we race for a gap in the hedgerow. Dead shrubs, woody, brittle, tangle along the roadsides. I catch my footing, trip on brambles, go sprawling. Get up. Run.
‘C’mon.’
We dive through the hedge. Fall flat. Press ourselves into the undergrowth behind it.
The army convoy reach the ditch with the suitcase. They don’t stop. If they see it, they take no notice.
‘Just stay very still. Don’t move,’ says Tarquin.
Truck engines crank and rumble past us, like a distant earthquake.
‘Stay down,’ hisses Tarquin.
An image flashes through my head. A long-legged girl. Once beautiful. Her face disfigured. One eye black and swollen.
We lie there panting, hearts thudding. Through the gaps in the blackened hawthorn hedges we see a long line of vehicles winding down the hill. The first truck is well past us, past the gap in the hedge. Gunners are sitting on the tailboard with rifles. Thick black fumes choke out and gust up into the air.
Lenny looks at me, waiting to see if it’s OK. I raise a finger, place it over my lips, press myself flat in the dead undergrowth. Tarquin tries to quietly tease stems and straggle them over Lenny.
‘If they see us, I’ll get up. I’ll head them off. You stay. You carry on. Get Lenny to the cottage,’ he hisses.
I look at him, fix my eyebrows into a question.
‘I’ll find you. Whatever it takes. Leave a sign at Hadrian’s Wall or wherever. Lenny knows the Blah-Blah.’
