Was it a sound? A smell? Some sensory substrata available only to my subconscious? I don’t know, but as we veered towards the second stretch of beach my neck hairs stood on end.
‘Ed. Stop. Take down the sail.’
‘What is it?’
I made for the guard rail and scanned the beach a few hundred metres from us. There were people on the sand, hundreds of them, and there was no way of seeing their faces. Yet my skin prickled with certainty.
‘They’re here. Alice and Arthur.’
Ed scrambled from the bow.
‘What? Where?’
‘I don’t know, but they’re here, I know it.’
He hesitated, giving me a doubtful glance.
‘Beth, I think we should …’
But I was already over the side.
‘Beth!’
The water was as warm as the air above it. I struggled for a while until I found my stroke, kicking only with my right leg in case my foot became unfastened. I heard a splash behind me, and Ed’s grunts as he caught me up.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he said, gasping.
‘They’re here, Ed. I’m sure of it. Understand?’
I ploughed ahead, leaving him kicking water behind. Soon he was alongside me again, matching my stroke.
‘OK,’ he said between breaths. ‘I believe you.’
The current took us towards some rocks, and we soon found ourselves in shallow, swamplike water packed with weed. There was no way to swim through it, so, with me leaning on Ed for support, we waded the remaining fifty metres or so until, finally, we fell upon the sand.
As I caught my breath, Ed made for the darkened forest at the top of the beach, returning a moment later with a stick. I took it and he helped me up. Dripping, we walked the beach.
There were fires on the sand as well as torches. People were sitting around them; families, couples and old folk dressed in clean clothes and looking well fed. I stared at everyone we passed.
‘I’m looking for my children,’ I said, voice quivering. ‘My children. They were taken from me. Have you seen them? They’re only small, please …’
But they only stared back, pulling their own children close.
Halfway along the beach the fires grew closer together and the groups more tightly packed. Up ahead was a row of small white buildings with electric lights. I felt it again – that tingle. This time it was definitely a sound that caused it, some far-off giggle that set my nerves on fire. I stopped dead, staring ahead.
Ed heard it too. ‘Alice?’
‘Hey.’
I looked up towards the trees, where a man in his forties with greying hair and a cropped beard was standing. He pointed at me, and I felt a hundred eyes do the same.
‘What?’
‘Yeah, you. I know you. You’re … you were on the Unity.’ His accent was English. He looked at the woman sitting by his fire. ‘Wasn’t she? She was on our boat?’
The woman nodded.
Hearts pounding, we limped up to meet them. The man looked us up and down in horror.
‘Where on earth …?’
‘You were on the Unity?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, we got here on one of the lifeboats. But you—’
‘Do you know a woman named Mary Higgs?’
‘Higgs?’
‘She was on one of the lifeboats too.’
His eyes danced around. ‘Higgs, Higgs, Higgs … no, afraid not.’
‘She’s on her own. She has a—’
‘Black bob?’ said the woman. She stood and brushed the sand from her dress.
‘Yes.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, I know her. She has a daughter and a son, they’re only—’
‘Our daughter and son,’ said Ed, through gritted teeth.
‘Eh?’
‘She took them from me,’ I said.
The woman’s face paled, mouth drooping with horror.
‘She told us their parents were dead. She said she was their aunt, she—’
‘Where is she?’ I said.
The woman pointed ahead. ‘She’s over there. They always sit close to the track.’
I followed the path of her finger to a crowded area near a path into the forest. People were looking, scratching their heads. I was sure I saw somebody pointing at me, talking to a woman in uniform, but something else caught my eye; a pale, terrified face curtained with black hair darting up the path, and two little legs hurrying after her.
A tsunami of adrenalin washed through me, and I was at the path before I knew it. Ed ran ahead. Voices were raised in protest, and I shook off an unfriendly hand or two. We were on the track now and I was running too, I swear it. There was no pain in my stump or in my leg, there was nothing at all but the hammering of my heart.
There ahead, again. A black flash and two bare legs running down a sidetrack. We followed it and stopped. Insects buzzed and chirped. It was dark in the forest but the way ahead was lit by flaming torches, and at the end was a large metal hut, whitewashed, with a sign above its door that read BOATS.
‘They’re in there,’ I whispered.
We walked towards it. I couldn’t see through the windows, so we opened the door.
Inside was a dusty workshop lit by a dim bulb. One wall was lined with a bench, and tools hung from nails above it. A stack of rusty bicycles leaned in a corner beneath a shelf lined with old books.
At the back of the room was a well-worn armchair, and in it, with Arthur on her knee, was Mary Higgs. Alice stood beside her with one hand in hers and the other at her lips.
Arthur looked up, blinked, and returned to the set of keys in which he was engrossed.
I tried to speak but my mouth wouldn’t work. I could hardly even move.
Ed leaped forward, but stopped when Mary raised her hand from behind Arthur’s head and showed us the hammer she was holding.
She shook her head.
‘Shut the door,’ she said. ‘And lock it.’
I finally found my voice.
‘Mary—’
She raised the hammer again, this time with a pleading look.
Shaking, I turned and closed the door, locking the padlock that hung from the latch. Ed was still frozen in the middle of the floor.
‘You should move back a bit,’ said Mary. ‘You’re scaring the children.’
Hesitating, Ed stepped back to my side. We stood there, straining like flies on flypaper. It took every ounce of willpower not to rush her.
With a placid smile, Mary looked down at Arthur. My eyes turned to Alice. I tried to smile, and raised a trembling hand.
‘Alice … hi … hi, darling.’
With one hand still at her mouth, Alice gave me a wary look, swinging at her hips.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘It’s Mummy.’
Mary shot me a look of danger at this.
‘Mary says you’re not,’ said Alice. To hear her voice, even so quietly and with such suspicion, brought untold joy. ‘She says you’re pretending.’
I looked between her and Mary. Mary’s warning look still held.
‘Alice,’ said Ed.
‘And what – what do you think, darling? Do I look like her? Do I sound like her?’
She pulled at her lips. Her mouth trembled. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
‘She said you left us. She said you didn’t want us any more.’
I glanced at Mary, somehow calmed by the flood of rage.
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘Mummy would never leave you. Or Daddy.’
She looked at Ed. Her eyes widened, spilling tears. ‘Daddy?’
Mary gripped her hand tightly, lifting the hammer and mouthing, ‘I’ll do it.’
There were voices from the track outside.
‘Mary,’ I said, ‘it’s over. There are people coming.’
‘It’s not over. It’s never over, not when you’re a parent. Full-time job, eh, Ally-Bally?’
She winked at Alice and tousled her hair. Alice tried to smile back, but she was shaki
ng now. Her knees wobbled.
The voices outside grew louder, accompanied by footsteps.
‘Give us our children,’ said Ed.
Mary’s carefree expression snapped to vicious fury. ‘Your children? How are they your children?’ She stood, tipping Arthur onto the chair as if he was nothing more than a bag of oranges, and raised the hammer. She gripped Alice’s wrist with her other hand.
Alice squealed: ‘Mummy?’
Arthur released a doleful cry, struggling to sit up.
‘Quiet!’ she screamed back at him. She turned back to Ed, crimson with rage: ‘I’m the one who’s been looking after them.’
‘And we thank you for that,’ said Ed carefully, with his palms out. ‘But we’re here now.’
She shuffled her feet, eyes suddenly flitting around the room. ‘Here? Where’s here? Where’s there? Ha! And who’s this, anyway? The husband, is that it?’ She looked at me, a nasty smile creeping onto her face. ‘Does he know?’
‘Know what?’ I said.
She winked. ‘About you and that tall fella. What was his name, now … Richard, that’s it. You had a little thing going with him, if I remember rightly. Naughty, naughty.’
‘What?’ said Ed, brow crumpling. ‘What little thing?’
I shot him a look. ‘She’s just trying to confuse us.’
‘Not surprising that I was left holding the baby all that time on the boat,’ said Mary. She looked innocently around, hammer still raised and Alice squirming in her grip.
‘Beth, what’s she talking about?’
‘Ed, it’s not true. I swear it.’
Mary sing-songed awkwardly: ‘If the cabin’s rockin’, don’t come knockin’ …’
Ed looked between us, bewildered.
‘Ed, please…’
I prepared myself for the indignation I was sure would come. But instead he raised his eyebrows and gave the kind of philosophical sigh that usually accompanies a crumpled lottery ticket. He turned to Mary. ‘I wouldn’t blame her to be honest. Richard’s a handsome man – I mean, I’m not saying I would, but if I had to, yeah, probably.’
The room was silent. Even Alice turned in surprise.
Mary’s grin wilted, her glee derailed. She didn’t notice Ed’s right foot shuffling imperceptibly forward an inch.
The door behind us shook. ‘Hello?’ said an officious, female voice. ‘Anyone in there? Open up!’
Mary stared at the door, gripping Alice ever tighter and raising the hammer above her head. Ed gave me a look; an encoded flash that seemed to say: ‘Go with me on this.’
‘OK.’
My voice shook with fear, but I tried to speak as breezily as I could.
‘You’re right. He is attractive. But it’s not true, Ed, just so you know. We never did anything.’
He shrugged, using the motion to advance his left foot. ‘Like I say, wouldn’t have blamed you. These things happen. God, remember that girl I used to work with, Laura?’
I frowned, moving my own foot. ‘Aye. Worked in HR. Pink hair.’
‘That’s her. She came on to me once.’
I glanced at Mary. Her eyes darted furiously between us.
‘Really?’ I said.
‘Yeah. It was at the Christmas party and she kind of, just, pushed her boobs against me and asked if I wanted to, you know …’
‘No,’ I said, with my best attempt at affront. ‘What?’
‘Do things.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Blimey, well done. She was pretty.’
‘Thanks. I was quite impressed myself.’
Mary’s eyes were wild now. She still hadn’t noticed our slow advance.
‘Hey!’ The door rattled and Mary renewed her grip on hammer and child. ‘This is Sheriff Hanley, open up in there!’
Mary bared her teeth. The hammer shook above her head.
‘Anyway,’ Ed continued, ‘I didn’t take her up on it. Although, I mean … truth is I might have done.’ He looked shamefully at his feet, moving them another few inches. I followed. ‘It was during one of our bad patches. My bad patches, I mean.’
‘We’ve both had them, Ed.’
Another shuffle. Mary looked ready to burst.
‘Get back,’ she said, suddenly noticing our feet. She looked at the floor as if was crawling with spiders. ‘Get back now!’
‘Open up in there or we’ll break down this door!’
‘The point is,’ said Ed, ‘I didn’t do anything because, apart from the fact that I love you—’
‘I love you too.’
‘It just seemed like too much bother, you know?’
‘Aye, right? Imagine the stress of keeping an affair going with all the other shite you’ve got to deal with. I don’t know how anyone does it. Must be an absolute nightmare.’
‘Right. Besides, I wanted to go home anyway.’
‘From the party?’
Another step. We were halfway to the chair by now.
‘Get back or I swear I’ll do it, I swear it, don’t make me do it. I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, get back!’
‘Mummy!’
‘Yeah, I –’ Ed turned to me ‘– don’t really like parties.’
‘Me neither. Sometimes I just want to be on my own.’
He smiled. ‘Me too.’
‘Get back!’ screamed Mary.
‘Oh, by the way, what was the name of that bar?’
‘What bar?’
‘The one we went to after our third date, that Sunday when I called you.’
‘You mean the day before you called me saying you missed me?’
A shuffle. So close now.
‘Yeah.’
‘That you couldn’t stand being apart from me?’
‘Aha.’
‘That I was—’
‘Ed, what was the name?’
‘Open this door!’
He smiled back. ‘The Elma.’
Unable to handle it any longer, Mary screamed. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
We both looked at her, only a step or two away. Her hammer was hanging. ‘I’m Mummy, and this is Daddy. Ed, now.’
Ed leaped for the hammer.
‘No!’ said Mary, whipping it down. I made a dive for Alice, tackling her from Mary’s hand and hearing a crack as metal hit bone. Ed yelled, wrestling Mary for the hammer. There was blood on his arm.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘They’re mine! You don’t deserve them! You don’t deserve them! They’re mine!’
Alice was shaking, her arms tight around my neck.
‘It’s OK,’ I whispered into her ear. ‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’
I pulled myself up the armrest and scooped Arthur from the chair, just as Ed, roaring, pushed Mary down into it.
‘And I’ve got you too.’
I fell down on the wooden floorboards, both children locked in my arms, in an embrace you would have had to snap my bones to break.
The door burst open and the workshop was filled with light and a hundred voices yelling: ‘Freeze!’
But all I could hear was the hearts of my children against mine, and Mary’s muffled sobs, and my whispers, endlessly rotating: ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’
Chapter 35
Sheriff Hanley was a stout yellow-haired woman in her seventies with fierce green eyes and a face that said she could be your best friend or your worst enemy: it was up to you. We were taken to one of the white buildings on the shore, floodlit now and full of baffled faces staring and muttering as we passed. Two of Hanley’s men made a brief attempt at prising Alice and Arthur from my grip, but there was no way any one of us would give it up.
‘Leave them,’ said Hanley, and I think she already knew.
So, while Ed had his arm looked at, Hanley questioned me with Alice and Arthur still on my lap.
Alice did most of the talking.
When Hanley had run out of things to ask, she lit one of her Winston cigarettes and sat back in her chair. She expl
ained that times were different now. There were no more identity databases, and they certainly didn’t have any reliable means of testing DNA. Decisions had to be made on trust, she said, and this was a fine thing in her opinion. It reminded her of how things had been when she was a child. She grew up in the 1950s, just like Curtis, though I’d be willing to bet their experiences of that divisive decade were vastly different.
So she had to make her decision based upon the evidence she had, which was the recollections of those who had been on the Unity, and of her own instincts about Mary Higgs since she had arrived in Daytona.
‘Always thought she was a little cuckoo, that one,’ she said.
But most of all she was basing her decision on this babbling girl before her, Alice, who was damn sure this woman and this man were her parents, and that Mary had lied to everyone, but that it wasn’t her fault because of what she was.
Which only left me with one job: to describe to Sheriff Hanley what, on God’s green earth, a wanker was.
Daytona was everything you would expect it to be. Warm and clean, with good food and children everywhere. It was like a holiday camp, only run by the guests. Everyone had a job to do.
Hanley gave us a tour the next day and explained that hundreds of places like this had been set up along the Florida coast as far as Miami, the Keys, the Everglades and up as far as Tampa. She didn’t know for sure what was happening elsewhere, but she had heard that Louisiana was even more of a swamp than it had been before, and Texas was to be avoided at all costs.
With no longer any government to speak of, it had been down to local groups to repair the destruction of the strike and the subsequent floods that had ravaged the American coast. Perhaps this was how it had always been anyway, Hanley said.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, as she led us along a row of small huts in the forest. ‘I ain’t no an-ar-chist or nothing, but in the end it’s always down to people to make things work, ain’t it? Here we are, home sweet home.’
She showed us our house, a clean two-bedroom unit with a hole for a toilet.
‘No running water yet but we’re working on it. I’ll be by to talk about how you can help us, work detail and such, but you folks get yourself settled. Better get that boat of yours moored.’ She curled her lip at my foot. ‘And get that thing seen to at the hospital as well. I don’t want no infection in my facility.’
The End of the World Survivors Club Page 32
