by Andrew Tudor
He gestured at the empty plates in front of them.
“There’s still some national food distribution, though that may well change soon, and we’ve got a fairly extensive supply of non-perishable goods stored away. We’ve still got electrical power to cook with, which should hold out for quite a long time given that we have local hydro and wind resources and, hopefully, people willing and able to keep them going. When winter comes we’ve plenty of wood to burn for heat even if power supplies do become erratic. We have medical kits and Eleanor is an experienced nurse, which is just as well since there’s no doctor around here. We’ve got weapons to protect ourselves if and when that becomes necessary. We’ve plenty of fresh water coming off the mountains to replenish supplies if the taps run dry, and sewage from both houses runs to septic tanks which should continue working well enough provided that we manage to de-sludge them periodically.”
He paused to let all this information sink in.
“Given that lot,” he continued, “what timescale are we talking about? A few months? A year? More? We need to make a systematic assessment so that we can plan for the longer-term problems before they arise.”
The company looked rather shaken at this blunt summary and remained silent for a moment. Then, mindful of her increasingly strained vegetarianism, Eleanor spoke up.
“You didn’t mention your vegetable patch,” she said. “Can’t we make more of that? Expand it next door and maybe into Murdina’s land? Grow stuff to ripen for different seasons?”
“Yes, well, that brings us to the first problem,” Duncan replied. “Think about what you’ve seen around here so far, Eleanor. Not much in the way of vegetables growing, is there?”
“That’s true,” Eleanor replied. “But isn’t that because people haven’t bothered with gardening when veg has been so easy and cheap to get from the shops?”
“No, not entirely. Think again.” He smiled at her. “It’s because of where we are. Apart from the crofters there are three larger farms within five miles of where we’re sitting but you haven’t seen any fields of crops, have you? It’s the soil and the climate. There’s plenty of empty land but it’s only good for rough grazing or forestry. My vegetables are growing in raised beds which are filled with soil that I bought in for the purpose. I’m not saying that you can’t grow anything in the native soil. You can. But its productivity is very limited and only some crops will grow.”
Kenny was nodding agreement. “Yes, that’s dead right. It’s a West Highlands problem isn’t it? You’ll find arable crops over in the east where there’s better soil and conditions, even quite a long way north. Like the Black Isle just beyond Inverness, which is good for growing potatoes and cereals and stuff like that.”
“Right,” Duncan said. “And the Black Isle is on about the same latitude as Torridon over here in the west and there sure as hell isn’t much arable farming there.”
“Too true. I was brought up not far north of Torridon, near Poolewe,” Kenny added. “My family has some land and stuff there. But it’s only good for sheep and cattle and deer. Not for growing crops on any scale.”
“But isn’t that where those semitropical gardens are?” Sarah asked. “They certainly grow a lot of exotic plants. I went there years ago with my mum and dad.”
“Aye,” Kenny replied. “That’s Inverewe Gardens. But it took a huge investment of energy, time and money back in the nineteenth century to get the land fit for it. And it takes an awful lot of work to keep it going.”
“Still,” Ali said, “we don’t need that much land. Dad, couldn’t we buy in some more soil to make a few more raised beds?”
“I guess that might still be possible,” her father replied, “but I’m not certain. Apart from getting hold of the soil itself it’s difficult keeping lorries fuelled and on the road now.”
“Our hybrid wagon will run on all sorts,” Jimmy pointed out. “Electricity and different fuel types depending on what you can get. If you could find a source for the soil maybe we could transport it in that.”
“Certainly worth checking,” Duncan replied. “I’ll see if I can contact the people I dealt with before.” He thought for a moment and then continued. “But growing vegetables is only one of the problems and probably not even the most pressing. I’m more worried about safety.” He turned to Douglas and asked, “What’s the situation with Reivers and marauding gangs to the south of us?”
“Not too good I’m afraid.” Douglas looked gloomy. “As you know the Borders have been pretty well overrun, and the last I heard was that bigger and better organised groups had pushed up through the affluent suburbs to the north of Glasgow and on towards Loch Lomond.”
“So it’s only a matter of time before they get to us then?” Hugh enquired.
“Yes and no,” Douglas replied. “Once they’re into the southern Highlands the pickings are going to get slimmer. Settlements are more spread out and with much less worth stealing. I don’t doubt that we’ll get some small bands of scavengers up here but maybe not the really big gangs.”
At this, Kenny exchanged glances with Jimmy and then nodded, whereupon Jimmy spoke up.
“Kenny and me have been thinking a bit about the risk of Reivers coming this way. Obviously the further north we can get the less likely they are to reach us. It just wouldn’t be worth the effort for them. So we thought that if it got too dangerous here then we could all move to Kenny’s family land up north. In fact, we thought that him and me might soon take a trip up there anyway, just to check things out and mebbe transport some emergency supplies and store them.”
There was silence as the implications of all this sank in. At last, Ali spoke.
“So it’s possible that staying here may be only very temporary. We might have to move again soon.”
“I’m afraid so,” Douglas replied. “When we left Edinburgh three days ago things were already getting really bad. As well as the city’s own gangs there were Reivers who had worked their way up through the Borders, looting and killing as they came. If they haven’t already, the central-belt cities and towns will collapse into chaos soon enough. Then it’ll be a free-for-all. The further away we can get, the better it will be. Kenny’s home in the far north-west sounds ideal to me. I doubt that the gangs would even think of travelling that far.”
“And for good reason,” Duncan interjected. “It’s a hell of a long way to go without decent transport. It must be a couple of hundred miles from here. It would be a long trip for you all.”
After that it was a somewhat subdued group of friends who retreated to their beds, Sarah and Hugh with Charlotte, Ali and Douglas in Duncan’s house, Kenny and Jimmy with the others next door. After the evening’s discussion, Ali was troubled and found sleep elusive. She lay next to Douglas, staring at the ceiling and lost in mournful thoughts.
“You knew about Kenny’s family home when you invited them to join us, didn’t you?” she said at last, turning to face him.
“Yes,” he replied, a little sheepishly. “I thought it might give us another option when things got bad.”
“And I got angry with you for inviting them. I’m sorry.” She smiled at him. “Though you should have discussed it first.”
Douglas laughed. “That’s my Alison,” he said. “Never knowingly without the last word.”
They lay in silence for a while until Ali whispered with immense sadness, “You know my dad won’t come with us, don’t you? He’s determined to see out his life here and I won’t be able to persuade him.”
“I thought that might be so from what he said about it being a long trip. But you never know. Maybe we’ll be able to change his mind.”
“I doubt it,” she replied. And reaching out her arms added, “Come here. Just hold me please.”
Eva insisted that the two women stayed with her until Julie was sufficiently recovered from her ordeal to travel. She also said that she could ar
range a lift for them to a safe setting-off point for the final section of their route. Eva, it appeared, had influential friends, largely in consequence of having worked for many years as a computer scientist at GCHQ. As Irene told Julie, she had been an outstanding researcher much valued by her employers. But as the years went by she found it more and more difficult to make her daily activities compatible with her principles. She was, after all, working for a major surveillance agency, and as GCHQ became involved in what she saw as increasingly dubious monitoring of the domestic population she found her position becoming untenable. In the end she took early retirement but remained in Cheltenham and continued to give occasional technical advice to some of her former colleagues.
As it turned out, remaining in Cheltenham had proved to be a wise decision. In an irony that was not lost on Eva, the deepening Zeno crisis had made GCHQ into something of a saviour for the local population. The Homeland government, always paranoid about internal threats, had continued to fund the agency and had allocated a significant military force to protect it. Since so many of its workers lived in and around the town, that protection had been extended to the entire urban area. The soldiers had been ruthless in dealing with miscreants of any description with the result that those like Julie’s assailant, seeking to rob, rape and terrorise, now gave Cheltenham itself a wide berth. How long this would continue remained to be seen, dependent as it was on the survival of the Homeland and the continuing flow of resources. But for the present Cheltenham was an oasis of relative tranquillity in the midst of burgeoning social disorder, and as a kind of semi-detached outpost of the Homeland it was much less authoritarian and oppressive than was the case back in London. It was this situation that enabled Eva to arrange transport and safe passage for them out to the Cheltenham boundary.
True to her promise, on the third morning of their stay a military van drew up outside the house and two soldiers loaded in their bikes and baggage. They were driven through the town, which did indeed look remarkably normal with people on the streets and a number of shops open. Then they headed north-west until, at a junction with the motorway, they reached a guarded military barricade. Waved through, the van took them a little further into the countryside and then came to a halt.
“This is as far as we go, ladies,” one of the soldiers announced as he unloaded their bikes. “Show me your map and I’ll tell you where you are. You can make your way cross-country from here. But keep an eye out for armed groups. There’s a crooked guy running the Malvern area and he sends out occasional patrols.”
Their position located on the map, the soldiers waved goodbye and disappeared back the way they had come. Irene and Julie looked at each other, shrugged, and mounted up. Accidents apart, they expected to reach their destination by mid afternoon. The Malvern Hills were visible from where they stood, dramatically rising up out of the flat countryside like a huge wall, the main ridge stretching ten miles from end to end.
“That’s home,” Julie said, nodding towards the distant view. “Fortunately we won’t have to cycle all the way to the top.”
“Right then, best get going,” Irene replied, and pedalled off down the road with Julie struggling to keep up.
For an hour or so they made good if rather indirect progress, keeping to small backroads as much as possible and watching the distant hills slowly grow larger. Then, suddenly, something caught Julie’s eye at the side of the road and she came to a precipitate halt, almost tumbling her bike in the process.
“Irene, wait,” she shouted, and her friend stopped about thirty metres further on and turned round to look.
“What’s wrong?” Irene called.
“I saw something,” Julie said, wheeling her bike back down the road until, with a cry of dismay, she lowered it onto its side and plunged into the thick hedgerow.
Irene cycled back just in time to see her lifting a small figure out from below the hedge. It was a little girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, her clothes dirty and tattered.
“She’s alive and conscious,” Julie called as she cradled the child in her arms. “Bring some water and something to eat. Anything. She seems very weak.”
Hastily Irene grabbed a water bottle and retrieved her precious supply of energy biscuits from her handlebar bag, then rushed them to Julie who was now seated at the side of the road supporting the girl and murmuring encouragement in her ear. After she had drunk some water and been persuaded to eat one of the biscuits, the child simply lay with her head in Julie’s lap gazing big-eyed up at her rescuer. Julie stroked her hair which was matted and full of small twigs from the hedge.
“What’s your name?” Julie asked, receiving only an uncomprehending stare in response. “Do you live near here?”
The girl slowly shook her head and then looked from one to the other of the two women as if searching for some sign of familiarity. Finally she whispered something unintelligible and then, when Julie leaned forward better to hear, she spoke more clearly.
“Lucy,” she said. “I’m called Lucy.”
“Hello Lucy,” Julie replied. “I’m Julie and this is my friend Irene. Where’s your mum and dad?”
A momentary shadow passed across the child’s face. “Gone,” she said. “They’re gone.”
“Gone where?” Irene asked.
“Just gone away.” Her eyes filled with tears. “They got sick.”
Julie and Irene exchanged looks.
“Have you got any uncles and aunts? Neighbours?” Julie asked. “People to look after you.”
Once more the girl shook her head. “They all went away and left us. Travelling. That’s what we was called. Travellers. But then they went one way and my dad said we had to go a different way. And then mum and dad got sick.”
Exhausted by the effort of this lengthy speech she slumped back onto Julie’s lap. “Could we heat up some of that soup?” Julie enquired of Irene, who nodded and busied herself with the stove while Julie cuddled the tiny figure. “If we can get some decent food into her so she’s a bit more alert maybe we can figure out some way of carrying her on my bike.”
After a while the combination of hot soup and the comfort of Julie’s body warmth seemed to inject life into the child, and she sat up and paid more attention to her surroundings.
“You’re riding bicycles,” she said, with some semblance of enthusiasm. “I had a bike. It had a puncture and my dad was going to mend it for me. But he didn’t.”
“Would you like to ride on mine?” Julie asked, looking in Irene’s direction in search of inspiration as to how they might manage such an arrangement. Irene nodded and turned away to rummage through her panniers.
“That would be good,” Lucy said, with unexpected enthusiasm. “But where will I sit?”
“Aha!” Irene said triumphantly, pulling out a roll of strapping from the tent bag. “I’ve got an idea about that,” she told Lucy. “If we fix this sit-pad on top of the pannier frame” – she demonstrated what she meant – “then you can sit on that and we can fasten you to the seat and to Julie with these straps so that you don’t fall off.”
Lucy clapped her hands. “Yes, yes,” she cried, “I want to ride on the back.”
Julie looked rather more sceptical, but in the absence of any alternative proposal agreed to give it a try.
“But where will her legs go?” she asked Irene. “The panniers are in the way.”
“If we take as much out of yours as we can cram into mine then there’ll be some space for her legs. It won’t be ideal but she’s quite small so it should be possible. I don’t think there’s any other way unless we walk, and that’s not a good idea.”
After considerable fiddling on Irene’s part, and with enthusiastic if ineffectual help from Lucy, they at last had the seat rigged and the straps set up, the girl now firmly held in place.
“You have to hold on to me as well,” Julie told her. “Put your arms around me and
hang on tight.”
Obediently she did so, and with the baggage rearranged and repacked they set off once more towards the now much closer hills. The roads remained very quiet but the nearer they approached to their destination the more fields they encountered showing signs of cultivation. Occasionally they would see someone actually working on the land, and for the first time on their entire journey they saw cattle grazing freely. There was a general sense of orderliness which had not been apparent in the countryside bordering the Homeland, but they could see no direct evidence of how that order was sustained – no patrols, no road barriers, no sign of defensive emplacements. Were it not for the absence of vehicles, they could have been riding through a pre-Zeno landscape.
Now the hills were very close so Julie called a halt to check the map and decide on their most direct route to her family farm. Lucy, who had somehow managed to doze off on the back of the bike, awoke when they stopped moving and sleepily asked where they were.
“Not far now,” Irene told her. “Just need to hold on a little bit longer then we’ll be able to rest.”
“Or so we hope,” Julie murmured under her breath. Although they had sent a message to Brian, her brother, on the day that they left the Homeland, they had not received a reply so had no way of being certain of a welcome or that he and her parents would still be there when they arrived. Communications were so erratic now, even using Hart’s special CommsTab, that they felt that they had little choice but to take the risk on the farm being a safe destination. Julie knew that her brother had still been there a few months earlier, and almost anywhere seemed preferable to remaining in London and facing the Work Camps. But now that their arrival was imminent, carefully suppressed doubts were beginning to surface. It wasn’t as if it was only Julie at risk. In their different ways Irene and Lucy were dependent on her. Still, they would know soon enough, she thought, as they set off on those last few miles.
