The Zeno Effect

by Andrew Tudor

  The criminal boss, who had by now grandiosely renamed himself Lord Malvern, recruited additional young men locally and took complete control of the region. He asserted ownership of all land within his self-proclaimed boundaries and treated those working the farms as his tenants. This was the basis of the orderly countryside that Irene and Julie had noted as they approached the hills – a kind of crude feudal system in which the local lord ensured the safety of his tenants and, in return, extracted value from them. Any malicious invaders were met with force and either repelled or, more often, killed, while those simply in search of sustenance and shelter were put to work as modern-day landless peasants.

  Needless to say, Brian and the other farmers resented this subjugation, the injustice of which was further underlined by the requirement that they address their principal exploiter as ‘his Lordship’. But in the circumstances there was little that they could do. The reins of power were entirely in his hands, backed up by a monopoly of the means of violence and the forcible introduction of a distinctive Malvern currency which they were obliged to use in all everyday transactions. Any English pounds in their possession had to be exchanged for Malvern dollars through his Lordship’s Estate Bank, pounds which he then used in trading beyond the Malvern boundaries wherever sterling still survived as legal tender. Unjust though all this was, insofar as it was ensuring a relatively stable environment in an increasingly unstable world, the population reluctantly accepted the new order as a necessary evil. At least, they reasoned, the desperate gangs that were elsewhere spreading across the English countryside gave the Malvern Estate a wide berth.

  In these circumstances Irene and Julie had been fortunate not to run into any of Lord Malvern’s men in the final stages of their journey. But there remained a problem in that as new arrivals they would be viewed as immigrants to be used as labour where and when they were required by the Estate. Brian thought that he could certainly retain Julie on the grounds that she was family and would be best employed working for him, so relieving pressure on the Estate’s reservoir of farm workers. Lucy could be claimed as her daughter – the little girl was already treating Julie as her surrogate mother anyway – but Irene presented difficulties. They finally settled on identifying her as an aunt who, as family, would also be helping out on the farm. To their relief the Estate’s agents accepted all their claims without demur.

  The other immediate problem was food. Three additional mouths to feed was a challenge, however sparing their appetites. There were still supplies coming into the area, largely courtesy of profiteering criminal networks in the Midlands, although there were also some long-established trading relationships with more legitimate businesses in Bristol. On the farm, of course, they were able to develop their own sources of food above and beyond what they grew or raised for sale. Rabbits, once a pest, were now a welcome addition to their diet, and Brian had been encouraging the warrens rather than seeking to destroy them. Any food source that could be concealed from the prying eyes of the Estate’s agents was doubly valuable, so a proportion of the farm’s hens, ducks and turkeys were allowed to run wild thus ensuring that their egg production could not be monitored. The boys, now aided by Lucy, were given the task of tracking down the birds and collecting their eggs.

  But Irene remained very much aware of the additional load that the new arrivals placed on the farm’s limited resources, so she still nurtured the possibility of getting to Scotland and to Sarah, hazardous though that journey might prove. Even if she perished in the effort, at least there would be one less mouth to feed here. Brian and Jean insisted that the farm could support them all since they now had the much-needed additional help from the two extra adults, but Irene remained sceptical. She could see shortages arising further down the line, especially when winter came, a point she made to Julie one day some weeks after their arrival. They had spent the morning working on various tasks around the farm and now sat outside in the autumn sunshine, eating their meagre midday snack of home-baked bread and cheese.

  “Yes, I know it will get hard,” Julie agreed. “But at least we’re accepted here and we’re well out of the Homeland and the risk of the Work Camps.”

  Irene nodded. “That’s true, I know. Even Lord Doo-Dah’s crooked regime is preferable to that. But I worry about it getting worse.”

  Contemplating that possibility they relapsed into silence until, squinting against the sunshine, Irene asked, “Is that someone coming this way across the fields? On a horse?”

  Julie looked in the direction that she pointed. “Yes it is. The agents checked us last week so it can’t be one of them. Besides, they don’t use horses.”

  As the figure drew nearer it resolved itself into a young man wearing an expensive-looking riding outfit.

  “Good god!” Julie exclaimed. “It can’t be.”

  Once in the yard the man dismounted, looped the horse’s reins around the gatepost and walked towards them.

  “Hello Jools,” he said. “I heard you were back so thought I’d come and visit.”

  “Con! I had no idea you were still around. I thought you were working for your dad’s firm in Bristol.”

  “Well, yes I am, but I have to come up here every so often to check in with the old man.”

  Julie turned to Irene. “This is Con,” she said. “Conrad. We were at school together.”

  “Hello, I’m Irene. Pleased to meet you.”

  Conrad turned towards her. “My pleasure,” he said, giving her a graceful bow as if meeting a dowager duchess at a refined garden party. “The local gossip says that you escaped the Homeland to get here.”

  “Yes, we did. Things were getting really scary over there,” Julie said. “What’s it like in Bristol?”

  He shrugged. “It’s so-so. You have to be careful where you go but it’s not as bad as some places that I’ve heard about. I stay on the boat when I’m there and we keep it anchored offshore for safety.”

  “Not The Cormorant?” Julie asked.

  “Yes, you remember her then?”

  “Oh yes.” She smiled at the memory. “I always thought that if you really wanted it named after a seabird it would have been better called The Shag, given what everyone used it for.” She turned to Irene. “We went there to party in our teens. A lot of fun.”

  “Not much of a party boat now, I’m afraid,” Conrad observed. “Marie’s living there permanently with her husband Stuart. Marie’s my sister,” he added in an aside to Irene. Then, turning back to Julie, “You know that she got married?”

  “Yes, she sent me some photos. A guy she met in Bristol, wasn’t it? But why have they gone to live on the boat? There must be loads of room in your parents’ house.”

  “If you’ve seen pictures I’m sure you can guess. You know what they’re like around here. Ingrained racists. Locals didn’t like the idea of her marrying a black guy, her being an heiress and all. So the two of them decided to leave. Can’t say I blame them. It was quite nasty at times.”

  “That’s awful,” Julie said. “But I can well imagine. My dad would have been among them.”

  “Yes, I think he was, but very politely. They were all very polite. Load of shits that they are.” He shook his head. “I only come here when I have to. But now you’re here… well, that’s different.”

  Julie smiled and, as Irene noted, blushed a little.

  “It’s really good to see you again, Con,” she said. “Come and visit us any time.”

  “I will,” he replied. “In fact, the reason I came over today was to find out if you wanted to go riding sometime. Like we used to.”

  “Lord, I’ve not been on a horse since… I don’t know when… probably just before we went off to university.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget. And I’ve got a very gentle mare for you. How about I bring her over tomorrow and we’ll give it a try?”

  Julie did not have
to think for long. “Yes, that would be fine. Let’s do it.”

  “It’s a date,” he said. “I’ll be here around this time tomorrow. OK?”

  Julie nodded and, after bidding an elaborate farewell to Irene, Conrad mounted up and disappeared across the fields.

  Irene looked at Julie and smiled broadly. “I see,” she said. “An old flame then?”

  “We went out for a couple of years in the sixth form,” Julie replied. “He was my first properly serious boyfriend. We had all sorts of plans, but then I went to university in Southampton and he went to Durham. We tried to carry on for a while but you know the way of those things. It’s a long way from Durham to Southampton and our lives just went in different directions. Then he came back to work for his dad’s company and I left to be a journalist.”

  “What does the company do?”

  “All sorts of import/export stuff. Some of it on the edge of legality I suspect. The family’s very rich, or at least they were. The boat that he mentioned – The Cormorant – it’s quite something.”

  “He seems… um …” Irene paused, not quite sure how best to put it, “… very upper class.”

  “You mean the way he speaks?” Julie nodded. “He got sent to a couple of expensive schools and was only dragged back here for the sixth form because his mother wanted him at home. It’s all surface. He’s a decent person underneath.”

  Irene was not so sure, but wary of allowing Julie to see what she really thought. After all, she had only briefly met the man. It was just that he had about him that public school aura of entitlement that she had encountered so often in her contact with government ministers and senior civil servants. Something that she had learned to distrust after years of bitter experience.

  As he had promised Conrad returned the next day, riding one horse and leading another. Then, a couple of days later, he showed up inviting Julie to dine with his parents who, he said, had seen some of her reporting and were eager to meet her again. Julie rather doubted this claim since she was certain that they would have disapproved of her investigative work, but when Conrad said that she was expected to stay over for the night she quickly agreed. Thus began a pattern of her spending two or three nights a week in Conrad’s company, mostly at his parents’ house but sometimes at the farm. On the latter occasions Lucy moved in with Irene, the little girl clearly disconcerted by her temporary expulsion from Julie’s bedroom. Conrad himself now spent less time in Bristol and, for all her misgivings, Irene had to admit that he appeared to be entirely serious about Julie and that she certainly seemed much happier.

  All this meant that Irene was left more on her own, time that she frequently filled by thinking about her daughter and granddaughter. Caught up in these melancholy reflections one winter morning, she rescued Hart’s CommsTab from the handlebar bag where it had remained since they reached the farm. A couple of hours on the charger restored it to life and, to her astonishment, when she switched it on it immediately displayed a text message from Hart, dated several weeks earlier. Brief and to the point, it read: ‘How are you two doing? If you get this, please reply. Don’t worry about the CommsTab being traced. That’s no longer a problem.’ Hastily Irene wrote a reply describing their flight from the Homeland and their present circumstances, then sent it off. A few seconds later the single word ‘Delivered’ flashed up. Now excited, she composed a message for Sarah which when dispatched also generated the ‘Delivered’ confirmation. Of course, the fact that one electronic device had managed to communicate with another did not mean that either of her messages would actually be read by anyone. But she could hope, and right now hope was something in short supply.

  As so many had predicted for so long, the Korean peninsula had finally become a nuclear desert. Pyongyang itself, once a city of extraordinary skyscrapers, had been razed to the ground in a series of nuclear missile strikes. After the Democratic People’s Republic had used the influenza crisis as an excuse to bomb Seoul, the world’s nuclear powers had collectively concluded that the only way to stop further escalation was to blast the rogue state out of existence. This they had done with neither warning nor pity. Missiles had rained down on town and country alike, raising a vast cloud of radioactive dust which settled over everything and, carried on the prevailing winds, drifted across the sea towards Japan. The few survivors of the blasts and the firestorms that followed found themselves in a grey, ash-covered world, stranded without food and without a future. For them, in their protracted terrible suffering, death by Zeno would have been merciful.

  7

  For a couple of months after Jenny’s funeral Hart maintained the monotonous rituals of his daily work. He checked security, he walked the boundaries, he attended futile meetings and he conducted one-sided conversations with the uncomprehending yak. Finally he concluded that he had to get away from Whipsnade, both from its memories and from its infuriating inhabitants. Jerry Rowlands tried hard to dissuade him, managing in the end to extract a promise that he would return. Hart did not feel that to be any great compromise. He had every intention of returning, if only to retrieve supplies and weapons from his secret caches. But for now he wanted nothing more than to be disconnected from everything that had happened here, to be alone and out on the road again.

  Initially he headed south, thinking to work his way along the northern border of the Homeland and assess the situation there. Increasingly, however, he found himself drifting east. This was not unreasonable in as much as the border ran west–east. But slowly it dawned on him that what he really wanted to do was to see the PeePees’ territory at first hand. This had always been his intention, he realised, he had just been unwilling to recognise it. How this related to Jenny’s terrible fate was not something that he wanted to reflect upon, although he knew that it did so in some tangled way deep in his subconscious. Instead, he rationalised the whole enterprise in terms of discovering what she would have reported for them – the scale of the PeePees’ army and the probable timing of its march west.

  He settled on a final goal of the PeePees’ notional seat of power, Chelmsford, and slowly he made his way towards the town. As he travelled he cultivated the appearance of a tramp, deliberately damaging and dirtying his clothing, allowing his beard and hair to grow unruly, and generally adopting the manner and speech of a frightened victim of society’s collapse. Occasionally he encountered other travellers with whom he might briefly pass the time of day or, more often, walk by with a nervous nod of greeting. Only once before reaching the environs of Chelmsford did he encounter anyone of interest. This was an elderly man busy in his winter vegetable garden. Hart stopped by his fence, offering a greeting and an observation about the inevitability of hard work for gardeners. The man looked at him warily, then, deciding that he was probably harmless, leaned on his spade and enquired where he was heading.

  “Nowhere in particular,” Hart replied. “I’m just drifting really.”

  “Well, best be careful drifting in the direction that you’re going,” the gardener replied. “You’ll be in PeePee country a few miles further on.”

  “PeePee?” Hart found playing ignorant a useful way of eliciting information.

  “The Peculiar People,” the man replied. “They started out as an apocalyptic sect but now they seem to be turning into an evangelical army.”

  “It’s a strange name,” Hart said. “Are they peculiar?”

  The man laughed. “I think you’d probably say so but that’s not the reason for the name. There was a nonconformist sect called that back in the nineteenth century and this new lot have stolen their identity. It comes from the King James version of the bible. Peculiar in the sense that we might say ‘peculiar to’ meaning ‘belonging to’ or ‘distinctive of’. So, people peculiar to God.” He paused looking blankly into the distance, then, shaking his head, smiled sheepishly and added: “Sorry, I used to be a teacher. You never miss the opportunity to display your erudition.”

  Har
t returned the smile. “No, that’s really interesting. So they think they’re a chosen people?”

  “They do indeed. Chosen to convert us all to the rightful way, I’m afraid, and with no compunction about how they do it. They’re really dangerous. They’ve got a very charismatic leader and they’re having a lot of success gathering desperate followers who want to guarantee their place in paradise before the final judgement arrives. So yes, if you’re going that way, take care.”

  “Thank you, I will,” Hart said, and raising a hand in farewell continued on his way.

  Over the next two days he edged slowly towards Chelmsford, finding little in the way of shelter and so spending chilly nights outdoors in his bivvy bag. As a result he was looking very much the worse for wear, sufficient certainly to attract askance looks from those few he encountered on the road.

  Before arriving at the town itself he came upon a large area of green parkland in which a considerable crowd was assembling. Some appeared to be wearing uniforms, dark shirts and trousers accompanied by a badged black cap for both men and women, while others moving among the crowd were clothed in what looked to Hart like a brown monk’s habit, tied at the waist, and with a cowl. Round their necks hung a pendant which, when he got close enough to see it clearly, was all too familiar: the two intertwined letters P superimposed on a crucifix.