by Frank Tayell
“If you’re just going to start listing words, I’ll get you a thesaurus,” Kim said.
“Why did she do it?”
“You don’t have much experience of teenagers, do you?” she said.
“Not since I was one,” I said.
“And that was in an all-boys boarding school. Look, there are only about thirty kids here around her age, and they’ve formed their own cliques. She wanted to fit in, but she’s the latecomer, the outsider. She needed to impress them. How better than with this? It’s proof that she did what they didn’t. She survived out there on her own. She rescued Daisy long before we found her. She wanted the other kids to know. Be thankful, that after all she’s been through, this is the way she’s acting out.”
“She did this just to fit in?” I asked, confusion replacing anger
“Not entirely,” Kim said, “and not consciously, but that’s the motivating factor. She lost everything, Bill. Her parents, her home, her friends, even her childhood. She’s only thirteen, and finds it hard to articulate, so she puts on a cheerful exterior. Underneath, she’s a roiling cauldron of rage.”
“Wait, you knew about this?”
“I found out last night,” Kim said. “I was going to tell you after we’d had breakfast.”
“Why not yesterday?” I demanded, anger returning to the fore.
“Because we were having such a nice, normal evening,” she said. “I had this crazy notion that you weren’t going to take the news well. I can’t think why I imagined that. Look, Bill, you weren’t out in the wasteland alone. What you went through, I went through too, and what I went through on my own was far worse than the betrayal you suffered. If anyone should feel upset about having her secrets told to the world, it’s me. And I’m not happy. I’m certainly not happy with the way you portrayed me, but it’s done. You wrote it, Annette copied it, people have read it. There’s little point arguing over what’s done.”
Kim was right, of course. I’d been stuck in my flat during the evacuation and those chaotic months that followed. At the time, I thought I was hard done by, but in comparison with what she and Annette had experienced, I was lucky. They both went on the evacuation, and survived it and the worse that came after. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but right then I was too angry to consider the truth in her words, or how the amusement had dropped from her voice.
“This can’t be excused,” I said. “And it can’t be ignored. It was just wrong. What she did was wrong!”
“I think,” Kim said, “you need some time to work out precisely why you’re upset. Watch Daisy.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“To find Annette,” she said.
She left and I didn’t follow. Considering all I’d said, it was the best decision I’d made that morning. Though we’d travelled together, fought together, and saved one another’s lives, we weren’t a family. Not quite, not yet, and not in the way the word would have been used a year ago. For good or ill, though, we were stuck with one another.
Daisy was at her quarter-size plastic table next to the wide windows that looked out on the overgrown garden. She was stabbing a paintbrush at a sheet of paper in a lacklustre fashion.
“It’s all right, Daisy,” I said. “If we didn’t love one another, we wouldn’t bother to argue.” I pulled out a kitchen chair, sat next to her, and stretched out my leg. The new brace was comfortable in a way that only emphasised how makeshift were those I’d made myself. The leg is a few inches shorter than it should be. Dr Knight suggested re-breaking it so it could set properly. I didn’t need to spend long remembering my months in a cast before giving a definitive no. My hand gave me the most bother. The stumps of my missing two fingers itched, ached, and occasionally seeped. I resisted the urge to scratch.
“What are you painting?” I asked. “Is it a house?”
“No.”
Daisy had few words, or few that she shared with us. It was hard to be sure of her age, but I’d have said she was around two. That was what we were talking about the previous night. We were going to pick a date for Daisy’s birthday and plan a real celebration. An event that would mark the beginning of our new lives in our new world.
“Are they trees?” I asked, wondering if the green paint had been chosen for a reason other than that it was the one closest to her hand.
“No.”
“A boat?” I asked, taking a stab in the dark.
Daisy turned her head to give me a frown as if she was wondering how I could be so stupid not to immediately recognise what it was, then she turned back to her paint. I sighed, stood, and went over to the kettle.
“It’s nice to have a kettle again,” I said. “A cup of tea always puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?” Daisy didn’t reply. “Then we’ll go back to the baker’s and see what a birthday cake would cost.”
Daisy turned her head, this time with far more interest.
“That’s right,” I said. “A birthday cake.” I thought back, but couldn’t think of an occasion when we’d have used those words during our time in the wasteland. “Do you remember cake? Or was it the baker? Baker? Ah well, wait until you see what a cake is. Of course, that brings us back to the question of how we’ll pay for it. There’re only eight teabags in the box.” I placed one in a cup. “I don’t think we’ll trade for it. Maybe there’s some work we can do for Mrs O’Leary. Then again, what work am I qualified for?”
The water boiled, and the kettle clicked off at the same time as the back door opened.
“Morning, Daisy,” Sholto said. “That’s a great picture. It’s a bird, right?”
“B’rd!” Daisy said, stabbing the brush at the paper for emphasis.
“Where’s everyone else?” Sholto asked as I tried to work out what parts of the blob were the wings.
“We had a row. Annette copied my journal and distributed it across the island.” I gave him the edited highlights of the confrontation.
“You want my advice?” he asked, and continued before I could say no. “Apologise. Always apologise and swiftly move on. Life is far too short to let an argument fester.”
“Kim said much the same thing,” I said. “Where were you?”
“Walking,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“You’re thinking of America again?” I asked.
“Of the people,” he said. “A house is a house the world over, but the people? Now that I’ve time, I can’t help but wonder what became of them. I don’t know if they’re still holding on, but if they are, they could be dead tomorrow. Anglesey might be the refuge they need. I was hoping Sophia Augusto might give me a ride over there, but since she’s gone south to help tow that hospital ship back, I have to wait. That’s what’s getting to me, the waiting.”
“The Harper’s Ferry?” It was a U.S. Navy hospital ship that the Vehement had stumbled across when it was hunting Quigley’s submarine. “There’ll be American crew on board who’ll want to know what happened in the States,” I said. “I’m sure someone will organise an expedition.”
“Yeah, me,” he said.
“Ah. You’ve decided to go, then?”
“I think so,” he said. “Someone has to. No, it’s not that. I have to. I have to know. I have to see it for myself. I won’t be able to rest until I do. Is there any coffee?”
“Not much. That’s something we need to discuss, but it’ll wait until Kim gets back with Annette. In fact, that might be a good way of framing my apology.”
I drank my tea, and he his coffee, talking around his return to America without ever explicitly mentioning it. I’d spent my life thinking I was an orphan. Having discovered I had a brother, I was reluctant to see him disappear, but wouldn’t be so selfish as to ask him to stay.
The unfamiliar sound of an engine outside was a welcome relief from the increasingly awkward conversation. We both hurried to the front door. Petrol was scarce on Anglesey, and though there are plenty of abandoned cars, this was the first time I’d seen a vehicle actually b
eing driven. A minibus had pulled into the drive. It looked as if there were only two occupants. George Tull and Gwen, both of whom we’d first met with Donnie, Francois, and the others on the Welsh beach before I set out to confront Quigley.
“Is Kim here?” George called out, through the open passenger window.
“No. Why?” I asked, taking a step nearer.
“Where’s she gone?” George asked.
“No idea,” I said. “Why?”
“Shame,” George said. “I wanted to borrow her rifle. Her, too.”
“What for?” I asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in my tone.
Gwen stuck her head out of the window. “A group went over to Caernarfon on a supply run,” she said, speaking quickly. “They were due back this morning, but radioed in to say they were trapped. The radio went dead. We’re trying to get a rescue together.”
“By driving around in a minibus?” Sholto asked.
“Are you two busy?” Gwen asked, ignoring the question.
“I’m watching Daisy,” I said.
“Bring her,” George said. “You can leave here in Menai Bridge. She’ll be safe. Come on.”
“I… I…” I began.
“People are in danger,” Gwen said. “They might already be dead. There’s no time for equivocation. Get your daughter, get your weapons, and get in the van.”
“We’re the help that comes to others,” George said. I met his gaze, saw the concern, and remembered the many times I’d hoped for a rescue that never came. I nodded.
As Sholto ran to grab his rifle, I scrawled a quick note for Kim, grabbed Daisy, my weapons-belt, and, after the briefest of hesitations, the fire axe I’d left in the umbrella stand. Pausing only to note that Kim’s rifle was gone, and assuming she’d taken it when she’d gone after Annette, I limped out to the minibus. I reached it just as Sholto appeared from around the side of the house, his rifle slung across his shoulder.
“How quickly things change,” I murmured. “Or change back.” I got into the bus.
“Hi, Bill, Sholto,” Gwen said, adding more brightly, “Hello, Daisy. There’s no child seat, I’m afraid, so hold onto her. Shouldn’t be a problem, it’s not like there’ll be any other traffic.”
“So what’s going on,” Sholto asked, as Gwen reversed back onto the road.
“A group went across to the golf club at Caernarfon yesterday afternoon,” George said. “They were meant to find out if the electric golf carts were still there, do a recce of the town, and come back with this morning’s tide. They radioed in to say they were surrounded. The signal was cut off halfway through.”
“What can you expect?” Gwen muttered. “Those sets aren’t fit to be called scrap. Most of the good radio gear was fried by the EMPs. A lot of the sets that were on the boats were dropped overboard when the rescue operation began, along with anything else that took up space that could be occupied by a person. Besides, the radios were useless. I mean, who were we going to call? Since then, our biggest fear’s been Quigley’s sub, so we had to maintain radio silence. We lost most of the military gear a couple of months ago near Cambridge. That leaves us with a handful of sets that have a theoretical range of fifty miles, but even with the aerial, I’d say it’s less than twenty. And it’s line of sight. A message from Caernarfon has to be relayed to Menai Bridge, and from there to Holyhead, and then out to anyone who’s close enough to come to the rescue. Since everyone except us is using sail, that rescue will be too long in coming.”
“Where’s Caernarfon?” Sholto asked.
“It’s on the mainland at the southern end of the Menai Strait,” George said. “About nine miles south of Menai Bridge and Bangor.”
“It was famous for its castle,” I said. “The exterior was restored, but the interior wasn’t. There’s an airfield as well, isn’t there?”
“Not really,” George said. “A 747 crashed into it. There’s a lot of metal and rubble and not much else. Caernarfon, though, is a reasonably large town. Heather Jones has visited there a few times, but we’ve done no systematic looting as of yet. It’s the golf carts that’ll be the real prize. There’s a couple on Anglesey, but we need more.”
“Because we have the electricity to charge them,” Gwen said. “But not much petrol left.” She glanced at the dashboard. “Really not much at all.”
It wasn’t even half an explanation, but I was happy to sit back and enjoy the unfamiliar familiarity of being a passenger in a motor vehicle. Sholto wasn’t.
“Who’s Heather Jones, and why are you driving around looking for Kim rather than taking some of those French Special Forces on a rescue mission?” he asked.
“It’s all the same answer,” George said. “I was specifically looking for Kim because I wanted a sniper, and she comes with her own rifle. As to everything else—”
“What about them?” Gwen interrupted as we passed a field with five people hacking at the ground with pick-axes. “You want to stop and ask them to come along?”
“Is that Willow Farm?” George asked. “No. Best not. They swore off violence, didn’t they? There’s no time to persuade them.”
“What about the Parsons?” Gwen asked. “It’s the next turning.”
George leaned forward. “No. It’s five miles to their farm, and then there’s that dirt track. They’ll be tending the fields, won’t they? Call it another couple of hours for them to get their gear and get ready. No, it’ll take too long, and we’ve wasted too much time. Just get us to the boat.”
“You said the people at Willow Farm swore off violence, what do you mean?” I asked.
“It’s a long story,” George said. “And not a pleasant one.”
“And one that can wait,” Sholto said. “Why isn’t the rescue being left to the Special Forces?”
“In short,” George said, “because most of them aren’t here, nor is anyone else I’d usually rely on. Heather Jones works out of the town of Menai Bridge at the northern edge of the strait. With the news of Quigley’s death and his submarine’s destruction, she took her boats out to survey the nearby coast. They won’t be back until tomorrow at the earliest. Leon and half his soldiers have gone with her, spread out on the various ships, along with the handful of other military personnel who’d usually be good at this sort of thing. Francois and the other half of the Special Forces are going to Svalbard with Miguel and his crew. Mister Mills, Sophia Augusto, and their crews are somewhere in the south Atlantic. Chester and Bran are out on the mainland checking on the safe house along with most of my railroad people. When you discount the doctors, the vets, the engineers, and all the others who can’t be spared, there’s not many left. I tried to recruit a few people from the boats in the port, but no one stepped forward.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Most ducked back into their cabins, or simply didn’t step out of them.”
I mulled over the implications of that as we passed the skeletal ruins of a wind turbine.
“What happened there?” Sholto asked.
“Cluster bombs,” George said. “Don’t know if they were aiming for the island, for the bridge, or trying to drop them in the sea. Hundreds of them fell. You must have seen the damage? They got the turbines, and it’s a miracle they didn’t hit the power plant. Got the bridge, too.”
As we drove across the island, I was less interested in the bomb damage than the empty farmland. I saw smoke from a chimney and what I was almost sure was a horse and rider. Otherwise, Anglesey was empty of everything except birds, erupting from hedges and rooftops, lampposts and trees, abandoned cars and a half-collapsed electricity pylon.
“Menai Bridge coming up,” Gwen said.
“I thought you said the bridge was destroyed,” Sholto said.
“It’s a town,” I said. “On the Anglesey side of the bridge that crosses the Menai Strait. Had a population of around three thousand. The principal employer was the University of Bangor, which ran a campus on Anglesey. It was a battleground constituency during the last election,” I added.
My first impression was that the small town was somehow different from the area around Holyhead, though I couldn’t immediately place why. Some of the broken windows had been boarded up, some front gardens dug over, but just as many had been left to weeds. Abandoned cars had been pushed onto pavements. Smoke drifted from a few chimneys, though most were still. As Gwen pulled the minibus to a halt at the edge of a car park, just short of the quay, I realised what was different.
“It’s clean,” I said.
“What?” George asked.
“Nothing.”
I hadn’t realised how filthy Holyhead had become until I had this town as a comparison. In fairness to the ferry port, it was in better condition than the ruined cities in the wasteland, but other than around the few businesses, the school, and clinic, it was covered in rubbish. Dirt, wood, leaves, plastic, and cardboard had been pushed aside or trampled underfoot. Even the harbour was filled with discarded clothing and other floating jetsam from the time before the electricity was restored. Menai Bridge was clean. The roads and pavements were covered in leaves, but they looked as if they’re recently fallen. There was no paper, plastic, or other rubbish mixed in with the leaf litter, and the gutters had been swept.
“Come on, that’s our boat,” George said, stiffly pushing himself out of the van.
“What about Daisy?” I asked.
“The Duponts will look after her,” George said.
“Who?”
“Giselle and Pierre.” George pointed across a car park packed with office desks and classroom tables on which were overflowing trays of leafy plants. Above each tray was the oddest assortment of pipes and hoses, held aloft by a ramshackle scaffolding of ladders and washing line. It was a crude outdoor farm, yet a successful one judging by the abundance of greenery. I wasn’t sure what was being grown, but it was being tended by an elderly couple that made George seem youthful by comparison. Their balding heads were covered in a hat for him, a headscarf for her. Their hands were coated in soil, and their backs bent by age as much as by work, but their eyes lit up when they saw Daisy.
“Can you look after the baby?” George asked.
