I began to wonder why the driver of the No. 68 bus had abandoned his vehicle at the beginning of his journey with his fuel tanks still full. What had happened here was probably just another small incident of many millions in the city, now almost lost to the Roamers and the other street gangs.
We were all feeling pretty good with ourselves as we headed home with our prize and fuel on the trailer. We had successfully salvaged a diesel generator to alleviate our difficult situation, especially with winter approaching fast. We had solved at least in part the problem of obtaining fuel. Maybe we just got careless.
As we turned the next corner, taking us back into Norwood High Street, now a sad place of burnt-out shops, my eyes widened with horror. He ran straight out in front of us, clutching a hold-all. VENUS PEBBLES!! We almost knocked him down. Father’s quick reaction saved him. His eyes were white with terror. When we heard them somewhere else very close, we were suddenly apprehensive.
“Roamers!” uttered Wendy fearfully.
“Help me!” he pleaded. “Help me!” He began banging on the side desperately.
“Dad, we can’t just leave him here,” said Wendy in an anguished voice.
“Door!” barked dad, keeping his foot on the accelerator pedal.
Wendy and I opened the rear door briefly and bundled the startled man into our Land-Rover unceremoniously as we started to pick up speed.
“Thanks,” he gasped gratefully.
But there was no time for introductions as a dozen or so Roamers spilled out of a side street. They were in an ugly mood. Father didn’t slow down as he shifted through the gears. He remained calm. Calmness is essential in sticky situations like this, keeping a cool head on your shoulders. One, who was armed with a stave, was raising it. He never got a chance to use it. He made no attempt to jump clear as we raced towards him. He was either a brave soul or a fool. I thought the latter. As we hit him with a sickening thud a moment later, he was tossed up into the air like a lifeless rag doll. When his broken body hit the ground, I saw a lot of blood. We sped out of there like bats out of hell.
We rode in silence for awhile.
Wendy and I studied the stranger out of the corners of our eyes. He was a thin boy barely out of his teens with a shallow complexion and short, neat hair that suggested something rather curious to me; there was still a hairdressers left open in his area wherever he came from. Civilisation was not yet dead. He was also smartly-dressed wearing a brown suit and smelled of scented soap and water. He reminded me of an office worker. His tatty hold-all remained the mystery.
“What were you doing out alone on the streets, Son?” asked father, glancing in his mirror.
“I’m from out of town, Sir,” he replied politely. “I came to London searching for my aunt and uncle. They’re my only surviving relatives. My parents were killed in the Oxford food riots.”
I quizzed, “Did you find your aunt and uncle?”
He shook his head. “The street where they had lived all of their lives had gone, burned to the ground by the Roamers or other street gangs. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Then the Roamers found me.”
Wendy spoke, “Then we found you.”
She got a weak smile out of him.
“By the way, what’s your name, Son?” inquired father, keeping his eye on the deserted road ahead.
“Mark Taylor, Sir.”
“Well, Mark, you’re welcome to stay with us for awhile until you’ve got yourself sorted out,” daddy kindly offered.
He looked relieved. “Thank you, Sir.”
“We have a spare room.”
Wendy and I exchanged glances and smiled. But what would mother and Tommy make of Mark Taylor?
When Mark Taylor told mother the same story, she fussed over him, though Tommy remained wary and suspicious of the stranger from Oxford. So was I.
I showed Mark Taylor up to the ‘spare room.’
We stood in the middle of the gloomy attic. There was a mattress in the corner.
“This used to be my father’s observatory in another time,” I revealed. “He’s a keen amateur astronomer and a scientist. He warned of the coming of the comet but no one believed him till it was too late.”
“Oh?”
“Of course, it isn’t the Ritz,” I said in a superior tone, “but it’s better than lying in the gutter somewhere with your throat cut.”
Mark Taylor touched his throat. He shivered involuntarily. He had a haunted look in his eyes as he remembered briefly.
I crossed to the skylight, gazing across the rooftops. “You also get an excellent view of the burnt-out houses from here.”
He muttered something under his breath.
I turned away from the skylight, catching him with my steely gaze.
“Rule number one in this house: Always keep the shutters closed at night,” I stated firmly.
He smiled nervously. “I think I can remember that.”
“Do.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Jade, I-I do appreciate what your family has done for me.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Mark Taylor, but don’t think this is a cushy, little number you’ve just fallen into here,” I warned sternly. “Everybody is expected to pull his weight in this house.”
He murmured.
I intimidated him. I was enjoying myself. Wendy came up with some bedding, making eyes at him, spoiling it.
Mark Taylor rolled up his sleeves and helped us to pull the heavy mobile generator around the back of the house. We parked it by the side of the outhouse.
Father puffed out his cheeks. “If this thing is in full working order, it will give your mother the electricity for her fridge/freezer.”
“And lighting?” I suggested.
“Yes, lighting too,” agreed father, “and a lot more besides.”
I also had something else in mind.
After dad had connected the generator up to the dead mains in the house, we waited outside nervously. I kept my fingers crossed. When he punched the start button, the diesel engine spluttered into life. We cheered and clapped loudly.
Wendy and I raced indoors, turning on the lights in the kitchen and the living room, the dining room and daddy’s study too. The lights, which hadn’t been turned on for a long while, flickered briefly before they came on, filling the gloomy rooms with light. We shrieked with excitement, running around the house, turning on all the other lights. It had been a long time. This was a small triumph for civilisation.
Mother had got her fridge/freezer back. Now all she needed was something to put in it.
I wasn’t sure about this.
In fact, I was a bit nervous about it. I hesitated before I pushed the plug into the wall socket. Would it blow all of the fuses in the house? I bit my lip as I dropped the switch. It didn’t. I moved the tuning dial on my radio, hoping to get a station in the UK or anywhere else in the world that was still broadcasting to the masses. I miss TV. The stations shut down ages ago. I didn’t get anything on the radio except atmospheric static, disappointing me; however, I refused to give up. I tried FM, medium and long wave. I went up and down the entire wavelength several times, still nothing. Someone had to be out there broadcasting something, anything, I thought dejectedly. Then I had a flash of inspiration.
I found a length of wire in father’s toolbox. I made an aerial out of it, hooking it up on the curtain rod. I put my ear to the speaker as I slowly moved down the wavelength once more, praying that I would pick up something. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when I picked up a faint voice through the noise of the atmospheric static. I lost it again, frustrating me; nevertheless, I persevered, gently nudging the dial back to where I thought that I’d picked up something.
“This is the BBC.”
I thundered down the stairs, sounding like a small herd of young elephants. When I burst into the living room, Wendy looked scared, Mark Taylor, who sat beside her on the settee, apprehensive, mother b
emused and father puzzled.
“Roamers?” asked Wendy fearfully.
I shook my head.
“What?”
“The BBC,” I announced breathlessly.
We gathered around my radio excitedly, listening to the faint, scratchy voice telling us the world news:
“The Prime Minister has been assassinated.”
11. WOLVES!
I smiled slyly when I heard the other enter the bathroom. I knew that it was he. I heard him cough.
I sat on the sill in my room with the shutters open, gazing out of the window, observing the outside world in the early morning. The high, deep wall that protected our property made me feel secure at night. Daddy recently put spikes and barbed wire on top of the wall to dissuade the foolhardy from climbing over it. It’s also electrified! Daddy switches off the current every morning, so we can check it for dead sparrows and other garden birds. If someone did try to climb over the wall while we slept, the alarm would wake us. That comforts Wendy and I. None of this was possible before we had the generator, and although it shuts down at 8 p.m. precisely every evening because daddy insists upon it to save wear and tear and fuel, our storage batteries, which we ‘borrowed’ from the same abandoned vehicles, kick in. We use our generator to recharge them every morning. I use a low energy, long-life night light in my room. It’s like a coal bunker with the shutters closed otherwise. We ‘found’ the light bulbs (several dozen cases) in a derelict cash and carry warehouse on one of our recent foraging trips out. Wendy has gone back to sleeping in her own room.
I listen to the BBC in the early hours, though the transmissions are erratic and intermittent. There’s no music or light entertainment. It’s mostly news, and it’s all bleak too. The army has lost control in many parts of the country. Many have deserted. Parliament was sacked by an angry mob not so long ago, forcing the government to move to Cambridge where it’s safer, though that’s a laugh. The government or what remains of it no longer controls much of the country. The VPF and the gangs do. The Royal Family has fled to Canada. But is it any better there? The new President of the recently formed Confederate States of America was recently assassinated, the third in as many years, though with all the phone lines down, the news was old news. The ‘new’ president was in fact killed sometime ago.
When I looked down the road, I noticed the removals van outside 32. They were loading the furniture. They were getting out. They were quitting. They were giving up. They’re the third to quit in a month, but we ain’t. We’re staying put. Father is very determined about that. As a family, we fully support him. This is our home. This is where we’ll stay. Besides, it may not be any safer in the countryside. Isolated farms are an easy target for the drifters and vagabonds. The removals van moved out escorted by a white, VPF vehicle.
Mark Taylor’s eyes widened with surprise and alarm as I wandered into the bathroom in my dressing gown. He turned bright red and pulled a towel down to cover himself. I once called him a ‘boy.’ He ain’t. The silly boy had left the bathroom door open again. He’s rather forgetful like that. Mark Taylor has been with us a few weeks. I ignored him there as I filled the wash basin.
“M-Morning, J-Jade,” he stammered nervously.
“That’s Jade with just one J, Mark,” I remarked as I splashed water into my face.
“T-The cold water is quite refreshing in the morning, isn’t it, Jade,” he said awkwardly, trying his best to make small talk.
“Hot bath day is Saturday evening in this household when my father puts on the coke boiler, though it uses wood owing to the scarcity of coal,” I revealed. Father salvaged the boiler from an old house. We used to have gas central heating in the old days. We get our wood fuel ‘free’ from the local woods on the common. “Water is precious, so we share.”
He looked horrified. “S-Share?”
“Don’t worry, Mark, I’m sure Tommy will let you share his.” I began to untie my dressing gown cord.
“Jade?”
I murmured.
As he fled from the bathroom, I laughed softly.
I locked the bathroom door before I shrugged out of my dressing gown.
I was looking forward to the long day ahead. I was going out on a trip to the countryside with daddy, but we weren’t going on a picnic or a day out. It was fair to say that I was excited about it.
After my cold wash, I dressed, throwing on a pair of old jeans, an old top and hardy leather boots.
I took the rifle down from the top of my wardrobe where I normally keep it. It’s out of Tommy’s reach. He thinks it’s a toy. It isn’t. It’s for real. I wiped it with a cloth, but I didn’t load it. I never load it in the house. Wendy also keeps a rifle in her room. Father ‘bought’ them for us from the VPF. He decided that we girls needed to learn how to defend ourselves in an increasingly dangerous world. Although mum didn’t like the idea at first, she understood why.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder, putting some cartridges into my jacket pocket, before I went downstairs.
As I entered the kitchen, Mark Taylor and Wendy were already at the breakfast table, sitting together. I wasn’t surprised needless to say. I ruffled Tommy’s mop of hair, grinning at Mark Taylor, who blushed self-consciously when he remembered the little incident in the bathroom earlier. Then I took my place at the breakfast table with the others. I put the rifle by my side. I noticed Tommy looking at it curiously.
“Jade, do you have to bring it in here?” asked mum who didn’t look pleased.
I sighed inwardly. “It’s all right, Mum. It isn’t loaded or anything.”
“Nevertheless, Jade…”
“Don’t start, Mum,” I growled as I started to cut the home-baked bread with the bread knife.
“Guns make me nervous, Mrs Robinson,” admitted Mark Taylor.
“And other things,” I muttered under my breath.
Wendy shot me a frosty look. We’ve been drifting apart since the arrival of Mark Taylor, and I’m worried about that. I don’t want us to fall out over the alien presence in our house. All right, I admit it, I’m jealous too. I want Wendy to myself, doubling-up at night, sharing secrets and pillow fights in our bras and knickers, keeping each other company and drawing comfort from each other in these dark times. I got a smile out of her when I stared at her cross-eyed.
“Mr Robinson, what chores have you got lined up for me today?” enquired Mark Taylor.
Daddy handed Mark Taylor a list of repairs around the place to keep him busy and earn his keep. After all, we give him shelter, food and safety. He’s a lot luckier than most out there.
“Me?” volunteered Wendy.
“You can help me with the preserves, Wendy,” said mum. “I want to bottle most of it before the weekend. Soft fruits perish so quickly.”
I noticed the disappointed look on Wendy’s face. She had something else in mind. I’ve caught them on the stairs once or twice. My sister always makes a big thing over something that she’s dropped on the stairs, and Mark Taylor is helping her look for it. I’m not fooled however.
After we had loaded the barter goods onto the Land-Rover, I climbed into the front with father. I put my rifle in the back.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
As we drove through the big, heavy gates with the trailer, the others waved us off and closed them behind us. We left Crown Dale Close.
We were on our way to the country. Oddly enough, in the old days, I found the countryside a boring place to visit. It was somewhere you drove through or flew over on your way to somewhere else, yet now, it was a place that I was looking forward to seeing. This was an adventure for me. I wasn’t wrong as I discovered later.
Father, the great planner, had mapped out our route earlier. I wasn’t simply here for the ride. I was also his map reader. I picked it up, unfolded it and laid it out on my lap. We were driving out to Kent. Father wanted to avoid the possible trouble spots, which he had shaded in red. The green a
reas were considered to be the safe areas where the residents with the help of the VPF had driven out the Roamers and the other street gangs. Ours was a green-shaded area.
“Jade?”
“Turn right up here, Dad,” I replied, running my finger along the line.
As we turned the corner, we came up against our first VPF road block protecting a residential area that we wanted to go through. The VPF cops were armed with machine pistols. They meant business. As the stony-faced cop raised his hand, we slowed down and stopped. One remained by his armoured vehicle, fondling his machine pistol nervously, while the other approached us.
Father wound down his window on his side. “What’s the problem, Officer?”
“What’s your business here?” asked the other gruffly.
“We’re passing through on our way to Kent,” explained father briefly.
“Not this way, you ain’t,” said the VPF cop. “We’re not letting anyone through here. We’ve got our orders.”
Father decided not to argue with him, and we couldn’t afford to bribe them, so we turned back reluctantly.
Although I found an alternative route, it took us to the very edge of the safe area. We didn’t encounter another VPF road block. We encountered something else on the road, a mass exodus of people who were pouring out of the city. They were the ragged people. They had been driven out of their homes by the gangs. Many were young children. Some carried their few belongings in old, battered suitcases. Others pushed a barrow in front of them with their worldly possessions piled up on it. Where did they all come from? Where were they going? No one knew, and no one cared.
“Refugees,” remarked father, shaking his head sadly.
They were holding us up, and father was worried that the Roamers might appear at any moment, making us vulnerable, sitting here. I glanced over my shoulder anxiously. He sounded his horn impatiently. Some scowled at us as they moved aside. I noticed the look in a young girl’s eyes. It wasn’t hatred. It was confusion and fear. I felt for her. We drove by them quickly, leaving this scene from another age behind us. The images lingered in my mind long afterwards.
The Citadel and the Wolves Page 16
