by Guy N Smith
‘I … wasn't thinking of anything like that,’ she faltered, and looked away. ‘And, anyway … it's only right that … that you know … before you get into bed with me.’
‘Know what?’ he snapped, his eyes boring into her, a sudden sinking feeling, a tightening of his stomach muscles.
‘I … I might be pregnant!’
He stared at her. There was nothing incredible about that. Thousands of unmarried girls were finding themselves in the family way every day. A fact of life. But it didn't seem to fit with Carol Evans. She wasn't the maternal type. He couldn't envisage her with a bulge at the front, a maternity dress, labour pains, breast feeding, and scores of other duties that a mother had to do.
‘Oh … I see.’ He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but failed.
‘I … I don't know for sure,’ She sat down at the table again, fidgeting with her fingers. ‘I might not be, but I can't say. It's too early yet. I'm usually so regular with my periods, that's all. I should have come on a week ago, but I haven't. I haven't been sick in the mornings or any of the usual signs, though.’
‘Unless you've been particularly careless,’ he said. ‘there are a thousand and one reasons why you're late. All this business, living in fear. And … and losing your boyfriend. Phil, I think you said his name was.’
‘Yes, that's right,’ she said quickly in an attempt to cover up the quaver in her voice; but her eyes were misty. ‘I guess that … really I'm just hoping. I don't know. Sometimes I pray that I'm going to have a baby. It would be … well, a part of Phil, anyway. Other times … Oh God, I just don't know how I'd cope. But … you're welcome to get into bed with me, Ron.’
‘Thanks.’ He leaned back. ‘Look, I can't promise I'll behave myself. It's my nature not to, but I'll try to treat you as I would a sister. But what's worrying you really is …’ he hesitated ‘… if you do have a baby then you wouldn't really know whether it was mine or Phil's. I'm right, aren't I?’
‘Yes.’ A tear was beginning to trickle from her left eye. ‘I wouldn't want to go through life not knowing for sure whether the baby was yours or Phil's.’
‘I don't think you need worry on my score. I've had a vasectomy.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘My wife doesn't know anything about it.’
‘I thought both marriage partners had to consent.’
‘Usually. But if you have it done privately, it's sometimes possible to get round a lot of things.’
‘But surely your wife wouldn't object. I mean, you say she's gone off sex, and doesn't want any more children, anyway. Vasectomy is the answer to all that, isn't it?’
‘Not in Margaret's case. It kind've gives me licence to commit adultery without risking any maintenance orders against me.’
‘I see.’ She stubbed her cigarette out in the tin lid which served as an ashtray. ‘And is that why you had the op? So that you could sleep freely with other women?’
‘That about sums it up. Would you rather I slept on the floor?’
Without replying she walked across the room and began turning the sheets back on the bed. Then with her back still towards him, she started to undress. He watched, unable to take his eyes off her slim figure. Yet there was nothing brazen about her strip. Her blouse and bra came off, and a short nylon negligee went on. Only then did she remove her jeans. And not once did she turn towards him.
He sensed his hardness. In her own way she was sexier than any woman he'd ever had. She did not need to flaunt herself. It would have cheapened her, reduced her to the level of a common tart. She undressed because it was time for bed. She climbed in between the sheets, and took up the furthermost position, leaving room for himself. Her face was towards the wall.
‘Well,’ she asked at length. ‘are you coming to bed or are you going to sit there and freeze until the candle burns itself out?’
He stood up, scraping his chair back, and began to unfasten his clothing with fingers that trembled slightly. She made no attempt to watch him. Her offer was bed - warmth and a place to sleep. Apart from that she made no promises and no provisos. She was a fatalist. And a very beautiful one.
Naked, he checked the way to the bed, that there were no obstacles to fall over, and blew out the candle. Even as he slid in between the sheets he was aware of the warmth of her body in the bed. A tiny island of comfort in a vast ocean of death and terror.
Somewhere, far away, he heard a medley of sirens; people shouting; sporadic gunfire.
And right then Ron Blythe didn't give a damn.
He awoke, aware that daylight was filtering in through the dowdy curtains. An unfamiliar sensation - it was some seconds before he realised what it was - he was in bed with a woman.
He glanced at Carol. She still slept, her face turned towards him. In that snack bar he had thought she was attractive. Now he decided she was beautiful. He'd read somewhere that the test of a woman's beauty was to see her first thing in the morning before she had had a chance to tidy herself up. Well, Carol Evans certainly passed that test.
His head ached, a dull throbbing reminder of yesterday's encounter with the peacekeeping forces. The incident angered him. He was doing his best to come up with a solution that would save lives and all they could do was clobber him. Of course, the soldier hadn't known who Blythe was. He couldn't have been expected to. It probably wouldn't have made any difference if he had.
Gently, taking care not to disturb his sleeping companion, Blythe slid out of bed and crossed to the window. He parted the curtains. Outside the sun was trying to penetrate a dense murkiness, a combination of early morning fog and drifting smoke. The smell of burning was heavy in the atmosphere.
One or two people were to be seen in the street below. An old man, a vagrant, was walking in the gutter, stooping and peering amongst the piles of refuse and dead leaves. Suddenly he stopped and fell to his knees, skeletal grimy hands scrabbling the litter away. A puddle was revealed, black and stagnant, its surface streaked with shiny traces of diesel oil. His head went down, furred tongue extended, and he lapped in the manner of a scavenging mongrel.
Ron Blythe watched in disgust. But still the man drank. Fully five minutes later he raised himself up. Only mud remained where the puddle had been. His ravaged features were contorted, looking towards the heavens as though praying that his thirst might be miraculously quenched - or that he might die quickly.
But miracles were not happening in Birmingham The tramp tried to regain his feet, and swayed uncertainly. His arms flailed as he toppled backwards and sprawled in the filthy mulch. He lay there, eyes wide with terror, lips moving, uttering incomprehensible sounds, clutching at his throat with ulcerated fingers.
It was ten minutes before he finally lay still. People passed by with hardly a second glance. Such sights were common throughout the city.
‘What time is it, Ron?’
Blythe turned round. Carol was sitting up in bed, blinking, trying to adjust her eyes to the brightness of daylight.
‘Five past eight. Breakfast time.’
‘There's another can of spaghetti in the cupboard. And we can share a shandy.’
He busied himself preparing their frugal meal whilst she dressed.
‘What are our chances of getting out?’ she asked as she seated herself at the table.
‘I don't want to raise any false hopes.’ He spun some spaghetti on the end of his fork. ‘Everybody's trying to get out. The authorities are determined to keep the people of Birmingham in the city. They don't want crowds of maddened folks infiltrating other parts of the country. Doubtless some are getting out. Our chances are as good as anybody's, I'd say.’
‘But I thought you said you had to get back to this Action Committee, or whatever it's called.’
‘I do. And I think that's our best means of getting away from Birmingham. Look, Carol … I can't just leave you to take your chance. Stick with me. We'll try and get back to the headquarters in New Street first. Then I'll see what can be done about get
ting you out.’
‘But we're only a mile or two from the most northern checkpoints they've set up. Your idea means going right back into the heart of this holocaust.’
‘We run an equal risk of being shot by the army trying to get through the cordons as being killed by the mobs.’
‘But this is supposed to be a civilised country. Why don't they bring in supplies and medical help?’
‘Doubtless they're doing their best, but at the moment there are an awful lot of problems cropping up all at once. Roads and railways are impassable. Elmdon Airport, judging by reports, is a blazing inferno with wreckage all over the runways.’
‘Why not use helicopters?’
‘Imagine trying to ferry supplies in with 'copters. They're OK for dropping food and medical supplies to stranded mountaineers, but in this case there are millions of folks in need. Agreed it will all be resolved in time, but before that happens an awful lot of people are going to die. And we don't want to join the rows of corpses.’
She was silent for some moments, staring at her plate of untouched food.
‘I guess you're right,’ Carol Evans smiled faintly. ‘When do we start?’
‘Let's eat and drink first. We don't know when we'll get anything else, nor how long it's going to take us.’
‘Thanks, Ron. You don't know how much it means to me.’ Her eyes were misty.
Twenty minutes later they walked out into the street below, keeping close to the houses, peering around every corner cautiously. The scene resembled that of the morning after an enemy air raid. Bodies lay on the pavements and in the road. Crashed and abandoned vehicles littered the street. There were few people to be seen in this area. The mobs had moved on, either heading northwards, hoping to break through the army's barriers, or else back to the city centre to join in the rioting and looting.
Sometimes pairs of eyes stared hopelessly out of porch recesses, reflecting pain and despair. Men and women had crawled there to die, groaning, waiting for the end.
The pall of smoke in the sky was thicker and more widespread, a black motionless cloud. Smuts fell from it like gentle snowflakes.
And in the distance the chanting was incessant, interspersed with occasional gunfire as the soldiers determined to maintain their supremacy.
‘So far, so good.’ Ron Blythe drew Carol Evans back into the protection of a wide storm porch and pulled the ring on their last can of shandy. ‘But we're approaching the main trouble area now.’
They shared the fizzy contents of the can and tossed it away empty. There were more people about now. Gangs of youths stalked arrogantly along the pavements, kicking dead bodies with contempt, even spitting on some of the corpses. Ron drew Carol back into the shadows. To be seen was to invite trouble. Only in numbers was there safety.
Dusk was beginning to fall, blending with the smoky atmosphere to hasten nightfall. The same orange glow filtered through the grey blackness. Tongues of flame could be seen shooting skywards from some of the towering office blocks a mile or so away. Blackened burnt-out structures remained vertical, swaying precariously.
‘We've got to be careful now,’ Ron Blythe whispered as he scanned the way ahead of them. ‘Keep close behind me.’
Two streets further on he stepped back, pulling Carol into the shadows. A fight was taking place barely fifty yards away, milling silhouetted bodies grappling with a man in their midst. A rifle shot crashed out, flame stabbed in the darkness, and a bullet whined harmlessly into the air. Then the weapon was wrested from the uniformed man's hands, and his arms were pinioned behind him.
‘You filthy ignorant rabble!’ he yelled. A clenched fist slammed into his mouth, silencing him.
‘The mob have got one of the soldiers,’ Ron whispered to Carol. ‘They've got his rifle, and now they're armed as well!’
It was true. The semi-conscious khaki-clad figure was being held upright by two youths. Another one held the rifle aloft by the barrel, swinging it up above his head. The butt came down with a solid crack, and the soldier sagged forward soundlessly, his skull smashed.
Shots rang out. More soldiers appeared at the opposite end of the street, firing from behind the protection of the many stationary and useless cars. The youths scattered, taking cover, the one with the rifle dropping down behind an overturned GPO van, feverishly trying to discover how his newly acquired weapon worked. Within a matter of a minute he had mastered the rudiments of the rifle, and raised himself up to take a snap shot. Almost instantaneously stabs of fire answered him, and he fell back into the road, clutching at his chest, the rifle dropping to the tarmac.
Ron Blythe was running, pulling Carol with him, back the way they had come. Others ran with them, overtaking them, ignoring them. Bullets whined into the night. A man fell, but nobody stopped to help him.
Several streets further on, Ron dragged Carol into the shelter of a small front garden; a high privet hedge which had already lost most of its leaf shielded them from the street. Footsteps rushed on by, but there was no way of knowing whether they belonged to the pursued or pursuers.
‘Christ!’ he muttered. ‘We've covered nearly as much aground in twenty minutes as we have all day. The only snag is we're about back where we started!’
‘What are we going to do?’ Despair was creeping into her voice. Her fingers tightened around his.
‘Only one thing we can do.’ His voice was grim. ‘If we can find our way back to your bedsit we'll spend the night there, and maybe try again tomorrow. At least there's two or three cans of shandy left there. After we've finished those I'm afraid we'll be doing like everybody else is doing - drinking poisoned water!’
Chapter 9
‘This is it. Number 342.’ Ron Blythe blew out the match which he had struck in order to read the number on the street door, and together they made their way up the bare wooden steps.
Inside the bedsit, with the door closed, he used another match and lit the inch or so of candle which remained in the saucer on the table. By its flickering glow he scanned the room, and stepped across to draw the curtains.
‘Well, nobody's been in here, and that's something to be grateful for.’
Carol Evans went to the cupboard in the corner, returning with two cans of shandy.
‘Two left,’ she tried to smile. ‘And I'm afraid it's cold spaghetti for supper again. Breakfast, too. You picked the wrong digs, Ron.’
‘We're a damned sight luckier than most.’ He took a long swig at the fizzy drink, but forced himself to leave some of it for later. ‘At least we're still alive and able to postpone the time when we're forced to drink from the taps.’
They ate in silence and afterwards, with the candle spluttering in the remnants of its spilled tallow, he watched her undress for the second successive night. This time she was not so intent on keeping her back towards him. He caught a sideways view of her nakedness, the small breasts with firm pink nipples, shadowed and enlarged on the wall behind her, creamy white thighs as she stepped out of her jeans. She climbed into bed, and this time her face was towards him. Her eyes were closed, but he knew that she was stealing glances at him as he stripped, arousing him.
He smiled to himself. Why not? There was precious little to live for these days. Tomorrow they both might die.
He blew out the candle and slid in beside her. Even the curtains could not shut out the eerie orange glow. The fires in the city centre were spreading, helped by the inflammable contents of the water as people still persisted in attempting to check the flames. Vigilante bucket gangs stubbornly refused to heed the warnings issued by the authorities.
He stiffened as her slender fingers made contact with his body. Her breath was warm and sweet as their lips met, and he thrilled as her hands travelled on downwards, closing over his erection, pulling it towards her.
She knelt up, throwing the obstructing bedclothes back, straddling him. There were so many things he wanted to do, but in the end he didn't have to do a thing. She did everything, and only after they had convulse
d together, and were lying in a tender embrace, did he realise fully his feelings towards her. Usually, by this stage, he had tired of a woman. Her body had served its purpose, and he had become bored with her. Not so in the case of Carol Evans. He knew that he was in love with her, and he never wanted to go back home to Margaret again. But, he reflected grimly, the odds were that neither he nor Carol would be leaving Birmingham.
Slowly he drifted into sleep, and with slumber the horrors returned. His exhausted mind reflected the terrors which it had seen. Streets filled with the dead and the dying. Civilisation had crumbled. A new era … the peacekeeping forces had rebuilt the city of Birmingham, and those citizens who had survived the poison were still refugees; beasts of the chase, living in squalor beneath the new Phoenix which had a arisen from the ashes of the old.
The streets were quiet this morning, his dream went on. They always were by daytime, but that did not mean that there wasn't anybody about. Far from it. People thronged the main shopping areas, congregating on corners, generally hustling each other in the general bustle to get their chores done, and return home again. Yet, silence everywhere: silence except for the constant patter of scurrying feet, and the swishing of tyres. No engine noise these days, in this age of nuclear-driven vehicles. Dangerous, too: you did not hear the traffic, and unless you were alert the whole time you were likely to be run down. Nobody bothered. They just let you lie there until a patrolling ambulance happened to come by. The ambulance would stop for you. All routine. If you were a goner, they just dropped you off at the mortuary on the way back to base. Otherwise you were taken back to the central hospital. They did not really care whether you lived or died. The attitude was universal. After all, what was there to live for, nowadays?
Silence everywhere. Sometimes a scream when somebody stepped off the pavement without looking. Nobody bothered to speak. There was nothing to talk about. Each day was the same as the one before, and the one before that: monotony, just waiting. Waiting for what? Nothing, except the inevitable. Of course, there were a variety of ways in which one might die.
