‘I’m sorry,’ she said, reading it and deflating. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Then she curled up on the floor and cried. I marched straight out; no charge. The sound of her sobbing over the digital beeps and bubbles of her children’s computer games stayed with me as I strode down the street.
I remember the night marches, too. Every evening another mob would stream through the streets. These were not young hoodlums, vested baboons or flag-waving terrorists, but what appeared to be normal people: families, couples, youngsters helping the old folks, all singing cheerful songs and swaying their torches with a thousand grins. Reclaiming what was theirs, they called it, and that is what they did, every single night. There were always bodies in the morning.
Then there were beatings in broad daylight. I once saw a girl on the pavement outside the Overground station being kicked by three men. The crowd of commuters flowed around them with not a flicker on their faces. It is not unheard of in London to see violence being ignored by passers-by, but this was different. The reason for their lack of engagement was not fear; it was that this had become normal now – a girl like her should not have been in that place.
I saw all this happening. I watched people filling with anger, fear, hope and glee, and the more that storm of feelings grew, the calmer I grew as I became detached from it.
Do you know what a gift it is not to care? It is a choice you can make. Take it from me – I know what I am talking about.
As we continued along the road, a curious feeling overcame me. Engrossed as I had been in the papery relics of that time before the bombs, a small part of my brain had still been marking our progress against the map. I came to a halt at a crossroads, immediately aware that I was standing on the upper-left vertex of my boundary. I had not ventured this far north or this far west for many a year.
I hovered there, staring down at the invisible line before me. Lineker gave me a cursory glance and scurried ahead. The girl stopped next to me and peered down at my feet, no doubt wondering what on earth I was looking at.
Perilous, I thought, my toes flexing in their boots. Perilous to embark upon that which you are about to embark, Reginald Hardy. I shuddered and felt a nauseous swell. Then, with a short breath, I stepped across.
I walked like an astronaut on the moon, enduring – enjoying is not the correct word – such a surge of adrenalin that it made my vision swim. I kept walking, trying to ignore the shifting patterns of this unfamiliar new world. The girl followed without a sound.
As the rush subsided I allowed my eyes to wander the shopfronts on either side. Something caught my eye. It was a pawn shop or its modern-day equivalent, branded to assert that the items on sale were anything but the artefacts of misery and desperation that they clearly were, and in its window was a pair of binoculars. Huge things they were, with gleaming green metal and thick rubber handgrips. I fairly salivated, and took a step closer to peer through the mesh at the specifications.
Carbon fibre, powered focus, image stabilizer … 24x MAGNIFICATION …
Twenty-four times. Good gracious me. I checked the door, running an exploratory finger around it for a way in, when I heard Lineker making a peculiar whine. I looked back along the street and saw him standing next to the girl. She was peering up a side street.
‘Come on,’ I called back. My voice bounced eerily between the papered walls of the street. ‘You need to leave yourself plenty of time for your journey. What are you looking at?’
I stole another look at the binoculars, as if they might get snapped up. Twenty-four times …
‘Heavens to Murgatroyd,’ I sighed, and trudged back. ‘What on earth have you found?’
What she had found was a thin terrace empty of cars. Faded bunting hung between the houses, and down the middle of the road was a long trestle table covered with a tattered linoleum tablecloth, cups, saucers and plates. A light breeze blew down the street, ruffling the sodden, long-popped streamers hanging from a chair.
‘A street party,’ I said. ‘Must have been from after the election.’
The girl walked towards it.
‘Wait.’
She looked up and down the table, then ran her hand along the red and white plastic until her fingers found a teacup still sitting in its saucer. She picked it up and peered inside at the layers of dirt.
‘We had a street party once,’ I said, picking up a small teddy bear in a party hat, ‘for the royal wedding. Charles and Diana.’
I remember that day. It was 1981 and I had just turned twelve. It was hot and I had to help my mum make hundreds of cucumber sandwiches. ‘Reg,’ she told me as she spread margarine on thin white bread. She was flushed with excitement and sherry. ‘Always remember that these are the things that hold us together. Days like this are the knots that tie our communities tight.’
She nodded up to the commemorative plate she had saved up for.
‘Just like that lovely couple, God bless ’em, and the wonderful marriage they’re about to enjoy. They’ll be your king and queen one day, Reg, they will. And a fine king and queen they shall be. Oh, bloody hell, Pete!’
Her boyfriend had chosen that moment to swoop in and goose her, landing me a wink as he swirled her outside in giggles and whoops, leaving me in a room full of bread and vegetables. He would be long gone a few weeks after.
‘Do you think she fancies him?’ said Neil later. We were sitting on the step and watching the party with bottles of Fanta, counting the ten-pence pieces the adults had flipped us as they danced past.
‘Who, Mum?’ I said.
‘No,’ said my brother, jabbing me in the arm. ‘Fucking Diana. Do you think she fancies Prince Charles?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose she must do if she’s marrying him.’
‘But he’s got massive ears.’
‘There’s more to marriage than ears, Neil,’ I said with a shrug.
My brother gave me a look, screwed up his face and jabbed me again.
‘Wanker.’
Neil called me when it all happened. He had moved his wife and kids to Essex after Mum died in ’99, opened a printing shop with some money he’d squirrelled away. He wanted me to come out to him, to ‘help him and his boys sort out the country’ in his words. I told him no, I was staying put, and I didn’t want any part in battle plans spread out in the back rooms of pubs.
‘Right,’ he replied, voice crackling. ‘Then we’re coming to get you.’
That was the last I heard of him – the same day as the M25 disaster.
The girl cradled the teacup for a bit before placing it back on its saucer. Then she eyed the bear I was still holding.
‘Do you want this?’
I held it out and she took a step back.
‘Go on, take it.’
She looked past me at a lamp post. There, as if it had only just been pasted yesterday, was a picture of that man. I remembered it: the victory shot. The purple of his tie was bright, a gleaming river running down the line of his suit. His arm was held out to the camera and his white-toothed sideways beam seemed to say that he and he alone held the key to life itself, if only you’d just take his hand and follow him.
She stared at the picture, swaying in the mist.
‘Do you remember him?’ I asked.
Lineker barked from the main road, and she ran off. I took one last look at him, that man still beckoning me to join him, and left.
I found Lineker and the girl near the wide crossroads with Camberwell Road. She was kneeling by him, ruffling the fur around his neck as he looked ahead. A crane had fallen onto the rooftops beside us, crushing the slates and balancing there with its hook dangling through a window. More worrying, however, was what greeted us over the road. A tall fence ran north to south as far as I could see in either direction, blocking our path.
‘That does not help us,’ I said.
I looked left and right. The fence ran into and out of the thick mist.
‘We need to find out how far this thing stretches.
’
But as I took a step towards it, Lineker growled.
‘What?’
I followed his upwards stare to a spot above the fence. There was movement in the mist, and up in the tower of what had once been a surgery stood a sentry guard.
‘I see,’ I murmured, motioning for the girl to follow me back behind a nearby skip. I crouched down and she sat next to me, dangerously close.
‘You stay where you are, please!’ I demanded, a little more tremulously than I would have hoped, to be honest, and moved along so that I could get a peek at the tower.
Why did they have a fence?
I pulled out my binoculars, suddenly disappointed by their plastic grip and the dial you had to turn yourself, and held them up. The guard was a Purple: round-faced, bald, wearing a bandana of all things and carrying a firearm. It was a rifle of some sort, though I know nothing about guns. I tracked him as he walked the length of a short scaffold and back, scanning the crossroads.
I was wondering what he’d look like at 24x magnification instead of my measly 12x when we heard the growl of an engine. Before we knew it, two motorbikes had sped from the south on the other side of the fence, BU flags flying from posts stuck into their seats, and disappeared north as quickly as they had come.
The girl gasped and grabbed Lineker, who responded with a comforting lick.
I retrieved my map and found our position, tracing the line of the fence north along Camberwell Road. How far did it go? If I wanted to find out we would have to skirt through the side streets, keeping clear of the fence and any other sentries who might be manning it. I did not much fancy that, especially with them being so close. The only other option was to backtrack into familiar territory and head north instead, meeting the river further east. I had wanted to avoid that bank, given how close it had been to the bombs. But unfortunately it looked like we had no choice.
I checked the guard through my shoddy binoculars, waiting for him to reach the furthest point on his scaffold before we left the protection of our skip. Just as he turned, the sun chose its moment to make an appearance, breaking through the heavy sheet of cloud that had hitherto kept it hidden. A blinding flash hit my second-rate lenses and the resulting glint must have reached the guard on his scaffold, because suddenly he was looking straight at me. I could see the alarm that gripped his face, despite the fact that it was a mere 12 times its normal size. He pulled a radio from his belt and spoke into it, keeping his eyes on us. Then he shouted down.
‘You down there, come out where I can see you! State your names!’
I did not consider this such a good idea.
‘Run,’ I said, and we did.
Well, I did, and Lineker darted ahead until we were on the other side of the street, out of the guard’s sight. But the girl stayed right where she was, crouched behind the skip with her fingers plugged in her ears. The guard renewed his shouting, adding warnings and threats to his commands that involved shooting bullets at us with that gun of his.
I beckoned to the girl but she would not move. Lineker barked across at her, his message clear as day: Get over here! But she just shook her head, eyes wide.
Now would be the time, said a voice in my head. Now would be the time to turn and run, to get back home in one piece and forget about all this. This is what happens, is it not, Reginald? This is what happens when you get involved. So why don’t you get yourself uninvolved right now and return to what you know? Now is the time.
A peculiar little voice, that, and not unfamiliar either. I had a feeling it might have been with me longer than I thought.
Lineker stopped barking and began worrying me with his nose, making little whines and whimpers and scampering about the pavement. I pushed him away but he kept coming back, nagging at me to do something.
The guard had stopped shouting orders and was, I imagined, either training his gun on us or descending the steps.
I looked at the street behind us, curving perfectly out of sight with plenty of places to hide. I could be up it and out of the way in no time.
That nose again, insistent and wet, trying to push me into action.
Now would be the time.
I let my gaze drift away down the street and back to my boundary. I thought of Freddie Mercury and the boy with his arm outstretched, and I wondered: how much can a mind deal with? How much weight can a conscience bear?
But some part of me had already made its decision. I scrabbled up the wall, turned and ran.
I heard the first shot before I was properly on my feet, by which time my heart was already galloping with all the grace of a crippled mare. The bullet, or shell, or whatever it was, hit something close behind, which for all I knew could have been flesh or brickwork – I had no idea.
The second shot hit the ground near my feet, sending up a spray of dust and rubble. I felt a nick in my knee and instant wetness. The words YOU HAVE JUST BEEN SHOT ticker-taped somewhere in my mind.
I was dimly aware of squeals and urgent barks behind me, but I refused to look back. My eyes were locked on the crossroads and the invisible boundary that ran across them. The only time they strayed from their target was when I allowed myself one last wistful glance at those glorious binoculars in the shop window.
Then I quickened my pace, unaware of whether child or dog were following me.
Did he care at all? I imagine you are wondering. This coward, this useless husk of a man – did he feel no shame?
Of course I felt shame. I shivered with the stuff. It coursed through me like a swollen river, poisoned with all my misdeeds and mistakes, everything I had and had not done. Shame made my spine buckle at the sad and dismal reality of being me. Shame made me want to tear a hole in the street, bury my head in the dirt and let the worms devour me.
But then that was a feeling I had grown used to over the years. Because I couldn’t save her, you see? Nothing I did could save her.
As it happens, both child and dog did follow.
When my legs and lungs could stand no more I staggered to a halt by an old pub. Once I had recovered I looked up and saw them standing side by side some distance from me. The girl glared at me. Even Lineker’s usual glee was spiked with a nervous suspicion I had not seen before.
‘Well, we can’t just stand here,’ I said at last. ‘They might be following us.’
The pub was boarded up, but an alleyway led to a back door that was less secure. With a shove and a jostle I managed to break in.
‘Come on,’ I called up the alleyway. They were still standing in the street. ‘Before they find us.’
Time drew out and still they did not move. Each second of inactivity seemed to be another mark of their mistrust, another opportunity for my cowardice to be examined.
And how could I blame them? I had abandoned them.
Eventually, and with considerable hesitation, they followed me inside.
Most of the place had been gutted but I found some bottles of juice and crisps in the storeroom, and a half-empty bottle of vodka which I drank liberally. After a few draughts I worked up the courage to inspect my knee. There was no sign of a bullet, but something had taken off a sizeable chunk of flesh. I poured some vodka over it – an excruciating experience – and bandaged it with what appeared to be a clean bar towel. Then finally I sat back.
The girl crouched in the opposite corner sharing her crisps with Lineker. I kept my eyes on the window for signs of trouble, but I could tell they were watching me – she with that glare of hers, and he with that fresh and terrible mistrust that made my insides squirm. At last I could take it no longer.
‘What?’ I snapped. The girl froze in mid-munch and Lineker’s head ducked. Still their eyes were upon me. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? We’re safe, aren’t we? You are both unhurt.’
I pointed at my knee.
‘It’s me who’s flipping well injured!’
A moment passed in silence. Then, as if by some pact, Lineker raised his head and the girl resumed her munching. I looked
away and took more ruthless swigs of the vodka. I have never been a particularly accomplished drinker – the place alcohol takes me to is full of quicksand and tall cliffs – but I am afraid to say I drained that small bottle dry with little effort. When I was done I tossed it on the floor where it span three shameful circles and stopped, pointing back at me.
I noticed that the girl had spread out her photographs on the floor before her. This, emboldened by the vodka’s toxic fire, infuriated me beyond reason. I snapped at her.
‘I don’t know why you keep those things with you, young lady. They’re useless, whatever they are. Memories or fantasies, it doesn’t matter – they do you no good. You should get rid of them.’
Of course, as I realised some time later, it was not her photographs I was referring to.
She looked up at me, impenetrably calm. I made a noise of exasperation and dragged myself from the floor.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘There’s nobody out there. We should get going.’
I hobbled through the door and looked back, but they did not move.
‘Lineker,’ I called. ‘Come.’
His ears pricked but he stayed where he was. This more than anything overwhelmed me with grief.
‘Suit yourself,’ I muttered, and turned to leave. Only then did he spring up and chase me out. The girl got to her feet and followed.
We pressed on. The girl kept close to Lineker’s side and the sun that had given our game away followed like an unwanted friend, yellowing the cold, wet streets. We were even slower now that I had developed a limp, and I staggered along in a haze of alcohol, pain and indignity. It was almost 4 p.m. before I realised I had taken a wrong turn.
I stopped. The road we were on was bland and unfamiliar – just another dull strip of shops with flats above them – but something about it screamed at me. I could see no sign and it was definitely nowhere I had been before but, somehow, I recognised it. I looked up and down its length, seeing a squat church at one end and three blocks of flats at the other, and something clicked.
With creeping dread I pulled the map from my pack. There was the church and there were the blocks, right where I thought they would be. And there, right in the middle, a circled dot with a name against it …
The Last Dog on Earth Page 11
