by Rob Ewing
‘Stay in after.’
Mum goes to take her hand, but Dr Schofield doesn’t reach out for hers.
I see Elizabeth once more before we go. She’s not looking at us, but at her mum: at the woman who usually walks so tall, now sagged down in a seat.
As the crack of the door closes I see her girl Elizabeth standing and waiting.
It’s not a normal delivery. For starters, Mum has to do every single house. Usually I’d get to help but today I’m not allowed. It’s raining extremely hard, and Mum is wearing her waterproof jacket. The inside of the van gets steamed up with her coming and going.
Mum wears gloves and a mask, just like Dr Schofield said. She wraps each box in a leaflet, then puts it in a plastic bag and puts that through every letterbox.
She runs to each house. She’s a smudge in the rain.
My back gets sore from sitting too long. Mum gets out of breath, plus fed up with wearing her mask. We share a flask of tea she’s got, only I can’t be bothered with tea, especially when there isn’t sugar in.
At one house the door opens. A man comes out.
He’s not got his mask on. He walks towards our van: so Mum gets in and rolls her window up, quick.
She presses down the lock of my door, her door.
The man has red eyes. But his skin got too white, even the skin of his hands. He looks like a tired ghost.
‘You put only one box in,’ he says.
He bangs on the window. Mum puts her hand on the keys to start the engine.
‘There’s four of us in here,’ the man says.
Mum doesn’t look at him. She keeps looking ahead, like he isn’t really there.
Mum says, too quiet for him to hear, more to me: ‘One per house. That was my instruction.’
The man keeps his hand on top of the car. His breathing is fast, like he’s at the end of a race.
‘Come on,’ he says.
Mum looks at him, shakes her head. Then she turns on the engine and drives off.
I watch the man’s hand drop down. Otherwise he just keeps standing in the rain.
Back Bay
It’s no fun staying up if you can’t be blamed for it.
I’ve just one clock to tell the time, now. I put all the rest in the garden – which turned out to be a mistake, because the electric ones stopped working after it rained. Then the wind-up ones stopped because I forgot to wind them up.
So my last clock, with its true time, is precious.
I’m dressed first. Everyone else is bleary this morning. ‘Rise and shine, time to dine,’ I shout out. Alex wanders out to the toilet. Mairi gets dressed and just sits waiting at the table, holding her spoon up.
Breakfast is wafer biscuits, then the powder from chocolate sponge mix, mixed with water. It looks like mud at first but be patient, it will come right. Alex has a fierce hunger and eats while it’s still powder-dirt. Mairi has the least appetite of us. I tick her off and she bunches shoulders but it doesn’t make her eat good.
After breakfast, we pile up the plates and get ready for school. First there’s fly-killing time. I’m the winner at that with twelve. After this we check the radios. Static. Then the light switches. No lights. Then I write up our shopping list for today: Batteries. Sweets. Gaelic stickers for remembering. Fizzy cans of juice. Better water.
Then it’s calendar time. That’s next door. I’m in charge, so the others have to wait. The calendar has pictures of trucks with blown-up wheels. We found it at a house in the village. It’s just me that gets to mark the days.
I put a cross over yesterday. I used to use circles, but circles can mean red-letter days so I stopped, in case it made a confusion for rescuers. Last week I even drew circles on days ahead to make things happen. So I wrote on the 23rd of June: ‘When the radio will start working!!’ Then on the 26th: ‘Electricity working again!!!’
But I passed those circles. And when you pass too many circles you get fed up with doing it.
At the door it’s my job to check everyone has their bags. Plus pencils, felt-tip pens, mid-morning snack.
Me: ‘Ready?’
There has to be a rule about not answering.
I wait for the leaves to settle in the corridor. I don’t like to look at them in case they’re true ghosts.
We started to use the P4 classroom now. It’s the brightest, plus there isn’t any broken walls or ceiling. Plus it’s as far as can be from the big school, which helps.
The kids in here were making shields out of cardboard, tinfoil. On the front of the shields there’s coats of arms.
They never got started on their December projects in P4. Which is why I prefer to use this room. Because everywhere else is always stuck on Christmas.
Today’s lesson is Gaelic speaking. This is especially for Mairi, who’s only learning. In the teacher’s cupboard I find Gaelic weather labels and reward stickers.
Even though I’m not sitting at the front, I’m the one in charge. It’s the new rule we have to follow.
‘Tha I garbh,’ I say. ‘It is windy.’
Everyone has to write it down. I wait until there isn’t any more sound of pencils scratching.
‘Tha I frasach,’ I say. ‘It is rainy.’
I listen for the time of their pencils stopping.
The classroom fills up behind me. Calum Ian comes in, then Duncan. They are quiet getting to their seats.
Then Mum takes a seat. She’s at the back, sitting beside the classroom assistant.
‘I’ve forgotten how to say “It is sunny”,’ I say.
Nobody helps. They all just wait, including Mum, who could be the biggest help if she wanted.
Feeling nervous, I eat my mid-morning snack. Even though it’s still early. Nobody tries to be helpful. They don’t join in with eating their snacks, either.
‘Did you read what it says on the wall?’ I ask everybody.
Nobody answers, so I have to read it:
‘Be honest. Be responsible. Be trustworthy. Be respectful. Be kind – and see the love heart after kind. That’s emphasis.’
Nobody says anything, so I have to put my head on the desk. Have to listen to the sound of the floor, the hissing sound that’s near or faraway.
‘What’s under the floor?’ asks Alex. ‘Ground. Then under the ground? Dirt. Under that? More dirt. Under that? Lava.’
But his voice isn’t true. It’s mean and scary. So I cover my ears and do lalalalas until he stops.
It’s been fifteen days. He never said what to do if it was longer than five days. I checked the rules, but it doesn’t say.
Sometimes it’s easier to pretend they’re here.
There are no small dogs left. Also, the sheep stopped coming near the village. I never knew what happened to the small dogs, until I saw one of them being chased by five big dogs, and then I knew.
Yesterday I left the school door open. Now it’s off its hinges. That was a daft thing to have done. I write the rule on my hand so I remember it for later: No doors left open.
Shopping got harder. I can only go shopping the old way for now, because it feels safer.
In the Co-op, some of the lights fell down. Also part of the roof, where the wind got in. Now I go to the back store instead, where there’s tall shelves, no windows. A big stack of wooden squares which I forgot the name of, beside the world’s biggest roll of clingfilm. Plus a machine that looks like the crusher at the back of a rubbish truck, only it’s indoors.
I find a packet of orange jelly down the back of the shelves. Beside, a buckled tin of sweetcorn.
When I tear open the pack of jelly I find it’s gone mouldy. The tin, though, is a good result.
I open the tin, sit out on a bench to eat it.
The wind isn’t blowing too hard. There’s kid-spots of rain, but also sun. I look for a rainbow, don’t see one.
Sometimes I cry just when I didn’t think I was going to. Like now. I mean, the food is just stupid sweetcorn. And there’s not too much wind, or rain. So why?
Up on the road I meet three big dogs. They stop to sniff. I keep an eye on their tails to make sure they’re friendly.
I also make sure I’ve got my knife.
Mostly the big dogs are friendly. But after what happened to the little dogs, I’m not playing with any chances.
In the butcher’s shop I find something we missed before. It’s called a mood-ring. It tells you how you’re feeling. Right now I’m passionate and sad but also with a hint of mixed emotions. But maybe that’s because I’ve been holding the ring for too long. Still, I think it might be true magic, because when I woke this morning I felt a mixture, and that’s what the mood-ring has shown.
The sea got something bad in it. Maybe that’s what happened to the world. Maybe I remembered it wrong. What truly happened is – the sea got greedy. It wanted everyone, so it sent poison into the air. That made everyone walk towards it. Except for only a few, like me, and the people who’d already gone. It’s like the opposite of the zombies that Alex worried about: the ones that could walk across the seabed to get to him. The ones that walked up out of the sea.
Maybe that’s why Duncan and Elizabeth, and Calum Ian and Alex and Mairi, all left. The sea wanted them. Because it was greedy then and it still is now.
My tooth hurts. At first it hurt just a little, but now it hurts a lot. Can’t put my toothbrush anywhere near it because it’s too sore. I should’ve remembered to brush before now, but I forgot and that was a lot of my fault.
Can’t remember if it’s not all right to eat toothpaste. Or the best way to brush? Was it around, or up, down? Plus my toothbrush got yellow and chewed. But that’s easy to sort: there are about a hundred toothbrushes still on the shelf at the Co-op. Enough to last for years.
I add Toothbrush to my shopping list. Then beneath that, Medicine for tooth hurting.
Now I wake up and it’s been ages and I’ve fallen asleep but forgotten when. The light is different in the window, so it’s been a while. Hours? Days? My head feels sweating hot. My mouth is truly very sore. My gum feels like it grew, like it belongs to a bigger person.
Elizabeth’s books are no good, they don’t tell toothache. It’s too sore even to drink.
I look for Elizabeth’s medicine bag, but she took it, it’s not there. Then I remember – ice cubes might help: but there’s no fridge plus no electricity so no ice cubes.
The best plan is to sleep beside my teddies. I gather all the teddies of mine plus Alex’s and Elizabeth’s, and I just hold them. It’s a bit of relief, especially if I pretend they all have sore teeth, and I’m the one helping.
In the morning it’s less sore. My mouth tastes yuck. When I try to speak my gum feels sore but less big.
There’s yellow water, sterilised. It hurts to drink at first but I’m thirsty so I don’t mind too much.
My tooth comes out. I almost wrap it in tissue and put it under my pillow, but that’s stupid.
‘There’s no tooth fairy,’ I tell myself in the mirror. ‘You knew that for ages, stupid dummy. What – you going to expect the Easter bunny next year as well?’
After this it’s too sore to talk, so I shut up again.
Past World
Mum honks her horn. We’re in a car jam. I never saw a car jam before, not on our island. In films, maybe. Never in real life.
It’s nearly dark. The telegraph lines are whistling. The sea looks stormy, white. The cars are in a long line.
After ages the red lights go off the car in front, and we move along one, and then the lights come on again.
Me: ‘Why’s it taking so long?’
Mum: ‘They have to ask questions, that’s why.’
Me: ‘I remember we did see a car jam before, once. Getting on the ferry. You remember?’
Mum smokes. She turns off the van to save diesel.
They’ve put orange and white fences across the road, which means that just one car can get through at a time. Next to the fences, there’s a lorry. On the back of the lorry are the big metal baskets they were using to strengthen the cliff road. Now the workmen have changed their mind; they’re using them to narrow the road instead.
‘Keep down,’ Mum says.
Seonaid, the nurse from hospital, is standing at the fences. She’s wearing a white all-over suit, like the one Dr Schofield wore, plus a mask and eye protectors.
She looks cold, she bounces, jumps to stay warm.
Mum gets me to curl up on the floor as we get closer to being the frontmost car.
When it’s our turn Seonaid shines a light inside and finds me hiding. She hands Mum a piece of paper. I want to look at it first but Mum won’t let me.
‘Rona, then,’ Mum says.
Seonaid comes around to my window. She taps politely and I roll it down.
‘Can I just pop this in your ear, love?’ she asks.
She reaches in and presses a white plastic gun into the hole of my ear; it beeps. Then Seonaid reads the number. After this she rips off her glove and puts on another one.
‘Did very well.’
When she goes around to Mum, they talk first. Mum has questions. One of the cars behind starts to honk its horn. Mum still has questions.
‘We’re trying to keep a safe haven.’ Seonaid waves to the men at the gates, to say everything’s all right.
Then she leans in closer to Mum and whispers: ‘Mary, you need to, otherwise I’ll have to pull you over.’
‘But which side is this safe haven? It’s not clear, is it behind or ahead? Are we in it right now?’
Seonaid thins her mouth, looks around again at the cars. Someone else peeps their horn.
‘The side you’re going to. Come on Mary. I don’t want to have to pull you over.’
Mum tries to ask another question, but when Seonaid walks away like she’s lost her patience, Mum stops asking. Instead she rolls down her window all the way, and puts her head towards the outside.
The white gun beeps.
Mum keeps her eyes away. Seonaid looks at her number for a long time: then writes it down on her plastic card.
Then she rips off her gloves and says, ‘I don’t want to have to separate you right now. So can you keep your mask on?’ Seonaid has to shout over the wind and rain. ‘Listen Mary: keep Rona’s hands washed. Wash everything: cups, bowls, cutlery, before she touches anything. The both of you need to wear gloves.’
‘Been doing all that.’
Seonaid bites her lip: then gives the man at the barrier the thumbs-up. He waves us through.
‘I’ve got us safe,’ Mum says. She rubs my shoulder, picks up her cigarette packet with a shaking hand.
The house is cold and dark when we get back. Mum lights the storm lanterns and puts a candle on the kitchen table and at the window. We can’t use the electric fire, but the central heating still works. It’s nice with candles, and I want to put our sleeping bags next to the radiator and play shadow-puppets, but Mum’s too busy to join in.
‘Not now,’ she says.
She asks for help, but when I try to work beside her she bosses me away. I watch as she fills the kitchen sink with cold water, then the sink in the bathroom, then the bath, which takes ages, then all of the biggest pots and pans. I worry that the world will run out of water, but Mum doesn’t think it will. She keeps pressing her head, and talks to herself when she thinks I’m distracted upstairs.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Get a grip.’
Back in the kitchen she’s putting food in lines: cereals, tins, packets. After this she goes upstairs, to my room.
I get the worst fright to find she’s tearing up, squashing flat the big cardboard boxes from all my games.
Even though I scream at her, Mum takes all the boxes downstairs, then she starts to stick them up on the windows, ignoring me because I’m crying too much.
After this she gets old blankets from the linen cupboard. She rolls them up and uses them to block draughts at the doors. Other ones she hangs over the blinds, like extra curtains.
Stil
l crying, shouting for anger, I follow her around the house. She turns the radiators off, upstairs.
‘We’ll heat just the one room,’ she says. ‘We can save on oil. In case the tankers are a while coming.’
I’m fed up with her. The boxes of my games look stupid and sad on the windows. How will the sun get in? I get in my sleeping bag, hide way down deep.
Mum’s trying to read the leaflet she got from the council.
‘Water,’ she says. ‘Food. Warmth.’
She rubs her head. Then she goes quiet for a bit. Then I hear her moving about, going back and forth to the kitchen.
After this I don’t hear anything for a time.
When I get out of the sleeping bag to go and find her, Mum is sitting at the table. Her face looks creased, old by the storm lantern. She’s got – a stick? In her mouth.
She takes the stick out. Looks at it.
‘What’s wrong?’
Mum closes her eyes like she’s in another world.
‘Could ye do something for me, love?’ she says. ‘Could ye go to the bathroom, get the medicine box?’
Something about her voice makes me forget I was angry. I go upstairs and bring the box to her.
Mum puts one of the temperature-reading strips she uses for me on her forehead.
A car drives past outside, going far too fast.
‘What does it say? What number?’
‘I don’t see a number.’
‘What word, then?’
‘Fever.’
Mum nods. She peels off the strip, looks at it. Then she comes back through to the living room and lies on her side. She holds a tea towel over her mouth.
‘Thought that,’ she says. When I try to hold her hand she shrinks away. ‘Don’t come near.’
I have a proper job now: to convince her that adults, especially parents, never really get sick. It’s only us kids who get truly sick.
‘Look. I have fever in me, too.’
I unpeel another tester, and stick it on the front of my head. And I certainly got the right idea for getting her attention – because now she sits up.
It’s a race to see who will peel the strip off first.
‘See? Fever as well.’
