On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  Her face creased with effort as she pulled the metal barrel down.

  A month had passed since she had agreed to learn how to use the air rifle; a month of protestations and prevarications on Miriam’s behalf until, at last, she could put it off no longer. Whereas before she had always been able to tell Joseph that she didn’t have time to learn how to shoot because there were so many other more important things to do, now there was more than enough time. Time was the most abundant commodity in the world now.

  The month had passed slowly but safely. The media were reporting less frequently. Several commercial television stations had disappeared entirely. The illness was still killing people and there was still no way of stopping it. The cities were decaying and chaotic, the main highways up and down the country were the hiding places of vicious gangs of bandits, refugee camps had sprung up spontaneously as people evacuated the cities, and the army had declared, at an official level, martial law. They listened to the news reports and the sick feeling in their stomachs never really went away but there was a degree of separation between them and the disaster. They had not seen an infected person since they had come to Cornwall. In fact, they had seen hardly anybody. Occasionally people would come to the house, but the sight of the barbed-wire fencing and Joseph’s cold behaviour soon saw them on their way. Sometimes they would carry on down the hill and spend the night in the large car park behind the beach, but they never stayed there for long. There was nothing there for them. Had the illness not killed as many people as it had, Joseph knew there would be more people coming their way, along with a greater fight for remaining food supplies.

  But Joseph didn’t care about the other people. The only thing he cared about was the security of the house and its inhabitants. He enjoyed the new silence that had fallen over the world. He hadn’t seen an aeroplane vapour trail cross the sky in weeks and the air was still without the constant vibrations of cars and trucks. The green of early summer swayed softly in the trees and it seemed to him that the world was purging itself of the toxins that had for so long smothered it. The last month had been a good one.

  As he lay on the grassland in front of the house, right out near the tip of the headland, the sun warmed his back. Miriam struggled with the barrel for a few seconds, easing it towards the right angle. Finally there was a mechanical click and she exhaled.

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘OK, now you take a pellet’ – he fished one from the jar – ‘and put it into the chamber, nose first.’

  He indicated the curved end of the little pellet. She took it from him, turned it round in her fingers and slid it into the chamber.

  ‘Now you need to bring the barrel back up until it clicks shut.’

  She did this quickly.

  ‘OK, and we’re ready to fire. You just need to disengage the safety, here.’

  He leaned across and placed his finger on the small metal hook next to the trigger.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK.’

  With her forefinger she worked the lever into its position.

  ‘So if you pull the trigger now, it will fire.’

  ‘Shall I do it?’

  ‘Just wait. I need to show you how to hold the gun properly.’

  A gust of wind washed across the grass, blowing the tips in a wave before them. As the grass moved it caught the sunlight and they could see the movement of the wind across the land.

  ‘You push the butt of the rifle into your shoulder.’

  He helped her turn the gun round.

  ‘Like this?’

  He took hold of the stock and pushed it gently into her, making sure it was set firm.

  ‘That’s fine. It doesn’t make much difference, but it helps to keep your aim steady. If it was a shotgun it would stop you getting bruised from the recoil.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Now cradle the gun in your left hand and use your right to fire.’

  Miriam followed his instructions. Her hair blew in front of her face. She took her left hand from beneath the gun, rested the barrel on the towel and tucked her hair behind her ear. She brought the gun back up.

  ‘Now look through the sight. Look through it with your left eye.’

  ‘It’s out of focus.’

  ‘Use this.’

  He tapped the focus wheel with his index finger and she turned it slowly between her thumb and forefinger.

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Can you see the tins?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Aim for the one closest to us. Get it between the two black lines.’

  ‘The crosshairs you mean.’

  He smiled. ‘Yeah. Before you fire take a small breath and pull the trigger with a steady, deliberate motion. OK?’

  She relaxed. He heard her take a breath. She closed her mouth and there was a snap. And then a ping. Forty yards away the tin popped up and fell backwards.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed.

  She looked at him and smiled. ‘I’m a natural.’

  ‘Go for the next one.’

  The second can was twenty yards back from the first one.

  ‘No problem.’

  She lifted the gun up and looked through the sight. She pulled the trigger and made a disgruntled face when nothing happened.

  ‘You might want to load it before you shoot.’

  She flicked him with the back of her hand and went through the process again, checking with him that she was doing it correctly. She fired but missed the tin. Without the metallic ping of contact it seemed like the bullet was still out there somewhere, flying through the air.

  ‘Bad luck.’

  ‘Let me try again.’

  She hit it on her fourth attempt.

  ‘Very good. Now you need to go for the third one.’ The third tin can was another twenty yards back.

  ‘I can hardly see it.’

  ‘Just take it nice and steady.’

  She fired off six pellets but they all missed.

  ‘This is difficult,’ she said.

  The sun was getting lower in the sky now. They had been out there practising for over an hour.

  ‘If we wait for a little longer the rabbits will be out,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that.’

  ‘You should do it. They’re just rabbits.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re happy to eat them, but not to kill them.’

  Miriam didn’t answer that. She laid the gun down and looked at the towel on the grass in front of them.

  ‘Joseph,’ she said, ‘can we talk about something?’

  Joseph paused. Her face had adopted its serious countenance.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This thing about us going into the cellar every time somebody comes to the door.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It scares the children.’

  A small fly fluttered in front of his face. He batted it away with the back of his hand.

  ‘It’s safer if we do it.’

  ‘It’s overkill.’

  There was that word again. ‘Maybe we should let the kids answer the door to whoever it might be. Is that what you would like?’

  He got the feeling this whole shooting exercise had been nothing more than a ruse to disarm him so she could broach this subject. An unhappy disappointment formed in his head. He should have known better.

  ‘Why have you always got to be like this?’ she said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like . . . this.’ She held her arms up towards him.

  ‘I’m looking out for us.’

  ‘We’ve been here for three months now. I want to try something new. I don’t want us to be like prisoners whenever anybody comes our way. And I don’t want my kids to be afraid of other people, either.’

  ‘So what would you suggest?’

  ‘Just that we be normal, Joseph. And don’t assume the people coming our way are going to kill us. We don’
t need to go into the cellar when people come. We can carry on as normal. We’re too paranoid.’

  Joseph sighed. He wished she would trust him.

  ‘The trouble is . . .’ He paused, thinking of how to say it. ‘I know that most people don’t need to be feared, and I wish we could act as if everything was normal, but it will only take one thing to go wrong and it will be all over. Is it worth taking the risk?’

  She didn’t even consider what he’d said. ‘I think so. It has to be better than the way things are now. If we have to hide from people indefinitely then I think I’d rather things ended.’

  ‘What?’

  She waved her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. What I mean is we can’t go on acting like this. It’s not healthy.’

  ‘I know you don’t believe me when I say it, but one day something bad will come to the door. It will.’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Let’s just try it.’

  ‘OK, I’ll make a deal with you.’ He thought about making her promise that she would leave him if he became ill, but knew that now was not the time. ‘We’ll try it, as long as you let me teach Edward how to shoot rabbits.’

  Miriam lifted her head upwards in exasperation and sighed loudly. ‘God, you’re so difficult!’

  ‘Do we have a deal?’

  She puffed out her cheeks.

  ‘You’ve seen that it’s not hard. And it’s not dangerous either.’ He looked at her face, trying to decipher her thoughts. ‘I need to teach him, Miri. You won’t shoot a live rabbit and you know it. I don’t know what the big deal is—’

  ‘OK,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. But no more hiding in the cellar.’

  ‘Fine.’

  She lifted her hand up for him to shake. He took it and they both shook. He looked back into the direction of the cans and saw the first of the rabbits come skipping out of its hole.

  The house was deserted and the garden overgrown. The large, grey bricks were crumbling and the white paint of the wooden window frames had peeled away into brown scratch marks. The grass had grown above the levels of the window ledges and the brambles in front of the faded front door were thick coils.

  The house had been empty for as long as Joseph could remember. He led Miriam and the children, who carried the baskets, past it and down a gentle slope to the walled garden. He had always wanted to live in this house, away from the rest of civilization, but it was just another thing that had never happened.

  There had been a wooden gate guarding the entrance to the garden but over the years it had split and fallen away and now there was no evidence of it ever having existed at all. But the cherry trees were still there, as they had been when he was a kid. The wall of the garden stood well above their heads but it had cracked in places and mosses and grasses had grown into the cracks so that it seemed alive. The grass here was tall, up to the children’s chests, but they pushed through and stopped at the first tree.

  Joseph looked up into the branches at the little red cherries. Nobody had been here. Through the branches he caught glimpses of the warm blue sky. He set the step ladder, climbed up into the tree and snapped the fruits away.

  ‘Can you catch, Mary?’ he called down, holding a handful of cherries out into mid-air.

  The little girl nodded, set her basket down and cupped her hands. Joseph smiled.

  ‘Pick the basket up. I mean catch it in there.’

  Miriam laughed.

  From where he was standing the family appeared as a triangle. He smiled at Miriam but when he did it triggered a type of guilt because this was not his family. It was Henry who should have been there, not him. He was an impostor.

  They collected the cherries for what was left of the morning, each of them taking it in turns to climb the ladder. Edward had scrambled up into the trees and along the branches. He had a gift for it and with his help they managed a good harvest.

  Just before lunch they went to the largest of the trees, right up in the corner of the garden. Its lowermost branches were out of reach for Edward and so Joseph took his place on the ladder. Standing on the metal platform at the top of the steps he reached up towards the thin branch that lay just beyond the reach of his fingertips.

  ‘Careful, Joseph,’ Miriam said, but just as she said it he felt the ladder topple sideways. Instinctively he leaped for the branch and closed his fingers around it as the ladder fell away. Mary screamed with delight as the thin branch bent under his weight. Joseph lifted his feet and reached for the tree’s trunk but the branch was too thin and, with a loud crack, it snapped. He thumped awkwardly into the long grass on his backside and with a small yelp.

  He closed his eyes in pain and peals of laughter filled his ears. He looked up and was greeted by the sight of Miriam and the children leaning over him, the blue sky beyond them, and as they laughed he grabbed Mary by the arm and pulled her gently into the grass. She squealed and tried to wriggle away from him.

  ‘Not so funny now, is it?’ He laughed.

  He got to his feet and dusted himself down with a smile on his lips.

  They went and sat under the shade of the large tree with their backs against the wall, and ate the bread and cheese that Miriam’s mother had packed for them. When the children had finished their food they ran off into the long grass and disappeared from view. The only sound was of the leaves of the cherry trees rustling calmly in the low breeze.

  ‘So I’ve been thinking,’ he said. The wall was warm against his back. ‘About my father’s bedroom.’ As soon as he said it the image of his father’s white face flashed uninvited across his mind. ‘I thought that maybe your mother would like to sleep there.’

  He turned to face her. There was a brief silence and then the edges of her mouth stretched into a melancholic smile.

  ‘I think it’s been long enough now. So’ – he ensured he did not break eye contact – ‘what do you think?’

  A warm glow grew between them. She nodded her agreement and, in silence, they turned their heads forwards and stared at the swaying grass.

  The family went about their nightly rituals as usual. The children were washed and had cleaned their teeth. They changed into their nightclothes and were tucked into their new bed in the long room at the back of the house.

  Miriam and her mother kissed them goodnight, turned off the light and closed the door.

  ‘Edward?’ whispered Mary.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Does your side still hurt?’

  ‘No.’ He could feel his sister’s breath on him.

  ‘Do you like Uncle Joseph?’ she asked.

  He turned the question over in his head. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think he’s grumpy?’

  ‘No, I think he’s cool.’

  Mary ruminated on this for a few seconds.

  ‘He is grumpy though.’

  Edward sighed. ‘He was nice today though, wasn’t he?’

  Mary didn’t say anything and was silent for a few moments.

  ‘Do you prefer him to Dad?’

  ‘Shush. I want to go to sleep.’

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  ‘You will be tomorrow if you don’t sleep.’

  ‘I miss my friends.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Do you think they’re safe?’

  He wanted to say no, just to annoy her, but he knew she might burst into tears if he did. A few months before he would have relished the chance to play such a joke on her but he no longer had the heart.

  ‘Yeah. They’re safe.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do, OK?’

  ‘You don’t know for sure.’

  Edward rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head.

  Miriam’s mother waited outside with her ear to the door. She could hear them whispering. Just. For a moment she considered in all of its true colours the lives her grandchildren would
probably be forced to lead. The thought made her afraid so she cleared her mind and went to her new bedroom. As she moved across the landing, she thought of Joseph and what him giving her the room meant. He was good really. Maybe he would turn a corner now.

  The room was spotlessly clean. Everything had a home. She sat down at the dressing table that was set into a small alcove in the back wall, and brushed her hair in the mirror. She had arranged her makeup and perfumes into a small city of tubs and pots on the right. She had never used much makeup in the past but now, with so much time, she had found herself spending thirty minutes or more each morning arranging her appearance, savouring the process.

  There was a photograph of Joseph’s mother on the table, in a silver picture frame. It was black and white and she looked young in it. Joseph’s mother had always been so elegant. She had not known her for long before she died, but she had dealt with her illness with such grace.

  She laid her hands on the tabletop. A smooth patina of varnish sat atop the deep, rich mahogany. It was a beautiful table. The legs arced gracefully down to the floor like the necks of swans, concluding at the carpet in smooth bulbs. Rose vines were etched into the wood, wrapping themselves around the legs, culminating in the flower, which had been elegantly worked into the stanchions.

  Three thin drawers ran down the left-hand side of the table. She pulled them open and pushed them closed. They ran smoothly on their runners and their insides were lined with vellum. The top two drawers were empty but in the third one she found a writing pad, a pen and a sheaf of envelopes. On top of the writing set she found a letter. She picked it from the drawer and turned it over in her hands. It was addressed to Joseph.

  He needed to check the outside of the house before he went to bed. He made his way slowly around the walls. It had been a good day. He sat and leaned against the front wall and looked out towards the sea. In the darkness it appeared to him as a dark void but he could hear it out there, in the bay, whispering against the sand.

  The house was quiet inside. He climbed the stairs slowly. He didn’t like to show it but the fall from the ladder had hurt his back. He was getting too old to take falls like that. He went to his room but before he went inside a voice came from his left.