by Terry Tyler
Travis smiles at me, then at Dex. "We have shotguns. Rifles. They belonged to my father. Happy to donate them."
The fuck? They're ours!
"Yeah?" Dex looks most pleased. "Well, thank you very much. One of the things on my to-do list is to find more ammo; I'm thinking of hunting round some of the refugee camps that went tits up. Police stations, army barracks."
"We've heard about the refugee camps," Travis said. "Have they all gone?"
"We don't know. There are communities of survivors here and there, and military camps, but I don't think the latter necessarily adhere to rules laid down by the army, if you get my meaning."
I'm getting bored. "When's the next supply trip? Can I go?"
"Sure," says Dex. "Ask Kara about the time, she's got the tide tables. Oh, and we have a functioning pub. The Hudson Arms, down the road. The choice is a bit limited, but Luke, the guy who runs it, has an open door from lunch time every day."
"You have a pub?" Travis opens his eyes wide. "How does that work? Do you just take whatever you want? Help yourself?"
Dex smiles. "What's there is what was in the cellar and the winery, but it's going to run out, and scavenging booze isn't exactly a top priority. Luke makes sure nobody goes over the top, but somewhere down the line we're going to have to introduce some sort of payment system, perhaps based on credits for work done, I don't know. We have a council; it's something we need to discuss."
My spirits, which had risen at the thought of going on supply runs, plummet again. "But isn't that what we've got away from?" I love that I don't have to worry about rent and bills any more. Eating boring food and avoiding scary bastards is better than fretting over how long I can get away with not paying my council tax. Moving to escape credit card debt. Outstaying my welcome on friends' sofas. All that's gone. I don't have to answer to anyone. If I want something new to wear, I go into a shop and take it.
"It's not going to happen tomorrow," Dex says. "And it depends on the majority opinion."
"The majority rarely includes me." I know I sound grumbly. I don't care. "Once you go back to a payment system, it divides the poor and the rich. Just like before."
"You're not the only person who thinks like that." He looks into the fire. "If you're going on the supply run tomorrow, you'll meet a kindred spirit. Heath."
"I already have." I try to stop myself smiling too much.
As soon as I met Heath, I knew I was in trouble. He's lovely to talk to, so friendly and smiling, and gorgeous. Long hair, leather jacket, worn jeans and biker boots. Just my type.
So I go out on the run, it's a cold, dismal day and we're out in Morpeth with narky bitch Kara who looks at you like you've just done a stinky fart all the time, and a big lump of dead brain cells called Gareth.
I suggest we split into pairs. As I'm suggesting it, I move towards Heath, who says, "Good idea, how about Aria and I do chemist and household?"
"Fine." Kara doesn't look at Heath like he's a bad smell; just me, then. "Pharmacies, too. We need antibiotics."
"Nice one," I say, as we walk off.
"Well, I didn't fancy talking football with Gareth. Days of West Ham's glory. Nice chap, but a bit slow." He won't be drawn on Kara; he used to live with her in a shared house.
We walk around Costcutter with torches and a trolley. The smell makes me retch at first, but it's amazing how you get used to it. I worked in a fish canning plant, a long time ago. For the first ten minutes every morning I had to hold back the puke, but after that I couldn't smell it. This is what it's like in the shops, now. It's not as bad as it was, because some of the rotten stuff has rotted away to nothing. That's my theory, anyway.
There's a worse smell, as we move towards the almost completely emptied booze shelves.
"Stand back," Heath says. Ooh, a gentleman, too. In the light of his torch, I see a body. In camouflage gear. Ugh, oh my God, it honks.
Heath investigates. "Throat's been cut. Wonder what went down?"
"A row over the last bottle of vodka, maybe?"
He laughs. "Come on, let's get out of here. I don't want to yack up my breakfast."
Amazing how we've got used to seeing dead bodies. Before bat fever I'd only ever seen one. Guy my dad had kicked to shit by his men, out the back of the pub. I looked out of my bedroom window one morning, and saw him lying there. I was nine.
Down the road it's completely silent. Usual paper and rubbish bags everywhere. Abandoned cars. Couple of bodies in doorways. Travis doesn't get why I don't mind how things are now. He rebelled against his snobby family, but he was a good boy and went to work, paid his bills and didn't live beyond his means. He can't imagine how it was for me. I always lived on a knife-edge back then, too, 'cause I was only ever my overdraft limit away from being homeless. Only difference was, I had to spend eight hours a day getting earache from whichever wankers I was working for. Now, that's over. I don't mind the danger, either. Kara's got a gun; I'm going to get one, too.
"So tell me," I say, as we walk down the road looking into shop windows to see if there's anything doing, "are you here on your own?"
"No, with my son." He tells me about where they came from, a village in Derbyshire. Now they live in a house with two other guys. He doesn't mention a woman. Fuck it, I'm asking.
"You single?"
"Yep." He cups his hands round his eyes and peers into the darkness of a chemist shop, then he turns and grins at me. "You're not."
Oh, so we're flirting, already. Good, good. I lean back against the window. "I'm sort of semi-detached."
He likes that. "How so?"
"I've been with Travis since the outbreak. But we're not a forever-and-ever type of thing."
He looks at me for a while, not smiling, exactly, but his eyes kind of are. Then he nods and says, "Okay!" in a sing-song kind of way, and walks off, pushing the chemist's door. There's a loud jingle-jangle as it opens, which makes us both jump, and we start laughing. I put my hand on his leather shoulder, and he puts his on the small of my back.
The first physical contact.
We meet eyes, we smile. We know. I'll let it stay like this for a while, though. I love that bit when you both know you're going to screw the arse off each other, before it actually happens. Such a buzz.
I must be so, so careful. Travis may not do possessive but he's not stupid, far from it, and I don't think he's the type who'd put up with being made a twat out of, either.
I wish Heath had his bike here. Wish I could get on the back of it and ride away with him to the ends of the earth, where there are no gossipy communities and no work rotas.
I've only just got here, and I'm looking at running away already.
Chapter Nine
Wedge
He climbs up to The Heugh, the highest point on the island. With his powerful binoculars, he can see them all.
He likes it up here. He can see across to the castle (which he will investigate as soon as he's found a way to get in), and considers how his ancestors would have looked upon this place when they first arrived. Best of all, he's got a straight view down to the priory. Today it's sunny, and he sees them walking around the ruins. Bette and the Kaiser. Dave-fucking-Hodgson. They rest on a wall, and he puts his arm around her shoulders while she skins up. Girl with white blonde hair sits on his other side. The sister. Cute.
Might be worth slinging a fuck into before reclaiming Bette.
He zooms in close on her. His Bette. The roots of her yellow hair are dark and long, and her face looks thinner. He watches as she runs her little pink tongue along the edge of the Rizla and laughs at something Hodgson says, and the fury in his heart makes him nauseous. He draws in his breath, sharply. The blood pounds round his head. He won't zoom in on Hodgson, because if he does he won't be able to stop himself leaping down that hill, charging over and punching the shitehawk's face in. Got to box clever. Take his time.
He swings the binoculars further over, where he happens upon Cleary taking a dump down behind an old stone wall. In bro
ad daylight. Fucking animal.
Past the ruins, he studies the Monk's Head hotel. He's peeped in through the windows, at night, and seen 'em all, sitting around with their candles and bottles of JD. Drinking, laughing.
Maybe it's time to put the fucking wind up Hodgson even more than it already must be. Wedge can just imagine him, glancing at the door all night every night, crapping himself every time it opens. Wondering if he's going to get his head blown off.
Might do well to treat himself to a bit of that Club Trop speed, make his grand entrance tonight. It ain't bad stuff. If he can get the mood just right, he can take on the world.
In the right mood, he'll be able to rise above the fury, ignore the blood pounding in his head, and do the smart thing.
Yeah. Time to show that he's back. For good.
Chapter Ten
Vicky
March ~ April
We've both changed, and we're adjusting. It's not easy.
Dex's son is five weeks old. He's no longer called Roger, which was a burst of post-natal sentiment on Naomi's behalf; he's now called Phoenix. Dex says he'd rather she'd stuck with Roger.
The island is beautiful, but it's cold, it rains a lot, and every day is hard work. In the evenings, it's good to just relax by the fire. I've forgotten about TV, and all the other rubbish I used to do to keep my un-stretched self entertained.
Spring is coming, but it takes its time up here.
Naomi is to be seen out and about with Phoenix in a papoose-type sling; she strides around, showing him to everyone; of course she's massively proud of him and people see the two of them as a symbol of hope for the future. I no longer feel venomous towards her; it's over, and Dex is back with me. Alas, this acceptance does not work both ways. The other day I was working at the hotel when they came in for supplies. They pretended not to see me, and Suzanne made a loud remark to Davina Lincoln about the blonde bimbo luring Dex back. Like I'm the 'other woman'. So much for sisterhood. Suzanne has become Naomi's bodyguard, and steers her away whenever they see me. Myra is not often with them; I'm guessing knocking off Ozzy is something of a full-time occupation.
Once, at a weekly meeting, I looked up and saw Naomi doing what Lottie would call 'giving me evils'; I smiled, but she just looked away. She has her beautiful son now, so why not let it go? Dex goes down to see the baby, and says he feels sad for her.
"Before everything happened she lived in this women-only house, which was very supportive, especially as two were single mothers, but they were all stridently anti-men, and she isn't. For the past few years, all she wanted was to find someone to love and have a child with. She can't do without Myra and Suzanne's support, but she says it's like she can't escape that house." He gives me one of his rueful half-grins; I see this often, when he talks about her. "She says she's fed up with being surrounded by bloody women, which I know means she wants me there more, but I've done my bit."
I feel sorry for her, but with reservations. "Trying to bust up someone else's relationship to get what you want isn't the way to go about it."
"No. I don't think she sees that, though."
I feel that anger bubbling up again. Towards him, not her. "Was it really worth it? All this, just for a bit of excitement and novelty?"
He folds his arms and leans against the door frame. "I know, I fucked up, didn't I? I don't even know what it was for, now."
I push past him, out of the room. Being the 'winner' in a love triangle is no great triumph. It's hard, adjusting to life after an affair. Possibly less so than in the old world, admittedly, because the amount of effort needed just to live, now, means you don't have time to drive yourself nuts obsessing over stuff. No more sitting on your comfortable sofa drinking wine, chatting on the phone to your friend about the wrong done to you. You've got water to boil, lentils to soak, waste to dispose of, fires to lay.
Dex is busy from sun up to sun down, and after. As Ozzy so rightly said, the other night, it's a 24/7 kind of gig. They're planting crops, and crossing fingers. I suggested seeking out allotments, but they've all been cleared; Nicole said that where she used to live the army raided them all for the camps, so I imagine it's the same all over. We've sought out mineral water bottling plants and places that supplied office water coolers, but many of those we locate are empty—again, cleared by the army in the early days, we assume.
Meanwhile, we carry on boiling.
Scavenging runs occur daily, including systematic, street-by-street petrol siphoning, but I don't go on them, because Heath does. In some ways I wish we'd never crossed that barrier, never admitted we had feelings for each other, because we'd still be friends. Or perhaps we were never fated to be just friends. I miss him. It hurts that he's not in my life any more, but you don't get to have your cake and eat it. He avoids me; I suppose it's easier that way.
I work with Rowan on food organisation at the hotel, and the laundry, for large items like bed linen. I make bread, I feed chickens, I gather eggs.
Phil, Marcus and a guy called Ray are building a communal toilet that involves compost. Sounds revolting. At the moment we use a similar system to the one in Elmfield. Burial in fields on the mainland. Enough said.
Lottie seems happy enough. I don't see her a great deal. I miss her, too. She's always off learning how to drive, hunt, fish and anything else she can get involved in, and, probably, doing things she shouldn't, but she's seventeen at the end of May, she's not a kid any more. My big worry is that she'll get involved with some boy (or man) and get pregnant, but I've had 'the talk' with her as many times as I dare, by which I mean that the last time I started she said, "Mum, if you don't shut up about this I'm going to turn lesbian."
Well, it would remove the pregnancy worry.
At the last weekly meeting, Marcus brought up this very subject—birth control, I mean, not sexual orientation—and made nauseating references to 'things getting a little steamy', waving around boxes of condoms, 'available for everyone's use, no questions asked!', kept with the medical supplies in the post office. Lottie and Jax were in fits of childish giggles, which I hoped meant their relationship is definitely not of that type, but then I realised they were actually laughing about the prospect of Marcus and Audrey getting 'a little steamy'.
Marcus is so revolting. Why couldn't he just say, 'If anyone wants condoms, there's a large supply in the post office, help yourself'?
A curious development: Dex has struck up a friendship with one of the bikers, who goes by the name of 'Wedge'. A pretty scary individual. Well, he looks scary, anyway; I haven't actually met him. He lives apart from the rest of them, and Dex visits him sometimes. Wedge half-inched lots of books about Viking history from the museum and the heritage centre, and they pass them back and forth, and discuss Viking lore. And get drunk. Dex is always the worse for wear when he returns; he needs the relaxation, I think. When he comes back he talks a great deal, and with great enthusiasm, about the future.
The other night he was still rabbiting away at two in the morning. Every time I said, "Yes, this is very interesting, but could we do it tomorrow?" he said okay, and woke me up three minutes later with another new idea.
Wedge identifies with the Vikings; I wonder if Dex does, too.
At a meeting, Suzanne made a scathing remark about Dex striding around and calling the shots, in a way Marcus never did. She said, "Who do you think you are, the lord of the manor?"
Dex didn't rise to the bait, but smiled and said, "Jarl, actually."
He said that, henceforth, he wished to be known as the Jarl of Lindisfarne, and would thus be entitled to first dibs on any supplies of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups found by the scavenging groups.
Everyone laughed, except Suzanne.
Dex turns up at the hotel and says he has a surprise for me. From his pocket, he produces a bunch of keys.
"The keys to the castle. I got them off Marcus; they're mine now. Shall we explore?"
Without Marcus hovering in the background? Yes! I abandon my list of tinned vegetables,
and grab my coat. Rowan doesn't look too happy, but never mind; she's not my boss.
It's a bit of a walk from the centre of the village and it's cold, windy and pissing down, but it's worth it when we get inside. Dex mocks as I do my usual thing of placing my hands on the walls and thinking myself back hundreds of years to all the people who've stood in this room. I love the narrow steps, the arches, and, best of all, the view around the island, which takes my breath away. It really does; when I join Dex out in the courtyard it makes me gasp in awe.
He's standing by the wall looking out, with a smile on his face, king of all he surveys. He has a self-satisfied expression on his face, like he's achieved some secret goal.
"Do you remember the day we went to look at the house in Shipden for the first time?" He puts an arm around my shoulder and I lean my head against him.
"Mm-mm. Of course. Happy days."
He runs a hand down my back. "I think it's time we christened our new home again."
I laugh. "What?"
"Here. We're going to live here. You and me, and Lottie."
Ahh. Not sure about that. I scratch my head. "Um—right! Wow."
"You don't sound too sure."
"No, it's just that I don't know if Lottie will want to; she likes being down in the village, with Jax, and I want to be with her, so—"
He slings an arm around my shoulders. "Okay. You can divide your time. But I need to be here." He laughs. "I'm the Jarl, after all! Come on, we'll be King and Queen of Lindisfarne, in our castle. It'll be great."
I'm not sure about that. "Dex, I can see the appeal, but don't you think you should be in the village? So that you're nearby when people need to discuss stuff with you?"
"They'll know where to find me. Don't you want to sleep in a four-poster, in a castle? There's a range for cooking." He gestures around the courtyard. "And we can make this fabulous, plants and an awning—imagine having dinner out here in the summer!"
