‘Brilliant,’ Pea says. ‘Did it go okay?’
‘Fine, all easy,’ Mary says.
‘Where’s Lilly?’ Joan asks.
‘Up the road marvelling at her new wall, no doubt with a few dozen blokes hanging off her every word…’
‘I bet they bloody are,’ Sam says. ‘I don’t know how she does it…no, that’s not true, I do know how she does it…’
‘She gets on with it and gets the job done,’ Joan says. ‘No mess, no fuss. Lenski’s the same and that’s exactly what we need right now too…’
‘She’s an astonishing woman,’ Sam says before sipping at her tea. ‘Or girl…’ she frowns, thinking for a second. ‘What do you call her?’ she asks Joan.
‘She’s a girl to me, but then I’m old. Even you two are a lot younger than me.’
‘We’re not girls,’ Pea says. ‘We’re definitely not girls…’
‘We’re ladies,’ Sam says.
‘Yeah we’re definitely not ladies either,’ Pea adds, earning a few smiles. ‘But you’re right. I keep forgetting how old Lilly is…I didn’t know my arse from my elbow at sixteen.’
‘You still don’t,’ Sam says, pointing at Pea’s arse. ‘Nice elbow though.’
‘Idiot,’ Pea tuts, rolling her eyes. ‘How old are you, Mary?’
‘I’m twenty one,’ Mary says, stirring the coffee while listening closely.
‘Twenty one!’ Sam says. ‘Oh my god, you’re still a girl too then.’
‘No,’ Pea chides. ‘Twenty one is a woman.’
‘It’s not,’ Sam scoffs.
‘Lilly can’t buy a drink in a pub,’ Pea says. ‘But Mary can.’
‘Er, it’s the end of the world and like, there’s no pubs,’ Sam says.
‘Good point,’ Pea says.
‘I think that coffee is now very stirred,’ Sam says as Mary slowly realises they’re all staring at her.
‘What now?’ she asks with a blush creeping into her cheeks. A feeling of shame from the thoughts in her head.
‘But then everything is different now,’ Pea continues. ‘I mean, look at Lilly and Nick. He’s like Mary’s age…and that’s okay.’
‘Yeah but it’s Nick,’ Sam says. ‘Any mother would be happy to see their daughter with him.’
‘Most mothers wouldn’t mind a go too,’ Pea mutters.
‘Paula Gabriel!’ Sam laughs.
‘You’re quiet, Mary,’ Joan says. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Aye,’ Mary replies, offering a smile with too many confusing things in her head and too many images of a certain young woman. ‘Hot isn’t it…right, better get that van unloaded…’
Chapter Seventeen
Day Twenty three
‘Got another one, Tommy,’ Karl says, showing a woman into Tommy’s section of the big tent.
‘Alright love,’ Tommy says, smiling like a hungry wolf with sweat pouring down his face from the incredible heat. ‘What you after then?’
She looks drained and fit to drop with deep lines on her forehead and bags under her eyes. ‘Just something for the kids,’ she says quietly.
‘Choccy bars? Nice bit of sugar never hurt kids eh? Bit melted from the heat but they’re alright…what you got for them?’
‘Someone said you can pay with ciggies,’ she says, opening a small rucksack. ‘Pack of fags for four Mars okay? They’re Marlboro…top brand. Tenner each these are.’
‘Ah you see,’ he says with a pained expression. ‘Choccy bars are value items now ain’t they. I can do you four Mars for two packs of Marlboro.’
‘You taking the piss? That’s twenty quid of ciggies for four quid of chocolate.’
‘Don’t blame me,’ Tommy says. ‘If I was in charge I’d make sure everyone had exactly what they needed…none of this crap going on now. Letting the muzzies have everything for themselves. Not on my watch. I wouldn’t stand for that…’
He makes the trade and shows her out, stepping into the sunshine with the delusions of his mind telling him that everyone here can be manipulated.
‘Are you Tommy?’
He turns on hearing his name. A woman standing nearby. Her arms folded across her body. A dark hooded top with the hood pulled up. Her face pale and waxen.
‘What’s up with you,’ he asks.
She shrugs, her lips cracked and dry. ‘They said you’re trading.’
‘Might be,’ he says with a wink before tutting at his humour falling on deaf ears. ‘Fuck me, only trying to make a joke. Come in…what you after then? What’s your name?’
‘Helen. I need something to drink,’ she says, her voice low and harsh. She used to be an executive until her addiction to alcohol took over. An educated woman in her thirties that has spent the last three weeks moving from house to house as she headed south. Drinking whatever she could find. Now she trembles from head to toe. Dry as a bone and desperate.
She came in yesterday with a small bottle of Tequila hidden in her clothes and found a spot under a low shelter to drink herself into a stupor. Now she’s awake and clucking. Her whole body trembling. Pain everywhere. Her head pounding and so dehydrated she can’t even piss, but none of that matters. Only that she needs a drink and she steps into Tommy’s little room and watches as he pulls a sheet back from a pile of crap on the floor and fixes her eyes on the half-litre bottle of vodka.
Tommy can see she must have once been beautiful. She still could be if she scrubbed up a bit. ‘What you got to trade?’ he asks, not seeing any jewellery.
She shakes her head. Hardly able to talk. The shakes getting worse by the minute. The absolute desperation within her so very strong. ‘Vodka,’ she rasps.
He looks at the bottle then at her. ‘Ain’t for free is it…’
She finally looks at him, seeing the look in his eyes that drop down over her body. His fat, swollen gut. The tattoos and days of dark growth flecked so heavy with grey on his jaw. Hatred inside. Hatred at him, at herself, at the end of the world and everything. A surge of utter disgust. A reminder that she was once a decent, hard-working person.
Tommy sees the contempt and stiffens his frame. His own face hardening with a sneer. ‘Best fuck off then…’ he says angrily.
She shakes her head quickly as though snapping back to the now and her hands tremble as she unfolds her arms and grabs at the zip on her thin cotton top, trembling too much to pull it down. She doesn’t care now. She needs that vodka and she grows almost desperate in her effort to unzip her top until it finally comes down and falls open to show her naked breasts. Her ribs showing from lack of food. Her stomach curved inwards with spare wrinkles of skin showing rapid weight-loss. Sickly pale too with blue veins seen under the thin flesh but he fixes on her breasts and moves forward, grabbing one to knead hard. His heart thundering at the turn of events. Lust in his face and he moves in to kiss her, scowling at the last second when she turns away.
A few seconds later she kneels on all fours. Her jogging bottoms tugged down around one ankle as Tommy paws and pokes at her from behind while stroking himself. His face flushed a deep red. The sweat pouring down as he tugs and pulls at his cock, trying to get hard. He gets it halfway up and tries to force it in, grunting and sweating while she reaches out to grab the bottle of vodka. Tears spilling over her cheeks. Sobbing silently at his rough hands grabbing too hard and the pain from forcing himself inside her. She grunts and winces but grabs the bottle, unscrews the cap with her teeth, spits it aside and drinks deep while he tugs at himself with a growing anger at his own inability to get an erection.
The smell starts to hit him. The stench of unwashed bodies. The ripeness of it. The way she drinks the vodka without care to his plight. This should be erotic and horny but it’s filthy and sordid. He can’t stop sweating too. So much of it dripping on her arse and back. His fat belly wobbling. His dick now completely soft. He tries again, almost hurting himself in his efforts to fuck her but it’s no good.
‘Fuck it,’ he snaps, pushing her away. She topples to the side,
crying out at spilling the booze and drinking deep once more for fear of him taking the bottle away. Lying naked on her side, tears on her face, her pale body looking so pathetic and wretched. ‘Scrawny fucking bitch,’ he sneers, getting to his feet and tugging his shorts up. ‘Go on, piss off out of here…fucking whore…’
She scrabbles to her feet, pulling her trousers up while too frightened to put the bottle down. Doing the zip up is impossible so she just pulls her top closed and rushes out.
‘You owe me,’ he calls after her. ‘That one doesn’t count…’
She doesn’t reply but runs out and into the sun and across the way back to her shelter to crawl in out of sight to drink herself into another stupor while the pressure from the sky bears down.
There’s a storm coming. That much is obvious, and so the new canteen building has to be constructed fast. People hammering and sawing. Sweating and bleeding. It’s a big building too and at times both John and Pardip question if they have bitten off more than they can deal with.
Pressure everywhere. Damsa feels it too, staring across to Maleek and Ameer working hard while Bashir and Tajj sweat on the beach and she bites her bottom lip, worrying and fretting at the hostile faces staring over at her. There are too many people up here not doing anything while too few are run ragged trying to do everything. They must show they have worth to be here. They must earn their place then maybe people won’t hate them.
‘Come on,’ she says, turning to face her family. All women in black robes. ‘We’re not staying here…ready?’
She leaves the perceived safety of their section and leads them through tent-town. A thing to see for sure. Seven women in black robes seemingly gliding across the ground. Backs straight. Heads held high but fear in their faces. The older women holding the younger ones close as Damsa leads them to the office, to the chaos outside and the ground stacked with new tents and new sleeping bags, with people talking loudly, with piles of bedding being brought in from the gate, stacks of food and people moving in every direction that all seem to fall silent as Damsa and her group come to a stop.
‘What wrong?’ Lenski asks, looking at Damsa.
‘We can work,’ Damsa says. ‘You are busy…we can work,’ she nods at her group then looks to Lenski. A second’s worth of silence and the world moves on as the chaos continues.
‘Is good. Go to gate. Is many things to bring in yes? Bring here…’
Inside his big circus tent, Tommy curses as he opens a can of beer and glugs the hot fizzy contents down. His face dark with rage.
‘Fucking bitch,’ he mutters. The way she judged him too. That look of contempt. Who does she think she is? She’s the one giving fucks away for free. Worse than a crack whore. No wonder he couldn’t get it up. Nobody would be able to get hard with a skank like that in this heat.
On the bay they work hard too with every spare pair of hands focussing on building the wall, and with each new container slammed into place, so it grows by another twelve metres.
‘It’s like Lego,’ Kyle shouts amidst the noise and heat.
‘It is,’ Norman shouts back, his face covered in grime.
Container after container. Trucks driving in with more runs done to the docks by some of Peter’s men. The crane working non-stop. Diggers working the land ahead to make it flat.
Lilly stays in the middle of it all with Norman and Kyle. Seeing tweaks to make it faster. Making sure the direction is right. Working out how to make the wall curve and what to use to plug the gaps. Throats hurting from shouting so much and breathing in the hot fumes. Faces coated in sweat with every pore clogged. Clothes sodden. Feet burning.
On the beach, Mary leads a new group across the sand, going past Bashir and Tajj sweating and working to sort, stack and load wood into waiting boats.
‘This is Sandy,’ Mary says, helping the family into the boat. A mum, dad and two young children. ‘She’ll take you over to the fort…you’ll be okay you will…’
‘All in?’ Sandy asks, powering the boat across the water. She reaches the fort shore, slowing the boat to gently hit the beach and looking ahead to the women in black robes sorting and lifting goods to be taken inside and rolls her eyes at Donald snoozing in a chair in the shade. ‘Donald,’ she calls out with a groan. ‘Where’s Pam?’
‘Eh, you what?’ Donald asks, sitting up and pretending he wasn’t asleep.
‘Where’s Pam? I’ve got new people here…’
‘Er…’ Donald says, not quite knowing anything from having such a nice snooze. ‘Dunno…’
‘Well go and get one of them,’ Sandy calls.
‘I’m a guard. I can’t leave my post…’
‘Yeah bloody great guard,’ Sandy mutters. ‘I’ve got to get back…they need wood bringing over…’
‘Excuse me, sorry. Are you looking for Lenski?’ Damsa asks, moving away from the other women. ‘She is inside, they are very busy I think.’
‘You speak English? Brilliant!’ Sandy says. ‘Right, out you get,’ she says to the family. ‘Can you take these in to see Lenski…or Pamela…either will do…they’re new arrivals.’
‘Me?’ Damsa asks.
‘I’m meant to be on wood supply,’ Sandy says as though that explains everything. The new family clamber out to stand on the beach and turn from the boat driving away to the woman in the black robes staring at them.
‘Um,’ the mother says, looking frightened with wide eyes. They all do. Damsa can see the fear in them.
‘Hello, sorry,’ Damsa says, finally smiling, her face open and friendly. ‘I am sorry. It is very busy here…yes of course, I will take you to Lenski. Do you need help with your bags? Come, let me take that. It looks heavy. Are these your children? They are very beautiful.’
‘Thank you, wow…this is…it’s too much,’ the man says, shouldering a rucksack as he glances back over the water to the bay.
‘Is it okay here?’ the woman asks. ‘I mean is it safe?’
‘I think it is, yes,’ Damsa says, leading them through the gates. ‘There is much work to do though. Everyone is very busy here…’
‘Aren’t you hot?’ a young girl asks, eleven years old and ready to question the world as she takes in Damsa’s robes.
‘Crystal, shush, that’s rude,’ the mother whispers urgently. ‘So sorry…’
‘It is not rude,’ Damsa says. ‘If you don’t know something you should ask. Our clothes are very light, and they stop the sun…plus we are from a hot place.’
‘Are you a Muslim?’ Crystal asks.
‘Crystal,’ her mother whisper snaps again.
‘It is fine. Yes, I am, Crystal. My name is Damsa. It is nice to meet you…’ she pauses as they falter to take in the fort from the inside. At the work underway and the people moving about.
‘It’s big,’ the mother says.
‘Yes. Indeed it is,’ Damsa says, smiling at the children. ‘We just have to go a short distance…’ she leads them on, feeling their fear at coming into a strange new place, seeing the worry on their faces. ‘They have an evening meal,’ Damsa explains. ‘The children can eat first then they call for adults…and there are showers around the walls to wash…I believe there is a place to get hot tea from too…and I think they give you some space, maybe a shelter for now and a tent when they have some…Lenski? These are new people. Do I bring them to you?’
‘Yes. Is new people. Is many new people,’ Lenski says under the crushing heat, cursing under her breath at Pamela disappearing again but she notices the new people and the way they look in fear at the fort and everything going on, but not in fear at Damsa. But then the Muslim woman has a friendly smile that reaches her eyes and a soft, polite tone of voice. ‘Wait please,’ she darts inside, grabbing a clipboard and re-appears swiftly. ‘I show you how we do this yes? Can you write English?’
‘I can,’ Damsa says, taking the clipboard with a confused look. ‘I’m sorry. You will show me how to do what exactly?’
‘Greet new people. Is fine. You will be
good at this…’
Lilly bends forward as she pours water over her head to rid the sweat from her eyes before turning to look at the long line of containers and already a staggering achievement in just how many they have laid.
Another container goes down bringing them another twelve metres closer to the finish line and they rush on for the next. Preparing the ground and making sure the container angle is good for the curve and checking the contents. Arguing over whether three hundred boxes of fashion shoes need to be taken out before the container is put in place.
‘Shoes are shoes,’ Kyle yells. ‘
‘They’re high heels and sandals,’ Norman shouts back at him.
‘Get ‘em out,’ Kyle yells, waving his arms at the crane driver.
‘Just slot the fucking container in place,’ Norman yells after him.
The crane driver dithers and tries to do both then snaps and yanks a lever to bring one end up, letting three hundred boxes of fashion shoes spill over the ground. ‘HAPPY NOW?’ he yells.
‘FINE,’ Kyle shouts back.
‘GOOD,’ Norman bellows and on they go, working to get the container in place and twelve metres closer to the sea, to the finish line. They go deep into the old estate. A bad place to be, blackened and covered in lumps of twisted metal that scream out when the diggers and machines drag them free. Piles of slag and bricks. It stinks too. Chemicals and ash made up of people and objects. The arse end of the line but every container down is twelve metres closer.
‘THE CURVE IS TOO MUCH,’ Lilly shouts, indicating with her hands that the container has gone in at a bad angle. ‘GET IT BACK UP…’
‘IT LOOKS FINE,’ Norman yells.
‘IT’S NOT FINE. GET IT BACK UP AND DO IT AGAIN…’ she waves in the air, motioning the crane driver to take it back up and bring it back down.
‘BETTER,’ Lilly shouts, giving a thumbs up.
‘It was bloody fine where it was,’ Norman says, marching on.
The Undead (Book 23): The Fort Page 21
