Last One at the Party

by Bethany Clift

  So I kept busy.

  The TV worked. All channels were tuned to the empty BBC studio, but the on-demand movies still played. I watched all of them.

  I got drunk, got horny (yes, it’s weird, but I am sure there are lots, or rather were lots, of studies about how death and sex are linked) and spent an afternoon watching nothing but porn. At least, I planned to spend an afternoon watching nothing but porn, but, after a couple of hours when I just couldn’t face masturbating again, I got bored. When I found myself starting to analyse the plot holes rather than anatomical ones, I turned it off.

  I read all the fancy magazines from the coffee table and then raided the other suites for different fancy magazines.

  I ate all the bar snacks, cheese, ham, and berries and then moved on to anything else still edible in the hotel, including the olives and maraschino cherries from the bar and the boiled sweets from the lobby.

  I sat on my balcony, wrapped in duvets, drinking strange and unusual cocktails that I invented myself from Artesian’s collection of booze and mixers.

  From my balcony, I watched the BBC building at the end of Regent Street to see if anyone went in or out or if there was any movement in the windows. There wasn’t.

  I strained my ears for a sound, any sound. I heard birds singing, the wind whistling up and down the empty streets, the rain bouncing on roofs, the hum of a streetlamp. My own breathing, my heartbeat drumming in my ears; loud and rhythmic.

  I didn’t hear anyone else.

  By mid-morning of my fourth day at the Langham I had finished the food, finished the films and the porn, finished the magazines, and couldn’t face another three-hour bath as my skin was starting to permanently wrinkle.

  I wandered down to reception and stared up at the huge Christmas tree. The giant flower arrangements were now wilting, but the tree stood firm, an homage to the calendar humanity had once lived by.

  Christmas.

  Christmas!

  I jumped up and ran back to my room, grabbing my phone.

  I hadn’t bothered checking the date or time for days – there didn’t seem to be any need. But today might be special, today might be …

  I was right.

  It was Christmas Day.

  Christmas Day. Over two weeks since James had died.

  Shit.

  James was dead.

  Everyone was dead.

  I sat down abruptly.

  Two whole weeks since everyone had died and I had only made the most cursory attempts to find any other survivors.

  I had watched porn instead.

  I needed to find other people … or at least I needed to try.

  I stood up and then sat down again.

  But not today.

  And not tomorrow.

  The apocalypse could wait a couple of days while I celebrated the most wonderful time of the year.

  The idea of celebration galvanised me into action. I couldn’t spend Christmas Day without food or drink or happiness, my mum would never forgive me!

  My mum loved Christmas. Christmas Eve was her favourite day of the year and even when I was very young I always knew the special day was approaching when dishes of nuts and Quality Street magically started to appear on the coffee table. My mum always …

  No.

  No.

  Christmas Day was not a day to remember how good things had been, not a day to cry, not a day to spend silently staring out of the window with tears dripping off my face.

  Christmas Day was a day of celebration.

  Celebration and food and drink and fun.

  Fuck it, I was going to go shopping.

  Christmas Day

  I went to Harrods.

  I reasoned that it would have the widest selection of things under one roof and, given free rein of all the shops in London, I was hardly going to visit the local Sainsbury’s.

  God, I hoped it wasn’t locked.

  It wasn’t. A window had already been broken and a mannequin knocked to the floor (ooh – anarchy). Once inside nothing seemed to have been touched. Counters of perfumes, bags, make-up, sunglasses, scarves, jewellery, and a hundred other items that no one would ever want again sat gathering dust.

  It was weird and depressing.

  It was also dark as Hades in there. No one had been in to switch the lights on, and the one thing you never think about in these massive stores is how little daylight actually gets in. Ten feet from the window I was struggling to see, and that, combined with the complete silence and looming mannequin displays, was freaking the hell out of me. There was no way I was getting through to the Food Halls.

  So I left, found the nearest electrical store and got myself a couple of the biggest torches I could find plus one of those head torches for good measure.

  Once back in Harrods, I’ll be honest, the shadows cast by the miner’s light and torches didn’t make me feel any more at ease, but at least I could see where I was going.

  At first, I just walked around occasionally touching items and tentatively picking things up, still half-convinced I was going to feel a hand on my shoulder telling me to put it down.

  After fifteen minutes of dithering, I said ‘Stop being stupid!’ out loud, and pulled an LV holdall down from a display, waving it in the air in defiance.

  The room stayed silent, the mannequins stayed still, no phantom hand grabbed my shoulder.

  So I went wild.

  I grabbed a couple of Birkin bags, a Chanel handbag, some Chloé sunglasses, and three Alexander McQueen scarves on my way through the accessories department. Then I filled one of the Birkin bags with every item in the Crème de la Mer range, plus three tubes of the £80 Elemis face cream that the sales assistant had earnestly recommended I use as hand cream last time I was in there (I had nodded politely, and then slowly walked away from her).

  I am ashamed to say that the ritual of acquiring things I didn’t really need cheered me up as much as it had in my pre-6DM life. While I was picking and choosing my way through items I could never previously afford I completely forgot my current situation – that the designer bags I now had would never be admired by anyone other than me, that my expensive face creams might slow my wrinkles, but no one would ever notice. I was worrying about looking good for a world that no longer existed.

  I had no idea whether there would be anything still edible in the Food Halls but I shouldn’t have worried; of course Harrods had a superior refrigeration and ventilation system.

  I walked into the first of the huge rooms and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the comforting smell of bread and cakes.

  I smiled, once more transported from my current trauma to a happier time.

  I grabbed a trolley and started to load up while stuffing my face with anything that didn’t need to be cooked. Cakes, chocolates, pasta, fresh meats, cured meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, pastries, sausages, sauces, rice, cereals. The fresh bread was hard and stale but there was plenty of packaged stuff that was still good, so I threw armfuls into the trolley. I filled one trolley, and another, and a third.

  I was manic and in a frenzy of food. I grabbed things to eat, took one bite, and then threw them away if I didn’t like them. Sauces, juice, crumbs and chocolate smeared my face.

  Food Halls ransacked, I moved on to the booze. Another two trolleys were filled with every conceivable variety of alcohol I could find. The most expensive bottle of champagne they stock? Why, the vintage Krug of course. I’ll have five bottles of it. Vodka? Why not? Gin? Yes please. I opened bottles, took a swig, and discarded them immediately if they weren’t to my taste. To begin with I put them back on the shelf, but then, holding a bottle worth £45 in my hand, I stopped, turned and threw it against the wall.

  And, with that act of mindless violence, all of a sudden I realised I was angry.

  In fact, I was furious.

  I didn’t know at what, or who with, but I was furious about something. I picked up random bottles and threw them into a pile on the floor, smashing them again and
again until the floor was covered in liquid and the room stank of booze. Within minutes I had raged through half the stock on the walls and had a flash of being appalled at my wanton destruction. But that quickly passed to be replaced with more anger and bitterness. I didn’t care! Who was going to stop me? No one else was here, I could do what I liked!

  I tried to push over a whole display cabinet. It wouldn’t budge, and I got angrier and angrier until I was yelling and shouting and sobbing, and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over.

  I collapsed to the floor, exhausted and crying.

  Of course I was angry.

  I was angry at Harrods for having such robust displays, I was angry at 6DM, angry at the scientists for not finding a cure, angry at the government for not having a secret bunker to go to, angry at the stupid human body for being so easy to kill, angry at everyone for dying, angry at my parents, angry at James.

  I was angry that I was alone. Angry that I was lonely and sad and scared and confused and useless and didn’t know what to do or where to go.

  But what I was most angry about was that I was pretty sure I would be lonely and sad and scared and confused and useless and wouldn’t know what to do or where to go from now until the day I died.

  It was Christmas Day and I was sitting in a pitch-black room, in a puddle of alcohol, in what were probably extremely flammable trousers.

  I grabbed the nearest unbroken bottle, twisted the cap off and drank.

  It was Scotch and burnt my mouth, but I didn’t care.

  I waited until I could feel the warmth of the Scotch permeating throughout my body and fuzzing my mind before I struggled to my feet and walked back out to the Range Rover.

  I left the trolleys of food and booze where they were.

  I drove slowly back to the Langham, swigging from my bottle. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. At least it was beautiful there.

  I was walking back into the hotel when I heard it.

  Faint and far away but definitely something. It undulated through the streets, high-pitched and monotonous. An alarm maybe?

  It stopped.

  I strained my ears to hear it again, and back it came. Stop, start, stop, start.

  I turned away from the hotel and began to walk towards the source of the noise.

  It started again, louder this time, at a higher pitch.

  Maybe it was a klaxon, something to call people closer?

  Maybe it was someone else who had survived.

  It had started to rain, hard, piercing droplets that were closer to ice shards than water. I didn’t care; I like rain, and I had to know what was calling me.

  Hotel, Scotch and Range Rover forgotten, I followed the sound of the noise.

  I love walking in the rain.

  I love the smell of fresh spring rain as it hits the ground early in the morning, I love the sound of rain as it lashes my windowpane in the deep of winter, the splash of rain as it whips up out of a puddle when a car rushes past too close to the pavement. I love walking in rain, listening to it pitter-patter onto the roof of my coat when I have pulled it up to create my own private house of protection from the outside world.

  Rain washes away old dirt and old stains and makes new things grow.

  I was standing in the rain the first time James told me he loved me.

  Twelve years ago, despite my pain and panic, I had forced myself to board the plane to Thailand less than twenty-four hours after James had kissed me. Xav was bubbling with excitement at three months in his second favourite hedonistic tourist destination (Ibiza obviously being his first love), but I was a mess; torn between leaving my troubles behind and staying to embrace my future.

  In the end I chose the easiest option and allowed myself to be practically carried onboard the plane by Xav’s unbridled joy.

  It was the last time I would successfully go through with a difficult decision for the next ten years.

  I returned from Thailand with the obligatory woven bracelet, a new tattoo, and a new sense of calm.

  My previous worries and panic attacks seemed to belong to another version of me. My time spent abroad, with a perma-stoned Xav and a bunch of middle-aged hippies with no life goals or plans to go home, had allowed me to create a new me, a me that didn’t worry about her identity, future, or inability to write anything meaningful. The new me was relaxed and happy, ready to leave her anxiety in the past.

  Once home I began working for Shipping and Ports: Global. A magazine for those in the shipping industry and those who were just ‘enthusiasts’. It was incredibly male-dominated and they needed to up their female quota so were more than happy to employ someone who had a background in journalism, had travelled, and didn’t ‘write like a feminist’ (that is an exact quote from the conversation I had with the editor when he rang to tell me I had got the job.)

  I visited ports across the globe, reporting on the latest container and cargo ships, ferries and cruise ships. It was less glamorous, less well paid, and less exciting, but it meant I still got to travel and gave me a new-found love of ports, industrial estates, and huge Russian cargo ships with crews of twenty.

  Within weeks I had settled into my new job and writing role, and I loved it. Really, really loved it.

  I loved writing about things that were completely separate to me – about ships rather than feelings, facts rather than opinions. And, it turned out, I loved what I was writing about. I’d always liked the sea, but I’d never truly appreciated the huge ships, the massive ports, the industrial estates that surrounded them. The lone pubs with aged strippers shaking pint mugs for pound coins. The surly captains with their rum or whisky or vodka, offered in white tin mugs. The crew members who made fishing nets out of old cargo netting and then extended them on ropes hundreds of feet long to drag through the water. The huge engine rooms where ear defenders are a must and conversations are held in sign language. The fact that tankers no longer have a steering wheel, but that most crew members can still find their way via the stars. I was told stories of fifty-foot waves, onboard hookers, pirates and port police. I slept in hammocks and packing crates and ate whale and sea snake. I liked the crews and, once they had got over their disappointment that I wasn’t going to sleep with them, they liked me. I became pen pals, of sorts, with many of them; I would receive filthy postcards from some far-flung port, with a scrawl of foreign language that I could never decipher, or a crude drawing of a penis on the back.

  I had a battered duffle bag pre-packed with wet weather gear, thick jumpers, old jeans, and steel-toed boots. You can’t drag a suitcase up six flights of steel stairs to the bridge of a tanker (as I soon learnt) and if you wear anything other than old, gender-neutral clothes you are likely to be mistaken for a visiting sex worker (as I also learnt). Plus, most of the ships are held together with grease, oil and dirt, so there’s not much point in wearing anything you actually like.

  I loved my job and I was good at it. Freed from the constraints of writing about anything meaningful or personal, the writer’s block disappeared and articles that were filled with wit and charm were flying off my computer once more.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The ‘new me’ that had returned from my travels slowly disappeared as I realised I had returned to exactly the same place and the same life that I had been so keen to run away from previously. I was no closer to knowing who I was or what I wanted. I tried to start writing a new novel, but couldn’t think of anything I wanted to write about. I just stared at the screen for hours as it remained blank. My mind felt empty. I felt empty.

  Maybe this was why the middle-aged hippies never came back home. Because when you do, you just return to the same place, the same you as before.

  I hadn’t found a new me, I was still lost.

  I tried not to think about James, the contentment I had felt with him, the safety and security he had represented.

  I tried to concentrate on myself, to think about how I could make myself feel better.

  I held
out for about six months.

  I had to see him. I mean, not to try to kiss him or be with him, just to see him. Just to check he was okay.

  I pretended I had an interview near his office and asked if he wanted to meet for a quick drink after work.

  He looked fine. Damn fine. Damn, damn fine.

  He’d got a new job, not in creative as he had hoped, but he was head of advertising at his new place, so the money was much better.

  He was living in a flat with a mate.

  He had a new girlfriend.

  It was nice. Two friends having a drink and chatting about their lives.

  Really nice.

  I was catching the train to Liverpool for an article on a new super tanker, so he walked me to Euston station and we hugged goodbye.

  I waved him off and then walked to the end of the platform, stood in the rain, and wept angry, disappointed tears. Angry at myself because I still wanted him desperately, disappointed at him for not feeling the same way.

  Resigned, I picked up my bag to get on the train and felt a tap on my shoulder.

  He was there.

  The rain fell onto my cheeks, mixing with my tears, and he wiped it all away as he held my face in his hands and kissed me again and again.

  As the train guard blew the whistle James told me he was in love with me and wasn’t going to let me get away again. I smiled all the way to Liverpool.

  It was, and still is, the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me.

  We moved in together three months later.

  If my mum’s heart had broken just a little when Xav casually announced to her that he was gay, and therefore not my one true love, it was mended once more when James and I announced we were moving in together so soon after rekindling our romance.

  ‘Finally, here he is,’ she must have thought. ‘Here is her great romance. Here is her Hollywood happiness.’

  But of course she had forgotten the sadness that the heroines of her beloved movies always go through.

  The picture-perfect ending is never quite what it seems.

  I followed the sound through the rain-soaked streets of London and finally reached the source of the alarm.