by Hilary Green
“But there’s my father, too,” I protested.
“Surely he can take care of himself.”
“But it’s very lonely up there. I don’t like to think of him all by himself. Suppose he had a fall or something . . . .”
Once again Clare’s hand went to her hair. “Stop imagining the worst, Nell. It’s typical of you, working yourself up into a state without having really thought things through. There are all sorts of agencies whose job it is to keep an eye on old people. The hospital will see to it that your father and your mother get all the help they need. It’s the government’s declared policy to see that all the social services are maintained, for those that really need them. The best thing you can do is to go back home with the boys and wait until you hear from your father again.”
The tea arrived at that moment; strong, bitter canteen tea, but welcome just the same. As soon as the policeman who brought it had withdrawn I said, “But Clare, what’s the point in me going back now? I’m well on my way, and turning back would just be a waste of petrol. Couldn’t you arrange a permit for us?”
“I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” she said sharply, shifting papers on her desk.
“Why?” I demanded.
She looked at me. “Why? I can think of a dozen reasons, and so could you if you used your brains instead of your emotions for once. Do I have to keep telling you that we have a State of Emergency? What is needed at this point in time is for every single person to get on quietly and conscientiously with his or her job. You should be at home, seeing that your children go to school. What’s going to happen to their schooling up in Wales? Have you thought about that? Then there must be dozens of things you could usefully do in your area. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you to contact your local KBG headquarters and see if you can help in any way.”
“As a matter of fact I have,” I said. The opportunity to score off Clare was irresistible. Then I could have bitten off my tongue. Suppose Clare decided to contact Harrington and check up on me. . . .
She stared at me for a moment and then went on, less brusquely, “Well, I’m glad to hear it. I hadn’t expected you to show that much initiative. Well then, you know how valuable your help could be. You should be concentrating on that.”
“I really am worried about my mother, Clare. Suppose she had another attack. I want to see her again ... in case anything happens.”
In silence she picked up her tea cup and put it down again, untasted. Then she said casually, “How’s Alan?”
I realized with a shock that she must assume that Alan was still staying with us.
“I don’t know, Clare,” I replied quietly. “He left —the day Mike was killed. He —never knew about Mike.”
She stared at me. “Left? Where for?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me he was going, but he left a note saying he’d gone to look for work. He didn’t say where.” I thought of telling her about the suits left in the wardrobe but something stopped me.
Clare sat twiddling a pen in one hand, the other stroking her sleek, dark head, gazing down at her desk. I wondered what she was feeling. At length she pulled herself together and straightened up.
“Look, I’ll get you a permit made out that will get you back home. Believe me, it’s the best thing for all of you.”
She reached for the intercom. I jumped up and moved quickly to the desk.
“Clare, I don’t want to go home!” I spoke angrily, almost through clenched teeth and she stopped and looked at me in surprise.
For a moment we held each other’s eyes. Then she said sharply, “All right! I shouldn’t tell you this but I know how bloody obstinate you can be, so sit down and listen. Maybe I can get you to understand something about the situation we’re in, and then, perhaps, you’ll co-operate.”
I sat down again, a little disturbed at the outburst, and she rose and began to prowl about the room. I was aware more clearly than ever of the strain and tension which had reached something close to breaking point.
“I suppose you’ve been living in your usual cosy little cloud-cuckoo-land, putting your head in the sand and trying to pretend that everything is really normal —or soon will be!”
I thought of Mike’s death and the constant sense of Harrington and his friends watching me; of the builder’s yard and the burnt surgery and Jane’s children being dragged away; and I bit back an angry protest at the injustice of the remark. I doubt if Clare would have heard it anyway. She was well into her stride now.
“You’ve been fortunate in that you happen to be living in a part of the country where things are more or less normal. If you knew what Jocelyn has been trying to cope with! The General Strike was only the beginning, of course. We expected that. Jocelyn has always said that one day we would have to have a show-down with the unions, and that when it came the rest of the country would back us. But none of us realised how strong the subversive forces in the country had become! It was like the dragon’s teeth! They sprang up all over the country — the agitators who thought they saw the opportunity they had been waiting for to start a revolution; and the others, the unholy alliance, all the terrorist gangs who thought they stood to gain something from the end of democracy.” The words were spilling out now, bitten off in rapid, staccato phrases. She was re-living a trauma, not talking to me. “Of course, we know that a lot of them were infiltrators from Warsaw Pact countries. That’s where the arms have come from too. And it’s become clear why the Left were continually agitating to have our defence expenditure reduced. With the army reduced to a skeleton we simply haven’t got the resources to hold the violence in check all over the country. And the people are such fools! Oh there are some areas, of course, where we can rely on them to cooperate with the local KBG; but in the cities they’ve allowed themselves to be led by the nose by the very people who have been trying to ruin this country for years. Places like Liverpool and Birmingham have become ungovernable. The workers have seized the factories and barricaded the city centres. Every University in the country has been occupied by the students, and a lot of schools, too. The Scots have declared themselves independent, of course. Well, they can stew in their own juice for a while and see how they get on without subsidies from Westminster! The Welsh Nationalists have started a guerrilla campaign, concentrating on sabotaging water supplies for the Midlands, and now that the army has been withdrawn the Irish Unionists are solving the problem of the Catholic minority in the way they have been wanting to for years. We’ve had to concentrate on holding London and the south-east. We’re in complete control south of Coventry and everywhere east of the Severn. At the moment we’re establishing a line from Worcester through Northampton and up to the Wash to prevent infiltrators moving in from further north. The only places in this area where we were still having real trouble were Oxford and Reading. Well we’ve got Oxford under control, as you can see. In a day or two Reading will be quiet too. But you see why I can’t let you go on any further.”
She returned abruptly to her chair and looked at me, quite composed again, as if all that she had said was a statement of simple fact. I stared back at her, feeling myself physically sagging in my chair.
“Do you mean to say that the whole country is in anarchy, apart from this area?”
She shrugged slightly. “It varies, of course. Many rural areas are perfectly quiet and life is going on more or less normally. There are others, in some of the more remote districts, which have declared themselves autonomous and tried to set up their own local government —refusing to pay taxes or obey the emergency regulations. They’ll come to heel sooner or later when they discover they just can’t exist as separate units. Food supplies are getting very short. With so many of the ports out of action and internal transport disrupted it’s becoming impossible to keep supplies going. Things are going to be very hard soon, especially in the cities.”
“So what is going to happen?” I asked. “I mean, what do you plan for the future.”
She straightene
d herself in the chair, as if I had triggered some conditioned reflex. “We shall consolidate our hold on this area and then move north. By that time the violence should have burnt itself out to a large extent. People will begin to want order and peace, above all food. They will be prepared to defy the extremists and support the elected government.”
We met each other’s eyes, then she looked away and said wearily, “Go home, Nell. You’ll be much better off there.” She pressed the intercom button and told someone to make out a travel permit for me and the boys and bring it in.
In the defeated silence which followed the two boys scuffled over the last biscuit. I said, “Why is Jocelyn here?”
“He’s making a speech tonight. There is going to be a big rally in support of the Government — to show that Oxford is really loyal, in spite of the troubles.”
I looked at her. For the first time there was a faint hint of irony in her eyes.
“Suppose nobody comes to it?” I asked.
She smiled faintly. “They’ll come!”
A police woman came in with a piece of paper. Clare took it, filled in one or two details and signed it. Then she held it out to me. It was quite explicit. We were to be allowed to travel by a clearly defined route back to where we had started.
Clare said, “You realise I shouldn’t really do this. I should hand you over to the police to be charged with breaking the emergency regulations. The penalties are quite severe, you know.” She paused. I kept my eyes on the paper. If she was expecting thanks, she was out of luck. She went on, in the authoritative, ‘it’s-all-for-your-own-good’ tone which had always infuriated me, “Go on, Nell. It’s the best thing. If you start now you’ll be home by the boys’ bedtime.” Then, to the police-woman, “Show Mrs Fairing down to her car, will you.”
“Clare...”
She looked up at me bleakly. “Well?”
I hesitated. “Any message for Alan if he turns up?”
With careful deliberation she moved her untouched tea-cup back onto the tray.
“No, I don’t think so. There isn’t anything I could say that would be —relevant, anymore.”
Ten minutes later we were driving out of the city on the road towards Abingdon. We passed through several check points and the careful scrutiny given to my pass soon killed any ideas I had of trying to use it in the wrong direction. I drove slowly, trying to think. It was possible, of course, that if we went home no one would know where we had been. Harrington might never discover my part in passing on information to Jane. If I settled down and pretended to be a diligent KBG worker perhaps we could ride out the storm until . . . Until what? Until the NUP were firmly in control of the whole country? Or until bloody revolution swept into our quiet suburbs too? Were we to live, like so many others I had read of, in fear of a sudden knock on the door?
“South of Birmingham and East of the Severn” Clare had said. I stopped the car and got out the map. Forty odd miles away the government’s writ ceased to run! If we could only cover those forty miles ... I was tempted to turn the car round and make another attempt through the lanes, but I had seen how many check-points there were in that area. The car was too conspicuous, too easily identified. If we were to disappear, so that our trail could not be picked up even if Clare decided to check on us, we must leave it. At that moment a bus appeared around a bend ahead of us. It seemed so incongruous after all that had happened, and yet so opportune, that I wondered for a second if I was suffering from some form of hallucination. As it approached I saw that the destination panel at the front bore the name Witney. Witney —I searched the map. That was north of where I was now, about what —fifteen miles distant. What happened to buses at a check-point? Did they go through the identity of each passenger? The bus was quite full —people going home from work, I supposed. It would take a long time to check them all at each road block.
I started the engine and wrenched the steering wheel hard round. It took only a few seconds to catch up with the bus. I followed it back to the last road block and parked a hundred yards away. It was too far to see exactly what happened, but the bus was stationary for less than two minutes and I had seen only one soldier enter it.
Once again I turned the car and retraced my route until a bus stop came into view. Ignoring the fretful questions from the back seat I got out and crossed the road to look at the time-table. If, in this improbable normality, the buses were running to schedule there should be another in half an hour. I went back to the car and drove it some way up a side
road and then into a little copse.
When I explained my plans to the boys their tired faces fell.
“I thought we were going home!” Tim said miserably, while Simon added sceptically,
“We can’t get all the way to Granny’s on a bus.”
“How do you know?” I cried, with a kind of crazy optimism. “We can try, can’t we?”
I opened the boot and began pulling out cases and boxes. The thought of abandoning half our possessions in the middle of a wood like this seemed the ultimate lunacy, but I closed my mind to it and concentrated on reducing my load to one suitcase and a shopping bag full of food. I gave the boys the last of the bread and a piece of cheese each, reasoning that we might as well eat what we could not carry.
When I had finished I loaded everything else into the boot and locked it, though with what object I was not sure. Then, as an after thought, I got out the tool kit and, with a struggle, succeeded in removing the number plates. A short excursion into the wood revealed a stream, thickly overhung with brambles. I dropped the plates into it and pulled the brambles across the place where they lay. Then I called the boys to me and we headed for the bus stop.
When the bus drove into sight, only two or three minutes late, it made me feel as if what I had just done was part of a ridiculous charade. I signalled it and it drew up beside us, purring and panting like a large, friendly animal. I gave the driver some money.
“One and two halves to Witney, please.”
The boys cantered happily to the vacant rear seat and flopped down. Buses were a comparative novelty to them.
At the first road block I clutched my bags and felt dizzy with the beating of my own heart. A soldier hoarded the bus and spoke to the driver. Then he gave a cursory glance down the length of the vehicle and, almost unbelievably got off again and waved us on.
As I relaxed I caught Simon’s eye. Silently I found his hand and pressed it.
The bus growled along, warm and tobacco smelling, full of women with shopping baskets and men in working clothes. I began to relax. We were on our way again.
Dusk was beginning to fall as we drew into a little town of broad streets and stone houses. I realized that if we were going to find accommodation for the night before the curfew started we should have to hurry. At the bus stop a policeman stood by the door as the people descended. I saw that they were showing their identity cards but the constable was only taking a cursory glance at each one. I gave Simon the shopping bag to carry and took out our cards, holding them in my free hand so that the address was hidden. Then, with the two boys behind me, I joined the line of passengers. We stepped down and I held the cards up towards the policeman. He glanced at them, looked behind me at the children, and turned his attention to the next passenger on the line. We walked briskly away down the main street.
A hundred yards or so further on I stopped and put down the case. The boys stood and looked at me expectantly.
Tim whined, “I’m tired! Can we go to a restaurant and have a meal?”
“Where are we going to stay tonight?” Simon asked. “It’s getting dark.”
The brief rush of optimism which I had felt on the bus evaporated. The day seemed to have gone on for ever. My head ached and I was exhausted.
“I don’t know, Simon,” I said, looking round. “I’ll have to think. Just be quiet a minute, like good boys.”
Along the street I could see two hotels. Suppose I just walked in and booked a room? They would want
identity cards. Would they also want travel permits? Anyway, suppose Clare had been checking up on us, or suppose the car had been found. Hotels would be the first place where inquiries would be made if anyone was looking for us. It was not worth the risk, I decided. But if not a hotel, then where? A private house, somewhere that offered bed and breakfast, perhaps? But how did we find one? I had seen no helpful signs as we came into the town. One thing was certain, we were only making ourselves conspicuous standing here.
“Come on. We’ll walk on a bit,” I said, picking up the case.
“I don’t want to walk. I’m tired!” wailed Tim.
I restrained the sharp answer that rose to my lips and said, “I know, darling. We all are. Just a bit further.”
We came to a side street and my nose spelled out an unmistakable message. Further down the street lighted windows misted with steam confirmed it.
“Fish and chips!” I said, “Come on, we’ll get some.”
The shop was empty except for a middle-aged couple silently consuming their fish and chips with their eyes on the television set in one corner. I told the boys to sit down at a table and they, too, became immediately hypnotised. I went to the counter and gave my order.
“Eat here or take away?” the man serving asked, reluctantly putting aside a newspaper which seemed to have more pictures of scantily clad girls than print. One way of getting round the censorship laws, I supposed.
“Eat here, please,” I replied. At least we could sit here for a while and I could think.
“Ration books?” he said.
“What?”
“Ration books.” He put out his hand and opened and closed the fingers meaningfully.
“Oh, how silly of me!” I exclaimed. “We don’t usually eat out. I hadn’t thought.”
I produced the ration books. He leafed through them with greasy fingers, tore out some coupons and then looked at the address on the front.
“Long way from home,” he said, non-committally.
“Yes,” I smiled brightly. “On our way to visit my parents.”