by Frank Tayell
The children resumed scrubbing with an increased fervour that did little to remove dirt, but sprayed a lot of sudsy water over the floor.
“We’ll have to put down some rubber matting,” Greta said. “Otherwise someone will slip and break a leg.”
“And we should probably get some candles in here,” Nilda added. Dusk had arrived and brought an end to the expedition to the coaches despite the scores of bags still left by the pub. “Although, then we’d see the dirt more clearly. Didn’t they used to say that ignorance was next to cleanliness?”
Greta smiled, the children left, and Nilda grabbed the mop and made a brief effort at cleaning up.
“Tuck should be back soon, don’t you think?” Greta asked.
“No,” Nilda said. “If she’s not back now, she’ll hide up until morning. I’d say she should be back around lunchtime.” It was wishful thinking, of course, and just an excuse to explain away the soldier’s absence other than the obvious one.
“And if—” Greta began, but was interrupted by a shout from the walls.
“Someone’s coming,” the voice called.
Greta ran from the room, Nilda close on her heels. When she reached the wall, she saw nearly half the castle’s occupants had followed. The figure approaching wasn’t Tuck. It was McInery.
“What happened to you?” Nilda asked when they’d hauled the other woman to the top of the walls. Her torn and stained clothing was in a far worse state than Nilda’s had been after her excursion on the river.
“Nothing,” McInery said.
“Everyone else was back hours ago,” Nilda said.
“I went shopping,” McInery said, gesturing to the heavy bag she’d dropped. “For medical supplies,” she added. “I didn’t find much. A few sterile bandages and some needles. They might help Chester.”
“Oh, I… see,” Nilda said.
“I’ve known him a lot longer than you,” McInery said. Her expression was unreadable. Nilda waited to see if the woman would say anything more, perhaps an apology for leading them to the hotel, but she didn’t. She just stood, impassive, waiting. So, Nilda realised, was everyone else.
“Thank you,” Nilda finally said, grudgingly adding, “there’s still some hot water in the washroom. Well, it’s warm.”
McInery gave the briefest of nods and headed towards the stairs.
Nilda bent and checked the bag. There were bandages, some sutures, surgical thread, and some dressings lying loose next to a box of disposable gloves. Useful certainly, but they wouldn’t help Chester now. She picked up the bag, and as the rest of the group drifted towards the dining hall, she went to the sickroom.
“How is he?” she asked Fogerty.
“Chester? He’s alive. Better I think,” the old warder said. “His mouth still works.” He nodded to a sponge. “Beyond that, he’s still unconscious, but he’s breathing, and that’s what counts. What about you?”
“McInery brought these back,” Nilda said.
“What is it?”
“Some bandages, things like that. She says she went out looking for them.”
“Jay told me about how it was her idea to go to that hotel,” Fogerty said. “I’d say that was a peace offering.”
“You think so?”
“You’re worried that she had something to do with Graham. Now, don’t look at me like that, I can see it in your face whenever you talk about her. And whenever I’ve seen you talk to her the distrust is even clearer. You wear your emotions out for everyone to see. And believe me, they’ve seen them.”
“Oh,” Nilda thought back to McInery’s comment on the walls. Chester had always described her as his employer, but perhaps there had been something more. It didn’t matter. “I didn’t realise it was so obvious. What do you think? Do you trust her?”
“Trust?” He shook his head. “I’m an old soldier; scepticism is at the foundation of my philosophy. But I spoke to your son, and I had a word with Greta. That shot that killed Hana, it could just as easily have killed McInery. No, I’d take those supplies as being as close to an apology as you’ll get from a woman like that. Reminds me of my brother’s wife. She would never say sorry for anything. I remember one Christmas when she dropped the turkey as she was taking it out of the oven. And that was… ah, well.” He sighed, and the smile that had been forming on his lips froze and vanished. “And your son told me you’d got the food from the coaches. That’s a hard job done well. He’s a good lad, your Jay.”
“He is. But we haven’t got all the food, not yet. We’ll have to go back tomorrow.”
“Still,” he said, “that’s one less thing to worry about.”
“It depends on how much food there is,” she said.
“Well, wishing won’t make it stretch further. And how are you in yourself?”
“Tired, I think,” she said, but she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like the exhaustion she used to feel after a month of overtime in the lead up to the holidays, nor the post-adrenaline crash that had come too often during their journey from Penrith. She felt drained, absent of all emotion. She picked up a bandage.
“You should get something to eat,” Fogerty said.
“I suppose.”
“And you need to speak to everyone.”
“Someone has to. I don’t think it should be me.”
“No, it has to be you,” he said. “You’re still the outsider. The woman who trekked across Britain to find her son. Hana’s dead, Tuck’s missing, Chester’s unconscious, Eamonn’s gone, not that I think he was what you would call leadership material.”
“I don’t want to lead anyone anywhere,” she said.
“And they don’t want to be led. They wanted to be reassured. They’ve found themselves bereft of a narrative.”
“I’m sorry?”
“When they were in that radio station, they told themselves that they were all that was left in the world,” Fogerty said. “That was their story. All they had to do was survive, and that was their purpose. During the summer, with food and electricity, it was easy to do and easier to believe. But the food ran low, and they looked for an escape. So they turned to an old castle with its thick walls and a river close by. All they had to do was get here. The reality of the undrinkable water and no supplies to be found hadn’t sunk in before you and Chester arrived. Where do you look for food? Well farms, of course, and you’d brought a boat. All they’d have to do was follow the river out to the sea, gather what they needed, and return. It was another simple story. And, of course, you told them about Anglesey. They learned that they weren’t the only people left. All they had to do was hold on until help came. Except now they know there’s no more food to be gathered, Chester hasn’t gone to Anglesey, and they’ve been betrayed by one of their own. All of that, all coming close together, it’s wrecked their view of the world. They’ve been working hard, every day, and it wasn’t enough. They’ll start asking themselves why they should bother working tomorrow. But you’re going to want to keep them working if for no other reason than it’ll mean they’re too tired to think. That’s why you need to speak to them. Give them something else to hold on to.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve no idea,” Fogerty said. “But if you can’t think of anything else, you could always try the truth.”
The dining hall was full, though not everyone was eating. It was warm, Nilda supposed, and there was comfort in company. More so now that the there was no work to keep minds occupied. She took a bowl from the counter, not bothering to look at the contents, and went to sit next to Jay.
“You should say something,” he said.
She looked down. Her bowl was empty. She didn’t remember eating, nor could she remember the taste of it.
“Fogerty said the same thing,” she said.
“It’s what everyone’s waiting for,” Jay said. “But tell them the truth. There’s been too many secrets and lies.”
Nilda wondered whether that was an idea the old soldier had told her son or whether they
’d come to it independently. She stood, taking in the now familiar faces looking at her. They all wore that same expression, as if they knew their worst fears would be confirmed by whatever she said, yet holding onto the hope that they wouldn’t.
“Chester’s unconscious,” she said. “We won’t know how seriously he’s hurt until he wakes.” If, that treacherous voice whispered in her mind, if. “Even then, it will be weeks before he’s up and around again. Eamonn has gone to Anglesey.” From their expressions, everyone already knew this. “We won’t know if he’s made it until a boat comes up the river.”
“How long do wait until we assume he didn’t get there?” Styles asked.
Nilda saw Greta stiffen at that, and Nilda wished there was a way of sugar coating the answer, but she saw Jay’s expression, and knew he was right; there was no point in anything other than brutal honesty.
“Two or three weeks,” Nilda said. “He could be delayed by the weather or by the undead. He could have been forced off his bike or perhaps not found one. Or a million other things could happen that mean he doesn’t arrive at Anglesey until the New Year. But if everything goes right for him, he should be there in a week or two, and a boat should be here soon after that. I know it seems like everything’s changed, but nothing really has. We’re in the same situation we were in this morning. Help may come, but we must assume it won’t. We have to do all we can to turn this place into a proper community, one that can survive through the winter. That means more food, more supplies, and more long term thinking.”
“And Graham?” McInery asked. “What do we do about him?”
“That’s out of our hands as well,” Nilda said. “We have to leave him to Tuck.”
“If she’s not already dead,” Styles said. “I’m sorry, but if we have to assume that Eamonn won’t get to Wales, then we’ve got to assume that Tuck hasn’t killed Graham.”
“And what’s your point?” Greta snapped.
“That we should have someone on watch at night,” Styles said. “And pull up those ropes from the side of the walls.”
There was a general murmuring of agreement at that.
“Yes,” Nilda said. “I’ll ask Fogerty to organise that. After all, it was a warder’s duty to guard the Tower. Beyond that, we need to gather the rest of the food from the coaches. We need more clothes. And we need other ideas. Things we haven’t tried yet. We each have to take responsibility for that, rather than look to others for solutions, or even assume that everyone else is aware of the problems. But for now, it’s been a long day. We should all get some sleep.”
It wasn’t a great way of ending the speech, she could see that in Jay’s expression, but what comfort could she offer others when she had so little of it herself.
“How is he?” she asked, back in their newly christened infirmary.
“About the same as an hour before,” the old warder replied.
“I’d like you to organise a guard.”
“At night? To watch out for Graham?” he asked.
“For Tuck and Eamonn, too. But yes, for Graham.”
“I can’t see why he’d come back.”
“I can’t see why he’d want to kill Hana,” Nilda replied.
“Fair point,” Fogerty said. “And what’s the mood like, otherwise?”
“I don’t know. Scared. Tense. Expectant. Anything but hopeful. I told everyone we needed different ideas. I don’t think anyone has any.”
“Different ideas? Well, you could bring the livestock inside and have everyone sleep in one room. That’ll reduce the amount of wood we need to burn for heating and the calories expended in hauling it in and breaking it up. It’s what they would have done six hundred years ago.”
“Have we gone back that far?”
“It’s just temporary, isn’t it? Until help comes from Anglesey.”
“If it comes. I didn’t want to tell anyone.” And she wasn’t sure why she was telling the old soldier except that she had to tell someone. “I went to the kitchens. Aisha’s already got it more organised than Stewart had. But I went there to see whether Eamonn had taken any food with him.”
“And did he?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, he might have done and just not written it in the ledger, but after what happened, I can’t believe that.”
“The scuttlebutt is that he took some maps with him, ones your man here marked down as having the safe houses on them. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“And those safe houses, didn’t Chester say they had food and water in them?”
“He did, but they set those up months ago. What if there’s no food left?”
“Now you’re looking for things to worry about. It’s not that far to Wales, and it’s not that late in the year. There’s still fruit on the trees and enough brambles by the roadside. It’s out of your hands.” He stood stiffly and rubbed at his knees. “We’ve got to find some more comfortable chairs. Right, I’ll go and sort out this guard rota.”
When the old soldier left, Nilda took his seat by Chester’s bedside.
“What do I do now?” she asked. “What if Eamonn doesn’t make it? What if two weeks go by and no boat arrives? Should more people attempt the journey now?”
But there was no answer from the unconscious man, not even a reassuring groan. She closed her eyes and finally let the stress of the day overtake her.
27th September
“Mum?”
Nilda opened her eyes. “Hey, Jay,” she murmured. “Is it morning?”
He nodded. “Were you here all night?”
“Not all night,” she lied. One of Chester’s arms was hanging over the side of the bed. She lifted it and felt the pulse. It seemed stronger than before; she was certain of it. “What time is it?”
“About six,” Jay said. “I’ll take over for a bit. Go and get some breakfast.
“Thank you.” She laid a hand on her son’s shoulder. As she looked at the boy, nearly grown into a man, she found herself smiling.
“What?” Jay asked.
“Amidst the dark, there is always some light,” she said. “That was from a poem. Sebastian used to quote it to me when times were at their hardest.”
Jay shifted uncomfortably. Nilda smiled again and went out into the new day.
She felt… not good, but confident. Perhaps it was just that she’d slept, but there had been something about how people had acted without instruction the previous day that hadn’t registered with her at the time. And she wasn’t the only one traipsing through the castle’s grounds on the wrong side of dawn. There were more children than adults, and most, like her, were heading to the latrines, but it was more people awake than she would have seen at this time a week before.
“It’s a good sign,” she murmured. It made her think she’d misread the group. Or perhaps it was that up until now she’d seen them as group. There was her, Jay, Chester, and Tuck, and then there was everyone else; the people who’d made no real effort to rescue her son from the British Museum. She’d interpreted it as a sign of apathetic fear, and perhaps it had been and something had changed with the arrival of the children from Kent or with Graham’s betrayal. Or perhaps it was both, one coming so soon on the heels of the other, that made them realise that there was no help coming except that which they could offer themselves.
The reason wasn’t important, just their actions. She realised she was doing it again. It wasn’t ‘their’. It was ‘us’, and there was no ‘them’ unless you counted Graham and the undead. The Tower wasn’t a military camp where people could be ordered around, and she wasn’t a general to issue commands. Except for Anglesey, a place so distant it was adopting mythical proportions, they were it, the human race and its future.
She remembered Sebastian often saying that the mark of a true leader was someone who knew to lead people only where they wanted to go. It was a comment that came up most frequently during elections and said sarcastically, but it fit those in the castle, herself inclu
ded. They were a collection of individuals who all wanted the same thing and would be prepared to follow as long as it led to somewhere warm, safe, and with enough to eat. Hana had understood that, and so hadn’t led so much as administered. Not very well, was the thought that sprang to mind, but then Nilda remembered her own efforts in Penrith back at the beginning of the outbreak. The vet had done better than she had.
She nodded a perfunctory greeting to those already lining up, and got a few embarrassed nods in return, as she joined the back of the queue for the latrines. They’d been dug near to the public toilets. Those, due to the number of sinks, the sloping floor, and its proximity to the boilers, were now doing duty as the communal washroom. She took a breath and caught the bittersweet scent of the laminated furniture burning to fuel the boilers. Jay called it their communal deodorant, though it barely did more than add depth to the rancid stench coming off the river.
She found herself glancing at the dew covering the grass. She’d forgotten to look into collecting rainwater. It was something that couldn’t be put off. There was some plastic sheeting that had been covering the buttresses that were being cleaned before the outbreak. They could use that, she supposed. As to whether collecting rain and dew would be worth the time and effort, like everything else they wouldn’t know until they tried.
Then there were the toilets themselves. Due to a blockage in some part of the sewerage system, the Tower’s plumbing was unusable, and so they’d had to regress to using a hole in the ground. They’d rigged up some screens, and while it was better than using one of the holes built into the sides of the castle’s walls, there was no escaping how primitive it was. The queue moved forward again, and she was at the front.
As a way of ignoring the early morning chill creeping in around the thin plyboard screen, she turned her mind to how they could link up a flush toilet with the cesspit. They could build something indoors, perhaps on a second-storey using wide pipes and gravity, or… she could conjure the image in her mind, but how to build it was beyond her. She remembered Tracy, the engineer turned plumber they’d met in Penrith. She would have been able to solve the problem. She’d— There was an impatient cough from outside.