by Terry Tyler
"Yeah?" I jerk my head up. "So where is he now? Gone somewhere with her? He's not come back to find me, has he?"
"We don't know. He could be anywhere. Naomi's got family in York, I think, so maybe she'll have gone to them. Phil and I were talking about it last night. We think Dex is with Jeff. In his bunker."
"Really? If he was, and if he cared so much about me, he'd have come to find me."
"Okay." Her voice is so calm, even though I'm doing my best to shoot the messenger, and I dislike myself for it. "Well, maybe she's with him. Maybe he's been arrested, or taken away, like we think's happened to Scott. That's just as likely." She puts one hand on her hip and bites her thumbnail. "To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't come to find you, as well."
I feel lost. Pathetic and lost. "Last time we spoke," I say, remembering, "I asked him if all this nipping off to Northumberland every five minutes was because he was working up to leaving me—"
"It wasn't. I'm sure it wasn't."
"No, but I wasn't completely wrong, was I? I asked him, I asked him, and he was so bloody adamant that it was nothing of the sort, he said he loved me, and—" My face crumples up again, and I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself making silly blubbing noises.
"He does. I really do think the Naomi thing is—was—just a meaningless fling. I don't believe he had any intention of leaving you."
"Did he sleep with her at Jeff's?"
She looks at the floor. "Yes."
"How often?"
"I don't know. Once or twice. Three times, maybe. You know, when he was there."
"Well, what about her? Is it just a meaningless fling for her, too?"
"I don't know. No."
"Perhaps she's expecting him to leave me and be with her."
"I really don't think that was his plan."
"No, but it might be hers."
I force all the details I can out of her, and to her credit she is patient with me, helpful and understanding.
"Do I tell Lottie?" I look out of the window; she's laughing with the men, holding one end of a long piece of wood while Heath saws it.
"I wouldn't. It won't impact on her life, will it? I mean, Dex isn't here. You've dealt with the whole thing alone, just the two of you."
"Yeah." I sniff. My face feels red and tight with crying. "You're right. Dex isn't here."
The knowledge that we have indeed dealt with the whole thing alone, Lottie and me, helps me over the next couple of days. At night, lying in my single bed, I punch the mattress and hug my stomach and weep, but during the day I just carry on. I haven't seen Dex for over three months. My life turned upside down at the end of July, and I've managed it without him.
One thing I've found hard, even with everything else that's gone down, is the transition from having sex most nights to not doing it at all. The thought that Dex might be somewhere doing it with her makes me want to yell, break things, kick out, punch and scream and—oh my God, I can't stand it. If only it wasn't for the nights, lying there alone, I could deal with it so much better.
He might be with Naomi.
He might be with Jeff.
He might be held captive somewhere.
He might be dead.
On the third morning after I find out, I return to my bedroom after breakfast and collapse, a sobbing mess.
I want Dex.
I want Dex.
I need Dex.
He's been the beat of my heart for six years, I want him back, I'll forgive him anything, I just want him with me, I don't care if he's had some crappy fling with a skinny-faced, tofu-chomping bint with a stupid hairdo that makes her look like a medieval minstrel. I hate her. How dare she?
(Because he let her. Because he wanted to do it, too.)
Then I hear Lottie's voice down the landing, and pull myself together. I don't want anyone else to see me like this.
We've got real stuff to worry about; who cares about my broken heart?
Late in the afternoon the next day, I'm reading in the living room when I hear Phil's car returning; we've been through all the pharmacists around Jarrow and neighbouring towns and Phil's paranoid about not having a good supply of antibiotics, in these days of easy infection, so he and Heath are braving the outskirts of Gateshead and Newcastle. Armed, I hasten to add.
They're away a long time, and, for the past hour, Kara's been trying not to show how much she's fretting.
When the car draws up I hear Heath's laugh, Phil's voice, the slamming of doors, and then another voice. Male. And a woman.
I put my book down, my heart thudding; I didn't recognise the male voice, and my first thought is Jeff. Is the woman Naomi? And if so, is Dex there? I creep over to the window, my stomach churning. Pulling the muslin curtains to one side, I brace myself for the first sight of my beloved in over three months, perhaps with his new woman. I imagine him standing there, laughing with the others, arm casually around her horrible shoulders.
But it's not him. Not them. It's no one I recognise.
Disappointment floods through me.
No pain, but no Dex.
There are two people. A tall guy in a long, striped, hippie type coat with a hood, patterned trousers, heavy boots. Blond dreadlocks, the sides tied behind his head, and a small beard. He's attractive. Late thirties or early forties. The woman stands to one side. She's tall and attractive, too. Around the same age, but she doesn't look as though she belongs to him. She's dressed in a Barbour, a cable knit jumper with a silk scarf tucked into the neck, jeans and expensive looking boots. She has shoulder-length, straight, mid-brown hair that actually looks clean. Who the hell has shiny hair, these days? This woman does, and she's wearing earrings. I'd forgotten about earrings.
I watch as Heath and Phil unload the car; the two strangers don't help. Then Dreadlocks sees me peeping from behind the curtains, and waves.
The woman stares at me, without smiling.
"Yes, I couldn't believe it. Horrid little joyriders, I was lucky to escape with my life."
Her name is Rowan, and she's posh. She runs long, neat fingernails through her silky hair, touches the plaster on her forehead, and fiddles with the tea bag in her cup; we don't have Darjeeling, so she graciously accepted the Twinings lemon and ginger I offered.
She's from Surrey. Her husband died a month ago. She stayed in her house but it got broken into; she hid in the garden shed until they'd gone.
"After that, I just couldn't bear to stay there. I felt defiled. So I thought, well, I'll just nip up to North Yorks and see if Georgina's still among the living, but I'd only got as far as that hell on earth they call Birmingham when this little band of idiots zoomed out of nowhere, and my car ended up like a concertina on the central island."
Dreadlocks—he's called Ozzy—winks at her, and takes a loud slurp of his peppermint and nettle. "Then along I come in my camper van, like a guardian angel, right?"
Rowan doesn't look too sure about this description. "Ri-ight," she says, neatly plucked eyebrows raised.
Heath leans on the table. "It's funny, isn't it? I mean, Rowan, you and Ozzy would never normally have met, in the old run of things, but he saved the day for you, and now you've ended up here." He smiles his lovely, lazy smile. "The new world brings people together in the weirdest way."
"You said it, brother," says Ozzy, and puts his hand up to do a 'high five' with Heath, but Heath's not a high five sort of person, and I can tell that having to respond makes him feel foolish.
"Yeah, so we rocked up at Rowan's friend Georgina's, up in Yorks," Ozzy continues, "but she was—" here he bows his head "—she was, y'know, gone. So I said to Rowan, I said, lady, I'm thinking that the Scottish Highlands might be the place to be, so if you want to hitch a ride, you're more than welcome."
I think he thinks he's from California. Possibly 1970s California. I believe he will start to make my brain hurt very, very soon.
"Well, I thought, what the hell?" Rowan doesn't look quite as delighted as Ozzy about her good fortune. She's still fi
ddling with the string of her teabag. "I've got friends on Arran; I don't know what else to do. I mean, what is there?" She throws her hands to the ceiling and looks in turn at Kara and me, as though we might provide her with the answer. "What does one do? I'm completely unprepared for this."
"We all are," says Kara, softly. Kindly.
"You said you all met up just outside the city," I say. "How did that happen?"
"For all Ozzy's good intentions, the camper van had seen better days," Rowan says, with a sniff, "but he said he had a friend in Newcastle whose car he could use. Sounded like a bit of a long shot, but—well, thanks to whoever spread this horrible illness around the country, I don't exactly have anywhere I need to be, do I?" Listening to her, one would be forgiven for thinking that Bat Fever was little more than an irritating inconvenience.
The hair is raked back with those long fingers, again. "I've always rather liked the Scottish Highlands." She sounds as though she's selecting a weekend break. "If my friends on Arran are no longer with us I might see if there are any small hotels going begging."
"A hotel. Now that is a good idea," Kara says, nodding to herself.
"What happened with the friend in Newcastle?" I ask.
Rowan gives a short, sharp laugh, and Ozzy does a weird waving thing with his hands.
"Oh, you know how it is." Exaggerated screwing up of face and theatrically apologetic expression. "I couldn't remember which freakin' house he lived in! I mean, I've been there, once, twice, maybe three times, but could I remember the street? I was damn sure it was Arnold or Austin or some name like that, but—hey, I blame it on the fine Geordie weed, guys!"
Rowan removes the silk scarf from around her neck and folds it into a neat square on the table, patting it down. "Yes, so we're stuck on the outskirts of Newcastle, of all the ghastly places to find oneself stranded in the middle of a chilly winter afternoon. Then, happily, we bumped into Phil and Heath coming out of a chemist."
"Serendipity, or what?" drawls Ozzy, and throws back his head with laughter, as if he's just said something funny.
I hope he's not staying long. Not too sure about Rowan, either.
Phil stands up. "Listen, I said Ozzy and Rowan can stay until they decide what they're going to do, is that okay? No one wants to be wandering around alone, not these days, not with winter coming on, especially not round Newcastle, and—"
"It's fine," Kara says as she touches his arm. She looks at the two newcomers. "This was my aunt's house, originally. We didn't know Vicky and her daughter, or Heath and his son, before." She smiles around at us all. "Heath's right, this is the new way of the world. Taking people in. Forming new communities out of the wreckage of the old."
Rowan sniffs. "I do appreciate your hospitality, Clara, though right now I'm only looking for a bed for a few nights until I decide on my next move. First question being how I'm going to get across to Arran without the ferry."
My mother used to say that getting someone's name wrong when you've heard it a few times is the height of rudeness. I haven't bothered to remember your name, because you're not important.
"Sure," Kara says, evenly. "There's a sofa in the back room that pulls out into a bed, and Ozzy could have a sleeping bag in the living room."
"Works for me!" Ozzy's huge face beams with satisfaction. I can tell he thinks he's fallen on his feet, good and proper; I suspect we'll have a job to shift him.
"Thank you, that will be fine," Rowan says. She looks around; it's getting dark, and Heath gets up to bank up the fire, while Jax goes round lighting candles and oil lamps. "Oh! I rather hoped you might have a generator here. No heat or light, then?"
Kara smiles. "Sorry."
"Oh dear." She frowns. "I can make the best of it. My friends in Arran, I imagine they'll have a good set-up." Toss back of hair. "Penny's one of those earth mother types, and they go in for all this eco-friendly whatnot."
"That'll be nice. You must be looking forward to getting off, then," I say. Pointedly. She ignores me.
"Say, what do you guys do 'bout food?" Ozzy asks, and puts a grubby hand inside his coat of many colours, rubbing his stomach. "It's Starvaciousville, Tennessee, in here! Long time since my breakfast Snickers bar."
Lottie is upstairs, doing whatever teenagers do on a post-apocalyptic winter's afternoon; reading old magazines and eating M&Ms whilst plugged into her looted Sony Discman, I assume. She's going to kill Ozzy with one withering glance if he says anything like 'Starvaciousville, Tennessee' in her hearing.
Phil reaches out to the fruit bowl and chucks him a small bag of nuts. "We make something hot for dinner every night, and eat around the table together. All very limited, of course, but we're pretty inventive."
"It's dried meat substitute and tinned vegetable chilli tonight," Kara says. "Well, it will be when I've made it. With rice, and some dried fruit and tinned custard for pudding. I've been soaking the fruit in brandy, it's pretty good."
Rowan nods with approval. "I applaud your resourcefulness. What time is dinner?"
What time is dinner? I catch Heath's eye and try not to laugh.
"When it's ready." Kara looks amused, too. "Probably in about an hour or so; we eat early, because we go to bed early, too."
"Ah, yes." Rowan sighs. "That's the problem, isn't it? There just isn't anything to do any more. After Jonathan died my biggest problem was boredom, to be honest; one can only read so many books. I tried to write a novel, but, unfortunately, I discovered I have no talent." She stands up. "Would someone show me to my room, please? And I'd like to unpack and have a wash, if that's okay."
Show her to her room? Will she expect me to draw her a bath, too?
Kara looks at me. Damn. I can't really say no.
"Is Heath yours?" Rowan asks, as I lead her down the darkening hall.
"No."
"So you're here alone with your daughter?"
"That's right."
"Were you a single mother, or have you lost someone?"
Great. I actually haven't thought about Dex for about an hour, and now he's back in my head, laughing, with his arm round Naomi. "Neither and both," I say, and with that she will have to be satisfied; I'm not about to explain my life history to this woman. "I'm sorry about your husband."
"Yes," she says, "it was a blighter. We got our vaccination dates early on, but then Jonathan got some urgent bloody call to go out to the Caymans for a meeting—he was an international tax consultant—so he missed it, and by the time he came back everything had just started to go to pot. I believe he was on one of the last flights before they shut the airports. We went straight to the hospital, but, goodness, you should have seen the rabble there." Eyes far away, as if she's remembering. "He said, 'Well, I usually manage to get through winter without so much as a cold, so we'll just trust to luck, shall we?' Then he came down with it the next day. I expect he caught it at the hospital."
"I'm so sorry. Did you have other family?"
"A few. All gone, apart from those abroad with whom I've lost touch. Oh yes, and Uncle Hugh. He was in the Lords; he disappeared as soon as it started. He's probably safe and sound in the PM's bunker, or something."
That's interesting. "Is there one? Definitely?"
She looks at me as though I'm a know-nothing peasant. "Well, of course there is. Someone's got to sort out this ghastly mess once it's all over, after all."
I light candles; it's cold in the room. Rowan puts down her holdall and looks around. "This will do for now, thank you," she says. I feel like saying, feel free to find another hotel, if it's not to your liking. We stand there for a few seconds, looking at the sofa. Then I realise what's happening.
She's expecting me to pull out the bed for her.
I'm about to ask her to give me a hand, when she walks towards the window to look out, so like an idiot I pull out the wretched thing on my own. It's a bit of a struggle; she must be able to hear what I'm doing but she doesn't even turn round.
"I'll find you a pillow and a duvet," I say.
/> That gets her attention. "Thank you, you're most kind. And could I have an undersheet?"
"Of course."
"And washing? What do I do about washing?"
I explain our system to her, and she winces when I tell her about the toilet arrangements. I remember something Lawrie used to say about people like Rowan. 'Bet she has a servant to go to the loo for her'. I smile, remembering him, but then that bloody familiar lump appears in my throat for about the tenth time that day, and I swallow it down, sharpish.
I'm not going to cry in front of her.
I go upstairs and weep into the safe, quiet depths of the linen cupboard, instead.
Dinner is a jolly affair. As predicted, Lottie and Jax think Ozzy is ridiculous. He's like a cartoon hippie.
"Why's your name Ozzy?" Lottie grins, and nudges Jax. "Are you really called Oswald?"
"No," Ozzy smiles. "Osric. It's an old Anglo-Saxon name. Respectful nod to our heritage, right?"
"So what did you do before Bat Fever?" asks Jax. "Were you an artist, or something? You look like an artist. Or a rock star." My daughter stifles giggles.
Ozzy's smile is huge. "Art, music, poetry, I'm multi-creative." His voice is so loud.
"Yeah? Did you sell your stuff online?"
"Oh no, I was a total Offliner," he says, which I know removes all credibility, in Lottie's eyes. Being an Offliner is cool, she decided about a year ago, but, apparently, it's beyond the pale to describe yourself as one. Especially when, in the next breath, you're talking about how cheaply you can buy essential oils from Amazon. Lottie has her mouth open ready to challenge him when he changes the subject, offering to give us all Indian head massages.
I think Lottie might spit out her chilli.
"You're not coming anywhere near my head with those grubby fingernails, lift to Scotland or no lift to Scotland," says Rowan, and I almost start to like her.
Heath blushes, and puts his own dirty-fingernailed hands under the table. I wonder if he fancies her.
She turns her nose up at the wine, and I go back to thinking she's a snotty cow.