by C. J. Harper
‘Blake!’ Kay laughs and claps her hands as if I’ve performed a conjuring trick.
‘It’s easy,’ I say riding back to her. ‘You’ll soon pick it up.’
Half an hour later, Kay still can’t find her balance. Each time I let go of the back of her bike she sways and crashes to the ground.
‘Stupid thing,’ she says and inspects her skinned palms. It would almost be funny to see Kay’s disbelief that she is struggling with a physical activity if it were not for her frustration.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it,’ I say, but she only scowls in return.
Eventually, she does get it and the first time she catches her balance and makes her way wobbling down the road we both shout with delight.
The sun is stronger now and it catches Kay’s hair as she rides away. She’s gorgeous. For a moment I forget to look over my shoulder. I forget about listening for movement in the ruins behind us and I just think about Kay. I want to hold her. I want to be in a place where she is learning to ride for fun and not because we’re desperately seeking a group of people we may never find. If things were different we could be teenagers who don’t have to worry about anything except schoolwork and having a good time. We could ride all afternoon and then we could take a break and we’d talk and kiss and touch for hours and hours and nothing would stop us from being perfectly happy.
But that’s not the way things are.
And they never will be, unless we make it that way.
We ride for several hours along the winding roads before we stop at a ruined town to look for more water.
‘There’s some here,’ I say to Kay.
She comes over to inspect the puddle in the deep dent in the bonnet of a once white car with a rash of rust.
‘That’s g—’
Stones crunch behind us.
I spin round. Standing over our bikes is a man. His clothes are in tatters and his hair is tangled and snarled. I’m close enough to see his face twist in anger when he spots us. He lunges into a run towards us.
‘Go!’ Kay says.
I skirt the car and leap over a rubbish bin. I follow Kay through a hole in a wall on to a patch of yellow grass. We weave between heaps of bricks and rotting pieces of fence, cutting through the gardens of a row of houses. I look behind to see the Wilderness man following.
Kay scrambles over a curling section of wire fence. I fling myself after her. We’re in a narrow alleyway. We run, jumping to avoid the detritus the path is littered with.
The Wilderness man rattles the fence behind us. I hurdle a chunk of stone, then a broken chair. At the end of the alleyway there’s the shell of a long low building. The doorframe still stands even though the walls on either side are missing. We run through it and into an open space full of rubble. Kay turns to the right and we weave between fallen masonry and the twisted remains of metal shelving. I shoot a look behind us. The man is still following us. He ploughs through the debris without looking left or right. But he’s not in good shape. We’re putting some distance between us. We emerge from the long building through a gap in the wall.
‘Wait!’ I gasp to Kay. ‘Got to get back to . . . bikes.’
Kay nods. But it’s easier said than done with collapsed houses everywhere.
‘This way,’ Kay says, and she leads me down the side of the building we’ve just run through. At the end, our way is blocked by the remains of a wall.
‘Get up, get up!’ I grip Kay by the knees and give her a boost. She clambers over the wall. I look back. The Wilderness man is coming down the side of the building. I take a running jump at the crumbling wall and find myself gripping the top with desperate fingers. My feet slip and slide as I struggle over. The Wilderness man is almost close enough to touch me.
Kay pulls me down on the other side and we run to the right and into another skeleton house. I skid on something and slide smack into what remains of a wall. A shower of plaster covers me. There’s a terrible creaking.
The Wilderness man thunders into the house with a growl.
I stagger to my feet as a brick smashes to the floor.
I tumble out of the house after Kay, as hundreds more bricks fall down. We turn to watch as what’s left of the upper storey come crashing down.
King hell. I gasp for breath.
‘I think . . .’ Kay says, ‘I think he . . .’
We both know the Wilderness man is under there.
I bend over, sucking air into my lungs. ‘We have to get back to the bikes before any more of them appear.’
I straighten up.
It’s too late.
There are already three of them slipping and sliding their way over a mound of bricks towards us.
Without saying a word we sprint away again. I’m ahead of Kay and all the time that I’m scrabbling over debris and darting around fallen masonry, I’m trying to work us back to the place we left our bikes. I power around a corner and almost run straight into one of those terrifying giant craters, but I realise at the last minute and pull away to the left.
Finally, there are the bikes straight ahead of us. I grab mine and throw a leg over the saddle. I only peddle a few metres before I have to dismount and heave the bike over a pile of rubble. Kay is right behind me. The Wilderness people are further back than I might have expected. They have an odd lurching gait, which is just as well for us because it takes Kay and I several minutes of yanking and lifting the bikes along before we reach a long clear patch of road where we can actually cycle. We have to dismount to clamber over obstacles several more times before we reach the edge of town.
Then we’re speeding away on a rough road. I twist back to watch the Wilderness people shrink into nothing.
‘Efwurding hell,’ Kay says.
I can only agree.
We keep riding. When we reach another flattened town we skirt round it. The only upright structure I see is a tall house that looks as if it has been sliced in half, exposing three fireplaces on top of each other, all connecting to the same chimney. A large photograph of two children still hangs above one of the mantelpieces. It seems voyeuristic to be staring at an intimate family setting like that exposed to the open air. I turn my eyes back to the road.
Every time I think my thigh muscles can take no more I tell myself that it’s safer to keep moving. When it starts spitting with rain I finally admit that I can go no further.
‘We need to find somewhere to stop for the night,’ I pant.
It’s pouring by the time we reach a lone farmhouse with its tired roof sagging into the top floor. The back door is ajar and I tiptoe in, listening for sounds of occupation. We creep through the house checking each room. I even open all the cupboards.
‘No people here,’ Kay says.
I go back outside and pull our bikes into the hallway. I’m about to barricade the door shut when Kay draws the empty jam jar out of the bag and takes it outside to set down in the middle of the garden to catch rainwater.
‘Good idea,’ I say. I hunt about and find a bucket under the sink and some bowls in a cupboard. I wipe decades of dust away with my damp sleeve and we put them out with the jar.
Sitting in the kitchen keeping watch out of the window, Kay and I allow ourselves a little more jam. The sweetness makes my teeth hurt.
Neither of us is saying what is blatantly obvious. We’ve seen no evidence of the Resistance. And we may never find them.
‘How big is the Wilderness?’ Kay asks.
‘It’s not that bi—’
Oh my God. I don’t think it’s big. I’ve been taught that it’s only a tiny percentage of the country, but . . . but I don’t really know. King hell. I just don’t know anything anymore. It could be twice that size. It could be huge. Bigger than the other side of the fence. I have to steady myself with a hand on the table. It’s as if the ground really is shifting beneath my feet. I can almost feel the earth expanding its boundaries out into the sea. I don’t even know the size and shape of my own country. That’s how big the Leadership
’s lies are.
I’m suddenly too tired to tell Kay that I don’t know. Instead I say, ‘Tell me what Ty said one more time.’
‘I told you. Anuldsity.’
‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’
‘Yes. Big sure. He said An-uld-sity.’
It finally hits me. ‘I get it. He didn’t say Anuldsity, he said an old city.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘It’s three words, not one. An . . . old . . . city.’
‘You’re the one that knows words,’ she says with mild reproach. ‘What’s a city?’
‘That’s what they used to call districts.’
‘That’s a big place, with all houses and factories and things, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘We can find a big thing like that then.’
I hope she’s right.
Enough rainwater has collected in the bowls and the bucket for us to have a small drink. Who knows what we’re going to do when the rain dries up for good. I replace the containers and Kay says, ‘We should sleep.’
‘We’ll have to take it in turns. The other one can keep watch.’
‘I’ll go first,’ Kay says, and I don’t argue.
Upstairs in the front bedroom the light is fading. There are two single beds still neatly made up. I cross the room to the one under the window. At first glance I think the bedspread is white with a stripe of pink flowers at the top and bottom. When I get closer I realise that where the bed is positioned beneath the window the sun has shone in every day and bleached the colour from middle section of the covers. I sit down heavily on the bed. If you look closely, you can see the shadows of flowers on the sun-bleached part. It’s incredible to compare it to the top and bottom sections that were shielded from the sun and to see how vibrant the pattern used to be. To my shame I have to swallow hard. For some reason this faded bedspread hurts me more than all the destruction I’ve seen today. I rest my head on the pillow. I want to unpick why the drained colour makes me sad, but I’m so very tired that I allow myself to be drawn down into a dreamless sleep instead.
When I wake it’s dark. Panic grips me, where’s Kay?
‘Kay?’ I say, sitting up.
‘Yes,’ she says from the stairs.
She’s still here, it’s all right. I take a shaky breath.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks, coming into the room.
Listening to her voice, I know how much I want to always be near her. I need to tell her how I feel.
‘I’m fine. I . . . When we were in the pipe . . .’ I hesitate. ‘I . . . I wanted to tell you something.’
‘What is it?’
‘I was afraid that I would lose you. I was so happy when we escaped the Academy, together. I’m so happy all the time that I’m with you. And I’m scared that something terrible will happen.’ I swallow. ‘I just want to be with you.’
She’s quiet and I think that I’ve said too much. That she’s embarrassed or she thinks I’m an idiot, but then I realise that she’s moving across the room, to lie down next to me.
‘I want to be with you, too.’ And she draws me to her and kisses me. Our bodies press together and the Wilderness and the guards and my aching knees and the pain and the uncertainty all fall away and I am entirely present right here, right now, with Kay. Just Kay.
While Kay sleeps, I patrol the house to keep myself awake. In my sleepy state, my thoughts drift to one of the many dark places in my mind that I’ve been trying to steer away from: my father.
When my mother revealed that my father is The Leader I could hardly believe it. I’d just discovered that our government is corrupt to the core and then I learn I’m the son of the man in charge of it all. Mostly, I’ve just felt angry. I hold him responsible for my mum’s death and the deaths of my best friend, little Ali and countless other innocent people. I want to make him pay. I want to stop him. But even though I’ve tried to concentrate solely on eliminating him, another thought keeps coming to me in unguarded moments: what if I’m like him? What if all that evil has somehow been passed on to me? Ever since I found out my true parentage, I’ve been frightened by the knowledge of his genes inside me, like some kind of internal stain I’ll never be free of.
It’s ridiculous, but I’m afraid of myself.
I press my fingers into my temples. I don’t have to be like him. I make my own choices. I can choose to do the right thing. I won’t be like my father, and I—
I’m jolted from my self-indulgent thoughts by something or someone screaming. It’s coming from the fields behind the house. I climb onto the side of the bath to lean out of the window, but I can’t make anything out clearly in the darkness. In the bedroom next door, Kay doesn’t stir and I resist the urge to wake her. After a few minutes the screaming stops, but I stare out of the window for a long time.
I don’t know what had happened to those Wilderness people we saw earlier. At school they told us that people in the Wilderness were crazy killers. I don’t want to make the mistake of blindly believing what I’ve been told by the Leadership again, but those people did look pretty vicious and they clearly weren’t friendly.
We’re not safe here. Should we go back to the other side of the fence or is this hunt for the Resistance worth it?
In the morning I try to gather my resolve. We’ve come this far. Our options are limited and at least now we know that we’re looking for a city.
‘Let’s go,’ I say to Kay, and I try to mean it.
As we’re leaving the house, I notice a shoehorn on the tiny table in the hallway. ‘My grandmother had one of these,’ I say, picking it up.
‘Grandmother?’ Kay asks.
‘She’s dead now.’
‘Who is?’
‘My grandmother,’ I repeat.
Kay shakes her head. ‘Your what?’
Sometimes the absence of a piece of vocabulary shows so clearly something that Kay missed out on in life that it makes me catch my breath. ‘Grandmother is your mother’s mother. Or your father’s mother.’
‘My?’
‘Or anyone’s. Everyone has a grandmother.’
Kay blinks with surprise.
‘Although, of course they might be dead like mine, or you may never have met them.’
‘Why would you be meeting them?’
King hell. That’s such a sad thing to say. ‘Well . . . some kids aren’t sent away to school like me and you. They live with their parents and quite often they spend time with grandmothers or grandfathers or a whole load of other people who are connected to you by your parents. They’re called your family. You should have lived with your family. Me too.’
‘But why do people have the time with those grand people?’
‘I suppose because they love each other.’
‘Why? Just because of the connecting to your mum and dad thing?’
‘Sort of.’ I think about before I went to the Learning Community when we would visit my grandmother and she always read me the same book about jungle animals. ‘When you grow up with someone and spend time together and they take care of you and . . . I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. Sometimes families don’t love each other, sometimes they hate each other.’ I look at Kay’s furrowed brow. This makes no sense to her because she’s never had someone care for her in the way that families do. ‘This is one of the things that needs to change about this country,’ I say. ‘Everyone should get the chance to be with their family.’
Kay shrugs. ‘Maybe, but I’m not going to love any person just because of that. I’m going to choose who I love.’
We drink all of the water that has gathered in our collection of containers, except what we can fit in the two empty jam jars. I screw the lids on and put them in the bag for later.
Getting back in the saddle is painful. My thigh muscles start to burn before we’ve gone very far. Kay doesn’t complain, so neither do I.
After a while she looks over at me. I wonder if she’s thinking about last night and I can’t stop
myself from smiling.
‘Blake? Remember when you told me all about when you were Learning Community and the men hurt you and your friend, and the policeman was all saying, “Don’t tell the Academy your name”?’
It was only a few months ago that P.C. Barnes told me to change my name to Blake, but it feels like years. ‘I remember. What about it?’
‘What was your name? Your name that you had first?’
‘My real name is Jackson. John Jackson.’ It feels strange on my lips.
‘Do you want me to call you Jackson?’
I’m not sure of the answer to that. There was a time when I couldn’t wait to stop being Blake. I wanted to escape from the Academy and to get back to my old life. But now . . .
‘I can’t go back to being Jackson,’ I say.
‘No?’
‘I’m not the same person.’
‘Don’t you want to be Jackson?’
‘No, I don’t think I do. When I was Jackson I thought I knew it all. I thought I’d done all this great stuff like passing exams and winning prizes, but really the best things I’ve ever done have been as Blake. I’ve learnt what’s really important. And I’ve found you.’
Kay gives me a look that makes me forget to steer my bike for a second.
I take a deep breath. ‘I used to think labels were important,’ I say, ‘but now I think it’s more about what you do. Does any of that make sense?’
‘Yes. I don’t mind it what you’re called. I just like you,’ she says.
Suddenly pedalling doesn’t feel like such hard work any more.
We cycle for miles without seeing any signs of life. My skin feels dusty and when I run a hand through my hair I find flakes of something that looks like ash. The longer we ride the grimier I feel.
We pass through the remains of several bombed-out towns that must have been home to a lot of people. Often nothing recognisable is left standing. Where houses and shops do remain upright they are in bad shape; paint peeling, wood rotting, tiles missing. We pass a block of flats with unbroken windows, but there is no shine coming off the smeared glass; it’s like looking up at dozens of dead eyes.