The Camp

by Guy N Smith

  The Camp - Kindle Version 1.0

  (c) Guy N Smith 1989 - 2012

  Published by Black Hill Books, June 2012

  ISBN : 978-1-907846-49-6

  First Published by Sphere Books December 1989.

  Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise distributed without the publisher's prior consent in any form whatsoever. Mechanisms are employed to make each Ebook unique and traceable back to the original purchaser.

  For more information visit Guy's website at :www.guynsmith.com

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  Contents

  Title

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  The End

  Chapter One

  ‘Put the kettle on.’ Billy Evans glanced up from the crumpled newspaper spread across his knees, squinted from behind heavy rimmed spectacles. ‘Make a cuppa and let’s think what we’re goin’ to do.’

  Valerie nodded, moved to the sink. ‘A cuppa won’t solve it,’ there was a slight slurring in her speech, ‘but I suppose it’s a start.’

  He grunted, returned to his paper but seemed to have difficulty focusing his eyes, blinking, shaking his head. Waiting for a blur of newsprint to clear.

  ‘You need to get your eyes checked again.’ His wife had put the kettle on the ring and was watching him closely. He had aged recently, more than she had realized. Thinning grey hair, he would be bald in another year or two, round features pallid and drawn. He was putting on weight, too, although it was difficult to be sure, dressed as he was in his thick grey overcoat with a knotted scarf around his neck which disguised the start of a double chin. He looked to be sweating but that was impossible in this temperature; it was probably a trick of the light. Galoshes made his feet seem huge, the thick knitted socks reminding her of how her father had looked when he was suffering from gout. She looked away, tried to remember what Billy had looked like twenty years ago. She couldn’t; her mind seemed fogged these days, her memory was fading and it was very worrying.

  ‘No chance of that,’ he replied after what seemed an eternity.

  ‘Of what?’ She had forgotten what she had asked him, it couldn’t have been anything very important.

  ‘Of seeing the optician!’ There was a note of irritability in his voice. ‘They’ll all’ve gone south. Like everybody else.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She was fast losing the thread of the conversation. ‘I’d forgotten.’

  Valerie was ten years younger than her husband and suddenly the age gap was like a yawning chasm. Tall and slim, she had made every effort to fight off the ravages of the encroaching years, disguising a few lines and wrinkles with expensive creams and lotions. Fortunately she had never had a weight problem, she was still 9 stone 4 lbs, the same as she had been on her 21st birthday. She didn’t drink, allowed herself the occasional cigarette. And she frequently wondered what life was all about; Billy no longer seemed interested in a marital relationship. Once she had thought that perhaps he had got a woman on the side somewhere. No, not Billy, it would have been too much trouble.

  God, this place was getting under her skin! A two-roomed chalet that was like an army married quarters back in the fifties. Basic decorations and most of those were fading or peeling off. In places you could see the plaster and there was a hole just above the skirting board like somebody had kicked the wall in frustration. Which you could understand. Utility furniture, a sofa and chairs that needed reupholstering and a flimsy table covered in gouges and scratches.

  So gloomy with the curtains drawn but you had to keep them closed to try and retain what little heat the two bar electric fire gave off. A single electric bulb beneath a cracked plastic shade did its best to hide the depressing scene but failed miserably. Habitually she checked the buttons all the way up her long topcoat, felt encumbered by the thick sweater which she was wearing underneath. Cold trickled up and down her spine and she moved closer to the glowing electric ring on the stove for warmth.

  ‘Here you are.’ She poured a cup of thick brown tea and handed it across to her husband, made him stretch for it and slopped some in the saucer. He did not appear to notice which was a sure sign that his eyes were bad because that was one of the few things that he was fastidious about. On more than one occasion he had made a fuss in a caféand demanded a clean saucer.

  He slurped his drink noisily, stared at the blank television screen, saw how it leaned at an angle. That was because the floor was uneven. The rear leg was usually propped up by shoving a book under it but the book seemed to have disappeared and she wasn’t going to hunt for it. You reached a stage when even the most trivial task was no longer worthwhile.

  ‘We ought to get the weather forecast,’ Billy grunted.

  ‘We can’t. The telly’s kaput.’

  ‘Oh, then we should …’ His eyes seemed to clear momentarily, a film like a cataract rolling back. ‘No, we can’t, can we? Because the telly bloke will have gone south, too.’

  Silence. Two people not talking because they knew that everything they might have to say had already been said. Even if they were unable to remember what it was. It was the cold, of course, which made thinking difficult, numbed your brain so that it didn’t work properly. Like a car engine on a cold morning.

  ‘How long we been here, Val?’ he asked at length.

  ‘I … I don’t know.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Several years, I guess. It has to be, doesn’t it? After we left Primrose Hill in Cradley … or was it after Brierley Hill? D’you know, I can’t really remember. Was it before or after you got made redundant, Billy?’

  ‘Damned if I know.’ He rubbed his jaw pensively with stubby fingers thickened by years of manual labour. ‘Just shows how the years go by. After I was made redundant, I’d say. Wasn’t that why we had to sell Primrose Hill?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ Logically that had to be right because they wouldn’t have swapped a three-bedroomed semi in the Black Country for this pigsty otherwise. Years of just vegetating, years that left no memories so that you were unable to recall them. ‘We’ll have to do something about this place one of these days, though, Billy. Either do it up or sell it. Or both. We can’t stop here for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘We’ll have to go south like everybody else is doin!’ He grimaced. ‘Nothin’ to stay ’ere for ’cept to die. You know that as well as I do, Val.’

  She held on to the edge of the sink unit, felt slightly sick and faint. It was all very frightening. Mostly because you didn’t understand it, and in a lot of ways perhaps it was best not to. That last telly programme, the one before it had packed up, was almost unbelievable. It seemed like years ago but it could not be more than days. Blizzards, villages and towns cut off, people trekking out through the drifts as if they were on an Antarctic expedition, some with tennis rackets tied to their boots. Vehicles abandoned, just gh
ostly white humps in the snow and soon they would be buried altogether. For good. Because the snow would never melt. What was it the newscaster had called it? The New Ice Age.

  It was all coming back to her so vividly. A white unrecognizable world. A seaport, she couldn’t remember which one, with ice floes clogging the harbour and police having to keep order as mile-long queues formed. Everybody desperate to get away from Ice Age Britain, as they called it, willing to go just anywhere that was a few degrees warmer. Leaving everything behind because there was no way they could transport their belongings, life was more important than property and possession. Run before you freeze, the temperature’s dropping all the time.

  ‘At least I got a paper.’ Billy held up his folded copy, wafted cold air at his wife. ‘There’s not many people got a paper, I can tell you.’

  ‘Is it today’s?’ The question came automatically, expressionlessly. When you were rapidly losing track of time one day was much the same as another. In Britain, anyway. Snow and ice today, yesterday, the day before. There was little difference.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered vacantly and that film began to glaze his grey eyes behind his spectacles, reflecting dull orbs that might have belonged to a blind man. He held the newspaper close, tried to read it with difficulty. ‘Just you listen to this, Val.’

  ‘I’m listening.’ But I don’t really want to hear.

  There was a pause as Billy Evans held the paper close to his face, pushed it away again; squinting, straining his eyes so that they began to water. He cleared his throat, embarrassed because just as the small print came into focus it blurred again. ‘Now, let me see …’

  ‘The New Ice Age.’ Valerie could make out the bold headlines from where she stood.

  ‘All right, all right, I can read!’ He glared up at her and then when he looked down again he was relieved to find that he could see the wording quite clearly. ‘The big freeze goes on … there is no sign of a let-up and ice floes are building up on the River Severn. Nearly all schools in the country are closed and main roads are blocked everywhere. The AA is warning drivers to carry survival kits with them as some attempt to make the Big Trek south. All south coast ports are besieged by people emigrating to warmer climates, leaving everything behind them, for experts warn that the thaw may not come.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ her voice quavered.

  ‘Read it for yourself, then!’ He thrust the paper out, held it at arm’s length.

  ‘What’s the date on that paper?’ she snapped. Oh God, I’m sure he’s read that lot to me before.

  ‘See for your bloody self!’ His vision was fogging once more and he was aware of a slight headache.

  Valerie snatched the newspaper from her husband. ‘Here, the date’s on the top of the front page …’ It was, but she couldn’t make it out. Letters that merged into an indecipherable line of meaningless hieroglyphics. The more she stared, the more unrecognizable they became; even that bold headline was undulating like a snake symbol, moving, a printer’s splodge where the ink was still wet.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘What’s the use?’ She tossed the paper on to the table; it flapped and slid off, fluttered to the floor. ‘We both know what’s happening out there, Billy!’ She sensed hysteria building up within her, tried to check it, fought it down with an effort.

  ‘Everybody’s going abroad.’ He sounded very tired, leaned back in the rickety chair and let his eyes close. ‘Anybody who stays in Britain will freeze to death in a matter of a week or two. And if you don’t freeze then you’ll starve because the country’s running out of food. That’s the score, and we’ve got to do like everybody else and head for the continent. Further than that, Africa maybe.’

  ‘We can’t afford it. And, anyway, we don’t have passports. The only time we’ve ever been abroad was that weekend to Belgium just after we were married.’

  ‘We don’t need money.’ There was a concerned expression on his face. ‘Nor passports. It’s like an evacuation. If there’s room on a boat, they’ll take you.’

  ‘If! I’m not sure that I want to go, Billy.’

  ‘Then ruddy well stay! I’m going, anyway.’

  She bit her lip, did her best not to cry. This wasn’t her Billy any longer, he was like a stranger. Unfeeling, uncaring. ‘But we get snow every winter and it always melts eventually.’ Clutching at straws, a cry of desperation. Oh, God, I wish I knew what the date was.

  ‘The experts say,’ Billy’s eyes were still closed, a kind of recitation like something he had heard somewhere a long time ago and the words had stuck in his mind, ‘that if you get fourteen hard winters in succession then the New Ice Age has arrived. Look at last winter, it started in late November and the thaw didn’t come till April. Every bleedin’ winter it’s lasted longer and longer. Now it ain’t going to thaw at all. The experts say so.’

  ‘Oh, Billy, I’m frightened.’ She made as though to join him, perhaps sit on his knee, fling her arms around him and weep her frustration, but she held back. Because he would push her away, she knew he would.

  His eyes flickered open, giant frog’s eyes behind his glasses, staring angrily at her. ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, don’t get panicking. We’ve got to be organized, pack what we can carry, make it on foot, find shelter wherever we can.’

  ‘We’ll die!’ It was almost a scream as she thumped the worktop with her fists. ‘Nobody can last out there in those terrible blizzards!’

  ‘As I said, if you want to stay, you stay. Please yourself. But don’t get holding me up because once I start out I’m going as hard as I can for Dover.’ He stood up, began rummaging in an overflowing paper-rack until at length he pulled out a dog-eared Ordnance Survey map, started to unfold it. ‘I’m going to work out a route. Now, whilst I do that, you start packing some provisions. We got to take food, all the cafes will be either closed or sold out.’

  She watched in amazement as the map unfolded, caught a glimpse of the cover page and this time the lettering held so that she could read the heading. ‘Tourists’ Map of North Wales and Holiday Routes.’

  ‘Billy, that’s not …’

  ‘Shut up, will you!’ He was poring over it like a short-sighted schoolboy struggling with some geography homework. ‘I’ve got to work us out a route and I’m not going to be able to do that if you keep chipping in so’s I can’t concentrate, now am I?’

  She fell silent. There was something wrong with her husband, had been for some time now only she had tried not to notice it. Like, what did they call it … senile dementia? Not at fifty! Or maybe something worse like a tumour on the brain. She experienced an urge to scream, to rush outside and find a doctor. She seemed to hear Billy’s voice mocking her, ‘You’re wasting your time, all the doctors have gone south.’

  It’s like a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon. Even if we are still in a tatty chalet and there’s snow piled up to the windows at least it’ll melt eventually, and then everything will be back to normal. Boring but safe.

  ‘You’d better get a move on with the packing or d’you want me to do that, too?’ He was folding the map up again, his expression one of scorn.

  ‘I’ll pack,’ her voice quavered, ‘we’d better take the holdall and a couple of carrier bags.’

  ‘Make sure you take some tea, we can’t do without that. And a bit o’ black puddin’ and some of that brawn if there’s still a bit left.’

  She nodded. Fighting for survival but all he thought of was a typical Black Country diet. Maybe he’d go looking for a chippie on the way. She began to search the small food cupboard, wondered how they had managed all these years without a proper larder. This place was no more than a hut, maybe a left-over Nissen from the war.

  Things hadn’t been right with her and Billy for a long time now, she decided. They’d got in a rut, let themselves drift and gone their own separate ways. She’d cooked his food, washed his clothes and gone out to work, helping with the school dinners. A routine that had gone on the slide without her realising it. Bi
lly didn’t think there was anything wrong, he’d done what his father and grandfather before him had done. Chain-making by day, the pub at night. Which went on until nobody wanted to buy chain any longer so there were redundancies and it was a good job that the wife had a small income. No children, so you sold the house … damn it, she still could not remember selling up, they seemed to have been in this draughty hovel for years. Maybe they had never had a house.

  If only she’d had children it might have been different. She began to cry softly, kept her face towards the cupboard and hoped her husband didn’t notice. He wouldn’t understand, he hadn’t wanted kids from the outset. ‘Screamin’ brats, there’s enough of them in this world, Val, without us addin’ to ’em. We’ll never have any money if we have kids, you take it from me.’

  Funny, she thought she could hear children now. She tried to stifle her sobs so that she could listen. She could not be sure, it sounded like childish voices in the distance, shouting and laughing the way they used to do at Cradley when they played football in the street. Then a ball would bounce against the window and Billy would open the door and yell abuse at them, send them packing. She didn’t mind football when the kids played it but she hated Saturday afternoons when Billy went off to the match. Wolves or the Albion, alternate weeks according to which was playing at home; home for tea and then out to fetch a ‘Pink ’Un’ before he went to the pub.

  The selfish bastard, he didn’t understand what a woman needed. She straightened up, looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. Red-eyed, pale; she pushed a few strands of long dark hair into place and wished there was a chance of a perm somewhere. Just the odd fleck or two of grey but, damn it, she was young enough. Sod you, Billy Evans, if the chance came along I’d find myself another man!

  She could definitely hear children playing somewhere. Her hand reached out, slim fingers gripping the curtain lightly, tempted to pull it apart and look outside. Hesitating because there would only be snow and more snow, plastered all over the pane so that she wouldn’t be able to see anyway. Her eyes were going funny again, filming and stinging. It was a long time since she had cried, she had almost forgotten how.