by Natasha West
I raised an eyebrow, but she said, ‘You put me in charge. I don’t know what you thought that would look like. But it’s this.’
I had the slightest twinge of regret at that point. Until Rachel went on, ‘I need to check your camping gear. If I don’t do a thorough job, it could trip us up later. You miss out a few tent poles, you could lose your tent to one stiff wind and spend half the night trying to get the fucking thing put back up in the middle of a storm. In the dark. You get a hole in your tent? You wake up covered in bug bites that will itch and itch until you scratch yourself into an infection. Wrong shoes? You’ll get blisters that will make walking a single mile feel like torture. If any of that sounds like a good time, by all means, take the chance’, she finished dryly.
I sighed. I turned to Emma. ‘Take her to the garage, all the camping gear is in those white plastic stack boxes in the far-left corner. There’s a four-man tent that belonged to my Dad. We’ll share that.’
Emma gave me a look but miraculously didn’t argue. She walked out of the back door, Rachel behind her, saying, ‘I hope it went away dry or it’ll be rotted.’
I heard Emma distantly say, ‘Are you looking for problems?’ Normally, I would have laughed at the irony of Emma complaining about having to deal with an anally retentive task-master. But my mind was all for what lay in front of us.
Jude walked over to the doorway to watch Emma and Rachel bring out the big plastic stack box and lay it on the concrete yard. I walked up behind him. ‘You ready for this?’
‘I just want Dad back’ he said quietly.
‘Me too’ I replied. ‘Come on, let’s check the stuff.’
We went out to help as Rachel directed everyone to lay out the tent flat on the ground. Once that was done, she walked around, checking the materials, tugging a flap here, turning a corner there, examining every square inch. Eventually she stood and nodded. ‘OK, not too bad. Now I need to see the tent poles.’
‘How you gonna know how many each tent needs? I don’t think we have the instructions anymore.’
‘I don’t need instructions’, she said casually, as she pulled out two canvas bags full of tent poles and pegs. I rolled my eyes at her back. Spookily and without turning around, she said, ‘Laugh at me if you like, but I’ve been camping all over the country for nine years now. I might not know much, but I know my way around a tent.’
Nine years? She’d been sleeping outside for nine years? I knew she was an outdoorsy type but hearing that number really brought it home. A home she hadn’t had since before Jude started puberty. I resolved right then to shut my mouth and do as she said.
After she’d checked everything to her satisfaction - which included going through our personal bags to check for anything she thought we didn’t need, along with examining the state of our clothes and boots that she gave a grudging approval to - I checked my watch to find that it was gone seven. I was starving. ‘Can we eat now?’ I asked Rachel. ‘We’ve been up hours.’
Rachel looked surprised. ‘Oh, right. Food. Yes. What you got?’
‘I think we’ve got a few eggs left’ I said.
Rachel looked interested. ‘I haven’t had an egg in ages.’
I boiled every egg we had, four soft for breakfast and the rest hard, for the journey. Luckily, the neighbour up the road was due today, come to get his own eggs in exchange for some milk from his cow. The man loved his eggs and we liked milk so it was a regular and established trade. I’d written a note to leave on the door explaining that he could have every egg that came out of the chickens while we were gone, if he’d look after them in our absence. We’d known him for years and I thought he was a reliable guy, but Emma, unsurprisingly, had her doubts. ‘What’s to stop him from just taking them?’ she asked as I put out the eggs. ‘Or killing them and eating them?’
‘That would be stupid and very short sighted’ I told her. ‘A week of chicken or years of eggs. Which would you choose?’
Emma didn’t say anything, and I knew I had her there. But then Jude perked up. ‘I’d kill one and keep the rest’ he explained as he ate. Emma looked from Jude to me. ‘That’s exactly what he’ll do’ she agreed voraciously. I wanted to clip Jude around the ear. Instead, I said, ‘So what do you want to do instead? Take them with us?’
‘One of us could stay with them, keep things ticking over here’ she shot back.
‘You volunteering?’ I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my tone.
‘Not a chance. I’ve got a right to know what’s happened to my husband. But you could stay.’
‘I’m going, Emma’ I told her plainly. We both looked at Jude. ‘No way. I wanna find Dad’ he said vehemently. And that was that.
I looked over to see Rachel eating her egg, one ear in the conversation. ‘This egg is delicious but having to listen to you people talk is cancelling out any pleasure I’m getting. Could you shut up for ten seconds?’
Everyone went quiet and Rachel put another spoonful of egg in her mouth and sighed through her nose as she ate. I hoped she was enjoying the silence. It was the last she was going to enjoy for a while.
Eleven
Rachel
I’d been the one to make sure we were properly packed before we left, slowing everyone down, with good reason. But now, I was eager to get going. I wanted to move. It wasn’t just that I was sick to the back teeth of the bickering between Alice and her sister-in-law, a woman I might have thrown down a well if I’d had to live with her day in, day out. And I’d thought Alice’s high-minded naïf act was a lot to deal with.
But no, that wasn’t what made my feet itch. Sitting still, it wasn’t natural. There was something about it that never felt right to me, not since the old days. Back then, sitting was practically my favourite activity. Now? Movement was the thing. And not in that way we used to do, going to a gym a few times a week to make yourself feel like your body wasn’t turning into mush. Moving was now a different thing altogether. Life had turned into a natural gym, where if you stopped, you died.
That first day, I worked them hard. I know I did. But I couldn’t help it. They were soft, mushy, in all but their mouths, which never stopped going. Emma and Jude complained and asked for breaks after only an hour. It now made total sense that Jude’s robbery had failed utterly. He was lazy, undisciplined.
But Alice was different. She kept her head down, her back straight, her stride unbroken. That first five hours, she didn’t even speak. I started to wonder if she’d ever ask for a break, even to pee. It began to feel like a competition, which one of us would crack first? I was certain I’d win this unspoken contest.
But as the day wore on, I became less sure.
Around two in the afternoon, by my reading of the sun, I was wondering if it was time to cry uncle. I actually needed to pee like nobody’s business and it was starting to really hurt. But my pride burned more than the desire to urinate.
Then I got an out, although it came at a price. Emma tripped on a loose stone and slipped, falling back onto her arse with the most undignified yell. Alice dropped her bag and ran to her. It was funny, Alice clearly couldn’t bear the woman, and this was the second time I’d seen her go to her aid. I couldn’t fathom it.
‘It’s broken’ Emma was moaning, and Alice sat her up. ‘Let me get your shoe off’ she asked. ‘Leave it, it hurts too much’ Emma said, swatting Alice’s hand away.
In the background, Jude just watched. He seemed to do a lot of that.
‘Emma, don’t be silly. I need to take a look, see if it’s broken’ Alice argued. Emma huffed and moved her hands away from her ankle, warning, ‘Careful then’. I stood behind to watch with interest as Alice slipped the boot off carefully. ‘There’s no swelling yet’ Alice noted. ‘It’s broken’ Emma insisted. ‘Or, maybe it’s a fracture’ she said after a moment and we all knew it wasn’t more than a twist. Still, it was enough to stop us, at least for the rest of the day.
‘Right. That’s it for today!’ I announced. ‘We’ll need to set up a camp. Jude, stay w
ith your mum. Alice, help me find a spot.’
‘What are we looking for?’ Alice asked as we walked into the poppy field nearby, the whole field a bloody red.
‘We need flat and dry. It doesn’t hurt to be hidden, either’ I told her.
‘Why’s that?’ Alice asked.
‘Ask your nephew’ I told her, scanning the horizon.
I heard Alice sigh. But she didn’t say anything. I began to think that maybe I’d taken a dig that I didn’t need to. Obviously, my time in the wilderness had not helped me with my people skills. But I’d be spending a lot of time with these people. I’d have to try a little harder.
‘So, your sister in law’s a bit of a dick’ I threw out as an opening gambit. If her nephew was off the table, Emma was pretty much all I had.
‘Yeah’ Alice agreed gloomily.
‘Must be hard to live with someone like that.’
‘She’d probably say the same about me’ Alice said, reasonably.
‘Your brother obviously liked her. Enough to have a kid with her, anyway.’
‘I don’t know what Olly thought. I mean, I guess he did. But at a certain point, whatever you thought before, it didn’t matter’ she said vaguely. I knew what she was talking about. Before, there had been a thing called Options. We didn’t have Options anymore. We got what we got.
‘So, how’d you end up with her, anyway?’
‘Olly, Jude, Emma, none of them got sick, obviously. And the house has been in the family for about a hundred years. Olly wanted to move in to it, fix up the place, keep a few chickens, grow some veg, get self-sufficient, and he asked me to come with them, move out here. Me and Emma have never been best buddies, but I was on my own and I thought it was better to stick with my brother. And then Olly disappeared, and we were stuck with each other.’
‘Where did you live? Before?’
‘South. London. Where were you?’
‘North. Manchester.’
‘How come you left?’ she asked.
‘I left the city for the same reason everyone left them. I didn’t want to live in a fucking mausoleum stacked with the bodies of everyone I’ve ever known’ I said flatly. Maybe I should have said it more gently. But what’s the point in trying to soft soak that terrible fact? If you ever try to walk through any of the big cities, they’re graveyards that haven’t been filled in yet and never will be. I guess there are a few people who could live amongst that, but what’s the point? Everything you need has already been pillaged. That makes the buildings worthless, even as shelter. Simply unmarked giant tombstones to signal the millions of dead laying in the streets. I don’t walk through them, even as a shortcut. It’s too depressing. Even when you’re used to death, seeing hundreds of bodies will still make you blink.
‘There was no one left for you, afterwards?’ Alice asked.
‘No. All gone.’
‘What about now?’
‘I don’t have anyone.’
‘No one?’
‘Nope. I don’t stay put anywhere, that’s how I live. I walk.’
‘You… Walk?’
‘Yes. I walk all over the country. When I run out of country, I turn around and head back the other way’ I explained.
Alice took the longest pause before she asked, ‘Is that because… Is that to do with Sarah?’
‘Hey, this looks like a good spot’ I said, pointing at a place where the poppies fell away, leaving flat soil. I kicked at a spot and a cloud of dust was sent up. It was dry enough to rest on but the pegs should still go in without too much trouble. Plus, the height of the nearby poppies would act as a windbreaker as well as making it tough for any passing miscreants to spot us.
‘OK, I’ll start setting up. You go and fetch that pair’ I told Alice. Truthfully, there was no reason we couldn’t have gone to get them together. There was plenty of time ‘til sundown. But I wanted Alice to stop asking questions. I felt like she was sniffing her way to things that I wasn’t going to talk about.
Twelve
Alice
It took forever to get Emma to the spot that Rachel picked. She was making a real meal of her injury, leaning on Jude, doing a pathetic limping walk, acting like she’d lost a leg. I felt like I wanted to scream, ‘Hurry the fuck up you drama queen!’ half a dozen times. But calling Emma out never worked the way you hoped. It would just lead to a row and then, if I knew Emma, she’d only ham it up further. God only knows why, there was no one to feel sorry for her except me and Jude, because I think she knew Rachel wouldn’t be falling over herself to offer sympathy. Maybe she just wanted an excuse to feel sorry for herself.
But eventually, we found our way to the spot where Rachel had both tents up and was now working on a fire enclosure, creating a circle of stones to contain our future heat source. ‘I need logs’ she said by way of greeting as we came upon her.
Jude turned to his mum. ‘Can you take it from here, I should probably go look for wood?’ Emma nodded, and Jude ducked under her arm, headed for a scattering of trees at the edge of the field, about a quarter of a mile away.
‘You got your little axe?’ I called to him.
‘In my bag. And it’s not little, it’s normal size’ he yelled back as he headed off.
‘Be careful’ Emma added.
‘Yep’ he shouted back, never turning. We both watched him go.
Sometimes it felt as though Emma and I were in a bad marriage, staying together for the sake of our child. My life wasn’t supposed to go like this. I’d thought I might be settled by now, maybe with my own kids. But that fantasy had been built in another time. A time when exposure to my sister-in-law was limited to a few times a year and there was a world of women out there, waiting it seemed, for me.
And I’d been so choosy, dismissing them all on the grounds of this or that little thing that I didn’t like. I supposed that it didn’t matter anymore because in all likelihood, they’d all be dead now, all those girls who had failed at the first hurdle.
But what if I’d missed my shot with someone good? Just one woman who could have left me with memories of time spent with someone who loved me, someone I loved? Even if she hadn’t had immunity, even if she’d died and left me to this? They could have kept me warm at night, those memories.
Instead, all I had were visions of people who I’d never taken the next step with, never gone to Paris with, never moved in with, never proposed to, never bought a sofa with, never gotten a dog with, never had babies with. Because I was waiting for her, this perfect woman, who never showed up and never would now. Instead, what I had, was Emma.
Then again, I don’t suppose Emma pictured this on her wedding day to Olly, ending up living with his sister, us forever within ten minutes of killing one another. I always tried to remember that when I felt angry at Emma, that she’d had a vision for her family that had never included anyone else.
Sometimes I wondered why we kept going. I guess what actually held us together, if you could call it that, was that I couldn’t kick her out because of Jude. And she couldn’t kick me out because technically, the house belonged to me now, the second-to-last blood Quinn on the planet, not counting Olly, which no one was sure if we should. It was an unspoken thing but I think we both understood the rules now. The house was mine for the time being. Jude was the last Quinn, unless he found himself someone to have babies with. And when I was dead, the house would be his and his potential family’s. If he could hold onto it.
Once Jude was a tiny dot on the horizon, Emma went to rest her foot. But I kept watching Jude in the distance, just in case. The last time I’d let the boy out of my sight, he’d gotten himself into all kinds of trouble and my trust that he was growing up, growing into a man, had taken a dent. So I watched.
Later, we had wood, we had heat, we had food that I’d packed for the road, we had water from our canteens, the tents were up. There was nothing to do but sit in the thick silence, the kind of silence shared by four people with nothing in common but their random fortunes, fortun
es that had elected to stick them together. There was me and Emma and everything dreadful about that. There was Jude and Emma, who had the standard bond of mother and son and not a lot else. There was Emma and Rachel, two people who couldn’t have less interest in one another beyond the agreed terms of a deal, which amounted to the truth and a campervan. There was Rachel and Jude who, despite what should have been a deep and bottomless acrimony, seemed content to ignore one another. And then there was me and Rachel. What was our relationship?
I snuck a peek at Rachel, legs folded, resting on her elbows, looking at the night sky beyond the curling smoke of the fire. I’d thought I was getting somewhere earlier, when we’d been alone, talking about before. Rachel had a story and I found myself wanting to hear it, to know something about her beyond what details I’d gleaned so far. But what I knew didn’t add up to much. She came from Manchester, she travelled alone and once, there had been someone called Sarah. It wasn’t enough. But it would have to be. Because I would probably never get to know her beyond what I’d heard her scream in a fever dream.
Thirteen
Rachel
‘Can you put your weight on it?’ I asked Emma as she stood up gingerly. I wanted to get going and she was our only obstacle. If she decided to string out this whole charade, it could put the kibosh on the whole thing. That meant no brother-finding and therefore, no van. I’d had a day to get used to the idea of the van and now it felt like it belonged to me. In my mind, I was already making it my home.
But not if Emma slowed us down. I couldn’t understand why she’d want to. She’d seemed to want the truth as much as anyone back at the house and now she was playing silly buggers. ‘I’m not sure’ Emma said as she shifted her weight.
Out of the corner of my vision, I saw Alice roll her eyes as she brushed her teeth. She knew what I knew, that Emma was drawing this out.