The Nature of Balance

by Tim Lebbon

  As she rolled cautiously to the junction, she glanced in her rear-view mirror. The woman appeared from her house, hands twisting together in front of her as if trying to rid themselves of a stain. Then she turned, ignoring the pigeons lining the sills above her, and went back in.

  At the junction Peer turned right, aiming out of Newport. She did not look back.

  There was little traffic. An occasional car passed her going in the opposite direction, but other than that the streets were comparatively deserted. Of humans, at least. Animals, it seemed, were revelling in the unusual silence. Dogs trotted in menacing groups, drifting across the street in an arrogant display of dominance. Cats crept along gutters and slunk in and out of doorways. Birds hurried through the air, often in flocks, or sat watching if there was movement in the street. Peer was tempted to stop every time she saw someone on the pavement, but after the man with the shotgun she was afraid she’d wait for the wrong person. When a woman darted into the road, waving and pleading, Peer had to swerve the car and narrowly avoided mating it with a lamp post. She drove on without looking in the mirror. She did not want to see the woman’s face.

  As she passed through Maindee, the smell of burning became heavy and more obvious. Smoke drifted lazily across the road, swirling in her slipstream like the agitated ghosts of the town’s dead. And as the fire came, so a descent into hell seemed to begin.

  On the pavement, three men were raping a woman. Peer slowed, then drove by. She had to. She could do nothing else. Tears masked the full view of what they were doing, but not the knowledge. She sped past a scarlet mess in the road, and only realised at the last minute that clothes were mixed into the gory smudge. A mini-bus sat face-first in a shop window, mannequins and bodies scattered across the pavement in surreal abandon. Some of the bodies still moved, clawing glass from their eyes, holding insides in.

  Ahead, over the heads of the shops and houses lining the road, she could see a monstrous blur of smoke against the blue sky, dark and expanding. The road made a slow bend to the left and she eased the speed. As the buildings on the right opened out into a small green, Peer stopped the car. She sat, open mouthed, looking down a slight slope towards the hill half a mile distant.

  The fire was widespread. It began at the far end of the side- street she was looking down, where a frantic fire crew were working on a row of blazing houses. Windows blew out, slates popped and showered the area with lethal shrapnel, the ribs of roofs showed through dancing flames. From where she sat she could see a network of streets, roads and factories, leading across the shallow valley and lifting gently as they reached the slightly raised area of Ringland. Many of these streets seemed to be ablaze, sending columns of thick smoke up into the still air. It seemed as if the whole area had been carpet bombed with incendiary devices, blasting houses and shops into maelstroms of fire and crumbled ruin. Some of the streets must have been burning for hours, because there was little of the actual buildings left to be seen. The fire had taken a firm, tenacious hold, spitting skyward in walls of flame fifty feet high. There were no signs of life anywhere, save for the struggling firemen. And their battle was already lost.

  Peer moved slowly on, alternating her attention between the road and glimpses of the conflagration between rows of shops and houses. She could already feel the radiated heat in the car, and she resisted the natural inclination to open the windows. Rubbish danced across the road as air was sucked into the base of the ever-hungry fire. Soon the car itself was being buffeted by the increasing winds, and one word made her press her bleeding foot firmly down on the accelerator.

  Firestorm.

  Shops gave way to large, bay-fronted semi-detached houses, and between each couple Peer could see the fire. The further she went the nearer it seemed to be. Down the next side street, the destruction began a dozen houses along, another set of windows and doors bursting outwards on limbs of flame even as she watched. She drove faster. Something darted into the road – something smoking – and the car lifted and bumped down again as she ran it down. It had looked like a big dog. She hoped that was what it was. Just a big dog, she told herself. Just a dog.

  She could see the end of the next row of shops. Light danced at the junction, flashing from windows and sending a glare out across the street which promised fiery death. Peer did not hesitate. Her knuckles turned pearly white as she gripped the steering wheel, pressing her foot down as hard as she could, willing the car to suck out another burst of speed from its old engine. She winced at the glassy pain of her cut feet.

  She passed the entrance to the street at about fifty miles-per-hour. She had to look.

  The whole world was ablaze. A car parked at the corner exploded like a bomb, twirling gracefully in the air, spreading liquid death across the tarmac. Fire flowed in the gutters, and drain covers blew into the white-hot sky. Even the road itself seemed to be aflame, melting around the shells of destroyed cars, bubbling against the crumbling bricks of those buildings left standing.

  “Goodbye Newport,” Peer muttered. She willed the car faster, holding the wheel firmly against the winds howling across the roads, turning on the wipers in a vain attempt to clear her view of old chip wrappers and flattened cigarette packets. She roared past a pub on her left, where she and Jenny had once both tried alligator steaks. A petrol station flashed by, three cars clustered around a manhole where a woman struggled with a hosepipe.

  Peer thought about stopping, warning them of the danger. But as she glanced in her rear-view mirror, she knew it was more than obvious.

  The sky was on fire.

  Half a mile later, Peer was faced with the choice of risking the motorway, or staying on the A-roads to Chepstow. She chose the motorway, and it was only four miles later that the car gave up the ghost. It coughed, jerked and died with a crunching rattle of broken parts.

  She hauled herself from the vehicle, realising only then how close she had come to being incinerated. She began to shake, goosebumps rising on her arms in sympathy with the near miss. Her teeth clattered and she hugged herself, as though holding in the relative safety her body had found. Looking back towards Newport, half the sky seemed full of smoke. Ash fluttered and drifted down, turning the verdant landscape into monochrome blandness.

  The entire driver’s side of the car had been virtually stripped of paint. The metal had warped out of shape in the heat, the glass cracked, the tyres bulged out.

  She opened the boot. She found a long iron bar, which she slid into her belt, and an old trenchcoat that had seen better decades. She slipped it on, welcoming the smell of stale sweat and mustiness wafting from it. It was a human smell.

  Looking down at her sad, bloody feet, trying to shut out the pain, Peer began walking along the hard shoulder. She soon realised that this was where all the broken glass and sharp stones lay, and resorted instead to the inside lane.

  There was little danger of being run over, she thought.

  Traffic was light today.

  12. Laying the Demons to Rest

  Mary would remember her journey through the house for the rest of her life. There was blood clotting in the carpet and dead bodies screamed silently at the walls. A rich stench hung in the air, and she recognised it as insides turned out. She felt frighteningly alone, but also smugly triumphant at being still alive.

  Mary loved it.

  Stepping over Rupert first of all, kneeling to have a closer look at the mess the chain had made of his throat. Then into Jams’ and Helen’s room. Helen was in a dark puddle on the floor. Jams was lying on his back on the bed, arms and legs spread, head thrown back as if bearing his throat to be chewed. His skin seemed whole, but he was distorted all out of shape. She remembered the night before, when he had moaned that he never had the chains. She giggled, twitching the handle at her side, letting the blades snag on Helen’s hair.

  Before she left, she fulfilled his wish and let him have the chains. A dozen times. Practice makes perfect.

  Fay had rescued her. Dragged her from the stifling
pit of hatred she inhabited alongside these meaningless people and set her in a place of her own, at Fay’s side, wanted and needed and taking up space in the world. Before she had been a vacuum, a nothing wandering the landscape and waiting for death. For a long time she had not sensed any warmth, any feeling of belonging; everyone and everything seemed to hate her. The gang had shunned her in the cruellest way, ignoring rather than offending her, disregarding her entirely

  But now Fay had come and reordered her life. She had opened up whole new vistas of experience, showed Mary the ease and the beauty of death, and the art involved in dealing it. Rupert had been right, in a way. Art is what it was all about. But he had been an amateur, with no knowledge of technique or method, no potential. Mary had the tools and the inspiration, her muse in the memory of beautiful Fay, and the pledge that they would meet again soon.

  Before she departed, Fay had smiled and promised her a future, a future where Mary would have meaning: There will be plenty of opportunity for you to practise your strokes.

  Mary left the house, liberated. The air was clearer, the sun shone brighter than it had for a long, long time. She slammed the front door and recognised an immediate change in her life, as if she had just hacked off a monstrous growth which had been dragging her down for years. She laughed out loud, surprising herself with the sound. It was genuine and held real humour. It was something she had not heard for many years.

  She did not feel a sliver of pity for the dead people inside, even Roger. She was happy that they were dead. She hoped it had hurt.

  She wanted to burn the house down. The idea had been simmering ever since Fay had left an hour before. She was sure she would be able to find petrol and matches, and refuse was piled against the rear of the house as usual, waiting for one of them to be bothered to move it out for the dustman. But as she stepped into the light and felt the clearness rushing through her body, chasing all the dark demons away – or at least into dusty corners from which they peered, and schemed – she realised that she could never go back inside. There was too much bad stuff in there. Much of it was imprinted on her mind forever, and every nook of the house would inspire these dark memories to rise up and haunt her. She did not want to be reminded of her years of not belonging so soon after her deliverance

  “Rot, you bastards,” she shouted, and suddenly that seemed a much more befitting fate for those who had hated her. “Rot, get eaten, be home for maggots and worms.” She swung the chain around her head, careful not to lose control and wrap it around her own neck. It whispered in the air, grumbling like the wheezing breath of a hungry animal. She let the momentum slow and turned as the chain dropped. She wanted to strip, run across the garden naked, revel in the freedom granted her by Fay. And if anyone saw her, gaped, pointed, she would ignore them.

  Suddenly, she noticed the silence.

  The house sat next to a railway line, spider-web cracks in the outside wall testament to the busyness of the route. It was the main line from Newport to Bristol, but there had been no trains.

  Mary felt no fear, only excitement. She remembered Fay’s words.

  There are going to be a lot of confused people out there this morning. Things have changed. The emphasis has shifted, and it’s time for people like you to grab the opportunities this affords. Understand me, Mary? Never has the chance been so clear for your art to be practised. I’m here to create my own particular masterpiece, but you … you, I want to be my understudy.

  Mary walked to the rotten timber gate between the house and the railway embankment. She smiled, and remembered the young summers she had spent with her cousin in the country. He had taught her how to listen for oncoming trains; said it was how the Indians did it. She climbed the gate and almost fell as the timber crumbled and collapsed. There was a slight rise to the railway track, strewn with litter and bits of decomposing animals discarded from the house. Jams had always said, if anyone finds anything they’ll think it was killed by the trains. Jams always was an idiot.

  Mary bent to the line, brushed her hair out of the way and placed her ear against the metal. She winced at the coolness, but then let out a deep breath and remained motionless.

  Nothing.

  She turned and sat on the gravel-strewn embankment, kicking at a desiccated piece of dog fur as she did so. The chain rattled against the stones, providing the loudest noise against the silence of the morning. She jerked the handle and listened to the sound, relishing its random musical cadences, wondering whether this was what death sounded like. It was for Rupert; the jangle of chains as his throat was torn open by Fay’s strong tug. Mary smiled at the memory, closing her eyes because that way it was easier to picture.

  When she opened her eyes again, there was a dog sitting at the bottom of the embankment. It was watching her, tongue lolling and dribbling, ears pricked up, listening to the silence. It was an old mongrel, brown and barrel-shaped. One ear had been torn in a fight, and now consisted of little more than a sharpened point aiming skywards.

  “Spike,” Mary named him softly. “You’ll be Spike. Here boy. Come on.” She rubbed her fingers together as if offering the mutt money, and it trotted gaily up to her. Before, she would have watched the others flay the creature alive. Before her freedom, she would have held the torch while they attacked with clubs and the chain, often breaking the animal’s legs first so that it could not fight back or flee. She glanced down at the bit of fur she had kicked away and wondered whether it had been a cousin or brother of the dog before her now.

  The dog reached her and licked the hand she proffered. It was panting and dribbling, but she laughed and tickled its undamaged ear with her other hand. It growled, and Mary tensed and reached back down for the chain. But the growl had been a groan, one of comfort and satisfaction, and she continued with her petting.

  She sat with the dog for half an hour, patting it, stroking it, playing with it, at one point letting it gnaw gently on her fist. She had found a friend, and she would do her best to keep it. Two new friends in one day. She was so lucky.

  “Hungry, Spike?” she said. “Does Spike want some breakfast? Huh? Well, we’ve no doggy food, but something better. It tastes sweeter, for me as well as you. See this, Spike?” She picked up the dried fur between thumb and forefinger and waved it in front of the dog’s nose. He sniffed it disinterestedly, and gazed back up at her as if asking what he was supposed to do. “You know who did that? Spike? I do. Come on.” She stood and tapped her leg, leading the dog back down to the house and around to the flaking back door.

  “Ever tasted revenge, Spike?” She opened the door. The dog entered. She shut the door and leant against the wall, listening. In the extreme silence, she could hear the mutt sniffing around the kitchen. Then the sounds stopped for a while, and she heard the padding of paws on the stairs.

  Oh, sweet revenge.

  A few minutes later, after Mary had made sure the Escort had a full tank of petrol, she opened the back door and called for the dog. For a terrible few seconds she thought he would not come. She feared she had lost him. There was no way she could go back in. She would have to leave him there, perhaps lock him in for his disobedience, let him eat the rotting bodies until they poisoned him and he died.

  Then he came thundering down the stairs, ear flapping, tongue lolling a different colour.

  “Good boy,” Mary said. “Who’s a good boy then? Breakfast good?” The fur around his snout was dark and tacky, and his breath smelled of fresh meat. Mary smiled. She laughed. Art.

  She opened the back door of the car and the dog jumped straight in, as if aware of her need to leave. She wondered whether Fay had met and spoken to the dog as well. She did not smile as much as she could have at this strange thought.

  “Let’s go, Spike,” she said. She turned into the road without checking for other traffic and drove straddling the white lines, whooping, touching the chain handle with her left hand and trying to picture its next victim.

  I need you, Fay had said. And for that, more than anythi
ng, Mary loved her.

  13. The Taste of Memory

  The post office had two telephone lines. Holly and the old woman volunteered to try them, and Blane was not about to argue. He found it hard enough talking to people face to face.

  Holly tried the emergency services, while the woman – who had introduced herself as Elizabeth – opened a local directory and tried numbers in the surrounding towns. Holly heard only engaged tones, or the occasional recorded message telling her that she was in a call-waiting queue. She waited for an hour.

  Elizabeth held out her receiver as she dialled each number. Usually an unanswered ringing was the result, but sometimes an answerphone cut in and told them all to leave a message. They never did. Blane shivered when he heard the fake-cheerful voices talking awkwardly to people they did not know or could not see. He wondered how many of these people were still alive this morning.

  When they had arrived at the post office, a couple of people had drifted away. Now there were only six of them, huddled together in the small shop, each anxious for the calm voice of authority to reach for them down the phone lines. But none came. They tried for an hour; local numbers, emergency numbers. Anything else – anything further afield – was too awful to contemplate. In the end, Holly dialled a London number at random, held up the receiver so they could all hear. The call was answered immediately.

  “Hello? That the ambulance? Oh God, thank God you called back, please hurry, I think he may be dead, I think, but-”