Anarchy

by James Treadwell

  Some people came into the church and wanted to talk to her. They offered tea and biscuits—some fundamentals of the Church of England had survived even that winter—but she got up and left and rode away without a word. She paused only to rifle through the damp and stinking clothes in her panniers, pull out her powerless mobile phone, and drop it in the nearest dustbin.

  She went a long way that day. The last residues of doubt she’d been hauling along with her were shed. Like thousands and thousands of others, she’d achieved the full knowledge that there was no going back. Her face felt raw in the rushing air as she wheeled down the long flank of the Mendip Hills, down into the wide levels out of which the tor of Glastonbury rose like the pyramid of a green desert. From five miles away she could hear snatches of tinselly music, and see tufts of smoke and the encampments they rose from, tent villages lapping around the foot of the hill. She came across other people on the road, walking, cycling, a few camper vans. Some of them tried to halt her too, but she went on. Nothing could stop her now that she knew what she was doing.

  This must have been what it was like for her twin all the time, she reflected. She thought about Iggy constantly. She remembered feeling a kind of amused pity for Iggy’s convictions. One week it might be wearing unbleached cotton to save the world; a month later and she’d be off to post-communist Romania to volunteer in orphanages. Now, at last, she understood the pity Iggy must have felt for her. How feeble her contemptible conventional sister must have seemed to Ygraine, fearless warrior of her own conscience. (They nicknamed her Xena at university: skinny, flat-chested, fox-faced Iggy. The incongruity was nine-tenths of the joke.) Iggy would have been in Cornwall days ago. She’d have pedaled from dawn to dusk. No: weeks ago, months ago. Iggy wouldn’t have wasted time trying to deal with the useless police. She wouldn’t have sat around picking the scabs of her grief, torturing herself in pathetic solitude. She’d have driven there straightaway, without crashing the car. There’d have been no need for any of it, in fact, because Gav wouldn’t have left her in the first place. She was his real mother, she’d have listened to him, he’d have loved her. He came from her, that was the truth of it. Pushing herself against the wind, legs hardening, blisters turning to tough calluses, Iz hoped that perhaps she was becoming a little bit like her sister. She was earning the right to be Gav’s mother too.

  The first soldiers she saw were at a supermarket on a ring road outside some substantial county town. An army jeep was parked by the sliding doors. Two young men rested their hands on weapons and ambled back and forth by the ranks of shopping carts. The shelves inside were more than half empty.

  They’d heard about this in London. Radiating up-country from its epicenter in the far southwest, the mysterious disintegration of normal existence had been most of the news. Not just news: rumor as well, and myth. There were facts: the freakish weather; the outbursts of public disorder; the self-styled pilgrims; the state of emergency; the closed roads and helicopter drops and rationed goods; spotty Ruth delivering her strangely compelling open-air sermons to ever-increasing crowds. And then there were the things that didn’t quite feel like facts: the persistence of the snow; the random nonsense e-mail messages, the holes in Web pages, other meaningless hiccups in the virtual world; the blurry photo of some black, huge, beaked thing on a woodland path; the video footage of something that might have been the same black thing, flying; the people who stopped showing up to work and the children who stopped going to school, as if work and school didn’t matter anymore. And then, as December turned to January and all those things showed no signs of being replaced by the next story, as all news no matter how good or bad was eventually supposed to be replaced, there were the things no one could print or broadcast, things that were no more than intuitions, yet unmistakable and haunting nevertheless. The fraying of the order of things. The whispers of anarchy. The end times coming.

  For Londoners like Nigel and Iz, supposedly protected by the charmed circle of institutionalized prosperity, all of these things happened elsewhere, in the not quite real realm of TV news. Londoners weren’t choked immobile by weeks of snow or overflown by monstrous black birds. To them it had all happened at one remove, at least until it translated itself into the kind of existential crisis people like Nigel understood. The bottom fell out of the stock market, or the top of it was blown off, or its walls caved in: Iz didn’t exactly understand its architecture. People like Iggy had always said it had no architecture at all. They said it had always been a thing of paper and breath and hope, and when enough people held their breath, down it came. But even that catastrophe was manageable compared to what they saw on the news. The collapse of imaginary value was, after all, a story with a familiar shape. It just meant that things were going badly instead of (as they’d always been promised) going well. The other kind of news, out at the margins of the country, was altogether different. It spoke not of things going badly, but just going. Going, going, gone. Off-white emptiness in the supermarket aisles, villages abandoned. Iz was seeing it now for herself, at last.

  For the first time in months she smiled to herself. She was coming close.

  • • •

  She accidentally lost the signed route again as her legs began to give out. Backtracking through wet and overgrown lanes, the afternoon light thinking about fading, she passed a house she’d noticed earlier. It was set by itself in a small lank lawn near where the road crossed a stream. Beyond the bridge the lane twisted steeply up. She got off her bike to push, but instead of starting up the slope she stood looking at the house, thinking.

  She waited for a few minutes and then squelched along its muddy driveway and rang the doorbell. The bell was a neat electric box, and the door, like the window frames, was painted a trendy shade of rustic teal. A set of bamboo wind chimes hung near by. When no one answered, she poked the letterbox open and saw a spreading puddle of post on the mat within.

  She did a circuit around the house. Now that she was looking properly, all the details reeked of suburban affluence: wheelie bins with the name of the cottage painted on them, an elaborate squirrelproof bird feeder, a water butt attached to the downpipe from the gutters. Through a back window she saw vermilion cushions piled on a cream sofa. She knew from magazines and TV programs that they weren’t merely cushions: they were accents of bold color. She was fairly certain that the only people who put accents of bold color in isolated cottages in obscure valleys on the Somerset–Devon borders were people who actually lived somewhere else.

  She wasn’t sure how much farther it was to the nearest village or town. Anyway, she was exhausted, and so was her supply of money.

  Iggy had always been the bad one. Iggy flouted school rules for the sake of it and dared their friends to steal nail polish from Boots. Iggy grew her own pot. Iz felt she was about to cross into territory completely alien to her. She remembered her husband harrumphing at the TV news: What would it be like if everyone decided to carry on like that? Do these people ever stop to think about that? There was a terra-cotta strawberry pot outside the back door, by the wooden wellie rack and the ornamental iron coat hooks. As she picked it up, she answered him silently: This is what it would be like, Nigel. Watch.

  The shatter of glass was a surprisingly gentle sound, almost pretty. She used the base of the pot to clear splinters from the window frame. When she had a hole big enough, she went to get her bike from the road, threw the panniers in through the broken window, laid a wheelie bin down to use as a step, wrapped her hands in clothes, and climbed in. Most of the glass fragments had fallen on the sofa. She pushed it out of the way and kicked the rest of the broken window under it.

  She went to the front door to inspect the pile of post. The oldest mailings were from mid-January, more than a month ago. At the end of the school holidays these people had packed up and left. They’d tidied up, unplugged everything, put things in cupboards. She found food, wood, matches. There was no electricity but she’d seen a propan
e tank outside, and they’d left the instructions for the boiler in a purple ring binder labeled boiler—­instructions. There was a flap you could open to light the pilot light with a match. It was all ridiculously easy. Anarchy. At the cost of one smashed window she was dry, she was sheltered, she could sleep comfortably. There was washing powder in a cupboard in the laundry room. She filled a bathtub with hot water and spent the next hour washing all her clothes, and then herself, in someone else’s house.

  • • •

  In the morning she went through the cupboards more systematically. Some were locked, but the keys were all in a kitchen drawer, each tagged with string and a label telling her which door it opened. She found lots of things she knew by now would be useful: a flashlight, batteries, dishcloths, a balaclava, gloves, a penknife, toilet paper, a lightweight coat, and, best of all, maps. There was a strange pleasure in the way books tumbled onto the varnished wood floorboards when she pulled the maps from their shelves. Every disruption of the house’s obedient aspirational tidiness felt like an apology offered to Gav. I’m sorry I cared about things like this. I’m sorry I cared about my world instead of yours. Look. She picked up a mug of pencils and tipped them over the floor as well. I don’t care anymore. See? She rescued a couple of the pencils and snapped them before throwing them away again. She felt Gav smiling at her, like he used to in the days when he was still young and they went on expeditions together, before it all went wrong, so she went around the house looking for more things to break. She wrecked lightbulbs, clocks, a brushed steel barometer, family photos on bedside tables; the tables themselves, once she abandoned her stupid restraint and attacked them savagely enough. Do you forgive me now, Gav? You’ll let me stay with you now, won’t you?

  • • •

  She didn’t feel saddle-sore the next morning, for the first time. Drying herself after her bath the evening before, she’d studied herself in the mirror and thought she looked harder. The leg she’d cracked was still thinner than the other, but florets of muscle now bunched beneath its skin. She barely recognized herself.

  • • •

  The country was hummocks and hills again. Maps in hand, she abandoned the signed route and pressed on south and west as directly as the tangle of lanes allowed. Her panniers were heavily restocked and an icy drizzle blew against her on every ridge above every valley, but she went on steadily, knowing now that there were fewer miles ahead than behind. Late that afternoon she came to a hilltop junction where a bonfire had been lit in a field behind a roadside café. The building was dark and shuttered but its side door was open and there were voices inside, and from the field as well: woozy voices, laughter, and delirious wailing. She hid her bike farther down the road and waited for darkness. Under its cover she walked back to the building and slipped inside. Within was the stench of spilled alcohol and the sweet reek of pot, and scattered blankets and bodies, four or five people sleeping or passed out under long tables. She found a corner to occupy. No one noticed her in the dimness, or if they did no one cared. More people arrived from somewhere as evening became night. The dance and sputter of firelight outside grew more vigorous. She heard tambourines, and more voices, shaky, glittering. She slept and woke alternately, or thought she did. Certainly she thought she was awake when she cloaked herself in someone’s rough blankets and went out to watch the revelers in the field, all young, winding in and out of each other around the heat of the fire, dancing and chanting and rutting. Their eyes were glassy, their smiles limp; if they knew she wasn’t one of them, they never showed it, not even when she came right into the swaying throng. They whooped, sang, spun, fell over, dodging around her like a school of clumsy fish. A dark and antlered man walked among them, his hooved feet stepping to keep time with an invisible drum. She thought he carried a golden staff with a tip of horn, and touched it gently to the heads of the dancers as they passed him, or pressed it against the lips of those who lay drugged and drunken in the grass.

  • • •

  Near the southern edge of Exmoor she came upon the snow. At first she saw it only in north-facing hollows, or under the shelter of woods. Within a handful of miles it was dusted everywhere; another handful—painfully slow miles, wheels slipping, anything more than the gentlest slope unmanageable—and it was thick enough in the higher lanes that she had no choice but to get off and push.

  She topped one of the endless exhausting small ridges and saw that everything to the west was white.

  She put the bike aside, folded her arms, and stared into that sea of silence.

  Here I am again, she was thinking. I’m ready this time. Not like—

  • • •

  “He’s my son.”

  “Mrs. Stokes—”

  “My son. He’s my only child. He’s just a boy.”

  “Please, Mrs. Stokes. I do appreciate—”

  “Do you think I care? Do you think I fucking care? I don’t want you to appreciate. Why haven’t you found him? He’s fifteen. He’s a missing child!”

  “I assure you, we’re doing absolutely everything we can at this stage. Please. I understand this is a difficult time.”

  “What are you doing? What exactly are you doing? It’s been four days. No one’s even rung me about what’s going on. I’ve been waiting on the phone for an hour, an hour, and you can’t tell me anything at all? How can you still have your job? How can anyone so fucking useless still—”

  “Mrs. Stokes.

  “Mrs. Stokes. Are you still there?”

  “Yes. Sorry. Sorry, Superintendent, I’m just so . . .”

  “There’s no need to apologize. You’re going through a traumatic experience. Believe me, the police are here to help you. We’re doing our job. We’re going to find Gavin. All right? We have a lot of experience of these situations. I can tell you, Mrs. Stokes, based on what we know, it’s very likely that Gavin will be in touch quite soon. Once he’s ready.

  “Mrs. Stokes?”

  “You’re telling me to wait.”

  “We’ll absolutely be pursuing every possible avenue in the meantime.”

  “You’re saying I should just sit here. Aren’t you. Do you know what it’s like? Do you have children?”

  “It’s the best thing you can do. Believe me. In my experience these things are a matter of time.”

  “I said do you have children.”

  “My family’s not the issue here, Mrs. Stokes.”

  “I hope they leave you one day. I hope they die.

  “. . . God. I’m . . . Superintendent?”

  “Perhaps it would be best if we talked another time.”

  “No. No, please, sorry. I’ve been trying to get through for days. Excuse me. I just— Is there anything you can tell me at all? I appreciate the conditions. . . . I know the weather makes it difficult.”

  “These aren’t the ideal conditions for a missing persons investigation. But we won’t let that stop us. Every missing child remains a top priority. Of course.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Well then. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Stokes.”

  “Wait. No. Just a moment. So you . . . you haven’t found any more leads? There’s no more news about my sister?”

  “We’re still pursuing our inquiries.”

  “What about the post office? She must have been there over that weekend. I told you she got my letter. Doesn’t anyone remember seeing her? Wouldn’t that be a start?”

  “My officers will be following up every line of investigation. Thoroughly.”

  “Yes, sorry, yes. And the woman. Is there— What’s the latest from the hospital? Do you know?” (Rustling paper, voices off. ) “Hello?”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Stokes. I’m sorry to cut you off but I really must—”

  “Please, just this one thing. The woman who left a message for my sister, the professor. Can you just tell me whether you’ve talked t
o her yet?”

  “Madam, as I explained, we’ll assemble all the—”

  “You haven’t, have you. You haven’t even spoken to her.”

  “Excuse me. I’ll contact you another time.”

  “How hard can it be? How fucking hard? I might as well—”

  “Listen. Listen very carefully. I shall say this once and then I shall hang up and continue working on the very large number of cases currently demanding my attention, including that of a missing twelve-year-old whose parent is at this exact moment outside my office. What we know for sure about your son’s whereabouts is that your sister collected him safely from Truro station on . . . on Monday the twenty-eighth. We have his own evidence for that, and so do you, Mrs. Stokes, because he rang you to tell you so. We also know that . . . two days subsequently he rang you again, announcing his intention not to return home. Difficult as it may be for you to accept, Mrs. Stokes, and I do understand that it’s difficult, there is every reason to think that Gavin and your sister are together somewhere, perfectly safe. It’s possible that Professor Lightfoot has some acquaintance with Miss Clifton, which may be helpful in locating them, but Professor Lightfoot is currently in Treliske hospital suffering from the effects of hypothermia and severe exposure and is unlikely to recover the use of her legs, so she’s not best placed to assist us in an inquiry that, with the greatest respect, shows no sign of becoming a criminal investigation. All the indications are that wherever Gavin is, he’s acting of his own free will and has never been in any danger. Believe me, Mrs. Stokes, I know his decision is painful for—”

  “‘Decision?’ ‘Decision?’ It’s my fault, is that what you mean? He’s better off away from his horrible mother, is that it? Is it? You fucking bastard.” (Click. Dial tone.) “You don’t give a fuck. I’ll make sure you’re fired. You’re finished. I’ll see you fucking dead, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

  —and then, some few unspeakable days later, the midnight phantasmagoria: lights on the motorways sparkling in her wet eyes, her own voice muttering and whimpering as the road howled below, desperation, urgency, hunger (she had barely eaten for a week). Turning aside at the blockade on the A30. Snowflakes glimmering in the impossibly narrow lanes. Driving dementedly, suicidally faster as she got more and more lost, the darkness of the great moor above her, pressing down, telling her she’d never get there, she was too late. The puddle of black ice. She had no memory of the actual crash, but it must have come as a relief.