by Rob Ewing
‘So nobody’s got any idea? That was weeks ago. How long has it been since—? Seriously? That doesn’t sound like – if the incubation is as long as that, but I never heard of any potential pathogen with—’
The speck: gone.
‘What is the official line? We had the contingency for swine flu, didn’t we? The health board were all over that, storm in a teacup and we stocked up even when there wasn’t a scrap of bloody—’
His voice sounds: angry? Annoyed? Scared?
‘I know that turned out all right. But what you’re telling me doesn’t bear comparison.’
I move back out and Dr Schofield sees me. I smile, give him a wave for checking things are OK.
‘Go back to your classroom, love,’ he says in a hurry, clicking his fingers and pointing at the door. ‘You can’t be listening, all right?’
Something doesn’t make sense about his eyes. Did I do something very wrong?
‘Back to your classroom,’ is the last thing he says to me.
Twelve days ago
Duncan spent a week at our home: getting his energy back, growing strength enough again to walk around. His face went from red, to scabbed, to saggy. He stayed with us until two mornings ago, when Elizabeth wanted him to get dressed. Duncan preferred his pyjamas: said he would put his clothes on if he could sleep in them from now on. Elizabeth said no way. That started an argument: and when Elizabeth put up new rules about getting along and give and take, the MacNeil brothers left us.
Calum Ian never mentioned what I did to his camera: and Duncan seemed to forget I ever told him. So after they left I decided that everything was OK: but that I would still try to make up to them by sharing my food, and not minding if they stole mine or didn’t share in return.
Now we’re back in school, in the P5 classroom for Duncan’s first day. This room works because it’s not anyone’s old class. Also, it has a picture-roll going around the walls with the Gaelic letters on. My favourite is B, for Beith, which is birch. My least favourite is H, for heather, Ur, because that isn’t even a tree, it’s a bush.
Part of the ceiling got broken. Elizabeth says it’s because slates come off and no one fixes them. But at least the windows are fine. I’ve learnt that once a window’s gone everything starts to come to pieces.
‘Facts and opinions,’ Elizabeth is saying. ‘Does anyone know the difference?’
We’re looking through our folders: the stuff our teachers were keeping back to show the parents. I found mine in Mrs Leonard’s cupboard. We spent too long already staring at the things we used to care about, and looking for the signatures of our parents at the bottom of the assessment sheets – so Elizabeth changed topic.
Alex: ‘That is too hard to know.’
Calum Ian: ‘It’s easy. Facts are real, see? They can only be one thing. They’re top trumps to opinions every time. Opinions aren’t as high up as facts.’
Elizabeth: ‘Examples?’
We each have a turn. FACT – the giant tortoise can live to over 150 years of age. But OPINION – hippos are pretty. FACT – koalas usually sleep during the day. But OPINION – everyone should clean their ears. This last one, put forward by Alex, gets us into bother, because no one can decide if it’s a FACT or an OPINION.
Alex: ‘Mum used to clean my ears on the edge of the corner of the towel. That’s a fact.’
Calum Ian: ‘My dad said you don’t need to do it. Opinion.’
Me: ‘It smells bad but is useful. Fact.’
Elizabeth: ‘Maybe it can be both fact and opinion?’
Calum Ian: ‘No way. It can’t be both.’
Me: ‘What about God and Santa?’
Calum Ian: ‘God’s a fact. Santa’s an opinion that you only get with babies. So who’s a little baby?’
I don’t want to say that I am. Neither does Alex. He just looks at the dirt on the floor.
‘Maybe Santa can be both?’ Elizabeth says, as usual offering an answer to help us agree. ‘Here’s a fact: if you believe in something then it might just be true. If you don’t: well, that’s only your opinion.’
Alex: ‘What about zombies?’
Elizabeth: ‘The rule doesn’t apply for zombies.’
Just for cheek we find lots of other exceptions to mess with Elizabeth’s rule: like ghosts, werewolves and mermaids.
She gets grumpy and says to forget it.
‘Is heaven a fact or opinion?’ Alex asks. ‘Because if Mum isn’t still moving, she must not be breathing. I’m quite bothered if heaven is not a fact.’
Calum Ian: ‘Don’t worry, Bonus Features. If she’s not in heaven then she’s in hell.’
When Alex looks upset by this Elizabeth squeezes his hand. For distraction she asks instead if anyone wants to remember. When nobody volunteers she says, ‘Duncan did it last time, for the group. That was very brave of him. If there isn’t a person who definitely wants to go, then maybe I should?’
No one tells her not to.
Alex: ‘Please don’t remember any bad bits.’
‘OK,’ she says, and stands at the front of the class, folding her fingers like Canon MacAllan used to do.
‘I remember,’ she says, looking nervous. ‘First I remember that Mum had green eyes. She had kind hands. Ach! How can hands be kind? Bloody crazy of me.’
It didn’t sound crazy till she said it.
‘Before we arrived, Dad looked up the island in his map-book. It was away right far off the edge! I could never believe that – I mean, going to a place that far away.’
‘You were the one far from us,’ Calum Ian says.
Elizabeth points his way as if to say: fair enough.
‘Mum called it a Big Step. When we got here: best of all she loved the beaches. She liked it when I saw the seals on Curachan. And she was really pleased that I liked the school.’ She winds her hands around to show it’s where we are. ‘Specially as you can do projects. This first badge here – see? I got that because I did the tuck-shop kitty. This one, because I learnt about wind turbines and hydro schemes and helped plant the wildlife garden.’
She passes around her two badges. The first one says BANKER. The second, ECO-STUDENT. When she sees that no one is writing down her memories for her, she stops to write them down for herself.
‘Never minded winter,’ she goes on. ‘Christmas! Only Dad didn’t like winter so much. He wanted to get back to Bristol, because it was less windy, less rainy there. But me and Mum had other ideas. He said, “We’ll see out two years.” Pretty soon we’d been here three.’
‘Dad always said you could tell the incomers,’ Calum Ian grumbles. ‘They only last one winter.’
Me: ‘Weren’t you even listening? Didn’t you turn up your ears? She said it was three already.’
Calum Ian: ‘I can say what I want, Gloic.’
Me: ‘You were speaking stupid.’
This becomes an argument. When we begin to shout loud at one another Duncan gets up, and goes to the fiddle cupboard and takes out a fiddle.
It’s out of tune, so he scratches it like there’s a monster coming. We all stop talking. We start laughing instead, until it’s a funny sort of riot.
Duncan looks surprised to have made us laugh. He makes more monster noises, until it’s past funny, then tunes up the fiddle proper.
When it sounds right he plays ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’, slow and sad.
I used to laugh at the kiss-face Duncan made when playing, but now I don’t.
He plays through twice then stops. Then he cuffs the strings and plucks them without any tune or song.
‘I’m going to be world champion on the fiddle,’ he says. ‘For Mum. For Dad. That’s my ambition. Then I’ll come back and teach all the new young kids.’
‘Remember Mr Patterson?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘He was our fiddle teacher.’
We all think of him. I thought he smelt funny. Mum said his smell was the water of life.
‘I remember him at the summer concert,’ Calum Ian says. ‘All the parents
were in. It’s crazy: thinking about all the mums and dads. Just sitting there.’
Duncan puts his fiddle away. He goes back to his seat. Elizabeth goes quiet as she writes out her memories, then pins her badges back onto her jumper.
‘I’m remembering next.’
It’s Calum Ian. He does a fake bow then goes to the front. Elizabeth looks pleased: she quickly tears him a new sheet of paper, and gets ready with her pen to write down every last detail of his experiences.
It takes him ages. Finally he says, ‘So they’re dead. They’ve all died. Or where the fuck are they? I’ve realised that Dad’s maybe in hospital. That’s why he can’t get to us, right? He got sick, he could’ve lost his strength, or lost his memory? Maybe if … if he fell off his boat, when he got to the mainland … could’ve bumped his head. That’s what happens with a bump, your memory goes until it comes back weeks later.’
He begins to breathe fast, like he’s running. He opens his mouth, puffs out. Then he says, ‘Want memories? Right. A big thing I remember is the first house we shopped in. Uncle Frank’s. Who wants to talk about that? Aye? OK, me then. His front door was shut. So we opened it and his dog Mo ran past.’
Duncan is saying no. Alex pulls up his jumper and holds it against his ears.
‘Well, it’s a fucking memory, isn’t it? That’s what we’re doing, you should listen.’ He kicks up a torn bit of floor then says, ‘My one true memory, write it! The dog had been eating him. She never hurt anybody, not before. But she had to eat him, to survive. Write it down, quick! It goes in the book. Before we all forget.’
Elizabeth isn’t writing.
Calum Ian shrugs and goes back to his seat.
Alex is still too scared to uncover his ears, or take his head from the desk-top.
Nobody wants to talk.
I turn around to look at Calum Ian. He’s like a drawing where the eyes don’t want to be angry or sad but both. I watch him, only because I’m nervous, and not for being sympathetic.
‘Stop looking at me, Gloic,’ he says.
I turn back away.
Calum Ian’s chair scrapes. He stomps to the front. Now he’s glaring at me.
‘Had a camera,’ he says. ‘With the last pictures ever of Mum and my sister Flora in it. Some of my best memories were there. Only now I’ve lost them.’
He’s looking at me. My hands have gone cold, but my face feels red hot.
‘Sorry,’ Elizabeth says. ‘I don’t understand. Where did you leave the camera?’
‘Left it in the sea.’
‘You left it … how in the sea?’
‘I threw it in the sea.’
‘Why?’
Calum Ian keeps looking very definitely at me. Then he clicks his fingers at Duncan.
‘Out of here, Sidekick. A-mach à seo!’
But Duncan doesn’t want to go. He stays in his seat, until Calum Ian has to grab the neck of his jumper to pull him up and away.
When they’re gone we decide school’s over. We go to the library for a bit, but the darkness today is too spooky, so we go back outside.
Alex goes to the playpark, but none of us can find the fun in it. It starts to rain, so we hide under the chute. Elizabeth has made packed lunches for us: crackers, dried apricots and custard pots to drink. We get to eat the portions she made for Calum Ian and Duncan.
‘Why’d he throw his camera in the sea?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘If he cared that much about the pictures? It’s senseless. He can be too angry sometimes.’
To answer would be admitting guilt. I drink custard instead, though with only half my appetite.
We realise Alex is still thinking about Calum Ian’s uncle and the dog Mo when he says, ‘Dogs are as dangerous as wolves, for true this time.’
Elizabeth: ‘I hope you can just forget about it. Anyway, dogs were bred for being tame. They don’t just go back to being wolves.’
Alex: ‘What about a hungry dog?’
Elizabeth: ‘I think we should change topic.’
We don’t want to go home, not just yet, so it’s up for a vote. Alex doesn’t want to send messages; and I don’t want to go shopping, Old or New. In the end Elizabeth takes charge and says that, because we’re close by, we should go and pay our respects to the Last Adult.
She’s in the Community Centre. This has the Cròileagan, where we went to nursery, but also has the soft-play room and the café, where you can buy the best fish and chips in town.
The Last Adult is in the soft-play room.
The main door went stiff. Inside the hall are lots of Christmas decorations. There’s a silver tree with baubles and tinsel on. Some of the red tinsel has fallen off. A reindeer and a sugar-plum fairy are on the floor.
There’s a blue face-mask on the mat, with spots of blood on it, gone black long ago. Heaped along one wall are lots of boxes, orange bags. We opened a bag once: inside were plastic sheets and aprons and cartons of gloves, old and used. Some of the bags smelt very bad.
We go in on tiptoes. Elizabeth opens the soft-play door. There’s a smell, though only faint. There’s the ball-pool, in the far corner, heaped with dirty blankets and towels.
We found her on a sleeping mat, beside the pool.
Back then none of us understood about bodies. You just leave them alone – apart from flowers – and close the door so dogs don’t get in. We wanted to bury her, but nobody could pluck up the courage to touch her. So we found a pile of stones outside, which the adults were using to build a not-ready car park.
With plastic buckets and trolleys from the Co-op, we carried in the stones, and covered her up.
Now all we can see of her is this pile of stones. Our cards and presents are there on top, with our old flowers. I notice that the last of the flowers are already dry, and I feel a bit sorry for her. It’s been weeks since we came.
The room has orange curtains, nearly shut. A sharp line of sunlight finding the pile of stones, like God keeping an eye on her.
Alex: ‘Tell me how you knew she was the last adult again.’
Elizabeth: ‘Because she was still breathing.’
Alex: ‘Did she say anything?’
Elizabeth: ‘No. Like I said before, no. She was just breathing. It sounded … bubbly. She was the woman who looked after the last of us. I knew her face. It was her.’
Alex: ‘How did you help her?’
Elizabeth: ‘I left her some juice, crisps. And water. Because that’s what she did for us.’
We stand around the pile of stones. I wonder again who the Last Adult was. Elizabeth just says she doesn’t know.
Alex goes back to the Christmas tree. He returns with the sugar-plum fairy and lays it on top of the stones.
‘Wasn’t she my mum?’ he asks.
‘No, she wasn’t. I’ve seen your mum. I mean, I’d know her. It wasn’t her.’
When we pay respects we have to stand and say nothing. During the time this takes my eyes get used to the dark. There’s things left by the Last Adult: Bible, photos, dirty plastic cups, scrunched tissues, a water bottle. The water inside went brown. Plus a packet of tablets, the same type we keep seeing in people’s houses.
There’s also a pad of paper with all the last-alive kids’ names on it. Our names are there. The other kids’ names have been scored off. There’s numbers next to the scorings-off. I ask Elizabeth what the numbers mean.
‘The dates that they fell asleep,’ she says.
There are other rooms in the Community Centre. But nobody wants to go there. That’s where we were sick. Where we nearly died. Where the others died. And what if the thing that made us sick is still there? No way.
It’s a relief to get back outside. As we cross the not-ready car park I ask Elizabeth about her afterwards memories. She’s told us before, but still I ask: just like when I used to ask Mum about being born, over and over, just to hear about things that happened and I didn’t know.
‘It was very cold,’ she says, ‘so then … so I woke up, it was dark. All the lights
were not working.’
‘After that?’
‘Then nothing. Maybe I fell asleep … I woke again and it was light. I remember having crusty eyes, not being able to see. I remember going from room to room. And then I heard someone crying.’
‘Who was that?’
‘That was Alex. He had on his Cròileagan orange vest, the ones the little kids used for crossing the road. There was a label on it with his name. Alex. He was beside Duncan. Duncan had a label too, though not a vest. Duncan was very sick. But he got better, so that’s great. Calum Ian was in another room. He woke up as soon as I talked to him. He said he was extremely thirsty.’
‘Then?’
‘We found a torch. We found some food. We got boxes from the cupboard, they used to be full of paper towels. We got inside them. They kept us perfectly warm. That’s why I never ever throw away cardboard boxes.’
‘You found me.’
‘Yes. We looked around the rooms. You were in the last one. You were hiding under a table. Didn’t see me. Or you looked right through me, I don’t know. We gave you some biscuits, juice. You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have a label or a vest, so I had to find your name on the list of kids that the Last Adult had beside her.’
‘I remember dogs barking.’
‘For true. There were dogs and cats trapped in houses. We let out as many as we could.’
‘And I remember the cows, from way over at the farm. They were making a racket.’
‘Because nobody had milked them.’
‘The only thing I don’t remember is when Mum said goodbye. Don’t remember her telling me to wait. Is it just going to be a test of patience?’
Elizabeth frowns at me, then agrees that it is a test.
Everything changes when we get home.
Everything changes for ever.
At first we don’t notice anything different. Home just looks like it always does: quite a bit messy, which makes me think about Elizabeth’s first rule: Tidy up.
Then we see smashed things: and I know at once it isn’t just mess.
Funny how some things you can’t know all at once. It takes maybe the third or fourth try. It’s maybe even my fifth look that tells me things went very bad.