Tariq’s flat was situated above a corner shop that his landlord ran. Over the last year that Tariq had rented from him they had developed a friendship. He existed as almost a father figure to him. At this time, Tariq had still not seen anything that had dissuaded him from his belief that Britain would be attacked tomorrow and neither had he seen any whisper or rumour of it in the main stream media.
He spoke with his landlord and friend about what had happened while they shared a cigarette in the ally next to the shop. He told him that he was going to be leaving in the early morning, because he didn’t feel safe in the city and urged him to go too. The response he received was that he couldn’t leave his livelihood, even for a day. He mentioned that it would be deemed a selfish act, though only referring to himself. Tariq was set in his mind and bought the supplies he would need to take on tomorrow’s journey. At the very least, the likely outcome was that he was to spend a day cycling out in the countryside north of the city and get the exercise and fresh air that he desperately needed.
The last thing Tariq did before he returned upstairs was to pay off half his rent that was due in two weeks’ time. He realised that it made no sense to do so, but he felt as though the gesture would indicate his seriousness on the matter.
Chapter 13
Mina looked out over her small homestead. Some of the crops had already been harvested and her basement was well stocked with those early yields, the gaps in the field now replaced by mid-summer plants to keep it going and reduce her need for journeys to the village grocers. The last time she had gone was merely for some niceties that she loved, but hadn’t yet grown herself; tomatoes, asparagus and courgettes. She had grown her own courgettes, but they tasted disgusting for some reason she couldn’t work out and so had left them to freeze until she was desperate.
As Mina walked barefooted in between the split rows of her garden, she noticed movement from the corner of her eye. She paused and stared into the treeline that covered the steep north side of her little valley. She caught another movement at the edge of her vision, closer to the house. Crouching down slowly, she moved behind a strawberry bush at the lowest part of her growing plots. She waited a moment and then breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed that it was just two young children of an age – by Mina’s eye – that couldn’t have been too far into double figures, if at all.
The boy and girl jostled each other as they walked, the girl was almost knocked over by one of the boy’s more emphatic shoves and looked miffed. They didn’t act as if they had seen Mina, who remained low at the other end of the garden. After a few moments the boy halted, staring straight towards where Mina thought she was hidden. He yelled indecipherably towards her and quickly shuffled behind the girl when Mina stood up, smiling. She called back, “You found me.”
The two children stood coyly as Mina slowly treaded towards them. As she neared them she opened her arms and knelt a few feet away to meet their eye-line. The girl, who from up close looked the older of the two, spoke first. Her name was Chloe. Mina asked who the boy was, who turned out to be her smaller brother called Joseph. She told the girl she had a pretty name and when asked her own name, Mina said that they should just call her ‘The Garden Lady’, because it was easier to remember. The boy said abruptly that he was just being looked after by Chloe and had to follow her here and asked not to be told off. Mina said that she wouldn’t and found out from the girl that she liked her flowers and that was why she came.
The boy dragged his feet as Mina whisked the girl off to find out which were her favourite flowers. Next to the flower beds, Mina told the girl to wait where she was and decide which ones she wanted to keep. She left her while she grabbed a plastic pot and a hand fork. Chloe asked her why she hadn’t got scissors instead. Mina explained that she liked the flowers too and so didn’t want to cut them and let them die a week later. She told Chloe that if she dug the flowers out and kept them in a bigger pot, then they would live a lot longer and even flower again next year if the girl was to take them home and plant them in her garden.
Mina turned around to find Joseph with his arms out in front of him, an earthworm winding through his fingers as it writhed its way from his muddy palms. To Chloe’s disgust Mina placed the worm carefully into the flower filled pot that the girl held. Chloe stuck her tongue out and went to put the pot down on the raised flower bed. Mina placed a hand gently on the pot to stop her and explained that the worm will help the flowers grow and it also meant that they could both take a living thing that they liked back home with them.
The girl carried the pot at arms-length as the two children walked off down the path towards the village. While Mina watched with a warm heart, Joseph kept trying to reach his hand into the soil which eventually led to the girl holding the plant close under one arm to keep him away. Once out of sight, Mina sat herself down on her back porch and cried with longing for her own child.
Shannon asked, “So what are we doing with your day off tomorrow then?” The kitchen was lit only by the other room’s light through the doorway as the kettle hissed away in the corner.
Leighton walked through, temporarily dimming the room. “I don’t know, normal stuff. I want to get out the house, that’s for sure. Why don’t we take a walk up to the barrows? I’ll carry Zeke.”
“Oh, can we take a picnic? I bought some olives and things yesterday.” Shannon showed some genuine excitement.
“Yes, we can take whatever you want.”
“I know, we will take speakers, blanket and a picnic and we can have our own little day out, listen to some summer tunes and eat until we roll back down the hill! How does that sound?”
“That sounds perfect,” Leighton replied. “I am hoping that the weather will stay good for tomorrow, it is meant to.” Leighton realised the kettle had finished and poured the water onto the tea.
“Oh really?” Shannon asked, noticing that Leighton had put the milk in first. “That’s savage.”
“No way, I make your tea this way every time and you have never complained. Not a single time!”
“Really? No wonder your tea tastes terrible.”
“Terrible? You are lying. You would have complained ages ago if you thought it was that bad,” Leighton said, grabbing his arms around Shannon’s waist playfully.
“I lie because I don’t want you to be offended!” Shannon retorted as she was nearly pulled over by her husband.
“You’re lazy, then! You finish the tea.” Leighton gently pushed her towards the kettle and the steaming mugs.
“Careful!” She said mockingly. “There’s boiling water here.” She ran and pushed through Leighton, ducking underneath the arm in front of the doorway. Having escaped into the living room, she quickly lay down on the couch with her feet up on the armrest. “While you are up, you can grab the tea!” She exclaimed, laughing.
Leighton resided and stirred the tea, fishing out the teabag from one of the cups. As he sat down next to Shannon, he handed her the mug with the teabag still floating in it. “That’s your punishment for being lazy,” he said with a grin. Shannon pretended to sob and Leighton shushed her, pointing at the ceiling that became the floor of Zeke’s room. “Oh yea, I nearly forgot to tell you, tomorrow after our walk, I need to stop by at the army surplus store. They mentioned a couple of weeks ago that they were getting new stock in yesterday or today, can’t remember which.”
“Alright, I am surprised that you haven’t just signed up to the army already just to get the equipment,” Shannon said. “-And anyway, ha, you have the controller so find us something to watch. Not the news, it’s all I’ve had on today.”
Chapter 14
The alarm came on and with it a light in the far corner of the room. Tariq focussed his eyes on the light to help him wake, but was groggy. The thought of a long bike ride this morning was not seeming as good an idea as he had figured a few days prior. He fought those feelings off, he knew it would be good for him regardless of the other reasons that he picked that day as the one to do
it. The ride would take his mind off other elements of his life which weren’t moving in quite the direction that he would have hoped. He needed to clear his mind of its own distraction.
By the time he stood at the kitchen counter eating his scrambled eggs, he really felt like he might be considered stupid for taking those blogs and internet forums into account. Part of him agreed that his boss was right to not publish anything that he had written, but another part of him wanted to maintain his conviction. He wanted to the point of need to have that self-belief, maybe it was by will of God that he found that information and if he had been more assertive, then he could save lives. Or he could have ended up with no job to go back to at all. Perhaps just these few days off would give him the breather he needed to refocus or reconfirm his beliefs. It all depended now on whether he was right or wrong. Either way he was already prepared for the worst, he just needed to hope for the best.
Tariq pulled open his waterproof bag, mostly already packed from the day before and added a bottle of water from the freezer. He changed into his cycling shorts and jersey and picked up his trainers on the way out the door. Taking one last look at his small bedsit before locking it up, he pondered the messages of warning that he had read. It is possible that this was the last time he would be here.
As he walked out into the cold air, the buzz of the city reached his ears. He pushed his bike around onto the street and the pavements were still fuller than he expected with life. People shouted drunkenly from taxis and the lights from kebab shops and burger trucks spilled out into the hazy dark air. In contrast, he saw some airport shuttles likely to be running their first jobs of the new day for people which were considering this hour the beginning of a day rather than the ending of the last. For Tariq, it felt like it could be both. His sleep had been broken with vivid dreams that woke him, some that had recurred sporadically since his childhood. He had slept some hours and that would have to be enough for now.
It was the middle of the dark hours, not one that Tariq saw often away from his computer screen and the forgiving warmth of his flat. It was very cold, especially as he was dressed ready for plenty more miles of cycling. He felt safer in the dead hours than he did being on the roads during the day. More space on the roads in general meant he was given a wider berth than usual. As much as the additional space, he felt as though it was equally his sense of purpose that pushed back against those encroaching on him.
He cycled north, taking the straightest roads he could and was met with the sunrise to his right as he skirted around the edges of Hyde Park. By the time he reached Barnet the rush hour had really started to kick in. He had to cut his way in and out of traffic and the usual feeling of invisibility that being a cyclist in the city offered returned. It was much slower going than Tariq had hoped, but every mile – however slow – was a mile further away, a mile safer.
Leighton took his fresh coffee out into the garden, leaving two eggs to poach in the microwave. Even a day off from work deserved to start early, especially when the June air was this refreshing. By ten o'clock it was already warm enough that even shirtless, he didn't get goose-bumps. Looking up, he saw a contrail that had turned on itself and he spent time working out if it was two crossing each other, but on closer inspection it could only have been the one plane. Shannon was dressing and feeding Zeke for the day and playing him his favourite album, so they believed, over the portable speakers in the bedroom. Zeke rolled around on the bed and Shannon had to lift him occasionally during getting dressed, to put him nearer the centre.
Leighton's eyes remained on the sky, concerned at the fading contrail's unnatural change of direction. His coffee had long grown cold. He opened the side gate to get a better look to see if the plane was still flying against its original path, but it was no longer visible. He turned back to the south-east and followed the man-made cloud's abrupt end down towards the horizon with his eyes.
He shouted for Shannon to grab Zeke and come and see what was happening. Shannon's music interfered in the conversation and Leighton had to sprint up the stairs to get her attention. He told Shannon that he thought something big, something bad was happening and she replied with angst that he wanted her to carry Zeke outside – prospectively into this danger – to have a look.
“I need you to judge it, come on! Pass me Zeke, look straight past the church tower. If I am wrong in what I think I have seen, then I am wrong. If I am right, we get our bags and leave right now,” Leighton said with urgency.
By the time Shannon got outside, other houses had been vacated with their occupants staring in confusion at the horizon. She looked out, covering the sun from the edge of her vision with her hand. Small black specks suddenly became noticeable to her. Once she saw one, a lot more became obvious. She squinted and made out the movement of many slow flying planes.
As she returned Leighton spoke, “You think?”
“For all the days to have as holiday, huh? That's what I think.” Shannon shrugged “Is there anything on the news, it could be a big air show.”
“No news coverage. Total misdirection. Come and see,” Leighton said, flicking the television through the twenty-four-hour news channels. “Sky News, nothing. BBC, nothing. Even RT has nothing, no breaking news, nor scrollbar. What the fuck? That, outside. That is not normal. There’s far too many to be an air show that hasn’t made the news.” Outside, cars were being fired up and panicked phone calls were occurring between those at work and those shielding young children on the couple's street.
“Ok, Leighton.” Shannon paused. “Maybe you're right.”
“I'm right?”
“Get the air rifle and tomahawk, I will feed Zeke before we leave. If we are wrong at least it will be a nice adventure for our day off. This is what we were going to do anyway.”
“If this is the first time I am right about anything, I very much wish I wasn't,” Leighton said, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Hold on, don’t get ahead of yourself. I am not saying you are definitely right. Perhaps just right enough,” Shannon yelled up the stairs to her hurrying husband. His laugh responded.
The morning started with anxiety sitting deep in Mina’s stomach. A bad feeling that she couldn’t shift even while she pushed herself through her normal routine of getting ready. She was up earlier than she was used to and attributed the tensing knot in her stomach to a bad dream that had already slipped through the early morning memory like an oiled creature that couldn’t be caught, but left a coloured stain that indicated its prior presence.
The sun had only just broken the lip of the valley by the time she had got outside to the porch to enjoy her morning coffee. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her, but the air was cold and still and her out-breaths of smoke billowed out impressively and hung stagnant in the air for some time. The knot remained and a sense of impending doom settled over her thoughts. She sat for some time after her coffee was finished, but was unable to reach into her memory for any hints at to what she dreamt about so terribly that this malignant feeling was still hanging around her.
She busied herself in the garden, weeding out the rows of vegetables. She was well on top of her patch and she was quickly done picking out the fragile little shoots of unwanted plants from among the sprouts of her potatoes, onions and lettuces that had rooted strongly. They had flourished throughout the warm spring and were now nearing a harvest. By the time she had finished, the sun was covered by cloud and the stillness of the morning was well past with gusting winds coming in from the south-west flipping her hair over her face as she walked back up to the house.
While Mina prepared herself some eggs for her breakfast the nagging feeling in her stomach continued. She watched the boiling pan with eggs rattling around violently as she thought on it. Perhaps she had missed something, a phone call or an appointment. She mentally pictured her routines through the day and the week to see if anything was obviously missing, but she came up short and switched on her radio to distract her. It was still early as her work
had not taken long and a breakfast news programme started, full of static and only just audible behind the noise of the eggs battering against the pan’s sides.
Mina faintly heard a man talking about an emergency conference that was taking place between the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor among other European heads of state. The meeting was supposedly called for late last night and was taking place in Paris this morning. She heard words like ‘war-crimes’ and ‘horizons’ mentioned, but with the radio so low it was only the significance of those words that brought them to her ear. She turned the volume up and took the pan off the heat. The man on the radio had an interview with someone else who was in Paris at that moment reporting. “Thousands of reporters are with me, taking up almost the entirety of this plaza. It’s an unprecedented meeting in the modern era and it comes after so much speculation and accusatory sentiment as to the involvement that the United States and Britain have with the rebel Muharid group in the Middle East. Here in France, previously such a strong ally of Britain, the feeling of the people is that they have been let down, that it is even harder when a country so close to their own is involved with what is seen as a terrorist organisation. In terms of who is in attendance – aside from the British Prime Minister – is the German Chancellor who is generally considered to be leading the proceedings although the French Prime Minister has the official position for that role, ambassadors from both Russia and America will be there along with members of the European Council and the wider United Nations. The situation is allegedly focusing on a single event, of which the news broke in the early hours of the morning – local time – when an explosive was detonated above Samara, Russia. It is currently alleged that the bomb was nuclear in design, although I have personally heard separate reports that it may have been a chemical explosion.”
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 7