by Jon Grahame
She had sat there for an hour, staring at sea and sky, in contemplation of her lost family: father a surgeon; mother a teacher; one brother an officer in the army; the other an economist at Tory Party headquarters. They had been at the pinnacle of middle class success. And for what? For a mutant virus from the depths of China to kill them all. As she was on the point of taking the pills, Richard Ferguson turned up and introduced himself. Intense and full of purpose. There was much to do, the physicist said. Society to rebuild. Would she help?
Why not? She had been enthused by his determination and guilty at what she had contemplated. Later, she realised his enthusiasm was more about the concept and challenge of survival rather than people. Later still, it dawned on her that he was attracted to her but, like many men, he was tongue-tied and didn’t fully recognise his own desires. The fact that he never asked made it easier to avoid turning him down. Her move to Haven to be at the centre of the community made logistical sense. But it also left Ferguson behind, worthy man though he was, and allowed her to have a closer look at the intriguing Reaper. What she had seen, she liked.
‘Do you still think of Kate?’ she said. He didn’t answer straight away but turned to look her in the face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it …’
‘It’s all right. I don’t mind. Yes, I still think of Kate. I loved her.’
His eyes remained fixed on hers and she licked her lips, unsure what to say, as if the next words might be crucial, might hurt him or damage anything that might develop between them.
‘I never had anybody like that,’ she said.
‘I was lucky. For a few months, I was lucky.’
‘Do you think you might fall in love again?’
He said nothing for a long time, but his eyes remained locked on hers. Eventually, he said, ‘Kate made the first move. I never would have. She said my problem was that I carried too much guilt. She was probably right. I carry even more now. Not just for my family, but for her, too. Why did she die and I survive? Again? All that guilt doesn’t leave a lot of room for other feelings.’
She touched the back of his hand and he didn’t pull away.
‘We all feel guilty, in one way or another. I feel guilt because I survived, because people died that I couldn’t save, and because I almost killed myself, when it was over. I’d seen so much, I’d stopped feeling. If the Prof hadn’t happened by, I would have, too.’
‘I always thought you and Richard would become an item.’
She shook her head. ‘He might have thought that, but it takes two to tango and I don’t think he’d make a very good dancer.’ Reaper smiled at her poor joke. ‘Besides, I had my eye on somebody else.’
Reaper turned his hand so that their palms met and their fingers entwined. ‘Kate said we should enjoy the moments we can,’ he said. ‘I know she was right, but it’s difficult. Besides, I’m not a very pleasant person.’
‘I don’t think pleasant is a word that fits you in any capacity, Reaper.’ She smiled, almost sadly. ‘But I’d like to share moments with you.’
He nodded his head in what might have been agreement and then turned away to look at the valley before them. They still held hands and she leant against him and rested her head on his shoulder.
Chapter 13
THE SPECIAL FORCES TRIED OUT THE NEW WEAPONS that had been acquired. The L85 military rifles had a slightly longer barrel than the G36 police carbine they already carried, but could be used for automatic fire. The G36 had been regulated to fire only single shots. One member of each team switched to the L85, and each team had a combat shotgun, with a seven-cartridge magazine of twelve-gauge. James Marshall, who was their best shot, also took one of the sniper rifles.
Each team had a new vehicle fitted with a radio and the spare was used as a base radio in the Manor House. The two spare radio-equipped vehicles were taken to Scarborough and Bridlington, which were just about on the range limit and gave them permanent contact. The radio batteries were charged by generator. The Prof had gone ahead with developing wind and solar power and the Brains Trust had devised a way of storing the resultant electricity. It was early days, but the next winter would not be cold and dark and the Manpak batteries could be recharged without problem when necessary.
Ronnie returned to the commune that had provided the information about the bunker and they agreed to move. They arrived in three camper vans that had been painted in psychedelic colours and designs. They were a sad-looking lot who seemed to have attempted to recreate the peace, love and happiness of the hippy seventies, but without the flair. There were twenty-seven of them of various ages: men, women and children. They were bedraggled and looked in need of a good meal but Reaper was pleased at the racial mix.
Three Asians were among the group, two adults and a child. The adults were in mixed race partnerships and the child was being cared for by a white woman. Haven was, he was pleased to note, colour blind. It had a policy of equality and religious tolerance that he knew might not always be found elsewhere. Reaper also noticed that the woman looking after the child seemed to have a particular rapport with Ronnie.
Pete Mack made another foray to the oil terminal at Immingham and returned with two of the group who were holding the depot. Charlie Dyer and Susan Watson travelled in their own vehicle and met the committee and other members of the community. They had had enough of isolation and were looking to move somewhere that promised a better future. They had eight tankers of fuel to bring with them and twenty-four other members: eighteen men and six women, one of whom was seven months pregnant. Eight tankers of fuel, they thought, might help them broker a deal, but the Rev Nick explained that no one got special treatment in Haven. What they would get was housing, farmland, animals and help in settling into the only way of life that made sense. That and neighbours and a better aspect than the docklands they presently inhabited.
They were shown homes in a nearby village and met the people already settled there, and a vacant farm that was ready for occupation. Charlie and Susan were impressed by what they saw and the progress made by Haven. They said they would urge their friends to make the move and left with messages of goodwill and boxes of fresh supplies on the back seat of their car. Pete Mack would visit them again in three days.
After they had gone, Reaper sat with the Prof and Alan White, an industrial chemist and another member of the Brains Trust, on the benches outside the Farmer’s Boy. They drank coffee. Alcohol was still only served one night a week, although there was nothing to stop those who wanted to, collecting bottles and cans when they went foraging on their own, in the nearby towns. Pickings, however, were getting thin on the ground.
As well as wind and sun power, the Trust was pursuing the use of fast growing crops such as wattle for fuel. Sugar cane, if grown in sufficient quantities, could produce alcohol and ethanol and had been successfully used in Brazil as an alternative to petrol. They were looking at waterpower, the possibility of solar towers, the uses of steam power, and wood fuel for cars, which had been widely used across Europe during the Second World War. The Prof was also planning experiments with hot air balloons.
While the speculation seemed impressive, Reaper was withholding judgement. A lot would depend on what crops were suitable for the Yorkshire climate and whether the sun would shine enough to make the more ambitious plans viable. Winter was full of long dark nights and short grey days. The grand ideas they started with might not work but, from them, he was sure, would come alternative improvements in their standard of life.
‘The petrol will buy us more time, I suppose,’ said Reaper. ‘The same with guns and ammunition. We need it as long as others have it. But eventually, we’ll be back to bows and arrows.’
‘We could make gunpowder,’ said the Prof.
‘That’s a comforting thought,’ said Reaper. ‘I was hoping science might just die.’
He
stated his hope as a humorous provocation.
Alan said, ‘You’ll always have alchemists. Human nature. Someone will always be trying to turn lead into gold, figuratively speaking. Before you know it, we’ll be back in the same old rat race.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ said Reaper. ‘Ambition.’
The Prof gave him a strange look. ‘Nothing wrong with ambition, man. We reached for the moon and got there. We can do it again.’
‘It’s all very well for men of science to devise plans and for men of power to put them into operation, but who does the work? At the moment we’re existing, but add ambition and we’ll be back to serfs and slavery.’
‘Rubbish,’ said the Prof.
Alan said, ‘No, he’s talking sense. I’ve been thinking along the same lines. There’s a lot we have to re-invent, a lot of skills we have to learn all over again, and there’s not enough people to do it all at once. We don’t have nuclear power, electricity or a gas supply. We don’t even have coal. It needs to be dug out of the ground, and I can’t see anybody volunteering to do that, when they can have a log fire and live off the land. For an industrial revolution, you need people.’ He gave each man a stare to emphasise his words. ‘You actually need poor people, an underclass, to do the digging and mining necessary to build a civilisation like the old one.’
‘That’s the point,’ said Reaper. ‘Do we want a civilisation like the old one? This is a fresh start.’
‘It won’t be like the old one,’ the Prof said. ‘We will learn from mistakes and, over the generations, we’ll build a better society. But we will need men of science to lead the way. We can’t remain farmers for all eternity.’
Reaper said, ‘But these grand plans to re-invent the world. They need a hierarchy. There will be those at the top who are in charge, the clever sods who do the planning, the artisans with skill, and then the rest of us, the poor bloody peasants, who will be expected to do the work.’
Alan nodded. ‘Reaper’s right. At the moment, we’re living in a post-apocalyptic survival mode. We are grateful at the chance to help each other. We live in a mutual self-help community. It’s the closest we’ll get to a utopian state. This is what Karl Marx believed to be socialism. But it can’t last. Man’s nature will not let it last. Haven is, at the moment, run by an unelected committee. It’s a committee that is scrupulously fair but, before long, there will have to be elections. Newcomers to Haven will demand their say in the way it’s run. Eventually, there will be elections and we’ll be ruled by politicians.
‘This may start as a democracy, but I have a nasty feeling that there will come a time when hard decisions have to be made, perhaps about the division of labour, and we will end up with a dictatorship. We will go back to feudalism. When that happens, let’s hope we have a benign ruler.’
The Prof shook his head as if the arguments were specious. ‘Of course, certain people will rise to leadership,’ he said. ‘It’s natural selection. And we will need strong leadership. But surely this is years away. It’s a process that will evolve naturally. We are getting along quite all right as we are now.’
‘But for how long?’ said Alan. ‘Haven will, probably quite soon, be ruled by politicians: men who will not necessarily be motivated by the common good. How many politicians do you remember who were truly altruistic? Most had large egos and a desire for power. Our new politicians will be the same. They’ll impose laws and make decisions about the way the rest of us live. Eventually, somebody will re-invent money and work out how much a labourer in the field is worth, compared to a doctor or an engineer – or someone who fits solar panels. We will have rich and poor, a society divided by wealth, only this time without a National Health Service or old age pensions. Maybe we’ll have a workhouse. We are heading towards the Middle Ages without a safety net.’ He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so pessimistic.’ He sipped the coffee, which had gone cold, and held up the cup. ‘I suppose we should make the most of what we have, while we have it.’
‘You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?’ said Reaper.
‘I’m sure others have, as well. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘I don’t think many others have thought about it,’ said Reaper. ‘But you’re right. This is the honeymoon period. And people never learn from history.’
The Prof had become less adversarial. ‘I have to confess, my thoughts had not gone in this direction.’ He looked bemused and cross with himself. ‘I should have. It’s a logical process. But I’ve been too busy doing things. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been enjoying myself far more than I ever did in academia.’
Alan said, ‘Feudalism is inevitable but it will be called progress. In a thousand years, historians will describe what we are going through as a marvellous example of man’s ability to recover from adversity. Ours will be the first step on the way to New Britain or New England or New Albion, or whatever they call it. Ours will be the first building block of a new society. They will applaud it from a distance of a thousand years. They won’t have to live through it, like the poor bloody sods in history. We only abolished slavery in 1833. They had it in America until 1865. In other parts of the world, it never ended. I fear that, before long, it will be back, under another guise.’
The day Pete Mack brought word that the people in Hull wanted to join them, Adie Freeman, their apprentice blacksmith, returned from York to say that Brother Abraham wanted to see Reaper. Adie’s reports from the city had been increasingly gloomy, although his only source of information was Joel Hardy, the man who was teaching him his trade, and his own impressions on the short walk from the Monkbar to the smithy.
‘Something is going on,’ said Adie. ‘But Joel won’t talk about it and I’m always followed. Not that anyone else would speak to me. People avoid me. It was Brother Mark who told me Abraham wanted to see you. He gave me the message at the barrier, when I was leaving. Almost on the quiet as if he didn’t want anyone else to know. He said it was urgent.’
‘Bad timing,’ said Reaper. ‘He’ll have to wait.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Sandra told him. ‘You go to York. We can manage the run from Immingham.’
She was right, of course: no one would have prior knowledge of the run and the show of force they provided would discourage any interference. Intelligence told them there were no groups en route that were capable of mounting an attack, even at the sight of eight petrol tankers. Besides, it would be good for him to let someone else lead for a change.
The next morning, he went to York in a Range Rover driven by Yank. Adie went under his own steam, astride his motorcycle. They parked both vehicles on Monkgate, but out of sight of the castle walls. Reaper took Yank up to the first floor flat. It was as good a place as any for her to wait for his return. He left his armaments with her but, as before, he hung on to his knives. Then he and Adie walked up the middle of the road to the barricaded entrance to the city. Cedric, the small man in black, was not in sight.
Brother Mark met them and, while Adie made his own way to the blacksmith shop, presumably followed as usual, Reaper was escorted to the Holy Trinity Church in its secluded churchyard setting. A middle-aged man and a large woman of exceptional ugliness sat on the bench in the sunshine. The man had a knife at his waist and a cricket bat alongside him. She had a baseball bat. The man got to his feet and Brother Mark exchanged words with him and then indicated that Reaper should go inside alone.
Incense had been burning and had perfumed the air. Abraham was at the front of the church, sprawled on a chaise longue before the altar. Had illusions of grandeur tipped the balance of his delusion? Was he now a god, rather than God’s messenger?
‘Brother Reaper.’ Abraham got up from the couch and walked down the central nave to greet him. ‘Thank you for coming.’ Abraham embraced him like an old friend. ‘Please.’ He indicated a box pew in the central na
ve that had been converted for comfort rather than worship. ‘Have a seat.’
Two benches occupied the confines of the pew; they faced each other and were loaded with cushions, so there was little room to put your feet. They reclined rather than sat, as if potentates or at a Roman dinner party.
‘You are well?’ asked Abraham.
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘Brother Adrian is happy at his toils?’
‘Adie is enjoying the work.’
‘Good, good.’ Abraham steepled his fingers.
‘Why did you want to see me?’ asked Reaper.
The monk glanced down the church, as if ensuring they were alone.
‘Perhaps you would pray with me, Brother Reaper?’
He turned so that he sat and put his feet on the floor and pressed his palms together. If Reaper did the same, because of the constriction of the cushions and space, they would be sitting side by side, but facing in opposite directions. Abraham nodded to encourage him to adopt the pose and he did so because of the look of concern in the monk’s eyes.
Reaper clasped his hands in front of him, rather than hold them in the universal posture of prayer, but dipped his head so that he would hear whatever the man wanted to whisper.
‘These are troubled times, Reaper. This dominion of God is coming apart at the seams. I’m a prisoner. A figurehead to give authority to Brother Barry. The man is mad, a conclusion you may find strange coming from myself. I’m sure you have doubted my sanity ever since we met. But I didn’t set out to hurt anyone. Foster’s different. He’s taken complete power. He now calls himself the High Sheriff of York and he has enough cronies to impose his authority. Men and women who enjoy giving physical pain to any who refuse to obey. Men and women who will kill at his order.’