He took a large slotted screwdriver from the toolbox we had discovered in one of the kitchen cupboards and began taking the frame apart.
"Beneath here," Dad explained, "is a sloping chute that runs into a room-sized compost container, and happily for us, the compost is taken out through access doors at the back of the cabin."
“Let’s hope they haven’t thought to seal those too,” I said.
Jess helped Dad lift the composting toilet and surround to reveal a manhole-sized opening in the floor of the room.
“I’m not going down there,” said Jess reeling at the ripe stink emanating from the chute.
“I don’t really think we have a choice,” I said.
Dad winked, quirking a smile at us as he left the room. He returned moments later with a roll of black bin liners. Tearing some bags off the roll he tossed them to Jess and me.
“Prizes will be awarded for the best outfit,” he said with a grin.
We went to our rooms, attempting to make as little noise as possible. We were sure that at least one guard had been stationed outside.
I think I made a pretty good job of my outfit in the end. On the catwalk tonight, we have a delightful little number worn by Harper Lee McKenzie, perfect for those memorable evenings when you need to crawl through a cesspit.
I wrapped a couple of bags around Sal, securing them with duck tape. Then I packed up my rucksack, stuffed it into a bin bag and sealed it with tape. Back in the sitting room I almost gave us all away when I saw Jess. It took all of my self-control to stop myself cracking up. Every inch of Jess's body was covered in black plastic. He looked like Ninja Barbie.
There were footsteps outside the cabin. Dad put his finger over his lips, and we listened as two men spoke in hushed voices.
“Any news?” asked one of them.
I didn’t recognize his voice.
“Pete’s in a bad way.” That voice I did recognize - it was Lucas. “James doesn’t think he’ll last the day out. He’s still not convinced it’s the pox, though.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to see it is,” said the other man, “I watched my whole family die of it. Bernadette said Nikki was covered in pustules - she had all the same symptoms, fever, headache, vomiting, swollen glands… you really think it’s not the pox?”
“As I said, James isn’t convinced,” said Lucas, “he is still working in the lab and should have something concrete to tell us in the next hour or so. Then, hopefully, we will know what we are dealing with.”
“Well, pox or not, it has already killed one of us,” said the other man. “It will shortly be two from what you tell me, and if the kid is a carrier, then the solution is still the same.”
Lucas coughed. It went quiet then. I guess he realised that we could be listening.
Silently, we lowered ourselves down the chute into the steaming compost pit. Getting down there was relatively straightforward. Dad went first, then Sal and me. Jess, rather reluctantly, brought up the rear. We made it through the stinking, turd filled pit using a gait somewhere between swimming and wading… ‘swading?’
The thick slime made it difficult for Sal to swim through, so I attempted to drag her along with me, but I was having trouble maintaining my balance, and I struggled to keep her head above the mire. Jess put an arm under her back legs and lifted her upwards towards me.
“I seem to be making a habit of getting you two out of the shit,” he said.
The compost pit was about six feet wide. At the far end were some steps leading up to a small door made of slatted wood. Light streamed in through the gaps in the slats. Dawn was fast approaching.
Dad pulled a small plastic container from is shirt pocket. Unwinding a length of dental floss he broke a piece off, replacing the pot in his pocket. After tying a loop at one end of the floss, he threaded it through a gap in the rough wooden door.
Glancing down at my puzzled face, he winked as he fumbled with the twine. Then he steadied his hand momentarily, before jerking the cord sharply upwards. There was a clunk as the metal latch lifted and the door swung open.
We paused, holding our breath. How could anyone not have heard that? Maybe the noise sounded louder to us as we were so close because no one else seemed to hear it. Dad waited a minute or two before edging his way out. Glancing around he motioned for us to follow.
Our cabin backed onto the woods on the west side of the lake. It was a lucky break because we were well hidden from the majority of the camp. Jess pointed to a small rowing boat moored a few feet from where we stood.
Dad nodded and signalled that we should move towards it.
However, when we attempted to move wearing our fetching, shit covered, plastic suits we may as well have been shaking tambourines. It may only have been a few rustles of black plastic, but in the still of early dawn, the sound was deafening to my ears.
We adjusted our pace until we could move without alerting the whole of the community to our presence and eventually managed to make it to the boat without being discovered.
The small vessel rocked perilously as we clambered in. Dad cast us off and rowed us out of the Lost Lake Community and onto the Norfolk Broads.
Each time the oars hit the surface of the water I was sure we would be discovered, but the soft, rhythmic plop of the oars was quickly smothered by the whirring hum of the windmill blades towering above the lake.
Dad rowed until the morning sun had climbed high into the sky and he seemed confident enough to relax a little. I am writing this from the Bell Inn, a riverside pub with comfortable rooms for us to hold up in.
Jess hid the rowing boat in some long reeds at the side of the quay. We are planning to wait here until dark and then take one of the cruisers moored up on the dock to make our way towards the city of Norwich.
I doubt that Lucas and the others will even follow us. After all, what the 'community' wanted was us out of the way, and now they have their wish.
I feel rather sad writing this. I didn’t realise until now how much I was looking forward to being part of their community. Last night I had gone to sleep planning all the things I would be able to do, like learn to play the guitar, read some new books, and play a game other than solitaire. Why do people always screw everything up? 'It's just the nature of the beast...'
16th August
The Things we do for Love
Dad and Jess were arguing. It’s such a great sound to wake up to. An absence of arguments was one of the major unexpected benefits of being alone. I hate listening to people arguing. It's like being trapped in a room full of wasps, angry buzzing in your ears threatening to do you harm at any second. I ought to have grown out of my fear by now, and yet apparently, arguments still elicit the same effect on me as they always have. Turning me to jelly, and like jelly, I shake.
When Ma was with ‘Uncle Jack,' arguments were a regular occurrence. They also, usually signified that one or other of us would end up in casualty before the day was out. I used to hide behind the sofa, which was pushed up against the wall of the room. It had a curved back so I could crawl along behind it and get right into the corner. No one could reach me then, not without moving the sofa - and it was a big ass couch. It was my fallout shelter, my safe place. I made it quite cosy. There were cushions, an old blanket, a torch, and I had a book or two stashed there too of course.
Dad and Jess were not arguing like that, though. Their ‘discussion’ though heated, was more reasoned, and their voices remained muted. Dad even appeared calm… almost too calm. Jess, however, seemed to be incredibly frustrated by this. He was hissing, his words spoken through clenched teeth. They were arguing about me.
I went to the door so that I could hear what they were saying. It wasn’t the best idea I had ever had. ‘There is nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is very different from the world inside your head.'
“But what if they are right and it is a new strain of the pox - won’t we need a doctor? We could be condemning ourselves to death
by remaining with Harper.” Jess sighed, “Look, Greg, I know she is your daughter, but I’m not ready to risk my life to go on the run with her. Where the hell are we going to go? Do you even have a plan? Maybe we should go back. If we can get through quarantine without getting sick, surely they will let us back into the community. They need every pair of hands they can get don’t they?”
There was silence then. It seemed to last forever.
“Jess, I understand your misgivings,” Dad’s voice was barely a whisper, "but don’t you see that even if they did risk taking you and I back into quarantine they would not take Harper. You know what they will do to her if she went back. If Harper is a carrier, she cannot be around anyone without potentially infecting them. I don’t want her to be alone Jess, she has been on her own long enough. If you want to go back… well, I won’t stop you, but I’m staying with Harper.”
His words hit me like a punch in the gut. If I am a carrier, then everyone around me is at grave risk. Yet Dr. Gregory Sayer refuses to leave me alone. 'The heart of a father is one masterpiece of nature…'
Sal and I slipped out of the back door.
We walked along the path at the side of the river for a mile or two, and then I spotted a Broads cruiser moored beside an old whitewashed windmill. I climbed aboard. The boat had enough fuel in the tanks to get us a few miles and was comfortably kitted out below deck. She was as sleek and modern as her name, etched in swirly letters on its bow - Far Horizon. She was nothing like Mona, though.
It took me a while to learn how to manoeuvre her without over-steering into the bank. I disturbed more than a few of the rivers feathered residents in the process. Eventually, I managed to sail her up river. I had no idea where we were going. I carried on upstream until we were almost out of fuel when I moored up at an old riverside pub in some leafy suburb just outside the city of Norwich.
It seemed strange to be on our own again. Like when you go on a trip and are certain you have left something behind but can't remember what it is. Only I did remember.
Sal and I explored the area until we found a garage, a pharmacy, and a grocery store. We broke in with ease (It appears I am somewhat of an expert now.) I filled my bag with some medical and food supplies, and then we went back to refuel the boat and grab a bite to eat. Though, I found I had little appetite for food, and ended up giving most of my lunch to Sal.
It’s strange being alone again. It is one thing being on your own when you think there is no one else out there. It is quite another matter to choose to be alone. Even more so when you know, there are other people out there, especially when one of those people is your father.
Am I going crazy? Sal keeps on looking at me weirdly. She is probably wondering what the hell I am doing, leaving the only person who has ever really cared about me, but I don’t have a choice. If I am carrying some sort of super bug, then I cannot be around anyone, least of all him. I am a time bomb waiting to go off. This is all one sick cosmic joke.
I was exhausted, completely drained, like an Energizer Bunny whose batteries have finally given up the ghost. I curled up on the bunk and Sal climbed up beside me. I wondered if there was a point to anything anymore. Suddenly, just surviving didn’t seem worth all of the effort. They say a flower can't grow without rain, but doesn't too much rain kill the flower?
My eyes flickered as I dozed in the afternoon sunshine and I caught a fluttering movement as I looked out from beneath my lashes. It was a bright blue butterfly. It must have flown in through the open cabin door, and it was struggling to find its way out again. It was trying to fly through the glass window above my head, hitting the glass with a thud, thud, thud, as it made numerous futile attempts to break through. One of its wings was torn, its bottom lobe curled and deformed like melted plastic.
I watched it for a while. It never gave up, just kept on hurling itself against the glass like some drunken sailor trying to open the door to a public bar at four in the morning. 'Futility is the defining characteristic of life. Pain is proof of existence' - S. R. Donaldson
Eventually, I got up, cupped my hands around the fragile creature, took it out on deck and released it. The breeze lifted the butterfly, taking it off to the garden of one of the quaint cottages lining the quay. It floated over the shrubs as if controlled by an invisible puppet master, eventually coming to rest amongst some bright yellow blooms.
I researched the life cycle of butterflies when I was working towards my nature badge. Butterflies have an average lifespan of around two weeks, for some, it’s only a couple of days. For a Butterfly, a damaged wing would be nothing to get downhearted about. Life is short. Drink nectar while you may, life comes with no guarantee of a tomorrow.
17th August
Suicide is Painless
Sal is gone. When I woke up this morning, she was nowhere to be found. At first, I wasn’t too concerned. I had overslept, I assumed that she had taken herself off for her morning walk as I had, irresponsibly, left the gangplank down.
I watched the sun climb high in the sky until it was well past midday, and still, she had not shown. I started to worry. I gave up waiting and searched along the quay, but there was no sign of her.
Sal only left me once before, when we were attacked by the dogs in London, and everyone tried their hardest to convince me she was a figment of my traumatised mind.
Maybe she is. Perhaps they all are. Maybe all of this is in my head. Who wouldn’t be a certified head case after going through what I've been through? It's a wonder I didn’t top myself months ago. I was alone then, and I am alone now, maybe it's my destiny. I have no choice but to be alone now, I can't risk infecting anyone else with whatever killed Nikki.
I thought I could deal with leaving Dad and the others, but then I had Sal. The one thing I thought I could count on. I hadn't expected to lose her too. Is there really any point in going on?
The melody of a song drifted into my head, it was the theme song from MASH, an old TV show Ma and me used to watch. 'Suicide is painless…'
The show was about the members of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital who used to care for the injured soldiers during the Korean War. My favourite character was called Hawkeye. I liked how he used humour to escape from the horror of the situation. The song had some very weird lyrics. They went something like this...
This game of life is hard to play
And we’re all going to lose it anyway,
So really all I need to say,
is suicide is painless...
The words might appear profound, unless, like me, you know that the motivation behind their production was to write ‘the stupidest song ever written.'
Ma tried it twice - suicide I mean, not writing inane lyrics. Once I came home from school and found her in bed. I couldn’t wake her, so I called an ambulance. She had overdosed on sleeping pills. The second time she tried to end it all was much more dramatic. I was asleep in bed when Mr. Kent, from the flat downstairs, banged on the door in the middle of the night, waking me up. When I opened the door, he asked if everything was alright, because there was bloody water dripping through his bathroom ceiling. Ma almost managed it that time, she lost over four pints of blood, and I never took a bath in there again.
The doctor said Ma's suicide attempt was a cry for help. More like a full-throated scream, if you ask me. Life is so easily extinguished it ought to be a simple thing to accomplish and, like the song says, suicide is painless. Or at least it would be if you had enough sleeping pills. I brought a few boxes of Ambien back with me from the pharmacy yesterday. It's the stuff my Ma used to take - I’m not sure why I did that exactly.
I never understood then, how Ma could have felt so bad that she wanted to erase her existence. I do now. There are worse ways to be alone, than just being on your own. There is the demolition of hope, and in losing hope, there is freedom.
What is the point in writing all this down anyway? I've spent hour after hour, scribbling thousands of words in this diary and for what? No one is ever going to read
them. I hoped it would be like having a friend, but it isn’t. A diary isn't a friend. You can’t have a conversation with a book; it can’t wrap you in its arms or curl up on your lap. A book can’t stop you doing something stupid like taking a boat all the way to London, trusting a group of strangers or believing in a stupid dog. It's just paper and words. It can’t do shit.
31st December
Resolutions
The ocean of guilt and shame I have been wallowing in during these past few months has carried me to a new place. I rest there now in this island of calm. I could not face you before, but now it's time to finish the story, exorcise my demons, close the book and move on. This is to be my last diary entry, tomorrow is the start of a new year. 'New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings' - Las Tzu.
The Last Girl Guide: Diary of a Survivor Page 12