by M J Dees
Annabel remembered that Ava, a cleaner they used to have in prosperous days, was from Greenmount, and she asked the landlord if he knew her.
“Aye, I do,” he said. “Her family still lives in the village. I can tell you where they live if you like. If you don’t get any joy from them, come back and see me, we can probably find some space here.”
Jim and Annabel thanked the landlord profusely and followed his directions to the house. Ava’s father opened the door, and following a brief introduction, he welcomed them warmly. It delighted Ava to see them and she said that, of course, they could sleep there but they would all have to share the same bed.
She gave them food; it was leftovers from the family meal, but Jim, Annabel and Olivia were very grateful. It was better than anything they had in Manchester.
*
Ava made them pancakes with coffee for breakfast. Jim couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a pancake.
It was pouring with rain outside..
“You should stay longer,” said Ava. “I heard on the stretch there is only a week’s supply of water in Manchester and no gas at all. They killed several suspects in police raids this morning. People are panicking, even here it is almost impossible to find toilet paper.”
“We weren’t planning to go back,” said Annabel.
“Well, you can’t go anywhere in this,” said Ava, indicating the storm that was raging.
Jim thanked Ava and waited until she left before turning to Annabel.
“Do you think they might come looking for us?”
“I doubt it. They have bigger things to worry about than to come looking for us. They probably think we died in the fire.”
Then Ava came back and beckoned them all through to the living room.
“Come and see this,” she said. “Anderson is on the big stretch, he’s talking about the Manchester fires.”
“We are like a marathon runner,” Anderson was saying. “He has put over twenty miles behind him. He has another six miles to go. He is covered in sweat, he has a stitch, the sun is blazing and his strength is giving up, again and again he is tempted to give up. Only the greatest will power keeps him going, drives him on, perhaps he will collapse unconscious at the winning post but he must reach it. How often has a dying man overcome death through his sheer will to live? We are being tested. The terror attacks have become almost unbearable, but we must stay the course. We will destroy anyone who tries to sabotage our project. We must be victorious over the foreign hordes, our enemies are just as tired, we have to economise and improvise and reclaim our cities, reclaim our culture, reclaim our country.”
As Jim listened, the speech gave him hope. Perhaps Anderson thought the defeat of the regime was close.
The speech was barely over when Ava’s father burst into the room.
“You must leave at once,” he said. “The special police are going house to house looking for foreigners that escaped Manchester during the fires. Drones have been spotted.”
“But where are they supposed to go?” Ava protested.
“I don’t know, but none of us will be safe if they catch them here.”
“We’ll leave at once,” said Jim. “You have been very kind to let us stay, don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
“Take the Lumb Carr Road,” said Ava’s father. “It goes round the back of Ramsbottom, it’ll be quieter than if you go through the village where you’ll be more likely to be spotted.”
It had stopped raining, but the sky was full of dark grey clouds.
Ava packed some food and gave them some waterproofs to wear.
“Thank you very much,” said Annabel.
“Good luck,” said Ava, tears in her eyes.
“Jenny Li,” said Annabel as they headed North.
“We can’t go back to Manchester, Annabel.”
“She’s not there anymore. She moved to Clitheroe. If we get a move on we can get there tonight.”
To Jim’s amazement, Annabel produced an address book.
“You are full of surprises,” he said.
They were in Clitheroe by sunset and asked for directions for Jenny’s house.
Jim knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. Eventually, Annabel found the bell.
Jenny opened the door. She didn’t look surprised to see them and invited them in.
Annabel and Jim recounted their story while Jenny prepared some food. She gave Olivia a bowl of warm salty water for her sore feet.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Jenny
“We were thinking of trying to get to Dan and Scarlett Yilmaz. They live in Penrith now. Failing that, we’ll go to Edinburgh. Rumour is that Alba will go for independence again and that this time, they’ll be successful. The perceived wisdom is that they will have a different stance on foreigners.”
“How are you going to get there?”
“We’ll have to walk. We ditched our armbands and if we tried to get transport, they’d know who we were straight away.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be spotted, take the Barrett Hill Brow, it’ll take you up next to the Forest of Bowland. It’ll be quieter that way. Follow the signs to Sawley.”
Jim and Annabel slept in a double bed in the spare room, and Olivia slept on a sofa bed in the living room.
*
When they got up, Jenny was already making a cooked English breakfast. She also pressed a prepaid card on Annabel.
“Thank you Jenny,” said Annabel. “I hope one day we can repay your kindness.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jenny. “I know that if it were the other way round, you would do the same for me.”
They waved goodbye and started up the street.
“Wait, wait!” Jenny ran after them. “You’ve forgotten your keys.”
“Thanks Jenny,” Annabel laughed. “Those keys are for a flat that doesn’t exist anymore.”
They said goodbye a second time.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Jim, as they crossed the River Ribble. “I agree with the plan. It’s just that, what if we walk all the way to Penrith and Dan isn’t there? He might be dead.”
“Then we go onto Edinburgh, as discussed. Even if he’s not there, we’re still a lot better off in Alba than we are here, especially if they achieve independence, which is likely. If not, I have the address of Mrs Fernando’s parents. We can try there.”
“Are they not foreign?”
“No, he was foreign, not her.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Shortly after sunset, Jim noticed a sign for a guest house, which was down a quiet lane. They approached the house and knocked.
An old man answered.
“Hello, do you have a room?” Annabel asked politely.
“Yes, come in.”
They followed the old man into the house.
“ID apps?” he asked, once they had closed behind them.
“We’ve come from Manchester,” Annabel explained. “The fire destroyed everything. We’re trying to get to my parents’ house.”
“I don’t know,” said the old man. “I’m not allowed to register guests without the app.”
“Then don’t register us,” said Jim. “It’s only one night, it’s late, no one will come now, we’ll be gone in the morning, we have a little one. We have a card.”
He nodded towards Olivia and showed him the card Ava had given them..
The old man eyed the three of them, then sighed.
“Okay, but no one hears about this.”
“Of course not.”
*
They rose very early and left immediately after breakfast. As soon as they could get off the main road, they did. The sun had come out and, although it was chilly, there was not a cloud in the sky, a complete contrast to the day before.
The old man had told them to take a minor road called Long Level, which cut across Kirkby Lonsdale. Jim imagined he understood their desire for solitude. The lane passed through the centre of farms; they
saw no-one, only sheep.
At junctions, they guessed the way, using the sun as their navigational guide. After a while, they had no choice but to join a larger road, but there was little traffic. When they reached a bridge over a river, beside which two horses were grazing, Olivia demanded they rest, so they came off the road and sheltered out of sight below the bridge.
As soon as they could convince Olivia to move, they continued on their way and passed some farm traffic, but otherwise, all was quiet. In the sky, the clouds were returning. They passed a pub and Jim would have liked to stop, as would have Annabel and Olivia, but they considered it was too risky.
At a fork in the road, they took the left fork through a wood. The sun shining through the canopy created beautiful dusty shafts of light. They crossed another bridge over a river with fast flowing water. Jim couldn’t be sure, but he thought it might be the Lune.
When the opportunity came to continue on a smaller road, they took it. The sky had clouded over completely again and when they crossed another river; he wasn’t sure whether this was the Lune, but he kept his thoughts to himself and pretended he knew where he was going. All he could think about was where they could find a place to sleep that would be safe for Olivia.
The hedgerows were budding; the trees were losing their winter skeletal form. Every cottage they passed had a vegetable garden that seemed to be springing to life. Several times he contemplated stealing some produce. However, the traffic seemed to get busier, so Jim led them onto another smaller road. They seemed to be following the river.
It was getting dark and they still couldn’t find anywhere to stay. Jim was thinking they would have to sleep in a field when they passed the access road for a motorway service station.
There were crowds at the service station despite few vehicles in the car park. Jim guessed they might be people of foreign heritage heading for Alba, but hitchhiking or going by car was perilous. If Unity Police stopped them, that would be the end.
There was no accommodation available, but the cafe was comfortable enough for them to shelter from the cold outside. However, sleep was very difficult.
*
They were exhausted when dawn arrived, but it reassured them that the sky was clear apart from the odd fluffy cloud and the distance to Penrith would mean a shorter walk than the previous days.
They bought what provisions they could with what money they had left on the card.
The route took them over the top of the hills which were beautiful in their bleakness and, as the morning progressed, the clouds moved in making the landscape seem even more desolate and by the time they descended from the gorse covered moorland into the greener pastures the clouds had become an ominous grey. Jim hoped it wouldn’t rain on them.
When they passed a public house, Jim wished he could go in but had to settle with eating the last of their snacks in a bus shelter across the road. By the time they had rested, the clouds had passed, and the sun re-emerged. With newfound optimism, Jim noticed blossoms on the trees.
They passed a general store but, having run out of money on the card, had to keep walking, as they had to when they passed more pubs. But soon they returned to the countryside, and the temptations were over.
A bridge crossed a railway line and Jim wished it had been possible to use public transport, they would have been in Penrith days ago. They also passed the entrance to a stately home. Jim wondered who might live there now, a Unity official perhaps.
Olivia was exhausted, and they kept having to stop to let her rest. At one point, they stopped at a river and cooled their feet in the cold water.
By the time they reached the outskirts of Penrith, it was already dusk. There was suddenly a lot more traffic, and they were eager to find the house of Dan and Scarlett Knight before any Unity Police found them. An old woman whom Annabel asked for directions told them the way to the Knight house.
When they found the house and knocked on the door, it was an old woman who answered. Annabel explained who they were and why they were there.
“Come in, leave your bags there, take the weight off your feet, I’ll get them, I’m Scarlett’s sister by the way.”
The elder sister, Jim assumed. She returned a moment later.
“Dan is sleeping,” she said. “I’ll find Scarlett.”
She left them sitting in the living room, wondering what to do, and then Scarlett popped her head around the door.
“Oh my goodness, Jim, Annabel, it’s amazing to see you, and this must be...”
“Olivia,” said Jim, introducing the teenager who was well and truly miserable after being made to walk half the length of the country.
“Dan’s just coming down,” said Scarlett, and no-sooner had she finished than he limped into the room with the aid of a stick and slumped into the nearest armchair.
“Jim, Annabel, good to see you both,” he said, warmly. “Have you come to stay, you must be hungry. Get them something to eat, Scarlett.”
“Yes, of course,” Scarlett rushed into the kitchen.
“How are you?” Jim asked. “I haven’t seen you for years.”
“What?” said Dan. “You’ll have to speak up a bit.
Jim repeated himself, only this time he shouted.,
“As good as expected, I had a stroke a few years back, but I get by.”
“So I see,” said Jim, noticing that Dan was wearing a Unity badge.
Dan saw Jim staring at his lapel.
“I even have a picture of Roberts,” Dan admitted.
“I’m surprised at you. I remember you telling Kahn how much you hated Unity after we’d discovered he’d joined the party.”
“That was a long time ago, Jim. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, speaking of which, tell me about you. What brings you here?”
Jim and Annabel recounted everything that had happened.
“Come through,” said Scarlett, interrupting the story. “I’ve made you some tea.”
As they ate, Jim and Annabel recounted the rest of the story.
“Of course you can stay here,” said Dan, when he had heard the rest. “I can’t guarantee for how long, though. Unity knows we have a spare room and they sometimes ask us to accommodate people. If we get a request we can’t tell them it’s occupied by you. But you’ll be safe here. It’s chaotic at the moment, they won’t have followed you here from Manchester.”
“We should still be careful though,” said Jim.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Dan seemed to be indifferent.
Jim worried he might talk to people and inadvertently mention them. If anyone knew they were here, they might wonder why they hadn’t registered with the local police.
“We are not tenants,” said Annabel, when Jim expressed his anxiety. “We’re only visitors, we don’t need to register.”
“But Dan’s not all there. He might tell anyone we’re here. We should move on.”
“But where to?”
“Are you sure visitors aren’t required to register?”
“No.”
“And they might require us for work duty.”
“How about Alba?”
“If we have to, yes, we’re almost there now, anyway.”
*
Annabel and Jim took Olivia down to the town hall and filed their registration. There was no talk of special permits or employment duty, so they hoped the staff would lose their registration in the bureaucracy.
“Don’t worry, in three months this will all be over,” said Dan when they returned.
“I don’t think we can remain hidden for three months,” said Jim
It had all become academic by the afternoon.
“I am going to find you accommodation in a nearby village,” said Dan. “I’ve been told I have to give my spare room to someone.”
Jim was very pessimistic. He had heard rumours that people escaping from the south already packed surrounding villages. What had happened in Manchester had apparently happened in every major city.
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They watched Dan’s big stretch. A Government official was saying: “If we resist we have the possibility of continuing to live our British way of life but if we capitulate, our way of life will die because the foreigners want to exterminate our culture.”
“You are right, we should go,” Annabel said to Jim.
“You’ll be okay,” said Dan when they gave him the news. “You will be part of the reconstruction. You’ll become a chancellor of a university.”
“I would be happy to play a part,” said Jim. “If I survive long enough to enjoy it. Could I leave some of my diaries here?”
“Of course. And I’ll give you some money.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, it’s no problem. It’s the least I can do. I only wish I could let you stay.”
“That’s okay,” said Annabel. “We were thinking we should keep moving, anyway.”
“Where will you go?” asked Scarlett.
“To Alba. We hope to find Professor Green still in Edinburgh.”
“If he’s not there, you could try my parents. They live in Edinburgh.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind.”
*
They rose early and left with parcels of food packed by Scarlett. They soon left the narrow streets of Penrith behind and farmland surrounded them on the way to their first stop, Carlisle.
It was overcast, but none of the cows in the fields seemed to mind. The skeletal like trees were budding, some half endowed with leaves. Before long, the clouds cleared and the sun made an appearance.
Passing vehicles paid little attention to them. The sight of the displaced walking along the roadside had become commonplace. Even the drones just flew straight past. Every couple of hours they would stop for a rest and eat some of the food that Scarlett had prepared.
Unlike the journey to Penrith, the route was mainly downhill and by late afternoon they had reached the outskirts of Carlisle.
They asked for accommodation at every guest house they passed, but all were full, presumably of people of foreign heritage trying to get north of the border before Alba declared independence and closed it.
When they arrived at the Unity Welfare building, there were queues outside. They gave them soup and then, in the dark they led them to the cathedral where they told them they could sleep among the pews but it was so crowded and the conditions so bad that Jim and Annabel saw if there was space in the waiting room of the train station.