More faces, scared, somehow out of place behind the grey netting. She led us around to the opposite wall of the circle and into a tunnel that cut through between the houses. Three teenaged boys were huddled at the opening, smoking.
“Jenny,” one said, a broad smirk on his face as they looked us up and down.
“Boys,” said Jenny Rae. “Go and tell No. 73 they’re having guests tonight.”
“Alright, Jenny,” said the same boy.
“Take their bags as well,” she said.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Grimes. Bryce growled.
“I insist,” said Jenny Rae, fixing Grimes with a stare. The boys moved forwards. Grimes let her pack fall. We followed, hesitantly.
The boys gathered up our packs and we walked on. One of them muttered something and the other two burst into that horrible, strained laughter that can only be achieved with a teenaged throat. The tunnel was long and low. Darkness was falling fast outside and I felt time moving on. Another day lost, another day further from Beth.
“When it happened I thought we were done for,” she went on. “All them lights, beautiful really but they came down so fast. I saw a couple, just small ones I suppose, hitting Ash.”
“What’s Ash?” said Grimes.
“Ash Court. One of the towers. Ash, Beech, Oak, Hawthorn and Willow.” She counted them off on her fingers and held them up for us to see. “I saw the top of Ash explode, then another hit lower down and it started to fall. That’s when I ran inside. I thought I was going to be crushed. I thought all the towers would fall on top of us and that we’d all be squashed into the ground. I just held onto my kids and kept my head down, tried not to listen to all the explosions and screams outside. I started praying, got the kids to pray as well, I’d never prayed in my life before! Never even taken them to church! After a few hours, when all the noise had died down, I went outside and the sky was filled with flames and black smoke everywhere. The towers were gone, but somehow...somehow we were still alright. All this was still here.”
We left the tunnel and came out onto another road with a tall metal fence on the other side. Behind it was a small warehouse, and beyond that was the burned, barren wasteland we had walked across.
“I mean, look at it,” she said. “Were we friggin’ saved or what?”
She laughed. A terrible big, booming, donkey-like laugh, too long and too loud.
She kept laughing as she led us along the road to a short stretch of red-bricked semi-detached houses set back behind small, grassless front gardens. They looked out onto the expanse of empty ground behind the fence. She stopped and turned us toward the view, admiring it like a farmer looking across a well-ploughed field. In the distance, the buildings of the city centre rose out of the mist. Along the edge of the wasteland I could see the crumbling blocks and the new sea lapping against them. We were on the coast, separated from the city by a long, open, flat urban moor.
On the other side of the fence, two men in black jackets walked up and down. They held guns. One raised a hand at Jenny and she returned the greeting.
“I don’t know what it was like with you,” she said, barely containing her glee, “but the fires burned for weeks here. We still thought we were dead, that they’d reach us here and we’d burn alive, but they never did. Then there was fighting, a lot of fighting. The city didn’t get it too bad, see. It were a mess, lots of people dead, but not as bad as some places from what I’ve heard, London and that, y’know. It were mostly the suburbs that got it. Everyone who survived, working class, middle class, people from estates and those from the nice parts, we all rushed into the centre to find food. It were chaos for a long time. The police, what was left of them, tried to keep control but there were riots that went on for days. The city centre got more damage from them than the whatdjyamakcallits. At first, all the nice folks, middle-class ones like you” - she turned to me - “they all sided with the police, thought they were going to protect them.” She started laughing again, swung back on her hips. “Friggin’ pigs didn’t know what they were doing! All they were doing were protecting themselves. It were chaos. Guns, gas, riot shields, all that nonsense.” She wiped her eye. “These men and women, the ones you see in suits and high heels, always rushing around dropping their kiddies off at the big schools, they didn’t know what to do, running all over the place and trying to hide in burnt-out shops. They weren’t used to feeling unprotected, unsafe.
“Couldn’t help feeling sorry for them,” she said. She scraped her boot on the side of the pavement, looked at the heel. “But then a funny thing happened.” She looked up, as if startled by the memory. “They started coming to us, asking for help, food, water for their kids. Can you believe that? Coming to us?”
More laughter. The more time we wasted listening to her and the closer we got to sunset, the more unsettled I felt. I felt nerves bristling in the others too. I wanted to get away, scale the fence, scramble across the wide, barren plane and get out of the city and on my way. I wanted to run.
When she had stopped laughing, she snorted, coughed, spat and ground the result into the dirt with her heel. Suddenly there was the sound of an engine in the distance and a window at the end of the street turned orange. Grimes spun around.
“Is that…” said Grimes. “Do you have electricity?”
Jenny Rae smirked.
“I heard this story once,” she said, zipping her jacket up and burrowing her hands into her pockets. “About how the future would turn out. The future back then, you know, not the future now. All the people who know how things work, the people with degrees and can make computers and toasters and that, they’d all live on the hills behind electric fences. Everyone else would live and die in shit.” She turned to us. “They wouldn’t need us any more you see, wouldn’t need our money.”
Another light went on in a house closer to us.
“Funny how things work out, isn’t it?” she said. “Now, who’s hungry?” She turned to face Bryce. “What about you, big lad? What are you for?” She patted his belly twice. “Balti? Madras? Vindaloo?”
Jenny Rae led us to the end of the street, where we turned left, following the fence. Almost every house had at least one window lit, but halfway along there was a brighter, white light coming from a glass-fronted shop. A queue of people was spilling out of its door and onto the street. Steam and smoke billowed from its windows. I smelled spices and a strange meaty tang on the air.
Bryce almost stumbled. He made a short gasping noise. “Is that...is that a takeout?” he said, his voice caught somewhere between anger, hope and joy.
“Aye,” said Jenny Rae, as if he’d asked something ridiculous. “Where would we be without a curry, I ask you.”
We got closer to the shop and Bryce began walking faster.
“Easy there, fella,” said Harvey under his breath. “What do you think they’re cooking in there?”
“I’ve never asked that question before,” muttered Bryce, raising his snout to the air like a hound on the scent. He inhaled deeply. “And I’m not about to start.”
When we reached the front of the shop, the queue was stretching out down the dark street. Cocky, tracksuited teenagers, smoking and hooting and shoving each other in the back, older men and women with pushchairs and beer cans and then, occasionally, a quiet huddle of faces started out from the line. Dark eyes, pale skin and frightened mouths. Clothes that weren’t theirs. They kept their heads down. This was not where they came from.
“Excuse me,” said Jenny Rae as we reached the door. A hole opened up obediently in the queue and she led us up to the shining aluminium counter. I squinted under the bright, fluorescent light, aware that we were being scrutinised by the crowds of people waiting around us, leaning against the tiled walls and the dirty glass behind us. We were only safe here because of the woman we were with.
Behind the counter were two Indian men. One hollered something back to the kitchen behind, noisy with sizzling flesh and clanging metal pans. Another was pushi
ng back a small booklet across the counter to a man next to Jenny.
“No good,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re out till next month.”
The man, in his seventies, thick-set with short, thick white hair and stubble, slowly retrieved the booklet from the counter and slid it inside his thick, black, woollen overcoat. He shuffled around to leave, but Jenny Rae placed a hand on his forearm.
“Give him what he wants, Abdul,” she boomed. “Just this once.”
The old man looked into Jenny Rae’s face.
“Obliged,” he said. “Thank you Jenny.”
Abdul shrugged.
“Whatever you say Jenny,” he said, and shouted the man’s order through. He turned to Jenny Rae, scanning us nervously first. “And what can I get you, madam?”
“Five specials please, Abdul,” said Jenny Rae. “Gimme a tray of chips and all.”
“No problem,” said Abdul, and then screamed the order back across his shoulder. “Ten minutes, Jenny.”
We found a place to stand away from the counter while Jenny Rae circulated the shop, talking to the masses that were coming and going. Eyes were on us constantly. Even Bryce avoided them, possibly because of the distraction of the smell of cooking meat as much as anything else. Occasionally a number would be yelled out and one of the waiting hordes would step up to the counter and take their bulging, knotted plastic bag of food.
“This is weird,” breathed Richard, stretching out every word. “How the hell have they managed to get a takeaway running?”
“I don’t like it either,” whispered Harvey. “What do these people think they’re eating? The only meat I’ve seen has two wings and an orange beak.”
“I doubt they care,” I said.
“Spend enough time eating curries in Edinburgh,” said Bryce, “and there’s a fair bet you’ve already eaten a seagull.” He craned his neck to see into the kitchen. “Meat’s meat,” he slavered. “I’m eating whatever comes slopping out of those wee foil trays.”
Our order came and Jenny led us out of the takeaway to more mumbled greetings and stares from the queue. She ate her chips as we walked.
“See?” she said. “We do pretty well here. Electricity, water, food, alcohol, all rationed of course, but we got quite a good deal in the settlement.”
“Settlement?” said Grimes.
“We had to agree on a rough territory, supplies, that kind of thing,” she said.
“With the police?” I said.
Jenny stopped in her tracks and made a noise in her throat. She stared at me in disbelief, one ketchup-smeared chip halfway to her mouth, then threw back her head in laughter.
More laughter. I squirmed as we let it run its course.
“Police?” she said at last, wiping spittle and grease from her chin. “Police? There is no bloody police. We won!”
“Won?” said Richard.
“Aye, won. The fights, the riots.” She turned her mouth down into a proud snarl. “We came together,” she said. “Beat ‘em.” She popped the chip into her mouth, turned and continued walking down the street. It was darker nearer the bottom; fewer of the houses had their lights on.
“There were a few of us, you see, from different parts of the city, different estates that had survived. We had what we called a settlement, an agreement. Pretty amicable considering. Everyone got their own territory, their own estates of course, then bits and bobs around the city where we knew there were supplies, industrial estates, supermarkets, shopping centres that hadn’t burned, that kind of thing. Then we got streets and areas of the city itself.”
She turned to us and grinned. Her front two teeth glinted gold in the low light from the houses.
“And you walked onto one of mine.” She raised her eyebrows. “Lucky for you.”
“And the police,” said Richard. “Where are they now?”
Jenny gave him a flat look and shrugged. She picked at her molars with her tongue.
“Not a problem any more,” she said. “Right, here we are.”
She directed a sharp whistle at the fence, now almost hidden in the darkness. We heard a clatter and then footsteps as one of the guards crossed the road towards us. He was tall and broad, head level with Bryce’s, knew his way around a gym I guessed. A thick scar travelled the length of his right cheek and met his top lip beneath his nose. He gave us a cold once-over before turning to Jenny.
“Jenny,” he said.
“Guests staying at number seventy-three this evening,” she said. The word ‘guests’ unsettled me even more. I had never felt less like one. “Keep them company outside would you?”
“No problem, Jenny,” said the guard. He moved towards the gate of the house we were standing next to. Jenny strode through it and up to the door, on which she gave three loud knocks. A moment later the door opened and a slim, timid woman in a baggy cardigan looked out from behind it. She looked nervously between us and Jenny
“Yes?” she said, then “George?” quietly back across her shoulder. We heard slow footsteps on the stairs behind her.
“Did the boys tell you?” said Jenny Rae, her voice loud and firm.
The woman shook her head. “No.” A man appeared behind the woman, ashen and concerned. He took off his glasses and let them fall on the string around his neck, peering out at us.
“What’s the matter?” he said. He was well spoken, every vowel rounded, every consonant marked. Jenny Rae tutted and made a frustrated rasp in her throat.
“Those boys, I told them, didn’t I?” She turned to us, then shook her head and rolled her eyes, smiling. “I’ll murder them one of these days.” She sighed. “Ah’m sorry, Mrs Angelbeck,” she said, still shaking her head. “But you have some guests this evening.”
The couple looked us up and down, trying to contain their horror.
“But, b…” the woman began. The man interrupted her with a hand gripping her arm.
“It’s OK, Darling,” he said quickly. “Of course, Mrs Rae. That’s no problem, is it? Is it, darling?”
The woman looked up at him worriedly. He seemed to tighten his grip on her arm.
“No,” she said at last. “No, of course not, no problem at all, er…please, come in.” She opened the door wider.
“Ahhhh thanks, Mrs Angelbeck, that’s very good of you,” said Jenny Rae. “It’ll just be for tonight. They can stay in your front room; you don’t mind bunking down do you?” She smiled at us. “Good,” she said, not waiting for a reply. We stepped into the house, immediately crowding the small hallway and filling it with our own reek and that of the food Bryce was holding. “Well, then,” said Jenny Rae, turning to leave. “I’ll leave you to it then, oh...” she stopped and turned back, holding out her empty chip tray to the woman. “Put that in your bin, would you?” she said.
The woman stared blankly down at the tray and took it in her trembling hands.
“There’s a love,” said Jenny Rae. She turned to the man. “See you tomorrow, George? Bright and early?”
The man bounced nervously on his toes and offered a small salute. “Right you are, Miss Rae,” he laughed. “Bright and early.”
A cold smile slid from Jenny Rae’s face as she turned to leave. Richard called after her.
“We need to leave as early as possible.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jenny Rae, holding up a hand. “Someone will come and get you.”
“What about our packs?” he said.
“I’ll see that they’re safe,” she said. “Enjoy your curry. Get some rest.”
She hooted a laugh out into the cold night, then started off up the street. We stood nervously in the hallway, saying nothing, the stench of curry filling the cold air. The man regarded us, chewing the arm of his spectacle.
“George,” said the woman at last. “You’re hurting me.”
“What?” he said. “Oh, terribly sorry, darling.” He released his grip on her arm and slowly held his hand to his chest, flexing his fingers. He looked back at us.
�
��My name is George Angelbeck,” he said, slowly offering his hand to us. “And this is my wife, Susan.”
The woman nodded her head and massaged her arm.
“I’ll get you some plates,” she said, walking past us towards a lit room at the end of the hallway. “Abigail? Can you set the table please, darling.”
GULL VINDALOO
The Angelbecks’ kitchen was long and thin with a small table against one wall. Susan Angelbeck had extended it fully so that it almost filled the floor and provided enough room to sit four people. She lit a candle and placed it in the centre while her daughter, Abigail, a girl who was about to experience what puberty felt like in a post-apocalyptic housing estate where - her manners and posture screamed - she clearly didn’t belong, had emptied the cupboards of plates and set them on the table with cutlery. George Angelbeck tucked himself in a corner and watched, sucking the end of his spectacles as everyone found a space. Nobody wanted to take a seat at first and we all stood silently, crammed against cupboards, staring down at the empty table, adrift in social waters which, I’m fairly sure, had never been charted before.
Eventually Bryce broke the stalemate by puffing out a deep, frustrated sigh and grabbing the seat nearest to him. He then went to work on the warm plastic of the takeaway bags and began spreading the foil cartons across the table. Susan offered the remaining seats to us. Grimes and Harvey each took one, Richard and I remained leaning by the sink. George gently pushed his daughter forwards to take the last chair.
Bryce tore the cardboard lid from the last carton and threw it in the remains of the plastic bag with the others. For a moment we all watched the steam rise slowly from the gloopy brown food like smoke from a prehistoric swamp, the candlelight throwing gruesome shadows of the mysterious lumps rising out of the surface.
Once again, Bryce could only stand so much and after a few moments he snatched a bowl and began to spoon dollops of rice and curry into it. When he had filled it he took a fork, hesitating slightly before shovelling a heap of it into his mouth.
The End of the World Running Club Page 30