by Terry Tyler
That mumbling, humming noise starts; I look around and see that people agree with her. Kara sees this too, and remains standing.
"Heath was a dear, dear friend of our group, who arrived here fourteen months ago. His son is not here today, and neither is Aria, but I am sure they'd agree with me that his death is not Dex's fault. We lost him because of an evil that is, thank God, gone from our lives. And I believe the best way forward for all of us is to honour our dead, and be thankful to Bette and Cleary for bringing the truth to us. If anyone wants Dex to stand down as leader, or leave, we must take a vote, but I don't need to list all he's done to ensure that we stay fed, healthy and safe, as far as anybody could in these difficult, dangerous times."
Mum doesn't react. She just stares at the floor. She has an untouched glass of brandy in front of her; I nick it and take a large gulp. It helps kill the lump in my throat. She doesn't notice, so I take another.
"Or you could lead, Kara," Gareth calls out, and I hear a few murmurs of approval, and the odd clap.
She puts her hand up. "Whatever is going to happen in the future, it won't be decided upon today. We've got too much to deal with, emotionally."
Dex stands up. Probably scared someone really will tell him to fuck off.
"I'm open to any changes you want to make, but I agree, now is not the time. I propose we meet here again in one week, when we've all had time to process this, and if anyone has items for discussion, please let me know before then. Because this is how we must make this community work, in the future. All decisions must be made together, not by me. We won't have a council, we'll take votes, on every single issue that affects us. We all deserve a voice. I can organise our day-to-day life, and I will continue to do so if you still want me to, but it's not for me to decide how we should live."
He looks around, as people nod and a few clap. Shit, he is so clever. Just a few words, and he's manipulated their favour back from Kara to him. And how skilfully he's moved the subject away from Heath's murder, too.
I take another sip of Mum's brandy; he's off again.
"There's a big, black cloud over our home right now, I know that. Heath was loved by many of us, and no words will ease our loss; only time can help us heal. I ask you to be as supportive to Jax and Aria as you can be, because they will need us all in the weeks to come. This is how we can find the good in the world we face now, by working together as a community for the benefit of all. We can live well, care for each other and grow stronger; we can move forward, survive the devastation that's been cast upon us, and prepare for the challenges we face in the future. Together."
Well, fuck me, this little speech brings the house down. He gets a standing ovation. Not a dry eye in the house. Not even Mum's, but not, I'm guessing, because she's moved by Dex's horseshit. Then he reminds us that Suzanne, Naomi, Myra and Ozzy at The Safe Space are available for one-on-one therapy sessions; he even makes some little quip about how he used to think reiki was New Age twaddle until he experienced the benefits himself.
Naomi looks at him with love, and little Phoenix holds his hands out and squeals, "Dada!"
Some people actually laugh.
Heath is in the ground, and people fucking laugh.
I can't bear it any longer; I push through the crowd to the door, and at last, I'm outside in the cold air.
I stumble down the road, and don't see anything until I'm outside Aria's.
Poor Aria. She's all alone.
I knock; there's no answer but when I try the door it's open, so I walk in.
She's sitting in pyjamas with a duvet wrapped around her, drinking vodka and lemonade; almost empty bottles sit on the table in front of her. The remains of a long dead fire lie in the grate, it's freezing cold, the room is thick with cigarette smoke and there's a seriously bad smell hanging round, like no one's opened a window or disposed of the waste for days.
"Hey." I sit down. "Is there anything I can do?"
She doesn't look up, and I wonder if she even knows it's me. "There's nothing anyone can do." She sips at her drink, and reaches for a cigarette. "I cocked it all up. I thought I had it all sorted, but I went and fell in fucking love."
She's talking to herself, not to me.
I clear out the fire and lay a new one, get it going, open windows to let the smell out, and light a few incense sticks; she doesn't seem to be aware of me at all.
"Can I get you some food? Or help clean the place up a bit?" She doesn't answer, so I go into the kitchen. The smell is worse in there; I open windows, find bin liners and gather together empty packets and tins. The tins have spoons in them; I'm guessing she's just been eating straight from them when she gets hungry. I take rubbish into the garden and fill a washing up bowl from the barrel, squirt in some washing up liquid and put dirty cutlery and glasses in to soak. It's a start. I look in the cupboards to see if there's anything I can get her, but there's no food apart from rock hard cereal bars and plain rice.
Jesus, this is depressing. I'll have to go and get her some stuff, boil some water so she can wash, and clean the place up; it doesn't look as though anyone else has looked in on her.
"Dex told me. I was cheated," she says, as I sit back down.
"What?"
"I should have been the one to kill him. Wedge. He destroyed my future. Mine and Heath's."
Now's not the time to tell her that future didn't exist. "Do you want me to stay a while? I can help you get sorted out, or we can just talk."
"No, you go. Everyone else does. Even Travis. He doesn't want me now. I cocked up." She looks up at me, and wafts of stale alcohol drift my way. Ew. "You see, what you've got to do is be dead sweet and never say anything that might upset the apple cart, like Miss Pretty. I fucking hate her." Then she laughs. "Oh shit. She's your mum, isn't she?"
Seeing Mum with Dex sucks beyond any suckery I've ever known. I'm numbing myself off to it. I hope I don't start drinking.
Ten days after the murder, we're walking back from visiting Heath's grave, and I ask her how she can bear to be with Dex, when she loved Heath so much. It's not like women need men to be whole, not like in my gran's day, and certainly not now.
"I'm too tired to think about not being with him," she says. "And he loves me. Oh, don't look at me like that, sweetheart; you can't understand. We've been together a long time, and being with him gives me some sort of stability in this chaos. If I left him, what would it be for?" She opens her hands, like she's already answered that question for herself. "Nothing. It would cause more pain, more disruption. Even Naomi's almost okay with me now, and it's good to go up to the castle when I've been at the hotel all day. He's got a fire going, candles lit, he's cooked dinner and he's sitting there working on his book. I can sit by the fire and drink wine, I don't have to think. And in the summer I shall sit out in the courtyard, drink wine and look at the view." She gives me a helpless look. "I need him, Lottie."
"But you're just marking time. Wasting your life."
"Heath's gone. So it doesn't really matter who I'm with."
I feel so angry; if only I could tell her why. "Mum, you're only thirty-six! I know Heath was the love of your life and it's miles too soon to think of being with anyone else, but while you're putting up with Dex, you're stopping yourself meeting someone you might love, one day."
"And where am I going to meet this person? In a bar? Internet hook-up sites?"
She just doesn't get it. "Here! There are loads of single men on the island. There's Travis, Martin's nice if you like them a bit ancient, and there's John, Luke, Will, Parks." I'm sure I see a tiny light in her eye when I mention Travis. All is not lost, then.
I can't do anything right now, but I will. I'll get her away from the devil if it's the last thing I do.
I think that's my best ploy. To encourage her away from him. And soon, when she’s stronger, and maybe we're away from here, I'll come clean.
Soon.
Every day, I swing back and forth a hundred times: should I tell her? But with each minut
e the prospect of doing so becomes harder, because each second I don't tell her is another one spent in blissful ignorance with the man who murdered the love of her life.
Meanwhile, I'm going loopy with the need to talk to someone.
I can't burden Jax. He's changed so much; he's quieter, and seems to have grown up about ten years overnight. Some time during the night he killed a man, I'm guessing.
The other day he said he's moving out of our house, because he can't handle seeing Dex.
"Jez says I can take a room in the Monk's Head," he said. "I can do my dad's shifts on the watch, stay over that part of the island, and that way I won't keep bumping into him." He shut his eyes. "'Cause if I do, I’ll do something that will hurt your mum. And Dad wouldn't have wanted that."
"I keep thinking about how I’m going to tell her."
"You can't plan this shit. You just got to do what feels right, when it feels right. But think about it first. Don't just steam in, you know?"
"It's all I think about. Oh, Jax, this is so fucking messed up."
"Ain't it, though." He frowned. "I might just go, some time soon. I mean, like, right away."
I can't bear the thought of that. "Don't," I said. "Please don't."
"I'm sorry, mate. I may have to."
But he hasn't gone yet; I think he still needs to be near the rest of us.
I jolt myself back to the present, and I realise Mum and I have been walking along in silence, both deep in our own thoughts. We part, Mum to go to the hotel, me to go down to the boats to help take the catch up to the hotel, just for something to do.
Mac will be down there.
The sun comes out as I reach the gate at the far end of the field; I'm about to open it and carry on down to the harbour, when something makes me stop.
I look behind me at the graveyard and the priory and get this totally freaky sense of standing in a doorway, like I'm looking back on all that's happened in the past few months (literally, 'cause people I care about are lying back there in the earth), but I have no clue what's going to happen in the days ahead.
What the hell. I open the gate.
I walk down the path and I see Ozzy, Ray, Parks and Mac bringing a boat in; Mac is driving the tractor. He sees me and waves. I actually feel my mouth turn up at the corners, and, for the first time in forever, I remember what it's like to feel a tiny, tiny bit good about something.
He's got this long, floppy dark hair that's a bit like mine, and huge, wide mouth. Avery says that means he'll be good at it. I bow to her superior experience.
He climbs down from the tractor, and he's smiling at me, beckoning, waiting for me. Then the sun goes behind a big, grey cloud and there's a rainbow on the horizon, like the day we came here; drops start to fall, and there's that sinister glow in the sky that you get with a rainbow. Mac grabs a stray pallet off the beach and holds it over his head, grinning up at me. I laugh. Oz jumps off the boat and the two of them are arsing about; Ray's laughing, too, and Parks shouts at Mac to stop being a twat and give a hand with the crab pots.
He's waiting for me. I raise my hand in a wave, and hurry down the path.
Chapter Thirty-One
Vicky
I trudge through my days.
I do everything slowly, carefully, because my mind is never on my job. It's back in those couple of perfect months I spent with Heath.
Lottie harangues me about staying with Dex. I can't expect her to understand. She hears the words I tell her but she doesn't listen.
She's almost eighteen; thus, she knows everything and can take on the world. Smiley face with wink.
I'm just so tired, and even thinking about having the conversation that would end my relationship with Dex would take more emotional energy than I possess. There's no point in ending it. I feel a sort of love for him, he's been so good to me, and now there is nothing to leave him for. Even back in the old world, when life was an abundant field of choice and possibility, people stuck with marriages a lot worse than our relationship. We share a bed most nights, but we don’t have sex. I haven’t done it with him for two months; it happens, in long relationships. I know, I used to read Cosmo. He’s tried, but he doesn’t push me. I blame it on a temporary loss of libido after all we’ve been through, and he seems okay with that.
I’m sure Naomi will oblige if he gets desperate. I feel guilty, but I just can’t. I can’t imagine ever wanting to do it again.
Meanwhile, the castle is peaceful after a busy day at the hotel, and (I'll be honest here), it's preferable to the company of three teenagers. I enjoyed their chatter, before. Now, they just make me feel exhausted. I'm sure they don't want me around, anyway. They're old enough to look after themselves, they don't need me.
I'm so tired.
The other day the water pump that Scott fixed up for the laundry went wrong, and I collapsed into tears. Scott was out working on the farm, and I sat on the floor and cried myself stupid because I couldn't get it to work. Rowan found me, then went to find Dex, and he got it going. Even explaining what was wrong took so much energy. I could hardly get the words out. Couldn't think what the words were. But he fixed it. He's good to me. Why would I say goodbye to that?
Aria turns up at the weekly meeting today, for the first time in three weeks. Three weeks and two days since Heath died. She's out of hibernation, now, thin and fragile, but more like her old self. She stands up and thanks everyone for their support, and says she'll be starting back on supply runs. People murmur their goodwill, and she gives a prepared speech about the pain of being robbed of the future she would have had with the man she loved—yes, even with the world as it is now, because Heath was optimistic about life, and their relationship was strong enough to weather any storm.
But she knew he didn't love her. Heath thought she knew about me.
She's made a fantasy to comfort herself; now he's dead, she no longer has to fear losing him.
I surprise myself by not feeling any anger towards her. I feel sorry for her, that's all. She's hurting, the same as me.
Aside from Jax, who is not talking to anyone, she is actually the one person I could talk to about the man we both loved.
But of course that will never happen.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Doyle and Verlander
Doyle is pleased about every aspect of his new employment except one.
Before being accepted, he must agree to the insertion of a tiny microchip at the back of his right shoulder. This is relatively painless and heals over quickly, but he's aware of it, all the time.
"You won't notice it's there," says Jared, who performs the process.
"It's for your own protection," says Verlander. "This is a massive site, and it's growing every day. You get stuck down a hole, get hurt, we can find you. Same if you get in trouble when you're off-site; it's dangerous out in merry old England, these days. I promise you, you'll forget it's there!"
Doyle doubts that very much.
He is not fooled. He knows the real purpose is to keep workers under surveillance, but his experience at BDC has taught him that they won't observe his every move. No one will be interested in what he is doing unless someone sees the little flashing light marked Brian Doyle popping up somewhere it shouldn't.
He can curb his desire to nose around. For now, at least. No need to draw attention to himself just yet.
He works six days a week, hard work, but it's good to be involved again, good to be with others, even if some speak only limited English. They're from tiny islands that he's never seen named on a map. Logan, Kua, He Umi Kanaka, Elizabeth. A few are American, others from Tasmania, and he talks to them about the country he'd been looking forward to visiting.
Every day he appreciates the basics of daily life that he thought were gone for good. He sleeps in a dormitory with thirty-nine others; the bed linen is changed frequently, and he sleeps well. He enjoys hot showers, and the smell of fresh coffee as he enters the cafeteria for breakfast, which could be in America, not Britain. They
serve pancakes, and eggs 'over easy'. Twenty variations on the basic cup of coffee. He remembers a complaint of his mother's: you can't just go into a café and ask for a coffee any more, you have to choose between Americano, espresso, latte or mocha-chocka-lattiato or whatever it's bloody called, and wonders what she'd say if she saw the options available to him now. Tea is English Breakfast, Earl Grey or herbal (letter aitch not included), so different from the works canteens of ten years before, where the choice was shitty powdered Maxwell House or weak Typhoo. In the rec room after work he drinks bottled lager that Cooper the bartender calls beer, plays pool and listens to country music. Doyle loves it; he feels like he's stepped into a film set in a nowhere town in Kansas or South Dakota.
The canteen and rec room debit each worker's account with the value of the items they 'buy', but Doyle doesn't care if he spends the lot. He's not there to earn money, and outside the enclosed world of UKC his credits mean nothing.
His island co-workers have been on courses, they tell him, to learn the English language and building work; some hope to move there permanently. He asks why they would want to live in dreary old England instead of a tropical paradise, especially one that was infected with bat fever, and they laugh. They have been assured that the virus has been eliminated but, in any case, the material temptations of the West trump the beauty of nature.
"They show us the videos," they tell him. "Smart apartments, credits to spend on movies, cars and games! All come with jobs!"
When Saturday night comes, Doyle is free until Monday morning. His co-workers drink beer (there is a limit on how many; no one is allowed to get steaming drunk), visit the cinema and the relaxation spa, where 'masseuses' are employed. Doyle takes the opportunity to leave the site, and his heart lifts every time he cycles past the guards, who smile and wave him through. This is when the microchip bothers him; as far as he knows, he is the only worker to leave the site. Do they follow him, from their hidden observation room?