Clade

by James Bradley

  ‘In England? No, I’m here for a conference. Adaptation strategies.’

  ‘And you thought you’d look me up?’

  ‘I wanted to see you. It’s been a long time.’

  Again he sees the way she moves almost to the point of confrontation and then backs away.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It has.’

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, is it your house? From what Sophie said it sounded like some kind of community, or commune.’

  ‘It’s just a house, Dad.’

  He nods, fighting not to respond. ‘And that man in the kitchen?’

  She glances back at the house. ‘Neil? He rents one of the rooms.’

  ‘So you’re not . . .?’

  She looks at him incredulously, then laughs, suddenly her younger self again. ‘With that prick? Jesus, Dad!’

  Adam smiles, relieved. ‘What about the woman at the main house, the one who sent me here?’

  ‘Adeline? She’s been here a long while.’

  He takes a sip of his water, stares out over the landscape. ‘It can’t be easy living here.’

  ‘It’s not. But it’s cheap.’

  ‘There must be other places that are cheap?’

  She shakes her head in exasperation. ‘If you must know, it was a cooperative, but it dissolved after the last round of floods. Now we’re just squatting.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘I’m not political any more, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  He remembers how easily she used to be able to throw him off balance, how impossible he found it to steel himself against it.

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  She takes a breath, and when she speaks again her voice is calmer. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just, this is difficult.’

  ‘I know,’ he begins, ‘I’m sorry ––’ but before he can continue he becomes aware of a presence behind him, and turns to find a boy standing in the doorway. Seven, maybe eight, dark skin, almond-shaped eyes, his body tensed. He shoots Adam a quick look, his gaze skittering away almost immediately.

  ‘Mum?’ he says, one finger tapping an agitated rhythm on the side of his leg. For several seconds there is silence. Then Summer glances at Adam.

  ‘This is Noah,’ she says.

  Adam doesn’t move. He knows he should speak but he cannot find the words, and in the end it is Summer who breaks the awkwardness.

  ‘What is it, Noah?’

  ‘There’s people on the feeds saying the storm’s changing course.’

  Summer gets up and goes over to him. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I saw.’

  ‘Should we leave?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Should we ask Adeline?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you really sure?’

  There is something odd about the way the boy holds himself, and about the thinness of his arms and legs protruding from his shorts and T-shirt.

  ‘Shall I get my stuff?’

  ‘Okay,’ Summer says exhaustedly, then rights herself. ‘Wait. Noah, this is Adam.’

  The boy doesn’t look at him, just shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  ‘Your grandfather.’

  Adam feels something dislocate within. He looks at Summer and then back to Noah. The boy twists sideways, then as if deciding he has waited long enough darts back inside.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Adam asks. His hands are trembling.

  Summer looks at him, and for a moment he sees her as the child she once was, fierce yet frighteningly vulnerable. She shakes her head.

  ‘Not now,’ she says.

  Adam waits but she doesn’t continue.

  ‘You’re alone here with him?’ he asks at last, his voice quiet.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And his father?’

  Summer looks away. ‘Gone.’

  ‘And Noah is the reason you haven’t come home?’

  ‘Partly.’ Adam can see his daughter’s old defences coming down, see her looking for some edge of disapproval to latch onto. Determined not to give it to her he says slowly, ‘But he’s worried about the storm.’

  ‘It’s more than that. He’s obsessed with it, with the reports.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It must be frightening for him.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s not just that.’

  Her tone makes Adam pause. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s on the spectrum.’

  Adam fumbles for a response. ‘How badly?’ he eventually asks.

  ‘High-functioning. But all this stuff, with the water and the flood and the storm, it stresses him, makes him worse. He gets incredibly wound-up, can’t stop talking about it.’

  Adam extends a hand, takes hers in his. ‘Summer,’ he says at last, ‘I’m sorry.’

  She pulls away. ‘We need to go see about the storm,’ she says.

  Noah is seated on the sofa, hunched over a screen. Kneeling down, Summer takes it from him and reads it for a few seconds.

  ‘He’s right. It’s changed course again. I think we need to go.’

  ‘Go where?’ Adam asks.

  ‘There’s an evac centre in Norwich,’ she says, her voice uncertain.

  ‘But?’

  ‘The last storm hit Norwich hard. Things are still pretty rough over there.’

  ‘I’ve got a hotel room in London. You could come there.’

  ‘It’s a long way.’

  ‘At least it’ll be safe.’ As Adam speaks he sees that Neil has appeared in the doorway.

  ‘You’d be safer heading for Norwich with me and Adeline and the others.’

  Summer gives Neil a look of ill-concealed dislike. ‘No,’ she says. ‘We’ll go to London.’

  Neil turns to Adam. ‘What if they’ve closed the roads?’

  Irritated by the younger man’s assumption that he will find an ally in him, Adam shakes his head. ‘It’s Summer’s call.’

  Neil’s expression turns cold. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Can you at least drop me at Adeline’s?’

  Adam glances at Summer, who gives a quick nod. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘As long as you’re ready.’

  Summer and Noah have bags packed in anticipation of leaving, but when Adam returns from loading them into the car he finds her moving from room to room locking windows and bolting doors.

  ‘There’ll be looters,’ she says. ‘Although I don’t think we’ll be back anyway. Not this time.’

  They drop Neil at the main house, then drive on towards the road. Adam leaves the car on auto and turns to Noah, who is clutching his screen in the back seat.

  ‘What do the reports say now?’

  The boy ignores the question and draws his shoulders in tighter.

  Adam tries a different tack. ‘Have you been to London before?’

  Noah begins poking at his screen with a rapid motion clearly designed to shut Adam out.

  ‘Noah,’ Summer says, her tone weary, mechanical, as if this reprimand has been issued many times.

  ‘Once,’ the boy says without looking up.

  When he doesn’t elaborate she looks at Adam. ‘To see a specialist,’ she says.

  Once they are back on the main road the traffic quickly grows heavier, pushing forward in fits and starts. Outside Swaffham it finally comes to a halt. The heat is oppressive now, and while the sky is still clear a thunderhead is rising to the west. Glancing over his shoulder, Adam catches Summer’s eye, knows she has seen it too.

  Beside her Noah stares out across the fields, counting soundlessly as the landscape moves by. Although the situation still feels unreal, Adam’s shock is slowly wearing off, to be replaced by an echoing sense of the insuperability of the distance Summer has placed between the two of them.

  Yet despite his confusion there is also a part of him that is not surprised. For all that he loves her there was a
lways something self-abnegating in Summer’s nature, a tendency to wall herself off from others, to refuse assistance, that only grew more pronounced as she got older.

  But where had this tendency come from? In his darker moments he used to blame himself and Ellie, the messy nature of their final years together and eventual separation. He has read studies suggesting that the presence in early childhood of high levels of the chemicals associated with stress can alter the brain’s chemistry for life, making children more prone to depression, reducing their impulse control. Looking at her now, sitting with Noah in the seat behind him, he feels the prick of that guilt again.

  They are outside Cambridge when the traffic grinds to a halt once more. This time it is not a jam but a roadblock, maintained by green-clad soldiers and a pair of armoured vehicles. Climbing out, Adam is surprised to see Summer open the door behind him. Noah is still glued to his screen.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ she says.

  They make their way along the line of parked cars. To the south and west the clouds have grown heavier, a great mass of darkness filling half the sky, and the air is thick with humidity. At the barrier a crowd of thirty or forty has gathered, its mood tense. A pair of young men and an older woman are arguing with one of the soldiers.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Adam asks a man standing nearby.

  ‘They’re saying we need to go back to Norwich because the evac centre in Cambridge is full.’

  ‘But that’s insane,’ Summer says, stepping forward. ‘The feeds say Norwich is full as well.’

  The man looks her up and down. ‘I’m not the one you have to convince.’

  ‘What about people bound for London? Are they letting them through?’

  The man jerks his head towards the barrier. ‘Is there something wrong with your ears? The road’s closed.’

  In front of them the taller of the young men pressed against the barrier shouts, and lifting a finger jabs the soldier he’s been arguing with in the chest. Two of the other soldiers take a step forward.

  Adam grabs his daughter’s arm. ‘Let’s go,’ he says, but she is already backing away.

  At the car they lean close. ‘What are we going to do?’ Adam asks, glancing along the line of vehicles.

  ‘I don’t know. We can’t go back.’

  Adam looks up. The heat has reached a new crescendo and the cloud is beginning to blot out the sun. In the distance there is a rumble of thunder.

  ‘We need to get inside,’ he says. ‘And soon.’

  Summer stares at the people standing by their cars or seated on the verge fanning themselves. Lifting a hand to shade her eyes she looks out across the fields.

  ‘There,’ she says, careful not to point or make her attention too obvious. ‘That group of buildings.’

  Adam turns to follow her line of sight. ‘What if they don’t let us in?’ Flicking his overlays on he pulls up a map. ‘There’s some kind of designated shelter about three kilometres ahead. We can walk that in under an hour if we hurry.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  As she speaks a gust of wind licks its way through the grass towards them.

  ‘Leave it,’ Adam says.

  He grabs Summer’s bag while she gets Noah out of the car and clips his backpack around him. Then, eyes down and with Noah between them, they walk quickly along the line of cars until it is possible to cross the verge and clamber over the fence. As Adam helps Summer into the field a cry goes up ahead: the crowd is attempting to push past the roadblock, and Adam sees one of the soldiers bring the butt of his rifle down on a woman in a floral dress.

  Once they are far enough away from the roadblock they veer back towards the road. The wind is stronger now, the gusts faster, and thunder cracks and rumbles. The sun has disappeared behind the massing darkness of the clouds, and what light is left is weird, greenish; on the far side of the field a stand of trees bends before the wind, limbs dancing and thrashing in a strange, silent motion. Adam measures his pace, trying not to leave Summer and Noah behind, but he keeps having to slow down to let them catch up, willing himself to stay calm as they struggle towards him, until eventually he passes his bag to Summer, grasps Noah under the arms and swings the boy up.

  They are still a kilometre from the shelter when the first wave of the storm hits, a wall of rain racing across the fields towards them. Even after a lifetime in Sydney Adam finds the sheer volume of water startling, the way they are drenched almost immediately. Yet it isn’t the rain that is truly frightening but the wind, which strikes like a living thing, bending trees back upon themselves and flinging branches and bins and scraps of clothing through the air. In Adam’s arms Noah makes a low, keening noise, clinging to him like an animal.

  The rain is so heavy Adam misses the church that has been designated as the shelter, and it is only when Summer grabs his arm and pulls him around that he sees it through the murk. She shouts something at him but her words are swept away, then they are running together, bodies bent over against the force of the storm, up the path to the door.

  There are close to a hundred people inside, huddled on camp beds and pews, and while several greet them with cautious nods as they enter, nobody attempts to welcome them, until eventually a woman approaches with a blanket and ushers them to a clear space.

  Noah still clings to Adam, his eyes screwed shut. Pressing his face into the boy’s head, Adam breathes in the smell of his hair, a cold smell like leaves and forest water. He wraps the blanket around him, then unpicking his fingers, gently passes him to Summer. ‘He’s cold.’

  She folds him in her arms. ‘He’s safe,’ she says. ‘Which is what matters.’

  As it turns out, that first deluge is only the precursor to the real thing, which strikes in the early evening. At first it seems that the storm is ending, the wind dropping away to leave only the deafening clamour of the rain. But the lull lasts only a few minutes before it returns with a terrifying wailing sound that makes the building shift and pull. On the other side of the hall a baby begins to cry, but otherwise those gathered around them are silent, withdrawn.

  There is a primal quality to the sound of the wind, Adam thinks, about the force of the storm in general – he can feel it, an animal dread, deep in his body. With each gust and shake of the building, each groan of the roof, his dread is supplemented by the fear that the structure will give way, exposing them to the elements.

  Somewhere after midnight the wind begins to drop once more, its unearthly shriek fading to a low howl and the steady roar of the rain. Having held, the church now seems to move with the wind like a ship on the ocean.

  Around them figures lie sleeping or waiting. In another corner the vicar sits with a couple and their three small children, one hand on the woman’s shoulder. By the altar a group of young people – students perhaps – are huddled together, screens open in front of them.

  On the floor between Adam and Ellie, Noah lies curled in on himself, his head on his backpack. Earlier he was dreaming, his lips moving and his body jerking in some inward agitation, but now he is still, mouth slightly open, body loose.

  ‘I’m amazed he can sleep,’ Summer says, and Adam glances up and smiles.

  ‘Kids can sleep through anything.’

  She gives a soft snort. ‘Not Noah. He’s never been a sleeper.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’s better now. When he was a baby it was a disaster. He wouldn’t sleep for longer than forty-five minutes until he was fifteen months old, and even then it was only a few hours at a stretch.’

  ‘That must have been difficult.’

  She makes a small sound of resignation, and as he had in her garden Adam catches a glimpse of a profound weariness. ‘I’ve sort of given up. These days he just rattles about the house until he falls asleep.’

  ‘What about school?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to affect that.’

  Adam shifts so he can look at her more easily. ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘At school he’s okay. Excellent
at maths, good with computers. He has some trouble with language but he reads okay.’

  ‘Is there a prognosis of some kind, an assessment?’

  ‘He’s reasonably high-functioning, but he’ll never be normal.’

  ‘And at home?’

  ‘You saw.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s hard. He needs so much looking after.’

  ‘But you’re good with him.’

  ‘No,’ she says, a tic of anger moving beneath her words. ‘No, I’m not. I’m angry with him all the time. I can’t help it, I get frustrated – he’s frustrating – but I lose it with him and then feel bad because it wasn’t his fault. I tell myself I won’t do it again but then I do and I feel worse. It’s not fair on him, but half the time I don’t care.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I once read something by a woman who said that the one thing no mother would say was that she wished she hadn’t had children, that she would have been better off without them.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I do wish it. All the time.’

  Adam considers extending a hand, taking hers, but her expression warns him not to. ‘Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped.’

  She glares at him. ‘How? By offering me advice and telling me what I’m doing wrong?’ She catches herself, and for several seconds the two of them sit in silence. When she continues her voice is quieter, more careful.

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to be like this. When I left I needed to believe I could make things different, better somehow, but that didn’t work out, and after that things were such a mess that I thought it would be better if I stayed away.’

  ‘Even with Noah?’

  Her expression is unreadable. ‘Even with Noah.’

  Around daybreak the steady roar of the rain on the roof slows, becomes quieter, more random, before finally stopping altogether. Rising, Adam picks his way across sleeping bodies to the door.

  Outside first light is visible, the high cloud that covers the sky pearl-grey and pink, its beauty at odds with the fury just gone. The wind has dropped as well, but as he steps away from the church the evidence of its passage is everywhere. On all sides trees lie tumbled and bent, branches and leaves spread across the open ground. Further down, great pools of water cover the road and footpath.