by Frank Tayell
“Are you thinking of going to Elysium, then?”
George stopped. “I was an old man, ready for the grave,” he said, all joviality gone from his voice. “I met Mary, and she gave me a new lease. Then there was the outbreak. That certainly extended my lease on life, but I was borrowing it from the only end available.” He tapped his slung arm. “The bullet took that away. We’re old, Mary and I, we’re an old couple who escaped a retirement home. I drove a bus, and then dabbled with middle management. Mary was a teacher. We’re not leaders. We’re not generals. We’re not politicians. You are. You wanted to be prime minister. That was your goal, wasn’t it? You planned on getting Jen Masterton to Number 10, and then you planned on following her there. Well, this was your shot. This was your chance. This was what you wanted: a chance to lead. You were meant to be the candidate. Not Donnie, he’s still just a kid, and look at what happened to him.” He started walking. “You were meant to be the candidate,” he repeated. He stopped again. “Seriously? Did I have to spell it out for you? You had the book, didn’t you?”
“What book? A playbook?” I asked, confused.
“Every politician who wants to lead writes a book,” George said. “Everyone read your journal. Everyone knew you. They knew the worst of you. All you had to do was prove that you were now the better part.”
“The journal… wait, did you put Annette up to it? Did you get her to copy it?”
“Me? Not me,” he said.
“Mary, then?”
“Your destiny came knocking,” George said. “You knew there was an election, I told you to organise it, and what did you do? You wrote into the rules that the person running it couldn’t be a candidate, and then you left for Ireland.”
“I only went because Sholto twisted his ankle.”
“Yeah, right,” George said. He walked up the hill. “Consciously or subconsciously, you knew what was being asked of you. How did you respond? You ran away. What we have now is a mess of your making. That makes it your problem. Yes, we’re running out of food, of ammo, of people, of time. Mary and I have less of it left than anyone else. After what we’ve done, we’ve earned the right to enjoy a few months of peace. The question is whether we’ll find that peace here. Now, I’ve got to speak to Chief Watts about the power plant. You better speak to your candidate. You didn’t pick him, but he is yours.”
I watched George walk slowly up the hill, and then turned around. The old man wasn’t telling me everything. It seemed like everyone had their own schemes and plans, and if Dr Umbert was going to win the election, I needed some of my own. I went to find the candidate.
Chapter 11 - The Third Candidate
“Ah, Bartholomew,” Dr Umbert said cheerfully. “How are you? How are the children?”
“The children are fine,” I said, as I took in the tearoom that had become Umbert’s campaign headquarters. Most of the tables had been pushed together, making room for eighteen people to sit down. The chiller cabinets had been covered with a hand-painted poster that read ‘Our Choice, Our Future’.
“Children can be remarkably resilient,” Umbert said, “but it’s important to remember that resilience is often only skin deep. Is Daisy sleeping through the night?”
“Um… not the last few nights, four hours I think was the most,” I said.
“You were on a ship. Unfamiliar surroundings can play havoc with a child’s routine, and routine is important. How is Annette, does she still have the nightmares?”
“We’re all fine,” I said, “but I didn’t come here to talk about the children.”
“Don’t you think there should always be time to talk about the children?” Umbert asked.
“Maybe,” I said, not willing to get drawn in. I’d met him a few times during our early days on the island when he’d been treating Daisy and Annette. From the first, I felt that he was analysing everything I said, and with that analysis came a judgement he never shared.
“You’re back!” a woman said in a familiarly soft Scottish brogue. I turned around and saw Lorraine come through from the back of the tearoom. Shockingly, she wore a suit of dark maroon with a flash of black along the skirt’s hem and the jacket’s collar. Perhaps even more shocking were her heels. They were only an inch high, but it was the first time since the outbreak I’d seen anyone dress so impractically.
“Hi, Lorraine,” I said. “Nice outfit.”
“I thought I should dress the part,” she said.
“And what part’s that?” I asked.
“I am the official clock-watcher,” she said. “Also known as campaign co-ordinator.”
“Sholto said you’d been helping out,” I said.
“Huh.” She gave a dismissive grunt which, considering Sholto’s plans, I could easily interpret as meaning she was running the campaign while he was plotting its subversion.
“What about you, Dr Umbert, why aren’t you in a suit?” I asked. Umbert wore a pair of dark combat-trousers, clean but unpolished boots, and a blue woollen jumper. It wasn’t quite wasteland-wear, but it wasn’t candidate-casual, either.
“Please, call me Lionel,” Umbert said. “As for my clothes, Markus wears a suit. A three-piece with a lightning-blue lining. The level of ostentation is interesting, betraying the man’s own deep-seated insecurity. He doesn’t know how to be a politician, so he tries to look like one instead. It’s obvious that conflicts with his desire to take advantage of these extraordinary circumstances and dress in a fashion that he has always admired. I imagine it comes from his childhood a—” Lorraine gave a loud cough. “Ah, yes,” Umbert changed tack, returning to topic. “This is my man-of-the-people outfit.”
He looked uncomfortable, with the tone to match, but he didn’t look out of place.
“Smart move,” I said. Lorraine relaxed fractionally. “How’s the campaign going?”
“Slow and steady,” Umbert said.
“Aye,” Lorraine said. “Give us a year and we’ll win over everyone. Is there really no way of getting the election pushed back, even just to the end of the month? Sholto said there wasn’t, but… um…”
“We thought that since you originally wrote the rules, you might have put in an escape clause of some kind,” Umbert said.
George, I realised, was right. I’d been asked to organise an election, but what the old man had meant was that I’d been tasked to arrange a victory. Instead, and whether it was a subconscious decision or not, I’d run away to Ireland.
“Sorry,” I said, with what I hoped was a reassuring smile, “we can’t change the date, but I don’t think we need to. What’s your strategy been so far?”
“All politics is local, isn’t it?” Dr Umbert said. “I heard that given as an excuse when a favoured candidate lost. However, I know that popularity is key to gaining support in all avenues of life. We’ve been holding small gatherings, convincing electors one at a time.”
“Not quite one at a time,” Lorraine said. “We gather between ten and twenty people, about a third of whom are already our supporters. When they leave here, they are all our supporters, and their minds don’t change.”
“Most leave having offered us their support,” Umbert said. “As to whether that support is unwavering, only the ballot box will tell.”
Lorraine rolled her eyes.
“How long are these sessions?” I asked.
“We manage two or three a day,” Lorraine said.
“What about speeches?” I asked.
“I’m not the most adapt at public speaking,” Umbert said. “It doesn’t come naturally, or easily, not to a crowd. I had many patients who suffered from workplace-associated anxiety. My advice was always that they should play to their strengths. Mine is talking to individuals and small groups.”
“I thought your specialty was children,” I said, as I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“It wasn’t always,” Umbert said. “Besides, one can’t treat a child without treating their parents.”
Again I felt like the patient,
and wished I’d remained standing. To hide my discomfort, I took in the room. Opposite the now-defunct register was a blackboard. On it was a long list that began with Scottish pancakes and ended with Welsh rarebit.
“You hold these meetings here?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” Lorraine said.
“And you serve food?” I asked.
They both followed the line of my gaze.
“Wishful thinking,” Lorraine said.
“A reminder of the simple things we once had,” Umbert said. “It poses the question of whether we wish to have them again.”
Personally, it was just making me hungry. “Do you have any experience of politics?” I asked Umbert.
“Only as a voter,” he said.
“So why did you put your name forward?” I asked. “Why do you want to be the leader of humanity? That’s what this job is.”
“Considering the alternative candidates—” he began.
“No,” I interrupted. “As I understand it, when you put your name forward, there were hundreds of candidates. You didn’t know it would end up with only you and Markus.”
“And Bishop,” Lorraine added.
“And him,” I said. “So why, Lionel, did you stand?”
“We don’t need a leader,” he said. “We need an administrator. A co-ordinator. How much do you know about farming?”
“I know which end of the shovel goes in the ground,” I said.
“Which is more than some of us,” he said. “You should go to Menai Bridge and see the indoor farms. You’ve heard of those?”
“That terraced houses have been turned into greenhouses. For growing salads,” I said.
“Oh, it’s far more than that,” Lorraine said. “Heather’s done marvels, though most of it was done by the Duponts. You can’t just put a tray of plants inside. You have to take out the carpets, moderate for moisture, monitor temperature and light.” She sounded wistful. “A lot of it’s experimental, and a lot of the experiments have been a failure, but as long as we have electricity, we’ll have enough seeds to plant across the entire island next spring. Not only salad, but wheat and oats, potatoes and cabbages, maybe even peas.”
“But we should leave the farming to the farmers,” Umbert said, in what was a clear echo of George and Mary. “A politician’s interference will only consume time we do not have. Do you know about fishing? Beyond throwing a hook into the water, I mean? No, nor do I. Leave the fishing to the fishers, the fighting to the soldiers. I imagine that is an area in which you have become an expert, but do you know how to train another to be just as good? What do you know of medicine? Do you know how to make medicine from the precursor chemicals? What do you know of making those chemicals from the raw elements, and do you know how to refine those? I don’t. Others on this island do. We are an island of adults. Each person, in growing to maturity, becomes an expert in some field or another. Even the most esoteric of those can be put to some use here. Thus, in order to thrive, we must focus on our own area of expertise, and let others do likewise.”
“Agreed,” I said, “but by your own admission, you’re no expert in politics.”
“What is politics,” he replied, “but a manifestation of the collective will of the people? I know people. I know how they work, and I know what breaks them. I know how much they can endure, and how they can recover. We’ve been through a great trauma, and that is what currently binds us together. From the moment the election was announced, I listened to how people discussed the future that would come after. That future was remarkably similar to the past that we lost. To give you an example, when word spread that a radio antenna might be built, it soon became a common belief that we’d have broadcast television again.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Markus started that rumour,” Lorraine said.
“I don’t know if he started it,” Dr Umbert said, “but he watered the seed of belief with a speech saying there was no reason that we couldn’t. Technically, he is correct, since we have the technological know-how, but the same could be said for many things that we will not see again for centuries. The upshot, though, is that people began stockpiling televisions. It wasn’t many people. Only a few dozen, but they intended to get rich on the resale of the equipment in a few short years. No matter that the televisions were all digital and we’ve not yet built an analogue station. A little daydreaming is healthy, but not when it becomes a fantasist’s excuse to reject reality. Then Markus began buying up all of the old analogue radio sets, offering beer in exchange. Now, he saw the real future before us, but his actions compounded the problem as much as they gave us an insight into his true plans. I never imagined he’d run for office. He is really not the type. He might buy a candidate, yes, but not stand himself. I entered the race to bring a little realism to an otherwise unreal affair.”
“You should have heard what some of them were saying,” Lorraine said. “The ones that Markus got to drop out. They spoke like we were going to get back everything that we lost, and more. Like we were going back to space, even. Like we could turn back time.”
“Precisely,” Umbert said. “And that is dangerous. You know people have been leaving? Taking their boats out and not returning? Everyone might like to believe that they are seeking their fortunes elsewhere. A different description would be that it was murder-suicide.”
“That’s a grim conclusion,” I said.
“Yet as valid a theory as that they’ve sailed off into the sunset, seeking the new world,” Umbert said. “They are not the only suicides. We are averaging at least one a day. Sometimes it is someone with a chronic disease exacerbated by exposure to radiation, but chronic is not the same as terminal, and terminal doesn’t mean you will die today. That is the reality of our situation. That is what we must face, yet no one is.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I try not to think about the radiation, and what that’s done to our life expectancy.”
“At any other time, that approach is sensible, but not while we were are planning the future of our species. There is a theory, only a theory and a controversial one at that, but it was widely believed that humanity faced such a near-extinction event seventy-five thousand years ago. There is evidence of a genetic bottleneck. As I say, it was only a theory, but it suggested humanity had been reduced to around ten thousand, and is given as a reason for the absence of genetic diversity in our species. We’ve similar numbers now, but individually we don’t have the skills to survive. Collectively we might, but it will be a close-run thing, a contest that will be waged over the coming centuries. Yes, this is about the future of our species. That’s why I put my name forward. I didn’t think I’d be a contender. I thought I’d get a chance to give a speech or two, perhaps drag the contest a little towards the practical. Yet now I am the only voice of reason against two thoroughly unreasonable men. I wish I wasn’t, but so it goes.”
“I told Heather she should have run,” Lorraine said.
“Why didn’t she?” I asked.
Lorraine shrugged, unwilling to share.
I turned to Umbert. “What are your plans when you win?”
“If I win,” he said.
“If you don’t think you’ll win, then you might as well give up now,” I said. “Believe in yourself, or no one else will.”
“I would never tell someone that,” he said. “I would say that it is best to believe in yourself, regardless of what others think.”
“Either way,” I said, “you’re going to win, so what’ll you do then? Broadly?”
“Continue with what we are doing now,” he said. “We have a fragile society, but remarkably little crime. Other than suicides, we have few deaths. The number of pregnancies is increasing. Disease and illness are rare, though with a caveat associated with the aforementioned radiation poisoning. In short, we need to concentrate on keeping it that way. Farming, fishing, and education should be our priorities. Education for adults as well as children. For the rest, for those who don’t want to to
il in a field, we should continue searching for survivors. Work is important, a sense of personal fulfilment essential to the mental health of the population. There is a broader need for a sense of purpose to our community’s existence. If we isolate ourselves, we will begin projecting our anger inwards. We will bicker and fight because we can’t flee. It will be the end of our species, and that is what Markus’s victory will bring. To prevent that, we must look outwards, not just to Britain but also beyond. In doing so, the unknown can be harnessed as our inspiration rather than the terror keeping us frightened, febrile, and fading.”
“Sounds good,” I said. I was honestly relieved. He wasn’t an ideal candidate, but he would do.
“We just have to win,” Lorraine said. “Any suggestions as to how?”
“A few,” I said. “If I had six months, I’d win you a landslide, but we don’t have that long, and you won’t win enough votes talking to people ten at a time.”
“We won’t get them all in the same place again, not like when the plane landed,” Lorraine said.
“We might,” I said, “but we don’t have to. We still have technology. Mrs O’Leary still controls the photocopiers, right? After that incident with Annette copying my journal, she gathered all the toner, didn’t she? We’ll put out a few pamphlets.”
“That won’t be enough,” Umbert said.
“That depends on the message,” I said, “and—” And I was interrupted by a digital beeping.
“My alarm,” Lorraine said, switching it off. “We’ve another meeting in a few minutes. Do you want us to cancel?”
“No, keep at it,” I said. “I’ll have a think about speeches and pamphlets and the like. Oh, there was something else, Lorraine.” I opened my pack and took out the notebook, and found the photograph we’d taken from the bunker in Belfast. “Do you recognise any of these people?”
“Her,” Lorraine said. “That’s Lisa Kempton, the billionaire.”
“Anyone else?”