Children of the Dust

by Louise Lawrence

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Veronica muttered.

  ‘I’m not a baby!’ Sarah retorted. ‘We’ve got to talk.’

  ‘Not in front of Catherine.’

  ‘She’s asleep. I can hear her breathing. We’ll never stand living like this, Veronica. We’ve got to have some sort of plan.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Veronica asked her.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to manage as best we can. Live each day at a time and try not to think of it.’

  ‘We’d be better off dead!’ Sarah said bitterly.

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Veronica begged.

  ‘It’s true!’ said Sarah. ‘There’s only one thing worse than dying in a nuclear war, and that’s surviving! We haven’t started yet! Even if we live through the next fourteen days there will be nothing left at the end of it . . . just ruins and radiation sickness . . . no one to help us, no means of living. Even the soil and water will be contaminated! We’ll die anyway, so what’s the point in trying to survive now?’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ Veronica asked quietly.

  ‘We could get something from the chemist’s.’

  ‘Commit suicide, you mean? Is that what you want to do?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Sarah asked.

  Veronica sighed.

  ‘If it were only myself I think I wouldn’t hesitate. But I’ve Catherine and William to consider. It mightn’t be as bad as we think, and they might still have a future. I’ve got no right to take it away, Sarah.’

  ‘What about me?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I can’t answer for you,’ said Veronica.

  Sarah chewed her finger nails. A sick heavy feeling lodged in her stomach, a dull acceptance that was worse than fear. She sensed that the future held no hope, at least not for herself. But Veronica was compelled to live for the sake of William and Catherine, and so too was Sarah, because that was the only purpose she had left.

  Sarah awoke in the stinking stifling dark to the sound of Buster howling around the walls and William asking to get up. It was not time, Veronica said. But Sarah’s watch showed ten minutes past ten. It was Tuesday morning, the late beginning of another day, and Veronica was trying to delay the start of it. ‘Go back to sleep!’ she said curtly. But William had slept already for thirteen hours and would not sleep again, not with Buster yelping outside.

  ‘He wants his breakfast!’ William said angrily.

  ‘And I do,’ said Catherine.

  ‘We have to get up sometime,’ Sarah said.

  Veronica switched on the torch. In her crumpled clothes, her hair dishevelled, she rose from the settee and crossed the muddles of the floor. There were tear-stains on her face and reflections shone on the blank television screen. A photograph of Sarah’s father watched from the mantelpiece as she washed in a bucket of cold water and ran a comb through the tangles of her hair. Then she lit the second candle, switched off the torch, and lifted the blanket that draped the table.

  ‘All right, you can come out now. Wash your faces and hands in the end bucket and find something to wear.’

  ‘You said we didn’t have to wash,’ Catherine reminded her.

  ‘So get yourself dressed then.’

  ‘I want to stay in my house.’

  ‘You can’t stay in there all day!’

  ‘I shall stay in here for ever and ever,’ Catherine said stubbornly.

  ‘I’m going to let Buster in,’ said William.

  ‘You’re to leave him where he is!’ Veronica snapped.

  ‘You said he could come in!’ William argued. ‘Tomorrow, you said. And this is tomorrow!’

  ‘He can come in later,’ Veronica promised.

  ‘I want him to come in now!’

  William stamped his foot.

  ‘Do as I tell you!’ Veronica scolded. ‘And come away from that door!’

  ‘I hate you!’ William screeched.

  Sarah wiped her face with a wet flannel, pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt as Veronica cooked bacon and sausages and sliced tomatoes over the camping stove. Already the situation was beginning to get on Veronica’s nerves. Catherine behaved well. She tidied her house below the table, made a table-cloth with a spread-out newspaper, and ate her breakfast with two slices of bread and a mug of tea. But William refused to change from his pyjamas. He sat and sulked in the corner by the settee as Buster howled outside and the sausages and bacon congealed on the plate.

  ‘I don’t want no breakfast!’ William said savagely. ‘If Buster’s not having any then I’m not having any neither! So there! And you’ll be sorry then when I’m starved to death!’

  ‘Don’t count on it!’ Veronica said brutally.

  Someone had to get through to William. Someone had to explain about Buster and persuade him to eat. But Veronica was in one of her moods, brooding and silent, eating her breakfast at the far end of the settee. It had to be Sarah. It had to be Sarah who put aside everything she felt, who dug deeper than grief or worry into the still quiet centre of herself, and did what Veronica could not.

  She sat on the floor beside her small half-brother and took him in her arms. He was the only reason she would go on living and she gave him all she had . . . her pity, her comfort and her love. And perhaps she had never loved William before, but she loved him then. And she told him what he needed to know. Outside there was dust, falling like snow, and if they opened the door to let Buster in the dust would come in too, and kill them. He had to be brave and strong, do what Veronica asked, and eat his breakfast.

  ‘Will the dust kill Buster?’ William inquired.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Why tell him that?’ Veronica said angrily.

  ‘Because it’s true,’ said Sarah. ‘And he has to know.’

  It was odd how easily William accepted that Buster was going to die – how he could talk of it without tears or emotion and eat his breakfast as he did so. And when the room snuffed back into darkness it was William who shouted, ‘Go away, Buster! You can’t come in!’

  ‘Poor little Buster,’ Catherine sobbed.

  ‘Jesus will look after him,’ Veronica told her.

  Jesus would not give him food and water, Sarah thought. And nor could she and Veronica sit there and let Buster die. Not even Veronica could be that uncaring. Underneath she would be feeling it, suffering it, the slow sad lingering hours and days of Buster’s life. Sarah knew that in the end she would give in and go outside. For a gold cocker spaniel Veronica would die.

  And then Sarah would be left alone to keep William and Catherine alive, foraging among the ruins of the village when their food supplies ran out. She tried not to think of it, but in the hot dark room there was nothing else to do but think. She could find in her thoughts no hope or consolation, but neither did she dread the time that was to come. Perhaps she was beyond fear. That moment when she had taken William in her arms had awakened something inside her . . . a calm and strength as she had never known before. She felt there was something in her own being which nothing could destroy, that whatever occurred, however terrible, Sarah knew she could bear it.

  There was nothing left that Sarah could want for herself, or even hope for. What remained of her life belonged to them . . . to William and Catherine and Veronica, people trapped with her in the wailing, whining, grieving, bickering dark. She was adrift: in a black sea of time, awaiting her cue to placate, or comfort, or mediate. Knowing how to pity she did not need to forgive . . . the stench of human excrement, Buster’s sad doggy song going on and on, William’s anger and frustration, and Veronica’s moods of violence and despair.

  ‘Why can’t I watch television?’ William asked.

  ‘Because there’s no electricity!’ Veronica snapped. ‘How many more times do I have to tell you?’

  ‘Then why don’t you switch the lights on?’ William said furiously. ‘Then we’ll have electric, won’t we? And I can watch television then!’

  Sarah tried to explain. She told him about power
stations and power lines and the effects of nuclear war. There were no mains services . . . no lights, no water, no television, no schools, no hospitals and no delivery vans. The world as they had known it was gone. William listened and questioned and finally, in his own five-year-old language, he understood. There would be no chocolate, no Atari space games, no trips to the supermarket, no cowboy films, no birthday parties and no Father Christmas, ever again. Just ruins and dust, cold baked beans for dinner when the gas ran out, and twelve more days of almost total darkness. And not even Veronica could change things, Sarah said. She might be his mother, and she might be grown up, but she could not put things right.

  ‘So you mustn’t blame her because you can’t watch television,’ Sarah reasoned.

  For several minutes William thought of it.

  ‘In the dark,’ he concluded, ‘you can’t do nothing much.’

  ‘Blind people can,’ Catherine said smugly.

  ‘Blind people have white sticks!’ William said scornfully.

  ‘Not all of them,’ said Catherine. ‘Mrs Wetherby doesn’t, and she can do most things. If we were blind we could do most things too. We could find your Tonka truck, William. And my Barbie doll.’

  Sarah held her breath. Catherine was only eight but her child’s imagination had seen a way to live in the dark without eyes. They did not have to be helpless. They could hear sounds, distinguish things by touch. They could restore order to the chaos of the room, clear the floor and learn to move about. They could play the blind game. It would give them a purpose, fill the empty hours between one meal and the next. And a stake from the potted begonia could be William’s white stick.

  ‘Listen!’ said Sarah. ‘We’re going to play the blind game.’

  Veronica said she was not in the mood to play games but she did tell them what to do, her voice organizing their activity. They emptied the cardboard box of the last of the freezer food, packed it full of glass and crystal from the sideboard which they would never use again, and stowed it in the corner behind the easy chair along with the contents of the drawers. The drawers were used for socks and underwear, and the sideboard shelves were used for storing clothes, everything neatly folded and put away. All the unnecessary things the room contained were also dumped in the corner . . . vases and ornaments, the magazine rack, books and the reading lamp, and the silver coffee set Aunt Maud had given for a wedding present. The bookcase became a food store and Catherine arranged the tins on the shelves, stacked saucepans and crockery along the top. They moved Sarah’s bed behind the settee and made a toilet in the alcove by the hall door. William and Sarah between them hammered nails into the wall, made a line with a piece of string and hung a blanket over it, hoping it would hide the smell.

  When they relit the second candle the room looked strange and tidy . . . dining chairs stacked on the side board, the furniture moved to unfamiliar places around the walls, a central space, and private shadowy territories. William, who had an apartment in the second easy chair, sat fiddling with the wheels of his Tonka truck as Veronica cooked beefburgers, peas and the rest of the crinkle cut chips. They had cold custard and a carton of thawed raspberries for pudding.

  It was an amalgamation of tea and dinner, the grandfather clock striking five on a May afternoon. But time and seasons had lost their meaning. They ate because they were hungry, and it might have been winter in the darkness and candlelight and stuffy inside warmth. They even lit a fire, burned the rubbish collected in the hearth, the litter of civilized pre-packaging and paper tissues. For a while the room was bright and cheerful until the last flame died. Then they were back in the darkness again, each one sitting alone in their allotted places.

  ‘I’m in my house,’ said Catherine.

  ‘I’m in my apartment,’ said William.

  ‘Where are you, Mummy?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Blackpool beach,’ Veronica said wearily.

  Sarah was sitting on her bed behind the settee.

  And the grandfather clock chimed six.

  ‘We ought to start food-rationing tomorrow,’ Sarah said. ‘And we could all do with a proper wash.’

  ‘Body smells and dirty clothes,’ Veronica murmured. ‘What’s the point in trying to keep up civilized standards?’

  William’s Tonka truck zoomed across the carpet.

  ‘I haven’t heard Buster for ages,’ said William.

  ‘I expect he’s dead,’ said Catherine matter-of-factly.

  ‘Not already,’ Sarah said firmly.

  ‘He must be asleep somewhere,’ Veronica said.

  ‘Or dying of hunger,’ William said.

  ‘What will you do about him?’ Sarah asked Veronica.

  Veronica made no answer.

  ‘You’ll go and see to him, won’t you?’

  ‘I can’t just leave him to die,’ Veronica said.

  ‘Will you go now? Today?’

  Veronica sighed.

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Starvation won’t hurt him for one more night.’

  Perhaps, Sarah thought, it was something to look forward to, Veronica going outside. It would make their isolation easier to bear, knowing the world was still there, seeing the trees and the houses. It would help them to realize there were others like themselves . . . fat Mrs Porter across the common, the Spencers in Brookside Cottage, Harrowgate Farm on top of the hill. There would be flowers still blooming in the garden, leaves on the apple trees, birds perhaps, and animals. Because, of course, the world had not yet ended. It would die gradually, just as they would, and perhaps through Veronica’s eyes they would see it again before its beauty was gone.

  When the candle was lit to mark the beginning of another day, Sarah took the sewing basket from beneath the television table. She made a pair of bloomers from a black polythene garbage bag, with shirring elastic at the waist and legs. She made a tunic with elasticated sleeves from a second garbage bag, and from a third she made a pair of over socks which reached above Veronica’s knees. Her body was completely covered. A transparent freezer bag with pinprick holes to let in the air made a helmet, and there were rubber house gloves in the kitchen drawer. Dressed in her makeshift protective clothing Veronica made ready to go outside and Sarah peeled away the sticky tape from around the door.

  ‘You’d better go under the table with William and Catherine,’ Veronica told her.

  Sarah nodded, blew out the candle, and crawled into the stifling blanketed darkness of Catherine’s house. How Catherine could stay under there for hour after hour was quite beyond her. She thought she would suffocate with every breath. She could feel the heat of William’s body beside her as she listened to the opening and closing of the door, the shuffle of footsteps across the kitchen and the rattle of the safety chain. Muffled by walls came Buster’s joyful greeting, whimpering and whining, and Veronica’s indistinguishable replies.

  ‘I want to go and see Buster too!’ said William. ‘You could make me a garbage bag suit, Sarah. There’s one behind the chair. We could empty the things and I could go with Mummy.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Sarah told him.

  ‘Little boys have to stay inside,’ Catherine said crushingly.

  ‘I’m not a little boy!’ William said furiously.

  ‘Listen!’ said Sarah.

  They could hear Veronica walking around outside the house. The lid of the rain barrel clattered as she gave Buster water. There were sounds from the garage and garden tools falling, Veronica coming back to the house and calling to Sarah . . . but William was at the door before her and grey daylight flooded the room.

  ‘Can we come out?’ William asked eagerly.

  ‘Go back under that table!’ Veronica said savagely.

  Sarah pushed William behind her, closed the door to a crack. He screamed and pummelled her but she would not let him pass. Finally she spanked him, hard around the legs, and sent him screaming into the dark far recesses of the room.

  ‘Sarah hit me, Mummy!’

  ‘When I come
in I’ll give you another!’ Veronica told him. ‘Take hold of this,’ she said to Sarah.

  It was meat from the freezer which had not yet gone bad . . . beef and liver and two packets of sodden vegetables. Veronica also said she would bury the contents of the commode whilst she was outside, and if Sarah would give her the front door key from her purse she would fetch disinfectant from the bathroom and the air-freshener spray.

  Veronica came and went as William continued his tantrum. Sarah heard water flush from the hot water tap and the chink of china. She heard Veronica moving through the upstairs rooms, and Buster whining in the kitchen, but she would not let him into the room for all William screamed. Finally Veronica returned and sent Buster outside, took off her garbage bag clothes and re-entered the darkness. She had brought the Lego bricks for William to play with and clothes for Catherine’s Barbie doll, and the room smelled strong and sweet with bouquet of pine.

  ‘What was it like outside?’ Sarah asked her.

  It was grey, said Veronica. Grey and eerie . . . semi-darkness, and a windless silence like the hush before the storm. Only the storm had already happened . . . flowers battered and broken, trees uprooted in the larch plantation, the roof gone from Mrs Porter’s house, and trailing telephone wires. And the darkness was not cloud, Veronica said. It was dust. Dust falling over everything, grey on the grass, and the rhubarb leaves, and on the surface of the water in the rain barrel.

  ‘Depressing,’ said Veronica. ‘Horrible and depressing.’

  It was radioactive fall-out, Sarah thought. In a few days everything would be dead, plant life and animal life choked by the dust, and Buster would not live long. Almost Sarah wished that Veronica had not gone outside. She had wanted to hear about sunlight and flowers, not reality and radioactive dust.

  Time passed long and gruelling, filled with intimations of death, and William plagued them worse than boredom. He was driving Veronica mad with his whining and grizzling and incessant complaints. Catherine used the Lego bricks to build furniture for her Barbie doll and there was nothing for Sarah to do except help Veronica prepare for the next meal.

  Using only their sense of touch they cut the joint of beef into tiny fragments, diced carrots and onions, added salt and pepper, half a stock cube and a pint of water, and set it to stew on the camping stove. The flame of the burner shed a small blue light, enough to distinguish the shapes of things, and the smell of cooking grew savoury and strong. Every two minutes William asked if it were ready. But the stew was for tomorrow, Veronica said. He had to wait until it was cooked, then wait again whilst she fried the liver and onions and boiled a bag of mixed vegetables.