Children of the Dust

by Louise Lawrence

  ‘You shouldn’t be waiting on anyone in your condition,’ Ophelia told her.

  Catherine smiled.

  ‘It’s a perfectly normal condition for a woman, and I’ve Lilith to help me when she gets home. You lie down and rest.’

  ‘You’re the one who should be resting,’ Ophelia objected.

  Catherine sighed.

  ‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ she said. ‘I’ve been through it enough times before. The little one’s fate has nothing to do with rest and nourishment. It’s genetics, Johnson says. We’re genetically damaged, you see? Lilith laid the last one outside in the snow. Better a quick death than weeks of suffering. The poor little thing was too deformed to live for very long and Lilith always sees what chance of life a baby has. Sometimes I think she sees too much, but Johnson says we have to heed her, however hard it seems.’

  It was horrible! Everything about this place was horrible! Lilith had killed her own mother’s child and Ophelia did not want to meet her. She wanted to go home, back to the bunker, blot out everything she had heard and seen. Her head ached violently. Her stomach churned, and voices murmured in the rooms below.

  ‘Will you ask Daddy to bring my water?’ Ophelia said. ‘I want to talk to him.’

  Catherine nodded, opened the windows, drew the curtains, and went downstairs. Ophelia undressed, put on the blue nylon nightdress and lay on the bed. The clean sheets smelled of lavender. Sleepy afternoon sounds of birds and children drifted in from outside, and the curtains fluttered in the breeze. Cool shade surrounded her. She wanted to sleep but she had to wait for her father. She had to tell him that no matter what happened, no matter what the punishment was, she wanted to go home, back to the bunker, away from this cruel outside world which she could not bear.

  When Ophelia awoke the room was dim with shadows. It must have been evening by the smells of smoke and cooking, the noise and bustle of the settlement outside. But the room contained its own silence and she was suddenly aware that she was not alone. Ophelia turned her head. A skinny flaxen-haired girl stood beside her bed with a cup in her hand. In the dusky half-light Ophelia could not see her clearly, just the pale oval of her face, the smudges of her eyes, a wraith-like figure in a shapeless grey dress. Ophelia sat up.

  ‘I asked Daddy to bring my water,’ she said.

  The girl stared at her, unseen eyes taking her in. She pointed to the bedside table where a glass of water stood, then thrust the cup into Ophelia’s hands and gestured her to drink.

  ‘What is it?’ Ophelia asked suspiciously.

  The gesture was repeated, and Ophelia drank . . . liquid that was strong and bitter and as cold as ice. A herbal brew. Something to cure the sickness, Catherine had said. It tasted horrible, but the still imperious gaze of the girl stayed fixed on her face, ruthlessly commanding her to finish every last drop. Then she took back the cup and turned to go. Light from the passageway touched her eyes, the blank whiteness of the congenitally blind. Radiation damage. She had obviously been born dumb as well as blind. Just for a moment Ophelia pitied her until the girl paused in the doorway and looked back. Fear crawled through the nerves of her stomach. She got the feeling that the girl was not blind at all, that she could see everything Ophelia was, and the pity was all on her.

  ‘Are you Lilith?’ she asked.

  And the girl nodded her head.

  Morning sun lay bright outside the window but sleep sucked at Ophelia’s mind and she had to struggle to open her eyes. Her father was shaking her, ordering her to wake, trying to tell her something. Cattle and childbirth and Colonel Allison were all mixed up together. She was drugged and dozy, unable to understand. He had to shake her again and make her sit up.

  ‘Are you listening?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Lilith,’ muttered Ophelia.

  ‘She’s downstairs. Catherine’s in labour and Colonel Allison is on his way. I want you to keep an eye on Dwight. He’s all steamed up and likely to do something stupid. Johnson and I are going to try reason, and Dwight’s not in the mood for that. You’ll have to keep him out of the way . . . take him for a walk, or something.’

  ‘But what about the cattle?’ Ophelia asked.

  ‘I’ve just told you!’ said Bill. ‘What’s the matter with you? They’re milk cows mostly, and in-calf heifers. We couldn’t get them away because there’s nowhere to drive them to, nowhere else with enough grass to feed a herd that size. We got the stud bulls away last night but the rest are still here.’ Bill tossed her clothes on the bed. ‘Just take care of Dwight,’ he said. ‘That’s all I ask.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Ophelia stated.

  ‘When this is over.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bill said impatiently. ‘I already promised your mother. There’s work to do at the bunker and you don’t want to stay here, do you?’

  He went away and Ophelia sighed happily, lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Erica had made Bill promise, and they would be going home. She did not care what happened now. Maybe she had never really cared, not even if Catherine was her sister. The problems of the outsiders were not her problems. They had problems of their own back at the bunker and that was where Ophelia belonged, Dwight too. There was something she had to do about Dwight . . . something her father had told her which she could not remember because all she wanted to do was sleep, and sleep and sleep.

  Downstairs someone was screaming. Ophelia shot out of bed, grabbed her underwear and overall and started to dress. Catherine was having the baby and she had to help, Bill had said. Her head was so muzzy she could hardly think. She went to the window and breathed in the chilly morning air. It was still early. The sky was changing from pearly pink to blue, the glasshouses misted with condensation, the bean fields sparkling with dew. Johnson and her father were going slowly up the track and the settlement was coming awake, women collecting firewood from the stack, men emptying the lavatory buckets, and a solitary child drawing water from the well.

  Ophelia stared at him, a stark naked little boy of six or seven with bulbous joints and rickety legs. He seemed to be carrying something on his shoulders, a lolling fleshy growth the size of a human head. And then she saw that it was a head, a second head attached to a second neck, but only partly formed, a hideous foetal thing with a bulging brain. In pity and revulsion Ophelia turned away and went downstairs.

  Lilith was sitting on the sofa where Johnson had lain. She sat with her hands in her lap as if she were waiting, an evil child who killed her mother’s babies and put sleeping potions in people’s drinks. Behind the closed sitting-room door Catherine moaned in pain and Ophelia knew what Lilith was waiting for. She went through to the kitchen where saucepans of water simmered on the wood-burning stove. Dwight was seated at the table eating bread and jam and he did not even look at her.

  ‘There’s a boy outside,’ Ophelia began.

  ‘I saw him,’ said Dwight.

  ‘It made me feel sick.’

  ‘According to the midwife they’re all born deformed in one way or another,’ Dwight told her. ‘She’s in there now seeing to your sister.’

  Ophelia helped herself to bread and jam.

  ‘Lilith killed the last baby,’ she said. ‘She left it outside in the snow to die.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ said Dwight. ‘What strength she must have.’

  ‘She murdered it!’ Ophelia said.

  ‘Kinder,’ said Dwight. ‘Johnson told me last night. Not murder in their eyes, but mercy killing. Apparently they’ve practised it since the beginning. Adults too, once they reach the last stages of dying.’

  He turned his head as Lilith entered the kitchen.

  ‘Hi, Lilith. How’s it going?’

  And the horror smiled in answer to her name.

  In the bright daylight Ophelia could see her quite clearly, her white-fair hair hanging straight and long, and pale downy hairs on her face and arms, almost like fur. She definitely was not blind. White eyes with black pin-prick p
upils fixed her with a cold repelling stare before Lilith took the saucepan from the stove and carried it away. Once again Ophelia felt the fear. She had seen those eyes before in rats, and sheep, and rabbits. She recognized the significance.

  ‘Lilith’s a mutant,’ she said.

  ‘That’s evolution for you,’ said Dwight.

  ‘You don’t understand! The mutant gene is a dominant gene! Think what it means!’

  ‘Her children will inherit her characteristics?’

  ‘That’s right. Eventually all outsiders will be mutants. Unless we can make a breakthrough in genetic engineering we’re going to be over-run.’

  ‘We’ve got no future anyway,’ said Dwight.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course we’ve got a future! We’ve survived, haven’t we?’

  ‘Dinosaurs in a bunker,’ Dwight repeated. ‘We may have survived but we haven’t adapted. We’re trying to cling to a lifestyle that is obsolete, and even our minds are stagnant. Our outlook hasn’t changed since before the war. We couldn’t exist outside that bunker, but these people can. They’ve learnt to cope with changed conditions. It’s the Liliths of this world who are going to survive in the long run, Ophelia. Not us.’

  From the inner room came a thin baby wail and an echo of girlish laughter, laughter that went on and on, a maniacal glee. Dwight was talking rubbish! Of course the human race was going to survive! Catherine had just given birth to a lively healthy child and Ophelia was going to see.

  The front sitting room was cramped and small. Books on shelves lined all the walls and half-drawn curtains cut out the natural light. Candles in jam jars smelled of mutton fat, made glowing reflections in a gilt-framed mirror. On a bare scrubbed table, cleared of clutter, the midwife was bathing the baby in a blue plastic bowl whilst Lilith watched and laughed, an insane gurgling sound. Her hands kept reaching to touch it as the midwife slapped them away. And in the corner of the room, on a soiled mattress on the floor, Catherine lay amid the bloodstained aftermath of birth. What remained of her hair was matted with sweat, but her eyes were bright in the candlelight, shining with joy and relief.

  ‘It’s a girl, Ophelia,’ Catherine said. ‘Lilith’s baby sister. It’s fit and well and it’s going to live. Isn’t that wonderful?’ She struggled to sit up. ‘Let me see it,’ she asked the midwife. ‘I want to show Ophelia my baby.’

  The midwife wrapped it in an old woollen shawl, brushed aside Lilith’s clutching hands, and placed it in Catherine’s arms. Gently she opened the shawl for Ophelia to see. The baby was naked, a pale little thing, completely covered in white silky hair, soft and thick as fur. Tiny fingers gripped when Ophelia touched it and its eyes opened wide. They too were white. Black pin-prick pupils seemed to drill through her mind, and the same fear shot through her. Just like Lilith the baby was deformed, a mutant albino thing.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ said Catherine.

  ‘Aye,’ said the midwife. ‘And more like her I have birthed this year than any other, fine strong babies, all of them.’

  Genetic mutation, natural adaptation.

  Suppose Dwight were right?

  ‘She’s very sweet,’ Ophelia said sickly.

  And Lilith laughed.

  Johnson was dying of radiation-induced cancer and the walk up the track to meet Colonel Allison had left him exhausted. The cough racked his lungs and he lay on the sofa with Lilith beside him, the new baby cradled in his arms. Just for a moment his death did not matter, nor the fate of his cattle. He could still smile, still take delight from the sight of his new little daughter, Lilith’s sister with her snow-white fur and milky eyes.

  ‘Another little visionary,’ Johnson said softly.

  ‘What will you call her?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Allison,’ said Johnson.

  Colonel Allison shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re naming her after me? After what I’m here to do?’

  ‘I don’t take it personally,’ Johnson said.

  ‘You make me feel like a heel!’ said Colonel Allison.

  ‘Which is what you are,’ said Dwight.

  ‘I didn’t come here to argue with you, junior!’

  ‘No,’ said Dwight. ‘You came to thieve their cattle!’

  Johnson gave the baby back to Lilith to return to her mother. Outside the compound was full of men with rifles and white protective suits, and a dozen army trucks were parked on the hilltop. ‘Let’s get down to business,’ Johnson said. And Colonel Allison placed the official requisition order on the table. The Avon bunker, he explained, was the administrative headquarters for the south west region and the cattle would be transferred there to be reallocated throughout the whole administrative district.

  ‘Like hell they will!’ said Dwight. ‘They’ll be reallocated via MacAllister’s gut, more like!’

  ‘Is that my fault?’ asked Colonel Allison.

  ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

  ‘Me or someone else, what does it matter? You had your chance, junior. I gave you a clear twelve hours’ start: Those cows should have been out of here and miles away by now.’

  ‘They’re milkers,’ said Johnson.

  ‘Nowhere else can handle such a herd,’ said Bill.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Colonel Allison. ‘I really am. I don’t much like what I have to do but we’ll load them on to the trucks after evening milking and be on our way. There will be compensation, of course, paid in pounds sterling. You can name your price.’

  ‘What good’s that?’ Dwight yelled. ‘What good are five pound notes to these people except for wiping their backsides on?’

  ‘When the economy recovers,’ said Colonel Allison.

  ‘Bullshit!’ said Dwight. ‘The economy isn’t going to recover! You’ve got to be an idiot, Pop, if you believe that!’

  ‘Let’s not get carried away,’ said Bill.

  ‘He’s talking crap!’ shouted Dwight.

  ‘I’m under orders!’ said Colonel Allison. ‘I’ve got no choice!’

  ‘Everyone’s got a choice, for Christ’s sake! Even you. You’ve got a mind, Pop! Use it. Don’t you care how many of these people are left to starve because of your actions? Sod MacAllister’s beefsteak! Think about what you’re doing! You’re not bound to be a mindless cretin just because you’ve got some blasted stripes on your sleeve!’

  ‘Keep on,’ said Colonel Allison, ‘and I’ll give you a clip around the earhole, junior!’

  ‘Why don’t you go for a walk?’ suggested Bill.

  ‘I’ll stop him if it’s the last thing I ever do!’ Dwight said viciously. ‘He’ll not take those cattle if I have to kick his teeth in!’

  ‘You’re just not helping!’ said Bill.

  ‘Here,’ said Johnson, ‘we don’t believe in violence, son. I appreciate what you’re trying to do but we’ll handle it my way, thank you very much.’

  Dwight stared at him, sharp blue eyes in the sudden silence, then turned on his heel and left the room. Bill closed the door behind him. With Dwight out of the way they could get back to business, and Ophelia sighed. Part of her wished that Colonel Allison would load the cattle and leave immediately, then she too could go home. But there were seven hundred people at the settlement, dependent on those cattle, milk and butter and cheese, and Johnson was not about to relinquish what he had struggled twenty years to keep. Reallocation, Johnson explained, was already taking place. Eventually every settlement in the area would be supplied with cattle, and he was quite willing to widen his supply area to include Avon and the Cotswolds and anywhere else.

  ‘That’s reasonable,’ said Bill.

  ‘Except that I’m not empowered to negotiate,’ said Colonel Allison.

  ‘We can’t handle a milking herd,’ said Bill. ‘We’ve not got the facilities.’

  ‘Central Government policy clearly states . . .’

  ‘Government?’ said Johnson. ‘What government is this? I wasn’t aware we had a government and I certainly didn’t vote for them. None o
f us did. You can’t just walk in here, Allison, and expect me to believe you represent some non-existent government which I’ve never heard of.’

  ‘I do have credentials.’

  ‘Credentials don’t count,’ said Johnson. ‘I don’t accept them, nor any other declaration of authority. No, Allison. The only power you have over us is force of arms. If you want those cattle then you’ll have to shoot the lot of us in order to take them, or else accept what I’m willing to give you . . . two milkers, six in-calf heifers, and one bull . . . the basis for a herd, and no more.’

  Ophelia yawned. Talk like this was liable to go on all day and already the sun was climbing towards noon. The settlement sweltered in the heat and its stink wafted in through the open window. Outside the cottage the army truck which Dwight had driven was ready to leave and the soldiers waited for their final orders. Skylarks sang over the pink willowherb hills and Colonel Allison was about to give way. He wanted more than Johnson offered but he was not an inhumane man. He was hardly likely to deprive seven hundred people of their livelihood. Or was he?

  Ophelia was never to know. Shots rang out, the vicious rattle of a distant machine-gun blasting through the outside silence, shattering speech and birdsong and Ophelia out of thought. A series of huge explosions shook the air as she, and her father, and Colonel Allison rushed outside. Men in white protective suits, who had been sheltering from the sun in the shade of walls, and half the population of the settlement, came running, everyone staring up the hillside to where the army trucks were parked. Black smoke billowed and flames licked the sky. The whole convoy was burning and one solitary figure moved from the inferno and went running across the high horizon shouldering a gun.

  ‘Dwight!’ said Colonel Allison.

  ‘No!’ said Ophelia.

  But she knew he was right.

  Dwight had set the army trucks on fire.

  White-suited men went pounding up the track.

  Colonel Allison fired a revolver in the air.

  ‘I want no killing!’ he shouted. ‘Go after him and bring him back, but no killing! And see what’s happened to Denton and Hargreaves! I left them guarding those trucks!’