by Nevil Shute
“Never better, my boy, never better. I felt a little unsteady after dinner last night, but really, I think that was the Burgundy. I don’t think Burgundy mixes very well with other wines. In France, in the old days, if you drank Burgundy you drank it from a pint pot or the French equivalent, and you drank nothing else all evening. But I came in here and had a quiet brandy and soda with a little ice in it, and by the time I went upstairs I was quite myself again. No, I had a very good night.”
The scientist wondered how long the immunity from radioactive disease conferred by alcohol would last. So far as he was aware no research had yet been done upon that subject; here was an opportunity, but there was now nobody to do it. “I’m sorry I can’t stay to lunch,” he said. “But I’ll see you tonight, perhaps.”
“I shall be here, my boy, I shall be here. Tom Fotherington was in last night for dinner, and he said that he’d be coming in this morning, but he hasn’t shown up. I hope he isn’t ill.”
John Osborne left the club and walked down the tree-lined street in a dream. The Ferrari was urgently in need of his attention and he must go there; after that he could relax. He passed the open door of a chemist’s shop and hesitated for a moment; then he went in. The shop was unattended and deserted. In the middle of the floor was an open packing case full of the little red cartons, and a heap of these had been piled untidily upon the counter between the cough medicines and the lipsticks. He picked up one and put it in his pocket, and went on his way.
When he pushed back the sliding doors of the mews garage the Ferrari stood facing him in the middle of the floor, just as he had left it, ready for instant use. It had come through the Grand Prix unscratched, in bandbox condition. It was a glorious possession to him still, the more so since the race. He was now feeling too ill to drive it and he might never drive it again, but he felt that he would never be too ill to touch it and to handle it and work on it. He hung his jacket on a nail, and started.
First of all, the wheels must be jacked up and bricks arranged under the wishbones to bring the tyres clear of the floor. The effort of manœuvring the heavy jack and working it and carrying the bricks upset him again. There was no toilet in the garage but there was a dirty yard behind, littered with the black, oily junk of ancient and forgotten motor cars. He retired there and presently came back to work, weaker than ever now, more resolute to finish the jobs that day.
He finished jacking up the wheels before the next attack struck him. He opened a cock to drain the water from the cooling system, and then he had to go out to the yard again. Never mind, the work was easy now. He detached the terminals from the battery and greased the connections. Then he took out each of the six sparking plugs and filled the cylinders with oil, and screwed the plugs back finger tight.
He rested then against the car; she would be all right now. The spasm shook him, and again he had to go out to the yard. When he came back evening was drawing near and the light was fading. There was no more to be done to preserve the car he loved so well, but he stayed by it, reluctant to leave it and afraid that another spasm might strike him before he reached the club.
For the last time he would sit in the driving seat and handle the controls. His crash helmet and goggles were in the seat; he put the helmet on and snugged it down upon his head, and hung the goggles round his neck beneath his chin. Then he climbed into the seat and settled down behind the wheel.
It was comfortable there, far more so than the club would be. The wheel beneath his hands was comforting, the three small dials grouped around the huge rev counter were familiar friends. This car had won for him the race that was the climax of his life. Why trouble to go further?
He took the red carton from his pocket, took the tablets from the vial, and threw the carton on the ground beside him. No point in going on; this was the way he’d like to have it.
He took the tablets in his mouth, and swallowed them with an effort.
Peter Holmes left the club and drove down to the hardware store in Elizabeth Street where he had bought the motor mower. It was untenanted and empty of people, but somebody had broken in a door and it had been partially looted in that anyone who wanted anything had just walked in to take it. It was dim inside, for all the electricity had been turned off at the main. The garden department was on the second floor; he climbed the stairs and found the garden seats he had remembered. He selected a fairly light one with a brightly coloured detachable cushion that he thought would please Mary and would also serve to pad the roof of his car. With great effort he dragged the seat down two flights of stairs to the pavement outside the shop, and went back for the cushion and some rope. He found a hank of clothes line on a counter. Outside he heaved the seat up on to the roof of the Morris Minor and lashed it in place with many ties of rope attached to all parts of the car. Then he set off for home.
He was still ravenously hungry, and feeling very well. He had not told Mary anything of his recovery, and he did not intend to do so now; it would only upset her, confident as she now was that they were all going together. He stopped on the way home at the same café that he had breakfasted at, kept by a beery couple who appeared to be enjoying remarkably good health. They were serving hot roast beef for lunch; he had two platefuls of that and followed it up with a considerable portion of hot jam roly-poly. Then as an afterthought he got them to make him an enormous parcel of beef sandwiches; he could leave those in the boot of the car where Mary would not know about them, so that he could go out in the evening and have a quiet little meal unknown to her.
He got back to his little flat in the early afternoon; he left the garden seat on top of the car and went into the house. He found Mary lying on the bed, half dressed, with an eiderdown over her; the house seemed cold and damp. He sat down on the bed beside her. “How are you feeling now?” he asked.
“Awful,” she said. “Peter, I’m so worried about Jennifer. I can’t get her to take anything at all, and she’s messing all the time.” She added some details.
He crossed the room and looked at the baby in the cot. It looked thin and weak, as Mary did herself. It seemed to him that both were very ill.
She asked, “Peter—how are you feeling yourself?”
“Not too good,” he said. “I was sick twice on the way up and once on the way down. As for the other end, I’ve just been running all the time.”
She laid her hand upon his arm. “You oughtn’t to have gone …”
He smiled down at her. “I got you a garden seat, anyway.”
Her face lightened a little. “You did? Where is it?”
“On the car,” he said. “You lie down and keep warm. I’m going to light the fire and make the house cosy. After that I’ll get the seat down off the car and you can see it.”
“I can’t lie down,” she said wearily. “Jennifer needs changing.”
“I’ll see to that, first of all,” he said. He led her gently to the bed. “Lie down and keep warm.”
An hour later he had a blazing fire in their sitting-room, and the garden seat was set up by the wall where she wanted it to be. She came to look at it from the french window, with the brightly coloured cushion on the seat. “It’s lovely,” she said. “It’s exactly what we needed for that corner. It’s going to be awfully nice to sit there, on a summer evening …” The winter afternoon was drawing in, and a fine rain was falling. “Peter, now that I’ve seen it, would you bring the cushion in and put it in the verandah? Or, better, bring it in here till it’s dry. I do want to keep it nice for the summer.”
He did so, and they brought the baby’s cot into the warmer room. She said, “Peter, do you want anything to eat? There’s plenty of milk, if you could take that.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t eat a thing,” he said. “How about you?”
She shook her head.
“If I mixed you a hot brandy and lemon?” he suggested. “Could you manage that?”
She thought for a moment. “I could try.” She wrapped her dressing gown around her. “I
’m so cold …”
The fire was roaring in the grate. “I’ll go out and get some more wood,” he said. “Then I’ll get you a hot drink.” He went out to the woodpile in the gathering darkness, and took the opportunity to open the boot of the car and eat three beef sandwiches. He came back presently to the living-room with a basket of wood, and found her standing by the cot. “You’ve been so long,” she said. “Whatever were you doing?”
“I had a bit of trouble,” he told her. “Must be the meat pies again.”
Her face softened. “Poor old Peter. We’re all of us in trouble …” She stooped over the cot, and stroked the baby’s forehead; she lay inert now, too weak apparently to cry. “Peter, I believe she’s dying …”
He put his arm around her shoulder. “So am I,” he said quietly, “and so are you. We’ve none of us got very long to go. I’ve got the kettle here. Let’s have that drink.”
He led her from the cot to the warmth of the huge fire that he had made. She sat down on the floor before it and he gave her the hot drink of brandy and water with a little lemon squeezed in it. She sat sipping it and staring into the fire, and it made her feel a little better. He mixed one for himself, and they sat in silence for a few minutes.
Presently she said, “Peter, why did all this happen to us? Was it because Russia and China started fighting each other?”
He nodded. “That’s about the size of it,” he said. “But there was more to it than that. America and England and Russia started bombing for destruction first. The whole thing started with Albania.”
“But we didn’t have anything to do with it at all, did we—here in Australia?”
“We gave England moral support,” he told her. “I don’t think we had time to give her any other kind. The whole thing was over in a month.”
“Couldn’t anyone have stopped it?”
“I don’t know … Some kinds of silliness you just can’t stop,” he said. “I mean, if a couple of hundred million people all decide that their national honour requires them to drop cobalt bombs upon their neighbour, well, there’s not much that you or I can do about it. The only possible hope would have been to educate them out of their silliness.”
“But how could you have done that, Peter? I mean, they’d all left school.”
“Newspapers,” he said. “You could have done something with newspapers. We didn’t do it. No nation did, because we were all too silly. We liked our newspapers with pictures of beach girls and headlines about cases of indecent assault, and no Government was wise enough to stop us having them that way. But something might have been done with newspapers, if we’d been wise enough.”
She did not fully comprehend his reasoning. “I’m glad we haven’t got newspapers now,” she said. “It’s been much nicer without them.”
A spasm shook her, and he helped her to the bathroom. While she was in there he came back to the sitting room and stood looking at his baby. It was in a bad way, and there was nothing he could do to help it; he doubted now if it would live through the night. Mary was in a bad way, too, though not quite so bad as that. The only one of them who was healthy was himself, and that he must not show.
The thought of living on after Mary appalled him. He could not stay in the flat; in the few days that would be left to him he would have nowhere to go, nothing to do. The thought crossed his mind that if Scorpion were still in Williamstown he might go with Dwight Towers and have it at sea, the sea that had been his life’s work. But why do that? He didn’t want the extra time that some strange quirk of his metabolism had given to him. He wanted to stay with his family.
She called him from the bathroom, and he went to help her. He brought her back to the great fire that he had made; she was cold and trembling. He gave her another hot brandy and water, and covered her with the eiderdown around her shoulders. She sat holding the glass in both hands to still the tremors that were shaking her.
Presently she said. “Peter, how is Jennifer?”
He got up and crossed to the cot, and then came back to her. “She’s quiet now,” he said. “I think she’s much the same.”
“How are you, yourself?” she asked, “Awful,” he said. He stooped by her, and took her hand. “I think you’re worse than I am,” he told her, for she must know that. “I think I may be a day or so behind you, but not more. Perhaps that’s because I’m physically stronger.”
She nodded slowly. Then she said, “There’s no hope at all, is there? For any of us?”
He shook his head. “Nobody gets over this one, dear.”
She said, “I don’t believe I’ll be able to get to the bathroom tomorrow. Peter dear, I think I’d like to have it tonight, and take Jennifer with me. Would you think that beastly?”
He kissed her. “I think it’s sensible,” he said. “I’ll come too.”
She said weakly, “You’re not so ill as we are.”
“I shall be tomorrow,” he said. “It’s no good going on.”
She pressed his hand. “What do we do, Peter?”
He thought for a moment. “I’ll go and fill the hot water bags and put them in the bed,” he said. “Then you put on a clean nightie and go to bed and keep warm. I’ll bring Jennifer in there. Then I’ll shut up the house and bring you a hot drink, and we’ll have it in bed together, with the pill.”
“Remember to turn off the electricity at the main,” she said. “I mean, mice can chew through a cable and set the house on fire.”
“I’ll do that,” he said.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Will you do what has to be done for Jennifer?”
He stroked her hair. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ll do that.”
He filled the hot water bags and put them in the bed, tidying it and making it look fresh as he did so. Then he helped her into the bedroom. He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on for the last time, and while it boiled he read the directions on the three red cartons again very carefully.
He filled a thermos jug with the boiling water, and put it neatly on a tray with the two glasses, the brandy, and half a lemon, and took it into the bedroom. Then he wheeled the cot back and put it by the bedside. Mary was in bed looking clean and fresh; she sat up weakly as he wheeled the cot to her.
He said, “Shall I pick her up?” He thought that she might like to hold the baby for a little.
She shook her head. “She’s too ill.” She sat looking down at the child for a minute, and then lay back wearily. “I’d rather think about her like she was, when we were all well. Give her the thing, Peter, and let’s get this all over.”
She was right, he thought; it was better to do things quickly and not agonise about them. He gave the baby the injection in the arm. Then he undressed himself and put on clean pyjamas, turned out all the lights in the flat except their bedside light, put up the fire screen in the sitting-room, and lit a candle that they kept in case of a blackout of the electricity. He put that on the table by their bed and turned off the current at the main.
He got into bed with Mary, mixed the drinks, and took the tablets out of the red cartons. “I’ve had a lovely time since we got married,” she said quietly. “Thank you for everything, Peter.”
He drew her to him and kissed her. “I’ve had a grand time, too,” he said. “Let’s end on that.”
They put the tablets in their mouths, and drank.
That evening Dwight Towers rang up Moira Davidson at Harkaway. He doubted when he dialled if he would get through or, if he did, whether there would be an answer from the other end. But the automatic telephone was still functioning, and Moira answered him almost at once.
“Say,” he said, “I wasn’t sure I’d get an answer. How are things with you, honey?”
“Bad,” she said. “I think Mummy and Daddy are just about through.”
“And you?”
“I’m just about through, too, Dwight. How are you?”
“I’d say I’m much the same,” he said. “I rang to say good-
bye for the time being, honey. We’re taking Scorpion out tomorrow morning to sink her.”
“You won’t be coming back?” she asked.
“No, honey. We shan’t be coming back. We’ve just got this last job to do, and then we’ve finished.” He paused. “I called to say thank you for the last six months,” he said. “It’s meant a lot to me, having you near.”
“It’s meant a lot to me, too,” she said. “Dwight, if I can make it, may I come and see you off?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Sure,” he said. “We can’t wait, though. The men are pretty weak right now, and they’ll be weaker by tomorrow.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“We’re casting off at eight o’clock,” he said. “As soon as it’s full daylight.”
She said. “I’ll be there.”
He gave her messages for her father and her mother, and then rang off. She went through to their bedroom, where they were lying in their twin beds; both of them sicker than she was, and gave them the messages. She told them what she wanted to do. “I’ll be back by dinner time,” she said.
Her mother said, “You must go and say good-bye to him, dearie. He’s been such a good friend for you. But if we’re not here when you come back, you must understand.”
She sat down on her mother’s bed. “As bad as that, Mummy?”
“I’m afraid so, dear. And Daddy’s worse than me today. But we’ve got everything we need, in case it gets too bad.”
From his bed her father said weakly, “Is it raining?”
“Not at the moment, Daddy.”
“Would you go out and open the stockyard gate into the lane, Moira? All the other gates are open, but they must be able to get at the hay.”
“I’ll do that right away, Daddy. Is there anything else I can do?”
He closed his eyes. “Give Dwight my regards. I wish he’d been able to marry you.”
“So do I,” she said. “But he’s the kind of man who doesn’t switch so easily as that.”
She went out into the night and opened the gate and checked that all the other gates in the stockyard were open; the beasts were nowhere to be seen. She went back into the house and told her father what she had done; he seemed relieved. There was nothing that they wanted; she kissed them both good night and went to bed herself, setting her little alarm clock for five o’clock in case she slept.