For all his faults, I can’t truly believe he’d do it. He looks innocent – but then looks are deceptive. Trust no one.
“You should always keep your dosh on you in a place like this,” he whispers. “Shit like this is always happening.”
“Shut up. That’s a big help now, isn’t it.” I flip down the toilet seat and sit with my head in my hands. “I can’t report it – I can’t get into all that with the police. Kev or whoever have got themselves a windfall.”
I check the wallet in my back pocket. “I’ve literally got forty quid left in my purse. That won’t last long. What the hell do I do now?”
“At least I’ve got some cash. And the busking money.” Josh crouches beside me. I feel like punching him. I don’t want to be dependent on him. “Consider it a loan if that makes you feel better,” he says. “You’d do the same for me.”
Would I? I doubt it.
He straightens up the bin and squirts cleaner into the sink.
“Stop, Josh. Stop bloody doing cleaning jobs for this place. Whether it was Kev or some other loser who took my money, this place has had enough out of us.”
“Hell, you’re right!” He peels off his rubber gloves and chucks them on the floor. A big grin spreads across his face. “I know somewhere good to sofa surf tonight. Much better than here. I could get us more dosh doing Christmas songs. Pick up some tinsel in Poundland. You could get a reindeer onesie, stick a big red nose on your face. Perfect disguise.”
“Very funny. Or there’s somewhere I’d been thinking already that I might be able to get my hands on some money. That bug-out place I mentioned earlier – Centurion House – will have food supplies but it’ll also have cash or valuables stored there.”
“Sure. Just lying around for someone to steal it.”
“It’s emergency money for preppers. I’m a prepper. This is an emergency.”
“I look forward to you explaining all this if we get arrested.”
“Sometimes prepping groups share intel and equipment. We came to the Northumberland and Cumbria group once to meet some other preppers.”
“Nice. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”
“It makes sense. Dad went off with them to visit Centurion House while Mum and I stayed with one of the families in a pub with a camping field. It was my twelfth birthday – I remember Mum got the owner to do a cake with candles.”
“That’s, like, five years ago. What if it’s not being used for that any more?”
“If it was as good as Dad said, it probably is. He said it was close by a beautiful water source. Preppers love that. We’d be unlucky to be there at the precise moment a prepper comes to top up supplies but it may have some surveillance and security. We don’t just walk up and knock on the door.”
“This gets better and better. When we get there, we might not be able to get in. And if we do manage to get in, it might just be full of cans of tuna and emergency camping gear. Where is this amazing place?”
“I’m not sure exactly. I told you, Mum and I didn’t go there. On the plus side that means Dad knows I don’t know where it is.”
“On the downside, we’re looking for a house that you’ve never seen but has a starry sky and is near water,” he says. “A house that may or may not still be a bug-out house for a bunch of preppers who had an agreement five years ago with your dad.”
“It’s worth the risk. If it’s empty, we could even stay there for a while. It’ll have everything we need,” I say, feeling more optimistic by the minute. “We’ll head towards that national park area via places to kip and keep moving on until we find it. With your local knowledge and what Dad said, we can at least try. Tell Kev we’re leaving early. And tell him where to stick that toilet brush!”
“Shame you can’t drive,” says Josh, as the bus is taking forever to get anywhere. “This whole thing would be much easier. And we could sleep in the car.”
“Shame you can’t. You’re old enough to have passed your test.”
“Too much money. And what’s the point?” he says, slouching down further in his seat. “Someone like me would never be able to afford to buy a car or run it.”
“Who am I to keep you from the bus network – especially when you’re paying for the tickets.”
I distract myself with one of Josh’s books on the journey to the small town where he’s got a mate. Or try to; mostly I just stare at the words or out of the misted-up windows. The roads all look the same, identical villages where nothing is happening and endless moorland. I doze with the motion of the bus and when I next look up we’re driving along streets again with rows of shops with their lights beaming on to the wet pavements. It’s a bigger town than I expected. Too many people. Too many possibilities of CCTV.
“Curry nirvana,” sighs Josh as we pull into the market square. “We can dump the bags at Mo’s place, get a takeaway, cadge some beers.”
“And use his Wi-Fi to help find Centurion House,” I add.
“Sure. I said I was the fixer, that you wouldn’t regret having me along. The day is looking up.”
But twenty minutes later, when we finally find the place after taking the wrong road twice, Josh’s friend doesn’t seem that keen to have us staying the night. I sit on the kerb, flicking bits of grit while they argue about it behind me.
“It’s only one night, man,” Josh is pleading.
“You’ve said that before. Lola isn’t going to like it.”
“She won’t even know we’re here. We’ll go out all evening. Back only to kip. We can be gone by breakfast, honest.”
“And you’ve brought someone with you that I don’t know at all. How long have you known her?”
“For years, mate. We were in the same foster home way back. She’s cool, definitely.”
They carry on until at last Josh whistles and I join them. No one is smiling. Awkward. I’ve heard enough to know Mo isn’t going to roll out the red carpet.
“Thanks for letting us stay,” I say, through gritted teeth.
“You can have the lounge floor later tonight,” he says, as we follow him down the hallway to his ground floor flat. “Do not make a mess. Do not smoke inside. Do not throw up. Do not have sex here. Do not use any of Lola’s stuff.”
“Rules, rules. So many rules all of a sudden,” says Josh. “Chill. You won’t know we’re here.” He puts our bags out of the way by the window and shows me where the bathroom is. “Don’t do that freaky clothes unpacking thing just yet,” he whispers. “And I think asking to borrow his smartphone is not on the cards.”
I use the loo, feeling uncomfortable in this flat where we’re not wanted. I pull at my hair in the mirror and plait it.
“Hurry up.” Josh knocks on the door and covers his mouth to stifle a laugh when he sees me. “You’ve gone all Greta Thunberg. Perfect!”
“Perfect for what?” But he’s shoved me out the way to take one of his very loud trips to empty his bladder.
I wait, sitting awkwardly on the arm of the sofa instead of taking up room on an actual seat. Mo takes a phone call like I’m not in the room at all. I’ve become an invisible person.
Josh returns and ushers me quickly out of the flat, calling, “Thanks, Mo. See you later. We’re going for a balti.”
Something weird is going on because he asks me what the time is twice within five minutes and is walking way faster than his usual speed. Suddenly he stops and grabs my hands. “Don’t go nuts, OK? But I have news: I looked it up quickly on Kev’s computer at the hostel when he was busy with some guests, otherwise he’d have gone ballistic, and, well, you see…” He swallows heavily.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Your dad’s put in an extra talk date – here. Tonight.”
“Are you kidding me? You total…”
“Bus routes – what can you do! Since we’re here anyway,” he says. “I thought we may as well check it out. You were never going to do this yourself, so I’ve staged an intervention. You’ve got unfinished business with you
r dad. Observe him, see what he has to say. You don’t have to do all this running around the countryside looking for bug-out houses. You’ll realize he’s just…”
“You idiot! You complete idiot! I said no.” My heart’s racing and my legs feel weak.
Josh’s eyes are glinting. He likes the excitement of it. It’s more of a game, something to do to fill his usually solitary days. He doesn’t know what Dad’s like. I’ve told him some of it, but he hasn’t felt it. He hasn’t been there. I’m in the same town as my dad. I thought he was miles and miles away.
And Josh has led me here.
I turn back towards Mo’s house and my stuff. Josh catches me up on the corner.
“Wait – we’re here now. It’s late and we’ve got a place to stay tonight sorted,” he says. “We can sneak in at the back. He’ll never know.”
“You’re right, because I’m not going,” I say.
“I think you’ll see he has no hold over you after all this time.”
What does Josh know! He does. He does have a hold over me.
I turn to go again but Josh catches my arm. “He’s just some bloke, Amber, made of flesh and blood like the rest of us, giving talks on prepping to people who like to grow their own veg in small towns. Honestly, you should lay this ghost to rest once and for all.”
He’s pressuring me. Have I overreacted to Dad’s letter? Could he be a different person? Or maybe Prep for the worst means I should see what I’m dealing with. I would like to know if he carries any guilt, any trace of Mum. Is Dad as affected as me by everything that’s happened?
“I borrowed these from Lola’s stuff,” Josh says, pulling out a pair of blue-rimmed fashion glasses and a headscarf covered in tiny flamingos from his coat pockets. “You’re already very different with the little-girl hair thing. Not at all like your usual look. No offence. Add these – no one will ever know it’s you.”
I hesitate. Could it work? Could it help me move on with my life?
“All right, I’ll try them,” I say.
Josh adjusts the scarf and leads me to a shop window to check out the effect. “See, you look cool, honestly. I have a future as a stylist to the rich and famous.”
“I look ridiculous,” I say. “But I don’t look like me.”
“So, are we on?” he says.
“I’m not saying yes,” I say. “I’ll look at the venue and then decide.”
It takes a few minutes more to reach the function room in the town hall building, and I feel sicker with every step. Josh checks it out while I wait across the street. I chew my thumbnail and count through the Rules in my head.
Minutes later, Josh bounds back. “It’s easy. I’ve found us a good spot at the back by the fire exit,” he says. “The stage is lit so the rest of the room is darker. If we sit at the back he won’t see us – too dark, too many people in between. And you’re pretty titchy.”
“I haven’t seen him since…” I gulp back the memory.
“It’ll be fine. He’s focused on his talk. And he won’t be looking out for you up here.” Josh takes my hand. “Even if – a million to one – he sees it’s you, he can’t do or say anything to you in front of all those people. And he’d have to get through me first. Honestly, you’re going to feel so much better. Coming or not?”
The temptation to see for myself what my father’s like now is too much. A morbid fascination, like picking at a scab. I push Lola’s glasses back up my nose and nod, swallowing hard. We join the crowd going in and he guides me to chairs at the back. We sit, but my right leg jigs up and down with nervous energy.
The hall soon fills and they put an extra row of chairs out. To one side there are emergency packs for sale. Grab-and-Go Bags for the hobbyist prepper. They’re overpriced and full of packaging like a Christmas hamper. A thin woman in a camo shirt is pushing them as the ideal present for Christmas. Fire-starter, water filter, energy gel, a torch and emergency meals. Buy three, get a free foil survival blanket. Lightweights.
“This stuff sells,” says Josh, watching people queue to pay. “The age of political uncertainty.”
I nod. “People who have never thought about it before are suddenly confronted with the reality of a toilet-paper shortage.”
“Which scares them, so they need even more toilet paper and so the cycle continues,” laughs Josh.
He’s trying to make me relax. It works briefly but then the lights dim even more and a man in a red jumper gets up to introduce the speaker and I’ve only got minutes before Dad arrives. I must stay calm. The intro passes in a blur of praise for my dad and how honoured we are that he’s come to this little town from the USA to share his expertise.
Warm applause ripples through the hall and I strain my neck to see him. There he is, bursting with life and energy, bounding along the aisle, shaking hands, patting backs, dispensing ‘thank you for coming’ and ‘good to see you’ like a politician. Up the steps, and then his face is in the spotlight at last.
Mr Fitzpatrick the Prepper is on the stage.
His voice is loud and confident. It reaches into the corners of the hall and transports me back like an emotional time machine. I push my toes into the floor, scrunch my hands into tight balls. His exaggerated drawl telling people things they half want, half fear. A flicker of the alternate reality. But I don’t know which is scarier – the old Dad or this new, polished one. Which is the more dangerous?
At first, I can’t focus on what he’s saying. His voice buzzes in my ears. I count through the Rules to settle myself. There’s a tightness in my chest. Gradually I calm down and tune back in, force myself to make out the words, to process what he’s saying. His voice is familiar but unfamiliar.
“We have gone soft.” Dad’s voice rings out loud in the hall.
“Yes!” comes a cry from the back.
“We have let them disconnect us from the ways of living by ourselves. We have become dependent on others. If you don’t know how to feed your family without going to a shop, you need to make a change. You need core skills. Before it’s too late.”
He moves on to the vulnerability of power and water supplies. Then the SHTF scenario of the collapse of the banking system. People around us who’ve taken for granted their ability to get their money from a hole in the wall any time they want it, are confronted with the possibility of the total breakdown of the money system within days of a SHTF scenario.
“Your cash and credit cards become meaningless. The control of food will be paramount,” says Dad in his new, measured tones. “Don’t expect the government to save you. Politicians are in it for themselves. They’ll be climbing over each other to get into the Whitehall bunkers while you’ll be left out cold in the real world, fighting over who gets to eat a rat.”
The crowd shift and murmur. His language is full of words of betrayal, talk of ‘the elite’ and of ‘real people, working people’; smatterings of conspiracy theory. He pitches it as an ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ situation where the state doesn’t want all of us to survive. “They choose, they set priorities. Do you think you are a priority for them?”
“No!”
More mutterings. More talk of austerity as policy, lack of health resources, of an underfunded civil defence force. Fighting back, battles, enemies of the people. Manipulative phrases fall from his practised tongue.
With one breath he rubbishes experts, but with another suggests himself as the expert voice on prepping. “Biggest crisis facing a generation and are your politicians providing any answers? Or are they scrapping over who gets to live in Number 10 Downing Street or at the White House?”
He produces a yellowed leaflet and waves it above his head. “Protect and Survive. In the Cold War, in the face of the daily risk of nuclear holocaust, your government was advising you to lie in a ditch or get under the kitchen table. Has anything really changed?”
“That’s true,” says the middle-aged man to my left. “Tape the windows, fill up the bath. Ridiculous. We’d all have been dead.”
“Do
you think the British Cabinet will be doing that?” booms Dad. “Will they be sheltering under a table or will they be in a state-of-the-art bunker complex? We need to Prepare and Survive.” He takes the round of applause while nodding and smiling around the hall.
“They’ve encouraged a climate of ‘learned helplessness’,” he continues. “All you are fit for is to press 999 or 911 and you expect emergency services to help you. What if they don’t come? What if they’re not at their post but helping their own families? Are you ready for that?”
He strides across the stage, taking his microphone with him, pointing at members of the audience. “Are you ready, sir?” “Are you ready, my friend?” The house lights come up and I shrink into the chair. “What about you here in the front row? Are you prepared? Or are you scared?”
He breathes in deeply. There’s a pause. The whole hall is hanging on what he’s going to say next. “I want to share a story with you.” He speaks more quietly, drawing us in, confiding in us, the special ones. It’s a usual tactic of Dad’s, copied from his time in the States, practised back at those first prepper meetings.
“United States of America. 2005. Hurricane Katrina. I was there, my friends. Colossal flooding of the levees in New Orleans like it was the days of Noah’s ark. Whole districts, whole communities underwater. Do you think the emergency services came to my mother’s aid? To my aid? I watched family pets drown, unable to help them. Watched my father take his last breaths clinging to his rooftop while I could do nothing. The government didn’t turn up to help in Hurricane Katrina – it was a disaster movie unrolling before my eyes. No power, no transport. Chaos, anarchy, lawlessness. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. Never again, friends. It taught me you can’t rely on your government, the politicians, the high and mighty state puppets.”
He pauses for breath and a sip of water while his words sink in.
That can’t be true – Grandpa was killed in a car accident after too many beers, Mum said. And Grandma’s always been alive and well a thousand miles away from New Orleans. But he makes me doubt myself, even though I know he’s lying.
The Rules Page 8