by Nevil Shute
“Oh, Peter! So have I.”
They stared at each other in silence for a minute. Then she said dully, “It must be those meat pies we had for supper. Did you notice anything about them?”
He shook his head. “Tasted all right to me. Besides, Jennifer didn’t have any meat pie.”
She said, “Peter. Do you think this is it?”
He took her hand. “It’s what everybody else is getting,” he said. “We wouldn’t be immune.”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “No. I suppose we wouldn’t.” She raised her eyes to his. “This is the end of it, is it? I mean, we just go on now getting sicker till we die?”
“I think that’s the form,” he said. He smiled at her. “I’ve never done it before, but they say that’s what happens.”
She left him and went through to the lounge; he hesitated for a moment and then followed her. He found her standing by the French window looking out into the garden that she loved so much, now grey and wintry and windswept. “I’m so sorry that we never got that garden seat,” she said irrelevantly. “It would have been lovely just there, just beside that bit of wall.”
“I could have a stab at getting one today,” he said.
She turned to him. “Not if you’re ill.”
“I’ll see how I’m feeling later on,” he said. “Better to be doing something than sit still and think how miserable you are.”
She smiled. “I’m feeling better now, I think. Could you eat any breakfast?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know that I’m feeling quite so good as all that. What have you got?”
“We’ve got three pints of milk,” she said. “Can we get any more?”
“I think so. I could take the car for it.”
“What about some cornflakes, then? It says they’re full of glucose on the packet. That’s good for when you’re being sick, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I think I’ll have a shower,” he said. “I might feel better after that.”
He did so; when he came out to their bedroom she was in the kitchen busy with the breakfast. To his amazement, he heard her singing, singing a cheerful little song that inquired who’d been polishing the sun. He stepped into the kitchen. “You sound cheerful,” he remarked.
She came to him. “It’s such a relief,” she said, and now he saw she had been crying a little as she sang. He wiped her tears away, puzzled, as he held her in his arms.
“I’ve been so terribly worried,” she sobbed. “But now it’s going to be all right.”
Nothing was further from right, he thought, but he did not say so. “What’s been worrying you?” he asked gently.
“People get this thing at different times,” she said. “That’s what they say. Some people can get it as much as a fortnight later than others. I might have got it first and had to leave you, or Jennifer, or you might have got it and left us alone. It’s been such a nightmare. . . .”
She raised her eyes to his, smiling through her tears. “But now we’ve got it all together, on the same day. Aren’t we lucky?”
On the Friday Peter Holmes drove up to Melbourne in his little car, ostensibly to try and find a garden seat. He went quickly because he could not be away from home too long. He wanted to find John Osborne and to find him without delay; he tried the garage in the mews first, but that was locked; then he tried the C.S.I.R.O. offices. Finally he found him in his bedroom at the Pastoral Club; he was looking weak and ill.
Peter said, “John, I’m sorry to worry you. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve got it,” said the scientist. “I’ve had it two days. Haven’t you?”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about,” Peter said. “Our doctor’s dead, I think — at any rate, he isn’t functioning. Look, John, Mary and I both started giving at both ends on Tuesday. She’s pretty bad. But on Thursday, yesterday, I began picking up. I didn’t tell her, but I’m feeling as fit as a flea now, and bloody hungry. I stopped at a café on the way up and had breakfast — bacon and fried eggs and all the trimmings, and I’m still hungry. I believe I’m getting well. Look — can that happen?”
The scientist shook his head. “Not permanently. You can recover for a bit, but then you get it again.”
“How long is a bit?”
“You might get ten days. Then you’ll get it again. I don’t think there’s a second recovery. Tell me, is Mary very bad?”
“She’s not too good. I’ll have to get back to her pretty soon.”
“She’s in bed, is she?”
Peter shook his head. “She came down to Falmouth with me this morning to buy moth balls.”
“To buy what?”
“Moth balls. Napthalene — you know.” He hesitated. “It’s what she wanted,” he said. “I left her putting all our clothes away to keep the moths out of them. She can do that in between the spasms, and she wants to do it.” He reverted to the subject he had come for. “Look, John. I take it that I get a week or ten days’ health, but there’s no chance for me at all after that?”
“Not a hope, old boy,” the scientist said. “Nobody survives this thing. It makes a clean sweep.”
“Well, that’s nice to know,” said Peter. “No good hanging on to any illusions. Tell me, is there anything that I can do for you? I’ll have to beat it back to Mary in a minute.”
The scientist shook his head. “I’m just about through. I’ve got one or two things that I’ve got to do today, but then I think I’ll finish it.”
Peter knew he had responsibilities at home. “How’s your mother?”
“She’s dead,” the scientist said briefly. “I’m living here now.”
Peter nodded, but the thought of Mary filled his mind. “I’ll have to go,” he said. “Good luck, old man.”
The scientist smiled weakly. “Be seeing you,” he replied.
When the naval officer had gone he got up from the bed and went along the passage. He returned half an hour later a good deal weaker, his lip curling with disgust at his vile body. Whatever he had to do must be done today; tomorrow he would be incapable.
He dressed carefully, and went downstairs. He looked into the garden room; there was a fire burning in the grate and his uncle sitting there alone, a glass of sherry by his side. He glanced up, and said, “Good morning, John. How did you sleep?”
The scientist said briefly, “Very badly. I’m getting pretty sick.”
The old man raised his flushed, rubicund face in concern. “My dear boy, I’m sorry to hear that. Everybody seem to be sick now. Do you know, I had to go down to the kitchen and cook my breakfast for myself? Imagine that, in a club like this!”
He had been living there for three days, since the death of the sister who had kept house for him at Macedon. “However, Collins the hall porter has come in now, and he’s going to cook us some lunch. You’ll be lunching here today?”
John Osborne knew that he would not be lunching anywhere. “I’m sorry I can’t today, Uncle. I’ve got to go out.”
“Oh, what a pity. I was hoping that you’d be here to help us out with the port. We’re on the last bin now — I think about fifty bottles. It should just see us through.”
“How are you feeling yourself, Uncle?”
“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 to
night, 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 tires clear of the floor. The effort of manoeuvring 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 motorcars. He retired there and presently came back to work, weaker than ever now, more resolute to finish the job 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 cyclinders 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. 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 clothesline on a counter. Outside he heaved the seat up on 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 aro
und 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.”