Afterlight (27 page)

Jacob stepped cautiously through the open front door, pushing it in with a creak of rusted hinges and the rattle of a loose glass panel nestled in a weather-warped frame. The dim interior beyond had once been a small front room; a flat-screen TV, the glass cracked in one corner, a fireplace. Above that was a school portrait of a boy in his uniform, hair cropped short on a bullet-shaped head and grinning mischievously. On the mantelpiece beside the photo sat an attendance certificate for
Jamie
Conner - Year 5
proudly framed. Jacob eased himself past a single sofa and an armchair, both rotting from damp and the rain that had blown in through the open door over the last ten winters.

He stepped across the lounge and into the kitchen and found a pine breakfast table and chairs that they could use for firewood. Several cheap kitchen units had rotted from their brackets and collapsed from the wall, spilling mismatched crockery and favourite tea-stained mugs across the counter and onto the linoleum-covered floor. A single weed grew proudly through the broken frosted glass of a back door leading onto a modest rear yard with a trampoline in it.

A narrow and steep stairway that creaked underfoot took him up to a bathroom and two other rooms with doors ajar. One was a boy’s bedroom wallpapered with a pattern of footballs and goalposts and peppered with Blu-Tacked glossy pullouts of Ronaldinho. Through the other door he saw the end of a double bed and the tented bumps of something beneath a fading quilt. He didn’t need to step forward to know what was in there. Jacob had seen this hundreds of times already over the years; the beds of families who had opted for the easy way out rather than fight to survive, beneath the faded quilt the pitiful twisted leather carcasses embracing each other, empty pill bottles on the bedside table.

He headed quickly back downstairs, content that the rotting kitchen units and the pine table and chairs were more than they needed to keep a fire going tonight. No need to come up and disturb young Jamie Conner and his parents again.

 

‘South,’ said Nathan looking at the others. ‘South from here. Right? That’ll take us down towards the Dartford Tunnel?’

Leona studied the scuffed road atlas by the flickering light of the campfire. She’d pulled it from the rack of a garage several days ago and already it looked thumbed enough to have belonged to a well-travelled sales rep. Flipping from one page to the next she muttered under her breath.

‘I never could read bloody road maps.’

Nathan sighed impatiently. ‘If we just head south, man, we’ll, like, hit the Thames, right? S’all we need to do.’

Leona shook her head. ‘Heading south from here won’t take us to London.’ Her finger brushed down the page from Bishops Stortford. ‘We’ll be going more towards the east of London and then we’ll have to turn right to head in along the Thames estuary. That’s a lot longer.’ She looked up at him and Jacob. ‘We should just follow the road into London. It takes us right into the centre. That’s far quicker.’

Jacob frowned. ‘But we might miss the lights Mr Latoc saw . . . we might go past them.’

‘You told me he said the sky was glowing, Jake. Right?’

Jacob nodded.

‘Well, if he was telling the truth, then you’ll see them for miles. I’m sure we won’t miss them.’

‘He was crossing the river. He said he saw them to the east.’

‘Yeah, Jake, but where was he crossing?’

Jacob shrugged. ‘He just said it was somewhere near Big Ben.’

He looked down at the map, recognising the familiar blue loops of the Thames. ‘We should head down to the river and just follow it.’

She looked again at the map. ‘That means,’ she said running her finger across the page, ‘we’ll come off the M11 onto the M25 until the Dartford Tunnel . . .’

Nathan nodded. ‘S’right, then turn right an’ follow the river into London. Easy, man.’

‘We won’t get lost,’ said Jacob, ‘if we just follow the river.’

The idea of keeping to the Thames certainly felt a little more appealing than heading into the bowels of the city, which might still be - most probably was - a ghostly necropolis of dark and abandoned office blocks and shopping malls. To have the open river to their left would offer some reassurance. A less direct route though and it would probably add another day to their journey, given the sluggish pace they were making towing the heavy trailer behind them.

Another day won’t hurt, will it?
She could hang on another day. She realised she wasn’t in quite the same hurry to get home and pop a bottle of pills as she had been a few days ago.

‘All right, then,’ she sighed and shared a quick conciliatory smile with the boys. ‘Along the river it is.’

Jacob placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Hey, maybe, if it’s not too far we could drop by our old home. See how it is.’

Leona wondered if Jacob was probing; had somehow sensed her resolve to go home for good. ‘I don’t think so. Best we leave Dad in peace, eh?’

He looked up at her. ‘I miss him.’

‘I know, but he’s not really there, Jake. It’s just a body now. Just like all the others.’

They’d seen the desiccated remains that had once been dads and sons, mums and daughters, still clad in football strips, jumpers, summer blouses and teen fashion tops. And Dad was going to look just the same; a dried husk in clothes stained a dark sepia.

‘All right,’ he said eventually.

She reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Let’s just head towards Dartford and see if those lights are there somewhere along the Thames, eh? Just like Mr Latoc said.’

Both of them nodded.

She folded the page of the road map over and then snuggled down into her sleeping bag, watching the flames dance and sparks flutter into the night sky. She fell asleep listening to Jacob and Nathan discussing comic book superheroes.

 

 

 

J
enny caught herself absent-mindedly tugging the tattered drape partially across her cabin porthole to dim the room slightly. She could hear the clack of feet on the metal steps up to her floor and then the softer tap on linoleum as they approached her door. She chided herself for fretting about how she looked. There were more important matters at hand.

She heard the rap of a knuckle on the door.

‘Mrs Sutherland?’

It was Valérie Latoc.

‘You can come in,’ she said, pulling herself up on the cot to a comfortable sitting position.

He stepped tentatively into the cabin and offered her a warm and friendly smile. It seemed like an eternity since she’d last seen his face; another lifetime. In fact, just a month and a half had passed. She remembered wanting to look good for him because she’d found him attractive. Right now she felt painfully self-conscious of the livid ripples of healing skin on her face and her hair now clipped uniformly all over to a less than feminine short dark fuzz.

‘You are much better?’ he inquired.

‘I’m mending, thank you.’

There was someone else behind him. Martha stepped into the room in his wake, her eyes lighting up with joy at the sight of her. ‘Jenny!’

‘Martha?’

Jenny hadn’t asked for her to come up. In fact, she expressly asked Walter to tell Valérie she wished to speak with him
alone.
The woman stepped around him and towards the cot, her broad dark face beaming kindly, genuinely relieved to see her friend awake and getting well.

‘Oh, Jenny, love, I’ve been so worried for you,’ she said, extending arms to embrace her.

‘Please . . . don’t!’ she said holding up a hand to stay Martha. ‘My skin hurts.’

Martha froze where she was. Her full vibrant voice faltered. ‘Oh, love, I’m so, so sorry about Hannah. She was such a wonderful little—’

Jenny reached out and grasped one of her hands. This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have right now although she was learning to accept that everyone who’d so far been allowed to see her insisted on opening with an awkwardly offered condolence; genuinely heartfelt, of course, but always awkward and faltering. Each time for Jenny, behind her weary smile of gratitude, it was another painful tug on the stitching of her broken heart.

‘I know . . . she was,’ she replied. ‘Thank you, Martha. I know you were fond of her.’

Martha’s eyes filled as she nodded silently. ‘One of God’s little angels,’ she whimpered. ‘She’s in a better place now, Jenny, love. So much better.’

Valérie nodded. ‘Yes. We prayed for her soul. And yours . . . and that you would heal very quickly.’

Jenny grimaced. She felt that a ‘thank you’ was perhaps the right thing to say under the circumstances, but then,
prayers
- that was exactly what she’d wanted to talk to Valérie about, alone.

‘Yes, and look, that’s why I wanted to see you. I’ve been informed, Mr Latoc, that mealtimes in the mess have become an opportunity for an open prayer meeting.’

Valérie made no attempt to deny it. ‘Yes, I have been saying a prayer before meals, this is correct.’

‘Are you aware that it’s one of the few things I ask people in this community
not
to do?’

His eyebrows arched, his smooth voice rose in surprise. ‘To pray?’

‘To pray aloud in a shared space like the mess room, yes.’

‘It is just a blessing,’ he smiled. ‘That is all; a thanks to God for feeding us.’

Jenny was surprised by the sudden jab of irritation she felt. ‘No, well you see it isn’t God that has to shovel human shit onto our potatoes every day, is it? He doesn’t water them every day with rainwater we’ve carefully collected or fetched by tug from Bracton, does he? He doesn’t do any of the things we all have to do each and every day to survive.’

‘We are here, alive and well,’ he replied calmly, ‘because He wills it. A little thank you at mealtimes, is this so much to ask?’

She stared at him, then at Martha who was nodding silently. She knew Martha had faith, was a Baptist, prayed every day and every night, but it was nothing she’d ever tried to press on Jenny. It was a personal faith, between her and her God.

‘He
wills
it?’

Valérie smiled as he nodded.

‘Jenny,’ cut in Martha, her voice still trembling with emotion, ‘I love you like a sister and it breaks my heart to think how much pain you’re going through, love. Hannah, Leona and Jacob all gone. My boy, Nathan, left with them. I spend every night worryin’ after them.’ Her cheeks shone with tears. ‘But it helps, love. It helps if you’ll accept Him into your heart. His love will make things right for you again. His love—’

‘Martha,’ she raised her hand again, wincing from the pull on her tight skin, ‘Martha, please.’

She hushed, clasping her hands together in front of her face.

Jenny could feel the salty sting of a tear rolling down her own tender right cheek.

Dammit.
She didn’t want Valérie to see her crying. She didn’t need him to see her weak like this. It was only going to embolden him.

‘God
isn’t
going to bring back Hannah,’ she said, struggling hard to keep her voice even. ‘She died because a single fastening clamp came off the generator. It wasn’t attached tightly enough and it came off. She died because we overlooked safety—’

‘No. It was because He wanted her with Him, away from this dark world,’ cut in Valérie.

‘She died, Mr Latoc, because there should have been a fucking lock on the door, or a more secure clamp holding the feed pipe!’ Her voice croaked unpleasantly. If she’d been stronger, it would have snapped a brittle angry bark. ‘That’s it. It was shitty, bad luck!’ She felt her voice warbling, her throat painful. ‘Just plain . . . shit luck.’

‘Accept His love,’ he urged her, ‘accept God into your life, Jennifer. It’s what everyone here needs now. God sent me here—’

‘Now stop right there!’

It was quiet in her cabin except for the far-off bustle of activity coming from the canteen downstairs, the rattle of cutlery in a washing-up bowl full of saltwater, the nattering voices of those on galley duty this morning.

‘There’s a very good reason why I don’t allow prayers over meals, why I’d rather we don’t have organised prayer meetings on any of the platforms.’ She sipped some water, taking the time to steady herself. ‘We’ve got . . . shit, I don’t know how many different faiths on these rigs. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims . . . at least half a dozen Hindus that I’m aware of. I say “yes” to one, I have to say “yes” to all. Then you know what’ll happen?’

Valérie narrowed his eyes.

‘Whatever weak glue it is that’s just about managing to hold us together will dissolve and before you know it we’ll have a Christian-only platform. A Muslim-only platform. There’ll be people up here petitioning me for segregated mealtimes for different faiths, for periods of fasting, for calls to prayer at all times of the day. This community won’t work that way. It’ll fall apart.’

‘Jennifer,’ said Valérie, ‘we will all be so much stronger unified by Him. The message I bring from God is for
everyone
to hear—’

‘No!’

She wished she’d arranged to have this meeting with either Tami or Walter beside her. Just for a little back-up. ‘No! I’m absolutely not having this! You want to pray, to thank God for your daily hot meal, well okay that’s fine, but you can do it privately in your head. Or out loud in your own space before you come over here. If He’s so bloody well omnipotent then I’m sure He’ll hear you there just as easily as in the mess.’

‘Oh, Jenny,’ said Martha shaking her head sadly.

She turned her attention to her friend. ‘Martha, I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. We’ve got by very well these last few years without ringing bells and calls to prayer.’