Arcadia (6 page)

“Well, then, why don't we talk about him, for goodness's sake? No one ever
says
anything.”

Libby stands up. “Is there an umbrella in here somewhere?”

Lots of people start talking at once. Usually what happens next is it ends up with little groups of two or three women in different corners, whispering about the people in the other groups, and then Kate has to make a speech about how important it is that We All Stick Together and Everyone Gets On. Kate's the only one everyone else will always listen to. They all know that without Kate none of them would be able to stay on Home, they'd have to troop over to Maries and take their chances there like the survivors on Martin had to. When things were at their absolute worst last winter Kate was the only one who knew what to do. Laurel and Ol make fun of everyone else but when Ol tries to make fun of Kate Laurel tells him to shut up.

(Tried.)

The thing is, Rory hates being in the room for one of Kate's speeches. He always feels like he's being told off. He hates the way everyone looks at each other sneakily and shamefully afterwards. Some of them will cry and say they're sorry. Someone'll break down and start wailing about how terrible it is, and someone else will go and hug them and say it's all right even though it isn't, even though in The Old Days they were warm and dry and had chocolate and TV and everyone's phones worked and there was no Them. He tells Pink he's giving up.

“That means I win.”

“Yeah. Good game.”

“Where're you going?”

None of the adults are listening. “Anywhere else.”

“It's pouring!”

“So what.” He heads off to the kitchen to collect his coat.

“Rory?” Kate's the only one to spot what he's doing.

“Yeah?”

She comes into the kitchen, out of the babble. “I don't think you should go out in this.” The coat's still dripping wet but he shrugs it on, not looking at her. “Wait a couple of minutes, it never rains this hard for too long.”

“I'll be fine.”

“Rory.”

When he tries to leave the kitchen it turns out she's squatting in front of him, her close-cropped head at his level. She's got very searching eyes.

“You're upset,” she says.

“No I'm not.”

“I know what you mean. I hate listening to the squabbling too. It's so stupid, when literally all we have is each other. Tell you what, why don't you and me and Pink go for an explore in the upstairs rooms?”

“I'm going back to Parson's to read,” he says. “Mum told me to stay there.”

“Rory, your mother's—”

“I'm going,” he says, and walks around her quickly, because however much Kate talks she's not the kind of person who forces you. Other people call after him when he heads to the door but no one can stop him. It's not like The Old Days. There's no School or home or family, any more than there's Germany or sausages or booze or men. He can do what he wants.

  *  *  *  

There's something no one's saying to him. It's obvious.

His shoes are so wet he can hear them squelching. His trousers are sticking to his legs. It doesn't matter. Both shoes and trousers are nearly too small for him and he wouldn't be able to pass them on to Pink anyway, she's the wrong shape. The trousers will be cut up for rags or bandages and they'll use the shoelaces to hold bags shut or sew tarpaulins together. They're finished with being clothes because there's no one after him and there never will be. There's no one new in the world. No one comes back.

He said he was going to read, which means when someone comes looking for him to make sure he's OK and tell him everything's going to be all right they'll go to Parson's. So at the crest of the lane he turns off towards the fields instead. He needs a poo and there's a house over there where the toilet still works as long as you fill the top. Muddy water's pouring out of the hedges. He has to keep his chin almost on his chest or he can't see at all, the rain's battering his face too hard. He's soaked through. They're going to be furious with him, they're going to kill him.

They're going to kill him.

No one's saying it to him because they don't need to. He's the only boy left. All the men are dead. That's how things are after What Happened. All the men have had their turn, and all the boys, all the way down to Ol, and next it's going to be him.

He doesn't understand it. Of all the things he doesn't understand, it's the biggest, the most mysterious and important. He knows it's Them who kill the men, but how can it be, when he talks to Her and nothing bad happens? He knows They're a terrible curse on the sea—Missus Stephenson used to say They were God's curse, sent to make everyone suffer for the world's wickedness—but he talks to Her and she's not a curse, she's just someone to talk to. You could almost say she was Nice. The adults talk about Them like they're sharks or devils but she's not. She listens to his stories and talks about feeling happy or sad. She's a person, a girl, he can tell by looking at her. She hasn't got a fish's tail or vampire teeth. If she was going to kill him why hadn't she done it ages ago?

But a few days ago Ol was there, and now he's gone.

He takes an overflowing bucket from outside the open doorway of the house, finds a place to hang his coat inside, and sits down to poo. He doesn't want anyone to find him. He thinks how easily he could hide from everybody. He knows where everything is on Home, all the empty rooms in all the empty houses. He knows all the places where food's kept. He could hide from everyone forever, sneaking around the island, keeping out of everyone's way. He wouldn't have to listen to the women crying and hugging and making speeches anymore, or do boring tiring jobs even though he's only ten. He wouldn't have to stop his mother cracking up.

He cleans himself up with leaves and freezing water. Despite what Kate said it's as wild as ever outside. His feet are encased in their own little skins of wet sock and swampy rain. He thinks of Parson's, the stove, his bed, his stacks of comics.

He's got nowhere else to go. It's a tiny world. A prison.

He slams the bucket back in place with a bang and stares moodily down the track.

There's someone there.

Only for an instant, the blink of an eye. He pushes wet hair away from his eyes, rubs them, and the person's gone.

“Hello?”

He thought he saw a face looking over the hedge at him. He was sure he did. But he can't have, because who'd be in the field now? And he knows everyone in the world, and everyone in the world knows him, so who'd disappear like that, so quickly it's like they weren't there at all?

“Kate?” Why's he thinking of Kate? He thought he saw the shape of a head, just a face. No hair. But it wasn't Kate. He knows exactly what Kate looks like. He knows exactly what everyone looks like. It can't have been anyone. A bird, perhaps, or just a trick of the eye. The driving rain makes everything fuzzy. He rubs his eyes clear again. There's definitely nothing there, just the ivy flapping at the top of the hedge.

He hurries back to Parson's at a clumsy run.

  *  *  *  

By the time the storm blows itself out it's almost dark. He's at the Abbey with everyone else, dried out and warm enough. Viola came to fetch him since his mother won't be back until tomorrow now. He can smell food cooking slowly downstairs. Kate's gone to see where any blowdown is—she and Fi'll be out with axe and saw as soon as it's light—but otherwise the whole surviving population of Home is there, apart from his mother. She won't risk the Gap in the dark. She'll stay with the Maries people overnight, eating whatever they give her to eat, sleeping wherever they let her sleep.

The mood isn't good. Viola's already yelled at him for
going off like that
. Laurel's cross because she had to ride all over Home in the rain looking for him. They can hear Ali coughing in the warm room above the landing. Molly sits red-eyed and upright in the corner and won't eat anything. People take it in turns to go over and murmur to her, each one looking like they're marching to the gallows as they cross the big room.

It's only a matter of time before someone mentions The Future. Like the weird green light before a storm, there's a particular atmosphere which comes over the big room in the Abbey when a conversation about The Future is about to break. It's the atmosphere of people thinking. When there's not enough chatter, when Missus Grouse isn't forcing someone to play Scrabble and Fi isn't talking about new places they could try growing things and Pink isn't shouting for everyone to watch her doing handstands, Rory can see all the faces go quiet and sort of out of focus, and he knows the thinking is starting. They're thinking about what it's really like being them, here, what it really means to be completely alone in the world, digging and scraping and fetching and carrying and struggling all the hours of every day just so they can keep themselves fed. The atmosphere's heavy in the room this evening.

Esme's the one who starts it. This is a surprise. Esme's the quietest of all of them. She's a dreamy old lady with a dotty smile. Ol says—said—she believes in fairies, which was meant to be a mean comment (you could always tell by the sneer) though Rory never actually understood why.

“The thing is,” she says, “it won't be so bad this winter.” She's got a nice throaty voice. “We're much better prepared this time.”

Molly looks up suddenly. “What about next winter?” she says. “And the winter after that?”

Everyone's so startled to hear her speak aloud that the whole room goes completely still, even Pink.

“Do we just go on?” Molly's voice is crackly with the despair they all spend so much time trying not to feel. “Look at us. Getting older every winter. Until.”

There it is. The Future. Molly makes her hands into fists and pushes them into her lap like she's trying to squeeze out her own juice. She crouches over again, flinching away when Doreen tries to comfort her, and stops talking, but it's too late now, the cloud in the room has broken.

“It can't go on forever,” Viola says. “It's just not possible. Think of all the people in the world.” She doesn't sound like she believes herself. “Someone will find a way to get things going again.”

They all become intensely aware of Kate's absence. When they're floundering around like this it's Kate who steps in and cheers them up, mainly (it occurs to Rory) by stopping the thinking. Missus Shark makes an effort, standing up briskly and saying something about getting on with the whelks, but it's not the same.

“No one's out there but Them,” Molly says, in the direction of her lap, as if Missus Shark hadn't even spoken.

“Molly dear,” Missus Grouse says, with a hint of reproach.

“When They've finished with the men perhaps They'll work on starving us.”

Doreen casts a panicked look at Rory. “Molly!”

Rory can't stand it. He hates being in the room when the women get together. It's like they have the same conversation over and over and over again. Someone gives up, someone else tries to jolly them into keeping going, then next time they swap over and the comforter becomes the comforted. He puts down the chess piece he's been fiddling with and gets up from the window seat.

“I'm just going back to Parson's to get some comics,” he said. When Viola came to get him he was so put off by being yelled at that he forgot to bring any.

“Now?” Viola says, astonished. “I don't think—”

“I'll be right back.”

“It's nearly dark!”

“I know the way.”

“I'll come with you, then.”

“I want to go by myself.”

“Rory, your mother wouldn't—”

“Viola,” Esme says. The room's gone quiet again so everyone can hear her.

Viola folds her arms. “I don't think it's a good idea.”

“He'll be fine,” Esme says, smiling her dotty but oddly magnetic smile. “Off you go, Rory. Don't dawdle, though.”

There's one of those wordless grown-up arguments going on. Rory doesn't know exactly what it's about but he takes advantage of Viola's hesitation. “I won't,” he says, and hurries away before the mood changes. He grabs a sweater and some gloves in the back hallway and goes out the side door into wet leaves and darkness.

The storm-rinsed air's such a relief. He feels his way across to the shed where the bikes are. It's not full dark yet but the trees that protect the Abbey and its precious gardens from the salt winds are thick overhead here. He has to fumble around to find a bike that's not too big and has a dynamo.

Electric light.

In The Old Days he remembers rooms full of it. It doesn't seem real when he thinks about it. It's like remembering how there used to be people everywhere, spilling out of buildings. The crowded island and the places full of color, without shadows: they feel like they're somewhere else, vivid unlikely fantasies from the panels of a comic. He pedals fast to escape the Abbey in case Viola's sent Laurel to follow him after all, and the faster he pedals the louder the dynamo on the front wheel whirs, and the wobbly yellow gleam in front of him fills and stretches and goes whiter and whiter. There are two buildings on Home with working solar panels, the Abbey and the old Laundry, but the power has to be saved for things like the fans they use for winnowing or the rechargeable clickers that make sparks to light fires, no one wants to waste it for lamplight, at least not until the middle of the winter. So Rory only sees the glare of electricity when he's cycling at night as fast as he can. It's hypnotic. It's like he's got lightning powers and he's blasting through the darkness, making the edges of the road look brilliantly sharp and strange. The twigs blown down by the wind snap satisfyingly under his wheels. Everything smells of soaked earth. He races down the Abbey road and out under the not-quite-invisible sky. The shallow water in the Channel's muttering, fidgeting, still agitated though the storm's passed. He weaves through the Club, smelling the rampant honeysuckle as he brushes around tight corners. He can go as fast as he likes: there's no one else around and he knows every turn like the back of his hand. At the Pub he swings up the Lane. The light fades to dirty yellow as the slope slows him down, pulsing visibly as he turns the pedals over. He's breathing hard.