Breakdown (6 page)

“Come sit down, Chris,” Fiona said, putting her hand on the cushion next to her. Chris turned a bit, and Jon saw the closest thing he’d seen to a smile yet.

“Sorry about supper,” Chris said to her as he sat down, leaving as much gap between them as he could. He still had the gift-wrapped cube in his hand. He tucked it into the space between his leg and the arm of the settee.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said. “You must be exhausted after walking nearly from Portsmouth.”

Jon took the armchair closest to Chris as Simon came over with two glasses. He gave one to Jon.

“So you came over on a ship?” Simon asked as he handed Chris the other wineglass. “From New York?”

“No, from Canada, actually. Halifax. Easier, with a British passport.” Chris sipped the wine. “This is nice. Thanks.”

“But they don’t take passengers?” Vivian asked.

“No, I had to work my way over. And it wasn’t so easy getting on. I had to work in the shipyards for a year before I got a place.”

“What’s it like in the States?” Alan asked him.

Chris did the pause-to-think that Jon had already become familiar with. He sipped his wine to cover it.

“Not so different from here, really,” he said to the room at large. “Certain areas were hit harder than others, at first, but it all degraded pretty fast. There was this overall sense of outrage that something hadn’t been done to stop the whole thing. Sometimes it seemed that to them the loss of convenience was worse than—” He stopped, blinked.

Jon watched Chris take a breath, try to keep his face casual. A short silence in the room threatened to become awkward, then Chris went on.

“I traveled around for some time, after—after I was alone,” he said, keeping his tone as even as possible. “I went to Baltimore, a few other places. Ended up back in New York, but it was no good there, so I set out for Canada. Didn’t make it. We got jumped on the road by a gang. They nearly killed me.”

The women made little noises of concern; Jon found it hard to swallow the wine he’d just sampled. The “nearly killed” part was the worst, but he had caught the “we” and wondered if anyone else had. Chris went on with hardly a pause.

“Luckily, another group came along just in time and rescued me. I ended up at a monastery, of all places, nursed back to health by the monks. They had a nice little commune going. I stayed for nearly two years.” He stopped to have some wine. The room was quiet, all of them holding back, waiting for him to go on, having decided at supper that tonight was not the time to grill him about what had obviously been a hard and painful journey. Jon got the impression that Chris had already decided what he was going to tell them. “Opportunity arose to go out with a team heading north,” Chris went on, “so I took it. We’d heard there were ships coming over. I left them and made it into Canada on my own. Eventually got on a ship.”

“What’s it like in London?” David asked. Jon glanced at him. He was watching Chris intently. Laura elbowed him lightly, but he pretended not to notice.

“Yeah, London,” Chris said slowly. “Well, it’s got its pluses and minuses, but mostly minuses. Half the people you run into would just as soon kill you for whatever they might get off you. Jobs aren’t hard to come by, but the work is long and hard, and the pay is lousy.”

“What did you do? Did you get a job?” Fiona asked.

“Not exactly,” Chris said, turning his head toward her without looking at her. Jon could see he’d gone stiff again. The mask was dropping down over his face. He clutched the wineglass with both hands. “I fell in with a group—just, um, lucky. They had a pretty good setup. The work wasn’t bad. They had electricity and running water, plenty of food. But I never really planned to stay in London, of course, so I didn’t stay long. I got another ship to Portsmouth—just a quick hop—and worked there for a couple of months. Met a nice chap, and when I got ill—not the plague—he sent me off to his hometown, where some friends of his took me in. Little place called Breton. I’d only planned to stay the winter, but it was just George, his wife, mum, and sister, so I stayed on to help. They’re good people. It was easy to stay. They needed me, y’know? And I didn’t know if anyone was here.” He shrugged, sipped at the wine, relaxing slightly now that he was nearing the end of his story. “But, of course, I wanted to know for sure. So here I am.” He turned to look at Jon, who gave him the barest of nods and the hint of a smile to let Chris know that it was okay. “Please tell me you have cows,” Chris said suddenly, glancing around, “because I’ve got damn good at milking.”

Little chuckles all around broke the silence, and Jon grinned at Chris, glad that he was starting to relax, finally.

“No cows here, but the next farm over has plenty, and we help out with them,” Simon explained. “As much milking as you’d care to take on.”

“Just steer clear of Queen Anne,” Jon put in quickly, rubbing his shin.

“Ah, that beast has a bit of the devil in her,” Simon agreed.

“I’ll leave her to you, then,” Chris said to Jon, eliciting more chuckles. He drained the last of his wine and set the glass carefully on the table next to the settee. Then he picked up the package he had brought down. “Um, I have something,” he said, and looked across the room at Brian, who was still hiding behind the piano. Brian was watching him. They kept eye contact for a few tense moments.

Brian looked away.

Jon scowled. Why would Brian act like that? Why not accept Chris’s gift? Fiona made a
tsk
sound.

Chris did not react. His eyes flicked toward Jon, and he shook his head once with no change of expression. He merely turned toward Fiona and handed her the gift.

“It’s for everyone,” he said. “You open it.”

She took it with a smile, didn’t protest with a pointless “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” as so many might have. She fingered it lightly, then pulled on the string. The paper wasn’t taped, and she undid the folds to reveal a plastic-wrapped tin of loose tea. She stared at it with her mouth open, as if she didn’t quite recognize it. There were several gasps from around the room.

“It’s tea,” Fiona said, holding it up, as she might have said, “It’s gold,” or “It’s diamonds.”

“It’s old, it’s from before,” Chris explained, “but it’s vacuum sealed, and the plastic wrap doesn’t have any holes, so it might still be okay.” In the old days, it had been a fairly expensive blend. Now it was nearly priceless.

“Where did you get it?” Jon asked.

“I found it,” Chris replied, as if to reassure everyone that he had not spent a huge sum on it.

“You don’t just
find
stuff like that anymore,” Brian said from the corner. “It’s hellish expensive. Did you steal it?”

“Brian!” Fiona exclaimed.

Jon jumped to his feet, his hands clenched automatically into fists at his side. “That’s a shit thing to say.”

Chris stood, too. He put a hand out and touched Jon’s arm, caught his eye, and shook his head gently at him. He looked at Brian in the corner. Jon caught a flash of pain in his brother’s expression before the hard wall went up.

“I always wanted to fix it with you,” Chris said. “You know I tried. Even now, you’re still an ass.” He shifted his gaze to Fiona, frozen on the settee. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then turned and left the room. Jon shot an angry look into the corner, but Brian had turned his back on the room. Jon followed Chris upstairs without a word.

Chris sat down on the bed, hunched over. Jon closed the door and leaned against it.

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chris said. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, I’m sorry about what I said earlier. About you letting what happened—”

“I know,” Chris interrupted. “It’s okay.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing,” Chris said, shaking his head. “It’ll either work out or it won’t.”

Jon stood aching by the door, wanting to help, wanting to do something to make things right. “It has to work out,” he said. “This can’t go on.” He had the ghastly thought that Brian would make things so uncomfortable that Chris would leave, go back to the farm he’d been working on or somewhere else. It must have showed on his face.

Chris waved a hand as if to dismiss Brian. “I thought that might happen, y’know. Pauline said it might. It’s too unexpected. He isn’t ready to deal with it.”

“Who’s Pauline?”

“George’s sister, in Breton. She’s a psychologist. Well, she was, anyway, before. We talked about it.”

“What else did she say?”

Chris turned his head away then and crossed his arms. “She said he’ll get over it.”

“Are you over it?”

Chris met Jon’s eyes, his face neutral. “Yes. Don’t worry, he’s not going to chase me off. I’ve lost too much. I’m not going to walk out on you again.”

Jon swallowed, almost ashamed that he’d been so transparent.

From downstairs came the sound of muffled voices and the slam of the kitchen door.

“Fiona will set him straight,” Jon said.

Chris got a little smile at that. He nodded. “Yes, I expect she will.”

“Tell me more about Breton.”

“Um, tomorrow? I’m knackered.”

Jon shuffled his feet, reached for the doorknob, decided to let it go. “Of course, sure. Good night, then.”

“Good night, Jon.”

As he readied himself for bed, Jon realized that Chris’s story of how he got to Hurleigh raised more questions than it answered. He wondered about London, Portsmouth, and Breton. What about Breton made it so easy for Chris to stay there instead of moving on to find his family? Jon decided to ask Chris in the morning.

CHAPTER 6

October 2005—Breton, England

C
hris trudged along the road, keeping by habit toward the verge, though it was unlikely he would have to step aside for any vehicle. He’d passed the church and rectory, saw no other houses, and was thinking that Cooper’s directions and estimate of the distance up from the crossroads where the lorry had dropped him had been optimistic.

The grade got steeper. He had to slow down. His ribs hurt. He paused to cough hard, bent over with his hands on his knees, grimacing at the hammerblow pain in his chest. He straightened carefully, got his breath back, and walked on.

He wondered if he looked presentable enough. He had taken time to have a thorough wash and careful shave in the cold dormitory bathroom at the Distribution Center that morning, but the face that looked back at him from the mirror was obviously not fully recovered from illness. The dark circles under his eyes and gaunt appearance had startled him.

Another curve and he finally saw it, just ahead on the left: a stone house covered in climbing vines with a small roof over the front door, just as Cooper had described it. A brick path led down from the door to an iron gate in the waist-high stone wall bordering the road.

Chris walked along the wall until he reached the gate. He found Cooper’s letter in his pocket, then fished out his blood-test card and held it with the letter. He took a deep breath, which caused a coughing fit that wracked his whole body and hurt his aching ribs even more. When he looked up, he saw a woman coming around the corner of the house. From her auburn hair, Chris guessed that it must be Pauline.

She noticed him by the gate and came a bit closer, a small frown on her face.

“Yes?”

“I have a letter from Michael Cooper,” Chris said, holding it up. “For Pauline Anderson.”

Her eyes opened wide at Cooper’s name. “I’m Pauline,” she said, coming down through the garden to the gate. She wore dark-green corduroys with muddy knees, wellies, and a heavy brown jumper with a few holes and bits of yarn sticking out here and there. Her hair was pulled back; a few wisps had escaped the fastener and framed her face, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Chris held the letter out to her over the wall, with his blood-test card on top. She saw it and glanced up at his face, then took both from him with dirt-smudged hands. She inspected the card, handed it back. “Thank you. He’s not with you, then?”

“No, he’s in Portsmouth. I’m Chris Price. We were working together. He sent me. He said you might have work for me. It’s in the letter.”

“Portsmouth?” she said quietly, her eyebrows arching, and Chris nodded. She studied him again, then opened the letter. While she was reading, Chris had another coughing fit. He turned away from her, tried to tone it down. When he turned back, she was watching him.

“You’re ill.”

“Bronchitis or something. It’s not the plague,” he said, trying not to sound too defensive.

“Well, no. You’ve got a valid card, don’t you? Anyway, wouldn’t you be in hospital if it were?”

Chris wondered if he was supposed to laugh at the joke, then realized that she wasn’t joking. She really thought there were hospitals that would still take you if you had the plague. She didn’t get out much, clearly. Or maybe there was one around here that actually would.

“I saw a doctor yesterday. She said I’m not contagious anymore. But I can wear a mask if you want me to.” Chris pulled a white surgical mask out of his pocket and held it up.

She looked startled. “No—no, of course not, if the doctor said you’re not contagious.”

Chris put the mask away with relief. He’d had enough of the damn things. “I’ve got food coupons and a little money,” he said. She was reading again. She got to the end of the letter and folded it back into the envelope.

“You look like you need to sit down.” She unlatched the gate and swung it open. “C’mon, then. God, you didn’t walk from Portsmouth, did you?”

“No, I got a ride on a lorry. Walked up from the crossroads.” Chris followed her around to the back of the house. He wished she’d slow down. The walk up had taken more out of him than he liked to admit. His duffel seemed to weigh more than it had at the bottom of the hill. His legs felt rubbery when they came into the partly paved yard.

To the left stood a small barn, a chicken coop with a dozen or so birds nosing around in a wire enclosure, and several other outbuildings. The large vegetable garden to the right, behind the house, was mostly harvested down to weedy dirt. A man tinkered with a tractor parked in front of the barn.