Breakdown (22 page)

It's nearly light.

People are moving about. Someone nudges me. My belly hurts. I roll over and shut the nudging out. Just a little longer. Just a few more minutes before I face today. I lie there trying to climb back into sleep. It's no use. I roll over and stare at the ceiling.

Lenny is already up and gone. He calls to me through the broken window. He's standing outside. I get up. I step over the sleeping shapes huddled together. I push open the front door and get outside. I breathe in the morning air. Fresh country air, like fine weather in London, only better.

‘Missa, look.' Lenny's waving his arms and jumping up and down. He's got an apple in his hand. A real, red, rosy apple. Smooth skin. I've never seen an apple looking so fresh, so perfect. Lenny is bouncing and bouncing.

‘You can eat it,' he says.

He runs at me. Apple in his outstretched hand.

‘Eat it,' he says.

I take the apple. Raise it to my nose, crisp, sweet.

‘It's juicy,' he says. ‘Bite it.'

I look at Lenny and then bite into the apple. It takes my breath away. The juice spills over my lip. Saliva floods into my mouth. I hold the disc of apple on my tongue. It's so good.

‘You see?' he says.

I nod.

‘Have more.'

I shake my head. I pass the apple back. I bite down on the crisp flesh poised in my mouth. The taste of it smarts the back of my throat.

Lenny takes the apple back. He nibbles it, holds it out to me again.

‘Go on, it's good.'

‘Your first?'

‘Yes.'

I remember Tarquin. I remember his arm around me in the dark night. I raise my eyes and glance back through the open door at him.

Immediately Lenny races inside, bounces over the others to Tarquin. ‘Quinny!'

I follow. Tarquin rolls over. He's awake. His face bruised, swollen.

‘Try it,' says Lenny.

Tarquin shakes his head. He smiles.

‘How you feeling?' I ask.

‘Not so bad,' he says.

‘It's good. Missa says so.'

‘Nah, you go ahead. I had mine already.'

I don't understand. There's only one apple. Tarquin raises himself up. He spreads his arms wide. He winks at me. I think he's winking. His swollen eye twitches anyway and closes.

I frown.

‘Apples.'

‘Yes,
one
apple,' I say.

He sighs as if I'm stupid. ‘Apples. You know. Eden.'

‘What about it?'

‘I was trying to give you a compliment.'

‘A compliment?'

‘I've been in Eden all night.'

I shake my head.

‘Aw, forget it. It ain't no good if I got to explain.' He sits up, stretches.

I pause, confused.

Lenny jumps up and down. ‘Let's eat it, Missa,' he says. He bites and passes it to me. I bite and pass it back, glad to focus on something.

When we're done I say, ‘Where'd you get it?'

Lenny laughs and points at one of the other houses. ‘They got 'em in there. They got three. There's kids in there, Missa. Me and them kids been playing farms. They gave me it. There's more inside the biomes.'

I try to imagine inside the biomes.

‘There's whole trees of 'em,' he says. ‘That's what they tell.'

I look out across the street towards the biomes. Once upon a time perhaps I could've liked this place. Maybe in Nan's day. Rows of small terraced houses, winding up the hill. Little front gardens buzzing with bees. I look around. Not much to like now. Roofs fallen in, not a window with any glass. The house they put us in, abandoned, damp, cold, spattered walls, no doors, no furniture. Floorboards and ceilings ripped up. The front garden, overgrown with those thick weeds. The ones that last without light or insects.

Even so, if I had time and energy I could make it something. Mend the windows, find plastic sheeting or something to tack over them, board them up. Put back the floor – at least make it even, so you don't twist an ankle. Right now you can't even walk on most of it – you'd break your neck.

Someone tried here once. I can see they tried to wash the tiles in the hall. There're patches where they look almost clean. And there's a row of bottles they must've used to store water. We're going to need to store water.

I go outside, to ask someone where to get water.

Down the street a woman's out too. She looks as thin as a pole and pale as moonlight.

‘Excuse me,' I say. ‘Do you know where I can get water?'

‘You the new batch?'

‘We need to drink something.'

‘They put you in the end house, didn't they?'

‘I guess so.' I look back at the house we spent the night in.

‘You the ones who've got the little lad?'

‘Yes.'

She smiles. ‘Come in here. He's already been over, playing with our Tommy.' She leads me into another house, cold, just as dirty. Looks like every stick of furniture's been burned. At least there're ceilings. Every room is full of sad people. They don't look up. They crouch on the floor, huddled into bits of bedding. Nobody's done anything to make anywhere better. They look like they've given up. The woman leads me through the house. Out the back is a garden, or it was. It's hill-high with junk. I'm puzzled. How come you have a garden, and you work on a covered farm, and you don't grow anything for yourself? Nothing to trade, nothing to live off? If Nan and I had a garden that big, we'd be doing something with it.

‘Water's there.' The woman points to an old well. ‘You can haul water here until they move you, if they move you.'

I pick up the bucket and haul it up full.

‘You'll have to bring a bottle though.'

I hurry back and fetch two bottles from the line on the window sill.

We manage to drink some water before a squad of soldiers arrive. They pound the horns on their jeeps and shout out. Down the street the workers come out, blue boiler suits, stooping shoulders. We line up, form a queue.

The soldiers do a head count. Tick us off on a sheet. Someone called Crowley is in charge. The soldiers laugh at us. One soldier flicks the end of an apple core at the line. He shouts, ‘Scramble.' Nobody dives for it.

Crowley looks around. The dawn is just flooding the sky in the east. ‘Where's Tidmarsh?'

Everyone freezes. Nobody speaks.

‘Where is Mrs Tidmarsh?' Crowley yells.

Everyone looks away. Crowley pounces. He grabs a scrawny kid about the same age as Lenny and yells in the kid's face. ‘Where. The. Devil. Is. Your. Mother?'

The kid's so nervous he can't answer. Crowley goes to the truck, pulls out a long whip. He sets about the boy.

‘She's coming, Mister,' whimpers the boy.

‘Why's she not here?' He brings the lash down.

‘Don't know.' The boy tries to cover his head with his hands, tries to duck the lashes. Crowley has him by the back of his boiler suit and is laying into him.

Lenny stands there as pale as pale, biting his lip. He looks at the boy, looks up at Tarquin. Crowley brings his lash down.

The boy screams. Blood soaks across the back of his boiler suit in a long ragged line.

Tarquin looks at Lenny and steps forward.

He grabs hold of Crowley's arm. Tarquin's no weakling. Despite the pounding he took yesterday, he twists that arm and Crowley drops the whip. Crowley raises a whistle to his mouth, lets out one long blast.

Oh, Tarquin. What have you done?

Soldiers jump off the jeep.

Why do you have to be such a hero?

I clutch my head with my hands and close my eyes.

‘Missa!' Lenny's voice jolts me back. He's tugging at my arm, his tiny frame shaking. I hold him to me. Look over at Tarquin, meet his eyes.

For a split second Tarquin holds my gaze
.
Then he crouches down, presses his ribs and hisses at the boy, ‘Get back in line.'

The boy darts away. Tarquin barely has time to straighten up. Three soldiers are on him. It takes all three to restrain him. Crowley steps up. He's got the whip again.

‘You piece a shite,' he snarls.

I hold Lenny's face against me, cover his ears, grit my teeth.

Then Tarquin twists. Seems to ripple, as if he has extra joints. The soldiers try to hold on to him. Crowley raises the whip. But before Crowley can bring the lash down, Tarquin's foot shoots out. He kicks Crowley up and under the chin. I hear the impact. A thick thud, a sudden crunch of bone. A spray of blood. Half-strangled scream.

Lenny twists, looks. Crowley is writhing on the ground, holding his jaw.

‘It's broken,' whispers Lenny. ‘I can do that, nearly. It's how we gangers floor the dogs.'

More soldiers join in. They pin Tarquin to the ground, lift Crowley into the front of the jeep. He's frothing blood. Can't speak.

‘Move them work gangs along,' orders one of them.

They make us march off up the street.

Tarquin twists his head up, flashes me a last look.
Take care of Lenny.
And then a bag is pulled down over his head, his hands and feet manacled. He's lifted up and flung into the back of an open jeep.

I grab Lenny and move to the back of the line. I ask a soldier, ‘Where're they taking him?'

‘None a your business.'

I want to shout in his face.
It is my business. Don't you understand? Everything that happens to him is my business.

‘Get back to your work gang.' The soldier raises a fist.

‘What they gonna do to Quinny?' Lenny clutches my hand, pulling me back.

I've no answer. My heart's pounding. I'm trembling. Lenny's trembling too, doing a little shuffle of terror. I bite my lip.

‘Are they gonna hurt him?'

‘Dunno.'

Lenny looks like he's going to start screaming.
Think of something to calm him. If he starts, they'll take him too.
He's nodding his head in tiny little jerks. Like he's about to have a fit.
Get him to focus on something else.

‘It's part of the story,' I say. I steer him up the street.

His chin's trembling, his fists are balled.

‘Just listen.'

Think.

‘He's the hero of the story.' We fall into step in the line.

‘
They put him in the jeep.
' Lenny's voice has a new shrill edge.

Tell him a story.

‘They put him in the jeep, because before the hero can get to the hidden valley, he has to defeat the enemies and things.'

Lenny looks up at me, chin jerking, tears running down his little face.

‘And be tested.'

He's got his hands on his head, clutching his hair.

‘Quinny had to save the boy and defeat Crowley, and he did, see? He passed the test.' I take his hands in mine. I stroke them
. Keep him walking. Keep him listening. Focus on that.

‘Was Crowley one of them enemies?' he says.
Good, he's trying to understand.

‘Yes, he was,' I say. ‘In all stories the hero has to defeat the enemy and pass through the Valley of Shadows.'

‘O-K.' His breath comes in great gasping shudders.

‘Before there can be a happy ending.'

‘Is there a happy ending?'

‘Yes, there is.'

‘But what happens in the Valley of Shadows?'

He doesn't understand. I don't know if I do. I try again. ‘Our secret valley isn't like any ordinary valley. It isn't just a hollow stretching between two hills. It's the Valley of Sunlight, and it's a place you can go to in your heart, when you feel everything's so awful you don't know what to do.'

Lenny nods, wipes his sleeve across his nose. ‘I don't know 'bout no valleys,' he says.

I cuddle him to me.

‘Look, we're gonna rescue Quinny and get out of here and go to our valley, together, OK?'

Lenny nods his head, quickly. ‘OK, Missa.'

‘So you have to keep going, because this is the hard part.'

I move back up the line, keep Lenny with me. I single out one of the older men. He looks like he's been here a long time, tired out, thin as a bone. But his face is kind.

‘What'll happen to him?' I whisper.

He doesn't turn his back on me like I'm half expecting. He bends his head. ‘Speak softly, young lady.'

‘Sorry.'

‘They'll take your young man to the pen.'

‘Pen?'

‘Where they'll flog him.'

My throat seems to suddenly close up.

‘It doesn't stand for penitentiary.'

I look at him blankly. He shrugs. ‘You're too young to remember America?'

‘America?'

‘It stands for pig pen.'

‘Pig pen?'

‘They'll take him to the pig pens and he'll work there.'

Bacon. I remember there were coupons for bacon.

‘We've not got enough people to leave any of them idle. He'll work in the pig pens by day and be locked up in the old police cells by night. Unless.'

I wait.

‘Unless he's too much trouble.'