Children of the Dust (9 page)

Educationally they were far in advance of pre-war standards, yet they were still considered children. They still played baseball in the storage depot, collected cockroaches and raced them along the dining hall tables, fed invasion messages from outer space into the main computer, and got rips in the navy blue government-issued overalls. They were still, during weekends and evenings, part of the noisy unruly horde of youngsters who careered through the confines of the bunker, believing it unconditionally theirs. But once too often some unidentified child robbed the cultivation area of its ripe tomatoes. And once too often some unidentified child visited the communications room, overheard communiques from Central Government, and blabbed restricted information. A rumour spread that the Prime Minister was dead and Air Marshal Hughes had taken over. Bill Harnden discussed it during a schoolroom debate.

'Is this the end of democracy?' he asked.

'What democracy?' said Dwight. 'Avon has been a totalitarian state for the last twenty years.'

Ophelia was not much interested in politics. The bunker had always been run by General MacAllister and it made no difference to her who ran the country as a whole. It was General MacAllister who imposed the restrictions, placed the cultivation area and the communications room out of bounds to all persons under the age of eighteen. She missed the feel of sunlight through plastic, the smells of warmth and dampness and green things growing. She missed the blue of the sky and the grey-black deserts seen on the telescreens. Her concrete world seemed shrunken in
size.

Now her only visual stimuli were the pale green walls of the bunker, the geometrical perspectives of rooms and corridors, human faces and the schoolroom computer screens. Something of freedom had been taken away and she experienced a feeling of loss. But it never occurred to her to question it. She had been brought up to respect the routine and the discipline, the restrictions imposed on her life. For the good of all people she was prepared to accept a personal loss, but there were other young people who were not so willing.

They met in the storage depot, most of Bill Harnden's senior pupils who usually played in the baseball match. White paint on the concrete floor marked out their pitch, but that evening was different. Younger children played in the defunct refrigeration units, or clambered about the broken army vehicles parked at the far end. But the older ones huddled together, seated on pre-war packing cases in a dimly lit corner of the huge cavernous room. Rusting paint tins were piled against a nearby wall and their voices echoed, angry and indignant.

'MacAllister's got no right!' Dwight said bitterly.

'You mean
we've
got no rights,' said Bernard Sowerby.

'Nobody has,' said his sister. 'Nobody has any real say in how this bunker is run.'

'I even heard Pop say he was sick of following orders,' Wayne Allison said.

'But he still goes on doing it!' Dwight said angrily.

'He's got no choice,' said Gaynor.

'Nor's MacAllister,' said Spotty Harris. 'He gets his orders from Central Government.'

'It's not Central Government who've banned us from going into the communications room!' Dwight said furiously. 'It's that pig MacAllister! The man's a military dictator! He wasn't voted into office so what right does he have to rule us?'

'What does it matter who rules us?' Ophelia remarked. Dwight rounded on her.

'If it doesn't,' he said, 'then it damned well ought to! Your father's spent the last five years trying to tell us! It's the right, and duty, and responsibility, of every individual to question everyone and anyone who assumes authority over us! If those millions of people had gotten off their backsides and questioned what they all knew was going on maybe they wouldn't be dead, and we wouldn't be stuck in this crummy bunker! No one should have power over other people. We've seen what governments and men like MacAllister can do! They not only destroy people's lives but the whole damned world! And if you don't know that, Ophelia, you must be stupid!'

Ophelia stared at him. She had known Dwight Allison all her life and he had never once spoken to her like that. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes as she turned and walked away. Silence followed her across the cold concrete spaces. She heard an army truck back from its sortie come rumbling along the main tunnel. Young children giggled in the refrigeration unit, and the intercom crackled ordering Police Chief James to report to Administration. Ophelia pushed open the closed double-doors and entered the corridor.
Footsteps came running behind. There were strip lights missing from the ceiling making areas of gloom and she thought it was Dwight. But it was Wayne, his brother, who fell into step.

'Dwight didn't mean it,' he said.

'So why did he say it?' Ophelia asked.

'Mom says it's the age he's at.'

'You're only one year younger than he is! And you didn't call me stupid!'

'He's lousy to everyone,' said Wayne.

Men from the army truck came whistling along the corridor. They wore white suits with clear plastic visors that made them eyeless in the light. They talked of finding petrol at Milford Haven, thousands of gallons in an untapped storage tank, enough to send the helicopter out on an aerial survey, airborne again after seven years.

'Did you hear what they said?' Wayne asked excitedly.

Ophelia leaned against the wall. She did not care about the helicopter or what it might find. She only cared about Dwight, sixteen years of friendship coming to an end because he was having trouble growing up. Ophelia was growing up too, but she had not let it spoil things. And it was not just hormones causing Dwight to change his attitude towards her, it was her father's teaching methods!

Ophelia had not been present when Dwight found the spray can and wrote the message on the wall . . . GENERAL MACALLISTER IS A FASCIST PIG ... in huge blood-red letters in the pale green corridor. She heard of it later, after some young child had innocently pointed the accusing finger and Dwight had admitted his guilt. Colonel Allison offered to deal with him in a way he would never forget, but instead Dwight had to appear before the disciplinary committee. He was sentenced to twelve months' menial labour, clearing raw sewage from the septic tanks and spreading it to dry on the river fields.

As for the rest of Bill Harnden's students who might share similar views . . . General MacAllister came personally to the schoolroom to deliver a lecture. For an hour and a half he went droning on about dangerous left-wing ideals and extreme socialist principles, about the threat to democracy which had resulted in nuclear war, and why subversive political activity would not be tolerated now. There was no such thing as freedom without order, General MacAllister said, just degeneration into lawless anarchy and social chaos.

That's why I'm in authority, and why we have rules in this bunker!' General MacAllister barked. 'And that's why I expect you to stick to them. We're all British citizens and we need to pull together to get this country back on its feet. We've got no room for deviants! Those of you who don't like the way things are run will have their chance to voice their complaints when the new parliamentary system has been established. We intend to keep the spirit of democracy alive. That's what we've always fought for, and what we'll go on fighting for! We, of the military, are here to protect the democratic principle. Meanwhile a state of international emergency still exists which requires that we continue as we are.'

But the continuation was not the same.

Dwight was banished from the schoolrooms.

And gone from Ophelia's life.

'I hope you're satisfied!' Erica said to Bill. 'I told you this would happen! That boy was at an impressionable age and you encouraged him in his foolish thinking!'

'I taught him to think for himself, that's all.'

'And what good has it done him?' 

'Hopefully,' said Bill, 'it will make him a better man.' 

'Or waste what he could have been!' 

Ophelia did not know what Dwight had become or what effect the punishment was having on him. She seldom saw him any more. With the sounding of the eight o'clock work buzzer he donned his white protective suit and went outside, day after day among the dung and dust, creating a few more fertile acres that might one day grow. Ophelia only knew what Wayne told her . . . that Dwight not only smelt shitty he was also a shit to live with, and all he and Colonel Allison did was yell at each other.

It was Erica who told her that Dwight had been moved to a single room on the opposite side of the underground complex. And it was Erica, more than her father, who seemed to understand how Ophelia felt, bereft and purposeless, her life gone empty of meaning. She had to find something for herself, said Erica — become a complete person within herself and not rely on relationships to make her whole and happy. Love from a member of the opposite sex was not the be-all and end-all of a woman's existence.

'You don't need Dwight Allison to become a good geneticist,' Erica said. 'You can do that quite well without having him around.'

Genetics were not everything, Ophelia thought. Without Dwight she could feel no pleasure. There were no more baseball games. The storage depot was abandoned and socially the group drifted apart, split into individuals, pairs or trios of particular friends. It was as if Dwight had been the one who kept them together, motivated their activities, moulded them into a unity. Without him they lacked cohesion and had nothing in common. All the life and laughter of joint enterprises seemed to be gone. Weekends and evenings were long and boring and Ophelia bit her finger nails until they bled.

'Will you stop doing that!' her father said.

'What else is there to do?' Ophelia asked bitterly.

'Try learning,' he replied.

'You're already using the computer, so how can I?'

In the swivel chair Bill swung around to face her. The screen behind him showed an extract from
Macbeth.
Ophelia wanted to hate him because she believed, like Erica, that what had happened to Dwight was all his fault. But a photograph fluttered to the floor and she picked it up. She had seen it before. It was a photograph of her father's previous family, a smiling woman with two young children and a girl of her own age. For the first time Ophelia recognized the likeness between herself and Sarah. She might have been staring at her own face.

'She even bit her nails and chewed her lip like you do,' said Bill. 'And I didn't mean academic learning. I was thinking of a lesson of experience.'

Ophelia handed him the photograph.

'Did you love her?' she asked.

'Sarah?' he said.

'Veronica,' said Ophelia.

'I loved them all,' he said simply.

'But you don't love Mummy, do you?'

Bill sighed.

'Sometimes I think she doesn't want to be loved,' he said. 'Or maybe she does but doesn't know it. Or maybe there are things which are more important than love. Respect, for instance. I've a great deal of respect for your mother, however much I may disagree with her. And growing up is always a painful process, whatever age you're at.'

Ophelia stared at him in astonishment.

'Erica's fifty-six!' she said.

'And I'm sixty-five,' said Bill. 'But I haven't stopped learning. Minds continue to evolve. When evolution stops the species dies, and that applies to individuals as well. Both as individuals, and as a species, we have been lucky to escape extinction, but we cannot afford to stand still. Sorrow is wisdom, the poet said. However bad the experience we can always learn something from it. And that applies to us all, Ophelia. Me and Erica, as well as you and Dwight. It's just bums like MacAllister who never learn.'  

'Erica believes he's right,' Ophelia said quietly.

Bill shrugged.

'In that case you must make up your own mind.'

The small convoy of army trucks left for Milford Haven and returned five days later loaded with supplies of petrol. Then, for the first time in seven years, the helicopter was able to make a full aerial survey. Photographs taken over Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and Somerset showed the latest information on refoliation, reforestation, bird life, animal life, and the small communities of human survivors. Progress reports were updated, relevant details relayed to the Berkshire bunker for inclusion in Central Government records, and Bernard Sowerby had to begin all over again with the maps.

Like everyone else Ophelia heard that the Somerset levels were beginning to recover, the acres of peat bogs and water meadows showing green again. Migratory birds nested among the osier beds and raised their young. Several hundred people in three small villages grew wheat and potatoes in fields on the edge of the marshes. Sheep flourished in the Cotswold valleys and two small woollen mills seemed to be working. Communities thrived on the Quantock and Mendip hills, and on the edges of Exmoor. Fishing fleets operated out of Porlock, Watchet and Minehead, and the goat population that grazed the Wiltshire downs had increased in numbers. But the grey-black deserts were still the dominant feature, Bernard Sowerby said, and apart from the river margins nothing grew in the county of Avon, and no people lived there but themselves.

The time had come, General MacAllister decided, to start looking outward. There was enough grass on the river fields to support a sizeable flock of sheep and a small herd of cattle had been spotted in the hills of West Gloucestershire beyond the river Severn.

'Bring them in,' MacAllister ordered Colonel Allison. 'I want those cattle here under government protection.'

That same evening Dwight re-entered Ophelia's life. Just after they had returned from dinner in the dining hall he came bursting into their apartment. He was taller than she remembered, leaner and stronger, with raw blisters on the palms of his hands. He was obviously angry about something and did not speak to her or Erica.

'Have you heard the latest?' he asked Bill.

'What in particular, Dwight?'

'MacAllister's requisitioning the outsiders' cattle. Every last one of them, Wayne said. Pop received orders this afternoon. They're loading them into the army trucks and transporting them back here.'