The Brink (21 page)

“So what? The whole camp is a gonner?”

“Maybe not the whole camp. Some of them are showing signs of recovery, but for what? For cancer to get them later? Hell, we don’t even know what the pregnant ones are going to give birth to yet!”

“Oh God,” said Alan, slumping onto the stool next to John.

“Oh I think God’s fucked off now, don’t you?”

John drained his glass without touching the coke until it was all gone. Alan hadn’t even moved to sip his. He stared at the bar between his hands which were pressed over his face, supporting the great weight of grief that he thought he’d put behind him, or at least supressed. But there it was, back again and this time almost too much for him to bear.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” he asked.

John shrugged and ordered another round. A glass was added to the untouched one in front of Alan.

“Not a jot. A Promethian platform might but I don’t even know where they were built. How many did they build? Six? Hell, you’d have to find a chopper first; those things can only be reached by air. But no one can fly and we don’t have a chopper even if we knew where to look.”

“Jesus.”

“We’ve thought it all through, Alan. There’s just nothing to be done. The best we can hope to accomplish is to build this settlement up as strong as can be and hope we have some healthy offspring to pass it on to.”

“I’ve heard this one before,” he muttered.

“I don’t understand?” asked John, his words now sliding over his tongue in a slur.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “None of it does now.”

They sat there in silence for a time, each lost in his own thoughts and Alan began to drink from the first glass without realising it; the motion was just muscle memory and when there was room, he cracked open the can of coke and topped it back up.

“My grandparents always used to talk about how the world had ended,” said John, making a good start on his third drink which Alan suspected was only the third since he’d arrived. “They said that when they were evacuated, they knew that the countdown had begun right there and then. The world
had
ended and it was also
ending
at the same time. Back then it was all ‘terrorists destroyed Britain’ and so the world went on a manhunt for a bunch of Arabs or Asians or... whatever they’re called.” Another sip. “Then, when the blue plague started killing people-”

“The what?” asked Alan.

“In France, the English refugees called it the blue plague, it made you blue.
Depressed
. Didn’t your parents ever tell you this stuff?” he asked, struggling to focus on Alan’s face.

“No, and the school I went to had an aversion to talking about those times.”

“Anyway, when people began topping themselves they all thought it was just depression, you know, people giving up because the end was coming and no one wanted to suffer. What was the point? Done. Finito. Game over. Might as well hug the wife and kids and take the pill.” Sip. He raised his left hand and almost pinched his thumb and forefinger together, leaving a tiny gap between the pad of each and looking at Alan through it. “I came this close to not being here today.”

“They were going to kill themselves too? Your grandparents?” he asked.

“Yup. They’d been to a pharmacist and bought the little things. Did you ever see one? No, of course you wouldn’t have, your parents told you nothing.”

“It’s hard to speak when you’re dead,” he snapped. Ignoring the rebuke, John continued his drunken rant.

“It was hexag... hepto... you, it had a few sides to it, like a coin. An old 50 pence piece but not that big. Small. Real small so you could swallow it easily.”

“When did you see one?” he asked, starting on the second glass now.

“They kept it. They kept it for 37 years in the original box, next to their bed in a drawer. For 37 years they kept two little blue pills right next to them when they slept. What does that tell you?”

“I don’t know, John. You tell me.”

“It says-” He leaned over to whisper it the way drunks whisper. “The plague didn’t kill them. The pill didn’t kill them. They were still as dead as a pair of door posts though.”

“Okay, you lost me there.”

“I mean, even though they cured the fucking thing and rolled out the medicine to stop people from killing themselves, it was too late for my grandparents. They’d already died here...” He struck his chest with the flat of his left hand. “They were dead inside.”

“Because they kept the pills.” A long, slow nod.

“Because they kept the pills. Just in case.”

Alan felt his head swim as he finished the second glass and started on his third. John was carefully examining the label on his can of coke as he poured it into a fourth glass, grinning to himself. The family in the corner were giggling and playing on the carpet. Mum. Three kids. Dad working behind the bar, watching between servings. It was almost normal.

“So,” said John. “Dead parents, eh?”

“Afraid so,” replied Alan.

“Sucks.”

“You?”

“Of course they’re dead. Do you see them anywhere?”

“I guess not.”

“Buried them myself.”

Alan looked at him but John suddenly burst into a fit of choking laughter. “Not literally, man. Did I not tell you the story?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Didn’t I? Way-back-when?”

“No, John. At least I don’t remember if you did.”

“Some friend you are,” he laughed. “You aren’t even listening. You always were a bit out of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you aren’t winning ‘best listener award’ this year, let me tell you that.”

“I’ve just listened to your grandparents-killing-themselves story, haven’t I?” he cried.

“Okay then,” he said, leaning in again to the point of almost falling off his stool. “Test time. Where did they live after the Panic?”

“France. In a refugee camp.”

“There!” he yelled and smashed his clenched fist down on the bar, rattling the empty glasses. “I’ve got you. It wasn’t France at all.”

“Yes it was! You said France!”

“Did I?”

“Yes!”

“Oh,” he replied, shaking his head. “I meant Spain.”

“So they lived in Spain? In a refugee camp?”

“Yes. Didn’t I say that?”

“No. You said it was in France.”

“Why? What’s France got to do with it?”

“You tell me! It’s your bloody story. Was any of it true?”

“Of course it was,” he replied. “Are your parents still dead?”

“I’m pretty sure they are.”

“See, I was listening. Did I pass the test?”

14

Alan, somehow, managed to find his way back to the caravan in spite of the swaying motion of the road beneath his feet and the bad street lighting that seemed to stop him from being able to focus on anything in particular. After spending a considerable amount of time trying to find the right caravan, he eventually stumbled up the steps and fumbled with the key in the lock until it finally gave way and allowed him to enter.

The lights were still on and Moll, looking up from where she lay, gave him a withering look before returning to her nap.

“Don’t judge me,” said Alan, patting the beast roughly on her head. “I was misled.”

Tim had left his cars in his usual fashion and he found himself staring at the arrangement, feeling the floor still moving beneath him, making his stomach roll and lurch. He set a brown paper bag on the kitchen worktop, remembering it now with some vague recollection of having taken a couple of sandwiches from the vendor in the complex before parting from John.

“Tim!” he cried out, steadying himself on the counter with one hand. “Tim - dinner’s up.”

He heard footsteps behind him and turned, struggling to focus on the shape in the doorway.

“Alan Harding? Where’ve you been?” asked Tim, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Sorry,” he replied. “I got carried away with John. I brought you a sandwich though. I think it’s ham.”

“Are you drunk?” The clarity of the question cut through the fog in his brain like a lighthouse lamp.

“What?” he asked, not because he didn’t hear the question but because he wanted time to collect his scattered thoughts, now caught on the rocky beach of his mind by the searching glare.

“Are you drunk like my Dad?”

Alan slumped onto the chair, nearly sitting on Moll’s head as he did so. He stared blankly at Tim, his mouth open, unable to speak. Something clicked in his head and started the sobering process at a rapid rate.

“Your Dad? Was he...?”

“He was always drunk,” replied Tim.

“You never said before.”

“You were never drunk before.”

He realised that Tim had become frozen to the spot. He hadn’t moved to take one of the sandwiches and he was purposely standing outside of his reach, his arms raised slightly as if to defend himself from the blows he expected to arrive at any minute, as regular as a train. The sharpness of the image Alan saw, and the message it conveyed to him of secret abuse, slammed into him as if it were that train.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m drunk.”

Silence again. Punctuating silence that ended every sentence of the New World now, he thought, as he looked down at the floor in shame. He wanted to reassure Tim that he wasn’t a violent man, that he would never hit him or allow him to be harmed, not by him, not by anyone. But the scenes of carnage, the blasts of the laser rifle, the horrors he’d wrought at the scavenger camp with the machete, all of it was pure violence that he’d never thought he was capable of - until now. What more could he do, he wondered? Strike a defenceless boy? It seemed possible now: he was capable of anything.

Alan hardly noticed the tears that came rolling down his cheeks and struck the lino floor. He didn’t see Tim cross the hallway and put his arms around his broad shoulders. He only felt his guilt and the weight it bore down upon him, squeezing out the grief in racking sobs like moisture from a sponge.

Sleep came. Sweet, blessed sleep and it was all gone.

He awoke to the sunlight making its feeble way in through the yellowed net curtains and the clattering sounds of toy cars racing up and down the lino. Tim was on the floor, having expanded his car park to include most of the living room and Moll, still laid out flat on the settee, watched with little or no interest.

At first Alan didn’t move. He laid there and watched the boy as he played and thought about what he’d revealed the previous night, about his obviously drunken father and what that’d meant to him. The past was being told to him in painfully slow drips and drabs and he wondered whether or not he would ever be able to tell him all of it. He stared at the boy and thought about what damage had been done to him. It made him angry and perhaps that was partly due to his own anger at having broken down so easily and then allowing himself to get drunk. Had his father beaten him? Worse?

Eventually Tim turned and, seeing that he was awake, stood up, still holding a bright red fire truck in one hand.

“I ate the other sandwich. I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I was hungry and I had nothing left in my rucksack.”

“It’s okay, Tim,” said Alan. “I’ll get some more food today. Is there water?”

“Yes. In a tub by the door.”

Alan got up and felt nothing. No headache. No sickness. No hangover. It reminded him that even something as simple as alcohol poisoning had no effect upon his body now.

He got up and poured himself a cup of water from the plastic barrel that was sat on the kitchen work top. It had a tap at the bottom and someone had written the number of the caravan on it in a black ink pen, slanting slightly as they’d done so. He drank it in one long and thirsty gulp and poured himself another.

“I’m sorry about last night,” said Alan.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not though. Do you want to talk about him?”

“My Dad?” He shook his head. “No.”

Alan looked him in the eye and said “I’m not him, Tim. I’m not that man and if I’d known about it, I’d have never touched a drop to spare you from having to remember him.”

“I know,” he replied.

“I hope you do. I hope you never have reason to be scared of me.”

“I don’t, Alan Harding.”

“Good.”

“You’re a better Dad than he ever was,” he mumbled, turning back to his cars. Alan took a deep breath and placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder and squeezed.

“And I will be,” he replied. “Just you see.”

As soon as he’d refreshed himself in the sink and attempted to get some of the dust and dirt out of his hair and beard, he set out across the park in search of John once more. Unlike himself, Alan expected the man to be in bed, hung-over and feeling the worse for wear. If Alan had drunk enough then John had drunk almost twice as much but to his surprise, as he made his way towards the complex under a pale morning sky, there was John, sipping a cup of coffee and watching the lifting of a new antenna onto the roof.

“I thought you’d be dead this morning,” said Alan, slapping him on the back.

“Shush!” replied John, shaking his head. “I feel like I am and your unnatural happiness isn’t helping this headache.”

“You knocked a fair few back last night.”

“You’re telling me. Did I say anything dumb?”

“Nothing more than usual,” laughed Alan. “What’s going on?”

“This?” he gestured with his coffee cup. “This is old-school tech - a radio that we’re hoping might pick up a signal in spite of the interference from the storm.”

“Really?”

“It’s worth a try. We stole it from the local radio station; that and a whole load of other stuff. You might even hear some music today if we’re lucky.”

“Music? Man, it’s been a long time since I heard anything like that.”

“You and me both. I’ve only heard two tracks since the disaster - both of them rap and I can’t stand that stuff.”

The antenna was being handled by four men with long ropes and it was almost in place, looking like a mast that was being shipped onto a boat. One of them, the oldest, called out directions until he was satisfied with the position near the base, then ordered that the ropes be tied off. This took another few minutes and more coils of steel cable were brought up a ladder to help secure the towering structure now that it was in place.

“That’s Jimmy,” said John, pointing to the older man. “He’s the only Spark we have in the whole place. What’re the odds of us finding only one electrician out of near enough 300 people?”

“I think luck has abandoned us now, mate,” he replied.

“Luck. God. Fate. They all seem to be against us.”

Alan looked at the coffee cup, smelling the delicious aroma. “Where do I get one of those?” he asked.

“The bar.”

“Do I have to?” he moaned.

“Yup. Hold your nose though - they’ve had a leak of beer and it nearly turned my stomach after last night.”

Alan went and fetched himself some in a giant orange mug bearing the silvery outline of a tiger’s head on it and the words ‘
Fun Fun Fun
’ etched in a big arc near its pointy cartoon ears. When he returned, John pointed at the mug and began laughing.

“That’s a brave barman who gave you that thing,” he said, still laughing.

“He could’ve given it me out of a piss-pot and I’d still drink it.”

“Been a while then?”

“Too long since I had the good stuff. Looted?”

“Yeah and the supplies are running out. You wouldn’t know how to grow some more, would you?”

Alan grinned. “I might.”

“You’re being serious, aren’t you?” He nodded. “How?”

“It’s one of the reasons I’m here talking to you.”

“What are the others?”

“Tim- the boy I came with. You mentioned someone who might be able to help?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Is he back at your caravan?” Alan nodded. “Finish your coffee and we’ll go and fetch him. I had a word with Rachel last night - she’s the social worker I was telling you about. She said she’d be more than happy to help you with him.”

“He’s not a burden,” said Alan.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“That boy’s seen too much. I want to get him some help, not palm him off on someone.”

John held his hands up in surrender.

“I understand,” he said. “My bad. I’m just not sure I could cope the way you do with the extra...
responsibility
.”

“So isn’t all this your responsibility then?” said Alan, gesturing with the tiger’s grinning face to all the workers fitting the antenna.

“I wouldn’t say ‘responsibility’ but I like to help where I can.”

“But you don’t feel any obligation to them?”

“Alan - I’d cut and run tomorrow if I got a better offer. But there isn’t one and I don’t think one is coming any time soon, do you?”

“Maybe I came to the wrong shop then,” he replied.

“Hey - don’t get me wrong, I want to see this place thrive, I really do, but-”

“But you’re in it for yourself. Is that what you’re saying?”

“What else is there? Tell me that.”

Alan sipped his coffee and looked at the sky. It was still angry with the world, still grumbling within the dirty grey swells of its unending tide, sweeping west across to the horizon, chasing the sun which lay submerged above its whirling depths.

“Does everyone here feel the same way?”

“How would I know? If you want my honest opinion-” He drained the last of his coffee, slinging his head back as he did so. “Then I’d say that even though we’re putting this here radio tower up, it doesn’t mean anyone really cares anymore.”

“You think people have lost the will to survive?”

John laughed and then cursed himself for forgetting the pain in his skull.

“They’re fine for now. There’s coffee and food and spirits and friendship. But sooner or later it’s all going to run out and then what? Do you think those bonds of fellowship will hold this place together? I don’t.”

“I thought you were growing food? I thought-”

“We are. But you know what it’s like, all that effort to grow one cob that can’t even feed a family let alone 300 people.”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” said Alan, holding up his hand. “Let’s go and get Tim and then I want to see Sam. I met his brother last night and that didn’t go so well either.”

“He’s a barrel of laughs, isn’t he?” said John.

“I understand why, but it won’t help anyone here.”

“I’m beginning to detect a plan.”

“That you are, John. That you are.”

After giving a few orders to the team working on the antenna, John took Alan inside the complex, waving away the two fresh security guards on the door the moment they attempted to stop them.

“Are they all that keen?” asked Alan.

“They weren’t at first and it was hard getting recruits early on. Then we had our first infiltrator and suddenly everybody wanted the job.”

“Have they caught many?”

“More than Sam or the Doc realise. Most of them are never heard from again, hence the appeal of the job. More than the disaster and the rads, the people here see the scavengers as the biggest threat and any chance to take some revenge is jumped upon.”

“Understandable.”

“Certainly,” he replied. “This way.”

John led him off to the right, opening a fire door and walking straight through a gymnasium taken up by row after row of folding chairs that faced a stage made from pallets stacked three high.