The Power of Five Oblivion (49 page)

THIRTY-SEVEN

WELCOME TO
LITTLE MOULSFORD

There was no way round the village. The sign was placed right next to the canal and we could see the houses behind it, neatly arranged around a green that was so well tended that it didn’t look real. The houses themselves were all beautiful too. Shrink them down and you would be able to buy them in the expensive toyshops I’d once seen in magazines. They were pink and mauve and lilac, with names like Bide A While and Well Barn. And there was a shop selling antiques, a public house and a little gem of a church, not like the one I’d been used to but perfect in every way, with the stained-glass windows intact and the stonework bright and clean. Look at the church and you would imagine the vicar, smiling and benevolent. He would greet everyone every Sunday. And he would know all their names.

It helped that this was a pleasant day. We had arrived in the afternoon and as always it was cloudy but the sun was doing its best to break through and there was a gentle, warm breeze.

The Traveller didn’t like it. We were forty or fifty miles from London and this wasn’t the sort of scene he had been expecting. He hadn’t said very much but I got the impression that if Little Moulsford had been a flyblown dump with dead bodies lying at the roadside and weeds everywhere, he would have been able to relax more. It was just too perfect. Nowhere in England was like this any more. And we had to pass right through the middle of it. Worse than that, there were three locks in a row that we had to manoeuvre, meaning that we couldn’t even stay in the
Lady Jane
. As we opened and closed the sluices, we would be horribly exposed.

There were people living here. They had heard us coming and a small crowd of them had gathered at the first lock as we approached. There was nothing really we could do except motor forward, trying to pretend that the three of us were on holiday having a lovely time rather than trying to escape from fly-soldiers, violent death and the end of the world. The villagers looked friendly enough. They were all smiling at us and were dressed as smartly as possible, with neatly cut hair. They also seemed well fed … something I noticed immediately because in my village everyone had always been waiting for the next proper meal.

“Have you got your guns?” the Traveller muttered.

I didn’t really know what he was worried about. These people looked harmless enough. I was actually quite excited to see them – to discover that my village wasn’t the only community that had managed to survive for ten years. But I did have my gun with me, tucked into my waistband. It was an uncomfortable feeling, having it pressing into my flesh. Part of me was afraid that it would go off and shoot me in the thigh but the Traveller had shown me how to put the safety catch on and had assured me the gun couldn’t fire until it was released.

Jamie nodded.

“I’ve got mine,” I said.

“Let’s see what these people want. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t do anything unless I say so.”

We stopped in front of the first lock. The people were standing over us, looking down. A smart, military-looking man in his fifties stepped forward. He seemed to be their leader. He had short grey hair and a moustache. There was a woman standing next to him, exactly the same height, with curly hair. She was wearing a flower-patterned dress and carrying a handbag, and even had a string of pearls and earrings. I had never seen anyone wearing jewellery, except in pictures.

“Good day to you,” the man said. “My name is Michael Higham. Major Michael Higham, as a matter of fact, although heaven knows we don’t stand on ceremony. And may I present my wife, Dorothy? Welcome to Little Moulsford!”

“Thank you,” the Traveller replied.

“It’s not very often we see a boat come this way,” he went on. “The last one was a couple of years ago.”

“It was more like three,” his wife corrected him. She seemed to polish every word before she spoke it. “It was called
The Horizon
. A very nice boat – on the way to London. Of course, we advised them not to continue.”

“They never came back,” the major added, nodding his head in agreement. He ran his eye over the
Lady Jane
. “A fine vessel. Forty foot?”

“Forty-five.”

“I can’t believe you managed to find any fuel for her. Where have you come from?”

The Traveller looked back down the canal. “We were in a village about forty miles away. Unfortunately, the water supply failed so we thought we’d try our luck further south.” I realized he was being deliberately vague and he wasn’t telling them the whole truth.

“I wouldn’t go much further south if I were you,” the major said. “The land’s contaminated. As far as we know, we’re the last community between here and the city. But you must join us for supper – you and your two young friends. We’re fortunate. We have our own reservoir for water and our food supplies are holding up pretty well. We see so few people these days! You’ll be very welcome.”

“That’s very kind of you.” I could see that the Traveller didn’t want to accept the invitation, but at the same time there was something about the crowd of people looking down at us that told us that they might turn nasty if we refused. I don’t know what made me think that. There was just something in the air. “We’ll make our way through the locks and moor up on the other side.” He made it sound casual, as if it didn’t really matter very much. “Maybe you can help us with the gates?”

From the way that the Traveller looked at me, out of the corner of his eye, I knew that the only reason he wanted to climb the locks now was so that he could make a quick getaway if needed – not that you could move particularly quickly on a canal boat. But at least if push came to shove, we wouldn’t be too exposed – which is to say, we wouldn’t be up there with our backs turned, pushing and shoving the gate. The major and his wife didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, they took our lock key and handed it to a ten-year-old boy, who ran off and did all the work for us. There was something quite unnerving about the boy – and the way he looked at us with large eyes staring out of a colourless face. He was friendly enough but I got the feeling there was something he knew that we didn’t. After he had opened the gates he took a bone out of his pocket and gnawed it as we motored through.

Twenty minutes later, we were at the top end of the flight. Jamie and I moored the boat and we all stepped off.

The villagers had watched us as we made our progress and I was able to examine them a little more closely. They were all a bit like the major and his wife – very polite and civilized. They didn’t look like survivors at all. Forget the fact that the world had more or less come to an end … they’d be delighted if you’d join them for a drink on the terrace or maybe a game of cards. There were about fifteen of them. The youngest was the boy – his name was Cosmo – who’d helped open the locks. There was a couple who must have been in their eighties. The rest were all middle-aged, and although my first impression had been that they looked healthy, I now decided there was something off-putting about the whole lot of them. It was in their eyes. They were red-rimmed and had a sort of glaze to them. The colour of their skin was odd too. It was waxy. But then, I had to remind myself, even I probably didn’t look too good myself. Nobody did.

“We’ll eat in the pub,” the major told us. “Everyone’s going to want to meet you and hear how you got here. Shall we say six o’clock? With no electricity, we all tend to go to bed early.” He turned to the Traveller. “There are a few things I’d like to talk about alone, if you don’t mind.
Pas devant les enfants!
“Not in front of the children. I’d learnt enough French to understand that. “Suppose you come over at five thirty? And they join us later?”

“As you like.”

“Good! Well, I’ll give you a chance to tidy up and whatever, and I’ll see you later. Splendid boat. Tomorrow you must show me around…”

The major and his wife drifted off and the rest of the villagers followed. Only Cosmo remained behind, sitting on one of the lock gates, swinging his legs. He looked innocent, but at the same time I wondered if he was watching us, making sure we didn’t leave.

The Traveller was wary too. “Listen,” he said to us, once we were alone. “It may be that these people mean well. Maybe all they want to do is give us dinner. We have to go along with them, at least to begin with. But just be careful. They seem to be well-fed and they’ve managed to survive – which means they must be smarter than they look. Be on your guard the whole time.”

“Are you going over to meet them?” Jamie asked. He looked, and sounded, unhappy.

“I don’t think I have any choice. I’ll go and see if I can find out what’s going on. Holly, keep your gun with you. And be prepared to use it.”

“They were keeping something from you,” Jamie said. That was exactly what I’d thought, but with him it was more than a hunch. He had used his power to see into their minds. “I wanted to know what they were thinking,” he went on. “There was definitely something there but they managed to conceal it. It was almost as if they didn’t
want
to think about it. Like they were too ashamed.”

“Let’s hope I can find out,” the Traveller said. “And if I do, I’ll let you know.”

He left about an hour later, setting off for his appointment with the major. The boy was still there, still swinging his legs, chewing on that bone of his again. There was something about him that got on my nerves. Jamie and I stayed on the boat, hoping that the Traveller would get back – but twenty minutes later there was no sign of him. We waited until five to six. Then Jamie made the decision.

“We’d better go.”

We left together, taking care to fasten the main door. That’s something I should have mentioned about the
Lady Jane
. Although you wouldn’t have known to look at it, the boat had all sorts of locks and bolts. I’m not saying it was impossible to break into, but it would take a while and you’d need a good-sized hammer or crowbar. The drawers and cupboards were also fastened. All that was missing was a self-destruct mechanism if anyone tried to tamper with anything – and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Traveller hadn’t managed to rig one of those up too.

It was already growing dark and without meaning to we quickened our pace, keeping close together. The canal looked darker and more dead than ever. The
Lady Jane
was wrapped in shadow. I felt more uncomfortable with every step I took. I hated leaving it behind.

We walked across the green with the houses spread out in front of us and I remembered Miss Keyland telling us how, before the terror, there had been people who kept second homes – one in London, one in the countryside. I imagined that this was exactly the sort of place they would have come. Everything was so neat, so ordered, that it was hard to believe that any real country folk had ever lived here. We came to the pub, which reminded me a bit of the Queen’s Head, except it was smaller and prettier with a thatched roof and bow windows. It had a low door with a sign reading MIND YOUR HEAD and next to it, in chalk, the single word – OUCH! The pub was called the Punch Tavern. There was a sign hanging outside showing a horse pulling a plough. Somebody was playing the violin. We opened the door and went in.

A fire burned inside, which was nice, and half a dozen tables arranged with candles, making everything warm and snug. There were all sorts of bottles arranged behind the bar, but I could see at a glance that they were empty. I wondered if the villagers produced their own beer like we had. By the end, they were making ours out of turnips, I think. I had never tasted it but George said it was disgusting. On the plus side, I could smell meat cooking in the kitchen and, I have to say, it made my mouth water. The food on the
Lady Jane
had been amazing in its own way. I wasn’t even sure how it had kept fresh locked up inside those tins but that didn’t stop me wolfing it down. Hot, fresh meat, though, was something else again. It must have been three months since I’d tasted a rabbit, and that had been scrawny and tough, and as for squirrels … you don’t want to know. This meat smelled like pork, for me a distant memory. I could hardly wait.

All the villagers were there – apart from the major. There was no sign of the Traveller either. The violin was being played by a man standing beside the fire. He was missing an eye but hadn’t bothered to cover it with a patch. The socket was bunched up and ugly, like a tightly closed mouth.

Everyone seemed pleased to see us as Jamie and I walked in. The major’s wife, Dorothy, showed us to a table. “How lovely to see you. Now, you must let me introduce you. This is Alfie and Amanda Bussell. Angus Withers-Green, who does all our building for us. Everything would fall down if it wasn’t for him! Mr Weeks, who runs the pub. I think you met Cosmo out at the lock and that’s his sister, Christabel (she was a girl about two years younger than him, pale and hungry-looking, clutching a stuffed polar bear). “Mrs Fielding and Mrs Hamilton. The Osmonds.” She laughed. “I’m sure there are far too many names to take on board all at once. I’ll let everyone introduce themselves. In the meantime, would you like some orange juice?”

I had only ever drunk orange juice on special holidays – at Christmas and on my birthday. The publican, Mr Weeks, was a big, round-faced man with curling black hair almost bursting out of his head. He brought over two glasses and although the liquid inside them was barely orange at all, it did at least smell vaguely of fruit.

“Here you go, my dear,” he said. He smiled at me but not in a particularly pleasant way. His face was too close to mine.

“Thank you.” I backed away.

He gave Jamie a second glass and the two of us sat there for a minute with nobody talking but everybody looking at us. I raised my drink to my lips.

Don’t drink it!

It was Jamie, inside my head. It always unnerved me, that power of his. I remembered the first time it had happened, at the church, in front of the Assembly. It felt as if he was whispering into my ear, but inside not outside … if you get what I mean. I glanced at him. His face wasn’t giving anything away but I somehow knew that he wasn’t himself, that he was wishing he was anywhere but here.