Michael hadn’t seen the bodies. He was still daydreaming as he sat down on the grass next to their vehicle.
‘You know,’ he began, ‘sitting here you could almost convince yourself that nothing had happened.’
Emma said nothing. Having had the same thought just a few seconds earlier, the appearance of the bodies in the surf below had depressed her. She didn’t think it was fair to spoil her friend’s enjoyment of the moment.
Michael stretched out on the grass, lying back and resting on his elbows. He looked over at Emma and smiled.
‘Know what I want?’ he asked.
‘What?’ she wondered, feigning interest.
‘A sandwich,’ he replied. ‘I want a big, thick sandwich on freshly baked, crusty bread. I want salad, sliced ham, grated cheese and mayonnaise. Oh, and I’ll have a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice to wash it down with.’
‘We’ve got tinned ham and a little bit of mayo back at the farm,’ Emma said, sitting down next to him. ‘And we’ve got orange cordial.’
‘Not the same really, is it?’
She shook her head.
‘No. Think we’ll ever eat like that again?’
Michael thought for a few moments.
‘We might do. I bet we could make bread and cheese eventually, and we could have ham if we can catch and kill a pig. And I suppose we could grow fruit and vegetables if we set up a greenhouse…’
‘You should get yourself an allotment,’ she joked.
‘I could do,’ Michael said, semiseriously. He sighed sadly and looked up into the sky. ‘I don’t know, it’s fucking stupid, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘Everything we’ve just said. In a few seconds we’ve managed to come up with about six month’s work. Six months to get a fucking salad sandwich and a glass of orange juice…’
‘I know,’ she sympathised.
Michael yawned and stretched. He looked across at Emma who suddenly seemed to be deep in thought. He had learnt recently that this was not always a good sign. It was okay to think for a while, but concentrating too deeply on everything that had happened often caused real problems.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
She smiled and nodded and looked down at him.
‘I’m okay,’ she replied, giving little away.
‘But…?’ he pressed, sensing that she needed to talk. He stared at her and, once eye-contact had been made, she realised that she couldn’t avoid answering him.
‘Are we really doing the right thing here?’ she asked.
‘What, sitting in a car park looking at the sea?’ he replied flippantly. Unamused, Emma shook her head.
‘No, I’m talking about the house and being out in the countryside.’
Michael sat up attentively, sensing the seriousness in her voice.
‘Of course we are,’ he answered defensively. ‘Why, are you starting to have doubts?’
‘What is there to have doubts about?’
‘Whether we should ever have left the city? Whether Carl was the one who was right to go back there?’
‘I’m not having doubts…’
‘So what is it then? Don’t you think we can make anything of what’s left?’
‘I’m not sure. Do you?’
‘We might be able to. The bodies are rotting, aren’t they? They should disappear over time and if we could…’
‘What about disease?’
‘There are a thousand hospitals up and down the country full of drugs.’
‘But we don’t know which drugs to use.’
‘We can find out.’
‘But if we’re sick and we need to get drugs, we’ll need to know what disease we’ve got, won’t we? How do we diagnose that? Do you know the difference between malaria, typhoid and gout for God’s sake?’
‘No, but there are books…’
‘So what chance have we got?’
Michael stood up and walked over to Emma. Although she still tried to avoid eye contact, he positioned himself directly in front of her so that she had no choice but to look up into his face.
‘We’ve got a chance,’ he said, his voice sounding quiet and strangely hurt. ‘Okay, I accept that it might not be much of a chance, but to me it’s a fucking chance all the same and I’m going to take it.’
‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sorry…’
The couple were silent for a few seconds. Both stared into the eyes of the other, their minds full of confused thoughts.
‘Look, let’s get back,’ Michael said eventually. ‘It’s not safe to be out here.’
With that he turned away and looked around the car park. About a hundred yards away from them was a car. Nothing special – just an ordinary family-sized saloon – but it was the biggest car in the field. With Emma following close by, he walked over to it and opened the door. The remains of the driver and his female passenger sat motionless in their seats. They were both dressed in business clothes and Michael wondered what they had been doing sitting in this exposed and isolated place so early on a Tuesday morning when the catastrophe had first struck. An illicit office affair perhaps, or a married couple passing the time and spending a few precious minutes together before heading off to work? Regardless of the reason, he carefully leant inside the car and undid both seat belts. Cautiously (and with a look of disgust and concentration on his face) he took hold of the driver and dragged his corpse across the grass, leaving it on the ground alongside another car. He then returned and did the same with the passenger. The least he could do for them, he thought, was leave them together.
The keys were still in the ignition. He started the engine and gestured for Emma to get inside.
‘Follow me back,’ he said, suddenly anxious and feeling uncomfortably vulnerable now that they were making a noise which might alert any nearby bodies to their presence. ‘Okay?’
She nodded and sat behind the wheel. Michael ran over to the Landrover, started it up and pulled away.
In convoy the two cars drove out of the car park and back towards the farm.
41
Michael’s earlier disorientation worsened as they drove back home. The roads which they’d followed earlier looked even more unfamiliar when he tried to navigate his way back again. The journey was made more difficult by the fact that he kept glancing back in the rear view mirror to check that Emma was still following. He felt surprisingly uncomfortable without her in the seat next to him. He had come to rely on having her around much more than he’d realised. He still felt like he hardly knew her, but the truth of the matter was that he had shared more pain, despair and raw emotion with her than with any other person in the twenty-nine years of his life so far.
He threw the Landrover around a sharp bend in the road and then slammed on the brakes to avoid the back end of a milk float which was jutting out into the road, the front of the float having smashed into a low stone wall. He missed it by inches, and the closeness of a collision shocked him back into concentrating on safely returning to the farm house. Another quick glance in the mirror revealed that Emma was still close behind.
The winding road gradually opened out and became straighter. In the near distance he could see a row of three isolated grey cottages. From one of the buildings (it seemed to be the middle one) a single figure emerged and staggered into the middle of the road. It stopped and turned to face him.