“Yeah, I can see it on his sleeve,” I said, eyeing the shotgun.
“No, really. Apparently he’s just protective over her since they had a burglary a few years ago and he slept right through it, so he’s suspicious of anyone who turns up at night now. She told me he’ll relax when he’s sure we don’t mean any harm.”
He kept his voice low, and I could see Ralph straining to hear what we were saying. Realising that we weren’t helping ourselves by muttering to each other, I raised my voice and addressed the couple.
“I want to thank you again for helping us,” I said loudly, “like I said earlier, I’m trying to get to Manchester and find my daughter, Melody. She’s only eleven, and her mum isn’t exactly practical, if you know what I mean?”
“You got a picture?” Ralph’s gruff voice surprised me; I was expecting Harriet to answer.
I obediently pulled out my wallet and slid out one of the pictures I always kept in it, this one showing Melody laughing in the sun as she ran along the pebbles on Hove beach, her long brown hair sweeping out behind her and her blue eyes shining with joy. It was my favourite, taken only a few months before when she’d come down for one of her hurried visits.
I slid it across the table and Ralph broke the barrels on his shotgun before placing it on the counter next to the sink, then crossed to pick it up and squint at it.
“Cute girl,” he said eventually, “where did you say she is?”
“Manchester,” I said as Harriet brought several mugs and a bowl of sugar over to the table, “she lives up there with her mum, we split up a couple of years ago.”
“Marriage should be for life,” Ralph said, sitting at the table but within easy reach of the shotgun, “it only seems to last five minutes nowadays.”
“You haven’t met my ex-wife,” I said with a smile, and Ralph surprised me by giving a short bark of laughter.
“So how come you two are travelling together then?” He asked, relaxing slightly as his wife brought over a steaming iron kettle, its wooden handle wrapped in a tea towel.
Jerry looked at me and I waved for him to explain.
“I, uh, I sort of predicted that the flare would hit, and that it would be bad,” he began, “and I called Malc because I wanted him to go to the media but, well, anyway, he came to see me while I was up on the downs taking measurements, and that’s when the flare hit. Did you see the lights in the sky around midnight?”
Ralph shook his head. “No, we go to bed at about nine, and get up with the dawn, usually. Lifetime of habit is hard to break that way.”
Jerry waited while Harriet poured tea for us all, disappearing through one of the doors and coming back a few moments later with a clay jug of cool milk. I raised an eyebrow as she poured milk into my mug.
“It’s fresh from the cow each day,” she said in answer, “unpasteurised. We still use the old larder from when the cottage was built, the freezer is down there now, of course, but it’s built into the foundations so it still stays cold even on hot days. Between that and the Rayburn stove,” she pointed the jug at the cooker, “burning wood to provide heating and to cook with, we’re pretty much self-sufficient so power cuts don’t bother us much.”
“Then you’re perfectly placed to survive what’s coming,” Jerry said, sitting forward as he warmed to his subject. “Because it could be weeks or months before the power comes back on, and without supplies coming in to the cities and towns, people will spread out looking for food. My advice would be to board up your windows and doors and only go out when you absolutely have to. It’s only been a few hours since it hit, so everyone is still probably waiting for the lights to come back on. Give it a day or two until they realise there’s no more food coming, and people will start getting desperate.”
“Do you really think it’s as bad as all that?” Harriet asked, worry creasing her already lined forehead.
He nodded. “I’m afraid so, and even if I’m wrong it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
He went on to tell them about what we’d seen, starting with the fires that had seemed to envelop Brighton, then the abandoned cars on the road, and finally the crashed plane and the groups of youths that had chased us for no reason.
As he spoke, Ralph’s face grew more and more grim, and even Harriet’s usually cheerful face became drawn and worried-looking.
They began to exchange concerned glances, and when Jerry was finally finished they were both clearly agitated about something, although I couldn’t tell what it was.
Ralph’s thick, scarred fingers were wrapped around his tea mug as if trying to crack it, and Harriet was hugging herself tight.
“Is everything ok?” I asked gently.
Harriet shook herself and stood.
“Fine, fine. Just a lot to take in, that’s all. Now let’s have a look at that ankle of yours and we’ll see how bad it is.”
She shifted her chair round to the side of the table and lifted my foot, placing one of the lamps nearby as she fussed and tutted, moving my ankle gently and running bony fingers over the joint.
I winced at every movement, but she ignored me, then directed Ralph to get her first aid kit from under the sink.
“It’s not broken,” she said finally, “just a sprain I think, although it’s a bad one. You’re lucky.”
She laid the first aid kit out on the table in front of her and took out a length of bandage, deftly wrapping it around the injured joint. When she finished, it was tight but not overly so, and when I put my foot on the floor I found that I could put more weight on it than I’d been able to before.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile. “Looks like you’ve done that before.”
She nodded as she packed the kit away.
“Once or twice, I was a nurse for almost fifty years. Community stuff mostly, but I worked up in London in the sixties in one of the big hospitals. Now you need to keep it raised and use an icepack too. I saw that Jerry has got a few in his car, so you can use those. If things are as bad as you say I might be needing mine.”
“Well thank you again, both of you.”
Harriet smiled and Ralph grunted, then the old man stood and gestured towards one of the doors leading further into the cottage.
“Suppose we can’t be turning you out in the middle of the night, so you can both sleep in the lounge. You’ll be comfortable enough with your sleeping bags, but no funny business. You, astrophysicist, how about you go and get your things while I show your journalist here where you’ll be sleeping?”
Jerry obliged, heading out into the yard while Ralph and Harriet led me through to the lounge, a small, cozy room with bookshelves lining most of the walls while the centre was dominated by a pair of worn but well looked after sofas and a reclining chair.
A small table sat between the chair and the sofa, littered with yesterday’s papers and a pair of reading glasses where the rest of the room was almost severely tidy.
Jerry came back in a few moments later and laid out the sleeping bags on the floor. I didn’t even bother to undress, climbing straight into my bag and falling asleep even before Ralph had turned out the light.
Chapter 11
I woke to the smell of frying bacon and coffee. Light filtered through a crack in the curtains and I lay there for a moment trying to remember where I was.
It all came flooding back as I moved my injured ankle and felt it throb, wincing as I sat up and unzipped the sleeping bag.
I looked about for Jerry, but his sleeping bag was already rolled up neatly and tucked half under one of the sofas. I stood slowly, testing my weight on my ankle and realising that it would hold well enough to get me into the kitchen.
The day was already hot. As I entered the kitchen rich, golden light streamed through the window, making me squint as Harriet immediately chivvied me over to the table and laid out a plate of bacon, eggs and mushrooms and a large mug of coffee.