The clouds had parted. There was a patch of the universe visible through it, about the size of a football field. The stars seemed packed within, as though so desperate to be seen they’d shifted their positions. He watched until the cloud knitted itself together again. It was as if it had never happened. The wind stirred his fringe. Soon it might be howling around them again. What was this? Eye of a storm? He could hear thunder coming up from the south. The familiar pulses of silver. It was warmer outside than in. He knelt and placed his hand against the tarmac. Residual heat. He wondered if it was from the event itself. He thought of his parents in their tiny garden, sitting together doing the crossword and drinking gin and tonics before dinner. He hoped that oblivion had reached them as quickly as it had those in Hiroshima. He couldn’t cope with the thought of them surviving and struggling.
Black, burned bushes at the side of the road. Scars in the embankment where cars had collided and rolled. He looked at all the dead vehicles, dozens of them, and wondered if they could ever be fixed. If something electrical made now by someone with know-how would work, or whether there was some atmospheric gremlin in the air that would not allow it.
He walked around the motorhome to the off side. He peered into the dark. Another four hours until light, or its approximation. In the centre of the road was a diagram, scratched into the tacky skin of filth with a chunk of rock. It was a picture of a hand with six fingers and, within it, a stick figure.
He remembered the bowl of meat. How he had scooped up the hot, greasy contents, chewing the skin which crackled under his teeth. The flavour of it rose in his throat now and he was sick, a thin gruel of whisky and soup. The tattoo. What had they given him?
He looked up at the motorhome. On the window above the kitchen sink was a handprint.
12. BREAKING AND ENTERING
In the morning Jane broke into a barn and found a keeve filled with broken bottles and jars of fermenting pickle. There was a wooden chest filled with junk. He sorted through it but there was nothing worth taking although he did see a toy boat, painted blue and white, with a broken mast, no sail. He put it in his coat pocket. He emptied the keeve, wiped it clean with his gloved hand, and lugged it back to the motorhome. He used a pan to scoop up dirty water from a nearby brook, filtered it with a sieve and heated it on the burner. It took a while but the promise of a hot bath was worth it.
‘Go ahead,’ he told Becky when she’d risen. She was standing at the door in her underwear, her hair tousled, looking down at the grey, steaming bathwater. ‘A gift from me to you. A thank-you.’
He took Aidan’s arm and guided him away. They walked along the carriageway and Jane showed him the cats’ eyes set into the middle of the road. He wanted to show him how the fixed rubber dome they were set into wiped the glass clean when it was depressed, but all of the rubber had melted. He picked one of the eyes out with his knife and handed it to Aidan. The mist wouldn’t allow them a view south further than two hundred feet. It looked like something from a war photographer’s portfolio.
‘I’ve never been to London afore,’ Aidan said. He was scratching the top of his plaster cast. Jane hoped the break would heal well. If they couldn’t find anybody good at setting bones they would either have to find a textbook and learn or walk around wrapped in cotton wool. He’d done his mandatory First Aid courses. He knew how to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and dress a wound with a piece of glass sticking out of it. But what if Becky severed an artery? What if Aidan fractured his skull?
‘London’s great,’ Jane said. ‘Especially for people who don’t live there.’
‘What’s in London?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Are there helicopters in London?’
‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘And a big zoo. And parks so big it would take you a day to walk across them. And a big wheel that you can ride on.’
‘How big? As big as the Earth?’
‘Nearly.’
‘Woah,’ Aidan said. He was thoughtful for a while. ‘Dad took me and Kerry on a big wheel at the fair.’
‘This one is much bigger than that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Trust me.’
They turned and made their way back to the motorhome. Jane could see Becky wrapped in a bed sheet, drying her hair. He whistled and waved so that she would know they were on their way back, although he supposed privacy was the least of their worries. The land either side of the road was wreathed in mist. He shook away a conviction of creatures in white masks just beyond its margins, watching them intently. He oughtn’t to have left Becky to bathe alone, but something about these pursuers told him that it was all right. They were too timid. They seemed, for all their menace, to be in thrall to him, if that was the right word for it. A thought occurred to him, of protection, but he couldn’t move beyond that inclination. He had surprised himself with it. It seemed an absurd notion. But the image of the bodies hanging from those great posts in the ground. The injuries they had sustained. It was like punishment. A statement, or a warning. Chris had physically attacked him, and he’d ended up on one of those posts.
By the time they got back to the motorhome, Becky had made breakfast. Mugs of tea, tinned fruit, a box of cheese crackers she’d found at the back of a cupboard. Aidan got into the bath and Jane remembered the boat. He tossed it in after him. Aidan pushed it around on the water, pretending there were people on board falling into the sea and being eaten by sharks. He got out, shivering, and Becky wrapped him in a bed sheet.
‘Is there anything we can take with us?’ Jane asked.
‘Can’t we take the motorhome?’ Aidan asked.
‘Afraid not,’ Becky said. ‘The engine’s kaput.’
‘What means “kaput”?’
‘Broken,’ Jane said.
‘Dad says “knackered”.’
‘Knackered works.’
They ate breakfast and rifled the drawers and cupboards. Aidan pointed at a door under the rear bed that opened into storage space.
‘Good boy, Aidan,’ Jane said. ‘Nice work.’
They found a case of shrink-wrapped mineral water, a tin of Quality Street chocolates, blankets and waterproof coats. A tripod and a camera bag. Jane unzipped the case and pulled out a pre-digital Nikon SLR. It was loaded with film. Three exposures taken. He thought about taking it with him, but he didn’t know anything about development. Enlargers wouldn’t work any more. Safelights wouldn’t work any more. He had never been into photography before. And it wasn’t as if the world hankered for a couple of family portraits while it smouldered to cinders and ash.
He tossed the camera back into the cabin.
‘Look,’ said Aidan. He’d been at the glove compartment and found passports, a bunch of keys, and a wallet.
‘Mr and Mrs Lewis,’ Jane read. ‘From Plymouth.’ The wallet contained one hundred and fifty pounds, credit cards, photo-booth snaps he didn’t look at. He put it all back.