A while later, we’re back on the road and all my thoughts are of Luc. There’s a small voice in my head trying to make itself heard, but I refuse to listen. It’s repeating my sister’s name over and over and although I know at some stage I’ll have to pay attention to these feelings of guilt, right now I just want to be happy. Is that so wrong?
At Melksham, we pass a large grey-walled compound and decide to stop and show Chambers’ picture to the guards. We pull up outside some thick wooden doors and wait nervously in the AV for someone to come out. A letterbox-sized opening appears at head-height and a face appears behind the grille.
‘State your business,’ comes a bored voice.
Luc opens his window and holds out the picture, explaining why we’re here. The man beckons Luc forward. Luc gets out of the AV and passes the picture to the guard, along with a couple of silver bits. The guard tells Luc to wait in his vehicle while they check it out. The grille disappears as the opening slides shut. Half-an-hour later, a shout and a hand beckon Luc back to the door. The guard thrusts the picture back out through the bars.
‘Sorry, no sightings,’ he says mechanically and the grille closes again.
Luc and I look at each other and shrug, in growing acceptance of the lack of information. The same story greets us at three further settlements. Some guards are friendly and others are as curt as those at Melksham, but they all have the same response: ‘Sorry, no.’
We’re heading towards the town of Chippenham. Luc says we’re now well over halfway to my grandparents’ house. I’m excited at the thought of seeing my family, despite the trouble I know I’m in. On the approach to Chippenham, we have to really start paying attention to the route, as we’ve reached a complicated series of junctions and roundabouts and lots of the roads are completely overgrown. There are no signposts anywhere and Luc has to concentrate hard to remember which roads to take.
‘This is it, I remember now,’ he says, relief showing in his voice. ‘There are sometimes raiders up on the bypass.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t worry. If we head closer to the town’s compound, we should avoid them. We have to pass under an old railway bridge… should be down here if I’m remembering right… Yep, there it is. I thought we were lost for a minute.’
We inch under the bridge and around a blind corner only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. The road is clear and we press on towards the compound.
As we draw closer to the compound walls, we see they’re made from steel, or metal of some kind, with huge rivets all over them. It looks like a massive water tower, but Luc says this is the main Chippenham compound.
High, square towers, like castle turrets, protrude periodically from the top of the walls and, against the bright sunshine, I can make out the small silhouettes of armed figures on guard. Several gun barrels track our progress as we wind our way past their metal fortress, but no one opens fire.
Then, up ahead, we see a sight that makes Luc skid to a halt – armed men blocking our path.
Chapter Thirty Six
At the end of September, Tom came home one night with some horrendous news.
‘Johnny’s parents were both killed last week in one of the Southampton bombings.’
‘Oh no.’ I sat down suddenly, shocked. ‘No! I can’t believe it. What? Both of them?’ I asked, feeling so bad for Johnny.
‘Yeah.’
We all just looked at each other. Nobody knew what to say anymore. It just seemed like bad news on top of bad news.
‘He’s gonna be driving back home tomorrow,’ Tom added.
‘D’you think I should ring him?’ I asked my family. ‘I mean, would he even want to hear from me after everything?’
‘I think that would be a nice thing to do, darling.’ My mother came over to me and stroked my hair.
‘Yeah, but you dumped him,’ David said bluntly. ‘He might not need reminding of that after what’s just happened to his family.’
‘That’s a bit harsh, Dave,’ said Tom. ‘Anyway, I don’t think he’d really care about that. He’d just be pleased she cared enough to call.’
‘I say call him,’ Oliver shouted over his shoulder from the other room.
‘Oh my God, now you’ve all really confused me,’ I said.
They started arguing amongst themselves, so I left them to it and went upstairs to think about poor Johnny and what he must be going through.
It turned out I was spared making a decision as he called round about half an hour later to say goodbye in person. David shouted my name up the stairs while I stared vacantly through my bedroom window at a double-glazed sunset. It made me squint and look away; its beauty an irritation. I still felt and looked awful, but I was past caring about my appearance. David shouted again. I heard impatience in his voice and I heard him say Johnny was here.
I slouched downstairs in my tatty old tracksuit and toxic slippers, my hair scraped back off my face in an unbecoming, curly greasy ponytail. I felt shaky and nervous.
Johnny stood in the hallway with rounded shoulders and his hands clasped in front of him. When he looked up at me, I could tell he was a little surprised by my appearance. I was shocked by his. He looked haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair grown out into an unfashionable fuzz. He gave me a warm hug though and we went and sat in the lounge, which everyone tactfully vacated, after passing on their condolences.
‘I’m so sorry about your parents,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’
‘Thanks. I’m going home tomorrow morning, finally. I had to wait for my petrol ration. My brother and his wife are meeting me at mum and dad’s.’ He swallowed and took a breath to steady the wobble in his voice. ‘So, I should be okay for a while.’
‘That’s good. That you’ll have family there to look after you, I mean.’ I felt like I’d said the wrong thing.
‘Yeah.’ There was a long awkward pause and then Johnny surprised me. ‘I heard about what happened to Connor. I’m really sorry. I mean, I know you really liked him. I tried to find out what happened to him for you, but I haven’t got a contact number for Sam, and his parents don’t know when he’ll get leave.’
‘You didn’t have to do that.’ I couldn’t believe he’d tried to do such a nice thing for me. I certainly didn’t deserve his help. ‘I just want you to know, I’m really sorry, Johnny. About everything, how it all turned out… you and me. You must think I’m a horrible person, and now your parents…’ It was no good. I tried to stop them, but the tears just streamed down my face. Johnny’s Mum and Dad were dead. Connor was dead. The world was going to hell, and now he’d think I was a weak, self-centred bitch for crying all over him.
‘Don’t cry.’ He picked up his jacket and used the lining to dab my tears away.
‘Your lovely jacket…’
‘It’s not lovely. I don’t even like it. Sam persuaded me to buy it. Thought it made me look cool, but I think I look like a twat in it.’
I giggled through my tears. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘No? Okay, but I made you laugh though.’
I nodded.
‘Look, Eleanor, I’ve got to go back to some pretty unpleasant stuff, and I don‘t know if, or when I‘ll be back. My uni course has been suspended indefinitely, so…’ He shrugged. ‘I just wanted to come and say goodbye, and no hard feelings, and I hope everything goes well for you.’ He got up to go.
‘Thank you. Same to you. Okay, well take care of yourself.’
‘You too.’ We hugged and kissed on the cheek and then he left.
But that wasn’t the last I would see of Johnny Culpepper.