They picked up the birds and climbed back down the bank to the car. Jamie opened the door and Max jumped in then he put the three pheasants in a bag on the floor. Bill was admiring his shotgun and reloading it.
‘Excellent gun, Jamie! Thanks again, mate; I love it. I’m going to enjoy using this.’ Jamie smiled and said ‘No problem, Bill.’
They turned round at the next available spot then drove Bill back to the bottom of his drive. He kissed Jane and shook Jamie warmly by the hand, thanking them again and hoping to see them soon. He put the barrier back in place and waved goodbye as they drove off. They took a slow drive back and Jamie rested his hand on her leg; she looked across at him and smiled.
‘You did really well back there,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind admitting I might not even have got the first one. You’re a natural, and I need to practise more!’
Jane smiled. ‘Well, you know, some of us women have just got it!’ They looked at each other and laughed and Max barked loudly from the back.
They arrived home after stopping off to check the snares and picking up one rabbit, parked the BMW in Jane’s garage then carried the remaining boxes of things into the bungalow. They could sort out what was going into each house later. They usually cooked and ate in Jamie’s kitchen, but tonight they decided to cook on the range in Jane’s kitchen for a change. They prepared a rabbit casserole between them, with sea beet and sea kale along with other tinned vegetables, lentils and some herbs. Jamie lit a fire in the lounge and they sat on the sofa with a glass of brandy each, with Max sprawled on the carpet in front of the fire. While the food cooked they chatted about the day and how nice it had been to surprise Bill and Emma with their visit and the things they’d taken for them.
After they’d eaten and washed up Jamie went outside for a smoke and sat down on a patio chair after wiping it dry. He sipped his brandy and listened to the waves breaking on the beach. The night sky was clear and full of stars after the rain had passed and he leaned back, looking up at the inky blackness. There was no longer any light pollution from human habitation and he was seeing it just as people would have done three hundred or three hundred thousand years before. Jane came out and stood behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. He reached up and touched her hand.
‘You know something, Jane? Only a short time ago I was feeling pretty ambivalent about whether I lived or died, after everything that’s happened. For a long time I thought what’s the point? But something made me carry on regardless and I just kept on surviving and doing stuff… And now, since meeting you, I feel differently. It’s so much better now there are two of us to share everything. There seems to be a reason to carry on; to live, to love, to help and support each other… I guess it’s just human nature. And now there are Bill and Emma and the kids, too.’
‘I know what you mean. I felt similar things, too, though I don’t think I ever felt any ambivalence towards staying alive. For me, it was always a case of I must survive, though I don’t really know why. I just felt that I had to. I think maybe I still had some small hope that, despite the odds, I might meet someone to share things with that would make life easier and more pleasurable under the circumstances.’
‘And you have!’ he said, looking up at her with a smile. ‘Well, I think I’m going to turn in and get an early night.’
‘Will you stay here tonight? I’d like to just lie there and hold each other.’ Jamie said he’d like that, too, so they closed the place up and left Max in the lounge by the fire. They left the kitchen door open so he had access to his water bowl and went upstairs.
They lay there holding each other for over an hour before eventually falling asleep; occasionally talking quietly but mostly silent. After months of seeing nothing but death and rotting corpses the pleasure of lying next to another warm body was immeasurable. They took comfort in the physical contact and felt a sense of healing from their grief and their worries.
Seventeen
The weeks flew past for them as spring moved into summer. As the weather improved and the temperature increased, their crops started to shoot up and they were busier than ever in the garden. By early summer they were eating fresh mixed-leaf salads every day. Their beans, peas and spring onions had done well generally and they were already harvesting them, too. They had to experiment a bit with different preserving techniques; not without their share of failures. Their first attempt at lacto-fermentation with some young beans didn’t work out and they had to throw away the first few jars after they went mouldy. They realised what they had done wrong and the second batch was good, though they had to wait a few weeks to find that out.
Once they knew what they were doing with the process they set to work with the peas and the beans. They also cooked up many vegetable dishes with sugar, vinegar and spices, much as they had been doing with the meat dishes, and heat-treated them in the preserving jars so they would keep for long periods. They ate as much fresh produce as they could, picking things as and when they needed them; any surplus they might not get through in time was preserved for the winter.
They got into a routine of working in the garden, going out fishing when conditions allowed, and checking and relocating the rabbit snares on a regular basis. They found new locations to lay them with Max’s invaluable help and rotated the snares between them all. Max had put on weight and was back to his normal size and fitness level. They tended not to do much hunting using the guns as they wanted to preserve their ammunition, but whenever they were out and saw a pheasant they would shoot it for the pot or to preserve.
Another regular, but time-consuming and tiresome task was the washing of clothes and bed-linen. They had tried washing things in the sea but everything dried salty and sticky and made things uncomfortable. Instead, they had to drive just over two miles to the rivers and streams along Sluice Lane, near the golf course. It wasn’t ideal because of debris and weeds, but after the second time Jane had the bright idea of breaking into the leisure centre at the retail park and using the swimming pool to do their washing, which was far easier and also cleaner. The water was chlorinated and still fresh, and they bathed themselves at the same time.
As it got warmer more fish moved into the shallower coastal waters and they had better success fishing, eating fresh fish on the day it was caught and preserving any surplus. They usually smoked or pickled the oily fish like mackerel, while the white fish were either salted and dried or cooked and sealed in preserving jars. They visited the other smaller supermarkets and food shops near them, where they broke into the warehouses or storerooms behind the stores and found further stocks of food and drink, along with other useful items. They collected large amounts of salt, vinegar, sugar and oil for preserving food, which would last them a long time. They also put out many containers of sea water to evaporate so they could collect the salt and bag it for future use. The empty areas of both gardens were full of different-coloured plastic bowls and dishes containing evaporating seawater.
As the herbs in their gardens grew bigger they harvested them on a daily basis for extra flavouring in their cooking and preserving. Now that fresh salads and vegetables were becoming available they didn’t need to use tinned produce as much, and their diet became better and far more pleasurable. Nettles had shot up in many gardens near them, which they picked sometimes and added to soups and casseroles for extra vitamins and minerals.