After I warmed up, I went online to check in with the survival forum. There were fewer of us now, people came and went at random, and it was hard to know if they were really gone or just hibernating. Several people had posted how they were nesting up in a single room, rarely going out and bundled up in multiple duvets to stay warm. Others seemed to be better positioned, with log piles and real fires in the fireplace.
The snow stayed for a couple of days, then slowly thinned, it had almost fully melted when we were hit with another cold snap and more snow. I had to take a break from visiting Frank, as the roads were just too icy. I was lucky enough to find an electric heater, which I kept running all night to stave off the cold.
Then one evening in late January, when there were more of us online than there had been in a long while, a new poster appeared. ‘Hi,’ his first post read, ‘I’m a representative of Hertfordshire County Council and we are letting everyone know about the settlement camps so that you can prepare to move to them when spring arrives.’
Before I even started to type a reply, someone else beat me to it and immediately typed back ‘What settlement camps?’
Someone else typed ‘Is there still a government?’
And a third person posted ‘This is a closed group; how did you get access?’ half a second later.
That was pretty much all my thoughts summed up before I had even hit a single key. The new poster replied after a pause ‘further information will be posted shortly, please be patient, the council is working to fulfil its pledge of settlement homes and jobs for all.’ The new poster logged out of the group and the speculation thereafter was rife.
After a bit I logged off and went back to the book I was reading. Settlement camps sounded ominous… and I didn’t want to leave my home and venture out into the unknown. I was comfortable where I was and, yes maybe the last nine months had made me slightly paranoid, but I didn’t want to raise my hopes that there might be an end to all this, that there might be a return to normal life somewhere ahead.
Chapter 10: Decisions
The first snowdrops and dwarf irises started poking through the ground whilst the weather was still icy cold and grey, but I looked at the flowers as the promise of the spring to come. The days had warmed up a tiny bit when green spears of daffodil leaves started showing, but it was still weeks before the start of any warmer weather. I had returned to my evening meals with Frank and we both still had copious supplies. The storage freezers had done their work well; I had harvested seven crown-prince squash and still had three left. I had eaten roasted squash, squash soup, squash chips (not a success) squash pie and even tried a vegan squash cake that came out fine, although I did miss the buttercream icing.
The mystery poster from the council had been online a couple of times, describing the settlement camps and job allocations. It was all very mundane; the camps were just existing villages that had been cleared out by the army and assessed by the local authority council. You registered online, filling in a mass of forms, and then applied for whatever you needed, housing, job, food, school places. It was almost all done automatically; for example if you applied for housing, you would be placed in a queue for a camp place. When you reached the front of the queue you were allocated a camp. You could turn down the place but were then put at the back of the queue again. Once you accepted a place you could then look at the jobs available in that camp and apply. When you had a confirmed job you could then apply for other things.
The biggest advantage was that by registering, families that had been separated could find each other. Some of the online forms involved listing all family members and friends. The system flagged up all possible connections and allowed you to direct message them. It was a triumph of common sense admin and I admired the organisational minds behind it. One of the first things I did when I registered was to type in mum and Vik’s names but there were no matches.
Still the idea was appealing. The camps used the existing infrastructure and had the workforce to run it again; supermarkets and schools, cafes, sports centres, hospitals and weekly rubbish collection. When I read about the last I was almost tempted to leave. I hated the chore of disposing of my rubbish and I was due to go out for a rubbish run again.
It was early in the morning on a grey wet day and I had just finished preparing dinner in the slow-cooker. I added the empty tube of tomato paste to the bag of non-compostable rubbish and tied it firmly. I swept the vegetable peelings into a box of compostable waste and added the cayenne pepper to discourage rats. Then I set out, bag and box in hand. The compostable rubbish was easily disposed of in the compost bins I had set up on the front driveway of one of the bungalows, but the bag would have to be stashed at the far end of the estate. I had found the keys to some lock up garages a couple of months ago, and was using the place as a rubbish dump. Even though I washed all the rubbish, and periodically chucked bleach around, it had become smelly and disgusting. I would really appreciate a rubbish collection service.
Frank was in favour of applying for a camp, but I wasn’t sure. He felt we would be better off in an organised society whereas I wanted to see what I was getting myself into before committing myself. What I really wanted to do was to see the camps before I applied, see if they were really better than what we had. However the exact locations of the camps were secret, the government needed people to follow the system rather than just turn up so I couldn’t just go and have a look.
I woke up one morning to find that early yellow daffodils had burst out all over the estate and the weeds were growing again in the garden. Spring felt like it had properly arrived. A couple of sunny days had me in the greenhouse thinking about starting new seedlings. The temperature outside was still only seven or eight degrees but inside the greenhouse it hit nineteen and felt like bliss.
I had tidied the garden completely over winter and was ready to start planting again. However Frank had other ideas.
‘There’s no point planting if you are leaving,’ he said one evening, as we chopped some old, rather withered onions. We were going to attempt to make a risotto.
‘But what’s the point in leaving if we don’t need to?’ I responded, going down the well-trodden path yet again. ‘If the government is getting things back on track then eventually people will come back home.’
‘But what if they don’t? Will you live here all alone? I won’t be around for ever.’ This was a new tack from Frank. He looked at me seriously ‘I’m eighty-four you know.’
‘Really?’ I was shocked; I had put Frank in his late sixties or early seventies. Old yes, but not that old, but I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I had met several people on the estate who were in their seventies and eighties and still ran the resident’s association and community hall. Their energy was phenomenal. I began chopping the leeks that Frank had harvested from the garden that day, thinking hard.
I could see that I had been selfish. Frank was probably lonely for people of his own age. I was chatty and energetic but not exactly peaceful company. And I too missed the variety of talking to different people. I added the leeks to the pan where the onions were already sizzling nicely. Frank,’ I asked, ‘do you have family or friends in the camps?’
‘Yes.’ he replied simply. I added the rice and let it sauté for thirty seconds, stirring continuously to stop it sticking whilst Frank opened another of our stock of dodgy white wines. He poured in a good glug as I stirred it round. I waited and eventually he continued. ‘My nephew and his family were listed as being in one of the camps in the Chilterns, and two of my partners’ nieces’ children made it to a camp in Kent.’