The pain came back, brought everything else with it. Oh God, she hadn't managed to phone Jon, hadn't made it in time. A sensation of helplessness, hopelessness, seeing the scorched countryside and knowing that it was not just a month of hot June weather that had done this. It was . . . she didn't know what it was, only that suddenly the whole world had changed.
She would go on to Pauline's mother's house. There was a phone there and she would try again. The blackouts were becoming more frequent; she had to hurry.
Almost running when she saw the traffic island. Miraculously she had continued in the right direction; not far now.
The pub, its doors closed, an atmosphere of finality about it. The housing estates beyond, people standing about, flesh-scarred caricatures of their former selves, not understanding, not caring. Just living, but for how long? Death was surely the next stage, Jackie prayed that it was because to go on living like this was too awful to contemplate.
There had been a pile-up on the island, a car and a van meeting head-on, an articulated lorry ploughing the wreckage up on to the concrete, flattening it, a body in the road. No help had arrived and it certainly would not be coming now. Even if it did it was too late.
She broke into a run, felt her vision beginning to channel before it actually did, forced into the road again where the kerb had been built up in Sundorne Road, not a footpath, just a meaningless raised stretch of tarmac, dangerous because one could so easily fall back into the road; but it didn't matter anymore. There would not be any traffic again, ever.
Turning left into First Terrace, sensing her power of reasoning beginning to fade. Number One, she knew it so well. Almost derelict, broken slates on the roof, a square hole dug out by the front door where the surveyors had attempted to investigate the subsidence cracking. The grass lawn a foot high, withered as though it had been sprayed with paraquat, the flowering bushes in an advanced state of macabre autumnal change. There had been no rain for months.
She saw the front gates framed in a tiny circle, dilapidated woodwork that hung heavy on the concrete, her hands closing over them even though they seemed a hundred yards away. Pushing, dragging, almost falling headlong as they yielded to her efforts, a tinkling of metal as a rusted hinge snapped and clinked on the ground.
The throbbing was fading, that tiny circle magnifying, knowing only too well now what was happening to her. The feeling came and went, her logic an early-morning mist evaporating in the warmth of sunlight. So much stronger again, the waistband of her jeans straining as her body filled with unnatural physical strength.
Another couple of strides and then everything was gone. She stood there on the short weed-covered drive not knowing where she was nor why she was here, not questioning, still holding on to the carrier bags because there was no reason to jettison them.
She breathed deeply then found a new rhythm, one that flared her nostrils into wide squat cavities, her lips pulled back to expose strong white teeth, realising that her body cried out for something but not knowing what. Then her stomach rumbled and she knew that she needed food. The bags dropped from her hands, spilling out their contents, but they were ignored; reaching up, pulling at foliage, sniffing it but it was brown and bitter, unpalatable. She grunted with rage, tore at more branches, cast them aside. And overhead a wheeling crow cawed its own anger and frustration. It, too, was having difficulty in finding food in this burned-up land.
CHAPTER TWO
'Jesus CHRIST, what wouldn't I give for some proper food.' Sylvia Atkinson wrinkled her freckled features in disapproval as she chewed on a handful of freshly pulled bean sprouts. 'Being a health food freak isn't my idea of eating, Jon.'
'It's the difference between surviving or dying.' Jon Quinn regarded her steadily, furrowed his brow and wondered how long it would be before she went over the top, ran up that flight of steps and out into the remnants of the world they had once known. 'At the moment we have two advantages over the rest of the population of Great Britain, maybe even over the western world. We have a seed-sprouter and an almost unlimited supply of fresh food, and, as far as we can tell, we're more or less all right, just like we used to be. God knows how everybody else will finish up, how much longer they'll last. All we can do is stop down here and wait.'
They ate in silence, everything that had to be said had been said during the last few days. Now they were starting to get on each other's nerves, which was inevitable. He studied her carefully, let his gaze run over the small slim figure clad in a soiled cheese-cloth dress, sandalled feet and purple toenails, ran his eyes all the way back up her again. Her short dark hair was tangled and needed combing but she wasn't in the mood, her complexion so much paler without make-up. Dark eyes that no longer shone, were pouched and baggy underneath. A permanent expression of hopelessness, she was fast giving in, becoming a problem that he could well do without. Jackie had more resilience, would have come up with a few constructive ideas by now. And, that constant nagging thought, where was Jackie?
Shrewsbury, no doubt. Alive or dead? It was anybody's guess who was alive or dead out there.
He found himself studying the interior of the cellar again even though every square inch of it was indelibly imprinted on his mind. Boring, but it was the sole reason they were still alive.
The idea of converting this underground ten-by-ten cubicle into a nuclear fall-out shelter had seemed a crazy whim five years ago but, as he had pointed out to Jackie, it could serve a dual purpose; food storage in case it was ever needed, an ideal place for seed-sprouting and a few mushroom buckets. A potato store, too. That way Jackie had not been so cynical about it, only begrudging the money spent on filters and other items of equipment needed to combat radiation in the atmosphere. All the same, he had constructed the shelter subversively under this ploy, got his own way by cunning. There was no incentive to build something which you hoped you would never have to use but if it had an alternative purpose it wasn't so bad. The ironic part was that Jackie wasn't here so that he could say, 'I told you so.'
Shelving on two walls, mostly stacked with durable foodstuffs from the health food shop in Knighton. Coffee (decaffeinated), a selection of herb teas, muesli bars, a variety of nuts, tubs of seeds for sprouting, dried vegetables. Eating, for Jon, wasn't any different now from what it had been for years. Jackie wouldn't have minded but Sylvia was yearning for a return to convention. That might never happen, probably wouldn't, but he could not tell her that because it would destroy that last tiny flicker of hope that kept her going.
Eight years ago he had been just an ordinary clerk working in a Birmingham office, nine to five, Mondays to Fridays, on a take-home of eighty a week. He wasn't well, nothing that you could put your finger on, probably a combination of junk food and boredom that inspired him to vegetate. It was Jackie who had been the driving force behind him, had dragged him out of the rut. Earlier in her life, before their marriage, she had been a vegetarian and she had realised the necessity to find an avenue of escape from their conventional existence. Reading and fantasising about 'the good life' was one thing; having the courage to put it into practice was another.
The following spring she had persuaded him to dig up the upper-tier lawn of their small semi-detached garden and plant it with vegetables. 'It's a positive start,' she had said. 'Grass is no good unless you've got a goat or a cow, and as local bye-laws prevent us from having either we must use the ground constructively. Mowing lawns is just unconstructive work!'