All Roads End Here Page 6
“You think I slept at all last night? Having you back here’s been a bit of a shock.”
“I know. You used to it yet?”
“Getting there, I think. You?”
“Like you said, getting there.”
She sits down on the floor next to him. Shuffles up against him. He finishes the last scraps of food and looks up, feeling her eyes on him. He’s eating like an animal. He puts down the bowl he’s been licking, embarrassed. She fishes in her pocket and hands him a Snickers bar. He looks at it like it’s made of gold. “I kept this hidden away. I know they’re your favorite.”
“Jeez, Jen…”
“I kept it on top of the kitchen cupboard where no one else would find it. I told myself the only person who was ever going to eat it was you. I was keeping it for when you came home.”
He opens the chocolate and wolfs it down. “I bloody love you,” he says, mouth half-full. He leans across and tries to kiss her but she recoils and pushes him away.
“You still stink,” she tells him with her customary lack of tact. “There are places you can go. Couple of streets down near Camomile Way there are some showers, Jason said. Open-air things. Like car washes, he said they were.”
“Cool, thanks.”
“Opposite that takeaway you used to like.”
“I know the one.” Even though he’s just eaten, Matt’s stomach rumbles at the thought of takeaway food. “Think it’ll still be open?” he asks, semiserious.
“What, the takeaway? I doubt it.”
“I’m kidding,” he says, and she nudges against him, unamused. Then she laughs. “What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Just thinking about that time you went to get us a curry and—”
“—and the bag split. Yes, I remember. Very funny.”
“Oh, but it was, though. You left a trail of chicken korma all the way down the road. How you didn’t realize the bag was getting lighter is beyond me!”
“I know, I know … I’ll never live that down.”
“It’s the way you handed me this dripping, half-empty bag!”
“We still had a good night, though, didn’t we?”
“Only because we went to bed early. You took full advantage of me drinking the best part of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach.”
“Yeah … a good night,” he says, daydreaming about all the things they did together that night, in this room, in that bed.
If it wasn’t for the thunderous chopping of helicopter rotor blades overhead and the bright, sweeping searchlight which spills across the bedroom, this might almost feel like it used to. Almost. We should ban talking about the past, Matt thinks. It hurts too much when you have to come back to the present. For Jen’s sake he says nothing. He lets the conversation continue to drift along its gentle, old-world trajectory.
“Remember when we were looking to rent this place and we viewed those flats over on Eastside?”
“I remember. We couldn’t have afforded to stay a week in that place.”
“Beautiful, though.”
“Anyway, what of it?”
“That’s where Jason’s place was.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. It’s on the wrong side of the wall now. He can’t get anywhere near.”
“So this place is a bit of a comedown.”
“He’s just grateful to have a roof. We all are.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. Can’t tell you how good it is to be home.”
She gets up and goes over to the wardrobe. “Remember the size of the bedroom in that flat?”
“The kitchen was as big as the whole of our downstairs. It was too big for just the two of us. And too expensive. Way too expensive.”
Jen throws some clean nightclothes over to him. “Get changed, Matt. Chuck out those old things, they’re ruined.”
He catches a T-shirt and holds it to his face, sucking in its washing powder smell. He peels off his sweat-soaked rags, uses them to wipe himself down, then drops them in the bin. “Thanks. That’s better.”
“I gave some of your things to Jason. He ran out of stuff and I didn’t know if you were coming back.”
“Thought his T-shirt looked familiar last night,” Matt says, managing a wry grin. “I was thinking how stylish he looked.”
She shakes her head. “You may be many things, Matthew Dunne, but stylish has never been one of them.”
“What are you doing now?” he asks, watching her every move.
“Going to bed. I’m tired. You?”
“Same, I guess.”
“You sleeping on the floor again tonight?”
He shuffles awkwardly. “That’s up to you.”
“It’s our bed,” she says. “Tell you the truth, I’ve had enough of sleeping on my own recently.”
With her back to him she undresses then pulls a long, shapeless nightshirt over her head. She climbs into bed, folding back the corner of the duvet on his side and inviting him in. He’s hesitant, bizarrely nervous. He lies down next to her and the mattress feels so soft, so comfortable, that he thinks he’ll never stop sinking into it. There’s no physical contact between them, but maybe that’s a step too far for tonight. Jen’s lying on her side now, watching him, her bright eyes glistening in the glow of the searchlights outside.
“It’s good to be home,” Matt says, and his voice cracks, almost overcome.
“Jason said he’d show you the camp tomorrow. Show you the ropes.”
“Sounds good.”
“He knows his way around. I’m really glad he’s been here. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”
“It should have been me. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I get it, Matt. I understand.”
It’s impossible to contain his emotions now. Two and a half months’ worth of pent-up fear and frustration and uncertainty comes flooding out. “I just wanted to be here with you. I’m sorry, Jen. I should never have gone away.”
“You’re home now. Stop apologizing. Really glad you’re here.”
She puts her arm around him and holds him until they both fall asleep.
8
Matt and Jason walk away from the house together in search of supplies. It’s a gloriously sunny day, relentlessly bright. Hot for the time of year. Too hot. The kind of weather where you want to do nothing but lounge around and soak up the heat, definitely not the kind of weather to be under this kind of pressure and up to your neck in this many people. They can hardly move. It’s impossible to walk in a straight line without swerving around someone coming the other way or tripping over someone who’s set up camp on the pavement. Sources of shadow are craved. In a ransacked superstore car park filled with abandoned cars (many of which appear to have become makeshift homes), a crowd has formed under the branches of a solitary yew tree in the middle of a traffic roundabout. Other people are lying in the shade of ticket payment booths, bus shelters, hedges, and anything else they can find.
Matt’s still not used to being able to make noise without fear of retribution. Jason, on the other hand, finds it equally difficult to shut up. “There’s two ways to get food these days,” he explains. “You work or you queue.”
“And what’s the difference?”
“Well, one’s a shit-load harder than the other.”
“No, you idiot. I know the difference between working and queuing. What’s the difference in terms of what you get?”
“I wouldn’t know. Depends on the kind of work you do, I guess. I’m sure workers get more, if that’s what you mean. We don’t have to put ourselves out, though. We’ve got these.” He holds up a bunch of papers.
“What are they?”
“Mrs. Walker and the kids get a bit extra on account of the girl being sick. No, mate, the only kind of work here is hard work or even harder work. There’s a problem with sanitation and garbage, in case you hadn’t noticed the stink—”
“I had.”
“—so you can either get involved in th
at and literally be up to your neck in shit, or you can sign up to join the CDF.”
“Don’t know which sounds worse.”
“Exactly.”
“So you don’t do either?”
“No point. It’s about getting a balance, isn’t it? Until you got back I was the only one providing for your missus and the Walkers. That’s been a full-time job in itself.”
“I appreciate what you’ve done for Jen. You’re off the hook now, though. Pressure’s off.”
“I can’t see the pressure being off around here for a long, long time.”
There’s a standpipe across the way with an endless queue of sun-baked people behind it. The water flow has been interrupted. One soldier’s on the ground trying to sort the plumbing out, while another leans over him, telling him what to do. Three more keep the queuing civilians in check, marching up and down the line in full uniform, weapons clearly visible. If there is any dissent, it’s kept well hidden. “This place is a frigging powder keg,” Matt says, thinking out loud.
“Damn right it is. And that’s why you don’t want to go and get yourself conscripted. They get more food than the rest of us, I’m sure, and I wouldn’t say no to getting my hands on one of their rifles and some ammo, but those fuckers are first in line. When the shit hits the fan, whatever direction it comes from, they’ll get it full-force.”
“You don’t think the shit has already hit the fan?”
“Well and truly, but you can’t tell me that’s the end of it. Even when we’ve got rid of the Haters, there’s gonna be a real fucking mess left to sort out. A real fucking mess.”
They cut through a road between two buildings which is so tightly packed with shadow-grabbers it’s an effort to get through. Matt’s confused. “I thought we were going to the arena for food?”
“Queues are longer there. There’s another place.”
“There were a few distribution points listed in that leaflet they gave me.”
“Yeah, one was closer to the house but it dried up a couple of weeks back. Just the two left now.”
“Where’s the food come from?”
“Outside. Apparently the CDF’s working to extend No Man’s Land. They go out, they kill, they loot, then they come back. That’s what I’ve been told. Fucking mad if you ask me. See, that’s another reason why you don’t want to volunteer. You end up risking your neck for other people’s dinner.”
“But it’s okay for other people to risk their necks for you?”
“Yeah, I know … Hands up, mate, I’m a hypocrite, but I’d rather be a hypocrite with a pulse than a do-gooder who gets their brains blown out while they’re looting to keep the neighbors fed, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore.”
They take a shortcut across the park at Galton Road. A series of gray tarmac walkways crisscrosses the overcrowded grassland, allowing them to move a little quicker through the encamped masses. In the distance there are soccer fields being used as helicopter landing pads. A children’s play area has become a heavily guarded military stockpile. Behind a tall wooden fence that looks to have been recently erected, a fire burns. Matt wonders what it is the soldiers are incinerating.
“So what was it like?” Jason randomly asks.
“What was what like?”
“Being out there?”
“Fucking terrifying,” Matt admits. “I was living on my nerves. Couldn’t switch off. Couldn’t drop my guard.”
“It was pretty shitty here, too,” Jason says, and it’s clear he only asked his initial question so he could tell Matt about his own ordeal. “The military were going house to house to start with, flushing out the Haters. Frigging frightening, it was. You couldn’t react when they came to the door. I had a friend who had a friend who got himself executed ’cause they thought he was one of them. There’s a test they do, you know.”
“I know,” Matt says. “I had it done. Think I’d be here if I hadn’t?”
“Yeah. Suppose not.”
Matt considers telling Jason about the different times he’s been tested, or the torturous follow-up to the test he endured at the hands of the military, but he doesn’t. Jason’s not listening. He’s too busy talking.
“Once the lines had been fully drawn and we knew who was who, that’s when the city went into lockdown. Me and my friend Amit got involved in building the wall. You’ve seen the wall, right?”
“Parts of it.”
“It’s not really a wall as such, but that’s what they call it. Just lots of little barricades, really. Almost goes all the way around the whole camp, though. You block a street with vehicles, then fill in the gaps with whatever else you can find … you get the picture.”
“So what happened to your friend? Jen said there was two of you when you arrived at the house.”
“Amit had been staying with me at my flat. My place was the dog’s bollocks. Plenty of space, five floors up, nice and safe. But then they built the wall, and I was on the wrong side. Got up one morning and I had about half an hour to get out before the CDF sealed the place off. Right back at the beginning, that was. I’m glad I got here when I did, though. Wasn’t long after that space started running out. New arrivals these days end up camped out in places like this.” He spreads his arms and gestures at the thousands of people living in the park.
“You still haven’t told me what happened to Amit.”
“Dunno. God’s honest truth. Told me and Jen he was going for water one morning, and I never seen him again. Anything could have happened.”
“And you’ve not tried to find him?”
“What’s the point? I know that sounds harsh, but like I say, anything could have happened. Probably found himself something better, knowing Amit. It’s every man for himself these days. You should know that better than anyone.”
The gates on the far side of the park are a struggle to get through. More people and more soldiers. There are hawkers here too, trying to trade possessions for food. “I don’t have anything,” Matt tells a persistent kid who’s trying to palm off an expensive-looking bracelet. Jason grabs Matt’s sleeve and pulls him away.
“Don’t lose your temper. You’ve gotta let them know who’s boss without showing too much emotion, else they’ll think you’re a Hater.”
“Have any of these people even seen a Hater fight?”
“Probably.”
“Have you?”
“’Course I have. Thing is, all you need these days is a suspicion. Innocent until proven guilty? Forget that shit. You’re guilty till proven innocent now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Matt says, recalling how he was chained up and hosed down.
Up ahead is the Royal Midlands Hospital. Matt remembers it being opened, a few years before the war. It’s an unusually shaped metal and glass structure which always looked completely at odds with its otherwise bland urban surroundings. Gleaming, futuristic, and new, it’s now anything but. Yet it still stands in stark contrast to the regularity and engrained dirt of inner-city living. From a distance it always reminded him of the hulls of three huge boats, part-buried side by side with their bows sticking up out of the ground. Today the hospital looks as worn-down and beaten as everything else. A battle-damaged shell on the very edge of the city exclusion zone. A fire looks to have broken out there recently. Parts of the left outer tower are skeletal and black, skin and cladding scorched away like a burn victim.
They must be nearing the food distribution point. “We’re getting close, aren’t we?” Matt says. There are more people here, and for the most part they’re not going anywhere. Matt’s hesitant, but though he tries not to let Jason see, he’s not as good at keeping his feelings hidden as he thinks he is.
“Problem?” Jason asks.
“I’ll be okay. Just get freaked out by the crowds. It’s too soon.”
“This place is nothing but crowds. The rate they’re coming in you won’t have any choice soon.”
“How close are we to the wall?”
“I want to check it out. Think I’ll be happier once I know how well protected we are.”
Jason obliges. They take a detour and are soon at the very edge of the city-camp. The street they’re now walking along has been abruptly truncated about fifty meters ahead, cut off midway along its length. There are cars upon cars upon cars in front of them, stacked up and layered across the road, stretching from the wall of one building to the wall of the building directly opposite. There are scores of people taking shelter in the shadows of the brutal, abstract-looking blockade. “Happy now?” Jason asks. “No fucker’s getting through that.”
9
Matt’s arms are burning. He’s wishing he’d left his hair long, too, because there’s no respite from the sun out here. They’ve been queuing for food for a couple of hours now and he doesn’t know how much more of this red-hot inertia he can take. “I can’t stand this,” he tells Jason.
“You get used to it. You don’t have any choice.”
The queue for food has been shuffling forward at a miserable speed, and the lack of progress makes Matt’s guts churn. It’s the fact he doesn’t have any control here, the fact he has no option but to keeping move at the slothful speed of everyone else that bothers him. It makes him feel exposed. “And we’re just supposed to stand here and wait?”
“You got a better idea? There’s worse ways to earn a living if you ask me. No pressure, you don’t have to think … just stand your ground and top up your tan.”
I’ve been risking my life every day for the last two and a half months, and now you’re telling me I should be topping up my tan? Matt thinks but doesn’t say.
From where they’re standing the snaking line of people ahead looks much shorter than it is. It’s an optical illusion, because what they haven’t seen until now is that the queue turns sharp left down another truncated road, then right a short distance farther and back onto the road they’ve been following. It makes Matt’s heart sink. “Jesus, that’s going to add another couple of hours onto this at least.”
“And? You got somewhere better to go?”