Chapter 11

June and Tony walked round to Melanie Downs’s flat after a late breakfast. Mike took Brian’s bike to do the hospital round, finishing with East Park Upper School to give Jill news of her brothers.

Angie and Steve were still ‘recovering’, so was one of Jill’s brothers, Adrian. David had been discharged.

‘Does that mean he’s a hundred percent okay?’

‘Not really. But they’ll be able to look after him just as well at home, and we need the space for serious cases.’

‘He should be all right in a few days then?’

‘No-one knows. The experts think the disease itself is finished in cases like this, but they don’t know how quickly the body recovers. I don’t know how much they know, but it’s not a lot, certainly. It’s a new disease, you see, and its full life-cycle isn’t known yet.’

Jill was still on the ‘critical’ list. Mike left her a message about Adrian and David. He was a little puzzled why they didn’t transfer the worst patients to the hospital; he couldn’t believe that the temporary facilities at the schools were as good.

‘Most of the facilities at the hospital are totally irrelevant. We’ve got all the drugs, and intravenous feeding stuff, and oxygen, here. A few who get complications go to the hospital.’

Mike popped into Longridge’s to pick up some food for the three of them, and some milk. But there was no fresh milk, and the sterilized was two ten a half litre.

‘They’ve prohibited the sale of pasteurized milk for health reasons, and only sterilized milk sealed before last weekend is allowed. The dairies have put up the price, and there’s not a lot left anyway.’

Mike bought some milk powder instead.

‘You know they’re saying to boil all your water for three minutes, as well?’

‘No, I didn’t. Thanks.’

There were no fresh vegetables, either; and the only fruit were bananas and oranges. They looked old, and the price was out of this world.

He was almost at Melanie Downs’s before he remembered he’d been going to ask after Mr Longridge’s health.

‘Let’s have the milk then, Mike. The tea’s ready.’

‘It’s only powder, I’m afraid. And you’ve got to boil the water for three minutes.’

‘I did. Melanie told me. But why powdered milk? Milkman sick or something?’

Mike told him the tale, and Tony led him through to Melanie’s bedroom and introduced them.

‘Melanie says we can use this place as a base, she’d appreciate the company. And she’s not only got a television, she’s got a telephone as well. And there’s another bike here.’

Mike had noticed the bike in the hall; the two bikes made the passage rather awkward.

‘The phone’s not as much use as it ought to be. Public figures and powerful people are never all that easy to get hold of, even when you know your way around the ex-directory system; but this last week they’ve been downright impossible, most of them. On top of that, very few people are at work. And on top of that, I keep getting crossed lines, number unobtainable, engaged, or just plain silence. I’ve not even been able to get through to my sister in Nottingham.

‘Perhaps it’s not so silly to think someone knew beforehand. Perhaps they’re all in shelters.’

‘Mmm. I doubt if my sister is. You were telling me about Exercise Alpha, Tony.’

June was on Telly Watch. Only BBC1 was showing a program. The other channels all simply bore a printed message:

BOIL ALL WATER FOR THREE MINUTES.

COOK MEAT VERY THOROUGHLY. MEAT OF DOUBTFUL FRESHNESS AND ALL DEAD OR SICK ANIMALS SHOULD BE GIVEN TO HEALTH PATROLS FOR DESTRUCTION. AVOID UNNECESSARY HANDLING AND WASH THOROUGHLY AFTER HANDLING.
IF YOU SUFFER A RED RASH WITH DIARRHEA OR VOMITING, GO IMMEDIATELY TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL OR EMERGENCY CLINIC.

‘I’d like to see what it was that Andy thought the police might want to suppress, too. Andy’d be a good person to get our heads together with, anyway.’

‘I’ll go round there now, and invite him round here.’ Exit Tony.

‘If we’re all going to stay here for the present, is there anything you’d like me to fetch from your place, June? If you’ll give me the key, I’ll get my sleeping bag, and Tony’s. I’m going to my place, as well, to see if there’s any post, and bring everything out of the fridge, and a few clothes.’

‘I’ll come too. You’ll be hopelessly loaded with the stuff out of our fridge as well, and I’d better get my own clothes. Melanie won’t mind keeping telly watch for an hour.’

‘I’m used to it by now!’

‘But there’s only one bike left, and until I hear any other theory with more to commend it, I’d rather we accepted Tony’s, and stayed indoors as much as possible.’

‘You take the bike to your place, Mike; then you take the bike June, and go to yours. There’s a set of pannier bags on the shelf over the door in the loo, Mike. June’ll need them even if you don’t!’

On his way over to Quarryside, Mike met his first Health Patrol. They had a Burnfield District Council lorry, and a machine for sealing plastic bags. One of the men was carrying a rifle, and they were all wearing plastic gloves and lint face masks. The truck was half-full of plastic bags. A woman wearing yellow rubber gloves was emptying a dish of mince into a bag that was already half full. Another woman was carrying a yowling cat by the scruff of its neck. The man with the rifle produced a pistol-like instrument from his pocket, and put it to the cat’s head. There was no sound, but the cat stopped yowling and went limp. It went into the sack.

Mike got back on the bike and cycled on.

No post. That’s no surprise.

Melanie had seen the humane killer before. ‘It’s spring loaded. A hypodermic needle shoots out – hardened steel, goes straight through the skull – injects a few millilitres of air under pressure into the brain, and retracts. Kills a cat instantly. Not always as quick with a dog, they say.’

June was back again, and they were thinking about lunch, before Tony got back. He was in considerable distress.

And I thought he was such an unemotional character. He wasn’t much shaken – not to show, anyway – even at the Jordan’s, when they told us Cathie was dead.

They eventually got his story out of him. There’d been no answer at Andy’s, and he’d just been leaving, when he noticed the light was on in Andy’s room. Perhaps he’d just left it on the previous night, gone out, and stayed at someone else’s place for the night. But it was odd enough to make Tony try the bell again, and then to climb the porch, and along the window sills to look into Andy’s room. Andy was sitting at the table, with his head on his arms, shaking visibly. Tony banged on the window repeatedly, but there was no response. At first, he didn’t know what to do.

‘I decided to try to raise one of the other people in the house, and hope that Andy’s room wasn’t locked. But no-one answered, and in the end I broke in. There was an awful smell in the room, and Andy wasn’t conscious at all. His breathing was very irregular, and he was twitching and shaking. I lifted his head up. It was quite limp. His eyes were shut. Then I saw the source of the smell: he’d had diarrhea in his trousers, it was all over the chair and there was a pool of it on the floor. I had to go to the loo to be sick; when I got back Andy had stopped breathing. He hadn’t a pulse either. I tried to give him the kiss of life, but when his pulse hadn’t come back after ten minutes I gave up. It’s one thing when you hear someone’s died; it’s quite another when you give them up for dead yourself.’

He’d gone to the nearest school and told them, and they’d said they’d get a health patrol round to clean up as soon as possible. They took a note of the address, but didn’t seem to be interested in any other details.

There’s going to be an awful lot of ‘missing – presumed dead’ cases after this is all over.

‘I’d washed my mouth out pretty thoroughly at Andy’s after trying to revive him, but they gave me a mouthwash of some pretty foul-tasting stuff, and told me to have a bath and change my clothes, and wash them as soon as possible.’

‘The switch to put the hot water on is to the left as you go into the kitchen – that’s it June. There’s a launderette in Alma Road about two hundred yards away. If you don’t mind, there’s some of my stuff too – it’s been festering for a week now. It’s in a basket in the bathroom.’

‘I’ll take them while you bath, Tony. There’s some of my things in that plastic bag you can wear until you get your own. Hasn’t anyone been looking after you this last week, Melanie?’

‘Sort of. Mrs Halstead from downstairs has been coming up to feed me. But I didn’t want to put her out too much. She’s been a dear, helping me wash, as it is. The poor old lady went into hospital the day before yesterday. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see Tony, even though I didn’t know him from Adam. I thought the other Echo staff must’ve been run off their feet because of the epidemic, when none of them came. I couldn’t get through to the office at all – always engaged. Come to think of it, that’s odd. When did you say it closed down, Tony?’

‘The last issue was Thursday. I don’t know when the police came.’

‘I suppose that a lot of people might have been trying to ring them yesterday.’

‘I’m an idiot! I never thought to look for those photocopies! I’ll go back now, while the water heats up.’

He’ll get himself all stewed up again. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No sense in two of us going in there. I’m going to have a bath in a minute anyway. Don’t worry about my state of mind – it won’t be any worse than it was before, and I survived that.’

He was back in twenty minutes. ‘The clean-up squad wouldn’t let me near the place. I’m going back tomorrow when there’s no-one there.’

‘I’ll cook something while you bath. Don’t go to the launderette till after we’ve eaten, Mike, you’ll take ages.’

Mike and Melanie watched BBC2 – which had come back to life – until Tony and the lunch appeared, almost simultaneously. Cases, and deaths, were supposedly rising steadily; but they no longer believed the figures at all. They were much too low.

After they’d eaten, June took a bike and went to see how Auntie Alice was. Tony went off to his house to pick up some clothes and any food there was there. Mike left Melanie on Telly Watch, and went and found the launderette. It was empty, but open.

A little girl went by on a bicycle, singing. It gave Mike a better feeling than he’d had for days. He almost felt guilty about it. I wish I could be with you, Jill. Please get better – soon!

Then he realized that it was the first child he’d seen out and about since Wednesday, despite the good weather there’d been for the last couple of days. In fact, it’s been pretty quiet altogether, apart from just outside the hospital and the schools. And nobody’s singing.

I wonder what that lass had to sing about? Some kids are irrepressible, thank God.

Transferring the washing to the drier – they’d discussed the merits of hanging it out to dry, and decided not to take unnecessary risks, however intangible – Mike noticed heavy bloodstains, which the washing had failed to remove, on several of Melanie’s things.

Tony was in the kitchen making a pot of tea when Mike got back with the dry clothes.

‘They weren’t playing games when they beat you up, were they, Melanie! Couldn’t get the bloodstains off some of the things. And there are holes torn in some of them, did you know?’

‘It tells you something about some of the Burnfield police force, that I’ve got them back at all. If I’d been an average member of the public, and they’d not been BNP thugs, my clothes would’ve been exhibit B, after the photos of my injuries. But the police say they haven’t a chance of catching the bastards.’

‘They haven’t if they don’t look.’

‘Exactly. I reckon two of them were casualty cases themselves, or at any rate will have had to see a doctor. I’m sure I bust a nose pretty badly, and possibly an arm, before they got me on the floor.’

‘What were you doing to upset them so much?’

‘At the time, absolutely nothing. But I’ve written a few things about the BNP in the past, and put my own name to them, like a fool. I think they’d discovered that I sometimes go for a jar with Tony and Geoff, and that I walk home alone. They’d probably got a spy in our pub. They waited till I was halfway along the alley up from Alma Road, and then came in two from each end. I screamed like mad, but no-one came until after they’d run off. Bloody cowards!’

BBC2, which had been singularly boring anyway, went blank for a moment, and then the printed message reappeared. It hadn’t changed. Mike searched the channels. They were all the same.

‘If you twiddle the channel tune you can usually get Tyne Tees. Reception’s not bad up here.’

The picture was a bit obscured by a herring-bone-weave pattern, but the subject matter seemed most interesting. ‘Hey, Tony, come on through! Gordon Waters is talking about viruses!’

‘There’ll be tea in a moment. If I miss anything, tell me.’

They’d all missed the first part, of course, and some of what Waters was saying went over their heads. The summing up could scarcely have been clearer:

‘The cell damage that we’ve been seeing here at Newcastle University, in tissues from several different species, is very like that caused by radiation or certain kinds of toxic chemicals. So far as anyone here knows, no-one has ever seen this kind of effect from any virus, but they know of no reason why it isn’t possible in principle. They haven’t been able to find a virus; but looking for a virus is notoriously difficult and slow.

‘We’ve failed completely in our attempts to talk to any of the Ministry of Defence team who are supposed to be working on the virus. The Ministry of Defence intercepts us at every turn. I doubt if I’m supposed to have told you that, but I think it’s in the public interest to know.

‘In fairness to the virus theory, no toxic chemical has been found, either, nor radioactivity. But this kind of effect can be caused by some chemicals in quantities so small that you cannot find them unless you know what chemical to look for. The nuclear facilities available to us here are minimal, and the Nuclear Physics department is closed nowadays, of course.

‘We will be back at five o’clock with a study of what is known about the spread of the this disease.’

Printed message, exactly as before. All channels ditto. Tyne Tees was not back with its epidemiological study at five o’clock, or at all.

‘I’ve rarely seen such blatant censorship in this country! What I’d like to know is, what are they hiding?’

‘We wondered about that – but I suppose it could be that sickness among the staff is making program production very difficult.’

‘They’ve not even tried to fob us off with that one. Six channels out of six, on the blink most of the time? If they can’t make live programs, you’d think Independent would’ve snapped up a recording of that Gordon Waters thing as soon as it was finished, rather than just show that wretched card. They’re scared for some reason. He dropped a clanger – or a hint – when he said the MoD intercept them at every turn. It’ll be the MoD that’ll have squashed this epidemiology thing. Why, is another question.’

‘Presumably they don’t want people to know how it spreads. The only legitimate reason I can think of would be to prevent panic, which suggests that they know something pretty unpleasant.’

‘Until you know how a disease spreads, it’s hard to interfere with the spreading process. The only really unpleasant thing I can imagine is that they might still know nothing, and that all the advice about water, and milk, and meat, and animals is just to make the public think something is being done. They wouldn’t want all that exposed as baloney.’

‘I think it’s got to be something worse that that, Tony. Tyne Tees wouldn’t bother to expose baloney at that level. They’d see that kind of lie as a harmless attempt to reassure the public. The MoD wouldn’t need to squash anything. And I’m surprised at you, Mike, talking about panic that way. When governments talk about preventing panic, what they mean is preserving apathy. People like them sneak up to the exit in a crowded cinema before they shout FIRE!’

‘And then they shout in code, so only their friends can understand. All right, all right, I know the analogy is getting a bit stretched, but you know what I mean.’

‘Alpha Alert. And your friends don’t necessarily know it means fire, but they know it means get out quietly. Which suggests the MoD did know ten days ago.’

‘And that the possibility existed, longer ago than that. But we don’t have anything really significant more to add to the evidence for that theory than we had when the idea first came up.’

‘But what would the public do, if they did know?’

‘That depends rather on what they knew. Since we don’t know, it’s hard to tell.’

‘Well, what do we know? We may be able to read between the lines a bit more than the average member of the public. Get me that file and that pen off the chest over there, Mike, and let’s start a file. Then we might be able to work out what else we want to know. Let’s start with some headings. Alpha Alert.’

‘Being out of doors. Rain.’

‘Milk. Boiling water. Freshness of meat. Sick animals.’

‘Stopping freight. Censorship. Closing businesses.’

‘Virus. Toxic chemicals. Radioactivity.’

‘Ah! That reminds me. When he first mentioned radioactivity, my mind did a somesault, but I didn’t say anything because I was too engrossed in the program, and then I forgot. In a novel about nuclear war, I can’t remember the title, but I think it was by Peter van Greenaway, I’ve come across your rain-and-being-outside effect before. It’s supposed to make the effects of radiation worse, according to him. And the symptoms are similar, red rashes, diarrhea, vomiting.’

‘But they couldn’t possibly keep a nuclear war secret! They can’t even keep a major nuclear accident secret, much as they might like to.’

‘Major nuclear accidents aren’t like this, anyway. This is far too evenly distributed over the whole world.’

‘Could toxic chemicals have the same rain-and-being-outside effect? And the same symptoms?’

‘I don’t know. But a big chemical accident wouldn’t produce a worldwide uniform effect, either. They wouldn’t try so much to hush it up, either.’

‘They wouldn’t be able to if they wanted to. Too many people would be able to find out for themselves.’

‘Even with restrictions on public mobility and the telephone system screwed up? I’m not so sure.’

‘It’s a pity we don’t have a C.B., or a short wave to listen to the Radio Hams. There might be all sorts of things being said on the air, and we just don’t know.’

‘It’s not an effective medium for public discussion, really, anyway. Too easily policed. You never know when the authorities are listening in. There’s lots of ways they can shut you up if they don’t like the things you say. A short blast of a big signal will blow your receiver up, or they come round and impound your equipment for alleged ‘infringement of the regulations’, or they just swamp you under a more powerful signal of the banal kind that the whole system is so full of anyway.’

‘But you could talk for quite a while before they picked you up on a random check and squashed you. They couldn’t stop an idea spreading.’

‘The kind of discussion we’ve been having would only get through to a handful of people like us, and they’d already know who to squash as soon as anything important happened.’

‘But they couldn’t squash news of a major disaster that was apparent to Joe Public.’

‘That’s an awful expression! Aren’t we all Joe Public? You pick that up from your policemen friends?’

Sheepish looks. Never thought about it.

At half past six, Mike was in the kitchen trying to work out what to cook, when June arrived with a child in tow. That’s the little girl who was singing, riding a bike. She’s been crying.

‘Hello, Mike. Is Tony in with Melanie? This is Linda. She’s got nowhere to go. I was sure Melanie wouldn’t mind. Put the kettle on – do you like tea, Linda?’

Silent nod.

‘You two had anything to eat? I’m just making supper.’

‘No. Linda’s had nothing to speak of all day.’

June told them all Linda’s story over supper. Linda only contributed odd words. She alternated between an overawed and forlorn withdrawal and a desperate brightness.

June had found her sitting on a low wall by the cemetery, resting her head on her arms on her bicycle, crying silently. It had taken some time for June to get anything out of her, but her need for help had been obvious.

Linda’s father had been working in Germany, and had been due home a week ago, before the epidemic had started.

But after Exercise Alpha had begun, thought Mike.

But he hadn’t turned up, and no word had come of any kind. Her mother hadn’t let her out of the house since the very first illnesses were reported, and they’d argued about it. Linda felt very frustrated being shut up indoors and not seeing her friends. She’d thought that her mother wasn’t very well, but her mother had assured her that it was only a bit of an upset tummy. Then this morning her mother didn’t get up, and Linda went in to her room to plead with her to let her go and see a friend.

‘I didn’t even ask her how she was. She just said, “You do what the hell you want, Linda”.’

‘So Linda went out on her bicycle, singing, suppressing a worry in the back of her mind that her mother was pretty ill. She began to get frightened when there was no answer at any of her friends’ houses.’

Mike made a note to ask how many friends houses she’d tried, and how many people there were in each family.

You can’t do any useful statistics with non-random samples like this, but it would still be interesting. It doesn’t square very well with the official figures. It sounds even worse than our experience. But then, we’ve not talked to any little girls who weren’t crying on a wall.

But he didn’t interrupt the story.

Anyway, they don’t all have to have been sick or dead. Some of them might just have been out. But not many people are out and about these days.

In the early afternoon Linda had gone home. Her mother still wasn’t up, so she went into her room. She was lying in exactly the position Linda had left her that morning. Linda thought she was dead. Linda fled round to the doctor’s, but there was no-one there. There was still no-one there when the surgery was due to open. Shortly after that June found her. They went to Linda’s house; her mother really was dead. They went to Linda’s school and reported the body.

‘I hope you picked up some clothes for her. The clean-up squad won’t let you go back.’

‘I brought my mum’s purse as well. I’ve got to be able to buy food.’

She’s got her head screwed on, this one!

‘That’s a thing! I’ve not thought about it before, but are banks counted as essential businesses? They’ve not said a thing either way about it on the telly. I’m almost out of cash.’

‘Post Offices too, for that matter. I should have a Giro coming on Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ve almost run out too.’

‘They’re not telling us much on the telly, not even basic information like that. They never said anything about the milk ban. There’ll just be a notice on the Post Office door. They’ve not said whether you’ve got to sign on or not. I bet it’s cancelled, but it’ll just be a note on the door of the employment exchange. I hope they’re still sending giros!’

‘If the post’s operating at all. Most of my money’s in the bank, and I’m not due a giro for a fortnight anyway. We’re going to have to go carefully or we’ll starve.’

‘You’re assuming they aren’t open...’

‘You think they might be?’

‘Not really, I suppose. But it’s not so bad actually. I’ve got the key to Mrs Halstead’s flat, and she’s a regular hoarder. She said I could use anything I wanted and pay her back later.’

‘Panic buying is the sort of panic I thought the authorities might be trying to prevent.’

‘But that isn’t panic. It’s good sense. Panic implies irrationality, like rushing off in a car, leaving the environment you’re familiar with, without any reason to suppose things are any better wherever you’re going.’

‘I presume it’s mainly tinned stuff Mrs Halstead’s got? There’s another advantage to that. It won’t be contaminated. Whether it’s a virus, a chemical, or radioactivity, that’s worth something. I’m not normally in favour of packaged food, but it has that advantage just now. Any disadvantage it has is only if you eat a lot of it consistently over a long period.’

‘She has things like breakfast cereals, rice, flour, dried beans and fruit as well. But the same argument applies anyway. They been in sealed packs since before all this began.’

‘But I thought radioactivity could go through packaging and suchlike.’

‘So it can. But that’s the rays that the radioactive material gives off, not the radioactive material itself. The rays can kill living things, but they don’t do food any harm – in fact you can use them to sterilize it. They don’t make the food radioactive.’

‘That’s not quite the whole story, actually, Melanie. They don’t make the food radioactive, but they do change the chemistry of some of the food, producing small quantities of a whole range of toxic chemicals. Any quantity of radiation enough to be really effective against bacteria isn’t really safe for food.’

‘Is that so? It’s amazing the things you know, Tony! Are you sure?’

‘Pretty sure. There was a lot of controversy about it twenty years ago; they even did it for a while. They couldn’t pin any individual cases on it, but the epidemiologists and the cancer experts said that the number and pattern of cancer cases had changed in a way that statistically proved that it was causing thousands of deaths. The lobby in favour of it wasn’t as powerful as the tobacco industry, say, so it was banned. The whole thing was kept pretty low-key at the time, but there’s enough information around still if you’re interested in that kind of thing.’

‘Anyway, how’s Auntie Alice, June? When you arrived with Linda, I never thought to ask.’

‘She’s okay. But I’m not sure whether perhaps all this isn’t helping to unhinge her a bit.’

‘Perhaps I should come with you tomorrow, June. I’ll come when I’ve done the hospital round.’

‘That’s fine, Mike. But what are we going to do with Linda? I don’t think we ought to take her to see Auntie Alice. And I think we ought to go round to Jill’s mum and see how David is, so we can let Jill know.’

I’ve not seen Jill’s mum since Jill was taken ill. She’ll think I’ve forgotten her. But I don’t know what to say. I wonder how Jill is, what she’s thinking?

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