Chapter 19

On Thursday it rained all day. Mel persuaded Mike not to go out in it. ‘For my sake, and Linda’s, and Auntie Alice’s and David’s, if not for your own.’

‘But I’ve got to tell Auntie Alice about June. And about Jill, too, for that matter.’

‘Not at the risk of your own life! It doesn’t matter much anyway: she can’t be imagining anything worse than the truth.’

They tried to play cards for Linda’s sake, but Linda’s heart wasn’t in it any more than theirs were. They gave up very quickly, and gave in to their depression. They reminisced despondently about better days. They drank a great deal of tea, and had frequent snacks, but no real meals all day.

Linda’s boils were getting worse, and Mike’s was still producing a lot of pus. Mel’s cough wasn’t improving, and she had a pain in her chest.

Quite early in the evening Mike brought his sleeping bag into Melanie’s room. He put himself to bed on the floor, and propped his back up against the wall. None of them had much to say, but they didn’t go to sleep for ages.

Mike woke at first light. Sometime during the night Linda had wriggled in with him again. She hadn’t woken him up, but somehow his arm was round her. She was fast asleep. He lay still and listened to the wind, and Melanie’s breathing.

It’s stopped raining. I must see Auntie Alice today. If Mel’s game, perhaps we should all move over there if Ruth’ll drive us.

If Ruth is in any fit state. Is she still alive, even?

Ruth was very glad to see him.

‘I was scared something had happened to you when you didn’t come yesterday. Hugh died last night. I’ve only five patients left, and only Tony is conscious. I’ve not been out of this place for days, except for that trip to fetch the car. I didn’t see a soul then. Is there anyone about at all? It feels like the end of the world.’

Mike couldn’t bring himself to tell her about June. He told her that he’d not been out the day before, but that on Wednesday he’d seen quite a lot of people.

Tony was awake, and feeling much better.

‘How is everyone?’

O God! Now I’ve got to tell the story. He opened his mouth to speak, and had to think what to say. Visions of the old lady came into his mind. And an empty police station. A corridor of cells. A steel door. You Jammy Bastards.

‘June’s dead.’

It was all he could say. He sat down on Tony’s bed and wept. Ruth slipped away. Tony stared at him.

‘But June was perfectly okay two days ago!’

Mike nodded, but couldn’t say anything.

Ruth reappeared. ‘I was going to make us all a cuppa, but there’s a power cut. You’ll have to wait a bit.’

Mike’s turbulent mind focussed. ‘I’d be surprised if it comes back on at all. We were going to ask you, Ruth, if you could drive the car for us, to move Melanie over to Auntie Alice’s. Auntie Alice has a gas stove. Ours is electric.’

Ours? Melanie’s! How many days have I been there?

‘You don’t think it’ll come back on? What am I going to do for distilled water for the IV drips?’

‘Can you remember anything from your school chemistry, Tony? If I break into the chemistry labs, do you think you can tell me how to set up a glassware still with a bunsen burner?’

‘Of course I can. But I’m not so bad now, I’ll come myself.

... Goodness! I feel unsteady. I’ll be okay though, just let me hang onto you.’

‘Sit down, Tony. I’ll come back for you when I’ve found the labs and got in. I expect I’ll have to break into the cupboards too. I’m sure they’ll be locked.’

‘I’m not thinking. There’s a key cupboard in the staffroom. I’ll show you.’

The cupboard contained the key to the laboratory, but no keys to the apparatus cupboards. They found the laboratory, and the cupboards were indeed locked. The keys were in the drawer of the teacher’s desk.

Mike went and fetched Tony. It took Tony half an hour to set the still up and get it started, a steady drip, drip, drip into a glass beaker. It took Mike back years. Tony was pale and sweating. He sat down on a stool.

‘All you’ve got to do is keep topping that flask up with water, through that funnel, and keep taking the distilled water away. If there’s more than you need for the drips, it’d be better to drink than tap water. The phone and the electric have gone off, with no-one to look after them; I don’t think the water will go off for ages, but it may not be as safe as it used to be.’

‘They’ve been telling us to boil water for three minutes for ages.’

‘Of course they have. I was forgetting. I’d better set you up some more bunsens for boiling water, and for cooking.’

‘Nobody here takes solids, anyway, Tony. Just one for boiling water’s quite enough. I’ll go and get the things to make the tea if you’ll put some water on, Mike.’

As soon as Ruth had gone, Mike told Tony all about June. He managed to maintain his composure, more or less. Tony was thunderstruck. Ruth came back with the tea things before the story was finished.

There was an awed silence.

Then Tony said, in a hushed voice, ‘If someone had told me about the overall situation, and I’d thought about it, I’d have guessed that that sort of thing would start happening. But you don’t think of it in those terms. You don’t imagine it happening to your friends.’

Ruth agreed to move Melanie. Mike cycled off to check with Auntie Alice, and tell her about Jill and June. She was inconsolable. David went to make tea for the three of them. He was totally blank.

Coming back with the teas, he said, ‘I wonder how Mum is? There’s only me and her left. O God! And Gran! Has anyone been to see her since Mum went into hospital?’

O Christ! Poor old lady! She won’t have seen a soul in a week! She’ll barely have had a thing to eat, I doubt.

Seriously, I’d be surprised if she’s alive.

‘I’d better go round there straight away, before I get Ruth to move Melanie.’

The clean-up squad had been, probably several days before. Someone had obviously reported the old lady’s death.

Ruth had a look at Linda’s boils while Mike loaded all the food from Melanie’s flat into the car. Then Mike helped Melanie down the stairs and into the car. They were both breathless by the time she was settled into the back seat.

‘Do you remember the way, Linda? Or had I better come in the car and come back for the bike later?’

But Melanie knew where Holly Ridge Road was anyway. Mike followed on the bike. He arrived at Auntie Alice’s to find Melanie still sitting in the back of the car. Linda and David were ferrying food into the house.

Mike helped Melanie out of the car and into the house. Auntie Alice was ministering to Ruth, who looked exhausted. Melanie started coughing as soon as she sat down. Her face twisted with pain and she clutched her chest. She gasped for breath between fits of coughing. Mike didn’t know what to do. He remembered Jill’s last moments.

Did I do right to move her? I hope I’ve not killed her! Please don’t die, Melanie!

Ruth doesn’t look any too good, either.

But eventually Melanie’s coughing stopped, and gradually her breathing eased. Auntie Alice persuaded Ruth to lie down on the sofa for a while. She was soon fast asleep.

Auntie Alice tried to organize a game of Monopoly, but it didn’t work. The game started slowly and got slower. Linda began to cry. A deep sigh from Melanie started her coughing again, but it didn’t last long.

Auntie Alice admitted defeat. She left the game and went to make some tea. The days of plates of cakes were over. She was pleased to have the stale bread Mike had bought, to make a pile of pilchard-in-tomato-sauce sandwiches.

Ruth didn’t wake up until late afternoon.

‘You should’ve woken me! I’m hours late for my round!’

Five minutes after she left, she was back.

‘Can you take me down to the school on the back of your bike, Mike? I only got to the end of the road, and the car conked out. Out of diesel. It was nearly full before. I think someone must’ve syphoned the tank.’

Tony was fast asleep. Two more of Ruth’s patients had died.

I wonder if anyone came here while we were away? Unlikely. What are other people doing these days? What are they thinking?

Mike got the still going again, and Ruth used the last of the previous batch of distilled water to make up some IV solutions.

‘I wonder how much longer I’ll be doing this? I hope Tony gets better.’

They prepared several beakers of distilled water, and covered them with glass dishes. Dusk became darkness. They left the bunsen burning, and sat mesmerized by the flame.

The sound of coughing aroused them from their reveries.

‘That must be Tony awake. Getting there’s going to be fun, in the dark!’

They held hands and groped their way through the corridors.

‘I wish we had a torch.’

Getting back to Auntie Alice’s with all the streetlights off is going to be well nigh impossible. Oh for a moon! I couldn’t possibly do it on the bike. I don’t really fancy walking. I’d be terrified of every shadow and every sound. Especially pushing a bike. Too desirable. But I can’t leave it here. I’ll need it tomorrow.

‘How are you going to get home?’

Telepathy.

‘I was just thinking exactly that myself.’

Not surprising really.

‘Ow!’ Simultaneously.

‘I’d forgotten these steps.’ Again in absolute unison. They sat down on the steps and laughed.

They both tried to climb one more step than there was and almost fell. They started laughing again.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. Just trying to get about in the dark. How are you feeling?’

‘Pretty rough, to tell the truth. I’m glad you’ve come, Ruth. My bottle’s full.’

‘That’s a good sign. You’re still absorbing water if you’re still passing it.’

‘I know. I shouldn’t complain. Most people seem to be a lot worse off than me.’

‘You’d better stay here tonight, Mike. I don’t fancy the idea of you groping your way all that distance.’

‘I think you’re right. I should have realized earlier and gone before dark. They’ll be worried silly at Auntie Alice’s.’

It was no easy matter preparing a bed for Mike in pitch darkness. Manhandling a dead body was even less pleasant than when he could see what he was doing. Mike groped his way to the toilets to wash. By the time he came back Ruth had remade the bed with fresh linen.

‘You know, we’ve been wasting our time distilling all that water and making up IV solution. The autoclave’s electric too. I can’t sterilize anything.’

‘What that comes down to is, which is the greater risk?’

‘They’re dead either way. Seriously speaking, they’re dead anyway, even if we could sterilize everything. What are we going to do?’

‘Stop worrying about them. There’s nothing we can do. There must be millions of people dying at the moment. You can’t shoulder that kind of burden. Worry about yourself.’

‘In that case, I should leave here, logically speaking. But I’ve nowhere to go.

... God, we’ll be sleeping in a morgue! I want to get out of here!’

‘Hey, Ruth, calm down!’

Mike found her in the darkness and held her tightly. She started crying.

‘You should come and stay at Auntie Alice’s with the rest of us. I hope Tony’s fit to take on the bike tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do here.’

Mike cycled to Auntie Alice’s at first light to let them know he was okay. Then he went back to see how Tony was.

Tony was awake when he arrived, but very groggy and obviously in no fit state to be moved by any means, least of all as a passenger on a bicycle. Ruth picked up his hand to take his pulse. Tony seemed unaware of it. He was looking at Mike with a puzzled expression on his face.

‘He feels really cold. His pulse is ever so fast, but very faint. I don’t know why I’m bothering, I’ve no doctor to tell. The only symptom I’ve been shown how to treat is dehydration, and he doesn’t seem to be suffering from that. Without the autoclave, I couldn’t put him on a drip, even if he was.’

Tony died quietly as they stood there. Ruth pulled the sheet up over his face. Mike remembered Jill’s last moments and shuddered.

‘Now what?’

Ruth’s voice startled Mike. Now what indeed. Back to Auntie Alice’s, both of us. Is there anything useful to take from here? Tea, sugar, glucose, powdered milk, salt.

‘Come on.’

He dragged her out of the room. He took the bicycle into the staffroom and filled the panniers from the cupboard. He led her out of the school. They mounted the bicycle and rode back to Auntie Alice’s. They were the only things moving, as far as they could tell.

When they arrived, Melanie was coughing again. Auntie Alice was busy with Linda’s boils. She’d already dressed David’s.

Mine’s still awfully sore. Better get Ruth to have a look.

‘God, Mike, this is a mess! It’s not healing properly at all. There’s a big scab over the whole area, but it’s all cracked and it’s raw and bloody in patches. I don’t know what to do with it. Alice, have you any dressings suitable for a mess like this?’

Alice looked at it, and pronounced the opinion that he ought to see a doctor. Melanie had stopped coughing, but was gasping horribly for breath.

‘Even if I could find a doctor anywhere, he wouldn’t thank me just now for showing him a boil that won’t heal. Just smear it with antiseptic cream and tie me up in a bit of cloth. I’ll be okay.’

Suddenly Linda, who had been lying back across two chairs for the boils on her tummy to be attended to, jumped up.

‘Somebody help Melanie!’

Melanie was clutching her chest, looking wildly about, and breathing very fast. Short, shallow, hoarse breaths. Before anyone got to her, she slumped forward.

She had stopped breathing altogether. Her pulse faded away from racing to nothing as Ruth held her wrist.

‘She’s dead.’ Ruth’s voice was a monotone.

We’ve lost our capacity to be shocked any more.

‘But she didn’t have it at all! No diarrhea, no vomiting, no rash!’

‘I expect she’s had a lung infection, secondary to the broken rib. I should’ve wondered when I heard her coughing so much yesterday. I never thought, though – a big, strong, fit girl like her shouldn’t succumb to infection so easily.’

Auntie Alice and the children were just staring in horror. Mike realized that somehow he had to get rid of Melanie’s body.

God, how things have changed. All I can think of is that I’ve got to get rid of her body. No calling the hospital, the police, or the undertaker. No telling friends and relatives. Where can I put her? There’s no clean-up squad or health patrol any more, I don’t think.

This is really it, then, isn’t it? If we survive at all, we’ll just be savages, scavenging amongst the ruins.

Mike found Melanie’s body quite hard to carry. He left her in the gutter forty yards down the road. He wondered vaguely where other people were leaving bodies.

Perhaps they’re digging graves in their back gardens. I haven’t the energy. Perhaps they’re just lying there, dead in their beds.

Linda was shaking him. He looked at her. His eyes went in and out of focus for a moment. She was saying something, but he couldn’t make out what. He discovered he couldn’t remember much at all. Dumping a body in a gutter. Walking into someone’s house. Waking in bed, in darkness.

He was in bed now. Linda was shaking him. He looked at her. His eyes were out of focus.

Jill! Jill! Jill! Don’t die, Jill!

– ‘You must’ve known it was hopeless.’

Suddenly Linda’s voice got through.

‘Mike! Wake up! You’re the only one left!’

He tried to say ‘Linda’, but his voice wouldn’t work.

The pain under his arm was gone.

He didn’t wake up again.

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