The Memoirs of a Survivor

  Gerald wanted us to move to the top floor, where it would be easy for him to fix up a wind machine, one of the little windmills: we would have enough power to heat water, when we could get it. I said nothing, let Emily do the talking, make choices. She said no, it would be better to stay down here: she did not look at me as she said this, and it slowly came into me the reason was that up at the top of the building we would be more vulnerable to attack: we could not run away easily up there, whereas here it would be a question of jumping out of a window. This was why she said ‘no’ to his offer of ‘a large flat, really Emily, very big, and full of all sorts of food and stuff. And I could fix it up with power in a day - couldn’t we …?’ he appealed to the children, who nodded and grinned. They sat on either side of him, those little things, about seven or eight years old: they were his, his creatures; he had made himself theirs; he had his gang, his tribe … but at the cost of doing what they wanted, serving them.

  What he wanted was to have her back. He wanted her to go up with him, to live with him, as queen, or chief lady, or brigand’s woman, among the children, his gang. And she did not want this; she most definitely did not. Not that she said it, but it was clear. And the children, sharp-eyed and alert, knew what the issue was. It was hard to know what they felt - there were none of the familiar signals to tell us. Their eyes turned from Emily to Gerald, from Gerald to Emily: they were wondering if Emily, like Gerald, could become one of them, kill with them, fight with them? Or they were thinking that she was pretty and nice and it would be pleasant to have her around with them? They saw her, or felt her, as filling the place of their mothers - if they remembered mothers, a family, at all? They were thinking that they should kill her, because of Gerald’s, their possession’s, love of her? Who could say?

  Their eating habits were disgusting. Gerald said, Use a spoon, look, like this … no, don’t throw it on the floor! - in a way that showed that in his own rooms, his own cave, he no longer bothered with such niceties. His glance at Emily said that if she would be there with them, she could influence and civilize… but it was all no use, and the three, the man and the two little children, went off at midday. They would bring us fresh meat tomorrow: a sheep was going to be killed. He would come and see Emily soon: he spoke to her, it was Emily’s place now. My flat was Emily’s, and I was her elderly attendant. Well, why not?

  She was silent when he had gone, and then Hugo came and sat with his face on her knee: he was saying: I can see that you have really chosen me at last, me against him, me instead of all the others!

  It was funny and pathetic; but she flashed me glances that I was not to laugh: it was she who suppressed smiles, bit her lips, breathed deep to hold down laughter. She fussed and caressed: ‘Dear Hugo, dear, dear Hugo …’ I noted, and watched. I was seeing a mature woman, a woman who has had her fill of everything, but is still being asked from, demanded of, persuaded into giving: such a woman is generous indeed, her coffers and wells are always full and being given out. She loves - oh yes, but somewhere in her is a deadly weariness. She has known it all, and doesn’t want any more - but what can she do? She knows herself - the eyes of men and boys say so - as a source - if she is not this, then she is nothing. So she still thinks; she has not yet shed that delusion. She gives. She gives. But with this weariness held in check and concealed … so she stroked her Hugo’s head, made love to his ears, whispered affectionate nonsense to him. Over his head her eyes met mine: they were the eyes of a mature woman of about thirty-five, or forty … she would never willingly suffer any of it again. Like the jaded woman of our dead civilization, she knew love like a fever, to be suffered, to be lived through: ‘falling in love’ was an illness to be endured, a trap which might lead her to betray her own nature, her good sense, and her real purposes. It was not a door to anything but itself: not a key to living. It was a state, a condition, sufficient unto itself, almost independent of its object … ‘being in love’. If she had spoken of it, she would have spoken of it so, as I’ve written. But she did not want to talk. She exuded her weariness, her willingness to give out if absolutely necessary, to give without belief. Gerald, whom she had adored, the ‘first love’ of tradition; for whom she had waited, suffered, lain awake at nights - Gerald, her lover, now needed and wanted her, having worked through the cycle of his needs, but she no longer had the energy to rise and meet him.

  When, later that day, Gerald came down again, alone, in an attempt to persuade her to return with him, she did talk to him. She talked and he listened. She told him what had happened to him, for he did not know.

  After the community he had built in his house had been broken up by the gang of ‘kids’ from the Underground, and when he had seen that none of his own household would return, he had put all his effort into getting Emily to stay with him, to make a new household. He had returned to the pavement, to attract the nucleus of a new tribe. But this did not happen, it had not happened. Why? Perhaps it was believed that he was in contact with the dangerous children, or that any new community he formed must attract them; perhaps the fact he had shown openly that he was prepared to settle for one woman, for Emily, instead of being free in his choices, bestowing favours on whoever he found in his bed, put off the girls - whatever law it was that operated, the result was that Gerald, formerly a young prince, perhaps the most regarded of all the young men on the pavement, found himself unfollowed, merely one of the youngsters who had to attach himself to a leader in order to survive … Gerald listened to all this, thoughtful, attentive, disagreeing with nothing Emily was saying.

  ‘And then you decided it was better to have the children than to have nothing, or to be patient and wait. You simply had to have a gang at all costs. And you went back to them and took them over. But they have taken you over - can’t you see? I bet you have to do exactly what they want, don’t you? I am sure you never can stop them doing anything they want? And you have to go along with whatever it is?’

  But now he had retreated, was not prepared to take this, could not listen.

  ‘But they are just little kids,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it better for them that they have me? I get them food and things. I look after them.’

  They had food and things before,’ Emily said drily.

  Too dry … he saw her as critical of him - that, and nothing more. There was no affection for him - so he felt it. Off he went, and did not come again for some days.

  We were organizing our life, our rooms.

  We were supplied with clean air at the cost of sitting and turning a handle to recharge batteries from time to time. It was warm: Emily went out with an axe and returned with great bundles of wood. And, just as I was thinking that the shortage of water would drive us to the roads, there was a clop-clopping outside, and a donkey cart made its appearance, loaded with plastic buckets of water, wooden buckets, metal buckets.

  ‘Wa-a-a-ter! Wa-a-a-ter!’ - the old cry sounded through our damp northern streets. Two girls of about eleven were selling the stuff, or rather, bartering. I went out with containers, and saw other people coming from the various blocks of flats around us. Not many, not more than fifty or so in all. I bought water dearly: the little girls had learned to be hard, to shake their heads and shrug at the prospect that people would do without water. For two buckets of good water - we were at least allowed to taste it before buying -I paid a sheepskin.

  And then Gerald appeared, with about twenty of his gang - came with containers of every sort. Of course, there were all those animals up there, they needed water: but in a moment the gang had taken the water, simply grabbed it: they did not pay. I found myself shouting at Gerald that it was their livelihood, the little girls’ - but he took no notice. I think he did not hear me. He stood on the alert, all vigilance, his eyes coldly assessing, while his children lifted down the buckets and ran off into the building with them, while the sellers complained, and the people who had come to buy water and had not yet been served stood shouting and screaming. Then Gerald and the children had gone and it was
my turn to be robbed. I stood with two filled buckets, and one of the men from the block of flats opposite held out his hand, lowering his head to glare into my eyes, baring his teeth. I handed over one bucket and ran indoors with the other. Emily had been watching through the window. She seemed sad. Also irritated: I could see the words she would use to scold Gerald forming in her mind.

  A dish of clean water was put down for Hugo and he drank and drank. He stood beside the empty dish, head lowered: we filled it again, and he drank … a third of the bucket went in this way, and in our minds was the same thought - Hugo’s as well as ours. Emily sat by him and put her arms around him in the old way: he was not to worry or grieve, she would protect him, no one would attack him; he would have water if she had to go without or if I did .. .

  When the water sellers came a couple of days later, they had men guarding the water with guns, and we bought in orderly queues. Gerald and his gang were not there. A woman in the queue said that ‘that rotten lot’ had opened up the Fleet River, and had started selling water on their own account. It was true, and for us, Hugo, Emily and me, a good turn of events, for Gerald brought us down a bucket of water every day and sometimes more.

  ‘Well, we had to do it, we have to keep our animals watered, don’t we?’

  From the defensiveness of this, we knew that some hard battle had been fought. With the authorities? With other people using that source? - for of course old wells and springs had been opened everywhere over the city. If with the authorities, then how was it that Gerald and the children had won? - they must have done, to be able to reach and tap the supply.

  ‘Well,’ said Gerald, ‘they haven’t got enough troops to keep an eye on everything, have they? Most of them have gone, haven’t they? I mean, there are more of us than there are of them now…’

  • • • • •

  And if everyone had gone, what were we - Emily and Hugo and I - doing here?

  But we no longer thought about leaving, not seriously. We might talk a little about the Dolgellys, or say: Well, one of these days we really ought to be thinking…

  Air, water, food, warmth - we had them all. Things were easier now than for a long time. There was less stress, less danger. And even the few people who were still lodged in the cracks and crevices of this great city kept leaving, leaving …

  I watched a tribe go off as the autumn ended and winter came down. The last tribe, at least from our pavements. It was like all the others I had seen go, but better equipped, and typical of the caravans from our particular area: now, comparing notes, it seems that each neighbourhood had its peculiarities of travel, even styles! Yes, I can use that word … how quickly customs and habits do grow up! I remember hearing someone say, and this was quite in the early days of the departing tribes: ‘Where is the shoe leather? We always have a supply of shoe leather.’

  Perhaps it would be of interest if I described this late departure in more detail.

  It was cold that morning. A low sky moved fast from west to east, a dark, pouring sea. The air was thick, and hard to breathe, although there was a wind stirring and rolling drifts of the snow crumbs that lightly surfaced road and pavements. The ground seemed fluid. The tall buildings all around showed sharp and dark, or disappeared in snow flurries and cloud.

  About fifty people had gathered, all rolled tightly into their furs. At the front were two young men with the two guns they owned prominently in evidence. Behind them came four more, with bows and arrows, sticks, knives. Then came a cart converted from a motor car: everything taken off down to wheel level, and boards laid over these to make a surface. The cart was being drawn by a horse, and on it were piled bundles of clothes and equipment, three small children, and hay for the horse. The older children were expected to walk.

  Behind this cart walked the women and children, and behind them came another cart, and in the yokes were two youths. On this cart was a large version of the old hay-box: a wooden container, insulated and padded, into which could be fitted pots which, taken off the boil just before the start of a journey, would go on simmering inside their nests and be ready to provide a meal at its end. After this second cart came a third, an old milk cart carrying food supplies: grains, dried vegetables, concentrates and so on. And a fourth cart, drawn by a donkey. It was arranged in cages. There were some laying hens. There were rabbits, not for eating, but for breeding: a dozen or so impregnated does. This last cart had a special guard of four armed boys.

  It was the horse and the donkey that distinguished this caravan: our part of the city was known for its draft animals. Why we developed mis speciality I don’t know. Perhaps it was because there were riding stables in the old days, and these developed into breeding establishments when there was a need. Even our little common had horses on it - under heavy guard night and day, of course.

  Usually, when a column of people left for the journey north or west, people came out of the buildings to say goodbye, to wish them well, to send messages to friends and relatives who had gone on ahead. That morning only four people came. I and Hugo sat quietly in our window watching as the tribe arranged itself and left, without fuss or farewells. Very different this departure from earlier ones, which had been so boisterous and gay. These people were subdued, seemed apprehensive, made themselves small and inconspicuous inside their furs: this caravan of theirs would make rich booty.

  Emily did not even watch.

  At the very last moment Gerald came out with half a dozen of the children, and they stood on the pavement until the last cart with its cackling load had gone out of sight beyond the church at the corner. Gerald turned then, and led his flock back inside the building. He saw me and nodded, but without smiling. He looked strained - as well he might. Even to see that band of infant savages was enough to make one’s stomach muscles tighten in anxiety. And he lived among them, day and night: I believe he had run out with them to stop them attacking the loaded carts.

  That night there was a knock on the door, and four of the children stood there: they were wild-eyed and excited. Emily simply shut the door on them and locked it. Then she put heavy chairs against it. A scuffling and whispering -the footsteps retreated.

  Emily looked at me, and mouthed over Hugo’s head - it took me a few moments to work it out: Roast Hugo.

  ‘Or roast Emily,’ I said.

  A few minutes later we heard screams coming from along the street, then the sound of many rushing feet, and children’s shrill voices in triumph - all the sounds of a raid, a crime. We pushed aside our heavy curtains and were in time to see, through a glimmer from the snow that was being lit by a small moon, Gerald’s gang, but without Gerald, dragging something up the front steps. It looked like a body. It need not have been anything of the kind, could have been a sack or a bundle. But the suspicion was there, and strong enough to make us believe it.

  We sat on through the night quietly by our fire, waiting, listening.

  There was nothing to prevent one or all of us becoming victims at any moment.

  Nothing. Not the fact that Gerald, by himself or with a selection of the children, or even some of the children by themselves, might come down to visit us in the most normal way in the world. They brought us gifts. They brought flour and dried milk and eggs; sheets of polythene, sellotape, nails, tools of all kinds. They gave us fur rugs, coal, seeds, candles. They brought … the city around was almost empty, and all one had to do was to walk into unguarded buildings and warehouses and take what one fancied. But most of what was there were things no one would ever use again or want to: things that, in a few years’ time, if some survivor found them, he would have to ask: What on earth could this have been for?

  As these children did already. You would see them squatting down over a pile of greeting cards, a pink nylon fluted lampshade, a polystyrene garden dwarf, a book or a record, turning them over and over: What was this for? What did they do with it?

  But these visits, these gifts, did not mean that in another mood, on another occasion, they would not ki
ll. And because of a whim, a fancy, an impulse.

  Inconsequence …

  Inconsequence again, as with the departure of little June. We sat there and brooded about it, talked about it, listening - far above our heads there was the neigh of a horse, and sheep baa-ing; birds whirled up past our windows on their way to the top of the building where there were the pickings of a farmyard for the effort of hopping through a broken window, was a vegetable garden, and even some trees. Inconsequence, a new thing in human psychology. New? Well, if it had always been there, it had been well channelled, disciplined, socialized. Or we had become so used to the ways we saw it shown that we did not recognize it.

  Once, not long ago, if a man or woman shook you by the hand, offered you gifts, you would have reason to expect that he, she, would not kill you at the next meeting because the idea had just that moment come into his head … this sounds, as usual, on the edge of farce. But farce depends on the normal, the usual, the standard. Without the norm, which is the source of farce, that particular form of laughter dries up.