The man ignored it.
'... not even as though water's cheap nowadays,' his wife droned. We have to pay the rates even when it's off. Should never have been allowed to split from normal rates - it was just their way of bumping up prices. Like everything else, I suppose. Money, money, it rules everything. I dread doing the monthly shop. God knows how much everything's gone up since last time. Afraid you'll have to give me more housekeeping soon, Barry. Yes, I know, but I'm sorry. If you want to eat the way you're used to, you'll have to give me more.'
She stirred the tea and quickly sucked her finger when cold water splashed and burned it. Putting the lid on the teapot, she took it over to the kitchen table and sat opposite her husband.
Tina, are you going to eat those cornflakes or just sit and stare at them all day?'
Her daughter did not even shrug.
You'll be late for playschool again if you don't get a move on. And how many times have I told you Cindy isn't allowed
at the table. You spend more time speaking to that doll than you do eating.'
She scooped up the dolly that she herself had placed in her daughter's lap only minutes before, and propped it up on the floor against a table leg. Tina began to slide off her chair.
The mother jumped up and pulled the child erect again, tutting as she did so. Tina's small chin rested against her chest and the woman tried vainly to lift it.
'All right, you go ahead and sulk, see where it gets you.'
A small creature with many eyelash legs stirred from its nest in the little girl's ear. It crawled out and scuttled into the dry white hair of the child's scalp.
The woman poured the tea, the water almost colourless, black specks that were the unbrewed tea leaves collecting in the strainer to form a soggy mould. Silverfish scattered from beneath the milk jug as she lifted it and unsuccessfully tried to pour the dots of sour cream into the cups.
'Sammy, you stop that clattering and finish your toast. And will you put your school tie on straight; how many more times do I have to tell you? At ten years of age you think you'd be old enough to dress yourself properly.'
Her son silently gazed at the green bread beside his bowl of cornflakes, the cereal stirring gently as small creatures fed beneath. He was grinning, a ventriloquist's dummy, cheek muscles tightened by shrinkage. A misty film clouded his eyes, a spoon balanced ungripped in his clawed hand. A length of string around his chest tied him to the chair.
The woman suddenly heaved forward, twisting her chair so that the ejected vomit did not splatter the stale food. She retched, the pain seeming to gut her insides, her stomach jerking in violent spasms as if attempting to evict its own internal organs.
The excruciating pain was in her head too, and for a brief
second it forced a flash of lucidity. The moment of boundless thunder, the quietness after. The creeping sickness.
It was gone, the clearness vanquished, muddy clouds spoiling her mind's fleeting perspicuity. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sat upright. The hurt was easing, but she knew it would linger in the background, never far away, waiting to pounce like Inspector Clouseau's Chinese manservant. She almost managed to smile at the memory of old, better times, but the present - her own vision of the present - closed in on her.
She sipped the tasteless tea and flicked with an impatient hand at the flies buzzing around Tina's head.
Her husband's pupil-less stare from the other side of the table irritated her, too, the whites of his eyes showing between half-closed lids a silly affectation he assumed to annoy her. A joke could be taken too far.
'What shall we do this morning, everyone?' she asked, forgetting it was both a work- and school-day.
'A walk to the park? The rain's finally stopped, you know. My goodness, I thought it never would, didn't you, Barry? Must do some shopping later, but I think we could manage a little walk first, take advantage of the weather, hmm? What do you say, Sammy? You could take your roller skates. Yes, you too, Tina, I wasn't forgetting you. Perhaps the cinema later. No, don't get excited -1 want you to finish your breakfast first.'
She leaned across and patted her daughter's little clenched fist.
'It'll be just like old times, won't it?' Her voice became a whisper, and the words were slow. 'Just like old times.'
Tina slid down in her chair once more and this time disappeared beneath the table.
That's right, dear, you look for Cindy, she can come to the park, too. Anything interesting in the news today, Barry?
Really, oh good gracious, people are funny, aren't they? Makes you wonder what the world's coming to, just what on earth you'll read next. Manners, Samuel, hand before mouth.'
She scraped away surface mould from a drooping slice of bread and bit into it 'Don't let your tea get cold, pet,' she lightly scolded her husband, Barry. "You've got all day to read the newspaper. I think I'll have a lie down in a little while; I'm not feeling too well today. Think I've got flu coming on.'
The woman glanced towards the shattered window, a warm breeze ruffling the thin hair straggling over her forehead. She saw but did not perceive the nuclear-wasted city outside.
Her attention drifted back to her family once more and she watched the black fly, which had fully explored the surface of her husband's face by now, disappearing into the gaping hole of his mouth.
She frowned, and then she sighed. 'Oh, Barry,' she said, 'you're not just going to sit there all day again, are you?'
Tiny, glittering tear beads formed in the corners of each eye, one brimming over leaving a jerky silver trail down to her chin. Her family didn't even notice.
They had laughed at him, but who had the last laugh now? Who had survived, who had lived in comfort, confining though it might be, while others had died in agony? Who had foreseen the holocaust years before the Middle-East situation finally bubbled over to world conflict? Maurice Joseph Kelp, that's who.
Maurice J. Kelp, the insurance agent (who knew better about future-risk?).
Maurice Kelp, the divorcee (no one else to worry about).
Maurice, the loner (no company was more enjoyable than his own).
He had dug the hole in his back garden in Peckham five years ago, much to the derision of his neighbours (who was laughing now, eh? Eh?), big enough to accommodate a large-sized shelter (room enough for four actually, but who wanted other bodies fouling his air, thank you very much). Refinements had been saved for and fitted during those five years, the shelter itself, in kit form, costing nearly £3,000.
Accessories such as the hand- and battery-operated filtration unit (£350 second-hand) and the personal radiation-measuring meter (£145 plus £21.75 VAT) had swollen the costs, and fitted extras like the fold-away wash basin and the own-flush toilet had not been cheap. Worth it though, worth every penny.
The prefabricated steel sections had been easy to assemble and the concrete filling-in had been simple enough, once he had read the instruction book carefully. Even fitting the filter and exhaust units had not proved too difficult, when he had fully comprehended what he was supposed to be doing, and the shelter duct connections had proved to be no problem at all. He had also purchased a cheap bilge pump, but mercifully had had no reason to use it. Inside he had installed a bunkbed with foam mattress, a table (the bed was his chair), a heater and Grillogaz cooker, butane gas and battery operated lamps, storage racks filled with tinned and bottled food, dried food, powdered milk, sugar, salt - in all, enough to last him two months. He had a radio with spare batteries (although once below he'd only received crackling noises from it), a medical kit, cleaning utensils, an ample supply of books and magazines (no girlie stuff - he didn't approve of that sort of thing), pencils and paper (including a good stock of toilet paper), strong disinfectants, cutlery, crockery, tin