I looked out, and my heart sank. It was kids, Joanne’s kids from up the top of the street. They were playing football. She must be mad letting them outside.
“What the hell is she thinking?” Just as the words left my mouth I saw her walking past with her youngest in his pushchair. “What the…” Banging on the window to get her attention I started to shout.
“Hey, Joanne! Get the kids inside. It’s not safe! There will be fallout. You need to get back indoors right now!” Seeing me but not hearing a word I said, clearly. The woman smiled and waved. High on the joys of life she must have thought she had survived World War III. “I can’t believe this.” I rubbed my forehead. I was trying to get my head around this crazy woman’s logic. Perfectly relaxed she turned around to say something to her six-year-old girl who had been traipsing along behind her just in time to see her trip and fall into a puddle. This is too much. Banging again
“Hello! Joanne! I’m serious the kids will get sick, you need to stay inside. It’s not safe yet. Get out of the street! At least keep them out of the puddles for God’s sake. Are you mad?” This time she must have heard something because she walks up to the window and shouts
“Alright love, we made it! The whole street’s in one piece not like the rest of ‘em poor bastards. Blew to smithereens up the country I bet.” She must have clocked the look on my face as I stared back at her through the broken window. “There’s nothing wrong with celebrating being alive sweetheart. Come on out. We can go and have a drink. There’s a bunch of us going over the Gardener’s Arms. Andy’s got the Landlord to open the bar.” I shook my head and continued to gape at her.
“Oh sorry, darling I forgot, it’s your fella innit. He’ll be all in amongst it. Works in London, doesn’t he? Shit, sorry love. If you need anything, you just come and find me or Andy we’ll take care of you and that little one you got.”
I didn’t know what to do. This woman was an idiot. I just stared at her I couldn’t think of anything to say. This woman was putting her family’s lives at risk. She mustn’t have heard the warnings to stay inside. But I just heard everything she said so she must have heard me warning her. Why wasn’t she getting inside? She wheeled the pushchair around and started down our garden path and back into the street.
“It’s not safe,” I repeated calling after her as I watched on. Her eldest son splashed around on the street kicking his football against the brick wall of the garage opposite.
That moment will stick with me until the day I die. I should have done more for those children.
On my way back from the bathroom I questioned my actions, was I being overly cautious? Perhaps those with working radios knew something I didn’t. Perhaps it was safe to go outside. Maybe it wasn’t a nuclear attack but just a bombardment of some kind. Like in the blitz? I really needed to get that radio going.
As I moved back towards the pantry I could hear Rosa stirring. Luckily I had a huge stash of baby food down here which we bulk bought at a Carrefour on the way back from our trip to France last month. We used to stock up at the last supermarket before the ferry. You know the drill, red wine, cheese, baby stuff. All the essentials. I went about on my hands and knees as it was just so much easier getting things done by crawling with my foot out of action.
Trying to keep Rosa to some sort of routine was impossible but I tried. I could at least rely on meal times to bring her contentment. She loved to eat. Once Rosa had food in front of her I knew I had about twenty minutes to myself. Now was my time to try and get this thing working before she would call out and need me again.
I turned the dial on the radio, and nothing greeted me but white noise. That was probably to be expected, it was still too soon after the fact for the stations to be up and running. If it had been a nuclear attack it would have messed with anything which used electricity. To my dismay that did seem to be happening because I had tried the bathroom light just now and it hadn’t worked. Neither had the phone charger had any effect on my phone’s battery life.
I felt more in the dark than I had last night. The house was still intact but it would be wise to get an understanding of the state of things outside. I still didn’t think going anywhere outside the house would be a good idea. If we could manage with what we had, then we wouldn’t need to go outside for weeks. Better to be sure than to risk it. People walking around out there just now did not make any sense.
Fortunately, we had one of the tallest houses in the area as we were on a terrace of old townhouses. There was a pretty good view from the spare room at the top of the house. Grabbing the mop handle I headed up the steps for the second time. About five minutes later and I had hoisted myself up on to the top step on the third floor. I looked around. Everything seems normal to me here. Not really sure that I had been expecting to find it otherwise.
I moved into the spare room and over to the larger window, which was situated at the back of the house. It’s a small but light room with a single bed and a short, double chest of drawers. There’s a second window in the slope of the roof above it too, a skylight. Using the crutch to get to my feet, I peered out of the back window into a smokey mist. The soft, billowing smog seemed to be descending at a rapid pace from the North-Western side of town.
My eyes weren’t at all yet back to normal, so it took some time to adjust to the light and focus on the scene unfolding in the distance. Plumes of smoke bigger than I had ever seen rose from fires raging on the horizon. Total areas which I knew to be there were completely cloaked in a dark haze. The sunlight was fighting to break through the murky atmosphere. I sat myself down on the floor. I was struggling to comprehend the extent of the destruction. The magnitude of this. What it meant for the country, for my local community. The loss of life.
“Just think about you and Rosa. Concentrate on helping yourself first.” I needed to stay on task.
This meant that the wind was blowing in the direction of the South-East because the smoke was headed this way. Which would also mean that the fallout from the explosions would be coming our way. And depending on how many bombs there had been and which locations had been hit we could be getting half of the country’s share of fallout. Is that how it worked? I buried my head in my hands trying to remember something, anything that would help us.
As I left the little bedroom I noticed that next doors skylight had been left open.
“It’s a good job they’re in France,” I said to myself. I wondered if France had been a target.
As I thumped my way back down the stairs to the pantry, I resolved that we would have no choice but to stay put. Either until Matt made his way here or the emergency services arrived to evacuate us. I didn’t want to think about a scenario where neither of those outcomes was a possibility. I made a promise to myself that we would stay inside for one month from today and re-evaluate the situation then. What was it Mum used to say? Better safe than sorry.
4
I LOOKED OVER at Rosa who was sat babbling away to herself at the far end of the pantry engrossed in a collection of her favourite toys. Sophie the rabbit in a choke hold, tucked firmly in her armpit. Blankets and cushions were piled all around her. I mused at how content she was, just sat there. In her own little world. I envied her. How simple her life was, not knowing anything about how completely screwed we were.
Me, on the other hand. I felt lost. I’d been staring at the back of the door for the past hour. My fingers continued to toy with the tuning dial on the side of the radio. Methodically sifting back and forth through what used to be well-known stations. The white noise which had been a familiar bookend now engulfed every channel. I’d taken to doing this every few hours, just in case some saviour of my solitude deigned to address the nation and inform us of what the hell was happening out there.