“Very well then, we’re in,” said Coulter, licking his lips, and Halbstein nodded an eager affirmation.
“Good!” said Singer. “Okay, grab whatever you need from the trundle, get into your radiation suits quick like, and I’ll see you at the entrance ramp in ten minutes.”
Down on the second level, Garth spotted the familiar figure of his Old Man among a stream of people from the trundles. Zach Slattery was struggling under a burden of blankets, weapons and a few personal belongings, his and some of his son’s, all of it in a bulging carpetbag. Garth turned toward him, made to go and offer assistance; but as Coulter and Halbstein hurried off, Ned Singer caught his elbow and drew him closer.
“’Prentice,” he growled, “a word in your ear.”
“Yes, what is it?” said Garth.
“It’s that Layla Morgan girl,” said Singer.
“Layla? What of her?”
Unemotionally, and entirely unabashed, the other answered, “Well, I’ve set my heart on her—I want her—you understand?”
Scarcely knowing how to reply to that, Garth offered a non-committal shrug and attempted an indifferent “so what?” expression.
It didn’t fool Singer one little bit. “Now you listen to me, ’prentice,” he said, “and take heed of a fair warning. Don’t go stepping on any toes, that’s all—especially mine! So you can quit making the sheep’s eyes and what all. What, did you think I hadn’t seen you? Oh, but I’ve seen you! So I’ll say it just one more time: I want that Layla girl. And what Ned Singer wants he usually gets.”
“And does she want you?” The words spilled out before Garth could stop then. After all, it was something he very much needed to know.
Scowling, Singer replied: “’Prentice Slattery, that’s something for me to know, not for you to question! So mind your own business! As for feelings between me and Layla, they’re between Layla and me—and no one else! Got it?”
Garth nodded. “Got it,” he said. “But if Layla wants you as badly as you want her, then I don’t know what’s worrying you! I mean, in that ease I’m sure all will be well. She’s a very…a very nice—” (he meant lovely) “—person, and would surely make a good companion and excellent wife for…well, for any man!”
“For this man!” said Singer. “As for a ‘companion’: I don’t know about that, but she’ll be something warm and juicy in bed, for sure—at least when she’s broken in!” And then he laughed.
Turning away, Garth grimaced at a sudden bitterness, a sour taste more in his mind than his mouth, and thought: Ned Singer I like you not at all—not a bit—and I’m damned if I can see why Layla Morgan would like you any better!
Then again, knowledge of women—their likes and dislikes—was scarcely Garth’s forte. How could it be when, in the innocence of a youth spent in the subterranean maze of the Southern Refuge, he’d never really known any? Never before felt the way he now felt about a girl? About Layla Morgan…
Oh, his were mixed emotions, definitely—several of which he wasn’t even sure of and didn’t much care for…more especially now, following Ned Singer’s “word in his ear”—but where Singer was concerned one thing at least was certain: Garth knew well enough now how he felt about him—
—And that was a feeling of cold yet burning anger, a sickening sensation conjured by the brutality of the bully’s words, and a hatred that was little short of loathing…
V
Garth helped his father find a spot well away from the old fly-by-night nest at the far end of the lower level, a spot where a little harmless daylight came slanting in from the entrance.
Zach unrolled a thin foam mattress and laid it down against the wall with a heavy blanket on top, took a small, fire-blackened iron tripod, a bottle of precious water (half of his daily allowance), a jar of ancient coffee granules—the latter long since reduced to so much brown powder while yet managing to retain at least a spark of the original flavour—a kettle and a tiny kero burner from the carpetbag, and grumbling disgustedly to himself threw down the bag itself for a pillow.
Kneeling beside his father, Garth made his own preparations for a day’s rest. But watching Zach from the corner of his eye, and knowing him the way he did, he was puzzled by what appeared to him the other’s somewhat unaccustomed nervous activity.
Down on his good knee, Zach made a vain attempt at fluffing up his stiff, lumpy “pillow,” then turned to Garth abruptly and inquired: “Tired, are you?”
At first shaking his head, Garth finally answered, “Well, a little, maybe. But I did my share of nodding off in the trundle last night. How about you?” And again he noticed how his father appeared unusually preoccupied and restless.
“Not really,” his young Old Man answered. “The leg’s giving me a bit more stick than usual. The best thing for that is exercise, or so I’ve discovered. So if you’re going to stay here—staking our claim to this bit of concrete, as it were—I think perhaps I’ll take a walk and have a look around. Truth to tell, there’s this handsome young widow woman I’ve noticed looking my way once or twice. Maybe I should try to find her, pay her some attention before someone beats me to it, eh?”
No more explanation was needed! And again shaking his head, then turning away to avoid embarrassing his father, Garth could barely keep from grinning!
Chuckling, Zach took up four pieces of aluminum tubing from his effects, fitting them together to form a lightweight crutch. Then standing up: “Right, I’m off,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll be too long. No, I’ll be back to snatch a few hours’ sleep before Big Jon reckons it’s time we moved on again…which he won’t, at least not until the sun’s down. So then, I’ll see you later.”
Garth simply nodded and watched Zach move off toward an up ramp. Then, undressing and bundling up his vest and underpants until the next time the clan’s washerwomen got their cauldrons going—which, considering the scarcity of untainted water was a rare event indeed—he put on a clean, soft leather breechclout and stretched himself out, finally drawing his blanket up under his chin.
It was only then that he realized how weary he was, but for the moment sleep refused to come. Instead his mind went back to that time in the Southern Refuge, prior to the exodus, when Big Jon Lamon had called the meeting at which the lives of everyone in the sprawling underground shelter had been changed forever.
Big Jon had talked about his contingency plan: a plan based upon the ideas—the written records, strategies and proposals—of other, long-forgotten clan elders: men who had envisioned a future when, for various unspecified reasons, it might become necessary if not convenient to abandon the Southern Refuge and venture out into the poisoned land.
And now Garth recalled certain of Big Jon’s list of preparatory requirements: the work to be done, provisions to be made, and items to be acquired as he deemed essentiaclass="underline"
From the scav teams he had requested lead from the roofs of ruined churches, to be beaten into panels in the workshops. (In fact, for at least a fortnight prior to the leader’s actual disclosure of the looming disaster—and a further ten days to the exodus itself—on those several nights when Garth had gone out scavenging with Singer’s team, he had time and time again heard the bully complaining about the seemingly endless loads of lead they were trundling back to the refuge.)
“Oh, it keeps out a lot of the radiation,” Singer had grumbled, “but in that great burrow under the hills, why do we need so much of the damned stuff? I appreciate the feel of it around me when I’m out and about in a salvage skip, for sure—but in the refuge—under four hundred or more feet of solid rock…? It makes no sense, not to Ned Singer it don’t! And then there’s the boss, our so-called ‘leader,’ Big Jon Lamon, sending us out on these stupid so-called ‘initiatives.’ It beats me why we put up with his nonsense! And tell me this: why the hell do we need a dozen or more new scav teams? I can’t figure it out! Or is it that I just don’t want to?”