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Three: Double Drop

We offer Michael the bed-settee in the old games room. It's back past the kitchen, tucked in between the utility room and a store room stacked with old, bad family portraits. Michael is grateful, and as he stands to wish us goodnight I think he sheds a tear. "Goodnight," he says, and I nod. The Theakston's has made a blur of my senses. I like that.

He leaves the room, and we all fall quiet as we hear his footsteps retreat along the hallway. He must feel very uncomfortable, I think. Waiting to hear us start talking about him. But something strange happens: none of us begins. The room remains silent but for the spit and crackle of logs settling in the fire.

I rise at the same time as Cordell. "I'm hitting the sack," I say. I smile at the others and leave the room. I think back to that long-ago time with Ashley in Paul's back garden, and remember the day twelve months ago when an explosion ripped the channel tunnel apart, killing thousands and making Britain an island once again. It had not worked, of course. Paul had called me that very evening to say he'd found a sore on his chest.

I walk upstairs, listening to the resounding silence of the people I have come to think of, very quickly, as the last friends I will ever have. And I wonder whether I will live long enough for this to become one of the days of my life.

 

I meet Jessica on the landing. I am the only one who still tries to talk to her about her past, and sometimes she smiles, offering a phrase or two that paints a bare outline of what she might have been through. I know she's a long way from home. She cycled here, she says she left no one behind. And usually she seems strong.

On the landing, just before she really acknowledges my presence, I see a flash of something in her eyes that I can't quite make out. Perhaps it's madness, or maybe it's fear; both terrify me.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"I think I'm tired."

"But Michael?"

Jessica shrugs. She does that a lot, and I've come to see it as something of a shield, a silent answer that gives nothing away.

"He says things are moving on," I say. And there's that flash in Jessica's eyes again as she turns around and goes to her room.

When I close my door and lean against it, I listen for crying. But all I hear is silence.

 

"Wake up."

There's a hand on my forehead. It's cool and comforting, and for a while I am not in the awful here and now. I'm not sure where I am exactly, but it feels safe. It feels different. There's no smell or sight to recognise, but I'm in a place where loved ones don't die of a virulent virus out of Africa, and where there's always another bottle of beer in the cupboard, the shop, the brewery. I think of Paul's comment after he rang to tell me he'd found a sore. The irony of it really grabs my shit. Africa: the cradle of civilisation, and the coffin of its demise. If I thought the world would be here long enough, maybe I'd write a book.

"Africa," I whisper, and the hand lifts from my forehead.

"Not that far," the voice says, and it is not Paul. "Cornwall will do." I open my eyes.

There's a shape sitting on my bed. Over the past few months I've had several visits from Jacqueline in the middle of the night. There has never been any tension between us, no threats of things getting out of hand, because we both know some of each other's story. The most we did was to lie down side by side and take comfort in each other's presence. But this is not Jacqueline, and I suppose I know that Michael is here even before I open my eyes.

Only Ashley has ever been able to comfort me with a touch.

"Cornwall?" I ask.

"A special place. It's solid. Roots planted deep. Up here is too . . . changeable." He stands and the bed springs creak. At least I know he's real. "Can we have a chat?" he says.

"Of course." I sit up and groan. My legs are aching from all the running up and down the tower yesterday, and I think of the frisson of fear I'd felt when I first saw the motorbike emerging from the dead city. I realise that Michael has yet to tell us any real details about himself or where he has been—the previous evening revealed little—but before I can ask he has flicked a lighter and lit the oil lamp. He brings the chair from beside the door and swings it around, sitting on it backwards. His pose is casual and controlled. There's something about him that disturbs me slightly, but I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's simply that we're here on our own. Yesterday, there was always someone else.

"I'm only here for a short time," Michael says.

"You're not staying?"

He shakes his head. "I have to move on. You're not the only ones left, and I have lots to do."

"There really are others? Like us?"

"Of course. Did you ever think there weren't?"

"But you said they were different, somehow."

"Some of them are, yes. Most. But not all."

I look away from him, needing to think. Did I ever believe that we really were the last ones? A foolish supposition, and yet there have been no signs of anyone else. Nothing at all.

"You have to go to Cornwall," Michael says. "A place on the north coast. It's called Bar None. It will soon be the last bar on Earth. I think it's somewhere you can be happy with your memories of Ashley."

I stare at him, all movements frozen. Even my heart misses a beat, then races, knocking the breath from me.

"Jacqueline told me her name," he says, but I don't believe him.

"Why Cornwall?"

"I told you, it's a solid place. Bar None will be safe. It's been arranged, and it won't change when the time comes."

"What if I don't want to leave?"

Michael leans forward. "Life is opportunity, and living is the greatest opportunity of all."

"Who are you?"

He smiles, looks at his watch. "Yesterday, I was Michael. But it's gone midnight now, and soon it'll be time for me to go."

"We can't just up and leave," I say. "There could be anything out there."

His face becomes stern. "There is," he says. "Factions that don't agree. People who have moved on. And not everyone who survived is quite as willing to accept things as you and your friends. But survival is an ongoing condition, and the weak must not prevail."

"Are we weak?" I ask. I think of the long days and weeks we've spent here, drinking and theorising and hoping that Jessica's new plants will take, to feed us through the next autumn and winter.

"I think you know the answer to that," he says.

"I want to stay. It's not so bad here."

Michael shakes his head, and I see a brief flash of yellow in his eyes. He sighs, the first sign of impatience, and holds out his hands. "What is there to stay for? Life won't get any easier, believe me. The beer is running out, and at Bar None the cellar is endless. Survive. Evolve."

"Sounds like a fairy tale," I say, smiling.

Michael does not return my smile. "If you like."

I nod, sit up straighter. "What about the others?"

"I've talked to them."

"Already?" I glance at my watch, letting the moonlight illuminate the dials. It's just past one a.m.

"I'm still Michael. To you, and all of them."

"You're not normal." Like a frightened child I gather my duvet, but stop short of pulling it up to my chin.

Michael simply shakes his head, but I'm not sure whether he's denying my accusation, or agreeing.

"I think I'd like you to leave my room." I feel no danger in this man, but there is something else . . . something different. He's not like me at all.

Michael leans forward, tipping the chair onto its two back legs. They creak beneath his weight. "Things are going to change," he says. "The world has paused, and after it catches its breath it will endeavour to move on. This is your chance to continue with your mantle of survivor."

"Move on?" I ask.

"Wouldn't you?"

I try to think of Ashley, but I see only her tears. "No," I say. "I want to go back."

Michael reaches out and touches my forehead again. It's a strange gesture, unexpected, but it does not feel at all peculiar or threatening. "That's why your memories are so precious," he says. He stands, moves the chair back to the wall and opens the door.

I expect him to pause for one more comment, but he merely glances at me before leaving the room. The door clicks shut quietly, and I hear his soft footfalls along the landing. For an instant they seem to be coming from several directions, as though he walked both left and right upon leaving my room. But then I hear him descending the staircase, and then the front door is unbolted, opened and closed.

I rise and go to my window in time to see Michael mount his motorbike and kick it to life. He cruises along the gravel driveway and passes between the open gates, turning left, uphill and away from the blankness of the dead city.

I look down and see my shadow thrown out over the gravel by my blazing bedroom light, and to the left and right of me are similar shadows, shifting as they are noticed and notice others, retreating, closing blinds and curtains against whatever the night has carried away into its ever-deepening darkness.

 

I cannot sleep for the rest of that night. I stare at the ceiling, trying to remember the network of cracks but forgetting them each time I close my eyes. I try to think of Ashley—her laugh, smile, touch—but again, it's only the bad times at the end that I can recall. My memory never has been very good. Armageddon seems to have made it worse.

I finally rise at five a.m. and go downstairs. For a few heartbeats, walking down the massive curved staircase that winds its way to the hallway, I have no idea what I will find. The possibilities suddenly seem endless: Michael has been and gone, and he could have left anything behind. He chose to come and talk to me in the night, but perhaps he had raped Jessica, throttled Cordell, set fire to Jacqueline as she tried to scream above a whisper. None of us knew him, none of us had any idea where he had come from or where he was heading. We ate and drank together all evening, but he succeeded in telling us almost nothing of himself. Our curiosity was piqued, for sure, but somehow the food and drink, and the heat of the fire, calmed us into a sense of peace. We did not ask him about those ambiguous shapes flying above and dipping down to the dead city. We did not ask what he had seen in there. None of us truly challenged him.

My footfall is soft on the hallway's oaken floor. I hear sounds of movement from the kitchen, and a light dances out from that door, a flame disturbed by a soft breeze. There is movement in the Manor's air however still we are, as though voices never stop whispering back and forth.

"Who's there?" someone says.

I walk through the door. "Only me. I couldn't sleep." It's Jessica, dressed in heavy sweatshirt and trousers, arms wrapped around her chest as she waits for the kettle to boil. We've got through three gas canisters since we've been here. Two left.

"Nor me," she says. "Tea?"

I nod. Should I mention Michael? I glance toward the rear of the kitchen, through the open door where he had gone to sleep the previous night. Jessica is making no attempt to be quiet. She must know he's no longer there.

"I usually sleep really well," she says. "Keeping my days busy. Keeps my mind busy too." She adds more tea to the pot and fetches another mug from the cupboard. It's powdered milk, of course, but we've all become used to it. "I'm exhausted by the time we all crash out. And the beer helps."

"It seems to help us all," I say. It's something we don't talk about very much, our growing dependency on alcohol to see us through. None of us has what would have been called "a problem" in times just gone—our stocks don't allow for that—but we all look forward to that communal couple of drinks each evening. We don't want to spoil the effect by talking about it.

I think it stitches us to the past. And for a while, perhaps it helps us forget the future.

"Last night, though . . ." The kettle boils and she pours, but I can see that she's distracted.

"Shall I start breakfast?" I say. "Fried potatoes?"

"He says we have to move on," she says. She stirs the tea slowly, methodically. "Cornwall."

"Bar None," I say.

Jessica glances up. "I was wondering."

"And the others?"

"Easier if he did visit them as well. But we'll see. Yes, fried potatoes sound good."

"Don't they always?" I take the cup of tea from her hands and set it down beside the wide gas stove.

Preparing and cooking food usually frustrates me, but today I find the process calming. The potatoes are old, so I have to cut out the eyes, and then peeling them takes several minutes. I slice them into half-inch sections, dropping them into a bowl of water to wash out some of the starch. Then I lay them out on a cloth, salt them, fire up a burner and coat a frying pan with a layer of oil. I drop in some garlic salt and a pinch of dried herbs, and as the oil starts to bubble I place the potato slices side by side. Jessica sits silently behind me, though I can feel her eyes on the back of my head. We're comfortable together, friends.

We sit and eat, the truth hanging between us seeming to enliven the air, and as we finish the others come down. Jacqueline mentions that she could not sleep, and Cordell goes straight to the stove, firing up the burner and cooking more potatoes. He does not speak, but I know he has something to say.

When everyone is there, making tea or eating or just sitting at the table, I stand and say, "Bar None."

Nobody seems very surprised.

"And now he's gone," the Irishman says. "He can't explain himself, and he never even told us where he comes from."

"There are five of us here," Jessica says. Her long hair looks wild after a night of not sleeping, like an unkempt halo. "I saw him ride away around two this morning. How could he have come to all of us?"

"How long was he with you?" Jacqueline says.

Jessica shrugs. "Half an hour."

"Me too," Cordell says.

Silence, but for the sizzle of frying potatoes.

"Well, who's to say anything he said is true?" Cordell says.

"I believe him." I walk to the sink and swill my cup from the bucket of water standing there. Do we really have to leave all this? I think. The garden, the tower, the spring? Where will be get our water from on the road? Will the mains still be working in some places? Is it safe to drink it from a reservoir? What about the other survivors Michael mentioned, the good ones and the bad? And the other things he hinted at . . . those "factions." The thoughts rampage through my mind, setting me on edge and causing me to shiver. I look out the window and up the slope toward the tower. There are several rabbits dotted around its base, taking in the sun.

"What's there to believe?" Cordell says. Jacqueline is whispering something as well, but voices raise and none of us can hear what she's saying.

I stare from the window for a while, not joining in the exchange. It soon becomes so that I can't tell who is saying what, who wants to go, who wants to stay. Through all of it I hear Jacqueline's whisper, a background to the argument that will always be there when it's over. I know that we will hear her soon, and I know what she will say, because I'm thinking it as well.

"Quiet," I say. The word breaks through at just the right moment, and the kitchen falls almost silent.

"We're running out of everything," Jacqueline says, her voice low but, for the first time, strong. "The spring is still there, but maybe it'll dry up in the summer. Jessica is planting the garden, and I hope it will grow, but if the spring dries up . . . ? The food and beer is almost gone. We'll have to go out there to get some more, but Michael told me everything has gone bad. Even the tinned stuff, and the food in cans. All bad, he said."

"We're running out of everything," Cordell says, seemingly tasting the words. He looks up at me and I cannot read his expression.

"Except hope," I say. "I still have hope."

"Do you really?" I'm not sure who says it, but it does not matter.

"Yes. And can any of us say that Michael was just another survivor?"

Cordell is frowning, turning his head this way and that, and finally he holds up his hand and says, "Quiet."

We fall silent. Cordell says nothing. Instead, he walks to the door leading into Jessica's hopeful garden, draws the bolts, turns the heavy key, opens the door and goes outside.

We all follow, and then I hear what caught his attention. The distant, even rattle of an idling motorbike.

Cordell sets off at a run. I follow, and I hear footsteps behind me as well. I hope all of us are running; it seems important to me that all five see what is to be seen. For a while the crunch of feet on gravel drowns out the motor as we race along the driveway toward the wide gates.

The sun is rising almost directly above the gates. It warms my face, spilling through the trees, catching the million hints of sprouting leaves. The plagues may have come and gone, but the world is still alive, continuing as it always has except without the interference of humankind.

Things are going to change, Michael said.

None of us says anything as Cordell passes between the gates. I follow, sparing a glance for the huge wrought iron constructs, wondering where they were made and who worked on them, and how many days someone invested in forming, twisting and welding the metal together. So much creation and love, and now they would stand here until time dragged them from their mounts and covered them with dust.

"Oh, shit," Cordell says. I come to a standstill beside him, our arms touching, and stare at the motionless motorbike.

It rests on its stand a hundred feet up the lane. It has been left at the side of the road, its motor ticking over, wheel turned to prevent it from rolling backward down the slight incline. The hedge beside it is evergreen, tall and full, and Michael knew that none of us would be able to see it from the Manor.

"It's just like he said he found it," I say.

Cordell walks to the bike and looks around: the ditch, the hedge, across the lane at the lower hedge on that side. "We have to look for him," he says. "He may have fallen off."

"And left the bike on its stand?" the Irishman says, lighting a cigarette.

The others are here now, forming a line across the road as though unwilling to move closer. I walk up beside Cordell and help him look, knowing all the while that we'll find nothing. "Help us, then!" I say. The others spread out, climb a gate into the field, walk along the road's scruffy verge, head back downhill in case he has crawled that way, injured or dying.

We search for half an hour. For some reason no one wants to switch off the motor. As the sun clears the trees to the east I turn the key, and the silence is shattering. "He's gone," I say.

"Why did he leave the bike?" Jessica asks. No one answers, because no one knows.

"Let's get it back to the Manor," Cordell says. "It might come in useful."

"When we leave?" Jessica says.

I look around at everyone, see the mixture of fear and confusion. "Let's just get back where we can talk," I say. This is the first time in six months we have all been away from the Manor at the same time, and it feels strange. It's as though by coming out here we have abandoned the place, if only for a few minutes. We all need to get back.

Walking through the gates, seeing the Manor and the folly up on the hill touched by the sun, it suddenly looks like nowhere I have ever been.

 

I go straight down to the cellar to see what we have left. It's a comfort thing. Everyone understands, and the Irishman accompanies me.

"So what is your damn name?" I ask him.

He runs his fingers along a shelf of bottles, slipping from label to label, name to name. "All I have left."

 

I remember sitting in The Hanbury's garden in Caermaen drinking Marston's Double Drop, a golden ale with a fruity malt aroma, a bright and yeasty taste with a bitter, caramel finish, cool going down and calm as it dulled my senses, while all around us families ate basket meals and bickered, kids scraped their knees hiding beneath the heavy timber tables, mothers fussed and spread sun cream and fathers ruffled their sons' hair and smiled as their daughters ran off to find other girls, sit in the shadow of the hedge, play with their dolls and pretend to be mothers themselves.

Ashley and I had been talking about starting a family, and I knew from the look on her face what was to come next.

"Does all this noise bother you?" she asked.

Yes, I thought. I like drinking in peace. "'Course not," I said. "Kids having fun. What better noise could there be?"

She stared at me, then the corners of her mouth turned up in that coy Charlize Theron smile. She leaned in close. "You fuckin' wit' my head?"

"Not your head, no."

"Hey, later, we've only just got here."

We sat in silence for a while, the noise breaking around us like a fast-flowing stream parting around stones. Children. In many ways I wanted that, but there was something sad and intimidating about leaving behind everything we had; the freedom, the lack of responsibility. We were fighting against the tide of Ashley's body clock and struggling against the persuasive storm of evolution ringing through our blood. Soon, we would go with the flow.

I looked into Ashley's eyes, and she read me like a book.

"It won't be so bad," she said. She looked at the kids causing chaos around the pub garden, stroked the back of her neck with one hand, hair falling across her eyes. I did not see her again for what felt like hours. When she looked back at me her eyes were moist, but I would never know whether they were tears of sadness or joy.

I did not ask. It was always easier not to, and it was starting out to be a nice day. I always was one for the moment, keen to keep things calm and comfortable and quiet, and there were a million things I should have said and done which remained unsaid and undone because of that particular cowardice.

"It'll be fine," I said. I finished my pint and stood to get another. Ashley offered up her glass and I negotiated my way across the garden, looking down instead of forward so that I did not trip over any kids.

I bought another Double Drop, though the wide selection of ales there was tempting. The Hanbury had long been a favourite haunt of mine, and since we met, Ashley had also fallen in love with the place. She drank halves as I quaffed pints, and though I knew that she was not as obsessed with ales as I was, I appreciated the gesture. There was something about love in that. She didn't really like Japanese movies or sushi either, but she indulged for me, and I ate the curry she liked and watched the occasional episode of ER, and we both knew that compromise was a big part of falling in love and staying in love. So far, we had done very well indeed.

Later that day we moved across the wide river bridge and sat on the opposite bank outside the Veil's Arms. The pub had always intrigued me, and when I finally asked, the landlord told me that the name was something to do with a seventeenth-century highwayman, his love for a local farmer's daughter, and the piece of clothing of hers he wore when he was being hanged. The old oak tree in the pub garden was reputedly the hanging tree, and one of the thick lower branches bore a ring of knotted bark that was allegedly the wound made by the rope. It was a rich, interesting story, and the pub took full advantage of the opportunities afforded by it. You could order a Hangman's Lunch from its varied menu, drink a pint of locally brewed Highwayman's Best Effort, or peruse various etchings and paintings of the events whilst taking a piss. I was glad they had not gone too far; the next step was surely a mannequin hanging from the tree and a photographer charging to have your picture taken holding the rope.

Ashley and I sat on the grassed riverbank and watched the river rise as the tide came in. It was peaceful, warm, and the sound of kids playing drifted across the river from The Hanbury. We talked inconsequentialities because the important stuff had already been said, and I stuck to the Double Drop, and as the sun started to sink toward the wooded western hills I had a comfortable buzz about me.

"How much of the same water do you think flows back up-river when the tide comes in?" Ashley said.

"Er . . ." I shook my head. The ripples in the muddy water's surface caught the sinking sun, giving the river a clayish texture never seen in the day.

"I mean, all that water flows down from the hills, picking up sediment, carrying leaves and twigs, rolling stones. The odd corpse of a sheep or bird. And it dumps it all into the estuary. Then a few hours later the tide rises, and this part of the river goes up, and some of the water flows back in."

"I'm not quite sure that's exactly what happens," I said. It struck me that I had spent many days of my adult life staring at a river with a pint in my hand, but in truth I had no definite idea of how rivers really worked. This type of revelation often hit me, and it worried me that I could go through life understanding so little. I was afraid I would lose my way.

"You see the same things flowing in and out with the tide, sometimes," Ashley said. "Almost as if the river can't decide whether or not to move on."

"Er . . . do you want another drink?"

"Gin and tonic," she said, never taking her eyes from the water. "Like life. That's confusing too."

"This is getting way too fucking deep for me," I said, and as I stood Ashley glanced up at me without smiling. I carried that look with me into the pub, stood with it at the bar and brought it back out, turning it over in my mind and trying to identify exactly what I had seen in her eyes. Impatience? Frustration?

Hatred?

I hurried back with her drink and sat down so that our arms were touching. I was almost afraid to speak.

"Cheers," she said, tapping my glass with her own.

"Bottoms up," I said.

"Later, if you're lucky." She grinned, leaned in close, and everything felt fine.

 

We agree to leave the next day. Michael had a power over us, that is evident in the others' faces as we sit around the huge dining room table. There is discussion and dissent, but mostly it is half-hearted. We all know that we will be going, because Michael made it so. He was not here for long. He came one afternoon and left that night, but in the space of twelve hours he forced us to make more real decisions than we had in six months.

Jessica cooks some food and brings it in. I still have oil on my hands from tinkering with the motorbike, but I am suddenly ravenous, and I eat with gusto. Some of us have only recently had breakfast yet our hunger is vast. Strange. I watch everyone else eating and try to see behind their expressions, hear what Michael said to them, feel the weight his gaze had on their eyes as well as my own.

"Who was he?" I say at last. I'm sure the others have been thinking it—the air is thick with the question—but I'm glad that I'm the one to verbalise it at last.

"Just a visitor," Cordell says. "He's travelled, while we've stayed put. He knows more of what's been going on. So he decided to tell us, help us."

"What a load of bollocks," the Irishman says. "'A visitor'? He rode up from the city. What was he doing there? What about those things we sometimes see above the city? See, but never talk about, because they don't fit in with our comfortable little plan of 'stay put and fuck the rest'? And he left his fuckin' bike running outside the gates. What was that all about?"

"That's the same way he found it," Jessica says.

"Yeah, so he says."

"But we've all agreed that we're going," I say. "We all believe in this Bar None place he told us about?"

We eat in silence for a few seconds, none of us wishing to meet another's eyes.

"No reason not to believe," Jessica says quietly. "And it's something to do."

"Well then, tomorrow," Cordell says. "We go tomorrow. And in the meantime, other than packing a few bags with what little we have, I suggest we take a drink." He stands and walks from the room, aiming for the stairs and the door to the basement below. None of us calls him back. It is not even midday, but society is dead. Who gives a shit?

"Bottoms up," I say. The others smile and nod, and I know that today won't last for very long.

 

I go to help Cordell bring up the last of the bottles. There are more than we think, and it takes us several trips. Jessica and the Irishman arrange the bottles on the table in the living room, and by the time we make our final trip there is quite an array on offer.

"Forty-two," Jessica says. "What a day."

I pull a bottle opener from my pocket and flip the lid on a bottle of Golden Glory. I raise it and salute everyone else in the room. Then I take a long drink. Peach, melon and malts on the nose, a hoppy, fruity bite, and a long-lasting sweet aftertaste. I smack my lips and sigh. "I love beer," I say. Even on my own, I always honour such a good brew.

The others select their bottles and give their own toasts.

"Good health," Cordell says.

"I name this shit The End," Jessica says.

"Drink is the feast of reason and the flow of soul."

"A mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer."

"Here's to home," the Irishman says. "I'll never see her again." He turns away to take his first drink, and I stare into the neck of my own bottle, thinking of Ashley and knowing that everyone has a similar thought. Except maybe Jessica. She's an enigma, and sometimes I think she's lost nothing at all.

We'll never really be all together, I think. Not the way we've been introduced. Maybe we're friends, but we'll never know each other. There's far too much to know. Too much lost, too much forgotten, too much we'd like to forget. Fate has made us full of secrets.

"To Bar None," I say, raising my bottle. The others follow, and again I am struck by our easy belief in a midnight man's story.

 

We drink throughout that final day at the Manor. Lunchtime comes and goes, the world outside exists without our seeing it or taking part, and we sit mostly in silence and finish the last of the beer. Occasionally someone leaves the room to go and pack their bags, but they are never away for very long. There's not much to pack—clothes, a book, the few personal effects most of us still own—and he or she is always keen to return to the living room. There's something very much like a family about us today.

Cordell falls asleep after several bottles and starts to snore. Jacqueline smiles, hiding the expression behind her hand. She's so delicate and brittle, I can't believe she's survived the end of the world.

"So is this really it?" the Irishman asks, as if hearing my thoughts.

"Well, when I look out there I don't see very much left," Jacqueline says.

"I do." Jessica stands and moves to the window, becoming a part of the view. "I see trees sprouting buds. Daffodils are flowering along the hedge at the front of the garden, and others have sprouted ready to bloom in the flower beds below this window. Snowdrops among the trees over there. Green shoots of bluebells, and we'll see the flowers themselves soon. Birds feeding on insects in the trees, butterflies here and there. The grass is lush and starting to grow again, and I'm glad none of us could be bothered trying to cut it. I've never seen it so green."

"You seem to have forgotten the stinking dead city bulging with two hundred thousand corpses," the Irishman says.

"I didn't forget. That's what's ended. I'm just looking at what's continuing."

"We're continuing," I say.

"This?" Jacqueline says. Her soft voice has turned surprisingly harsh. Drink doesn't agree with her, and I always get on edge when she's starting her fourth or fifth bottle. "This is hardly continuing. We're dead but breathing."

"It's still an existence for me," Jessica says, and her breath mists the glass in the window.

"Yeah, but you're weird." Jacqueline lobs her empty bottle and it smashes in the stone fireplace.

"He said everything's going to change," I say.

We drink, and think, and the room is silent for a long time.

 

That evening, the last of the beer gone, bottles smashed in the fireplace, glass spilling across the carpet like dying embers of a cold fire, I open the patio doors and stand on the gravelled garden area with Cordell, Jessica and the Irishman. Jacqueline has gone to her room, and we can hear the sounds of the Manor settling around us as the heat leaves its stone walls. The sun has gone, leaving a bloody smear across the horizon. Some trees catch the light, and a few clouds echo pink and orange.

"It's a long way," Cordell says. "Could be anything out there."

"Anyone," Jessica says.

We're not watching anything in particular, but I see the way the setting sun continues to hang from the branches of trees, dripping from them, clinging on even after the horizon has grown dark.

Things are going to change, I think. I glance at the others and know that they have seen it too.

 

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Framed