Autumn Page 0,23

bitch,' he screamed, his face literally millimeters from hers. 'What gives you the right to criticise? Fucking hell, you're not the only one who's had it tough. Christ, we're all in the same fucking boat here...'

Jenny wiped streaming tears from her face with shaking hands. She was convulsing with fear and could hardly co-ordinate her movements.

'I didn't mean to...' she stammered. 'I was only trying to...'

'Shut your mouth!' Stuart shouted, grabbing hold of her arms and pinning her against the wall. 'Just shut your fucking mouth!'

For a second Michael just stood and watched, stunned and numbed and unable to quite comprehend what he was seeing. He quickly managed to snap himself out of his disbelieving trance and actually do something to help. He grabbed hold of Stuart and yanked him away from Jenny, leaving her to slide down the wall and collapse in a sobbing heap on the dirty brown floor.

'Bastard,' she spat, looking up at him. 'You fucking bastard.'

Michael manhandled Stuart across the room and pushed him down into a chair.

'What the hell is going on?' he demanded.

Stuart didn't respond. He sat staring at the floor. His face was flushed red. His fists were clenched tight and his body shook with anger.

'What's the problem?' Michael asked again.

Stuart still didn't move.

'Not good enough for her, are we?' he eventually muttered.

'What?'

'That little bitch,' he seethed. 'Thinks she's something special, doesn't she? Thinks she's a cut above the rest of us.' He looked up and stared and pointed at Jenny. 'Thinks she's the only one who's lost everything.'

'You're not making any sense,' Michael said, sitting down on a bench close to Stuart. 'What are you talking about?'

Stuart couldn't - or wouldn't - answer. Tears of frustration welled in his tired eyes. Rather than let Michael see the extent of his fraught emotion he got up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

'What was all that about?' Emma asked as she walked past Michael and made her way over to where Jenny lay on the ground. She crouched down and put her arm around her shoulders. 'Come on,' she whispered, gently kissing the top of her head. 'It's all right.'

'All right?' she sobbed. 'How can you say it's all right? After everything that's happened, how can you say it's all right?'

Kate James sat down next to them. Cradling Jenny in her arms, Emma turned to face Kate.

'Did you see what happened?' she quietly asked.

'Not really,' Kate replied. 'They were just talking. I only realised that something was wrong when Stuart started shouting. He was fine one minute - you know, calm and talking normally - and then he just exploded at her.'

'Why?'

Kate shrugged her shoulders.

'Apparently she told him that she didn't like the soup.'

'What?' asked Emma incredulously.

'She didn't like the soup he'd made,' Kate repeated. 'I'm sure that's all it was.'

'Bloody hell,' she sighed, shaking her head in resignation.

Carl walked into the room with Jack Baynham. He'd taken no more than two or three steps when he stopped, quickly sensing that something was wrong.

'What's the matter?' he asked cautiously, almost too afraid to listen to the answer. The atmosphere in the room was so heavy that he was convinced something terrible had happened.

Michael shook his head.

'It's nothing,' he said. 'It's sorted now.'

Carl looked down at Emma on the floor and Jenny curled up in her arms. Something obviously had happened but, as whatever it was seemed to have been confined to inside the hall and resolved, he decided not to ask any more questions. He just didn't want to get involved. Selfish and insensitive of him it may have been, but he didn't want to know. He had enough problems of his own without getting himself wrapped up in other people's.

Michael felt much the same, but he found it impossible to be as private and insular as Carl. When he heard more crying coming from another dark corner of the room he instinctively went to investigate. He found that the tears were coming from Annie Nelson and Jessica Short, two of the eldest survivors. The two ladies were wrapped under a single blanket, holding each other tightly and doing their best to stop sobbing and stop drawing attention to themselves. Michael sat down next to them.

'You two okay? he asked. A pointless question, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Annie smiled for the briefest of moments and nodded, trying hard to put on a brave face. She nonchalantly