who were struggling on, hanging in there . . . just about.
It was all too easy, too convenient, to write them off with a simple label: scavengers. They looked threadbare and grimy. Painfully thin, yes, and some had that lost haunted expression that Mum would be looking out for. But there were people along that cracked and weed-tufted road who were still a part of the old world; older people who could remember how to fit a gas boiler, drive a truck, wire a house, fix an engine. People who Mum could use, people who could add rusty but invaluable skills to their community.
Was it possible that in other cities in the UK, perhaps the rest of the world, there were people like this subsisting? Somehow finding a way to keep going just on what they could grow, hunt and forage for? Could so many have survived?
My God.
She realised they’d spent long enough out at sea on those rusting platforms. The large raiding parties, the roving groups of hungry-eyed young men with guns were gone now. They were history; died out like the dinosaurs. Except for Maxwell and his boys. And if that’s all they had to worry about, if they could beat those little bastards, then it seemed there was no one left that they needed to hide away from on the rigs.
If these pitiful beings could still be alive, then there really was hope. A better chance for them to be living on land; with soil, and easier access to fresh water, than on their artificial archipelago. She realised the time had finally come for them to live ashore once more.
‘When is help comin?’ asked the voice again. ‘Are you guv’ment help?’
She stepped forward. ‘No, I’m sorry, we’re not help.’ She looked back at the others before continuing. ‘But there’s a new start. A new government. It’s in East Anglia. The north-east coast. We’re doing fine there.’
‘Can we come?’
Adam whistled softly to get Leona’s attention. She turned back to him.
‘Leona, we can’t take them with us. Not now.’
‘I know,’ she whispered, then turned back to face the crowd.
‘Listen to me! In one year’s time,’ she replied loudly so that they’d all hear her clearly, ‘in a year’s time, we’ll be ready for you. You’ll be allowed in. It’s a place called Bracton. Look for it on an A to Z. We’re there.’
‘Shit!’ hissed Walfield. ‘You’re gonna be swamped!’
‘A year!’ she repeated, ignoring him. ‘No sooner, you cannot come with us now. You have to stay here, and do what you’ve been doing to keep alive. But when you come, you’ll find we have a doctor, we have an engineer, we have farmers, we have experts. We have rules, there’s order and you’ll be safe. We even know how to make electricity.’
She saw eyes widen amongst the crowd.
‘But you have to give us time to get ready for all of you. One year! No sooner or you’ll be sent away!’
She turned back to her companions and realised her legs were trembling. And yet her voice was steady and strong, steady enough that she felt she could even give these men something that sounded like a marching order. ‘Right, let’s get going.’
Adam’s dark beard revealed the slender line of a smile as he nodded supportively. ‘You heard her, lads. Let’s go.’
They grabbed their guns and the webbing, and the remaining cuts of venison, and slowly backed away from the crowd, weaving through the logjam of vehicles and out onto clear road on the far side. As they made their way along the motorway she resisted the insistent urge to keep looking over her shoulder.
‘Are they following?’ she muttered to Adam walking beside her.
‘Nope. Doing just as you ordered by the look of it.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Ms Prime Minister.’
She laughed softly. The first time she’d felt capable of doing something as simple as that in quite some time. ‘Oh no, not me. That’s my mum. She’s the really bossy one.’
Adam made a face. ‘Really?’
They spent the rest of the day making their way north along the motorway, a journey she was familiar with in reverse. By the time the last of the hot and sticky day had deserted them they were just south of Cambridge. They found a campsite a mile off the motorway; rows of static caravans in a field, with a fishing lake at the bottom of it. There was nothing to eat, the camp shop had been picked clean of anything edible. They refilled their