Uganda, because of tribal problems in these places. You know?’
He hungrily spooned some more soup, then continued. ‘In week three we became like you people in England. Fighting in the street; my city, Bastogne, on fire. No control by the leaders. Soldiers without clear orders.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘And many, many people dying when the water stopped pumping. You remember? It was very warm that summer?’
She remembered all right. The UK hadn’t been particularly hot, but it had been very dry. When the oil stopped, the power stations, without adequate oil reserves, had soon ceased functioning, and with that so did the flow of water through pumping stations and purification plants. In London, bottles of unopened drinking water became like gold dust; vending machines were wrenched to pieces to reclaim cans of Coke buried inside them.
‘I suppose, I guess a month after the oil stopped, most people not killed in the riots and fighting were sick with the water diseases in my country. You know, cholera, typhoid.’
‘So, Mr Latoc, how did you manage to make it through the early days?’
It was a question Jenny always asked. The answer given to this question was, more often than not, the answer that decided her. The type of person she didn’t want on the rigs with her family was the type who boasted about their survival skills; their ability to fight off others for what they needed. They didn’t need fighters. Not out here. What they needed were people prepared to muck in and work a long day, prepared to share, to compromise.
‘I wandered,’ he said. ‘I stayed away from cities and towns and prayed like crazy I get through this nightmare. After many months I found some good people who took me in.’ His eyes drifted off her, down to the steaming bowl of soup in front of him. ‘Good people who let me - a stranger - join them during the time when charognard meant danger. You understand what I mean, yes? The people who take your food?’
‘Scavengers,’ said Jenny, nodding.
‘Yes, scavengers. On the continent there were many, many . . . perhaps even still.’
She had hoped that those desperate people content to endlessly drift and live off what could still be foraged from mouldering shops would surely be scarce now. Isolated loners, unbalanced, dangerous and best avoided. What she’d been hoping to hear was that the only people alive now were communities likes theirs, people like themselves knuckling down to the business of making-do.
‘I lived with these people for seven years. Then strangers came.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Men and guns.’ The expression on his face told her more than his fading words. ‘They came. Smoke brought them . . . they came for food, but then they wanted much more,’ he said.
Jenny felt her heart race, memories of a winter morning.
‘Children, women,’ Valérie shook his head, his voice failing for a moment. ‘They,’ he took a deep breath, ‘they shoot the men first. The others, they play with.’ He looked up at her. ‘You understand?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘But you . . . ?’
‘How come they did not shoot me?’
That was her question.
He dropped his gaze, clearly ashamed. ‘I hid and saw these things. Then I ran away.’ He placed his spoon back in the bowl and pushed the bowl away; his appetite understandably seemed to have gone. He dropped his head and a moment later Jenny realised from the subtle heave of his shoulders that he was crying.
She reached across the table and rested a hand on his forearm. ‘It’s okay, Mr Latoc.’
He raised his face, cheeks glistening with tears. ‘I did nothing . . . I was frightened. I ran.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘I did nothing.’
‘There isn’t much you can do,’ said Jenny softly, ‘not against armed men. It’s just the way it is. That’s why we stay out here.’
He accepted that with a hasty nod.
‘So what happened after that?’
‘I ran. I keep moving.’ He composed himself, wiped the tears from his face and took a deep breath. ‘I went south-east for some time, towards the Mediterranean.’
‘Tell me, is it as bad over there?’
His eyes met hers. ‘Yes. I will tell you . . . I saw tanks, some burned. Many abandoned tanks.’
‘Did you say tanks?’ cut in Walter.
‘Yes. Russian ones.’
‘My God! You remember, Jenny?’ said Walter. ‘Remember the rumours we kept hearing on the radio a few years after?’
She nodded. They’d heard garbled reports of short and frantic wars in Asia; resource