head towards the M6, he suggested they might as well make a start whilst the going was good.
As she picked up her overnight bag, buttoned her jacket and turned up the collar against the cool morning breeze, one of the other travellers slumbering in the plastic chairs stirred.
‘Is it okay if I come along with you?’ she asked quietly.
Jenny could see why the woman was keen to come along. The other people, still sleeping, were all men of varying ages. They stared at each other silently, both sharing the same thought.
Today, and tomorrow, and for God knows how long . . . you don’t want to be a woman on your own.
‘Sure,’ muttered Jenny, pleased to make their number three.
The woman, dark haired, in her early thirties Jenny guessed, wore a navy-blue business trouser-suit that was doing a reasonable job of hiding forty or fifty pounds of surplus weight. She picked up her handbag and weaved her way through the occupied plastic chairs careful not to bump the snoring, wheezing occupants.
She put a hand out towards Jenny, ‘I’m Ruth,’ she muttered with a broad, no nonsense, tell-it-how-it-is Brummie accent.
‘Jenny,’ she replied, ‘and this is Paul.’
‘Hi,’ he grunted, with a perfunctory glance towards her.
Jenny shook Ruth’s extended hand with a tired smile.
‘Let’s go then,’ said Paul, turning to go along the lay-by leading on to the motorway, heading south.
‘So where are you two trying to get to?’ Ruth asked Jenny, as they started after him.
‘London.’
‘I want to get to Coventry.’
‘Okay, well that’s on the way then.’
They walked down the fast lane alongside the central barrier most of the time, subconsciously keeping a wary distance from the hard shoulder, and the occasional clusters of bushes and exhaust-poisoned and atrophied trees that grew along the motorway banking. The sky was clear and the morning soon warmed up as the sun breached the horizon.
They walked in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts and worries, but also aware of how strangely silent it was. No planes, no distant rumble of traffic, nothing at all on the motorway, not even military traffic, something Jenny had thought they might see a lot of. Eventually, it was Ruth who broke the silence.
‘Are you two married or something?’
Jenny stepped in quickly, ‘Oh God no! We just sort of ended up sharing a taxi that got caught up in a blockade on the M6. We’re both heading for London, made sense to travel together,’ she replied. And then added, ‘I’ve got family in London, children I have to get to.’
‘And I had a meeting,’ said Paul, ‘an important bloody meeting to close a deal. I had a lot of money riding on that one. I suppose that’s all fucking history now,’ he muttered. ‘Now I just want to get back to my flat before some snotty little bastards see it’s empty, break in and clear me out.’
‘What about you?’ Jenny asked, looking at Ruth.
‘I’m an account manager. I was doing my rounds when this . . . thing started. I want to get home to my hubby. He’s useless without me.’
‘Not so far for you then.’
‘Far enough on foot. This is ridiculous - closing the motorways like this. I mean what the hell was the bloody government thinking?’
Reduce population migration from the cities. That’s what Andy would have dryly answered, thought Jenny. It was the first step in disaster management - you have to control the movement of people as quickly as possible.
‘I can’t believe what’s happened in the last day,’ continued Ruth. ‘You just don’t expect this sort of thing in this country. Do you know what I mean?’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Paul. ‘I think this isn’t as bad as it seems.’
Jenny looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I think what’s happened is that the government panicked, they overdid the measures, and that’s what’s caused all the rioting and disorder - classic fucking overkill cock-up. I mean blocking the motorways? Stopping the trains and coaches? What the hell was that all about? Of course, doing that, it’s made everyone think the end of the world is nigh. So what does that make them do? They start panic-buying, you end up with food running out in the shops, people getting even more worked up. Christ, they couldn’t have screwed this up more if they’d tried.’
‘There’s been a whole load of riots, I heard that on the news earlier,’ said Ruth.
‘And this is going to easily last another couple of days before everyone wakes up and