The End of the World Running Club (24 page)

“I was,” he stopped and looked at me, corrected himself. “We were in the city, looking for…”

“But why would you leave him? Why would you leave him on his own? He’s your son.” She turned to me. “And you. Your family. Why weren’t you with them?”

She looked between Richard and I as if we were dirt.
 

“We were…” I began. “I mean, it’s not as if we…”

She breathed out in disgust through her nose and turned back to the child.

“I’m never leaving Sofia,” she said. “We’re sticking together. I’m never taking my eyes of her. You’re meant to look after your babies. That’s what my mum and dad did. I’d be dead without them.”

“You must have been pregnant when it happened,” said Grimes.

Gloria nodded. “Three months,” she said.
 

“And you walked all this way? On your own?”

The girl darted around, searching for something.

“I didn’t know where I was heading. I just started walking away from the water. I tried to follow the roads, but it was difficult to see.”

“Water?” said Grimes. She had suggested that a tsunami might have hit the west coast during her briefing at the barracks.

“It was everywhere,” said Gloria. “Even when I made it out of Glasgow, it was like a swamp, but with nothing growing, no grass, just mud and rocks. I made it to some hills and took a rest at the top of one to see how far I’d come. The ground was wet as far as I could see, but it was drier on the other side of the hill. It was darker too, and I remembered what my dad had taught me about the sun rising and setting. It rises in the east because
rise
ends in an ‘e’. It sets in the west because ‘West’ sounds a bit like ‘sets’. So I knew that the darker bit was east, and that’s where I was heading.”

Gloria gave a glimmer of a smile, pleased with herself, like a child getting a question right at school.

“And where’s your dad now?” ventured Grimes.

Gloria blinked. “The bin shed. That’s where Dad took me and Mum the day it happened. Clever man, my dad. Everyone else had run off screaming, but he found us shelter. I had to leave because of the smell. I don’t think they would have minded.”

The baby suddenly jerked and made a whimper. Gloria hunched instinctively over her child and hushed her back to sleep. She looked around at us

“I wasn’t sure if she was OK at first,” she said. “I thought she might be…I couldn’t feel anything, you know? I walked around the city trying to find someone I knew, but I got lost. Everything was different. Most of the buildings were gone so there was more sky, but it was full of black clouds. I was glad it was dark. There were lots of things floating around in the water that I knew I shouldn’t look at. Then I found a street that still had some flats on it, tenements, you know, with stairs? One of them looked OK, safe enough, even though the top half wasn’t there any more. I found a room with most of a ceiling but no front wall, so I could see out onto the city. I found an old curtain and wrapped myself up in it on the sofa. Then I just lay there and looked outside till I fell asleep. It was weird, all that water everywhere instead of roads, no buildings, just piles of stone, and all these wee orange fires burning. I don’t know if they were people or what.”

“Grub’s up,” said Harvey. He ladled some noodles into bowls and handed them out. Gloria snatched hers and poured it into her mouth with her free hand. We stared as she slurped at the hot broth and gulped down mouthfuls without chewing. When she was done she picked at all the noodles she had spilled on her face, neck and hair, cramming them in her mouth. Then she licked her bowl and threw it in front of her.

“You want some more, sweetheart?” said Harvey, taking the bowl. Gloria nodded and he refilled it. She ate slower this time.

“Did you meet anyone?” said Grimes.

Gloria’s face darkened and her mouth shut. She put the bowl at her feet.

“Someone. He tried to get me in a supermarket.”

“Tried?” said Bryce.

“I’d almost given up, still hadn’t felt anything in my tummy. He had me against a shelf, put his hand in my knickers. I felt dizzy, like I was drifting away somewhere. He stank of dogs.”

Gloria wrinkled her nose.

“What happened?” I said.

Her face suddenly filled with joy.

“I felt a kick,” she said, beaming. “A big fat kick. It was like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over me. My eyes opened and suddenly I was angry. Awake and angry. They say you see red when you’re really angry and it’s true, I saw red in the dark, like blood pouring down over everything. I could see clearer somehow, too, like everything had just come into focus. I looked above me and saw a stack of those big metal pans they have in restaurants. I pulled one arm free and grabbed one. He grunted and looked up just as I brought it down on his head. Then I threw myself forwards and made a noise I didn’t know I could make, like a wolf or something. I jumped on him, hammered my fists on the pan until he fell over in the water with me on top of him. He was struggling, trying to get the pan off and stand up, but I rammed it down so that it was over his face, then knelt on it so that the rim was squashing his neck. I felt amazing, like my blood was on fire. I screamed down at him and put all my weight on the pan. He started thrashing around with his legs, trying to claw at me with his hands, his belly flopping in and out of the water. And all the time this gurgling sound was coming from inside the pan, getting higher and higher till it was just a squeak. I didn’t know a man’s voice could get that high. Then I felt something snap under the pan and he just stopped.

“I knelt there for a while, still screaming and spitting at him, even though he wasn’t moving. Then I got off him and stood up. I realised that Sofia was still kicking me, again and again as if she was joining in too. That made me laugh. I actually stood there and laughed, holding my tummy as the pan floated away down the aisle.”

I looked at the others. Each face shadowed with a gawp of disbelief in the firelight.

“Fuck me,” said Bryce quietly. He tapped his head. “Now I don’t feel so bad about this.” He got up.

“Where are you going?” said Gloria.

“Taking a piss,” he grunted, making off for the cottage.

“Don’t go back behind the house,” said Gloria. “It’s not safe.”

Bryce stopped, grunted again and changed direction. We heard a zip and then a long stream of fluid hitting a tree.

“I realised two things then,” said Gloria. “The first was that I could survive. I could look after myself and look after Sofia, so long as we were together. The second was that I couldn’t stay in Glasgow. I had to find somewhere safe. I found two backpacks on one of the supermarket shelves and filled them with as much food as I could. Then I left. I don’t know how many days I walked, but one afternoon I found this place. There were some dead sheep in the field, just bones. The door was wide open and I called in but nobody answered, so I went inside. There was nobody about. One of the doors was off its hinges and the rest were wide open. There was stuff everywhere; clothes, objects all over the place. I found a bed at the back of the house with its covers all thrown back. I was tired and it smelled a bit like my mum, so I crawled in and fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept for, might have been a day or two.

“When I woke up I was starving. I still had some food left from the supermarket, but I had a look in the kitchen and found a larder that had a few packets and tins. When I was full I looked outside. The barn door had fallen off. There were two bodies underneath it, a man and a woman I think. I guessed they were quite old, but I don’t really know, it had been too long. Their heads and shoulders were sticking out of the door and they were face down in the dirt, but they were looking at each other. The man had a shotgun in his hand.” She nodded over at Grimes. “That one,” she said. “I didn’t want to look at them too long because they reminded me of Mum and Dad, so I took the gun, found a spade and threw dirt over them until they were buried.”

She kissed the baby’s head and stroked it. Bryce returned with some wood, which he threw on the fire. He sat down and started smoking.

“I decided to stay,” said Gloria. “I knew that it would start to get cold soon and I was going to need a safe place to have Sofia. You can see quite a long way from up here, and there isn’t much else for miles. I had shelter, food, and I found a stream running through the woods. That’s where I get my water. I boil it up in case it’s dirty.”

“So what’s with the fire?” said Bryce.

Gloria looked up at him. There was a sudden darkness to her, not quite the child any more.

“Food ran out,” she said. “Nothing left from the supermarket, nothing left in the larder. I was five months pregnant and I had nothing to eat. I started to eat bark, wood, pine cones, mud...I got sick a lot, spent most of the time in bed. Then I was outside one afternoon dragging water back from the stream, feeling like I was going to die, when I saw something far away down on the road. I saw this man walking. I hadn’t seen anyone alive since the supermarket, I was all ready to start waving my arms and shouting, but something stopped me. It felt like something spoke to me, something inside me that wasn’t me. I sometimes think it was Sofia. I can’t really explain it, but it just said
No, don’t wave. Start a fire.

“I didn’t know whether or not the man was friendly, or whether or not he had food. But I had nothing to lose. The voice in my head said
light a fire
. So that’s what I did. I lit a fire where he could see it and I waited, and he came.”

She looked up at each of us, that darkness in her face again.

“Just like you did,” she said.

“He wasn’t friendly,” she said after a pause. “But he did have food. I ate for two weeks on what he had. After that, I spent my days preparing fires and watching the road. Every so often, I’d get a visitor. Sometimes they were friendly and sometimes they weren’t, but they always had something useful.”

We sat in silence for a while. I didn’t want to ask any questions. I was just glad the gun was where it was.

“And Sofia,” said Grimes. “When was she born?”

“Three weeks ago,” said Gloria. She looked into the flames and little snarl of resentment curled her lip. “This was my first fire since.”

“How do you know about the boats?” said Richard.

“Some visitors told me,” said Gloria. She spoke as if her ‘visitors’ were friendly travellers looking for rest, which I imagine some of them probably had been.
 

She glanced up at us again, eyes still full of disdain.

“Must hurt,” she said. “Does it?”

“What do you mean?” said Richard.

“Them not being near you.” She spoke impatiently, nodding each word as if she was explaining something to a child. “It must hurt.”

Richard and I shared an uncomfortable look, not sure how far we should take this. Gloria was already agitated enough.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. That’s why we’re trying to get to them.”

Gloria gave a purposeful sniff, as if at least that had satisfied her.

“Your daughter will be upset,” she said, looking right at me. “She’ll be crying, unhappy, wondering why her daddy’s not there.”

I winced. The words felt like needles.

“What did the…visitors say?” Grimes broke in.

“What?” said Gloria.

“The people who told you about the boat. What did they say? Who were they?”

“A couple. They were married I think. They said there were boats taking people away to another country where it wasn’t so bad. They told me that they were going to find civilisation and that I should go with them so I could have Sofia somewhere safe, where there was medicine.” She puffed through her nose. “What do I want with civilisation? We’ve got everything we need here, haven’t we, darling?”

She cooed into her daughter’s sleeping face.

“What else did they tell you?” said Richard, who had sat up and was leaning towards the fire.

Gloria shrugged. “Not much. Except that they leave on Christmas Day.”

“Christmas Day?” said Richard. He looked around at us. “That’s in less than three weeks.”

“Gloria?” said Grimes.

“Mm-hm?” sang Gloria, the darkness gone from her face once again.

“We need to get to those boats. We’re going to stay here tonight and then we’re leaving tomorrow morning. We need a vehicle. Is there one on the farm? Do you know anywhere around here that might have one?”

“A vehicle?” said Gloria. “You mean like a car?”

“Yes,” said Grimes. “A car, truck, anything with an engine.”

“Ummmm…” Gloria looked up at the sky as if thinking over a problem. “There might be one,” she said. “There’s another place near here, down the other side of the hill.”

“Does anyone live there?” said Grimes.

“Aye, a family. I’ve seen a truck down there. I don’t know if it works though, I’ve never seen them drive it.”

She yawned.

“I’m sleepy,” she said. “Think we’ll head to bed.”

“Gloria,” said Richard. “This is important. How do you know them?”

“The Hamiltons?” stifling another yawn. “The Hamiltons and I have an agreement. We stay out of each other’s way.”

“Well, we need to talk to them,” said Richard. “See if they’ll let us use their truck. Are they friendly?”

“Friendly?” said Gloria, getting up from the fire. She seemed to consider the word as if it had some strange meaning.

“Do you think they would consider a trade?” said Richard.

“I don’t know,” said Gloria, turning for the cottage. “You’ll have to take your chances,” she said as she disappeared with her daughter into the darkness.

We kept watch that night, mostly in case Gloria came back out for her gun. We found some more logs in the wood to keep the fire going. I took the first turn. I stared into the flames and thought about Beth’s pregnancies with Alice and Arthur, then the births and the difficult months afterwards. Nothing came close to what Gloria had been through, so why had we found them so hard? Why was the process of bringing life into the world, even in a bubble of middle-class comfort, medicine and relative safety, so fraught? Why did it take so much emotion? Why did this process keep perpetuating itself, generation after generation going through the same thing, time after time? Why did life bother?