CHAPTER SIX

 

 

ABOUT HALF AN hour later, with the mist growing thick and the light failing in the east, we found a place to moor.

It wasn't much. The top of a pylon, but there was nothing else man-made in sight. There was no buzz of electricity from it; the power stations were long dead, drowned by the flood.

"With any luck, we're a way from anywhere inhabited," Derek said. "We'll moor here for the night. Not exactly recommended practice, but it'll do."

He'd replaced the revolver's empty cartridge cases with fresh ones. I wanted to ask if he had a spare - in fact I knew he did, he'd carried an automatic earlier, and he still had mine too - but I could guess his response. It made sense we should both be armed, and perhaps Marta too. He'd given me the shotgun without a second thought at the brothel. But that had been then; this was now. He wouldn't have any answer for not arming us, except that he didn't want to. And I didn't want to provoke a direct confrontation as yet.

I watched him clamber in among the pylon struts to tie the mooring ropes. Watched very carefully. I needed to know how to run the boat without Derek, if I had to. Something might happen to him. Or might need to.

He jumped back into the well-deck in the bow and stood facing me, his eyes suddenly empty. Then he smiled. "That's that then," he said. "Who wants dinner?"

 

 

I WOKE MARTA up; she'd managed to sleep not long after collapsing into the cabin bunk. She'd been lucky enough to sleep through the encounters with the other survivors.

Derek set up a folding table in the middle of the boatman's cabin and stationed chairs around it. He turned off the lights and lit candles on the table. "Need to save energy anyway," he said, and grinned. I found myself smiling back. Cooking smells wafted from the galley. A microwave pinged.

"Just some frozen stew," said Derek. "But it'll do the job. Might as well use the frozen stuff up first. I've a lot more in tins and suchlike but they'll keep. Fridge takes up gas, so the sooner we get shot of it the better."

The stew came in bowls, with hunks of brown bread. "Eat up," Derek said. "Keep up your strength. Been a long day."

I felt the jagged laughter bubbling up in me again. Yes. A long day. The world as I knew it had ended, I'd seen one friend torn apart and eaten alive in front of me, killed a man with my bare hands and shot several other friends because they'd turned into walking corpses. But I wasn't a whore any longer. I had that much. One good thing. I might be fighting for my survival on a day to day basis, but now that made me no different from almost anyone else. I probably had a better chance than most - not stuck on some isolated lump of sodden turf waiting for the dead things to come out of the water.

Derek poured me a glass of wine, plus a Coke for Marta. He ruffled her hair as he set it down before her. She glowered at him and he laughed. I admit it, so did I. She looked like a kid again, a real kid.

The stew was excellent. Beef, garlic, mushrooms, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, a rich gravy. Probably the best meal I'd had in a long time, except for the time Ilir had taken me to the restaurant; the usual quality of the food in the brothel was lousy. Cheap takeaways and cheaper frozen dinners.

I took a glass of wine, but drank sparingly. I wanted to keep a clear head. Finally I pushed the bowl away. "That was great," I said. "Thank you."

"Mm," said Marta. She was picking over hers. Maybe still a little queasy from the seasickness before. Her glass was already almost empty though. So her stomach couldn't be that tender.

Derek smiled and inclined his head. A good shot and a good cook. He definitely had his points. For the first time, I thought I might be wrong about him. Who wouldn't be damaged after something like this? The flood, the dead things, the loss of his family...

His family.

The one subject Derek had avoided. What had happened to Claire and Rosalind?

Maybe he hadn't wanted to talk about it. Maybe that was how he kept control. But even so... a dead wife and child? And the ornaments...

That was it - what had niggled me before. Before, when the squall hit - he'd asked me to put the ornaments away. His wife's things. I remembered wondering why they hadn't been damaged before. He'd said the waters had been rough at the start: "When the waters get rough, a boat like this, you don't half feel it. Flat-bottomed, you see. Every time it goes up and down in the water... makes your teeth rattle..."

So where had his wife's things been? Packed away already? They had to have been. And one startling absence, now I thought of it. No pictures. No pictures of them at all.

"Katja?" Marta slid her bowl away from her, still half full. Her glass of Coke was almost empty. "Katja? I feel..."

She slumped forward.

"Marta!" I rose.

"It's alright, love," said Derek. "Let the kid rest up."

The Coke glass - I picked it up. There was some kind of sediment at the bottom. "You bastard, what did you -"

"Take it easy, love. No need for that language." Sweat glistened on Derek's forehead. "Just summat to help her sleep. She's been through enough today. Needs her kip."

I put my fingers to Marta's neck. Her pulse was there, regular and fairly strong.

"She'll be fine, Claire." When I looked at Derek, he was smiling tenderly. "Why don't you put the little 'un to bed? Then we can get an early night."

 

 

HE FOLLOWED ME as I carried Marta to her cabin and laid her on the lower bunk. I pulled off her trainers, but left the rest of her clothes on. I could feel his eyes on my back. He stood a couple of metres away, just out of easy reach, and I knew the revolver was still in his waistband.

I pulled the bedclothes over Marta. She looked younger than ever now; I could have taken her for twelve. I touched her cheek. It occurred to me that she was the nearest thing to family I still had.

"There you go," said Derek. "She'll be fine. Now stop fussing, Claire. Come on."

I turned on him. "Katja. My name's Katja." There had to be some way of reaching him. Had to be.

But he only smiled, his eyes glassy. "Whatever."

"My name is Katja."

"It doesn't have to be," he said reasonably. That was the worst thing, how casual he was sounding, as if we were discussing what brand of toilet paper we bought. "I told you before, love. Fresh start. We can all try again."

He waved me out into the passageway, took a key from his pocket and locked the bedroom door. "Keep her safe," he muttered, and looked over at me. "Got to keep them safe, haven't you? Always got to keep them safe."

I didn't know what to say.

"I was a good husband," he said. "And I were a good dad, and all. Whatever that stupid bitch said."

"Who?" Keep him talking. Try to reach him.

"Claire. Not you, the other one. Stupid bitch I was married to. Dumped me and ran off with some bloke. A fucking travel agent. Ran off with him. Took Ros as well. Don't even know where they are. Well, didn't. I know now."

"You do?"

"Full fathom five. Full fathom fucking five. Know Shakespeare, do you?"

"The Tempest, yes?"

"That's the one. 'Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes, nothing of him that doth fade but doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange...'"

His voice choked and trailed off. "Only, I'm not the one who's dead, am I?"

"They could still be alive," I ventured.

"Tripe!" His lips curled back from his teeth. "The bitch moved without telling us. Can you bloody believe that? I couldn't even see my little girl. Claire - fuck her, she'd made her choice and buggered off and I don't give a shit what happens to her now. But Ros... No. That's what hurts. She's dead. She's dead and the stupid bitch killed her." He touched the cabin door gently. "But now... Now I've got a family again."

He came towards me. "First time I saw you, on that rooftop, I knew. It was fate, Claire. Fate. Bloody fate." He reached out and touched my cheek. I did my best not to flinch away. "If you could see how like her you are, how like both of them you both are. I wasn't going to do owt. But I got my binoculars out and took a closer look, and there you were. It was just you and the girl left by then. I had to think it over. Must've sat there nearly an hour trying to make up me mind. Started getting all your things back out again. Trying to find summat to do. Helped me think."

An hour? Perhaps just out of sight in the mist? All that time, watching us cling onto the rooftop...

"Then they started coming out of the water, and I had to make me mind up. Piss or get off the pot, as they say." He shook his head. "I had all me guns, of course. Shouldn't have 'em on board... shouldn't have 'em at all, really. But fuck that. Knew this was coming. Well, not this. Fucking dead men walking? No-one'd've believed that. But knew it'd all hit the fan one day. The Pakis, global bloody warming - something, anyway, it'd all kick off. So I got everything stocked up. Better on a boat anyroad. You can always move around if things get bad. See? Got it all planned out."

"Yes, Derek. You did."

He advanced, waving me down the passage towards the boatman's cabin. "Come on, love. Let's get to bed."

"No. Derek. Please." I hated hearing the begging sounds come out of my mouth. Why didn't I kill him then and there? Because half of me pitied him? Because I'd already killed today and every time I remembered the awful crunching feel of his nose under the blow I felt sick? Because if Derek was dead, how would I run the boat? Because if I failed and he killed me instead, then what would happen to Marta?

For all those reasons, I hesitated. And the moment passed. Papa's voice again, coming back to me: These are not children's games, Katja. To take a life is a grave thing. But once you know you must - do it quickly. If you hesitate, the moment passes, and may not come again.

"Get in," Derek said.

"Please don't -"

He seized my arm and yanked me bodily into the cabin. I stumbled and broke free, brought an arm up to strike -

The revolver was in his hand and aimed at my face.

"Go on, then," he said. "Try it."

Slowly I let my arm drop.

Derek stepped into the room. I moved back. He kicked the door shut behind him. Dragged the table aside. Pulled the couch back out. Fumbled with it until it folded out.

"Well, then?" he asked.

I knew what he wanted. I had no choice. I peeled my t-shirt over my head, then began to unbutton my jeans.

Afterwards, I suppose, I could have killed him. When he'd finished - grunting and heaving on top of me before collapsing and half-crushing me with his weight - he rolled over and was asleep. The gun was still in his hand, tucked under his body where I couldn't reach.

But I could have done something. If I'd been quick...

But if I'd got it wrong, if he'd woken, with the gun...

But it wasn't even that. I felt... defiled. Disgusted with myself. Much as I'd felt after I'd first come to England, after Ilir and the others raped me. I felt worthless. All too often this is the way. The rage and the hatred do not go outward, where they belong; they turn inwards, on yourself, and they fester there.

I got up. I was sore. Men often wanted to start before a woman was ready. If you were their lover, you could explain these things, work at a common pace, but a whore has no such choice. We have tricks of course, to prepare ourselves beforehand so it doesn't hurt, but he'd given me no time for them. Another reason it felt like the aftermath of Ilir's punishment.

I could feel his stuff dripping out of me. Thank God, he hadn't locked the cabin door. I made it into the passageway and then the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

I had to clean myself, to get him out of me. But before that, my throat was clenching, my gorge rising -

I reached the sink just in time, before the beef stew and wine came back up.

I coughed and retched and spat, then turned on the taps to rinse the mess away.

I rinsed my mouth with water again and again. After the first couple of times the taste of bile was gone, but it took far more attempts than that before I could no longer taste the sour flavour of his mouth and tongue.

When that was done, I ripped tissues from the toilet roll and used them and the water to clean away all traces of him. I flushed the tissues down the toilet and then sat on it, thrust my hands in my mouth and began to cry for the first time since the end of the world.