The stew smelled good and the talking around the table was better, and the excitement of having someone new to talk to gave the whole meal a holiday air. We still have holidays, because Dad says you need to mark the passing of time and the seasons, so we have birthdays and Midsummer and Christmas Feast, though we don’t have a religion to go with it. I felt bad for Ferg, outside, hidden and on guard. I kept looking at Dad, expecting him to relent and announce his other son was due back any minute, which would be the signal for Ferg to wait a while and then come in, all innocence, and join the five of us round the fire. But he didn’t.
I saw Bar also looking the question at Dad and saw him give the smallest shake of his head. A few minutes later, she got up and went behind Brand to get the pot, saying she hadn’t got enough cod in her helping, only potato. I was deep in conversation with him, but I saw her open the small window in the wall beside the fire and slip a bowl out into the darkness.
Sorry, she said as Brand turned, feeling the cool draught on his neck. It gets a little fuggy in here.
Nothing wrong with clean air and a breeze at your back, he said. I’ve been at sea so long I get a fit of the get-me-outs if I’m stuck inside a house too long. I can’t sleep ashore at all now. I need the sea to rock me until I drop off.
Dad sat next to Mum and fed her alternate spoonfuls, one for her then one for him, as he always did. Bar sat on the other side and wiped Mum’s chin whenever she dribbled. It was a routine so normal to me that I hadn’t until then thought others might find it strange or uncomfortable to watch. Though I had of course spent very little of my life wondering what strangers might think of us and our way of living, there being so few of them.
Brand, though, seemed uncomfortable with the sight of a grown woman being fed like a child. He looked away and saw a pile of books against the wall. He caught me watching him and asked what they were for, and then we began talking about them as a way to allow him to give Mum a kind of privacy he clearly felt she needed. When I told him they were my books and just stories, not anything anyone else thought was useful, he began to quiz me about what I liked and why. It was a new sensation to have someone ask me about myself, and I suppose that was why I opened up and told him.
I said I especially like the ones about apocalypses and dystopias because it’s always interesting to see what the Before thought the After would be like. He said he didn’t know what the word dystopia meant and I told him. Then he asked me what the worst one was, and without having to think about it I told him about this one called The Road about a dad and his son travelling across what I think is America. From the very beginning, I knew it wasn’t going to end well and it didn’t. I told him about it and he nodded as if I’d said something very wise instead of just given a quick outline about a story I’d read.
Maybe that’s what happened in America, at the very end, he said. Maybe after the Exchange there were enough vigorous old bastards to bother to make that kind of horror happen.
I hope not, I said. And I meant it because that was a future no one should have to live in. Even people crazy enough to be part of the Limited Exchange.
Talk of the Exchange brought Dad back into the conversation, and because of that and the fact Mum had had enough to eat, the talk widened across the table as Brand asked what stories had been handed down to us about all that. Dad said no one knew who began it and that everyone involved, the ones that survived said it was the other lot. That was when the world was still talking to itself, about the last time nations worried about what other nations thought about them, before they all turned inward. Five to ten years later he said they just stopped talking. Brand nodded. That was very much like what he had been told by his father and mother.
This was about seventy years from the Gelding—threescore years and ten. A full lifetime, Bible style. I know that because one of the Busters sprayed it on the wall of the old church on South Uist and the weather hasn’t quite undone it, though every year we pass it and it looks more faded:
THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS ARE THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN; AND IF BY REASON OF STRENGTH THEY BE FOURSCORE YEARS, YET IS THEIR STRENGTH LABOUR AND SORROW; FOR IT IS SOON CUT OFF, AND WE FLY AWAY. PSALMS 90.10.
I think whoever sprayed it was deep in the labour-and-sorrow phase of their life, because the lettering looks both shaky and angry at the same time. Bar says it’s like a howl from the Lastborn generation.
By that time, the world’s population had dropped dramatically. Dad set me the problem as a maths test, so I know the figures. At the Gelding it was about 7.7 billion. Like I said, threescore and ten years out from that it had dwindled to less than ten thousand people. I get vertigo trying to think about such large numbers, and how the size of our species just dropped off a cliff as sheer as the one at the back of our island. In seventy years, we were down to precisely eight and a half thousand in fact. Except of course the mortality rate must have been worse because there was plenty of other stuff going bad.
We know less of those more recent events like the Exchange, or the Convulsion or the Hunger for that matter, than we know about what came long before that, because all the reliable history we know comes from books, and we have no shortage of them. But after the Gelding, the supply of books became scarcer and then petered out, just like the world’s population did, as if people lost the point of writing for the future when there wasn’t going to be one. Or else they were writing on the internet, which was a spiderweb of electric networks that no longer survive. So the real stories of the last years are the ones told by mouth, and though they are closer in time, they seem more like myths and legends than the things that happened before them, because those earlier things were written down as history. This is why when strangers meet, the talk is always about those last days of the Before—the Long Goodbye—as people compare their versions of what they have been told, hoping the newcomer might hold a fresh piece of a jigsaw that in truth will now never be fully completed.
And the stories that come down through our family don’t have a bird’s-eye view of events because of course they only saw the edges of things, or heard of them at a distance, and for some of that time they were kept away from the world anyway, not quite in camps but not quite free, until the Busters decided that there was no use in studying them to reverse the Gelding, or trying to repopulate the world with them because they were so few. That’s when Dad’s parents came here, on the margin of everything, keeping out of the way of the world until it departed. I think they did that as much out of manners as anything, because Dad said he remembered his mother saying how the Busters, who by then were all well north of fifty and heading for the exit door, used to look at them with their youth and unwrinkled skin with something strange in their eyes, something that flickered between grief and jealousy and a usually—but not always—controlled anger.
They opened the gates and let us go, she had said. And though they emphasised we had of course always been free to leave, the fact they took the trouble to say so told us the opposite was true. So we went, and we kept on going until we’d put land and sea between us, and then we sat it out.
Sitting it out on an island isn’t so strange a thing, nor was it crazy, said Dad.
Brand nodded, and of course we all knew the sense of it: travelling by land became less and less reliable and then more and more unsafe in the final throes of the Before.
But the sea is a road everywhere, said Brand. There was a kind of pride in his voice as he said it, as if the seaways were his own particular kingdom. But then he had by his own telling sailed halfway round the world, so maybe he had a right to the pleasure in it.
These islands were not so remote before the land was tamed by the roads, said Dad. Once they were like a great thoroughfare for the really ancient world.
He often told us this. That’s why one of the early Christian god-people came and built his home on what now looks like the most remote place in the world, south of here on an island called Iona that I had heard of but never visited. He didn’t do it to get away from it all: he was planting himself in the middle of a busy waterway. That’s true. That’s history, and I know it not just because it was one of Dad’s favourite stories, but because I read it, not once, but in many of the books we have.
The talk turned to all the strange belief systems and sects and crazes that grew up in the Long Goodbye. First off, Dad said the crazies got crazier, and the ones with the biggest sticks got the most impatient and that led to things like the Exchange. The Exchange meant goodbye to oil from the Middle East, from the hot dry countries that were now hotter and drier. Then there were, maybe later, the Neatfreaks who wanted to leave their affairs in good order in case it could help any that remained. Or any life that happened upon our planet after we were all gone, if that was the way the story ends. They left things like a big seed vault in Svalbard, and various gene safes they called Arks scattered about the world, but they also started collecting things like the car piles.
And they did at least try to make the ageing nuke plants safe, said Brand.
That didn’t go so well, not everywhere, I said, though I did not yet know what that meant in reality. When I was little, and before I read much, when they said “nuclear” I thought they were saying “new clear” and couldn’t understand why they were worried about something that sounded so fresh and clean. Then I learned nuclear meant something old and dirty. Very dirty. And very, very long lived.
Those Neatfreaks were the opposite of the Bingers, from what I heard, said Brand. Damn Bingers just decided to use everything up because who the hell was going to need it when they were gone?
They ate all the pies, said Dad. Which is an old way of saying they were out-of-control greedy.
They’re probably the ones who ate the dogs in the end, said Bar.
That’s a horrible part of the Before story I don’t quite believe, though Ferg swears Mum told him her mother had seen it happening, and that was why dogs were almost as rare as we are. Though it doesn’t explain why bitches are even rarer.
I was told they got poisoned as the cities became emptier and people got scared of them running in packs and turning wild again, said Brand. I don’t know which story is true.
Neither is good, I said.
The talk kept on down this darker path as Dad and Brand compared their families’ versions of the past. What both agreed was that some people took their own lives, gently mostly, often together, to avoid the pain and helplessness when they got too old and there were no able-bodied younger people to care for them.
Or maybe they left early just to avoid the rush? I said, which is a joke I had found in an old book. It wasn’t a joke that quite made sense to me, because I’d never seen a crowd, but I knew from the context how it was meant to be funny, and I suppose I was trying to seem clever to this new addition to my world.
Brand and Dad looked at me and neither smiled. I shrugged at Bar. She rolled her eyes as if I was a child that shouldn’t have been trying to join in the elders’ conversation.
And then others just clung on, tough as limpets, said Brand. Waiting to at least see what Armageddon looked like before going into the long dark.
And now they are all gone, I thought, and then found Brand looking at me as though he was reading my thoughts. He nodded.
The last wave, the Busters, broke, he said. And this is the New Dark Age. Maybe, probably, the Last Dark Age. Then he smiled broadly, as if to break the solemnness that had taken over from the holiday mood.
You wanted to know what a hot country’s like? he said to Bar. I can show you.
He reached into the bag again, and this time didn’t have to rummage too much. He came out with a squat glass jar of something as tawny and red as his hair. I could see it was a jelly and not another liquid, like the Akvavit, because as he tilted it the darker strips of whatever was suspended in it didn’t move. It reminded me of the single amber bead Mum has round her neck, the one with a bit of insect trapped in it. Backlit by the flames in the grate, it looked like someone had reached into the sky and taken a lump out of a setting sun and bottled it.
Is it jam? said Bar.
Sort of—but not, he said. It’s marmalade.
Like the cat? said Bar, looking at me. Like the one in the book?
Bar used to read us a picture book about a marmalade cat. It was Joy’s favourite when we were small—that and a book called D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths—and it was so loved it fell to bits and had to be held together by an old bulldog clip. I don’t know what happened to it. Maybe someone hid it so as not to be reminded of Joy. I hadn’t thought about it for years. The memory of it tugged something inside me and made my eyes sting.
Bet you never tasted it, said Brand. Marmalade.
It’s made of oranges, said Bar, chin tilting up, keen to show she knew stuff.
Ever tasted an orange? he said, looking round at us all.
We shook our heads.
Warmer up here than it used to be, said Dad, but still not warm enough for citrus.
Citrus. Dad didn’t like people thinking he didn’t know stuff either.
Brand unsnapped the lid and held it out.
This is what a hot country is like, he said. Fill your noses first.
We all leaned in and inhaled. It was something I’d never smelled before: clean yet spicy. It had a tang, a cut to it, and yet it was also, in some way I then thought was a miracle, sunny.
You have bread and butter, he said. We will have marmalade sandwiches as a dessert. A treat. As thanks for your hospitality.
And then he smiled, wide and white in the dense red of his beard, and waggled his eyebrows as if the whole world was a fine joke and we all lucky to be in on it together.
And to sweeten you up, because tomorrow I will take you to my boat and show you the converter and then try and make you give me much too much fish and food in trade for it. I may even see if you’ll let me have that fine bitch there.
Bar snorted.
Over Griz’s dead body, she said, matching his smile.
Oh, it won’t come to that, he said. Was just a thought. She is a very fetching dog though.
We’ll find something to trade it for—if it is the right converter, said Dad, and it came to me that the edge in his voice was because he was not quite liking the fact they were smiling at each other.
Your friends on Lewis said it was, Brand said. But you will see for yourself. Tomorrow.
The bread was cut, a smear of butter laid on each piece, and then Brand spread a thick layer of orange jelly on them.
What are the bits? said Bar.
The peel, he said. I cut it myself. I made it according to an old recipe book. I made it when I was in Spain, where there were no people but too many oranges. I found sugar in a ruined hotel and used that. It’s sweet and yet sour. Even if you don’t like it, you’ll know what the south is like when you taste it.
The taste was shockingly intense, rich and more complicated than anything I had ever eaten. As he had said, it was sharp and yet sweet, but not sweet in the way of honey: it was an intensity that seemed to fill the whole mouth, but I could not taste the sun in it because the sweetness caught on the tooth the ram had chipped, and sent a lance of pain into my jaw.
It felt like the mouthful had bitten me, and though I winced no one saw me because they were all enjoying this new treat in their own ways. Bar was laughing; Dad had his eyes closed as if shutting out the world was making the experience all the more powerful. Brand was looking at my mother.
I folded the bread over on itself and palmed the sandwich.
Amazing, said Bar. It’s like a mouthful of summer.
Tastes like it smells, said Dad. Thank you. It’s wonderful.
Better than the firewater, I said because everyone seemed to be expected to say something.
More, have more, said Brand, reaching for the bread. Once you have opened the jar the taste goes very quickly. It will taste of slop tomorrow. We must enjoy it while the magic is still in it!
I excused myself, saying now I too needed a piss. Ferg was in the darkness outside, where he had been listening, and before he could ask I handed him the sandwich. He grinned and punched me on the arm, which was his way of showing affection.
Then we walked behind the house and he ate it. I watched his face as he did so, and saw the happiness it gave him.
It does taste of sunlight, he whispered. It’s wonderful.
It hurts my tooth, I said. I’ll sneak you more when I can, or hide it till he goes to sleep. He says he always sleeps on his boat.
Hope he’s tired, said Ferg, pulling his coat tight round himself. Because I’m getting cold out here.
Don’t know if Dad trusts him yet, I said.
That’s Dad being Dad, he said. But that’s okay. You go back in before he wonders where you’ve gone.
When I returned, Brand was talking to Dad about the converter, and Dad was smiling and yawning and saying tomorrow was soon enough to talk trade. Bar was chewing her way through her second sandwich, and Mum had fallen asleep.
Bar and I cleared the table and I pocketed the sandwich they had left me. Bar saw and silently nodded. She knew I was saving it for Ferg. She did not know I had not eaten mine because of the tooth pain.
Dad yawned again and said it was time to sleep, and began to take Mum to their bedroom, shaking her awake and leading her ahead of him. He told Brand he was welcome to sleep ashore, but Brand said he’d stay and chat with Bar and me and then sleep on his boat, as was his habit.
Bar was also yawning by this time, and as Brand and I talked further about the books I liked and the ones he had read, her head dropped and she went to sleep at the table beside me. I carried on talking, and now I know one of the reasons was because I was enjoying this new friendship, a new friend being something every bit as exotic to me as the marmalade was for the others.
As we talked, Brand ruffled Jess’s hair, scratching behind her ears. She leant into him as he did so. I felt another tug inside me, but dogs are open-hearted and it doesn’t do to be jealous of an animal’s affections, so I pushed the feeling away and started laying out the bowls for breakfast. I can’t remember exactly which books we talked about, and the talking went on for a while, almost as if we were each waiting for the other to admit they were tired, but neither wanting to be the first to say it. I do remember talking about a line in another book called The Death of Grass that perturbed me. It wasn’t in the later part of the story where society fell apart and people began killing and raping and turning back into something feral. It was in the early bit of the story, before the grass and the wheat and the crops started dying and the famine began. It was a simple line, something like “the children came home from half term and they drove to the sea for a holiday”. It was so different from my After world, that Before world where children were sent away from their home to go to a school. All the learning I had, and there was a lot because Dad’s Leibowitzing meant he insisted we filled our minds with what might be useful and shouldn’t be lost, happened in or in sight of my home. And going to the sea for a holiday? I’ve never been out of sight of the sea, not for a whole day. I don’t know what that would be like. Sea’s in my blood. Brand nodded and reached over and bumped fists with me. I told him I didn’t know how easy I’d breathe if there was not at least some water glinting on the horizon.
Amen to that, he said.
That’s the last thing I remember either of us saying because then I must have yawned and fallen asleep right there and then, foolishly warm in the fire and the sense that I had made a new friend.
I didn’t know I was wrong. Or how soon I would find out exactly how easily I’d breathe away from the safety of the sea.