June 2001
‘Cyanide.’
‘Cyanide?’
Somer laughs. ‘Not enough to kill you. Just the grass in the middle of the circle. You really wouldn’t bother to try to poison people with fairy-ring champignons. They’d have to eat half a ton to get a proper dose.’
‘Ohhh-kay,’ says Romy.
‘There are loads of more effective ways,’ says Somer.
‘Yew berries,’ says Romy. She studies the pharmacopoeia every day, what she can understand of it. She’s only five, after all, and, though the Plas Golau children are quite advanced in their reading, there are limits. But she wants to be a Healer, like her mother.
Some poisons are useful, in smaller doses, as medicines. Like digitalis, from foxgloves, for failing hearts. And for its own dark ends? Well, you never know when you might need poison. When the hordes come over the hill, poison might be their only salvation.
‘Belladonna.’
‘Deadly nightshade.’
‘That’s right. Don’t ever eat a berry unless you’re sure what it is,’ says Somer.
‘I know,’ says Romy, and rolls her eyes. Grown-ups repeat themselves, constantly.
‘The largest organism in the world is a fungus,’ says Somer. ‘In Oregon. It’s two and a half miles across.’
‘No!’
‘Yes!’
That’s bigger than the whole of Plas Golau, with its woods and fields and little reservoir, its house, its kitchen gardens, the rough-grazing pasture where the altitude gets higher and the soil gets thinner, its patch of open moorland. Further across than Romy’s entire world. ‘A honey fungus,’ says Somer. ‘We have to root them up the second we see them. They kill trees.’
Romy stares at the fairy-ring, thinks about the thing growing beneath. Quietly, creeping outwards, root by root by root, taking over the world, killing it off.
‘Come on,’ says Somer. ‘Time’s a-wasting.’
She loves these afternoons with her mother. Knows they won’t last forever – adulthood comes early here. And it will come earlier for Romy, because Somer has been blessed with a second child. And not just any child: Father’s child. Of all the women at Plas Golau, he has chosen to make her the latest mother of his offspring. Romy is proud. So proud. It’s rare to have a brother or a sister, and a brother or sister who could turn out to be the One is so special that sometimes she has to squeeze herself in bed at night to control her excitement.
It’s nice to escape the summer heat, but Romy’s glad they don’t have to go deep into the woods. They’ve shared so many ghost stories, hunkered down beneath their blankets while storms howled around the dormitory rafters, that she’s nervous of the outer edges of the estate, the band of tangled wildness that’s been left to grow around its walls. Deep below them runs a peat-rich stream, the outlet from the reservoir, tumbling on down the hill over boulders deposited in the Ice Age, its rocks slippery. And the woods are full of bracken, and bracken means adders, everyone knows that.
‘So remind me,’ she asks as they clamber on, ‘who is Jesus again?’ She likes to cross-question her mother about the world into which she was born. She likes to tease herself with detail of the lives the Dead lead. Make herself horripilate with fear or howl with laughter. Make herself feel lucky.
‘He’s the son of God.’
Romy frowns. ‘But I thought God didn’t exist?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So how ...?’
‘By making it up,’ says Somer. Having left religion behind her, she has left it completely. The only thing that matters to them is survival. When the end comes, they carry the future of the human race. There is nothing more important.
‘Mm.’ Romy thinks of her new sibling, conceived not only with the Leader’s blessing but with his seed as well, and shakes her head wonderingly. She doesn’t know who her own father is, of course, but it doesn’t matter, really. How people were on the Outside is not how they are here, and as he didn’t come with them he’ll be lost to them anyway when the End comes.
‘So basically,’ she asks, ‘they thought Jesus was the One?’
Somer pauses and lays a hand on her swollen abdomen. Smiles a smile that gazes into the future, a modern madonna in a flaxen tunic. ‘I suppose,’ she says. ‘Of course, the difference is that the One is real.’
‘And our baby could be the One, couldn’t he?’ Romy asks proudly, though of course she knows the answer. The baby is Lucien’s, and only one of Lucien’s children can be the One. Everyone knows that; it’s the Prophecy. But to be related even to a could-be-the-One is madly exciting.
‘Could be,’ says Somer, with false modesty. ‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
Romy spots a clump of saffron chanterelles clustered around the roots of a noble beech tree. Cries out and points.
‘Oh, well done,’ says Somer.
‘So your mother and father think Jesus is going to come back?’ continues Romy. ‘Like a zombie?’
‘Haha. Yes, I suppose so.’
‘That’s mad,’ says Romy.
‘Right?’ says Somer. ‘And they think when he does he’s going to want to live in Finbrough. They built a house for him in the centre of town, and a model village for his most loyal followers. Everyone lives in the little ones and keeps the big one nice for him, with a church built in for convenience. But then they built a motorway – a great big road – right bang smack between the two, which was sort of funny.’
‘What’s Finbrough like?’ she asks. She knows she was born there. Wants a picture in her head, for most of her peers in the Pigshed can point to the actual literal spot where their mother pushed them out.
‘It’s ... not much, really. It’s a small town on the road from London to Wales. People mostly go there to sleep, ’cos there’s not a lot to do. But it’s handy if you want to get to other places, and that’s why they live there, I think.’
They finish gathering the chanterelles – a tenth left behind, always, so that there will always be more – and move on through the dappled shade. Somer is awkward, her movements clumsy with her big belly hanging off her bony frame. Pregnant women get an extra pint of milk a day from their small dairy herd, but any further level of gorging is frowned on. You still need to stay agile, Father says, still need to stay on your feet, because, when the worst thing of all happens, you will need to be able to run. But with no weight on the back to balance her she often looks as though she’s going to tip right over. She’s pink about the face, though her great thick blanket of shiny golden hair is plaited carelessly to get it off her neck in the summer heat. Their hair is a burden in the summer, for they all wear it long, getting it cut every three years. The Dead buy hair. Imagine. And blonde hair is the most highly prized of all. Romy holds her hand, and for the first time she’s aware that it’s she who’s offering the protection, not Somer, and she feels proud again. Everything will change in three months, she knows that.
‘Are you looking forward to it?’ she asks. ‘To meeting him?’
‘Or her,’ corrects Somer. ‘Yes. I can’t tell you. It’s so different, this time. It’s amazing, the way everyone is so happy.’
‘Not like with me,’ Romy says, sadly.
Somer looks down and squeezes her hand. ‘We were in the wrong world, baby. I wanted you. I wanted you from the moment I knew you were there. You know that, don’t you?’
She feels mollified. ‘I just wish,’ she says, ‘that I belonged.’
Somer looks shocked. Drops to her knees in front of her daughter and squeezes her upper arms. ‘Oh, Romy, but you do. You do. Don’t you know? Vita chose both of us to come here, not just me. You were so wanted that you were chosen. We’re the most important people in the world, Romy. You know that. The Ark will be the survival of the human race. We’ll be the fathers and mothers of the future. It’s just that nobody knows it, apart from us.’
‘Everybody is a nobody,’ recites Romy. ‘Everyone is a someone.’
‘Precisely.’
‘But this ...’ She lays her palm flat on her mother’s swollen abdomen. ‘This could be the One. I’ll never be the One.’
Somer lumbers back to her feet. ‘No. But that doesn’t mean the things you do won’t matter. You’ll need to look after your brother or sister. When they come. You’ll need to take care of them and watch out for them, because they could save the world entire.’
‘How will we know?’ she asks. ‘If it’s them?’
Somer shakes her head. Lucien will have thirteen children with this baby. But only one will be the One. ‘I don’t know, to be honest. Lucien says that they’ll rise up when the time is right and lead us to safety. I don’t know if it’ll be obvious before that. But we’ve got to trust his word.’
‘Lucien is very wise,’ says Romy.
‘He is,’ says Somer, with love and longing. ‘He’s the wisest.’ And she puts her hand where Romy’s has lain a few moments ago, and looks strangely melancholic. ‘Anyway,’ she says, and leads them forward.
‘So is it true,’ Romy asks, as she helps her mother onto the path that runs along the brook, ‘that the Christians ate Jesus?’
‘What?’
‘That was what Kiran said, in the Pigshed. He said they have a ceremony every Sunday where they eat his flesh and drink his blood.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, that’s—’ Somer stops. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what it is. You’re right. Whatever you do, Romy, you want to steer clear of Christians. They’re a cannibal cult, and if you’re not very careful they’ll eat you alive.’
‘So nobody lives in Jesus’s house?’ she asks. She finds it hard to imagine. It seems so ... wasteful. Every inch of Plas Golau has a working function. The inhabitants of the Ark sleep six, sometimes even eight, to a dormitory room, and all the other spaces – the old chapel, the eaves and the attics, the cellars, the spaces beneath things and the spaces above – are overflowing with the necessities of survival. The barns and the godowns, the roof spaces and the rows of hooks along the beams ... everything has a function. Nothing is wasted.
‘Oh, no,’ Somer replies. ‘But it has to be kept perfect for when he moves in. The women go up every day and sweep and clean and polish and make a cold collation so he always has something to eat.’
Romy catches sight of a big healthy shroom over by a rock and trots over to snatch it up. Somer gasps. ‘No! Romy! Do you want to kill us all?’
Romy freezes.
‘Don’t you look?’ asks Somer. ‘Have I taught you nothing at all?’
She looks down. The mushroom, now that she’s looking properly, barely resembles the ones they’ve been picking. It has a sturdy white base, yes, and a generous cap. But it’s greenish, and its gills are white.
‘It’s a Death Cap, you twit.’
Romy drops the fungus as though it were scalding. They are taught about the Death Cap, and the Destroying Angel and the Dapperlings, long before they learn to forage. Like yew trees and foxgloves and deadly nightshade, like adders and hemlock and unwashed wounds, they are the stuff of schoolroom legend, drummed into them as soon as they can talk. The land is lovely and will be their salvation, but there are things that grow there that will kill you.
‘No, don’t throw it away.’ Somer gets out the black bag and scoops it up. ‘Where did you find it? We need to mark the place, so we can keep coming back and picking them till they’re all gone.’
Romy points. Now she’s looking she sees half a dozen, near-phosphorescent against the forest floor. ‘Don’t put your hands near your mouth,’ says Somer. ‘Literally just one of those can kill a dozen people. You’re not to touch anything until you’ve washed your hands, do you hear?’ She quickly scoops the remaining fungi up with the bag. ‘Come on. We’re going to have to go back now. Take them to Vita so she can dispose of them. Oh, honestly, Romy, and it was all going so well.’
‘Sorry,’ says Romy. Her fingers itch and she longs to wipe them on something. She feels as though the poison is seeping through her pores, will start at any moment to stop her liver. A long, slow death, hallucinating and bleeding from her orifices. She’s heard the stories.
‘It’s okay,’ says Somer. ‘Just ... be more careful, eh? If this had got in with the others we’d have had to throw the lot away, and then we’d have to confess. It’ll be all right. It’s good we found them. A good scrub with the scrubbing brush and you’ll be fine. And it’s getting on. We don’t want to be late for drill. What is it tonight, anyway?’
‘Toxic gas,’ says Romy.
‘Ah, yes,’ says Somer. ‘We’ve not had that for a while. Good to keep your hand in, eh?’