The Song Of Bernadette:

There’s something disorientating about waking up in a hotel.  I’m sorry, but there is.  No matter how scuzzy, or comfortable.  Whether it’s the first night, or the tenth.  Your body and mind are on edge.  It’s either too warm or too cold.  Too quiet, or too noisy.  Too much is always not enough.    I shouldn’t complain, really.  This one was secured at a lovely little combination of luck and outrageous pricing.  Conveniently located, opposite Exeter St David’s Station. 

I’m going home today.  My real home, Liverpool.  I’m expecting it to be the same.  And I know that’s completely naïve.  That’s like going on holiday, leaving your house with two teenagers and not expecting it to be burnt down when you get back from a nice holiday.  Which is basically, what the last three years of living in England has been like.  One long moment of wild rumpus, where some of us want to wake up and some of us want to stay asleep. 

My Mother named me after a Catholic saint, as she was called after a Catholic saint herself.  My Dad, wanted to call me Margaret.  I was born the day that she won her first election.  My Mum refused.  He went the pub.  Which must have been an omen really, nine months later he went to an away game and never came back. 

I was sitting in the hotel bar, last night.  Drinking a gin.  It’s funny, how when I was a kid; gin was Grandma’s drink.  Now: we’re all Grandma.  I’ve paid substantially over the odds for this, even by the standards of hotel bar prices.  It’s got more fruit and herbs than a garden in it.  The glass looks like it should have a goldfish swimming round in it.  It tastes dry, earthy, refreshing. 

And then: that song comes on.  One of those songs, the kind of one you hear on the radio.  And turn the radio off for a few minutes.  Wait till it’s gone.  The all-clear goes.  The moment has passed.  The terrible, awful, silent, malevolent thing that could hurt you has gone.  The shadow has passed over you.  Breathe.  Move on. 

This song: that was played at my wedding.

This song: vaguely trendy, but not out of the ordinary. 

This song: the kind that 6Music plays, to provoke some sort of Pavlovian response in people of a certain age. 

This song: means nothing anymore.

The bar is filling up now, lairy lads and girls celebrating the end of the crisis. The CGA (Central Government Authority) taking over.  It’s a relief, in a way.  Though, looking out of the window, across the road to the station, there’s a tank parked where there is usually a rail replacement bus service.  Don’t get too drunk yet lads. 

One gin, back to the room. 

That was the plan, anyway. 

Breakfast is porridge.  Or Porridge.  Or, if you don’t fancy that: Porridge. Proper food supplies won’t resume for a few months, so it’ll be at least Christmas before you can go bacon crazy, or stuff your pockets full of herbal tea.  I’m the only one in the breakfast room. Which suits me really; I don’t want someone next to me at the moment.  Feeding on my emotions and memories for a starter, then getting down to the really rich stuff like depression, then something nice and light; like my husband’s inability to just sleep with me. 

Depression: a funny word, isn’t it? A small dent or a period of bad weather.  I can remember days, just lying on the bed.  Feeling as if I was under a glass slide.  Unable to eat, sleep or feel something.  And it’s like your typical slippery slope.  Some days you slide, some days you glide.  And no matter how much you accept it, be honest with other people about it, accept it as part of your own personality… you still dread its arrival. 

For the second time in a week, I’m packing a bag.  I’m looking round the room for the last little pieces: phone charger, journal.  The stuff that’ll keep me going.  Little reminders of being human, the stuff you don’t want to leave behind.  I check out, there’s no-one on reception.  Across the road, through the gates and then onto the platform.  Where is everyone today? Asleep? Drunk? Reading a good book.  I’ve been reading a lot lately, not new stuff, re-reading stuff.  When the depression was truly at its worse, I couldn’t even do that.  The words were just shapes and patterns, the emotion and thoughts behind them, weren’t there.  And I hated that.  I felt as if something had been taken away from me. 

Some part of my soul had been removed, silently, secretly, stealthily.

My ex-husband (might as well start calling him that) met me in a bookshop.  A big one, a posh one with loyalty cards and a coffee shop.  I was digging into a bin of sale items, looking for a cheap gardening book.  My husband, stood next to me. Making what my university tutor called  NVC’s (Non-Verbal Cues): little uhms, aahs and nahs. He was looking through the bins, expressing little noises of disgust or delight at each book he picked up, regardless of author or size.  Typical bloke, in that respect. 

‘Seen anything you like?’  He raised an eyebrow from behind his glasses, a fleshy question mark. 

I waved a book at him.  ‘Useful book on organic gardening.  You?’  I know he’s flirting with me, but I’m a stranger in a strange land here.  I’m a single, middle-aged Scouse woman in a Devonian city.  Blokes look at me with a mix of confusion and lust.  And anyway, I’m not looking for anyone.  Who needs a man when you can have a book?  Lasts longer, faithful companion, gives you more pleasure. 

‘Coffee?’ I can’t believe he actually said that.  Probably, his second choice was: ‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell from heaven?’

‘It’s a drink made from brewed and roasted coffee beans’.

I’m moving towards the till with a pile of cheap books.  No such thing as a bad purchase when it comes to books.  Several men have disappointed me, but no book ever has.  No, tell a lie.  More men than books. 

‘No, would you like one?’

‘If you’re paying, yeah’

The coffee wasn’t bad, the meal that followed was a bit better.  The relationship flowed smoothly, like we were following a river.  You always knew where it was going, but you always knew there were streams and ponds you didn’t need to visit.  Within a matter of months, we were making plans on who was going to move where.  I had a flat in Liverpool, that stank of damp and other people’s shattered dreams.  He had a house in a quiet part of Devon.  So, no contest there.  My sister Mary said that I was ‘giving up my power to a man’.  And I didn’t see it that way: because when you fall in love the logical brakes come off.  From the outside, some people see you driving towards a brick wall; you see yourself on a trip to the seaside. 

The train must be due, my passport is getting checked.  Which is nothing out of the ordinary: it been used as a form of ID since Brexit.  But: I’m going home, I’m not moving countries.  Unless something is happening, that I’m not yet aware of.  Some unidentified surprise.  Which I should be used to really. After three years of a pretty dull marriage, I should really be paying more attention.  I step on the train and within a few minutes, I’m leaving, lifted: gone.  If this was a romcom, he would be running down the platform in the pouring rain, with a dead bunch of flowers, shouting that there had been a terrible mistake. 

Yeah, I married a terrible mistake.  Bye…

The depression got worse as I opened my eyes.  I realised that there was something he kept secret, the absences and late nights ‘at a friend’s house’.  In the meantime, I could feel the sky inside my head growing darker.  I spent as much time as I could in the garden. Because a garden never sleeps or decides to look after itself.  There is always, something to do.  Which takes your mind off things: you know, like the disintegration of democracy, football, a failed relationship.  Of course, once you get to the dark months, that becomes difficult.  The darkness inside and outside gets to you. 

At this point, Brexit had taken place.  We were glad of the garden, as a visit to the supermarket was a disappointment.  We lived off the garden for a bit, which was just enough to keep us alive; combined with the collection of tins we’d had in the shed.  We stayed indoors, it was safer that way.  I was looking for a particular packet of seeds in the shed, when I found what I always knew at the back of my mind. 

I opened the seedbox, leafed through the ones I could plant, then the ones I couldn’t plant.  At the back of a box was a mobile.  Not even a decent one, not even a Smartphone.  This wasn’t an issue, as the WiFi had been down for a few weeks.  I’d been advised to contact my provider.  I tried to contact my provider and the phone line was dead. 

I turned the phone.  You can more or less guess what I found.  Messages, photos.  Statements of intent or emotion.  I took the phone into the house, threw it  across the coffee table.  He was talking to Cheesy Carl, a Scouse bloke who had gained a reputation for getting stuff that no-one else could.  He was Scouse, like me a fish out of water.  A ghost in outdoor clothing.  Within ten minutes, I’d booked an expensive taxi, an even more extortionate hotel and packed a bag. 

It was in the hotel, I had the real comedown.  I cried, because that is the normal, human thing to do.  My counsellor always told me, be human.  But after that, I looked at myself in the mirror and looked at myself.  Not just the lines and marks of my skin, the colour of my eyes, but really looked.  I recognised my depression, as part of me.  It’s something that happens, every now and again.  It really is The Black Dog.  I mean, that’s not a cliché.  It comes to you, settles in and then leaves.  Acceptance is the key, but at the same time: don’t be complacent.  It’s never gonna completely leave you, just accept it; as something that visits every now and again and then goes.  Like some sort of annoying relative. 

It was there, I had time to think too.  Not that there was much on telly.  A constant repeat of The Good Life (oh, the irony) or Hancock’s Half Hour (about a man whose dreams of independence end in disaster.  See also).  But there was a general lifting of the national mood, a few days ago. The CGA was taking control (a coalition of the main political parties) and order was being restored.  We were negotiating with The EU about going back in.  Whether they would have us was a moot point.  But, hey ho: food drops to the more remote areas of the country were taking place.  I laughed at the idea of my ex-husband and Cheesy Carl fighting over a tin of beans. 

I mean, you’ve got to laugh haven’t you? 

The train is announcing that there is no Buffet Service on this train, due to staff/stock shortgages.  There will be a limited service in Birmingham New Street, from The Salvation Army.  It also warns me that there will be further passport checks at the station.  What the hell is going on? I remember a word from somewhere, Balkanisation.  Maybe the country is fragmenting, splitting apart like an old jigsaw; reforming into some new shape.  No CGA announcement yet. 

It’s on the concourse of New Street that I have my passport checked.  This means that I can approach the Salvation Army Stand, receive a relatively inedible cheese sandwich and a cup of greasy soup.  I have to place it on the counter of the ticket barrier as I head through, towards Platform 9A.  Or Nahn-ah. I pass an advert for Joy Division Lingerie: Love Won’t Tear Them Apart.  

The soldiers at the other side of the barrier nod at me, automatic weapons hanging from their shoulder straps, wish me a safe journey. Thanks lads, please don’t kill me. 

I’ve never known a time when this platform wasn’t busy.  Today, it’s packed with football fans.  Blue scarves, slightly less shouty than normal.  They remind me of kids on their best behaviour.  Not that I’ve had kids, or ever will.  I’m not actually thinking of kids at this point.  I’m thinking of my Dad. The vaguest memories I have of him.  I don’t feel I knew him, I knew more about him after he disappeared.

I remember his face, big blue eyes, blonde fringe.  Babbling the same words, over and over again.  If I can filter then, what I feel now: it would be a kind man, a bit daft but full of love.  He was there and then, he wasn’t there.  It was only later, I think I must have been ten; or maybe early teens when I was told he had disappeared when I was a toddler.  No-one knew what happened to him.  And I wouldn’t accept that.  No-answer is just that, no answer.  And at the time, I was obsessed with Murder She Wrote.  I think I had a girl crush on Angela Lansbury, which explains the odd experiment in my late teens, early twenties.  These were usually accompanied by Moby’s album Play. 

At least there’s one thing I’m embarrassed about and one thing I’m not ashamed of. 

Anyway, I digress.  The train is moving now; there is another reminder that there is no buffet service on the train.  The young girl opposite me offers me a crisp and I say no thank you.  I stare out of the window, which is Traveller’s Esperanto for Leave me Alone.    

I found a box in the loft.  For a brand of tinned food, that didn’t exist anymore.  Covered in dust, which clung to the box, mingled in with the dull, beige masking tape.  I opened it, with a pair of scissors.  One blade across the tape released a slightly damp smell.  Inside, scarves, programmes of his team (so, he supported them?  That’s a surprise).  A notebook, the brand of which I vaguely remember.  Red Silvine, which I always thought sounded like a country and western singer.  Inside, notes, codes dates. Like Anne Lister’s diaries, which I studied at Uni.  But more brusque, masculine, sinister. 

13/09/80 – Aw.  CC, DR.  Lst TN.  B2, KK1. 

20/12/80 – Hm.  DR cld.  CC, pups.  Wn ON.  B3. 

It was later on, that I found out from talking to some of the grandad’s in the pub.   I knew those research skills from Uni would come in handy.   He was a hard case.  Soccer Hooligan. Always known, never referred to.  Went to an away game in 1981, never came home. So, the code began to unravel itself.  Bletchley style.  He was a thug, this smiling boy.  Were he alive now, he’d be one of those grandads.  Making a pint last all afternoon, checking The Racing Post, circling the horses he liked the sound of. 

Maybe that was the cause of my periods of depression, this lack of a Father figure.  Maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe depression is genetic, maybe it isn’t.  Either way, it’s part of me.  I accept it.  Know it’s triggers, manage it’s storms.     At this time in history, with a nation recovering from a democratic hangover; I’m guarded, eyes open. I’m returning home to Liverpool.  I’m gonna be like a teenager, barricading myself into our Mary’s boxroom with a wall of books.  What comes next is anyone’s guess. 

We are reminded to have our passports and tickets ready.  Again, I’m passing through the ticket barrier when I’m handed a red rose.  I’m told, Welcome to the Republic Of Liverpool.  Please remain on the concourse.  We’re herded like sheep behind a barrier.  We’re confused, are we gonna get shot? Taken prisoner? Food parcels? 

And then it’s then, I see the kids being herded into the concourse.  Little poppets, in red school jumpers.  Bright, innocent, unaware.  Raised in a time of crisis.  It would be the easisest thing in the world to see these as the next set of problems.  But, I’m an agnostic in every sense of the word. Like St Augustine, I’m prepared to believe in the innocence of children.  No point in being Pelagian about it.  He believed the world corrupted the innocent.

The videowall sparks into life, with a fluttering flag.  Purple.  With a Liver Bird in white, picked out in all it’s detail.  This fierce, almost alien looking thing.  Seaweed in it’s beak, keys in it’s claws. 

We are told Please Stand For The National Anthem.  National anthem? My mind is racing, is it The Beatles? Gerry And The Pacemakers?

And the kids begin to sing: There She Goes.  By The La’s.  A song, that is simple, plaintive, short.  The song that was played at my wedding.  The whole concourse is singing it.  Some stood still, others punctuating the words with clenched fists. 

I’m crying now.  I’m either moved to tears by this, or just relieved to let go.  This brave new world that doesn’t just have such people in it, but children.

New World Symphony:

‘There’s no place like home’.

The tidgy humanoid on the screen looks up, wishes on some elemental force that she knows, may or may not come.  And it hits me then, like.  Like a ton of bricks.  I wanna go home.  When that sense of loss outweighs that sense of belongin, it’s time to go home.  Cheesy Carl left a week ago.  Said he had some business in Devon, fuck knows what that is.  It’s Cheesy Carl, always involved in somethin dodgy.  Said he’d send a postcard, who the fuck sends postcards these days, lid?  No-one. 

He asked me to wave him off at Lime Street.  I dunno why, we weren’t good mates.  Associates like.  I would never say we were that close, know what I mean?  I mean, we never did nottin special.  It was mainly: havin a bevy, playin a bit of PS4, the odd bit of draw and tunage.  But he asked me, he asked me right: to wave him off at the station.  This place full of noise and light and humans, humanoids all tryin to get to a million different places at once.  Travellin, in little metal boxes.  He passed through the barrier and from then on, he was just a face.  A memory.  Not even a soul I could slide into. 

No matter.  I mean, we’re all just dyin, but just at different speeds.  Know what I mean?  Tell ya lid.

Tell ya. 

And then, the week after he fucked off: Mr Grimes said he was closin his business.  Local face, has been an undertaker in this town since, well before I was born.  Something weird about him.  He’s tall, wears a top hat and and long black coat.  Red eyes, like dyin’ suns behind these weird pair of shades.  Sticks out like a sore thumb.  But no-one, like no-one - even the teenage smackrats who hang round the offy – calls him a twat.   

Might have a cuppa.  Do you want one? Too early for a bifter.  Have a cuppa before I go. Go ed.

Last week was the top hat on it.  There we were, in the office.  All I can hear, is the noise of his leather boots flexin’ like.  He told me once, that he took them from a dead German on The Somme.  Dunno if that’s true, like.  Best not to ask.  His tea (no milk, no sugar, Coronation mug) is on the desk, steaming away. Long pauses.  Bad news comin’. OK, here it comes.

‘I’m closing the business Croxteth.  End of next month’.  There, out there now.  Me bodies, like droopin’.

‘Thought we were doin’ well like? ‘

‘Not since Coffin Supermarket opened.  Really…’ He places a hand round the tea, watchin’ the steam curl round.  ‘I should murder him.  Time was, when that would have been an option…’

Best not to say anythin at this point.  I dunno if he’s talkin’ broken biscuits or not. Here’s your tea. 

‘Times have changed.  The CPA are running things and although people are dying more frequently, more exotically… they do not have the time for the class and sophistication I offer in The Dismal Trade…’ This is the way he talks, every word, considered and emphasised.

A long pause, awkward like.  Not bad tea this, is it?  Not CPA Ration Pack.  Aldi.  Cheesy Carl gave me some before he left.  Time was, tea was somethin’ nice.  Now, it’s just survival.  Who’d have thought like, we’d be glad for fuckin Aldi? 

I’m washing the body, when the really weird shit happens.  APC’s on every corner.  Helicopter gunships on patrol.  You sort of like, adjust to that.  And it’s funny, how you do.  The worst things you could possibly think of become normal.  Looters getting publically executed.  I’m washin’ this arl girl down.  Black North, we would call her.  A suicide.  A human, who has decided that life is not worth livin’.  I mean, mine isn’t to be fair.  But we see a lot of this shit these days.  I came here, three years ago to observe.  Picked a soul from the Soulhive, someone we abducted in the late 1970’s.  Proper, nasty piece of work called Croxteth Ivanhoe.

I assess planes, like.  See if they’re worth invadin’.  And I’m comin’ to the end of this now.  Not worth an invasion.  I mean, if we wanted to: ten minute job, lid.  But: you’re destroyin yourselves.  Destroyin’ your own gaff.  Lyin leaders.  Not worth a blow on a ragman’s trumpet, us comin’ here and turnin’ gangster. Turnin’ the shithouse plane into ash and rock.  Might be fun, like.

Anyways: I was washin the arl girl on the slab.  No name, no pack drill.  And she starts talkin.  Like clearnin her throat and dat.  I’ve moved back at this point.  Nottin surprises me anymore.  This is the Recall Vortex Signal.  Times, dates, co-ords.  She rattles them off like a prayer, or a song.  OK.  That’s sound.  It’s at home too.  I don’t have to toss meslef off a high buildin. 

Not like that.  Ya dirty twat.

And after that, all back to normal.  Whatever normal is, these days.  The arl girl is ready for the boneyard.  Six more boxes before hometime.  Not much in the cupboard, like.  Noodles.  Quick, simple.  Fills you up. 

I’ll eat properly when I get home. Got someone in mind. 

Home, is millions of light years away.  To use a human term.  I’m riding this human body, usin his language, his tongue.  Were he alive now, in human terms he’d be an arl man.  Preparin for death.  Human lives, by our standards are short.  Nottin.  Blink of an eye, lid.  We watched him for a while.  We do that sometimes.  Watch you, humans.  Sometimes humanoids.  Croxteth Ivanhoe, was the proverbial hardknock.  He supported a footie team. And that’s something I sort of enjoy, after three years here.  I mean, your food’s shite.  Your air is poison.  Your philosophies, your gods are bollocks.  The slow, pointless, painful death of paradise is irreversible.  Nottin personal, like.

Ivanhoe wasn’t interested in a team.  He was a blade and because of that, he carried a blade.  Two, sellotaped together.  Anyone, who got in his way, got slashed.  We saw that and thought ‘he’s a proper hardcase’.  It was a home game, he was comin home, half intoxicated.  I mean, why bother lid?  Better at home, do you know what I mean, lid?  He went down a back jigger, lit up a bifter. And in that tidgy little bit of time, he ceased to exist.  We sucked his soul out of that tidgy little knot of space-time he was stuck in.  No-one would miss him.  No-one would miss the mild, bubblin’ hatred he had for anyone who wasn’t his Broodmother.  Broodfather unknown.  He had Brood he didn’t even know about. We’ve watched Bernadette Ivanhoe, felt her pain and loss.  But she is of no use to us. 

At the moment, anyway.   

And when we needed him, I slipped into his soul.  I used his thuggery to dispose of anyone who got in my way.  I used me psychic ability to gain employment with Mr Grimes.  Somethin’ proper freaky bout him.  But he’s not my concern.  I recognise him as somesort of outsider, an alien as weird a creature as myself.  When the really, really bad shit starts to happen.  I could come here, a thousand years time, lid.  Could if I wanted to, but to make a point: I could.  He’d be here.  Bein all weird and that, drinkin a cuppa. 

You’d better finish that off.  Recall Vortex in about, er… errr. Five minutes. 

So, three years ago.  We saw your political instabilities.     We saw divided nations, on a divided planet.  This, tidgy little island, decided to leave the bigger landmass.  I slipped into Croxteth Ivanhoe’s soul; like he would slip into a new trackie top.  I had friends, associates.  A history, gained employment with Mr Grimes.  And durin this time, I was watchin, making judgement. Decidin, whether it was worth, bringin blood, shite, fire and thunder on you.  Not that we would wipe you out, completely.  That’s just for yardogs.  No, we’d wipe, abaht a third of you?  The rest would be slaves.  Once, we’d ripped this plane right off for anything of worth, we’d leave. Thanks for the resources.  Laters.  If I don’t see you through the week, I’ll see you through the window. 

I mean: Cheesy Carl was the closest thing I had to somethin I had to keep me here. I mean, I didn’t love him.  I’m not as obsessed with love (stupid fuckin concept, that), your idea of affection, of belongin is completely different to mine.  My Broodpartner has probably moved on, because that’s what we do.  Someone else, takes me place, raises my kids when it’s Broodtime. But I’ll be home, before I know it. 

Look at the paper movin with static on the table, by your cuppa.

When I get home, there will be no welcome.  My place in The Hive will have been filled by someone else.  But: that doesn’t mean it’s a permanent thing.  I’ll slip back into my old body and then, right then: I’ll have a straightener with that blurt.  Come on then, take me place would ya?  Come on, ya fuckin yarddog.  Square down. 

I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.  If you’d asked us nicely, we could have sorted this place right out.  Every problem would have been sorted and the remainin two thirds might have been happy for the time it would have took us to rip you off.  But too late. There’s always a soul that needs slidin into.  Always another plane that needs taxin.  I can feel Croxteth Ivanhoe, fadin away.  His purpose in The Universe has come to an end.  I’m goin home. 

It’s gonna happen.  Any minute…

… now.   

And then, I’m home.  The photoreceptors click in.  I look at my hand, ignoring the vast amount of data it’s picking up.  I’m looking at the important things: five fingers, but with a blue translucent skin tone.  I’ve left the body of Croxteth Ivanhoe behind, but the traces of his psyche remain.  There’s tiny pieces of the people that I left behind.  People like Cheesy Carl and Grimes.  There’s a word for it, that humans use.  And that is a fact of their existence, as an immature species.  Small words to explain big concepts. 

What is that word?  Never mind, it’ll come to me later. 

I’m making my way through the tunnels of The Hive, by instinct.  Parts of my brain are firing up, parts that I have not used for three years.  Parts of my psyche are returning, disorientating me slightly; but causing me pleasure.  Speaking of which, it is a short time before I arrive at my dwelling place.  And there it is, the final piece of my psyche.  But firstly, there are rules and traditions to adhere to. 

My Broodpartner sits, silently in front of someone I vaguely know.  Their photoreceptors up, silently staring at each other.  Sharing small, invisible pulses of neural energy.  Each vaguely aware, that it is both the right thing and the wrong thing to do.  I send a small blast of neural energy at this other person.  He is pushed across the room in a blast of blue light.  And this is just the beginning.  I told you I was hungry, I’ll consume him, slowly.  Strand by strand, nerve by nerve.  Memory by memory.  I mean, we’re not savages.  But first, I need to introduce myself. 

‘S’appenin’ lid?’

There’s no place like home. 

The Seeds Of Time:

I was checking out the vegetables when the latest plane flew over.  Time was, I used to grow flowers.  I mean, flowers are easy.  You put them out, water them occasionally, and then cut them and place them in a central position in your house.  Easy as.  Vegetables are tricky little buggers.  That constant earthing you do with potatoes seems pointless, somehow.  The winding of branches together to make a wigwam for runner beans.  Keeping one eye keen, one eye watchful on the green, slender leaves of sweetcorn, waiting it for to curl into a cone.  All that, takes care, water, luck and time.

Back to the plane.    I live on a hill, facing Dartmoor.  You get used to the planes and helicopters, fast, low, noisy, occasionally leaving a dirty trail across the sky.  This one, absolutely no chance.  A roar, a rising whistling as it loops back and then, a collapsing wall of noise. I don’t think we’re at war.  In a way, that would be somewhat comforting.  There would be a pantomime villain to boo, a square-jawed hero to cheer.  No such luck. 

If you want to know what things went wrong, to play the whole car crash in slow motion; wind it back a few years.  That’s when the stockpiling of food started.  I started noticing the price of it rising steadily and certain medication becoming a rarity.  There were reports of people dying for a lack of Insulin or the occasional suicide from a box of Prozac that wasn’t behind the counter, but not in this village. When things go South, you sort of come to terms with it. You make friends with the slow, creeping horror of the ice becoming thinner beneath your feet.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The news didn’t help.  Subjectivity is the nature of reporting and it was left to the experts.  The Experts.  Eyes like coins, cowards in linen suits or expensive dresses. Calm, polysyllabic words of reassurance.  Hush, my child.  It’ll all be OK in the morning.  Where are they now, these experts?  Did they close the drawbridge; catch the first plane out as they saw the smoke rising? No idea.  Not a learned mind to be found, in the smoking remains of England. 

Time for tea.  The most English thing you can do, the ameliorative balm of these isles.  My wife, like myself was a tea drinker.  Every time we went on holiday, we took the hotel tea bags from the room.  At the time, you think of hotel tea as some kind of Shenzhen version of the real thing.  When the real thing can’t be found, you go to the back of the drawer, beyond the masking tape and the pizza cutter and the real thing becomes the best thing in the world.  I leaf through them.  Ten teabags left.  If there’s a definition of an English crisis, this is it. 

My wife was the gardener. All my skills are her skills.  If I can close my eyes, gain enough stillness, I can conjure up the essence of who she was.  Kind, beautiful, honest, practical.  It was her who suggested stockpiling seeds as much as tinned food.  I’m leafing through the biscuit tin that is their home and can recall the lineage of each one. The smiling face on the magazine it came with, the certain day in the particular day in the garden centre when we bought it.  She left me, when my affairs became too complicated to conceal.  A bag was packed; a taxi was booked at particular expense.  It was cause and effect on a personal scale.  Perhaps loneliness is the best option at this time.  Romance is dripping and bleeding out of everyday life.  I might as well be the same as everyone else.

I turn on the portable gas stove that Cheesy Carl sold me.  The purveyor of all things illegal, unobtainable, useful in a crisis. His notoriety faded as the lights went down. He became, in a matter of months ‘the go to guy’.  The stove was twenty quid, no questions asked. I didn’t have twenty quid.  I offered him a bag of courgettes, runner beans and tomatoes.  A deal made, he offered me several other things: a DAB Radio, an electric shaver, a shotgun.  Christ knows where he gets them from.  I could make an educated guess, but I don’t want to know.  The DAB is borderline useless, even though I have enough batteries (another thing we stockpiled).  Shaving is pure vanity.  And why should I want to kill anyone? The people I would want to, should I wished; are not in the line of fire.

 More is the pity. 

The kettle is boiling slowly; it reminds me that technically, I am camping. The electricity has been non-existent for a few weeks. The water sputters and spits out brown muck occasionally, but it’s still drinkable once boiled.  No internet or phone line. Another reason I didn’t need the DAB: a clockwork radio. One station broadcasts, in 15m loops. CGA (Central Government Authority).  All the other stations; broadcasting thought-provoking drama, football, jazz and all the other minutiae of civilisation have long since gone off the air.  No classical music, which can only be a good thing.

You couldn’t call it news.  More a constant, infinite, stultifying loop of advice and tips.  It even tells you to turn the radio off to preserve power.  As friendships go, it’s pretty much perfect. Each loop ends with God Save The King.  Irony overload.

The gas is still roaring through the stove.  I could murder a cuppa. 

I wouldn’t call Cheesy Carl a friend, but he has his uses.  Occasionally we go, what he calls ‘foraging’.  He knocks on the door, asks me if I’m interested.  We walk down the hill.  Last time we did, he talked about the latest rumours.  God knows where he gets them from.  I think sometimes, that he’s a time traveller or a psychic.  A nuclear reactor in Cumbria has suffered a power failure (unlikely, I’ve still got a full set of teeth and I’m not vomiting).  Civil War in America (it was always a matter of time).  We’ve re-joined the EU and things are about to get better (your guess is as good as mine).

‘Foraging’ is a euphemism for what is commonly termed as ‘looting’. We don’t do houses, even though I suspect we are the last two left in the village.  Unless you count pets, which we still see wandering round occasionally. It’s only a matter of time before the cats and dogs lose interest and head up to Dartmoor for the corpses of sheep and cows.  I doubt that we are on the menu. 

Give it time. 

Time was, when a walk to the garage would take over twenty minutes, I’d move into towards the edge of the road as cars, trucks, tractors and a bus drove past.  You’d wave at the driver, a country courtesy.  Now, this can be done in ten minutes.  It’s that point of the year when you can feel sunshine dripping down it’s drain.  The leaves are getting brown and dying.  This is not nuclear, but nature.  We face winter, which will be a challenge to say the least. 

The garage has been shut a number of months.  The petrol pumps stand sentinel, silent, useless. We forced the door open a few months ago, a two minute job that became an act of sheer survival.  Crowbar, into the doorframe.  No power for the alarm.  The perfect, victimless crime.  No power for the fridges too, the smell of meat, ice cream, milk turning sour, rancid, liquid.  We’re prepared for this, but every time could be the last time.  There’s still quite a bit of ‘stock’ for us, but there will come a time when the last shelf shall be rinsed and the smell becomes too much.

The roaring of the gas is getting louder.  I take a metal mug from the cupboard.  Open a teabag, lay the string reverently along the edge. 

Cheesy Carl moves along the aisles at speed, eyes darting for his usual purchases.  He’s like he’s on a supermarket dash. Maybe, in the old times he was a shoplifter of some sort.  There is no-one round to arrest us.  I haven’t heard a police siren for weeks. He’s stacking a red basket with noodles, tinned food, toilet rolls, and toothpaste. I’m over the other side of the shop, ignoring the pile of mouldy bread (reduced to 20p a few months ago).  It’s like a still-life picture, a time-lapse reminder that nature will always win.

There is a small gardening section, adjacent to the cleaning products and the beer.  There are a few bottles of liquid feed left.  I’m down the dregs of the last one, the pale brown liquid I add to the watering can every other day.  It promotes healthy stems and more succulent fruit and vegetables.  Cheesy Carl thinks I’m nuts.  However, we always agree to split the spoils.  He benefits from the fruit and veg that I barter him every few weeks. We leave the petrol station, close the door, and stand outside the racks of rotten flowers. He hands me two tubs of noodles, a pack of toilet rolls, and a tube of toothpaste.  We walk back uphill, knowing that nothing or no-one will challenge us. We are Kings Of Infinite Space.

In the corner of my eye, I notice spirals of smoke coming from the direction of Exeter.  Could be someone keeping warm, could be a fire, could be the wrath of some kind of god coming down.  They all seem to be curiously absent, at the moment.  I’m not at the stage where I’m reading any sort of holy book just yet.  I’ve read a lot of books over the last couple of months.  Re-read old favourites, got round to ones that were gifted to me by relatives, some poetry, a few biographies. I re-read some Wells, some Wyndham. 

The genre’s called sunlit horror.  Horrific things happening in the daytime, usually in English villages.  Martian tripods laying waste to Surrey.  Plants taking over the Earth, due to mass blindness.  In a way, that would be easier.  A full stop, instead of these endless parentheses.  This way of life, of tending plants and shoplifting will go on for a while.  And then what?

Nature will go on.  She will expand and grow a million times, die a billion more.  The Orwellian concept what is British life (hopefully, this isn’t going on elsewhere) will fade. Anything we, as a nation have created of worth will collapse in on itself. Buildings, literature, art.  There will be no evidence for the unborn archaeologists to sift through.  We will be regarded as civilisation of cannibals, who ate our own legs and then decided to run a marathon.

The rumbling is getting louder. It’s not the stove. I turn it off.

 I step into the garden, look west.  A plane is coming down the valley, low.  Not a fighter, something big, bloated. It’s a C-17.  A transport plane, low altitude camouflage.  It banks slightly, levels.  A crate, the size of a car is ejected from the back.  It continues, low over the garden.  It’s in the middle of this noise and gray thunder; I’m running to the shed.  Pliers and the crowbar.  I cut a hole in the fence; put the pliers on the slabs of the garden wall.  I’m running down the valley with a crowbar.  I notice Cheesy Carl is coming from the opposite direction with an axe handle.  It’s like we’ve arranged a fight, a straightener he would call it.  Some beef, or turf war to be settled with blows.

The crate is marked, in dirty stencil: CGA.  This word is surrounded by a ring of golden stars. 

It takes a moment to prise open the crate, perhaps it was designed to break during the fall.  Inside: MRE’s, medical kits, water purification tablets. The full panoply of survival.  Stuck down to each one, a note to say that Central Government has been restored.  To sit tight and await further instructions. 

We take as much as we can over the next few hours.  We leave the bodybags.

It’s only later, as I finally have my cuppa in the garden that I realise I’ve survived a major, historical event.  It’s not for me to call it a mistake, the lies stuffed in the mouths of the disenfranchised; for the gain of the rich.  It’s also not for me to say what happens next, which way the ship of state sails.

There is no happy ending for me; my wife is not coming home.  I will carry on, I will tend my garden.  Prune, deadhead, water, plant, harvest. 

The sun is going down and a new day is in the shadows.  The work of a gardener is never, ever done.