Clade Read online

  There is something extraordinary about the scale of the destruction, and as he reaches the end of the path he stops, struck by the silence, the sense of stillness.

  ‘I didn’t hear you get up,’ Summer says behind him.

  He turns. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘Not really. Is Noah awake?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Behind them the vicar and a couple of others have appeared.

  ‘I think we need to get out of here,’ Summer says.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell because everything’s so confused, but there’s stuff on the feeds saying the embankments have given way. And even if they haven’t there’s a lot of water upstream that will be heading down. Fast. We need to get to higher ground.’

  ‘Or find somewhere we can shelter. But either way we need to move quickly.’

  Out on the road the water is already rising, spilling over the gutters and footpaths and filling ditches. Although it is not moving fast it makes walking difficult, and once again Adam finds himself carrying Noah.

  With so much water there are few cars around, and those that are do not stop for them. Before they left the church they had debated trying to steal one, but neither knew how, and both feared the time they might waste searching houses for keys.

  Because the networks are only intermittently operational, most of what they know is chatter, a jumble of images and warnings, but several things are clear. First, the embankments have indeed given way, collapsing before the combined pressure of a king tide and the storm surge, and the water is pouring in. London is flooded as well, as is much of the country to the west and north.

  Occasionally they pass others on the road; sometimes they wave, or exchange information, but most often they simply bend their heads and hurry on. Now and again they hear shouting, the breaking of glass. Twice there is the sound of gunshots.

  More than once they see people loading electrical goods into cars and vans. After an hour or so they come around a corner to find a supermarket, set slightly below the level of the road behind a partly flooded car park. The sliding doors are jammed open and through them figures can be seen moving around inside, while out the front half a dozen men and women are stashing things into cars. Passing Noah to Summer, Adam tells her to wait for him.

  The floor is submerged under several centimetres of water. By the checkouts a young man with short dreadlocks and a girl in a gold tracksuit are busy rifling one of the tills, stuffing cash into their pockets. Adam raises his hands to signal he means them no harm, breathing a sigh of relief when the man tilts his head as if to indicate he will not interfere.

  Although the shelves have already been stripped, he manages to find several bottles of mineral water and a few blocks of chocolate. Moving quickly he crams them into his bag, together with a torch and a couple of packets of biscuits.

  He is almost done when he hears a cry from the front of the store. Remembering the couple by the till he turns back as quietly as he can, but before he reaches the end of the aisle he sees the water has become a tide flowing inward.

  Swinging his bag over his shoulder he fights his way out the door and across the car park to where Summer and Noah are waiting. Grabbing Noah’s hand he points to a building on the other side of the road, and together the three of them begin to wade towards it.

  The water is knee-deep now and moving fast, making it difficult to remain upright. Halfway across Summer slips, stumbling sideways; Adam pulls her up and the three of them struggle on.

  The building is three storeys high with a turret on one corner and a short flight of stairs running up to the main door. Scrambling out of the water they bound up the stairs, only to discover the door is locked.

  Adam rattles it several times, cursing. Next to him Summer points to a window a little further along. ‘There!’ she says.

  He grabs Noah and descends into the stream while Summer hauls herself up onto the sill. Pulling her sleeve down she smashes the glass with her elbow, and kicks the shards out of the way with the sole of her shoe. As soon as she is done he passes Noah up, then grasps her hand to clamber up himself, but as he reaches the sill she gasps. Turning, he looks back.

  At first all that is visible is the rising water, the refuse floating by. But then he hears a rushing noise, accompanied by creaking and grinding like wind. And then, at the street’s end, he sees it. It seems so improbable it’s difficult to be afraid, for it is as if the water is pouring towards them in a sloping wall, a liquid hill that moves faster than any of them could run, a wave that does not end but comes and comes and comes.

  Beside him Noah whimpers, then Summer shouts, ‘Run!’ and they do, clattering through the flat to the front door. In the lobby they race up the stairs to the first floor, then on to the second, where two doors open off the landing; taking one each Summer and Adam throw themselves against them, beating and shouting. From downstairs they hear breaking glass and what sounds like metal tearing, until all at once the front door gives way and the water floods in, filling the lobby and surging up the stairs. Stepping back Adam slams his shoulder into the door in front of him, first once, then twice, but to no avail. As he steps back for a third attempt he sees Noah kneeling by the mat in front of the other door, a key in his hand.

  Inside the flat they check each room, to be sure they are alone. The place is small, sparsely furnished. In the bedroom a cupboard stands open, a half-filled suitcase lies on the bed. Adam is standing next to it when Summer appears in the doorway; he has time to see her notice it and turn away. When he follows her to the living room she has opened the window and is standing looking out, Noah beside her.

  Outside the water is still rising, the level now above the ground-floor windows. Cars and bins and refuse are pouring past, borne by the torrent, swirling and colliding as they sweep along the road. In the park across the street the top of a child’s swing protrudes, the water breaking around it in a wave: as they watch, the level moves steadily up it until the swing vanishes. Next to him Noah is shivering. Extending a hand he places it on the boy’s shoulder and feels him pull away.

  Then Summer lets out a small cry, and looking down Adam sees a woman and two children a little way upstream. The woman is struggling as the water swirls her along, one hand clenched around the collar of the younger child, the other grasping frantically for the second as he tumbles just out of reach. As they pass the window she makes one last effort, but the boy is too far away. He is caught behind a car and swept under. Without speaking Adam draws Noah away from the window, guiding him back to the middle of the room.

  By midday the water level seems to have peaked, the raging cataract giving way to a swiftly flowing river, its surface creased here and there by boils and rips as it passes over obstacles and declivities beneath. The heat has returned as well, the temperature rising precipitously as the sky clears. In the flat the air is thick, hot and still, fetid with the smell of the water below.

  Realising it may be some time before they are able to move on, Summer elects to go and search some of the other flats for food and water, leaving Adam alone with Noah. Perhaps unsurprisingly after the events of the past twenty-four hours, the boy is not interested in speaking to Adam, or in exploring his surroundings; instead he sandwiches himself into a corner between the bed and the wall, and drawing his knees up loses himself in his screen.

  As the day wears on Adam is struck again by how vulnerable the boy seems. At first he had thought it was mostly a function of his extreme thinness, the rigidity with which he holds himself, but he sees now it is more than that. Where another child might place the screen on their knees Noah holds it up against his face, mumbling and poking at it as if trying to drown out something he cannot put out of his mind.

  Yet affecting as he finds Noah’s vulnerability, it is Summer’s responses to the boy that are most painful to observe. Tired, stressed, anxious, she cannot seem to stop herself growing impatient with him, or finding
fault with his behaviour, reactions she regrets almost immediately.

  ‘Jesus, Noah,’ she snaps when he refuses the biscuits and cheese she has found, ‘you have to eat.’

  It is late afternoon before the boy finally emerges from his corner beside the bed. With so little for him to do, Summer does not seek to prevent him looking through the rooms, sitting on the bed and going through the drawers. She is in the living room with Adam when Noah reappears and asks where the owner of the flat has gone.

  Adam and Summer exchange a glance.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Summer says. ‘Perhaps they went to one of the crisis centres.’

  ‘Like the church?’

  Summer nods. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘But what about the water?’

  ‘I’m sure they will have had some plan.’

  ‘But that lady, this morning, those kids.’

  Adam touches the boy’s shoulder. ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ he says quietly.

  It is after ten before it finally grows dark. Although Noah shows no signs of tiredness Summer insists he lie down on the bed, but because he is frightened he wants Summer to stay with him, leaving Adam alone.

  Through the window the night is still, warm, the only sound that of the water moving by, the only light the moon, the massing girdle of the Milky Way. Some time after eleven Summer reappears. Crossing to where Adam sits, she looks out.

  ‘They’re so bright,’ she says, indicating the stars.

  ‘With the power down, there are no lights to interfere with them.’

  Summer is silent for a moment. ‘They make everything down here seem insignificant, don’t they?’

  ‘I suppose it is, if you look at it from that perspective.’

  She is quiet again. ‘I wonder what did happen to the person who lived here.’

  ‘Nothing good.’

  ‘How many do you think are dead?’

  ‘A lot.’ Adam looks at her staring out over the water, her face unreadable.

  When she finally speaks again her voice is more distant. ‘What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. We keep talking about trying to stop what’s happening, slow it down somehow, but I’m not sure that’s even possible any more. There are so many of us, and resources are stretched so thin the system can’t survive unless there’s some kind of radical change. The problem is we’re so busy stumbling from one disaster to the next we can’t get any distance, can’t see what’s happening for what it is.’

  ‘You mean the end?’

  ‘A point of transition.’

  ‘You were good with him today,’ Summer says, more softly.

  Adam smiles. ‘He’s a nice kid.’

  ‘He likes you. Trusts you even.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘After this?’

  Adam nods. ‘You can’t go back. You know that.’

  ‘I’m not alone in that,’ she snaps.

  He flinches.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a long couple of days.’ She pauses. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she says at last. ‘Did you ever want to leave? When I was a kid?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t mean leave Mum, I mean leave me.’

  What he wants to say is that he loves her, that he always did, and that she is still his child. But all he says is, ‘Never.’

  Summer doesn’t reply. She is so alone, he thinks, so lost, and it frightens him, not because of what she might do to others, but what she might do to herself.

  The next day dawns hot and humid. The water has begun to recede, exposing the windows of the ground floor again. On their screens and overlays there are reports of thousands drowned, together with images Adam decides Noah does not need to see.

  ‘When will we be able to leave?’ the boy asks over a breakfast of crackers and cheese plundered from one of the flats.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Adam says. ‘In a day or two.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Perhaps, though probably not.’

  ‘The next day?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Adam says.

  As the day progresses the water level continues to drop, and as it does they see the first signs of other survivors. First two helicopters pass overhead, moving fast and high; a little later a makeshift raft with half a dozen men and women on it floats by. They look filthy and exhausted, and one lies flat, his leg bound up in a splint, but when Adam calls out to them several wave their hands and call back.

  That night he sleeps on the sofa in the living room again. Alone in the dark he turns his overlays on, flicks through the feeds. There are so many reports it is difficult to make sense of them, to get a clear idea of the scale of the disaster, so finally he gives up and logs into his own archives. He finds himself pulling up images from the past, photos of him and Ellie before their separation, of Summer as a child, eventually stumbling upon a series taken when she was three, outside the house he moved to when he and Ellie separated. She is wearing a blue dress and mugging for the camera, her hands raised in imaginary tiger’s paws, her face contorted in a devilish roar. Looking at her image suspended in the air above him he has to fight the urge to reach out and try to touch it.

  He wakes early, the light from the window filling the room. Outside the moon is still visible, and in the dawn the water’s expanse spreads like ruffled silk beneath the colourless sky. Not for the first time he is struck by the beauty of the planet’s transformation, the indifferent majesty of the change that is taking place.

  It is nearly six when Summer appears. During the night he woke to the sound of an engine in the distance, and in the quiet that followed its passing he heard her awake in the next room: not surprisingly she now looks tired.

  ‘You’re up,’ she says.

  ‘For a while.’

  She comes to stand next to him and he is struck by a sense of something different in her manner.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asks.

  She looks at him briefly, then away. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Is Noah . . .?’

  ‘Sleeping.’ She turns to look at the bottles on the table. ‘We need to get out, find water and food.’

  ‘If the water drops enough we can try today.’

  And so, come late afternoon, they descend the stairs, wade out into the street. The water is waist-deep, but flowing slowly enough not to be a problem. Now it is possible to see the full scale of the destruction: cars and trees banked against buildings and fences, scrap piled upon them, windows damaged or missing, walls standing at all angles. A few hundred metres down the road a car has been rammed through the front wall of a block of flats; a little further on the entire roof of a house rests upside down but intact in a stand of trees by the side of the road.

  There are other, grimmer sights as well. More than once they come across bodies caught in the wreckage. A man pinned to a wall by a car, a woman face down in a sump, a girl hanging suspended in the branches of an overturned tree. At first they try to shield Noah’s eyes, but after the third body they give up, and just move past them in silence.

  Yet not everyone they come upon is dead. As they make their way along the road they see people in the distance, some working to retrieve things from houses or loading them onto makeshift rafts, others wading through the water, dragging bags and boxes, dogs and cats, bearing children on their shoulders.

  The going is not easy: the water is filthy, brown with mud and slick with oil and sewage, the ground beneath it uneven and treacherous. More than once they slip and fall, fighting to keep their faces above the surface as they sprawl forward, to prevent the water entering their mouths and noses.

  Finally, as dusk is approaching, they come to a patch of higher ground surmounted by a military tent of some sort. Inside several men and women in uniform can be seen; in front of it two soldiers are supervising a small crowd of people who are filling their bottles at a line of plastic water butts mounted on pallets. Lowering Noah to the ground Adam approaches thi
rstily, taking one of the proffered bottles and filling it at the tap, passing it to the boy before filling another for himself.

  At the next butt Summer is filling her bottle; she catches his eye for a moment. But Noah has seen the soldiers, is asking about their guns and armour, and Adam lets the boy lead him towards the nearest. To his relief the soldier is friendly, smiling at Noah, asking him how old he is. Something in Summer’s expression snagging in his mind, Adam glances over his shoulder, but she is gone.

  ‘Is this your son?’ the soldier asks.

  ‘Grandson,’ he says, touching the boy’s shoulder. ‘Noah.’

  Noah reaches up and takes his hand. Adam grips it tight, no longer sure whether he is holding on for the boy’s sake or for his own.

  A week after she moves into her new house Ellie locks the door and strikes out towards the hills on the far side of the valley. The day is unseasonably cool, a south-westerly blowing down from the mountains pushing the clouds overhead, but out of the wind the sun is still hot.

  Once the land below was farmland, given over to cows and sheep and horses: she remembers driving through here as a child, gazing out at fields and sheds. In the twenties or thirties it was sold off to one of the carbon credit schemes, and partially planted with native trees and genetically engineered plants. When the schemes went bankrupt the planting was abandoned, and the land left to run wild, the only reminders of its former lives the straggly rows of trees and the old farm buildings scattered here and there amongst them.

  Her plan was to walk to the top of the hill and then strike back towards the road, but as she climbs she finds herself veering west, attracted by the view down to the river and the mountains beyond, their flanks the colour of thunderclouds. On this side of the ridge the larger trees give way to stands of stringybark and the occasional yellow box, many covered with the lumpy excrescences of genetically engineered lichen and bloatmoss, their presence jarring.

  In the lee of the hill it is warmer, and after a few minutes she unpeels her jacket and ties it around her waist. Making a mental note to bring a bottle of water next time she goes out walking she starts up the hill again, but after a couple of steps she notices a wooden, box-like structure half hidden behind a tree off to her left.