Breakdown (16 page)

“What sort of a deal?”

Chris gave her a brief outline.

Freddie’s smile got wider. “He’s so bright. I’ve despaired over him for years. He’s just soaking it up now. I know we owe it to you. He adores you.”

Chris noticed the way she tilted her head, blinked her lashes at him, licked her lips.
Oh, hell.

“He’s a good kid.” He took a step back, sipped at his glass, kept his eyes averted.

“Wow,” Freddie said. “That was loud and clear.” She crossed her arms.

Irritation crept out of its hiding-hole. Chris sucked air in through his teeth. He tried to come up with something that wouldn’t sound too rude.

She spoke again before he could. “Relax. I’m not on the prowl. I really only wanted to talk about Wes. I’m hugely pleased that he’s coming to school. I wanted to thank you.”

Chris slid his eyes over at her. “You’re welcome.”

“We don’t all of us have a one-track mind, you know.” She smiled as if she couldn’t help it. “The gals were right.”

“About what?”

“You. You go all prickly at the first sign of a female.”

“Not true.” Chris’s face grew warm. He wanted to down the rest of his beer. He sipped again.

“Okay, you weren’t prickly to start, I’ll give you that. But the least bit of flirtation scares the hell out of you.”

Chris stared. “Was that a test?”

She shifted her stance. “I suppose it was. I’m sorry.”

Chris clenched his jaw, counted to ten. He didn’t know this woman well enough to get angry at her. He glanced toward the door. Surely bath time was over.

“Oh, don’t bolt, please,” Freddie said. She put a hand on his arm. Chris resisted the urge to jerk away from her. “Look, I know your story: you lost your wife. I’m sorry, really I am. Can we get past that now? I promise not to flirt if you promise not to bite.” She took her hand back.

Chris studied her through narrowed eyes. She had a confidence he used to find attractive. He tried to let go of the tension in his shoulders.

“My bark is worse than my bite,” he said.

“I figured that.” She stood waiting while he fidgeted.

He gave in. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Yes, thanks.”

They found an empty booth near the back corner, away from the darts room and the front door. Chris nursed what was left of his beer. He didn’t think another pint was a good idea. Freddie sipped.

“So. Um, Freddie is an unusual name,” Chris said and realized how it sounded. “But nice,” he tacked on and mentally kicked himself.

“It’s better than Frederica, isn’t it?”

“Ah. Well...”

“Relax,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

“I am.”

“I’d hate to see you tense, then.”

“It’s not pretty.”

Freddie studied him. He felt the warmth rising in his face again and looked away.

“How much do you know about Wes?” she asked finally, to his relief. “Does he talk to you? I mean, really talk to you?”

“I know what Pauline told me, that he’s been on his own since the first outbreak, as far as anyone knows. I asked him once where he came from. He said Portsmouth, but he was lying.”

“How do you know he was lying?”

“He wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t give me any details. I don’t know, I could just tell.” Chris shrugged. “He doesn’t open up easily.”

“You’ve tried?”

“A little, yes. It’s like pulling teeth, though. He’s got plenty of questions, but not as many answers.”

Freddie leaned forward a little, intent now. “What does he ask about?”

“About me. About what things used to be like.”

“Has he ever asked you to help with schoolwork?”

“No. I’ve asked a few times how it was going. He always says it’s fine. How is it going?”

“He does very well in mathematics. He’s struggling a bit with reading, but coming along. He used to get frustrated easily, but he seems to have more patience now.”

“That’s good to hear. What else do you teach them?”

Freddie got a disgusted look on her face and sat back. She took a swig of her drink. “Not much else. A bit of history. A bit of geog raphy. I don’t know what it’s like other places, but we’re taking a big step backward as far as education goes around here.”

“The world’s changed,” Chris said. “Priorities have changed.”

“We don’t have to slide back into ignorance.”

“You were always a teacher,” Chris guessed.

“Yes. I’d been teaching for three years when the crash came. We had no school here for two years, then Mrs. Wright and I started it up again. It’s been a challenge. But I love teaching. What did you do before?”

Chris stared at the tabletop. “Nothing so noble,” he grunted and took a drink. Freddie was quiet, turning her glass around in circles on the table.

“You’ll keep up with Wes, won’t you? Offer to help him, talk to him?”

“Of course, for as long as I’m here.”

“Pauline said you don’t plan to stay.”

“No.”

“It’s a nice town. The people are friendly. We could use a few more men.”

“I have family in Bath,” Chris said, gripping his glass.

“So why—” she started, then bit her lip. “Sorry, none of my business.”

Someone in the pub was smoking. Chris breathed in the smell. For the first time since Portsmouth, he wanted a cigarette.

“It’s a long story,” he said, his voice low. He didn’t know what else to say, struggled to find something.

“This may be an intrusive question, but have you ever sent a letter?”

Chris blinked, held the glass halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. He took a drink. “Ah, no.”

“We do have the post. It gets more reliable all the time. Do you remember their addresses?”

“I don’t know—” Chris said, and in an instant, the numbers and roads and even the postal codes leapt forward from the recesses of his mind. Jon’s flat and Brian’s house. “Um, yes.”

“I have note cards and envelopes, if you want to do that. Or you could get them at the post office.”

“I—thank you. I’ll have to think about that.” Chris sat back and took a deep breath, trying to slow the thumping of his heart. A letter. Such a simple idea. One that had never entered his head. Brother Luke had once said that the brain was capable of blocking out the strangest things if someone didn’t want to face them. He wondered what Pauline would have to say about it.

Freddie furrowed her brow. “I think I’ve struck a nerve. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s okay. Just surprised me. I really hadn’t ever thought about it. I might do, though.” Chris fiddled with the little cloth square on the table that served as a napkin and drink mat. He really wanted a cigarette.

Freddie glanced at the clock on the wall. “Gosh, look at the time. I have to go.” She downed the last of her beer. “I have papers to grade. Thanks for the drink.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We’ll talk some more, about Wes, okay?”

“Sure.”

Her eyes flicked over his shoulder. “Um, Diana’s just spotted you. You might want to make your escape.” She grinned.

Chris found himself grinning back. “Indeed.” They both slid out of the booth and headed for the vestibule to get their coats. Chris took Freddie’s from her and held it for her while she put her arms in the sleeves.

“Thanks. You’re sweet. What a waste.” She gave him a mischievous look.

Chris let it pass and put his own coat on. He held the door for her.

“Good night, Chris. I’ll see you around?”

“I expect so. G’night.”

She headed off into town without looking back. Chris watched her, then turned up the hill.

* * *

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the study’s two long walls. Her father’s desk stood in front of the only window in the end wall. Two dark leather chairs with brass studs sat across from each other on an oriental rug. Pauline had always considered the place dark and foreboding, so she draped the sheet with orange and yellow flowers over a pile of boxes and other things in the corner next to the door.

“We were never allowed to come in here as kids,” Pauline told Chris as he settled himself in a chair.

“You brought in the cheerful.” Chris motioned with his head at the flowered sheet.

“You know what’s under there? Electric lamps, the microwave, the stereo, phones. Dad’s computer. The coffeemaker.”

“Oh, coffee...” Chris gave a mock groan and leaned his head back against the leather.

“I’ve got used to herbal tea, but I do miss coffee,” Pauline said.

“They had real tea in London,” Chris said. “But no coffee.”

“Oh? Tell me. What kind of tea?”

Chris stiffened. He clutched the arms of the chair with fingers gone white and stared at the books on the wall above her head. Pauline could see his chest rise and fall.

“Relax. Nothing horrible. Just tea. Go on.”

“I only had it once, when I first got there. Only the Big Four got tea, usually.”

“Who were the Big Four?”

“They ran the place. Not all of London, just the group I happened to—”

“To what?”

“End up with.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did you end up with them?”

Chris went into his hunch. “You said nothing horrible.”

Pauline wasn’t sure how to reply to that. She waited.

“They picked me up on the street. After—after I’d been to Kevin’s flat. And I was—just wandering around.”

“Okay. And they gave you tea?”

“Next morning. For breakfast. I think Marcus—”

Here Chris stopped and took several deep breaths. He pushed himself out of the chair, paced, then sat back down. “I don’t want to do this.”

Pauline waited.

“I think the leader wanted to impress me with the tea. So I’d stay. Not that I was in much shape to leave.”

“Why not?”

“I’d been beaten up. I was upset about Kevin, and didn’t pay attention, and got jumped just as it was getting dark.”

“They jumped you and beat you, then gave you tea?”

“No.” Chris clenched his fists. “No. A different gang jumped me. Marcus’s gang came along and saved me.” He stared at the floor. “They had a nice racket going. Blackmail, black market, ‘protection.’ They’d taken over a boarding school. Posh place, hot showers, plenty of food. I got—drawn in. Some of the chaps were nice enough. It’s easy to justify your actions when the alternative is starving or being killed, right?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“You’ve never been in that situation, have you? It never got that bad here. You never had to worry about what you might eat the next day.”

“We had to be very careful with food for several years before George and I really knew what we were doing.”

“Not what I mean,” Chris said, his hands in fists, watching her. “You’ve never gone for days without food. You’ve never wished for a crumb of something to use as bait for a squirrel or a rat, because all the dogs and cats had already been eaten.”

Pauline didn’t know what her face looked like. She didn’t feel calm. She wondered if Chris could see her shaking. She had to clear her throat.

“Did you eat rats, Chris?”

He leaned forward in his chair. “When you’re cold and starving—not hungry,
starving
—it’s just meat.”

Pauline put a hand up to her mouth; she couldn’t help it.

Chris hung his head and cursed under his breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” His voice shook. “I’m sorry. Crap. That was uncalled for.”

“It’s okay. Maybe I need to learn a thing or two.”

“There are things I don’t remember. Long stretches of time. After I left Archie’s cabin, before I got to Saint Crispin’s. There used to be people—before winter came, that first year, when it was so bad—that weren’t right in the head anymore. They just wandered around, dirty, stinking like shit, crying sometimes.” Chris ran a hand through his hair.

“Go ahead,” Pauline told him. “Tell me.”

“Stew used to call them zombies. I think I might have been like that, for a while. I don’t know. I got pretty dirty I think. And then I just remember this man, talking to me, giving me food. He locked me in a room, I think, in a house. But it was warm, and he kept giving me food. And he used to sit with me and talk to me for hours. After a while I started talking back. He made me clean myself up. He showed me how to find food. We made plans. And then one morning I woke up and he was dead.”

Pauline stifled a sob and blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry. What was his name?”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. If he told me, I don’t remember.”

Pictures wheeled in Pauline’s mind of hungry people, crying children, huddled around fires. Of Chris, dirty and shivering, lying on a floor, watching the rats hungrily. Something touched her shoulder and she jerked a little. Chris stood next to her.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

She looked up and saw worry in his face. “I told you it might be hard sometimes.” She wanted to reach out and take his hand.

Chris stuffed his hands into his pockets and stepped away. “Sophie was kind, like you,” he said. “She always wanted to help people.” He turned for the door and left the room. It sounded like he took the stairs two at a time.

CHAPTER 14

T
he days grew shorter, and frost glittered on the ground in the mornings as Chris went out to do the chores. George taught Chris how to harness the two draft horses to the wagon. They drove down the road past Cooper’s house and into the woods to cut trees. George had borrowed a chain saw, but he only used it for felling. They used axes as much as they could to save on petrol. They took two loads of logs to a sawmill north of Petersfield and came back with two loads of lumber. They cleared off the concrete floor of an old barn that had burned down when George and Pauline were both away at university. George’s father had never felt the need to rebuild it. George hoped to have a good start on a new hay shed before the weather got too bad.

For several evenings they sat at the kitchen table and discussed plans for the shed, referring to a couple of how-to books George had found in the market. Other nights they sat with the women in the sitting room, a cheerful fire in the grate, sipping cider. George taught Chris to play chess.