The Citadel and the Wolves (22 page)

I reached for my diary. I made a new entry in it:

“WOLVES!”

12. MOTHER AND CHILD

I smirked.

Tommy thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. He occasionally glanced at the bed.

When a slight sound woke me, (a creaking floorboard in my room) Tommy put his head around the door, checking that I was asleep first. I knew him. He was up to something. He crept into my room. I remained perfectly still under the covers, observing him amused. I bit my lip when I thought that I would giggle. He moved my dresser chair, making enough noise to wake the dead, and stood it beneath the wardrobe, glancing at the bed once more. I smiled. So, that’s what the little horror is up to. I might have known. He reached up for my rifle.

He jumped like a startled gazelle when I leapt from my bed and grabbed him by the shoulders.

As I was throwing Tommy out of my room, I caught Mark Taylor sneaking out of Wendy’s. When he saw me, he looked guilty about something. I blocked his way on the landing, sternly folding my arms

“Morning, J-Jade.”

I glared at him. He couldn’t meet my penetrating gaze. I let him by after a moment. Then I stuck out my foot as an afterthought. He half-tripped, vanishing into the bathroom.

My beautiful but dizzy, older sister had some explaining to do.

As I strode into Wendy’s room unannounced, she fled beneath the covers, puzzling me briefly. I glanced at her little, pink nightdress on the floor. I picked it up and dropped it over a chair. She rarely slept nude. When did this all start? What else had started too? I looked around her room suspiciously, searching for clues. I could still smell his cheap scent.

“You startled me, Jade,” complained Wendy breathlessly under the blankets.

I ignored my sister as I opened her shutters, letting some light into her gloomy room. It was morning, yet it seemed like late afternoon.

I sat on her bed. Wendy was unable to look me in the eye, which is always a sign of guilt.

“Wendy, I know your dirty, little secret,” I revealed.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jade,” stammered Wendy, betraying her guilt.

I came straight to the point: “Wendy, are you sleeping with him, or is that a stupid question?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think, Sis, King Kong?”

She bit her nails nervously. “You won’t tell mum or dad, will you, Jade?”

I was amused. “You’re over eighteen, Wendy, aren’t you? He’s over eighteen…probably.”

She looked relieved. “Thanks, Jade. You’re my best sister.”

“I’m your only sister.”

We hugged and kissed as sisters do when they make up, but we hadn’t fallen out.

“I do love Mark,” declared Wendy for the first time.

“I know.”

“Is it that obvious?”

I nodded.

I was happy for my elder sister who had found love again after the disaster with Kevin Willis; however, I remained suspicious of Mark Taylor. There was something about him. It was a feeling that I had. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I aimed to find out.

After Romeo had vacated the bathroom, I washed down and dressed.

The freezing weather and snow has kept
the Roamers
and the other street gangs quiet. There is less looting and burning on the streets. They have vanished into their holes. Personally, I hope they all die from exposure; however, it’s nice and cosy in our fortress home,
The Citadel at 10 Crown Dale Close.
Wendy and I have got the fires burning in our rooms. Before the big freeze set in early, we went out to the local woods on the common and cut down a few trees. We’ve got enough fuel for heating and cooking to last us a few months or more.

Our biggest problem and fear remains a severe water shortage, which is hitting everyone in the street. The mobile water tankers haven’t been around for some weeks now. We’re getting desperately short. The water barrels are half-full. We used melted snow, but that didn’t last long. It hasn’t snowed since. Father has called a family meeting at breakfast to discuss the situation. Although things look bad, I remain optimistic as ever.

We sat around the breakfast table, except Tommy who sat under the table with his drawing book, hot drink and homemade biscuits. I stroked his face with my barefoot. Mum supplied the hot drinks and homemade biscuits, which were crumbly and spicy.

Father lit his pipe and opened the family conference: “Things are getting desperate without the regular supply of water. We’ve got to make some hard decisions very soon. Do we stay or leave and move in with Uncle Mike on his farm in Wales?”

Wendy and I were horrified. We loved
The Citadel.

“The water tankers haven’t been around for three weeks,” reminded daddy. “When they were due yesterday, they didn’t show again. We can no longer rely on them for our water supplies. It was something that I had always feared would happen, and it has.”

Father sounded grim. He was looking to us for some of the answers and solutions.

“The water barrels?” I proposed brightly.

“That’s only a very short-term solution, Jade,” said mum. “What happens when we hit the dry season in the summer?”

I couldn’t answer her question. I ate a biscuit with my hot drink.

Wendy thought that she had the answer: “Daddy, we could go out and look for the water, couldn’t we?”

“Where?” wondered mum.

“The lakes in Crystal Palace Park for a start,” answered Wendy. “There’s plenty of water there.”

Daddy sighed. “It’s not a solution, Wendy, and transporting it in bulk would be a big headache. No, we need a constant, unbroken supply much closer to home.”

Wendy looked disappointed.

“A well?” said Mark Taylor who was an invited guest at the breakfast table family conference.

He wasn’t a member of our family…yet.

“And where do we find this well?” I asked sceptically. “We aren’t living on a farm here, you know.”

Mark Taylor inquired, “Mr Robinson, how old is this house?”

“It dates back to around the middle of the nineteenth century,” answered daddy who knew the history of the house well. “It’s a former vicarage.”

“So, this area of London would have been in the countryside then, fields, meadows and country lanes?” ventured Mark Taylor.

“It was,” I said. I was annoyed. I hate being ignored. “This area wasn’t part of London before the great urban sprawl of the late nineteenth century. It was in the heart of the Surrey countryside. London was miles away on the other side of the river.” I was looking back to a time that I never knew. I wish I had.

“What are you getting at, Mark?” quizzed mum.

My question exactly. Things were as clear as mud. What was he up to?

“Most houses then relied upon a well at the bottom of their property for their water supplies, Mrs Robinson.”

“Yes.”

“How does this help us?” I probed.

“There must be a well somewhere at the bottom of this property,” elucidated Mark Taylor. “We could get our water supplies from it.”

Mark Taylor waited for a pat on the back for coming up with this astounding idea. He didn’t get it, except perhaps from Wendy who made eyes at him. She was playing footsie with him under the table. It’s rather sickly when someone is in love, especially your older sister.

Father expressed doubt: “If there was a well at the bottom of this property, it was probably filled in long ago when the house was connected to the mains.”

Wendy suggested, “But we could search for it, couldn’t we?”

And that’s what we found ourselves doing at the bottom of our garden on the other side of the vegetable plot near the west wall in the freezing cold. Although we had dressed up warmly, a sharp wind cut right through my layers of heavy clothing. I could brain my sister and Mark Taylor. He had put the idea of finding a well at the bottom of our property into the minds of the others, and they believed in it now. I did not.

We stood around the dried-up pond. We kept goldfish in it in the old days. The water shortages put paid to that.

“Mr Robinson, what was here before the pond?” wondered Mark Taylor.

“An old, crumbling summerhouse,” replied father. “My father built it when he first bought this property in the middle of the last century.”

I was too small to remember it.

“I think we should start here,” said Mark Taylor.

“There might be tons of concrete under here,” I warned.

Mark Taylor smiled irritatingly. “There won’t be, believe me, Jade.”

I didn’t. I glared at the back of his head. I’d figured out what his little game was. Mark Taylor was trying to ingratiate himself with daddy and the others. Well, it wouldn’t wash with me.

Father and Mark Taylor started work immediately, breaking through the dried-up pond with pickaxes. They wouldn’t find anything down there, except more concrete or dirt. When they broke through the pond, they found old brickwork from the foundations of the summerhouse. I was right. It was more concrete. Mark Taylor had raised the others’ expectations, only to have them dashed. I remained the sceptic because I didn’t believe, so there were no hopes to be dashed.

“The old summerhouse foundations,” remarked father, sounding disappointed. He wiped the sweat from his brow despite the cold, for it was hard, physical work.

“Don’t look so smug, Jade. You don’t want us to find a well, do you?” accused Wendy.

Her hurtful remarks stung me. How could she say that? It-It wasn’t true. I snatched the pickaxe from Mark Taylor, who looked startled.

“You want a well? Then you shall have a well.” I smashed into the hard concrete with a look of grim determination set in my face.

“Darling, is this fit of pique really necessary?” sighed mum, looking on helplessly.

“Yes, Mum,” I grunted breathlessly as I swung the pickaxe once more, smashing into the stubborn, unyielding concrete. Then something odd happened. A small hole appeared in the ground.

“Jade has found something,” said Mark Taylor excitedly as he examined the small hole.

Oh, DROKK! I thought.

The others took over, making the hole bigger.

Wendy smirked. “Well done, Jade.”

I remained unconvinced however. “It might not be anything.”

“We’ll soon find out, Jade.” Mark Taylor picked up a stone and dropped it down the hole.

We heard a splash a moment or two later.

“Jade has found our well for us,” announced Mark Taylor with a grin on his face.

The others laughed. Although I pouted and folded my arms petulantly, I was secretly pleased because it meant that we didn’t have to leave our London home,
The Citadel,
and move up to the wilds of Wales with Uncle Mike.

Father tied a length of rope to a galvanised bucket and lowered it down into the hole. We waited expectantly. When he hauled the bucket back up, it was filled to the brim with muddy water. He tipped it out. The second wasn’t. It was crystal clear. It was water. It was more than that. It was fresh drinking water flowing under our property. It was the most beautiful sight in the world. Mother brought out some glasses, and we celebrated with a toast to our new discovery, drinking the nectar from the bottom of our well that tasted sweeter than wine.

Mark Taylor started to bore us silly, going on and on about there being a network of old underground streams and rivers that still existed beneath the streets of London, especially in the suburbs. We weren’t aware of this till Mark Taylor told us. I wanted to gag him with a piece of old rope.

It was evening.

The others were downstairs. I checked, looking over the banisters at the top of the stairs, before I silently pulled down the steps, biting my lip. I climbed up into the attic.

I stood in the middle of the attic, looking around. It wasn’t as I knew it in the old days when it was dad’s observatory before the coming of the comet. Mark Taylor had changed it. He had made it into his own room. I turned my attention to other things. I was up here for a reason. I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what it was yet. I’d know it when I’d found it. I started by searching through his hold-all that he had with him when he had first arrived here. I found old, smelly clothes. I discovered his single suit in the wardrobe. I went through his pockets. I came up empty. He was hiding something up here. What was it? When I looked under his pillow, I found a photo of a young, dark-haired girl, quite pretty, holding a baby. Who was she? I looked on the back of the photograph.

She had written:

“To Mark, love always,
Kim.”

My eyes narrowed darkly. Was Kim his wife? Was the infant his? I was determined to find out for my sister’s sake.

I sat in the armchair in the living room later reading an old magazine that I’d read one hundred times before. I glanced at Wendy and Mark Taylor occasionally. They sat on the settee together, touching each other intimately. When he caught me, I stared him out till he looked away. I grinned behind my magazine. It was a small victory.

As I was going up to bed later, feeling tired after a long day, I was startled by Wendy, who pulled me into the bathroom, locking the door.

“You nearly pulled my arm out of the socket,” I complained, rubbing my bruised arm.

She stood in front of me aggressively with her hands on her hips. I could tell by her eyes that she was upset about something. I think I knew.

I giggled nervously. “What’s up, Sis?”

“You know what’s up, Jade Robinson. I want you to be nice to Mark,” answered Wendy.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I am.”

“You’re trying to drive him away because you’re jealous,” said Wendy with a little tremble in her voice.

I was astonished. “Don’t be ridiculous, Wendy. I have no designs on Mark Taylor whatsoever.” It was just an absurd idea. I wondered if I should tell Wendy about the picture that I’d found in the attic. I didn’t. I was loath to hurt her. She’d find out soon enough what a love rat Mark Taylor was. It would all end in tears. “We shouldn’t be fighting, Sis. I promise to be nice and sweet to Mark Taylor in future.” I said it with my fingers crossed behind my back.

It was late.

The Robinson family are great survivors. When the local sub-station crashed forever, we hooked up a salvaged generator to give us light and power. When we lost the gas later too, we salvaged an old iron range and a boiler to give mum heating for her cooking and our weekly hot baths. Wood fuel isn’t a real problem either with the woods nearby on the common and elsewhere. Then today we rediscovered the old well at the bottom of our garden. I grudgingly thank Mark Taylor for that. It was his idea after all, though I did in fact find it. The Robinson family have become great salvagers. That’s how we’ve managed to survive after the comet while others have perished along the way. Having a scientist for a father with a big brain also helps.