The Petitioners (6 page)

‘OK?’ he said again, scrambling to his feet and offering me a hand.

There was still a glimmer of light from the sky above, although it was mostly obscured by the trees. I realised he was smiling. I smiled back, hoping this meant the danger was now past.

At least nobody was firing anything at us – yet. I had been there and done that on my headlong flight to Ravernie with my father, which now seemed as if it had happened years instead of only months before.

‘Where are we?’

‘Sssh. This way.’

He pointed the device at one side of the hole and a door began to swing open. It was cleverly concealed by being constructed out of earth and tree roots so that it blended into the surroundings. When I saw the tunnel behind it, dark and smelling of earth, I almost panicked, but then somewhere above us I heard a noise. Men shouting. They didn’t sound very far away. It was the tunnel with Jeff or the open air above with the mob. I had to decide quickly who to trust.

I followed him meekly into the darkness after all.

GAVIN

Declan and Fiona seemed to have settled down again. Maybe the showers rigged up by Tanya’s team had done the trick, or maybe they were just biding their time.

Dan wasn’t really speaking to me, but that wasn’t at all unusual. Like most human males we could spend days together without communicating verbally. At these times I almost wished I had packed him off to the Highlands with Emma. But Jennifer was the one I had been more worried about, and at least this way I was fairly sure she was safe.

Tanya Fairfax herself hung around for longer than I had expected. It was a nuisance having to be careful what I said – I wasn’t sure if she would take my sarcastic throwaway comments in the spirit in which they were intended – and to have to work conscientiously at my task while she was in the stables with me, which seemed to happen unnervingly often.

But after a while I got more or less used to her, to the point where I came out and asked her who she was working for.

It was a rainy afternoon after a run of more or less dry days during which Tanya’s team had collected and brought me an unprecedented haul of information and photographs. I didn’t want them trying to bring me any of the objects or relics of  ruined buildings, at least for now. It was more important to record everything as it was on the ground. After that, I hoped, decisions could be made about what had to be saved and what could be left to crumble. In other circumstances we might have tried to save everything, but that was impossible, World Heritage Site or not. The team members had done well in capturing pictures on an impressively large camera they had brought with them, and I thought they had delegated one person to take notes on a voice recorder. When I played it back, it sounded like the same voice throughout. I was grateful for this, because up to now we had been relying on my own drawing ability to record details of buildings and plot them on an out of date map Dan had found during one of the raids. I was struck by the idea that it would now be even more out of date than before, with the changes wrought by the storm. But that was part of the reason for what I was doing.

I had been in the stables all day doing an initial sift through everything to try and decide how to approach it all. Until Tanya and her team had come along, I had been keeping notes in hand-written form and on a very feeble voice recorder that was part of one of Dan’s gadgets, but now we had the luxury of a voice-activated digital database in which to save the information. I hadn’t really thought about where the data actually resided – we were in a post-cloud phase in which each city in Scotland had its own data bank, but I happened to know the Edinburgh one had been destroyed in the storm. Of course there would be a backup somewhere but there was nothing to restore to and I thought the communications infrastructure was certain to have been damaged at least, if not completely ruined. Tanya seemed to have access to something suitable, though. I didn’t waste much time wondering again about who exactly she was, but it did cross my mind from time to time.

‘So this is what your passion is,’ said Tanya’s voice just behind me. How had she crept round there without making any sound? ‘You hide it well, Gavin. I wouldn’t have thought you…’

Her voice tailed off, which was uncharacteristic of the woman. She seemed like somebody who was confident enough to finish her sentences, no matter how big a minefield they led to.

‘You wouldn’t have thought I was capable of getting immersed in my work?’ I suggested.

She actually blushed. ‘I didn’t mean it quite like that. I’m sorry. It’s interesting that you’re actually working at something resembling your profession under the circumstances.’

‘How about you, Tanya?’ I said, straightening up from my study of one of my earlier notebooks. I wasn’t sure how much of an overlap there was between what I had done earlier, and what the team had been doing. It had been a while since I wrote in a real notebook, but pencil and paper were the only tools available when I started on my project. I still got a guilty thrill out of using paper, which we had all been discouraged from wasting before.

‘What do you mean, how about me?’ said Tanya.

‘Are you working in your chosen profession right now? Or is this job a stop-gap, or a route to something better?’

‘I’ve got my own company,’ she said defensively.

‘Fairfax Consulting. And what’s the point of it?’

‘The point?’

‘What do you consult on? Is there a sector you specialise in? Or is it whatever pays the bills?’

‘I can’t stand people who scoff at paying the bills,’ she said. ‘If people behaved like responsible adults, then…’

‘Then what? We wouldn’t be in this mess now?’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘You scoff at everything, don’t you, Gavin? Even those revolutionary plans your friend Declan is hatching. You’re above it all, sailing along serenely, doing as much or as little as you choose…’

She was sailing too close to the truth for my liking. Or at least what I had always perceived to be the truth about myself.

‘That’s a lot to deduce from such a short acquaintance,’ I said, squinting at the soft-screen she had ordered her team to set up for me.

‘How are you getting on, anyway?’ she asked, more conciliatory now that we had finished with the statutory argument.

‘It’s a very slow process,’ I said.

‘Have you been down into town yourself?’

‘I started out going in every day – after the firemen and the flood wardens had finished, that is.’ In the absence of a government with the authority to mobilize the army, the fire service and the flood wardens amongst them had organised the retrieval, removal and disposal of bodies, which must have been about the grimmest task anybody could possibly imagine. I had spent most of my time trying not to imagine it. I blinked now, to get rid of the mental images that tended to flash past like a silent movie whenever I thought about it at all. I forced my mind away from them, and focussed instead on replying to Tanya as if I were a calm, reasonable person instead of the quivering wreck that lurked somewhere inside me. ‘But the data built up quicker than I had time to look it over, so the others told me to stay here and process it while they brought pictures and notes back with them.’

‘So do you always do what Declan says?’ enquired Tanya Fairfax. There was a mocking tone in her voice which I took exception to. Was there any point in arguing about that, though? I didn’t think so.

I shrugged. ‘Only if he’s making sense at the time. He doesn’t always – you may have noticed.’

She smiled. ‘And what will you do once the work is finished here? Will you move on to another city and do the same?’

I hadn’t thought about that, and she probably knew it. ‘It’ll take a while to finish here.’

‘Do you plan to take the buildings apart and re-assemble them on higher ground? Or this all just for the record?’

‘Are you planning to offer your help with it?’

‘That isn’t in my gift,’ she said.

‘Well, it isn’t my decision either. I just know that if we don’t start recording now, it will be too late. It is already, in many ways that matter.’

She nodded. ‘Good analysis. You’re quite a clear thinker, aren’t you?’

And you’re quite a patronising middle-aged woman, I wanted to say but didn’t. Fortunately Declan appeared at that moment.

‘How’s it going?’ he enquired.

‘All right,’ I said.

‘He’s being understated again,’ said Tanya. ‘It’s going extremely well.’

Declan glanced quizzically between us and said, ‘Understatement. Yes, that’s Gavin’s trademark, sure enough.’

‘How are you doing?’ I asked him, uncomfortable with his scrutiny on top of Tanya Fairfax’s interrogation – as I saw it.

‘Not so much for us to do now we have the lads,’ said Declan.

‘But you’re vital to the task,’ Tanya assured him. ‘They wouldn’t know where to start without your organisational skills.’

‘Why, thank you kindly, Ms Fairfax,’ he said, sounding amused. I expect Declan could recognise her patronising ways as well as I could. I wondered what she would have to say to Dan or Fiona if they should happen to put in an appearance too.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen either of them today. I felt a quick stab of alarm before remembering they had been scheduled to go off together to find a suitable place to build a beacon, which we had decided would be a useful way of communicating with other groups, just in case they didn’t all have a Tanya Fairfax with a little black device.

Declan had been a little scornful about the beacon idea – the propensity for scorn was one thing he and Tanya had in common – but Fiona seemed enthusiastic so she and Dan had set off through the rain, laughing together as they went.

I couldn’t quite get rid of the last twinge of uneasiness, or maybe it was the fact that I had been absent-mindedly munching on a soup capsule as I worked, and it didn’t really agree with me, especially in the afternoon. Declan had a master plan for us to grow our own vegetables and slaughter our own sheep, if we could catch one that was, but we hadn’t had time to put it into effect, what with struggle to find shelter, the raids into town to find useful stuff, and my own project, which by comparison I had to admit seemed somewhat frivolous. Rightly or wrongly, I was driven by my conviction that we couldn’t afford to lose our culture and civilization in this crisis. But maybe I had been exaggerating the importance of it all along.

I frowned as I stared at the latest set of photographs on the screen.

‘If we don’t rescue some of these buildings before the next lot of gales it’s going to be too late. Look at the way they’re leaning inwards. Those are the worst I’ve seen.’

Tanya and Declan each gave the pictures a cursory glance before returning to their verbal fencing.

‘So,’ said Declan, drawing out the word, ‘what would you like us to do tomorrow, Ms Fairfax?’

‘It depends on the weather,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to put anybody at risk, and if the buildings are in such a precarious state…’

‘That’s just Gavin being over-cautious,’ he said. ‘They’ve stood for hundreds of years, a lot of them. There’s no reason why one storm should completely de-stabilise them.’

I could think of lots of reasons, but I knew Declan wouldn’t listen to me. Maybe Tanya Fairfax could get through to him.

‘I’d better come with you one of those days and have a look for myself,’ she said, surprising me.

‘No need for that, I’m sure,’ said Declan. ‘No offence, but we try to only take people who are used to it and can cope.’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘Like Mrs Swan?’

‘There are special circumstances in the case of Mrs Swan,’ he said firmly.

‘I would have thought you’d agree there are special circumstances in my case too,’ she said.

I wanted to tell Declan to shut up, that the circumstance of Ms Fairfax having provided all this unsolicited help to us, including the food and shelter that was making our lives so much easier, was enough for him to overcome his natural suspicions and take her foraging with him, but all at once he gave in.

He held up a hand. ‘Fine, Ms Fairfax, that’ll be fine then. We’ll go down town together and have a grand time.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’ll be all that grand,’ she said, and turned on her heel and left.

He swore to himself under his breath and kicked one of the stable doors a couple of times.

‘She’s getting to you, is she?’ I said.

‘Doesn’t she get to everybody, Gav, even you?’ he asked, perhaps rhetorically.

‘When are we expecting Fiona and Dan back?’ I said, ignoring the question. ‘It’s going to be dark before long, especially on a day like this. They shouldn’t be wandering about up there.’

‘They’ll be fine,’ he said casually. ‘They’ve taken torches with them. It’s not exactly mountainous around here. Even if they slip they won’t do themselves much damage on such a gentle slope.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘You know me, Gav, nearly always right, except when I’m wrong.’

I tried not to worry as the daylight faded and the rain carried on rattling on the roof of the stables. Since the arrival of Tanya and her team, we had taken to having an evening meal all together in the big kitchen tent that had been the first to go up. I fully expected to see Fiona and Dan present and correct at the meal. It was almost unheard-of for Dan to miss out on a meal, being still in his growing years.