John Christopher - The Death of Grass

“No wheat, barley?”

“Not an acre.”

John said thoughtfully: “If the virus is beaten by then, grain’s going to fetch a high price.”

“Do you think a few other people haven’t thought of that? Why do you think the Order’s been rescinded {49} 49 rescinded: cancelled ?”

“It isn’t easy, is it?” John asked. “If they prohibit grain crops and the virus is beaten, this country will have to buy all its grain overseas, and at fancy prices.”

“It’s a pretty gamble,” David said, “—the life of the country against higher taxes.”

“The odds must be very good.”

David shook his head. “They’re not good enough for me. I’ll stick to potatoes.”

David returned to the subject on the afternoon of Christmas Day. Mary and young David had gone out into the frosty air to work off the effects of a massive Christmas dinner. The three adults, preferring a more placid mode of digestion, lay back in armchairs, half-heartedly listening to a Haydn {50} 50 Haydn: Austrian-born composer (1732–1809) symphony on gramophone records.

“How did your monstrosity go, John?” David asked. “Did you get it finished on time?”

John nodded. “I almost retched when I contemplated it in all its hideousness. But I think the one we’re on now will be able to give it a few points for really thoroughgoing ugliness.”

“Do you have to do it?”

“We must take our commissions where they lie. Even an architect has to accommodate himself to the whims of the man with the money to spend, and I’m only an engineer.”

“You’re not tied, though, are you—personally tied?”

“Only to the need for money.”

“If you wanted to take a sabbatical year, you could?”

“Of course. There’s just the odd problem of keeping the family out of the gutter.”

“I’d like you to come up here for a year.”

John sat up, startled. “What?”

“You would be doing me a favour. You needn’t worry about the financial side of things. There’s only three things a farmer can do with his ill-gotten gains—buy fresh land, spend them on riotous living, or hoard them. I’ve never wanted to have land outside the valley, and I’m a poor spender.”

John said slowly: “Is this because of the virus?”

“It may be silly,” David said, “but I don’t like the look of things. And I’ve seen those pictures of what happened in the East.”

John looked across at Ann. She said:

That was the East, though, wasn’t it? Even if things were to get short—this country’s more disciplined. We’ve been used to rationing and shortages. And at present there’s no sign of any real trouble. It’s asking rather a lot for John to throw things in and all of us to come and sponge on you for a year—just because things might go wrong.”

“Here we are,” David said, “sitting round the fire, at peace and with full bellies. I know it’s hard to imagine a future in which we shan’t be able to go on doing that. But I’m worried.”

“There’s never been a disease yet,” John said, “either of plant or animal, that hasn’t run itself out, leaving the species still alive and kicking. Look at the Black Death {51} 51 Black Death: the bubonic plague. Originated in Asia, reached England in lethal form in 1348-9. The skin of victims was blackened. .”

David shook his head. “Guess-work. We don’t know. What killed the great reptiles? Ice-ages? Competition? It could have been a virus. And what happened to all the plants that have left fossil remains but no descendants? It’s dangerous to argue from the fact that we haven’t come across such a virus in our short period of observation. A man could live a long life without seeing a comet visible to the naked eye. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any comets.”

John said, with an air of finality: “It’s very good of you, Dave, but I couldn’t, you know. I may not care for its results, but I like my work well enough. How would you like to spend a year in Highgate, sitting on your behind?”

“I’d make a farmer out of you in a month.”

“Out of Davey, maybe.”

The clock that ticked somnolently on the wall had rested there, spring cleanings apart, for a hundred and fifty years. The notion of the virus winning, Ann thought, was even more unlikely here than it had seemed in London.

She said: “After all, I suppose we could come up here if things were to get bad. But there’s no sign of them doing so at present.”

“I’ve been brooding about it, I expect,” David said. “There was something Grandfather Beverley said to me, the first time we came to the valley—that when he had been outside, and came back through the gap, he always felt that he could shut the door behind him.”

“It is a bit like that,” Ann said.

“If things do turn out badly,” David went on, “there aren’t going to be many safe refuges in England. But this can be one of them.”

“Hence the potatoes and beet,” John observed.

David said: “And more.” He looked at them. “Did you see that stack of timber by the road, just this side of the gap?”

“New buildings?”

David stood up and walked across to look out of the window on the wintry landscape. Still looking out, he said:

“No. Not buildings. A stockade.”

Ann and John looked at each other. Ann repeated:

“A stockade?”

David swung round. “A fence, if you like. There’s going to be a gate on this valley—a gate that can be held by a few against a mob.”

“Are you serious?” John asked him.

He watched this elder brother who had always been so much less adventurous, less imaginative, than himself. His manner now was as stolid and unexcited as ever; he hardly seemed concerned about the implications of what he had just said.

“Quite serious,” David said.

Ann protested: “But if things turn out all right, after all…”

“The countryside,” David said, “is always happy to have something to laugh at Custance’s Folly. I’m taking a chance on looking a fool. I’ve got an uneasiness in my bones, and I’m concerned with quietening it Being a laughing-stock doesn’t count beside that.”

His quiet earnestness impressed them; they were conscious—Ann particularly—of an impulse to do as he had urged them: to join him here in the valley and fasten the gate on the jostling uncertain world outside. But the impulse could only be brief; there was all the business of life to remember. Ann said involuntarily:

“The children’s schools…”

David had followed the line of her thought; he showed neither surprise nor satisfaction. He said:

There’s the school at Lepeton. A year of that wouldn’t hurt them.”

She looked helplessly at her husband. John said:

“There are all sorts of things…’ The conviction communicated from David had already faded; the sort of thing he was imagining could not possibly happen. “After all, if things should get worse, we shall have plenty of warning. We could come up right away, if it looked grim.”

“Don’t leave it too late,” David said.

Ann gave a little shiver, and shook herself. “In a year’s time, all this will seem strange.”

“Yes,” David said, “may be it will.”

The lull which seemed to have fallen on the world continued through the winter. In the Western countries, schemes for rationing foods were drawn up, and in some cases applied. Cakes disappeared in England, but bread was still available to all. The Press continued to oscillate {52} 52 oscillate: move from one side to the other and back between optimism and pessimism, but with less violent swings. The important question, most frequently canvassed, was the length of time that could be expected to ensue before, with the destruction of the virus, life might return to normal.