Laura Furman - The O. Henry Prize Stories 2011

May 21st . Another row with G. He blew my second candle out, he said one was enough. It wasn’t, though. I couldn’t see to read anymore. He drives me mad-it’s like living with a policeman. It always was, even before the Collapse. “The earth has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed” was his favorite. Nobody likes being labeled greedy. I called him Killjoy and he didn’t like that. “Every one of us takes about twenty-five thousand breaths a day,” he told me. “Each breath removes oxygen from the atmosphere and replaces it with carbon dioxide.” Well, pardon me for breathing! What was I supposed to do-turn into a tree?

June 6th . Went round to the Lumleys’ for the news last night. Whole road there squashed into front room, straining to listen to radio-batteries very low (no new ones in the last government delivery). Big news, though: compulsory billeting imminent. The Shorthouses were up in arms, Kai shouting and red in the face, Lexi in tears. “You work all your life,” etc., etc. What planet is he on? None of us too keen, but nothing to be done about it. When we got back, G. checked our stash of tins under the bedroom floorboards. A big rat shot out and I screamed my head off. G. held me till I stopped crying, then we had sex. Woke in the night and prayed not to be pregnant, though God knows who I was praying to.

June 12th . Visited Maia this afternoon. She was in bed, her legs have swollen up like balloons. On at me again to promise about the baby, and this time I said yes. She said Violet Huggins was going to help her when it started-Violet was a nurse once, apparently, not really the hands-on sort but better than nothing. Nobody else on the road will have a clue what to do now that we can’t Google it. “All I remember from old films is that you’re supposed to boil a kettle,” I said. We started to laugh, we got a bit hysterical. Knuckle-dragger Martin put his head round the door and growled at us to shut up.

July 1st . First billet arrived today by army truck. We’ve got a Spanish group of eight, including one old lady, her daughter, and twin toddler grandsons (all pretty feral), plus four unsmiling men of fighting age. A bit much, since we have only two bedrooms. G. and I tried to show them round but they ignored us. The grandmother bagged our bedroom straight off. We’re under the kitchen table tonight. I might try to sleep on top of it because of the rats. We couldn’t think of anything to say-the only Spanish we could remember was “ muchas gracias, ” and, as G. snapped, we’re certainly not saying that.

July 2nd . Fell off the table in my sleep. Bashed my elbow. Covered in bruises.

July 3rd . G. depressed. The four Spaniards are bigger than him, and he’s worried that the biggest one, Miguel, has his eye on me (with reason, I have to say).

July 4th . G. depressed. The grandmother found our tins under the floorboards and all but danced a flamenco. Miguel punched G. when he tried to reclaim a tin of sardines and since then his nose won’t stop bleeding.

July 6th . Last night under the table G. came up with a plan. He thinks we should head north. Now that this lot are in the flat and a new group from Tehran promised next week, we might as well cut and run. Scotland’s heaving-everyone else has already had the same idea-so he thinks we should get on one of the ferries to Stavanger, then aim for Russia.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Where would we stay?”

“I’ve got the pop-up tent packed in a rucksack behind the shed,” he said. “Plus our sleeping bags and my windup radio.”

“Camping in the mud,” I said.

“Look on the bright side,” he said. “We have a huge mortgage and we’re just going to walk away from it.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

July 17th . Maia died yesterday. It was horrible. The baby got stuck two weeks ago, it died inside her. Violet Huggins was useless, she didn’t have a clue. Martin started waving his Swiss Army knife around on the second day and yelling about a cesarean-he had to be dragged off her. He’s round at ours now drinking the last of our precious brandy with the Spaniards. That’s it. We’ve got to go. Now, says G. Yes.

August 1st . Somewhere in Shropshire, or possibly Cheshire. We’re staying off the beaten track. Heavy rain. This notebook’s pages have gone all wavy. At least Biro doesn’t run. I’m lying inside the tent now. G. is out foraging. We got away in the middle of the night. G. slung our two rucksacks across the bike. We took turns wheeling it, then on the fourth morning we woke up and looked outside the tent flap and it was gone, even though we’d covered it with leaves the night before.

“Could be worse,” G. said. “We could have had our throats cut while we slept.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

August 3rd . Rivers and streams all toxic-fertilizers, typhoid, etc. So we’re following G.’s DIY system. Dip billycan into stream or river. Add three drops of bleach. Boil up on camping stove with T-shirt stretched over billycan. Only moisture squeezed from the T-shirt is safe to drink; nothing else. “You’re joking,” I said, when G. first showed me how to do this. But no.

August 9th . Radio news in muddy sleeping bags-skeleton government obviously struggling, they keep playing the Enigma Variations. Last night they announced the end of fuel for civilian use and the compulsory disabling of all remaining civilian cars. From now on we must all stay at home, they said, and not travel without permission. There’s talk of martial law. We’re going cross-country as much as possible-less chance of being arrested or mugged-trying to cover ten miles a day, but the weather slows us down. Torrential rain, often horizontal in gusting winds.

August 16th . Rare dry afternoon. Black lace clouds over yellow sky. Brown grass, frowsty gray mold, fungal frills. Dead trees come crashing down without warning-one nearly got us today, it made us jump. G. was hoping we’d find stuff growing in the fields, but all the farmland round here is surrounded by razor wire and armed guards. He says he knows how to grow vegetables from his gardening days, but so what. They take too long. We’re hungry now-we can’t wait till March for some old carrots to get ripe.

August 22nd . G. broke a front crown cracking a beechnut, there’s a black hole and he whistles when he talks. “Damsons, blackberries, young green nettles for soup,” he said at the start of all this, smacking his lips. He’s not so keen now. No damsons or blackberries, of course-only chickweed and ivy.

He’s just caught a lame squirrel, so I suppose I’ll have to do something with it. No creatures left except squirrels, rats, and pigeons, unless you count the insects. The news says they’re full of protein-you’re meant to grind them into a paste-but so far we haven’t been able to face that.

August 24th . We met a pig this morning. It was a bit thin for a pig, and it didn’t look well. G. said, “Quick! We’ve got to kill it.”

“Why?” I said. “How?”

“With a knife,” he said. “Bacon. Sausages.”

I pointed out that even if we managed to stab it to death with our old kitchen knife, which seemed unlikely, we wouldn’t be able just to open it up and find bacon and sausages inside.

“Milk, then!” G. said wildly. “It’s a mammal, isn’t it?”

Meanwhile, the pig walked off.

August 25th . Ravenous. We’ve both got streaming colds. Jumping with fleas, itching like crazy. Weeping sores on hands and faces-unfortunate side effects from cloud seeding, the news says. What with all this and his toothache (back molar, swollen jaw) and the malaria, G. is in a bad way.