Our Endless Numbered Days: A Novel Read Free

and melts crusty holes in the rug or scorches the wooden floor. Then he is standing with his hands clenched and his arms held tight to his sides as if he is battling with the impulse to let his fists fly at the first man who stands up to disagree with him.
    They wouldn’t wait for one another to finish speaking; it wasn’t a debate. Like my father’s lists, the men shouted over each other, interrupting and heckling.
    “I tell you, it’ll be a natural disaster: tidal wave, flood, earthquake. What good will your shelter be then, James, when you and your family are buried alive?”
    Standing in the hall, I flinched at the thought, my fists balled, and I held in a whimper.
    “Flood? We could bloody do with a flood now.”
    “Look at those poor buggers in that earthquake in Italy. Thousands dead.” The man’s words were slurred and he had his head in his hands. I thought perhaps his mother was Italian.
    “It’ll be the government that lets us down. Don’t expect Callaghan to be knocking on your door with a glass of water when the standpipes have run dry.”
    “He’ll be too busy worrying about inflation to notice the Russians have blasted us to hell.”
    “My cousin has a friend at the BBC who says they’re producing public information films on how to make an inner refuge in houses. It’s just a matter of time before the bomb drops.”
    A man with a greying beard said, “Frigging idiots; they’ll have nothing to eat and if they do the army will confiscate it. What’s the frigging point?” A bit of spittle caught in the hairs on his chin and I had to look away.
    “I’m not going to be in London when the bomb falls. You can stay, James, locked in your dungeon, but I’ll be gone—the Borders, Scotland, somewhere isolated, secure.”
    “And what will you eat?” said my father. “How will you survive? How are you going to get there with allthe other fools heading out of the cities as well? It’ll be gridlock and if you get to the countryside, everyone including your mother and her cat will have gone too. Call yourself a Retreater? It’ll be the cities where law and order are restored soonest. Not your commune in North Wales.” From behind the door frame, I swelled with pride as my father spoke.
    “All those emergency supplies in your cellar are meant to be just that,” said another man. “What are you going to do when they run out? You don’t even have an air rifle.”
    “Hell, give me a decent knife and an axe and we’ll be fine,” said my father.
    The Englishmen carried on arguing until an American voice cut through them all: “You know what the trouble is with you, James? You’re so damn British. And the rest of you—you’re all living in the dark ages, hiding in your cellars, driving off to the country like you’re going on a fucking Sunday picnic. You still call yourself Retreaters; the world’s already moving on without you. You haven’t even figured out that you’re survivalists. And James, forget the cellar. What you need is a bug-out location.”
    The way he spoke was authoritative, with an assumption of attention. The rest of the men, my father included, fell silent. Oliver Hannington lolled in the armchair withhis back to me, while all the others stared out the window or at the floor. It reminded me of my classroom, when Mr. Harding said something none of us understood. He would stand for minutes, waiting for someone to put their hand up and ask what he meant, until the silence grew so thick and uncomfortable that we looked anywhere except at each other or him. It was a strategy designed to see who would crack first, and nine times out of ten it would be Becky who would say something silly, so the class could laugh in relief and embarrassment, and Mr. Harding would smile.
    Unexpectedly, Ute strode through from the kitchen, walking in that way she did when she knew she had an audience, all hips and waist. Her hair was tied in a messy knot at the back of her neck and she was wearing