Wallows Lane

Gemma had worked nearly a full day at the farm before she realised Mike wasn’t around. It’s not that he wasn’t helpful, she thought, maybe she was just a bit too focused. She’d need a bit of introspection later to understand why she’d dumped half a basket of corn on the ground before she’d noticed he wasn’t down there tidying it up.

“Haven’t seen him today,” said the portly man at the pantry.

“Not been through here,” replied the woman watching the north gate.

“Might’ve seen him, though it might’ve been yesterday,” said the man tending the still.

This was just like Mike, she thought: shirking work to go walkabout. Why didn’t it surprise her? Probably just pouting. They hadn’t spoken in a couple days and she’d seen nary a hair nor heard nary a peep out of him, save for a shower or his lumbering footsteps headed up in the morning. But she could all but guarantee he’d turn up on the green tonight. It was Thursday, which meant Richard was grilling. Mike wouldn’t miss it.

She’d barely set foot on the grass before she saw Richard on his way to intercept her.

“How are you, old man?”

“We should talk.” Richard always had an air of intention, but this felt odd even for him. His tone was far too serious. An uneasiness crept in.

“Everything okay, boss? Chat over dinner, maybe? I don’t want to keep anyone from their meal.”

“It’s handled. Walk with me, pet.”

Richard pressed a hand gently to her back and began to lead her the way she came. The smell of hamburgers reached her nose, someone else filling in on the grill. The uneasiness grew as she was quite literally led down the garden path, through the maze of bell tents and encampments, across the road and through a hedge. This was Wallows Lane, and it was where the Collective chose to house their most respected residents.

Richard pulled open his gate and nudged Gemma through. His front garden was trimmed, but wild. After a whiskey or two, he would tell anyone who would listen about his efforts ripping up the front drive, repurposing the concrete as paving stones, and nurturing the dirt back to health. A few of his seed bombs had finally taken root after a fortuitous rain storm. This was how the architect would’ve intended it to look, he’d say. Not some dreadful slab covered in Corsas and tin signs.

“Jealous as always of your garden, boss.”

“Come in, have a seat. I’ll put the kettle on.” He opened the front door and again let Gemma go ahead of him, then headed back outside to the fire pit.

Richard had become deeply private since his wife’s death. Gemma couldn’t recall if she’d even been inside since Claire’s passing. But she was now seated at his reclaimed wood table. The outside almost portrayed a sense of normalcy: the Britain she remembered. Near-identical terraced housing stretching out into the distance, all with little touches outside, bits of personality bestowed by their occupants. There must be a thousand of these lanes across a hundred English villages. But once Gemma was inside, the reality was clearer. The walls were bare, save a few bits of found art. The furniture all mismatched, mostly fashioned from repurposed material. And of course, nothing plugged in, as even on Wallows Lane they weren’t permitted to access the energy supply.

Her mind drifted away from the quiet horror of village life and back the pressing issue: why was she at Richard’s dining table? What was he so loathe to tell her? And where was Mike?

Gemma was staring at the door when Richard re-entered with the kettle. “Boss, what is going on?”

“Tea first, pet. I’ll fetch the diffusers.” His voice wavered, and he seemed unsure what to do with his hands. He disappeared through an archway into the dark kitchen.

Her foot tapped impatiently on the base of the table, rocking it back and forth. She tried to push her fingers through her hair, greasy and tangled as it was, but quickly gave up at the thought of ripping it all straight out. Bangs and creaks came from the kitchen as Richard searched for provisions.

“Here we go, love. No milk, I’m afraid.” He set two cups of tea down on the table, balanced delicately on two plates. They were small and ornate, with an elegant pattern of gold flake around the rim, and were clearly a matched set. Amidst the situation both in this room and in this world, the sight of a matched set brought her anxiety to a frothy boil.

“Thank you, Richard,” she said through gritted teeth. “Lovely.”

“You know…” he said, assessing the situation. “I believe I’ve got some biscuits tucked away in a cupboard. I’ll just…”

“Enough! I don’t need any bloody biscuits!” Gemma slammed her hand down, spilling a bit of the tea. Her anger dissipated into embarrassment over her outburst. “Richard, please. Why am I here?”

Richard stared down at the floor. “This was never my remit, you see. Was more of Claire’s. She was a fantastic host. I’m just trying to emulate her. It’s not the same quality.”

Gemma felt her face go hot. “I’m sorry, boss. You’re just trying to be a good host. You are a good host. I just don’t know why I’m here. And I don’t know where Mike is.” The spilt tea pooled in a ring around the bottom of her cup. She dragged her finger through it, smearing it around the plate.

“Gemma,” Richard said with an uncharacteristic softness. He sat at the table opposite her and pulled his teacup in front of him. Positioned it carefully, neatly, as if tidying this up would tidy up his own thoughts. “Gemma. Mike is gone.”

A loud squeak of wood against wood as Gemma shot back from the table. The chair tipped backwards and crashed against the floor with a thud. She stumbled back and caught her foot on its errant leg, nearly joining it on the ground, before she steadied herself. “He’s gone.” She doubled over and tried to scream, but nothing came from within except a cough and a wheeze.

Richard leapt to his feet and rounded the table, his arms out wide, ready to catch her wherever she might go. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy to hear.”

She coughed and sniffled as she spun her head round, looking for something without knowing what. Another scream welled up, and this time she found the breath. Her guttural bellow cut through the air, and the force knocked Richard right back. “When?” She grabbed him and shook, desperate, her eyes flooded with tears. “How?”

“This morning, first thing.”

“Why? Why? I don’t understand.” The room spun violently around her, the corners of her vision darkened. “And nobody told me? Nobody thought to fucking tell me?” She lunged forward, arms out, and gave Richard a full body shove. He rocked on his feet, his eyes closed. “I was at the farms all day!” Inches from his face, Gemma screamed. “All fucking day, Richard! You knew where I was!”

“There was nothing you could do.” He kept his measured tone, even as Gemma stared him down with an unyielding temper.

“You don’t know that. You don’t. You don’t!” She shoved him again, her arms spring-loaded, and this time he was sent backwards a couple of steps.

“Gemma, I know you’re upset.”

“You know that? You know?!” Before she could make another move Richard’s hands grasped her shoulders. He tried to hold her in place, and managed it for barely a second before she twisted her body and threw him off.

“He said he was doing it for you, Gemma. He left you a note. I can get it, if you let me.”

The horror of what Richard had said gripped her mind in a vice. “He… did… what do you mean, doing it… he took his own…”

“What?” Richard’s voice jumped into a new register. “Gemma, no, you’ve misunderstood. Mike isn’t dead. He just left town.”

Candles flickered around the dining room as Gemma dipped a biscuit into her second cup of tea. Her face blotchy and red, her eyes bloodshot, her darkish-silver hair still wet from the shower Richard had offered up. It relaxed her, and gave them both space to cool off, to reset their temperaments. On the table in front of her, atop a small decorative box, sat the note from Mike. It simply read G in a carefully drawn block letter.

“It’s just so bloody dramatic,” Gemma said as she fidgeted with the letter. “Can’t just storm off in a strop, can he? Has to go and do all this. Fucking artists. Packed with drama from boot to bonnet.” She pulled it open with the tact and grace of an explosives defuser, motivated by much the same fear.

Dear Gemma,

I hope the day’s treating you well, and that the weather’s held. I wanted to start by apologising, so I will. I’m sorry for overstaying my welcome. You’ve been nothing but helpful to me, in spite of your obvious frustration. Obvious to everyone but me, that is. When I lost my job all those years ago, what turned out to be the last job I would ever have, I was truly lost. And I was afraid. I’ve never had closure on anything in my life: just a series of pauses. I thought my career was simply paused. I refused to accept the reality that the world had moved on. And when I was conscripted, rather than try to adapt, I simply pouted and threw myself on your mercy. I might have survived working in the power plant, but you getting me out has given me the chance to thrive.

And I’ve squandered that chance by once again pausing. By lingering here, pretending you and I are something we’re not. By interfering in your life, clumsily trying to do for you what you did for me. But you don’t need help, and you know what you want.

It’s time to unpause. To put a full stop on this part of my story. To say thank you for all that you’ve done, and move on. To tie up the other loose threads of my life.

So thank you Gemma, for all the support. And please thank Richard for me, for giving me the push.

n.b. You mentioned you knew someone who could help you record music. I hope you go and find them.

All the best,

Michael.

Gemma stared at the note in disbelief. One line battered her around until she could properly come to grips with it. “Richard?”

“Yes, love.”

“Why does he thank you for giving him the push?”

The decorative box landed on her bed, still unopened. Gemma had raced back to the safety of her club basement, still furious at Richard. He had gone far over the top in trying to soften this blow because it was his goddamn fault. Selfish fucking fool. An endless parade of men doing what they felt was best for her, none checking to see what she might want. And this time it had cost her more than just her guitar. Mike’s absolutely hatstand declaration that Gemma knew what she wanted. Richard saying Mike wanted to do this for himself. Who fucking knows what they want? Gemma could guarantee neither herself nor Mike knew what they bloody wanted.

And who was this she’d supposedly claimed could help her record music? She knew she’d mentioned Sam, but only in passing, and not by name. Because of his blimming mix CD, which still didn’t work.

She crawled into bed and clutched the box to her stomach. The lights clicked off suddenly — it must’ve been after 11 p.m. Her couple of scavenged LED bulbs, hung from their respective wires, got their energy from the collective’s meagre solar battery. And that was such a limited resource, you could count on the duds in charge of it letting you have three or four hours a day of light. Halogens outside would keep a certain level of light available all night, but given she was in the basement, curfew left her in near-total darkness. The pain of this situation rarely found her, but tonight she felt it acutely. Everyone in the Collective remained gripped with a fever: the insistence that this was unequivocally the best way of life, because modernity had gone too far. Maybe it had. But as she lay still in her mildewed basement, under the blanket of a lights-out curfew, she questioned whether this was the freedom she’d sought.

The night was sleepless. She groaned and pulled a pillow onto her face as a flicker of sunrise hit the staircase. It was easy enough to push Mike from her mind: he’d chosen his path to walk. If he wanted to be alone and useless on the road, that was his prerogative. The police would snatch him in a day and he’d be back in Wales at the nuclear plant soon after, high-fiving government goons and earning his company scrip.

She rotated Sam’s mix CD between her fingers. It had a totemic power that she should not have imbued it with. The inside of the case still bore the note, in Sam’s atrocious handwriting, from the night she received it:

“A few of my favourite notes from the symphony of human history. -S”

A smile crossed her face, followed by a laugh—the kind that blindsides you, the kind you reserve for your closest friend. She rolled her eyes and laughed again, and her lip started to quiver. The direness of her situation was the dam holding back a complete breakdown. Samir, you fucking knob. Why aren’t you here? Even after years apart, her first thought whenever she had an idea, a need, or a gripe, was that she should text it to Sam. That exhausting little shit.

Her dalliance with that boy Kevin from the pub, shortly after her conscription, had been a disaster. How was she still such a tempest of destruction through every path she crossed? Did I ruin his life, like I did Samir’s? Or is that just my own fucking ego? Fucking them once doesn’t automatically destroy them, Gemma. She covered her face with her hand to black out the world and focus on anything useful he’d said. He’d been a fount of unrequested information about how things worked now, an area that Gemma was severely lacking in knowledge. If he were here now, he’d explain how the thought of sending a message to California from the UK was now laughable: these two nations have nothing to gain from allowing their citizens to communicate with each other. You had to go through a private link for business reasons, he’d said, like the ones they had when she worked at the music label. It took a lot of money, and you needed a licence. She had neither.

A quick inventory of the people in her life showed them to be useless, unavailable, or both. Good fodder for new music, even if she was shit at writing lyrics. Her time at the label had taught her one lesson above all: a great producer could work miracles, even with terrible musicians.

A single, proper thought finally cut through her labyrinth of ego and self-pity. She knew exactly what she needed to do. She’d go to Liverpool, and she’d find the old man.