That was a bad night for everyone. Worst, perhaps, for Dennis in knowing that everything depended on the care of two willing but inexperienced girls. His self-control aroused my helpless admiration.
In the early hours of the morning Josella came down to us, looking very tired:
“It’s a girl. They’re both all right,” she said, and led Dennis up.
She returned a few moments later and took the drink I had ready for her.
“It was quite simple, thank heaven,” she said. “Poor Mary was horribly afraid it might be blind too, but of course it’s not.
Now she’s crying quite dreadfully because she can’t see it.” We drank.
“It’s queer,” I said, “the way things go on, I mean. Like a seed-it looks all shriveled and finished, you’d think it was dead, but it isn’t. And now a new life starting, coming into all this…”
Josella put her face in her hands.
“Oh God! Bill. Does it have to go on being like this? On-and on-and on?”
And she, too, collapsed in tears.
Three weeks later I went over to Tynsham to see Coker and make arrangements for our move. I took an ordinary car, in order to do the double journey in a day. When I got back Josella met me in the hall. She gave one look at my face.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Just that we shan’t be going there after all,” I told her. “Tynsham is finished.”
She stared back at me.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. It looks as if the plague got there.”
I described the state of affairs briefly. It had not needed much investigation. The gates were open when I arrived, and the sight of triffids loose in the park half warned me what to expect. The smell when I got out of the car confirmed it. I made myself go into the house. By the look of it, it had been deserted two weeks or more before. I put my head into two of the rooms. They were enough for me. I called, and my voice ran right away through the hollowness of the house.
I went no farther.
There had been a notice of some kind pinned to the front door, but only one blank corner remained. I spent a long time searching for the rest of the sheet that must have blown away. I did not find it. The yard at the back was empty of trucks, and most of the stores had gone with them, but where to I could not tell.
There was nothing to be done but get into my car again and come back.
“And so-what?” asked Josella when I had finished.
“And so, my dear, we stay here. We learn how to support ourselves. And we go on supporting ourselves-unless help comes. There may be an organization somewhere…”
Josella shook her head.
“I think we’d better forget all about help. Millions and millions of people have been waiting and hoping for help that hasn’t come.”
“There’ll be something,” I said. ‘There must be thousands of little groups like this dotted all over Europe-all over the world. Some of them will get together. They’ll begin to rebuild.”
“In how long?” said Josella. “Generations? Perhaps not until after our time. No-the world’s gone, and we’re left We must make our own lives. Well have to plan them as though help will never come -. .” She paused. There was an odd blank look on her face that I had never seen before, It puckered.
“Darling.. .” I said.
“Oh, Bill, Bill, I wasn’t meant for this kind of life, If you
weren’t here I’d-”
“Hush, my sweet,” I said gently. “Hush.” I stroked her hair.
A few moments later she recovered herself.
“I’m sorry, Bill. Self-pity… revolting. Never again.”
She patted her eyes with her handkerchief and sniffed a
little.
“So I’m to be a farmer’s wife. Anyway, I like being married
to you, Bill-even if it isn’t a very proper, authentic kind of
marriage.”
Suddenly she gave the smiling chuckle that I had not heard
for some time.
“What is it?”
“I was only thinking how much I used to dread my wed—
ding.”
‘That was very maidenly and proper of you-if a little unexpected,” I told her.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that. It was my publishers, and the
newspapers, and the film people. What fun they would have
had with it. There’d have been a new edition of my silly book
-probably a new release of the film-and pictures in all the
papers. I don’t think you’d have liked that much.”
“I can think of another thing I’d not have liked much,” I told her. “Do you remember-that night in the moonlight you made a condition?”
She looked at me.
“Well, maybe some things haven’t turned out so badly,” she said, smiling.
WORLD NARROWING
From then on I kept a journal. It is a mixture of diary, stock list, and commonplace book. In it there are notes of the places to which my expeditions took me, particulars of the supplies collected, estimates of quantities available, observations on the states of the premises, with memos on which should be cleared first to avoid deterioration. Foodstuffs, fuel, and seed were constant objects of search, but by no means the only ones. There are entries detailing loads of clothing, tools, household linen, harness, kitchenware, loads of stakes, and wire, wire, and more wire, also hooks.
I can see there that within a week of my return from Tynsham I had started on the work of erecting a wire fence to keep the triffids out. Already we had barriers to hold them away from the garden and the immediate neighborhood of the house. Now I began a more ambitious plan of making some hundred acres or so free from them. It involved a stout wire fence which took advantage of the natural features and standing barriers, and, inside it, a lighter fence to prevent either the stock or ourselves from coming inadvertently within sting range of the main fence. It was a heavy, tedious job which took me a number of months to complete.
At the same time I was endeavoring to learn the A B C of farming. It is not the kind of thing that is easily learned from books. For one thing, it has never occurred to any writer on the subject that any potential farmer could be starting from absolute zero. I found, therefore, that all works started, as it were, in the middle, taking for granted both a basis and a vocabulary that I did not have. My specialized biological knowledge was all but useless to me in the face of practical problems. Much of the theory called for materials and substances which were either unavailable to me or unrecognizable by inc if I could find them. I began to see quite soon that by the time I had dismissed the things that would shortly be unprocurable, such as chemical fertilizers, imported feeding stuffs, and all but the simpler kinds of machinery, there was going to be much expenditure of sweat for problematical returns.
Nor is book-installed knowledge of horse management, daisy work, or slaughterhouse procedure by any means an adequate groundwork for these arts. There are so many points where one cannot break off to consult the relevant chapter. Moreover, the realities persistently present baffling dissimilarities from the simplicities of print.
Luckily there was plenty of time to make mistakes, and to learn from them. The knowledge that several years could pass before we should be thrown anywhere near on our own resources saved us from desperation over our disappointments. There was the reassuring thought, too, that by living on preserved stores we were being quite provident reaUy in preventing them from being wasted.
For safety’s sake I let a whole year pass before I went to London again. It was the most profitable area for my forays, but it was the most depressing. The place still contrived to give the impression that a touch of a magic wand would bring it awake again, though many of the vehicles in the streets were beginning to turn rusty. A year later the change was more noticeable. Large patches of plaster detached from house fronts had begun to litter the sidewalks. Dislodged tiles and chimney pots could be found in the streets. Grass and weeds had a good hold in the gutters and were choking the drains. Leaves had blocked downspoutings so that more grass, and even small bushes, grew in cracks and in the silt in the roof gutterings. Almost every building was beginning to wear a green wig beneath which its roofs would damply rot. Through many a window one had glimpses of fallen ceilings, curves of peeling paper, and walls glistening with damp. The gardens of the parks and squares were wildernesses creeping out across the bordering streets. Growing things seemed, indeed, to press out everywhere, rooting in the crevices between the paving stones, springing from cracks in concrete, finding lodgments even in the seats of the abandoned cars. On all sides they were incroaching to repossess themselves of the arid spaces that man had created. And, curiously, as the living Things increasingly took charge, the effect of the place became less oppressive. As it passed beyond the scope of any magic wand, most of the ghosts were going with it, withdrawing slowly into history.