“Must be a monument,” I said. “Maybe there’s an army base nearby.” But as we set off along the motorway, my lie was exposed by a second military vehicle embedded in the central reservation. Tanks on the streets? I wondered if I should have left the kids in the safety of the camp and gone back to the city alone.
Back on cruise control, the car barreled down the middle lane into the city, doing a little over eighty miles per hour at rush hour on a Monday morning. I glanced in the rearview mirror and realized that the children were not asleep, but staring out the window with cement eyes. Even Charlie, who was in the front to make space for the dog in the back, only blinked occasionally, his eyelashes wilting down over his cheeks. I checked that Joni’s car was still in sight and returned my attention to the road ahead, just as we passed yet another crashed car on the opposite carriageway. This latest wreck was a silver sedan, the first nonmilitary vehicle we’d seen on the ninety-minute drive between the camp and the city. It made me wonder: Dead or alive, where is everyone? Charlie raised himself a fraction to see the upturned car before letting his head loll onto the seat belt. I went back to counting lampposts, my thumb tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel with each one we passed: lamppost, tap, lamppost, tap, two lampposts together, tap tap.
But as we swooped under a bridge, my thumbs fell silent. In the mirror, I saw a line of cars clogged nose to tail along the elevated road. A few doors had been flung open, but there was no movement. Buzzards perched on the parapet.
“Hospital,” said Charlie.
“What?”
“The road sign says ‘University Hospital.’ That’s where they were going.”
For a long stretch after that, I saw nothing unusual. Not even buzzards. It started to feel normal, like any long drive where the car would fall quiet after the kids and even Julian went to sleep. Eventually, a blue sign warned that our exit was coming up, and I indicated out of habit. I took the bend too fast and had to brake in jerks, shuddering over the rumble strip. I rolled to a stop on the summit of the overpass and surveyed a service station below. A plume of smoke rose from scorched restaurant buildings; frames of cars could be seen beneath the collapsed roof of the petrol forecourt; a coach lay on its side with wheels burnt to the rims. But no emergency vehicles in sight. I glanced around the car: the kids had nodded off. Even Charlie. That was a blessing. I slipped the Beast into drive and headed into the city.
We breezed through the outer suburbs of Birmingham, where the windows of the bookies, Cash Converters, and kebab shops were murky. With no delays from old ladies at crossings or delivery vans performing illegal maneuvers, we soon turned onto a high street riddled with charity shops and estate agents. At the touch of a button, my window slid down to let in the incongruous city air: as silent as our camp, and with an unexpected pall reminiscent of the campfire. The car bumped over something in the road, and I saw in the mirror a fireman’s hose, abandoned on the street. We drifted past the burnt-out remains of the police station, the entrails of its gracious Victorian building still smoldering, sunlight streaming through its collapsed roof. My wheels crunched over glass, and I steered around a brickwork drift from the front wall of a house that had partially collapsed. It looked like a picture from the Blitz. Scorched interior revealed, original fireplaces, remains of a sofa facing onto the street. You just don’t expect it, do you? Not when you’ve invested in heritage paint.
At the curry house on the corner, I turned onto Joni’s terraced street and drifted along the tight middle lane between parked cars. After the carnage of the high street, the sense of normalcy was unsettling, as though I’d walked onto a stage. Maybe if I turned around, they’d all be watching me from the cheap seats, all the missing people. Again, I wondered, where is everyone? I stopped outside Joni’s green door, engine running. She parked behind me, and in a second, she was out and trotting up to my window, tapping even as it was winding down. Lola joined her, fingers interlocked across her stomach.
“What do you think?” Joni said, sucking on a lump of her hair.
“There are fewer walking, talking human beings than I’d hoped to see,” I said.
She stared at her front door, sucking away. After a few seconds, she spat out the strand of hair, and her eyes returned to mine. “Thing is, we should stick together. I’m going to check my e-mail and try the home phone, okay? See if there’s a message from David.”
I asked if she wanted me to come in with her, and Lola could stay with the sleeping kids, but she said she’d be okay. She squeezed herself between two parked cars and up the tiled steps to the front door, leaving it ajar when she disappeared inside. Lola waited beside my open window, staring down the road as though she could see more than a row of tatty cars and feral rosebushes and litter.
I got out, too. The wind picked up my hair and slapped it across my face—a mischievous squall racing between cars, whistling like a child trying to hide its loneliness. I stepped up to the porch outside Joni’s front door. There was a sheet of paper inside a plastic sleeve that Joni had tacked to the wood. Take What You Need, the paper offered in a cheery font, and underneath were tear-off strips printed with inspiring words. No doubt Lola and David would each have selected a word that they knew would please Joni—something like serenity for Lola and fortitude for David—and not even have rolled their eyes. Most of the strips had already been taken, leaving me with a choice between faith and patience. I had no belief in the former and no time for the latter. One strip was caught up behind the sheet, though—I untucked it with my little finger: healing. In the circumstances, it seemed churlish not to take it. I tore off the strip and tucked it into my pocket, then turned back to the car to say something reassuring to Lola about her dad, but Joni was already coming out behind me.
“Can’t turn on the computer, there’s no power, and the phone’s dead, so I guess I’m done here.”
She held a small pile of books. The top one was A Complete Guide to Foraging for Food. I was tempted to say that I’d be sure to pick up my copy of Roadkill for Dummies, but Joni was talking to me again.
“On the calendar it says David was due to land last night, direct flight from JFK. So I guess he’s still there.” She reached out to Lola, who took her mother’s hand in both of hers.
“Don’t worry, Mom, Papa will call when things get fixed up.” They nodded rapidly at each other.