Only now I thought about the tools in the garage. The fully stocked pantry in the utility room, which opened into the garage. The massive gas barbecue on wheels, also in the garage. In hindsight, I probably should have gone into the garage. In hindsight, I should have gotten my ducks in a line. And, thanks to Julian and his lovelorn e-mail to Aurora, I’d even forgotten to let the bloody rabbit out.
“Lucky I stopped and got this,” said Joni, coming up the slope holding the yellow feet of a headless chicken. “And this.” An axe landed in the dirt. I didn’t ask for details, but she answered anyway. “We passed a farm, and I grabbed this old girl from a little coop in the yard. She’ll do us for tonight. I should’ve brought them all, they could roam free.”
“The foxes would have them,” I said.
“Take this,” said Joni. She held out the chicken by the stump where the head used to be. “Come on, I’m going to skin it—quicker than plucking.” I reached out and took the bloody stub, which slipped straight through my hand. I caught the chicken before it hit the ground. “You’re going to have to stand up, Marlene. I can’t do it down there.” I straightened up, juggled the chicken so that I was holding it with one hand around the throat and the other under its backside. Joni went to work on its neck, pulling back the skin, using a penknife to cut away the white tissue that held skin to flesh. “Higher,” she said. I raised my arms to hold the chicken right in front of my face. Joni’s fingers ripped down under its collar, and one of its taloned feet kicked up and clawed at my chin.
I jumped back and dropped the chicken, feeling my chin for blood. “It got me.”
Joni chuckled, bent to pick up the hen.
“Just a reflex.” She handed me the chicken as I inspected my fingertips. “There’s no blood.” I took hold of the chicken again. Joni smiled as she worked. Again, she tugged sharply at a gristly bit and, again, I dropped the carcass into the dirt.
“Jesus, Marlene—shall I get one of the kids to do it?”
She started nipping away at the white tissue again, and when she was ready to tug said, “Hold on,” so I managed not to drop it. We stood face-to-face over the chicken, feet planted wide for stability as we worked. “Hold on.” I gripped the stump. “Hold on.” I held on. The feathered layer peeled down until the headless animal looked like it was wearing a tutu, its ugly feet dancing beneath my hands. Lola came up and prodded the swollen food sack that hung from its neck.
“That’s her crop,” said Joni. “Some people eat that. It’s a delicacy.”
“Gross,” said Lola. “But it’s about all we’re going to have left for breakfast tomorrow.” She huffed off to find the kebab skewers for dinner.
“I’ll make a broth, we’ll be fine,” Joni called after her daughter. She stared at me until I raised my eyes to hers. “There’s food all around. We’ll be fine.”
“Banana,” said Billy, an hour later when dinner was served. I explained again that we didn’t have a banana or a mango or a minty Viscount biscuit. He would have to eat his food if he was hungry because there wouldn’t be any more. He didn’t believe me, of course, because that’s what I said in our kitchen at home, leaning over his booster chair with my back turned to the cupboards stuffed with food. But now, with my back turned only to the darkening void between the trees, I realized he would have to work this one out for himself. He would go hungry. And learn to eat. I took away his plate.
Charlie and Peter descended to finish off Billy’s chicken kebab and watercress salad, which they still couldn’t believe was made with actual watercress that Joni found in actual water in the actual forest. There was also a bucket of blackberries for dessert. They lolled around afterward on their logs, as stuffed as Romans. Joni hunched over her stove, boiling up leftovers into a soup for the morning. But unlike those of us who were confident our survival was assured by the presence of watercress, I couldn’t stop thinking about the garage at home. It was too far to drive back now, but a garage was a garage. They all contained roughly the same things, didn’t they? Things we needed.
“Can you get the kids into bed?” I said to Joni. “It’s my turn to go out foraging.”
“Now?”
It wasn’t dark yet, but night was just over the hill and coming our way. I kissed the kids and went down to the car. “I’m taking the axe.”
According to the map, there was another village south of the camp, in the opposite direction to Wodebury. With luck, I would see a farm or a house on the way and check it out for useful kit. I started up the hill to the lane and by habit switched on the radio, but there was only static. I let it scroll through the stations, the regular bursts of white noise forming a bleak soundtrack like a marching song. The frequencies scurried past and started all over again. I began to hum during the pauses between bursts of static.
The lane turned onto a bigger trunk road, where I switched on my headlights, although they didn’t venture far into the gloom. The road pitched and rolled between the high walls of hedges. I accelerated past a black-and-white pub with a couple of hatchbacks in the car park—I didn’t want to repeat my pub experience. Less than a mile on, I braked hard and just made the turn into a mechanic’s yard. I stopped in the driveway, with the security barrier lifted high above me, its open padlock dangling up in the sky. As I got out, metal chimed against metal to sound a feeble alarm.
The sliding doors of the workshop were open on one side to reveal a long slit of blackness. I picked up the axe and held it by the heavy end in one hand, the Maglite in the other. My boots scuffed across puddles of gravel, then fell silent over mossy patches that had reclaimed the forecourt. At the shed, I laid my hand on the wooden door, feeling the blue paint crumble and patter down over my toes. There was no buzz, so I used all my weight to press the door farther back. Inside, the darkness gathered in corners. The only sound was my own breath going in, in, in and out; in, in, in and out. I fumbled the torch on.
An ice cream van took up most of the space, straddling the mechanic’s pit with its serving window open. My light revealed pictures of cones and sundaes and something called a “screwball,” which evoked a distant memory of childhood desire. The gaudy images emerged from the dark like the hieroglyphs of the future.