Flare

Chapter 48

We ran for the house, no words needed as the threat that the rain carried with it soaked us to the skin in the time it took us to travel down the path and through the front door.

“Make sure all the windows are closed,” Emily said as she slammed the door shut.

I tried to put Melody down but she clung to me with surprising strength. Knowing that I couldn’t do what I needed to with an eleven-year-old hanging onto me I prised her fingers free as gently as I could.

“Sweetheart, we need to make sure the windows are shut, it’s very important. Can you go and check the ones in your room? I promise I’ll be just next door.”

She nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve as she finally let go, eyes still wide and fearful. “You promise?”

“I promise, go on.”

She turned and hurried into her bedroom as I ran for the kitchen, seeing the small, wide window at the top of the frame open. I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut, then went back through the lounge and double-checked that the patio doors were closed. Once that was done I went to check the main bedroom with its ensuite bathroom, but Emily came out of the door before I could get there.

“All done,” she said, “but we need to get out of these clothes, they’re soaked.”

Melody ran out of her bedroom and immediately tried to climb into my arms in a way she hadn’t since she’d been little. Despite the fact that she seemed unharmed, I could only guess how badly she’d been affected by everything that had happened.

“Melody,” I said gently, “I want you to meet Emily. She’s a very good friend and without her I wouldn’t have been able to come and find you. You can trust her.”

Melody looked up at Emily uncertainly, then stuck out a filthy hand.

“Hi, I’m Melody.”

Emily took the hand solemnly and shook it, then grinned.

“You do look like your dad.”

The grin faded as she glanced at me, eyes travelling to my belt.

“Uh, Malc, how long has your detector been like that?”

“What?” I looked down and saw that the paper in the small hole at the top had gone from yellow to black. The implications made my skin crawl as if ants were burrowing beneath it. “Oh shit.”

“Dad!”

“Now’s not the time, Melody. We need to get changed, quickly. Have you got clean clothes in your room?”

She shook her head. “Everything is dirty.”

“Well find some dry ones and get changed into them, go on. Even your underwear.”

She nodded and went back into her room. Emily was checking her own detector and I saw that it, too, had a black circle at the top.

“How long since you last checked it?” She asked.

“I don’t know, just before we came in, I think.”

“I think I did the same. We need to find some clean clothes, and hope that the rain caused it.”

I nodded. If the radiation was already in the air then we were done for, but if it had been brought by the rain then we stood a chance.

I led her into Frank and Ruth’s bedroom, then began hunting through the wardrobe for something that might fit. I pulled out a pair of jeans and a shirt for me, then found a pair of black corduroy trousers and a brown jumper that I thought might fit Emily.

I turned to hand them to her and froze as I saw her standing there, stark naked as she threw her clothes into the corner.

I felt myself blush and tried to pass her the clothes without looking.

“Come on Malc, we don’t have time to be shy.”

I nodded, the image of her naked curves burned into my mind’s eye. Praying that my body wouldn’t rise to the occasion I stripped my clothes off, then pulled on the jeans so fast I nearly did myself an injury.

Once we were dressed, we looked very much like an old married couple, and I wondered if I looked as strange as Emily did. Unfortunately for me, I could also clearly see that she wasn’t wearing a bra and suddenly discovered that my new jeans were a little too tight.

“Why is it,” I said quietly, “that we spent all those nights together and nothing happened, but now we get a radiation shower and suddenly all I want to do is take your clothes back off?”

She stared at me in shock for a second, then began to laugh softly.

“I don’t know,” she said, flashing her dimples, “maybe because you’re bloody awkward?”

I grinned in return. “There is that, I guess.”

I glanced out of the window and saw that it was still hammering down.

“Maybe take a rain check?”

“Ha bloody ha.”

The door creaked open and Melody came in, wearing slightly less dirty clothes.

She stopped and looked at us with a shrewd expression, then turned to Emily.

“Are you his girlfriend?”

I spluttered and was about to tell her off for asking inappropriate questions, but then stopped myself. A week ago the question might have been rude, sure, but Melody had lost almost everything and everyone she had ever known. Surely she had a right to know if I was bringing someone else into her life?

Emily and I looked at each other as the question hung between us. She gestured at me uncertainly, and I shrugged.

“We’re not sure yet,” she said finally, “but we do like each other.”

Melody nodded as if that was the answer she’d been expecting.

“Good, because you’re nice. Are we going back to Hove?”

Emily blinked at the sudden change of subject, something I was more used to.

“No love, Hove is burning like Manchester, but Emily’s mum and dad live on a beautiful farm in the countryside with chickens and a cow and their own gardens where they grow vegetables, and they’ve said we can go and live with them.”

“Are they nice?”

“Yes, they are. Ralph pretends to be mean sometimes, but it’s just an act, and Harriet was a nurse for fifty years and she makes really nice food.”

Melody smiled, and the sight almost brought tears to my eyes. I loved her more than anything else in the world and to see her already beginning to bounce back from what she’d been through was a balm to my wounded soul.

“Good, because I’m hungry.”

“Well it’s a long way to go,” I said, “and we still don’t know how we’re going to get there yet, we don’t have a car anymore.”

Her smile faded as she thought back to the men who had taken it, but then she brightened.

“Why don’t we take grandpops’ car?”

“Er, grandpops doesn’t have a car.”

She nodded, sending pieces of muck flying from her hair.

“Yes he does, it’s in the garage.”

I exchanged a glance with Emily, hardly daring to hope that the answers to our problem could be so close.

“But wouldn’t he have taken it with him when he went looking for mummy?”

“No, he said it would draw the wrong kind of attention. Shall I show you?”

She walked towards the door but I grabbed her arm. My heart nearly broke when she shied away from the sudden movement, a stark reminder of her recent captivity.

“Don’t go outside love, not while it’s raining.”

“Why not?”

I sighed and looked at Emily, who came to the rescue.

“Melody, how much do you know about radiation?”

“What, you mean like nuclear bombs?”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“We did Hiroshima in history, it was horrible.”

Emily nodded again. “Well there was an accident, and radiation like the bombs might be in the rain, so we have to stay out of it. It’s why we had to change our clothes.”

“Oh, ok.”

I blinked, expecting an argument, and smiled gratefully at Emily.

“But we do need to get out to the garage,” I said, “Emily, if I cover myself with something waterproof do you think I’ll be ok?”

She shrugged uncertainly. “Maybe, maybe not. We should stay out of it as much as possible if we can.”

She left the room and I followed her into the lounge, taking Melody’s hand. Her small fingers in mine were a gift that I would never take for granted again.

Emily strode to the window and eased the filthy net curtains aside, looking up at the grey clouds that filled the sky.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon though,” she said, “and we need to get out of here as soon as we can.”

I thought about it for a moment, then decided that the risk was worth it. The side door to the garage was only half a dozen steps from the patio doors, and I knew from experience that Frank left it unlocked.

“Let’s see what we can find to keep me dry,” I began to look around for something that might work, “something waterproof.”

We turned the house upside down, piling everything that might be useful in the centre of the lounge. Emily sorted through the pile and selected several items, then began to dress me as if we were playing some kind of bizarre game.

A few minutes later, I stood by the patio door wearing a wax jacket that came to my thighs, my lower legs wrapped in layers of clingfilm while one of the two pairs of marigolds we’d found covered my hands. Over my head I wore a large plastic washing bag in bright tartan. I felt like an idiot but I couldn’t argue that I would be dry.

“Melody,” Emily said as she put a hand on the door handle, “just in case I want you to go into your bedroom and shut the door until I tell you, do you mind?”

Please at being asked like an adult, Melody nodded and left the room.

“How are you feeling under there?”

“Stupid but dry.”

“Right. Just remember not to touch us when you come back in, I’ll use the washing up gloves to take the outer layers off and then we’ll stick them in the washing machine where no one can touch them by accident. Oh, and Malc?”

“Yeah?”

She lifted the bag and kissed me, just a brief peck on the lips but it was enough to set my heart racing.

“You’re a good man.”

I could only nod as she dropped the bag back over my head, reducing my visibility to strip of floor a few inches in front of my feet. I heard the snick of the lock turning and then the rasp of the door as it was pulled back on its runners.

“Go.”

And I stepped out into the rain.