Titanic 2020: Cannibal City

5 The Old Man

Claire meant it. She hated Jimmy Armstrong. She would never speak to him again. He tried to apologise to her in half a dozen different ways, but she heard none of it — he might as well have been whispering in a force ten gale. She gave no indication that she was even aware of his existence.

Which made running the newspaper rather difficult.

In fact, nobody was speaking to him. Claire had a secret meeting with the news team early the next morning to decide what to do if he did turn up for work — he was, after all, still their boss. It was suggested that they quit their jobs, but they enjoyed working there too much to go along with that. If anyone was to quit it should be Jimmy — and if he wouldn't do it voluntarily they would force him out by sending him to Coventry. This was an old expression meaning to give someone the silent treatment.

If he was bold enough to come to work.

Nobody wanted to see him, but everyone was there to see if he turned up.

The working day usually started at nine a.m. Jimmy was always late. At ten-past nine there was no sign of him. At half-past he had still not turned up. They were just beginning to relax by ten when the door opened and Jimmy sauntered in, cup of tea in hand and smiling widely.

'Morning all,' he said, crossing to his desk.

Silence.

'Beautiful out there — never seen the sea so calm.'

Silence.

'OK then, let's see what we have on today.' Jimmy took out the diary, a large red book which showed the various assignments he had to give to the reporters and photographers each day. Ninety-nine per cent of the time these were stories which needed to be covered on board ship, but occasionally, like today, there was something more exciting — overnight the Titanic had dropped anchor off another new settlement, this one called Tucker's Hole. They had requested medical assistance. Captain Smith was sending Dr Hill and a team of nurses ashore to help treat an outbreak of chicken pox — a disease that would once have been routinely dealt with, but since medicines were no longer readily available was now much more dangerous — in fact, potentially lethal. Places had been set aside on the speedboat for a reporter and photographer from the Times. Normally Jimmy's team would have been fighting to get ashore — but this morning when he asked for volunteers, not a single hand was raised.

Jimmy shrugged. 'OK then, I'll go myself.' Everyone kept their eyes down. 'But I still need a photographer.'

Still nobody volunteered.

'OK. Claire, as chief photographer, I'm selecting you to go ashore. See you up top in fifteen minutes. And seeing as how you've all lost the power of speech, I'll email you all your assignments before I go.'

Jimmy switched on his computer and set to work.

Tucker's Hole was set near the mouth of a small river and had been entirely constructed from panels of wood looted from a Home Depot about half a mile away. It was, essentially, a town constructed from garden sheds.

As the inflatable approached the shore, Dr Hill shouted out what had become a familiar list of orders. 'Don't get separated from the group! Stick together! Be pleasant, be respectful, but don't trust anyone! Do not wander off! If you see anything suspicious report it to me immediately! If you do get separated from the group and cannot make it back, the alternative pick-up point is two clicks to the east of the river — you've seen it on the map, so don't forget it!'

Jimmy always felt excited on these trips — because the unknown lay ahead. Everything had changed since the plague. They might be speeding towards a happy community full of jolly optimists — or into a violent ambush. The reality usually lay somewhere in the middle. The Titanic brought hope, and it also brought jealousy over the relatively good standard of living on board. It brought relief, but it also reinforced the knowledge that life could never be the same again. Usually he shared this excitement with Claire, but she sat stiff and remote. She would normally be snapping away by now, but the camera lay neglected in her lap. He smiled at her. She ignored him.

The clinic was set up in one of the larger huts and a queue of anxious mothers with their spotty children and pale-looking, blotchy orphans soon formed. Other women and children stood around watching from doorways or perched on teetering piles of wooden frames. The surrounding houses themselves stretched back for nearly two hundred metres, most of them running crookedly into each other. Some of their owners had added inadequate little chimneys which only seemed to disperse about half of the smoke from the small fires within, leaving the rest to blacken the faces and clog the lungs of their inhabitants. There was no system for getting rid of the sewage, and garbage lay everywhere. Rats wandered undisturbed. Jimmy had visited many settlements, but this was the worst yet. Winter had not yet arrived, but when it did he doubted if Tucker's Hole would survive for long.

Jimmy was pleased at least to see that the squalor had inspired Claire to wield her camera. Ordinarily he would have suggested ideas for photographs, or she would have sought his advice, but he decided it was better to keep his distance. Instead, after quickly checking that Dr Hill was too busy to keep a proper eye on him, Jimmy ducked into one of the narrow alleys that lay between the houses and began to make his way into the heart of Tucker's Hole. He was intrigued by the fact that there seemed to be no men around — yet he was sure he could hear them: raucous voices, snatches of songs. As he negotiated his way towards the enclosed centre of the settlement, scabby-faced children gawped at him as he passed. His first clue as to what awaited him came when he had to step over a man lying face down and snoring, clearly completely drunk. Then he found a pair of them, arms round each other as if they'd been singing together and then had collapsed into unconsciousness at the same time. There was a half spilled bottle beside them. Jimmy picked it up — there was a clear liquid within. He sniffed it cautiously — and his head shot back, his nostrils burning. This was what they called 'moonshine' in America, or 'poteen' back home in Ireland. Pure alcohol that was so strong it could turn you blind or kill you if it wasn't made in just the right way.

As Jimmy turned a corner the acoustics of the twisting alley became more concentrated and defined, leading him towards a much larger, windowless construction that was crammed with men drinking and partying. One was playing an accordion, another a tin whistle, both were banging their feet on the floor in time to their music. Onlookers clapped and sang along. Jimmy listened for a few minutes before pressing through the throng until he found himself in a short corridor which led to an even larger room beyond. This was just as crowded, but it was actually quieter — they were all listening intently to a grizzled looking old man perched on a bar stool on a slightly raised area in the centre of the room. His voice was raspy, his eyes red-rimmed from the wood smoke which hung around the ceiling, and he sat hunched over, as if he had the weight of the world on his bony shoulders. As Jimmy squirrelled his way forward the old man was shuffling crumpled sheets of paper.

'Here we are — here we are . . . This one's from Jacob's Hollow, 'bout fifty miles east of here. Says they have the malaria now — ain't been malaria in these parts for two hundred years, but they say they have it.'

Another man spoke up. 'My wife's right — we're all goin' to hell in a handcart.'

There was a murmur of agreement from the audience. The old man nodded grimly as he looked down at the sheet of paper. 'Have the names here of people who've showed up at Jacob's Hollow. Gonna read them out. You recognise any, you speak to me later, I'll see if I have any news of them. When I'm done up here, I'll take a list of your names with me to the next settlement along. Good to know if your loved ones are OK — but I tell you this, don't go trying to visit. Roads are impassable, bandits out there, shootin' and killin'. Not gonna harm an old fella like me, but you stay safe here in Tucker's Hole.'

When he'd finished reading the names from Jacob's Hollow, he pulled up another sheet, this time from a settlement called Miller's Crossing, and repeated the process. He read two more after that and was about to start on a third when he hesitated and glanced up at the audience. His mouth opened, then closed. He appeared to be debating with himself whether to say something.

'What is it?' someone shouted. 'We don't need any more bad news!'

'No — no, it's not — it's just . . .' He sighed. 'Well, don't see what harm it can do. Just — I heard this story. These days there's lots of stories, but the people I heard it from swore to God it was true.' An anxious hush fell on the audience. As Jimmy looked around he caught a glimpse of Claire on the far side of the room. The old man rubbed at his heavily stubbled jaw. 'Well, there were these couple of guys went hunting in the woods outside of Miller's Crossing, just ordinary folks like you and me. They were tracking this deer down through the trees, came out on the old railway track — ain't been a train through there since the early days of the plague — but this day, there was a train sitting about a hundred metres up from where they were, engine running and American flags flying front and back. Now our guys were a bit wary, you know how things are these days, deciding whether it was a good idea to approach — when these Marines jumped out of nowhere, surrounded them, took their guns off of them, wanting to know what they were doing sneakin' up on the President's train . . .'

At this an excited flurry of whispers swept through the crowd.

'Yep — that's what they said. Anyways they were marched to the train . . . and you know what? The President himself got off and walked right up to them and shook their hands and asked how they was doing!'

Another wave of excitement.

'Yep — it was the President all right, sure as I'm sitting here. And that's not all. He asked them what they did in their old life — one was a fireman, other in computers. He said he was looking for good people. He'd established his own settlement couple of hundred miles north — had its own schools, electricity, good food, television — said he was rebuilding civilisation. President said he was looking for people to help and did they want to come. Well of course, they both wanted to go, and one of them climbed right on board, was given a cold beer. The other, he said he had a wife and family back in the settlement and could he go fetch them, but the President said he couldn't wait, there were bandits in the woods and all about and it wasn't safe. But he said he'd be back, and that people shouldn't give up hope, that the good times were coming again, and to have faith in him, and have faith in God.'

The old man nodded. 'Faith in him,' he repeated, 'faith in God.'

Questions were immediately shouted from the floor.

'When was this?'

'You sure it was him?'

'What they call this place?'

'They have television?'

'Were those guys drunk?'

There were a dozen more questions. Eventually the old man held his hand up. 'Told you all I know. This was about three weeks back, and I tell you, that guy's been down at those tracks with his family every day since. All I can say is, if I see that train, I'd be getting right on board too.'

He smiled then and there was scattered applause. He pushed himself wearily off his bar stool. At that exact moment a camera flash went off. The old man spun to one side with surprising speed and vigour as he sought out the culprit. Jimmy saw Claire pushing her way back through the crush of bodies. She had her photograph, and he had his story. They were a great team, even if they weren't speaking to each other.