"At the top of the dial and after all this won't you give me a...won't you give me a...won't you... *Scree!*" The tape shuddered to a stop. A head rose above the desk.
"Oh. Damnation and a rain of sodding blood." An arm joined the head, slapping the stereo. No noise came out, so tentatively she opened the tape deck. A long stream of tape shuddered over the edge.
"Oh God, it gets harder to fix these sodding things." I was watching from the wings, standing at the door in my old blue coat and holding my big green satchel. I knock at the door of the boat and her head turns.
"Oh hello. You alright?"
"Fine. You ready to talk today?" I sit down.
My Dictaphone begins whirring, recording the words of a survivor of the worst plague in history.
"London doesn't stink anymore. Not since it did a Marie Celeste and lost most of its inhabitants. A virus got into the population and thinned it out. It's called a Malthusian check. They just went. This is England, you see, and here people had the good grace to hide themselves away to die. Except the homeless, of course. But we buried them." She pauses to light a cigarette.
"Where was I? Oh yes, I know. It doesn't smell anymore. I think we might get it back to the way it was when the Romans ruled the world and this was Londinium. That'd be nice. We'd have order, for one. I live on a boat now. Did you have that on tape yet? I used to live in a semi-detached mock Tudor house in an affluent suburb of London. It wasn't the greatest architectural achievement ever, but it 's what on the inside that counts. My boat used to be a restaurant. It's ever so calm and peaceful here. Well, most of the time, anyway." A cloud comes over her face and she lowers her voice slightly.
"The Thames is beautiful now, free of all the rubbish that used to be pumped and dumped and thrown into it. We don't know if we can operate the Flood barrier anymore, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, as it were." She pauses.
"Lots of people have thrown themselves off the bridges, but if we find them, we bury them. We understand how it feels. We've all been there. But recently...no. Not today. It might just be wild assumption on my part. I'll tell you some other time. "
"We don't all live here, on the river. Quite a few people live in train carriages, the ones that were left in stations. Loads of people live in shops - I think Oxford Street is the most densely populated area of London now. Quite a few live in hotels. London has no centre now. I mean, for me it's Charing Cross station, and Oxford Street is the outskirts, but it can be anywhere. Anywhere you want."
"Have you been out of London since the plague?"
"No, I haven't been out of London since the cull. Why would I? Everything I need and want is here. I know a couple who have left. The country type. I can't get in touch with them, but if you were determined enough...it'd be interesting."
"I might.' I stand to leave. 'Are...any of your neighbours talkative?"
"That depends on what you can offer them."
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On the one hundred and thirty second morning of the first year, London woke up significantly different. Overnight, they had burned St Paul's. It survived for a long time, throughout the Blitz even, but it couldn't survive a bunch of angry kids. I went there after it happened, to mourn for it, and to keep a record. An event such as this could not go unrecorded, so I went there and saw what it was - what it is today. A load of stone pretending to be a building. There's a huge hole in the roof where the rain comes in. Everything valuable has been taken away.
I still miss it. Londoners after the war believed that if St Paul's made it, they would. It was a symbol of hope. So now it's gone, and what do we have to give us hope? We have to believe in ourselves when before you believed in mum and dad, school and Steps, weekends and annoying your siblings. It's difficult to believe in anything - especially yourself - when the world comes crashing down on your head.
I looked at my notes recently, and found that I had forgotten what I had written. All I had written on the death of St Paul's was this:
"If St Paul's cannot survive, how can anything else? Why does it feel like everyone has lost the power of speech and all they can do is scream a long, loud wordless scream to a world that isn't listening. All over London there are flowers for the dead when it is us who should be mourned."
Well, I was younger then. Lots of other buildings in London were destroyed; burnt to the ground or left to decay quietly. But it's still St Paul's I miss the most.
------------------------------------------------
Tubeway Army" she says it heavily, considering the words and the danger inherent in them.
"They live in the underground stations, surprisingly. You've seen their poems - if you can call them that. Doggerel, as my mum would have said. I've written some down - thought you might want them."
She digs out a stack of paper and rifles through it.
"Here we go." She puts it on the table in front of me. On it is written,
"We are the Tubeway Army
The London Infantry
We'll take your heads
And steal your homes
Just you wait and see."
"Well I can't say I'm impressed. It's taken from a World War 1 song - Fred Karno's Army. My dad told me about it when I was younger. Anyway, they're a bit like the Trainsquatters, but more dangerous. Apparently the tube is a good place to live, though I can't think why, and they want to protect that, I suppose. But now' she taps the paper ' it seems like they want to move out. And I for one will be waiting with my weapons."
"The ones who live near here - they're a weird mob. They rarely come out, but when they do...they look scary. Sunken eyes, pale, the mark of those who rarely see the sun.' She pauses to laugh 'I'm making 'em sound like vampires, aren't I? Nah, vampires are cooler. And probably less dangerous. They just like to terrify people I guess. They don't come down to the river though. Not yet. Too far from sanctuary. And God knows what they've heard about us. I just see them when I'm up here. They look so young; I feel...I just feel sorry for them, to live in the tube. I always wonder what they eat or drink. I don't know where they get it. Where do you think they get it?
I don't like it when they ask me questions. I answer with a shrug and beckon her to continue.
"I don't know too much about them, I suppose. No one does. Our Tubeway Army lives in Charing Cross, London Bridge, Borough and, um, Monument. I think they're the biggest. That doesn't mean they're the only ones though. Not by any means. There are plenty of others, but up by Oxford Circus is as far as I've been for a while.
"Like I said, they don't come out much. You'd have to go down to see them if you want any more information. There aren't any past members - they seem to join for life. I get the feeling that if you live in the tube; you're not going to be the most sociable person, are you? I tell you what though, if you want to go and see them, I could organise a bodyguard. You wouldn't be safe alone."
Could you do that?
"Yeah, sure. I think you should go down there. I think there's something very interesting going down there. Always the way, isn't it? Scratch the surface and you never know what you might find."
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I made a big trek last week, all the way out to the suburbs. Leah was true to her word and got me a bodyguard. His name's Rob, he doesn't talk much and he has more weapons than anyone I've ever met. For all that, he's a very efficient guard who breaks arms first and doesn't really ask questions later.
In a small suburban street, SE7 actually, there's a group who have decided (for whatever reasons) to live their lives as if the plague had never happened. They keep their gardens, tidy the streets outside their houses, and keep the decaying houses maintained as best they can. They all miss the old way like it was oxygen itself.
They live for the most part like married couples. They live off Halfway Road, and take up 5 houses between them. The surrounding houses streets and towns are derelict.
In number 47, a family. A proper one. You remember them don't you? Parents and children, in myriad combinations. Alison lives with Dan, though they haven't found someone to marry them yet. They have two children - Mary, 3 and Eve, 1. Alison was pregnant 3 months before the virus hit. They're now counting down to the beginning of the fourth year. Not to celebrate it, but to mark it.
To live, they keep two pigs, and with their neighbours have utilised all the earth possible to grow food.
"It's hard, but that's not to say we don't enjoy life anymore. You just have to find different things to enjoy. Like, instead of enjoying hanging out with your mates at McDonald's, you enjoy telling your children stories about what you used to do. Ask anyone ' she says ' it's the children that make it all worthwhile.
Annabel Jones lives in number 49. She's one of only two singletons on the street, and the saddest person there. She was one of 6 children, and the others say she finds the quiet and the loneliness too much sometimes. When I asked to speak to her, all she would say was
"At least this way I can pretend. I can pretend that everyone's gone out and will be back soon. I can pretend I know what's going to happen tomorrow. I might be fooling myself but if I tried to live any other way I'd hang myself tonight."
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In number 51, Sarah lives with Paul. They were zygotic [embryonic] skater kids before the virus, just 12 and 13, and now they live here and try and think of a way out. They're not in a relationship, though. Or not the conventional way. They're cousins. However, they're weirdly close. They look like twins, with big eyes, dyed blonde hair and baggy T-shirts. They eat, sleep and think together.
Their faded clothes bear the names of bands that were so important back then. Can you remember a world where your favourite band was YOUR band, the most important thing ever? Where seeing their new video before your friends was cool? Do you remember using the words 'like' and 'cool' every sentence? Their T-shirts - Nirvana, OPM, Limp Bizkit, countless others - they are relics of that time.
"It's a different life now. It took a long time to get used to it, but now it's just our life. It's like someone replaced GCSEs with this. Taking Business Studies or Drama won't do you any good anymore. We need new skills now. Skills that we have." that's Sarah. She's the talker; Paul's the thinker. He says only one sentence while I'm there;
"We are all equal now. Oh, there are some who will try to gain power, but to all intents and purposes we are the same."
On 53 Halfway Road, Alisha, the streets other singleton, lives with her daughter Sophie. Sophie's father left her about a year ago, but despite being 19 now, disarmingly pretty and optimistic, she's yet to meet anyone else.
"It's a bit difficult, especially here. It's almost like you have to prove yourself before you're even allowed to talk to them." By them she means those who inhabit the town centres, the gangs who range from the Brothers, a relatively tame bunch, to the ones who stalk round en masse with knives clearly visible.
"I suppose it is a bit insular, but it's better than living out there. Out there...it's so uncertain. And I didn't want to be somewhere where I'd always be scared for Sophie."
A postscript to my interviews; number 55, Shirley and Matt, and two babies just born. They wouldn't talk to me, or answer the door. I was warned away from talking to them by Paul.
In short, the inhabitants of halfway Road might seem weird or even mad. But they've found a way to cope with what's happened, and isn't that what all of us are looking for?
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