How We Live Now

04

Isaac had been keeping track of the days and weeks and in late-November when the days were cruelly short and dreary and noncommittally raining and then sunny for five minutes and they woke to bitter frosts, a column of billowing black smoke far on the horizon that looked like a loose thread caught in a breeze from their vantage on Hawk Hill was too close for comfort, and after tending to the animals, they devoted an entire day to securing the house. Removed from any main road and accessible only via precarious old signs and local knowledge of the winding lanes, miles away from the village or any neighbours, the house was pretty secure. But it had been sequestered once and they didn't want to take any chances, and Daisy once more noticed that sometime in the last couple months, Isaac had become an adult. There was a new set to his shoulders and a diligence in his clever eyes that made her worry sometimes; he obviously had trouble forgetting what he had seen, but that made him cautious and quick.

They closed up the rest of the house, leaving only the kitchen, living-room, downstairs cloak-room and Aunt Penn's study accessible. The only time Isaac had raised his voice since their return was to call Piper stupid for getting upset about ruining Mummy's pretty wallpaper by hammering nails into the window-frames; the Army guys had brought sheets of plywood to prop over the windows but not nailed them in, and Isaac didn't like the idea of any light seeping through to the outside to draw the attention of anyone who happened to be passing by. They drew the curtains across to conceal the plywood, and if they had turned on the electricity the rooms might've looked normal, but they had turned off all the radiators because there was no central-heating, and as much as they had boarded the rooms up to prevent anyone getting in who oughtn't to, they blocked the windows of any draughts and closed the doors to keep all the heat concerted into the main rooms they used daily, even stuffing blankets along the bottom of the old doors.

Another day was spent reorganising the furniture, because it made sense to move Aunt Penn's unused computer and desk upstairs into one of the other rooms and bring in a couch and another armchair and the coffee-table because the living-room was bigger, and they brought two beds downstairs, frames and all, a twin from Isaac's room and Aunt Penn's double-bed because the girls would share, and Isaac found old camping-gear in the attic including sleeping-bags with fluffy fleece inserts and slippery silk liners that would've been a godsend on their hikes home to deter the bugs. So the living-room became their communal bedroom and Aunt Penn's room became the living-room and Daisy thought Piper and Isaac just liked to be near their mother's essence. Daisy herself liked the pressed-flower artwork and she liked to look at Aunt Penn's photograph of her mother while the others read.

On the first truly heinous winter day, Daisy decided they needed to do laundry, because she was a masochist and the black storm-clouds and thunder had them all on edge - the noise sounded too much like the bomb they had heard going off at the beginning of everything - and through dint of Herculean effort, they started to wash their clothing. They had been back since early-September and had become accustomed to not changing their clothes regularly or even often, but it had to be done eventually, and why waste a fine day by doing it then? There was a bathtub in the downstairs cloak-room and all they had to do was keep setting buckets and bowls and Tupperware out in the yard and Daisy would start to warm the water through, and they piled all their dirty clothes in the tub with a teacup of Persil non-bio detergent, and if farming was hard work Daisy had not been born to be a washerwoman of ye olden days because it was backbreaking and her hands pruned and started to peel. They soaked their clothes, used coarse brushes to try and get out the worst of the stains, wringing them out and leaving them to drip-dry in front of the fire and the Aga draped over clothes-horses Aunt Penn had in abundance because Mum said people had been drying clothes for millennia without tumble-dryers. Only after they were finished and Piper found a tube of Aunt Penn's favourite Crabtree & Evelyn Gardeners Hand Recovery cream helped combat the cracked, bleeding skin on her fingers.

Tackling the sheets and things would take more effort and more space to dry things and Isaac agreed it would be better to wait for a clear day so they could at least use the washing-line outside in the garden to dry things.

When they had finished the laundry, Daisy continued to heat more water - it was throwing it down so violently the BFG might've been stood above the house throwing buckets at them in full force - and they had a hot bath.

To three kids who had warm washes if they could be bothered to heat the water with everything else they needed to do, and who regularly bathed in the river if they felt brave enough in the cold, a hot bath was the height of luxury, and they kept water on the stove to keep the bathwater hot as first Piper then Isaac then Daisy enjoyed a soak. With fresh sheets on the beds that smelled vaguely of marjoram and lemon-thyme and lavender because of Piper leaving dried bundles of herbs in the airing-cupboard and clean pyjamas, the crackle of the fire and the animals cuddling up as they listened to the storm raging and the rare treat of hot-cocoa - it was heaven.

It wasn't long after seeing the smoke that Jet warned them about a man limping down the lane. Armed with their guns but keeping out of sight, they watched carefully from the yard, and if the man hadn't stopped to sway and grab hold of the gatepost and vomit weakly, she wouldn't have recognised him.

It wasn't Edmond.

The devastating loss of that was swiftly pushed and beaten aside - purely for her own survival; he would return - because in place of disappointment came surprise.

It wasn't Edmond. But it was someone they knew.

Someone who had saved her and Piper's lives, that night the barn was attacked and they had run in the moonlight, which was a lot harder than it sounded. They had run until the gunfire sounded like a car backfiring and he had given Piper a big hug like he was her long-lost brother and a kiss on the top of her head because she had been the light of all their lives for a short time and he had turned back, toward the fighting.

Baz.

Holding tight onto her gun, because she wasn't an idiot, she gestured quickly for him to get back into the house where Piper was, and she crept out of the yard, eyeing the lane he had come from. It was freezing cold but a clear, dry day and he wore heavy fatigues that were slightly too big for him and they were caked in mud and blood and God knew what else, and Jet trotted loyally by Daisy's side, scenting the air, and she saw Baz carried no weapon but had a big Army-issue backpack on and looked like he was barely standing.

For a second he didn't seem to even register that she was even there, let alone recognise her, but he raised a shaky, bruised hand to wipe his chapped lips and Daisy saw one eye was purple and had probably just receded from massive swelling, and the other eye squinted at her in the brittle white sunlight, and those chapped, cut lips parted.

"Daisy?"

"Hey."

His good eye was bleary as he gazed past her to the house with a kind of delirious smile flickering over his chapped lips, and a hoarse kind of chuckle caught in his throat. She remembered how it felt to find Isaac; she couldn't imagine how Baz felt, seeing Daisy again. If there was a snowball's chance in Hell that Daisy and Piper had managed to get home, well… For once, the snowball had beaten the odds. And it would again, she thought, thinking of Edmond. Wherever he was, she just hoped that he was warm. The days were getting bitter.

She glanced from Baz's hollow cheeks to the little puddle of vomit and wondered when his last meal had been, and why he was holding one arm funny. She could imagine what had happened to all the other guys from the barn if he was stood here, alone, miles away from where he had been last, looking like he'd been used to sweep the Welcome mat in Hell.

Jet wandered up to Baz and licked his palm, whining softly. A soft ghost of a smile whispered across Baz's bruised face.

"You're hurt."

"Just a smidge," Baz said, with a valiant smile reminiscent of the ones he used to give Piper.

Baz had saved their lives.

"Anyone following you?"

"No."

"Come on inside." She had to help him, his limp was so bad; and it was from a combination of blisters and a sprained ankle that was so swollen, Isaac feared it might actually be broken. But, no, Baz didn't think so, he was just stubborn and couldn't afford to stop and rest it. Plus it was too cold to sit anywhere exposed, and nowadays there weren't many sheltered places he trusted.

Isaac kept Piper in Aunt Penn's study until he was sure of Baz's identity; the story of the barn and their getaway and all Baz had gathered for their journey without even being asked was told, and Isaac's eyes glittered and he nodded firmly, making a decision.

They gave Baz the same care they had given each other the day they found each other in the lambing-barn all those weeks ago. Baz's clothes were stripped and some were put on the pile for the bonfire they were planning to get rid of the garden waste that they couldn't give the pigs, and he was given a warm-water wash with a flannel and big sponge, cataloguing his injuries.

Isaac beamed and said Not to worry, when they realised he had a dislocated shoulder; Joe used to slump over all the time with dislocated shoulders and black-eyes because his dad was an abusive dick, and George R. R. Martin was a good cure for it. Isaac and Edmond had always set Joe's arms. Careful of his arm, and of his swollen ankle, Daisy gave Baz a wash, and like Isaac had been, was too bone-weary to get embarrassed about being naked in front of a strange girl and a quirky boy-man who put two thick novels in a pillowcase and they laid Baz down on the kitchen-table when Isaac had brought him clean underwear and a pair of his dad's old jeans, and carefully, they managed to set Baz's arm. It was a weird popping noise that reminded Daisy of that night, but Isaac just shrugged and coughed a soft laugh and they tended to Baz's other, minor injuries, though his biggest complaint was obviously malnutrition. They elevated his bad ankle on a cushion as Isaac turned to pour them all a cup of herb tea sweetened with a little honey, and Daisy poured a ladle of cauliflower soup into a bowl and Piper burst into the room, grinning, embracing him like he truly was another long-lost brother, and she cuddled in Baz's lap as he tried to eat the soup, but it was rich and unfamiliar and he could only manage half, but that was okay; they'd all been on starvation rations too, and he just needed a little, often, or he'd feel worse. Jet rested his head on Baz's thigh, and he had to find it surreal, to be sat in a warm kitchen with familiar people, smiling faces, a healthy dog and a sense of calmness that radiated from them like warmth did from the oven.

They had once been protected by Baz and now they incorporated him into their tiny family. They were still missing one member but they never gave up hope that the next time Jet barked at a figure limping down the lane it would be Edmond. His hawk continued to soar and hunt in the area and every time Daisy glimpsed her, she thought of Edmond and his lips and his large hands and the scent of his skin and how it felt to be filled by him.

Baz had forgotten how to be taken care of. They forced him to rest his ankle, and Isaac taught him the exercises Joe had used to help his reset shoulder. He drank herb tea and ate tiny rations of porridge or had mouthfuls from their dinner but no more, not for a while, and he didn't sleep well on the couch because he was so used to sleeping on the hard ground, and Piper had smiled softly and said, It took us ages to turn into humans again, as if the little wood-sprite had ever truly been one. So he slept on the floor in the kitchen by the Aga, with his gun in his hand, and sometimes Daisy knew he didn't sleep but sat against the wall watching the door all night.

The only news they heard in months came from Baz, and with a subtle glance at Piper as she poured herb tea, Daisy knew there was a lot he wouldn't say, because even if she was no longer a child she was still a nine-year-old kid and some things a soldier just didn't tell civilians, even ones who had escaped a raid, and worse.

The murder of Joe that afternoon had sparked a rash of violence across the countryside; the spark in a keg of gun-power, as it were, and it was only because the British Army had been allowed a reprieve to get their shit together for a few months after the initial Occupation that there had been any chance of them retaliating and even gaining ground. But the soldiers who were occupying Britain didn't have much hope of ever going home again, and that made them even more dangerous; they were the sorts of people who had nothing to lose, and so, Baz had murmured to Daisy one night when the others were fast asleep, and she alluded to the foreign soldiers and the girls in the woods, that they were the ones who were committing the worst atrocities. Like Gatesfield.

There were no repercussions for dead men.

Britain right now looked like a hostage situation - only it wasn't a high-school or an Embassy or even a stadium of people who were being held at gunpoint, it was the entire nation.

And yet the terrorists hadn't accounted for the unyielding determination and stern fighting spirit of the British to keep going. As Churchill had once said, as poignant and heart-breaking and rallying now as it was in 1940; "We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!"

And they had not. The British Army, the Navy and the Air-Force had regrouped offshore and with new allies, the Coalition - Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and all their combined allies - were even now eradicating the scourge from central Europe, and had, for want of a better word, supported the invasion of Britain. The British Army, for the first time in its history, was forced to invade its own island, and reclaim it from an occupying force; they were helped by the Land Army that had been left behind to power through their shock at the nuclear detonation and sudden Occupation, proving once again that British resilience was inherited from even greater heroes than themselves, grandfathers and great-uncles who had sacrificed their lives to prevent such a thing as they were experiencing now never happening again.

But it had; and across Britain the true spirit of the British people shone through the grim reality of war. They were taking back their country. The terrorist attacks had levelled London, Paris, Geneva and Berlin in one afternoon; but outside of it, normal people were showing what British strength was and were taking back their homes, their towns, their cities, with the Land Army boys like Baz.

The truth of it was, the nuclear detonations were the first act of war but no more had been set off, at least not in Europe, and there were some countries completely untouched by war - the majority of South America, parts of Canada, a good part of Russia and the innermost African countries, most of India and her neighbours - and Anzac troops were once again deployed abroad to help their Mother country though no nuclear strike against New Zealand or Australia had been confirmed, the last Baz had heard, and Japan and China were allied with them against North Korea.

According to Baz, no more nuclear bombs had been detonated: But Paris had been hit again the same day as London, and Berlin and Moscow were ash, Geneva a crater. Baz showed them on the Road Atlas where the nuclear bomb had been dropped in London, how far the estimated destruction spanned, and where large bombs had been detonated in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow, as well as Dublin. The Channel Islands had been overlooked and were thus vital for the British Forces launching the invasion home; during World War II they had been occupied by the Nazis, and much of their installations had been preserved as a reminder, and were now appropriated by the Royal Army and Air Force and Navy.

The irony was heart-breaking. It should never have been necessary. But it just showed the terrorists had no respect for their enemies' history. The Channel Islands were crucial and the last Baz had heard, the British Army, supported by the Air Force and the Navy, had launched simultaneous attacks at strategic points across Britain - strategic locations only those in the British Forces would know about intimately as strategic for the success of an invasion.

Britain was an island nation with a history of invasion that dated back millennia.

Only now, it was the British who had to reclaim their country, and they were doing so with dogged tenacity.

As Daisy had experienced, only when brutally tested did they learn what they were truly capable of.

The British people would endure, as they always had.

She had no idea what the state of the wider world looked like, and she doubted they would until the war truly ended, but what little Baz knew heartened the others, and had Piper convinced that Mummy was an Expert on Loony Extremists and they'd protect her because she could read the terrorists' minds and would Save The World. Baz caught Daisy's eye when Piper had left the room and Isaac pointedly didn't look anyone in the face but said, I think Jet needs to go out and he disappeared for half an hour, and when he returned it was getting dark and Daisy pretended not to notice that his eyes were red and puffy and he went to bed early with his back to them even though he'd promised Piper a game of gin-rummy.

Isaac was quiet for days but he looked after the animals and gradually they seemed to work the same magic on him as he usually did them. Jet never strayed from his side, and on a morning hike on a bitter December morning, they paused and Isaac grinned, saying We'll need to get the ladder, because Velvet Shank mushrooms were growing in profusion like Christmas ornaments high up the trunk of a dead elm tree, and the name was so funny they just had to get that ladder and harvest the wild mushrooms.

Secretly Daisy had been ticking days off Aunt Penn's twenty-four month calendar, and on Christmas Eve she stayed up late with Baz, who helped her decorate the kitchen with ornaments and tinsel and paper-chains found in a huge tub in the garage, and there were leftover Christmas crackers, whatever they were, and Daisy had found a box of Lindt Lindor chocolate-truffle balls in an obscure corner of the utility-room. They were up late and rose earlier than usual, and she and Baz, who had been learning the ropes from Isaac and Piper, tended to the animals and did the chores and lit the Aga, and on Christmas Day, Baz helped her make a full English breakfast, wartime-style, with jarred tomatoes and the four eggs she had secreted away, scrambled with ground black pepper and some of Meg's milk to make them even richer, and Isaac's Velvet Shank mushrooms fried in some rabbit fat and olive-oil with lots of pepper, and hash-browns, and one of the small black puddings sliced and fried, and some fried rabbit in place of bacon, and most of a tin of Heinz baked beans.

After letting them sleep in late, Daisy woke her cousins with Deck the Halls on the piano. She got a pillow thrown at her head but Jet barked and wagged his tail because Baz had treated him to a little rabbit grease over his dry dog-food and Piper and Isaac pulled on sweaters over their pyjamas and shuffled into the kitchen, as Gandalf always advised, following their noses.

There were sprigs of holly everywhere and a wreath with ivy and berries over the window and Piper's glittery paper-chains, Aunt Penn's revived velvety red amaryllis stood tall and proud on the sideboard with jar-hyacinths next to an ancient crepe-paper and toilet-roll angel and a Nativity scene made of felted animals, a miniature unicorn as the donkey and a Lego Jesus, and Piper's early paper-whites stood in a vase on the table with the steaming plates of food, a Christmas cracker at every setting and a Lindt chocolate ball on every chair. Daisy had hidden away the box so Piper couldn't scoff all of them. Baz had tuned the radio onto the BBC which had been taken back - kind of like the Weasley twins in Deathly Hallows, Piper mused - and on Christmas morning there was a special broadcast, and they played favourite Christmas pop-songs that everyone knew and sang along to with gusto, and a special Christmas news report featured and as the day went on, they played familiar and extraordinary and poignant classical pieces - Elgar's Nimrod and Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and afterwards, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker in its entirety, and they enjoyed their breakfast feast and Daisy cleaned her whole plate and enjoyed every single bite and they pulled the crackers open and wore their colourful paper crowns all day as they went for a walk over the common and settled back in Aunt Penn's study to play Bananagrams and read Little Women and Daisy played Christmas carols on the piano and they pretended that they weren't upset that it was Christmas Day and Edmond still wasn't home.

To say thank you for their Christmas, Isaac and Piper let Daisy languish in bed late the next morning, Boxing Day, letting her lounge and read in bed, finishing Stardust, finally bringing her a cup of PG Tips tea to coax her out of bed, and they prepared the bubble-and-squeak with poached eggs for a midday dinner after another long walk to Hawk Hill, and it was a picturesque English winter's day, bright and clear, their breath gusting in plumes and the river gurgling delightedly and the birds twittering joyously, their hands wrapped in gloves and mittens and hats pulled over their ears and their noses running, but they were exhilarated and smiling and appreciated their meal all the more.

By the time Baz mentioned leaving, it was mid-January and they had come to view him as part of the furniture, really; he had fit seamlessly into their odd jigsaw-puzzle family, but he was part of the Land Army and he was healed.

But as Isaac said, he was doing a lot here, at their farm, and it was necessary work. They might not be feeding the five-thousand but they had essential skills, and soon enough when the Army invaded and the Occupation ended he could be first in line to get himself killed overseas but there needed to be people staying on the farms, now, to defend what they had managed to salvage. It wasn't like there was going to be a ceasefire and everyone could start shopping at Waitrose and ordering Chinese takeaway again.

Isaac got very upset about Baz possibly leaving; he actually burst into tears, and Daisy realised it was the first time Isaac had argued with anyone since Edmond had turned back for Gatesfield - and for the same reason.

Baz was right, about returning to the nearest installation of British soldiers, to get his orders; but Isaac was right too, about Baz having plenty of opportunity to get himself killed later, but they needed him here, now, helping to maintain the farm.

And there was a reason Baz was the sole remaining soldier from a makeshift regiment, limping down a country lane half-dead. He didn't have to say it because they all knew it; the others were dead, and he was fighting on to find the next Land Army station.

Truth be told, they had become accustomed to Baz.

Isaac's willpower won.

Baz stayed.