Running Read online

  Ever since he’d reached an age to find his father a subject of interest, Scott had wondered exactly what his dad did. Jameson’s dad owned a chain of restaurants. Travers’s dad worked in television. But his dad? He never spoke about work. No one came to the house, although to be fair Scott was at school five days a week, and the only letters they received were bills and junk mail. Did he work? If so, who paid his wages? Someone had to. There always appeared to be enough money in the bank to buy things, so …

  And, for the thousandth time, his question went unanswered.

  ‘So what’s happening in the real world? Anyone new in town?’

  Since town referred to the small village, two miles away, Scott had long since decided the question was rhetorical and didn’t require an answer. Nevertheless, he always gave it due consideration.

  ‘No, nothing new. A tractor broke down in the main street causing a traffic jam …’ he pulled a face. ‘You know – three cars! Jean at the pub is advertising for a chef. Oh yes, the new girl, Hilary? She actually broke her silence and spoke up in class. She’s nice.’

  ‘What were you talking about?’

  ‘Well, the Newt is wanting us to study the effects of the Iran fiasco and the tsunami on …’ Scott hesitated, ‘world climate – I guess.’

  His father sipped his tea, his eyebrows prompting Scott to continue.

  ‘Well, Jameson has this theory that the two events were related and that far from being the aggressor, America was the victim.’

  Bill Anderson put down his cup. ‘What makes him think that?’

  Scott leaned up against the work bench. Idly, he glanced down noticing a loose sheet of paper scrawled all over with letters and numbers. Part of his dad’s work? ‘Because nothing like it has ever been experienced in thousands of years of world history, so it was too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘An interesting theory. Has he anything to back it up?’ Bill Anderson leaned over and, picking up the sheet of paper, fed it through the shredder.

  ‘I don’t know. Jay’s pretty clever and he made some good points. Dad? I know you never talk about the tsunami … because of Mum, I mean. But if we’re going to study it in school, I’d like to know what happened. Okay … and even before you ask, I’d never, never say anything to anyone … I don’t even know how Mum died.’

  ‘There were millions of people lost, Scott, for whom there’s never been an answer. So what do you know?’

  It appeared to Scott that, even after fifteen years, his father remained in shock, incapable of talking about the death of his wife. He would talk about everything under the sun, bar that. Had he regretted that freak trip to London to meet up with a colleague, a trip coinciding with the earthquake and tsunami? Not long ago, when he was sick to death of chasing puzzles round and round in his head, Scott had summoned up the courage to ask the question: ‘Did you wish you’d died, too, Dad?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ he replied. ‘Never once. There was you, remember. Look what I’d have missed, my daily living reminder of my wife.’

  ‘Well, I know it was the St. Andreas fault – a shifting of the earth’s plates,’ Scott said now. ‘But I was thinking, there are other regions just as unstable. Jameson’s right, nothing like this has ever happened before. Villages, towns, even whole cities get churned up and spat out again, but this was – like a whole country.’

  ‘It also contained the nerve-centre of Silicon Valley, an area boasting more professors per square inch than any other real estate in the world. It just so happened, a world computer symposium was taking place – with a gathering of brainpower powerful enough to rival the planets in the night sky. It had taken years to organise. US-led, even the venue was kept secret till the last minute, in case of terrorist activity.’

  ‘So what was it about?’ Scott asked.

  ‘Viruses.’

  ‘You mean things like disease?’

  Bill laughed. ‘Nope! Computer viruses. The decade before had been plagued with the problem. The moment virus software was created someone discovered a virus that could breach it. The computer world had become a nightmare. It was hoped that a worldwide accord … agreement,’ Scott nodded, ‘could be formulated, with a global virus … police … if you like. Everyone wanted to attend. The hotels along the strip were overflowing with boffins of one sort or another, eagerly swopping software secrets. Most of those who survived the quake perished in the tsunami. Over ninety percent of the finest brains lost in five minutes,’ he finished, his voice clipped, snapping the phrase off as abruptly as the lives he’d been referring to.

  ‘Including Mum,’ Scott gave a sad smile. ‘So what about the ones that were left?’

  ‘They now live under constant protection or, if they are American – in a city specially built for them somewhere in the States that doesn’t suffer from earthquakes. Can you imagine the men that survived have become the most valuable commodity on earth – far greater even than oil. The world took a giant step back in time that day. It will take generations to replace the knowledge lost.’

  ‘What about you, Dad? Yo u aren’t in hiding.’

  ‘No. But I’m just a computer geek. Your mother was the brains behind our little group. I’m not that important.’

  Bill got to his feet. ‘Come on; let’s get some dinner on the go. And tell me more about this theory Jameson’s come up with.’

  By the side of Scott’s bed stood a small photo frame: in it the picture of a woman and a baby. It was the only picture he had of his mother. Everything else had been lost in the freak wave that had engulfed California and the western seaboard as far north as Vancouver. His father never spoke of it, the previous night had been an exception brought about by the debate in class. And the photo survived only because Bill Anderson had, absentmindedly, stuck it in his suitcase before leaving for the airport.

  According to the legend on the back, Scott had been just over a year old. Now it was the first thing he saw when he woke up – a tall, slim young woman. The fingers, curved round the toddler, were long and tapering, her collar-length hair shaded blonde. The photo was quite small, only postcard size, leaving Scott to imagine the grey of the eyes smiling at him. The baby was just a baby; it didn’t interest him much even though he knew it was him – it was always at his mother’s face that he stared.

  He, Scott, had survived the disaster because he’d been with his grandparents in Sacramento and there had been sufficient warning for most of the residents to reach the Sierras, far enough away from the coast to escape drowning. Redwood City, where his parents worked, had been only three miles inland.

  Every morning, when he opened his eyes and saw his mother he wished he’d known her. Although to be honest, he didn’t miss her because she’d never been there and he had no experience of what it was like to have a mother. Besides, he had a great dad who had done his best to fill the role of both parents. He could cook and keep house, he read a lot, taught Scott to swim, pitch, play chess and poker, kick a ball, climb and ride a bike; although that was more about Scott, it didn’t really tell him much about his dad, except that he was pretty fit for a person nearing fifty. Scott touched the glass – still it would have been good to know his mum.

  The house was quiet but it was light outside, so his dad would be about. He always got up at daybreak, incapable of sleeping longer. Scott wandered into the kitchen and grabbed some juice. His dad was reading the day’s news on his laptop.

  ‘Anything I should know about?’

  ‘You could read it yourself. Pancakes on the side.’ Bill nodded in the direction of the hot plate.

  Scott loaded his plate and sat down. ‘No time, anyway I prefer the potted version thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Well, let’s see. A ban is in place to control the movement of pigs, sheep and cows. Radiation levels are being checked, yet again. Chickens are up in price. There’s the usual warning to stay away from contaminated areas when on holiday. They’ve even supplied a list – which means no seaside this year, by the look of things.’
/>   ‘So could we use the spring holiday and go to the mainland? I’d love to visit Holland and see the flowers.’

  ‘Wow! The Keukenhof? Would you really? Rather an unblokish thing to do.’

  Scott grinned. ‘We’ve done all the bloke things, Dad, and I’ve got the blisters to prove it.’ He held up his hands, the flesh across the palms still showing pink, the result of a week’s trekking and climbing in Wales at half term. ‘Besides we’ve never been to the mainland.’

  He took a mouthful of pancake swimming in syrup, chewing happily.

  ‘Isn’t there ever anything besides contamination reports in the paper – you know stuff that’s actually interesting. We know about contamination – can’t they give it a rest?’

  ‘Okay, so … a monarchist rally in Brussels. Crushed, of course, and ten dead. Does that grab you? There’s sport? Money Markets?’

  Scott shoved his stool back and stood up, hastily stuffing the last of his pancake into his mouth. He picked up his bag. ‘I’ll go to school, thanks.’

  ‘Bring some milk on the way home.’

  Bill crossed the kitchen to fix himself another cup of coffee. The view through the window, over a spotlessly clean sink, was across the yard towards the door of his workroom and the gate into the lane. Amused, he watched his son, balanced precariously on the thin rims of his bike, attempting to shut the gate without dismounting. Having succeeded, he flashed a grin at the window aware his dad would be watching, before disappearing from view.

  Scott freewheeled down the track. He’d even surprised himself about Holland. The only reason he could come up with: in the photo a vase of tulips was on a table next to where his mother was sitting.

  Halfway down the lane he stopped. A navy blue van, marked with the Ministry logo – a dark blue circle motif with the words Radiation Assessment encircling gold laurel leaves – was attempting to park on the grass verge opposite a field full of sheep, and blocking the entire lane.

  I could park better than that, thought Scott indignantly, waiting for the road to clear.

  George Beale, a local farmer, together with a couple of helpers, was busily erecting a series of temporary pens, so his sheep could be tested before being released back into the field.

  Scott called out, ‘Hi, George. What’s going on?’

  ‘Mornin’, young ’un.’ The farmer ambled leisurely across the lane just as the doors to the van opened and the driver and his mate, both in navy-blue overalls, got out. ‘Bloody Ministry. I want to send me lambs to market. Can’t do it without a red tick. Look at them – fit as fleas the whole ruddy lot of them. Interferin’ busybodies.’

  Scott gazed across the field, the grass bright green in the sunlight, where the lambs from the previous autumn were happily grazing. Colour was nothing to go b y. Radiation leached through the soil whenever it rained and was taken up by the roots, into the stems, and then into the lambs as they munched the new grass.

  ‘B’ain’t no contamination in my flock,’ the farmer continued. ‘In fifteen year there’s never a lamb showed positive, but I still ’ave to go through the same ruddy rigmarole every time. You’d think they’d ’ave learned by now – b’ain’t no contamination in my flock.’

  ‘They were talking about it in the news, this morning.’

  ‘Were they then? Not my flock, they weren’t talking about. ’Ere, you ready?’ He called out to a third man, who had emerged from the rear of the van and was now busily hauling out metal boxes with long cables attached. ‘Bloody foreigners, too,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Gets on my wick sending a foreigner to do an Englishman’s job and they’re that cack-handed, you’d think they’d never done this job before.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We are almost ready to begin.’

  ‘About time, too.’

  Scott glanced back up the hill, the studio in plain sight; the propellers of the wind turbine, which supplied enough electricity to run the computers, clearly visible behind it. His father was probably already hard at work, although you’d never know it; the blinds in the studio not only keeping out daylight but also masking the artificial light his father worked b y.

  That was another of those puzzles that dogged Scott’s waking hours. His father had designed and built the studio when they first moved into the cottage. It couldn’t have been cheap even then, filled as it was with state-of-the-art computer equipment. But the financial side of the project didn’t particularly interest Scott; that formed part of a more general question: so where does our money come from? The question he couldn’t answer was: if his dad didn’t want daylight, why had he built so many windows?

  Setting his bike in motion again, Scott carried on down the lane heading for the main road. On days like this it was pleasant riding the five miles to school. It was only when there happened to be a downpour of rain or snow that his father got out the Four by Four and drove him.

  The Ministry van was still there when Scott cycled home again. No sign of George Beale or the lambs; the field, at the far end of the lane, empty of livestock. Despite that, the three men continued to range over the ground, scratching around in the hedgerow with their machines.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ he called.

  The man nearest to him stopped his machine and stood up, rubbing his back. ‘This field is contaminated so now we ’ave to recheck every field.’

  ‘That’s shocking.’ Scott leant over the handlebars, adjusting the clip on his front light. ‘Poor George. But what about his sheep? Were they clear?’

  The man laughed. ‘That farmer was so lucky,’ he said, his accent quite strong. ‘If ’e ’ad kept the animals in this field,’ he pointed back up the hill, ‘we could not ’ave moved them.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Nothing!’ The man tugged at a piece of twig caught in the front wheel of the bulky machine. He flipped it casually into the air. ‘We will test them. If they are radioactive, we will test them again in a year. In the meantime, they will be closed off.’

  Scott watched the fragile sliver drift back down and land on the machine again. ‘It’s very hard on the farmers,’ he said, trying to conceal a grin.

  ‘Radiation is very ’ard on the ’ole of Europe.’

  ‘I guess – but you said the sheep were fine?’

  ‘Completely safe,’ the man flexed his fingers, as if they were stiff from working the machine. ‘When you go to the supermarket, you can buy lamb in full confidence.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Scott set his bike moving. ‘Okay, then – see you,’ he called back.

  He rode off up the track, putting his energy into climbing the steep gradient. He didn’t look round though it took real effort not to. He wasn’t mistaken. After all, he went up and down the track every day and it was definitely that field the sheep had spent the better part of the winter. So how could it be contaminated if the sheep weren’t? He pounded the pedals, panting slightly. George would know; he was the person to clear up that particular mystery. Scott pushed the puzzle to the back of his mind. Tomorrow was the river trip and he hadn’t asked his dad yet. Idly, he wondered what Hilary would be wearing.

  ‘So what’s the news from the real world?’ Bill glanced up from his computer. ‘Anyone new in town?’

  Scott kicked the door of the studio shut behind him, closing out all traces of natural light. ‘Dad, you really ought to get out more. It’s bad for you to spend every day in here.’

  ‘I get out enough, Scott, when you’re at school.’

  ‘No, I mean meet people.’

  ‘Okay, so whose invitation is it this time?’

  Scott grinned, somewhat shamefaced he’d been so transparent. ‘Travers,’ he said, handing over a cup of tea. His hand froze in mid air. ‘The milk! Damn! I forgot it.’

  ‘Remind me to buy you a book on brain training. We can make do tonight; I’ll get some in the morning.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So?’ Bill knuckled his eyes.

  ‘Travers’s pa
rents are taking a party up-river in his cruiser and we’re invited. His dad said he needs you there to save him from boredom,’ Scott adlibbed.

  Bill laughed. ‘I’m flattered, only met Doug Randal a couple of times. I must have made an impression.’

  ‘Can we go?’ Scott said. ‘It’s an early start but you won’t mind that.’

  Bill screwed up his face. ‘Don’t think so, cocktails on the river aren’t really my scene. Don’t get me wrong, I like Doug, good bloke. But the company he keeps – media celebrities.’ He shook his head. ‘No, you go and enjoy yourself. I’ll probably take the bike out.’

  Scott fiddled uncomfortably with his spoon. ‘Dad?’ he said, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on his saucer.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I’m nearly sixteen. Isn’t it about time you told me some things?’

  ‘You mean stuff like sex? I thought you knew about that.’

  Scott’s head jerked up his eyes sparkling. ‘I do. No, it’s not that – it’s everything else – such as why you never mix with people? I mean some of the rules you’ve given me are pretty weird and yet you say you aren’t in danger, but are you? And what are you working on? And why everyone knows me as Scott when my name’s really Sky.’

  Scott peered into the sheet of mirrored glass tucked behind the door, the only thing to decorate the workroom’s plain cream walls beside two life-sized posters of his dad’s bike.

  The first was simply the bike in a blur of red speed. Its caption read: So take the High Road. In the other, the Suzuki had stopped by the side of a lake. Mountains appeared in the background, snow decorating their peaks, with a biker’s helmet lying on the ground. The caption: That’ll do nicely.

  Since they were the only things hanging on the walls throughout the entire cottage, Scott had spent time studying them, not certain whether his dad had first seen the posters, and been persuaded to buy the gleaming red monster parked in the garage, or whether the purchase of such a beloved object as his bike, had prompted the posters.

  He examined himself in the glass, seeing an ordinary face surrounded by almost shoulder-length fair hair – Sky? His eyes were grey.