Page 62 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

I know, I said.

You’re just you, she said, punching me softly on the arm. And that’s enough for me.

So when I saw the bear and the traveller who wore it, the dogs were already locked in the bunker at the other end of the airstrip. It was the next day which was a windy one, with the gusts racketing in the trees behind the tank and blowing across the old M-way in front of it. I had got a bad attack of the get-me-outs – what Cat called claustrophobia –through being shut in with everyone and their grudges and moods, and had gone to the tank to be alone as much as keep an eye out for any dangerous strangers. I didn’t actually believe there were any strangers about any more, if there had been any in the first place. I thought that the fire we’d seen on the horizon had definitely been sparked by a lightning strike. So I wasn’t keeping watch at all. I was reading a book about a gifted girl who was a zombie but also kind and if I hadn’t just got to the end of a chapter at the very moment the stranger walked past, I’d likely have missed them entirely, and this story would have a very different ending to the one it does.

I looked up and caught movement with the tail of my eye. I froze, feeling icy inside and not moving at all. Even though I hadn’t actually been keeping watch, the obvious approach to us that I hadn’t been keeping watch on was the old M-way. That was the easiest path through the countryside. There was something quite comforting in that, because you could, due to the position of the tank, see a long way down the old road in both directions. So when I glanced up from time to time, I could confirm my opinion and see that no one was coming for quite a distance, which made going back to reading all the easier because I could forget keeping watch for a good ten or twenty minutes or so at a time.

So when I saw the hooded stranger walk up onto the old road from the direction of the Russian’s grave, it was a double shock; once because it was another new person in the world, twice because I had no chance of preparing myself. The figure just pushed through the wall of willowherb on the far side of the M-way and stepped up onto the road. Because it had suddenly appeared from the direction of the dead Russian and was wearing a hood up, just like he had been doing, I immediately decided there must be a connection. The quick story my fear invented for me was that they had found the body and were now looking for the people who put it there, and by people I really meant person, and by person I meant me. And in the short flash of fear that it took me to put this all together, my mouth went dry and my heart started knocking so loudly that I was sure they would be able to hear it outside the tank. Then I remembered what I had once read in the book with the sand-worms about fear being the mind-killer, so I made myself breathe and tried to push the hot-cold flush of terror aside and think straight so I’d really see what I was looking at, not what the fear had invented for me.

This is what I saw. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman or a girl or a boy, not at first. They were on foot, alone, and walking with a bow not unlike mine slung over their shoulder. The head was down, and I couldn’t see their face. There was a kind of exhausted defeat in their posture, and they were wearing the hood of their sweatshirt up. I could see the sweatshirt had a bear in a hat looking straight at me on the front of it, with some letters below that I couldn’t read fully because the sweatshirt was under a coat and so I couldn’t see the whole phrase at first. The coat itself was a patched together thing, well-worn into a waxy look that reminded me uncomfortably of the coat the Russian had been wearing, and that put me on my guard again, although in truth Cat and I had waterproofs that looked similar enough too. I couldn’t help remembering the greasy feel of it grasped in my fingertips as Cat and I dragged the deadweight of the body across the field to its shallow scrape of a grave in the root hole of the fallen pine.

I found I had lifted myself out of the creaking seat and was now hovering in a half squat, one hand supporting me by hanging off the inner handle of the tank hatch, the other putting my book to one side and reaching for my knife. I did all that without thinking, my eyes busy, locked on the approaching figure, trying to keep track through the viewing slits. Some lookout I was, some great hunter. I had been crept up on, and there was now no time for me to get out of the tank and warn Cat and the others. As I watched the hooded figure trudge up the slope from the M-way I put the knife away and used both hands to dog the hatch shut, not all the way as I had done when I was little and got stuck inside, but just enough so a thin tongue of metal held the hatch tight to the rim. Then I managed to turn myself awkwardly around until I had my bow drawn and an arrow nocked. It was a really unnatural position, but I felt better knowing that I could at least get a first shot at them through the viewing slit if I needed to.

Though at first it didn’t look like I would; the stranger stopped and looked at the tank but not close enough for me to see the face, just the body. The bear in a hat stared right at me though. It was brown. The hooded shirt was grey. There were three green pine trees on each side of the bear’s head and white snow-capped mountain peaks spread behind it. I don’t remember those exact details from then. I remember them from later. Much later when I saw it up close in very different circumstances. What I do know I noticed then was the writing: I could see the hat had words on it too. It said SMOKEY. The words below the bear’s head asked IF NOT YOU, WHO?

I didn’t understand the question. It only made sense to me later, and when it did it became a mantra, which is something old that monks like the ones in the Tintin book with the Abominable Snowman used to say to help them concentrate. I didn’t have time to think about it then, because the stranger’s body shifted and I heard them go:

Huh.

It was hard to hear clearly, what with the wind and everything, but they didn’t sound that impressed or even interested by the tank. They sounded very flat and tired and then they turned away and walked towards the old restaurant at the base of the Tower. I craned around and watched through a viewing port on the side of the turret as they stood in front of it and peered into the entrails of the ruined building. I remember feeling relieved that they not only moved away from me in the tank but had done so in a direction that took them away from the Bunker and from Cat.

I watched them stoop and sit on one of the old concrete benches like they were suddenly felled by exhaustion. As soon as they hit the seat all the energy went from their body and they sat slumped over, hands on knees, staring at their shoes for a long, long time. I eased my bowstring and watched until they straightened up and, in a movement that strangely reminded me of Digger, shook themselves as if they were snapping out of something and pushed their hood back allowing me my first glimpse of their head and face.

The hair was dark brown, but sort of rusty, maybe because sun had bleached the ends. It was cut tight round the sides and back but left longer on top. My first thought was that they were a girl, but then I decided they were a young man, and then as I watched them reach into the bottom of their pack and pull out something wrapped in a square of cloth and begin to eat what looked like berries from it, I decided they could be either and I just couldn’t quite tell at that distance, especially with the limitations I had on my viewing point through the slit. That meant I had to bend really low to see more than just their body and legs. And it didn’t much matter whether they were man or woman, not if they were Russian: I remembered Storm telling us how the female Russians had attacked their mother.

I watched the stranger wash the berries down with water from a scuffed metal bottle, and then they belched so loud I could hear it from the fifty or so metres away, even over the wind. Maybe because I used to like making Cat roll her eyes at my burps, I decided then and there that they must be a man like me. I watched them put the bottle and the cloth bundle back in the pack, and then they stood and stretched and left their stuff and walked behind one of the rusted-out vans in front of the restaurant and I couldn’t see them for a bit, but I thought I knew what they were doing and wasn’t too worried, because they’d left the bow and quiver full of arrows propped against the bench next to their pack. Sure enough they walked back into view, hunched over as they re-buttoned their trousers, and then picked their stuff up, shouldering it quickly and efficiently, and I was instantly tense again, in case they walked off towards the Bunker. But I needn’t have worried. Or rather, I needn’t have worried about that. The fact they were walking straight towards the tank was enough to fill my mind and bunch my muscles ready for fight or flight without realising I had sealed myself in and wasn’t going to be able to get out in time to flee anywhere.

Once again I pulled the bowstring tight and kept it aimed at them as they approached, each step making me more and more aware of how unwieldy it was doing so within the tight confines of the tank, especially as they walked past the side and stood looking up at the gun barrel: I had to make no noise as I switched my aim from the side slit to the front port, but I made contact with the seat, making the corroded springs twang. I thought they must have heard but the wind was my friend and covered it. I watched them reach up into the muzzle of the gun, unaware that, hidden from view only a couple of metres away, I had an arrow aimed squarely at the bear’s head on their chest. They pulled the baby doll’s head from the gun barrel and looked down at it, turning it this way and that, as if they’d picked an apple from a tree and were assessing it with a critical eye for wormholes or some kind of blight. Evidently, whatever they was seeing pleased them because they nodded at it and then reached up and put the head back into the mouth of the gun.

Better keep on watching, Bear Shirt said.

I was shocked to hear them talk so unexpectedly and so naturally that for a moment I thought they were talking to me, but then I saw they were looking up at the doll’s head. The voice was low and kind of hoarse but it was a nice voice but also sort of heartbreaking. I don’t know why that was. It wasn’t defeated or broken or anything like that. It was just full of a lot of sadness that it was trying to hide behind a grin. And as they looked up at the doll’s head I was able to see the face close up for the first time, and I don’t know why, but my heart sort of bumped in something like recognition which was unsettling because it was definitely the first time I’d seen it. It was much darker skinned than mine, more weather-beaten maybe, almost the same colour as the rusty sun-lightened ends of their hair. The face was close to my age, I thought, maybe younger because I saw no sign of stubble coming in yet, and I liked it. It was sad now, but it looked like it was better designed to laugh, an impression that was confirmed as it grinned up at the doll again and said, as if it was an afterthought:

And if you see that Jip? You tell him where I went, OK?

None of which made any sense to me, other than immediately starting me worrying about this other stranger called Jip. Because Jip was either a third potential Russian, or the name of the one I had already killed. Then, as I was getting used to this new information, they suddenly swung up on the front of the tank by the gun barrel and I could see only feet and knees walking towards me.

I’d relaxed too soon. I’d judged a book by its cover. Just because they looked nice, I’d decided they actually were nice, and had let down my guard.

Worse I couldn’t track them with my arrow because they’d hear me moving this close up. Worse than that, I heard them trying the driver’s hatch on the front of the tank. They might be unaware I was there, but they were trying to get in. Luckily the driver’s hatch has never opened, corroded shut since for ever. I tried to make myself feel better with that knowledge as I watched them kick at it and try to free it. Then I squirmed back slowly into the shadows of the cockpit as they gave up and stuck their face up really close to the front slit, squinting in on the dark interior. Fortunately, I had the seat back between us and they didn’t see enough to spot me or the arrow which I had now managed to aim at their eye, and then they moved and let the light back in. Which, again, was worse, because I heard boots on top of the turret above my head. I heard them heave on the top hatch. I heard the light clunk of the locking lever catching, and holding, against the rim. Bear Shirt must have heard it too, because it encouraged more tugging. The driver’s hatch had had no give in it at all, but that this one had a fraction was encouraging, a hint they might manage to get in if they tried hard enough.

My eyes, accustomed to the dark, were fixed on the lever every time it got yanked. Because I hadn’t dogged it fully tight, it moved a tiny bit. And every tiny bit that it moved brought it closer to springing open. I felt like a snail in its shell, sort of protected, but actually stuck and unable to move and save myself, vulnerable to whatever wanted to reach in and pluck me out into the sunlight. I put my bow down as quietly as I could and without taking my eyes off the tongue on the lock slowly getting closer and closer to the point where the lever would spring open and reveal my hiding place. Then, without daring to even breathe, I reached up and quietly grabbed the locking lever in between tugs, and then tried to stop it moving. It was tricky because I didn’t want to reveal my presence by jamming it locked again, so I had to sort of jam it a little bit every time they yanked it and then with very small movements inch it in the opposite direction to stop its progress. My muscles ached and sweat stung my eyes as I hung on to the inside of the hatch as Bear Shirt pulled and kicked away at it on the outside. It went on so long that at first I was sure they must have known I was in there, and then I heard grunting and swearing almost like sobbing that was more than frustration at a rusty hatch that wouldn’t open. And though I didn’t ease up one bit on resisting, something in me relaxed, because I realised they weren’t really trying to get into the tank to find me: they just wanted something to fight, something they could take that deep, broken sadness that I heard in their voice out on. I had the strongest sense that they didn’t want to get into the tank as much as let something out of themselves.

And hanging there in the dark, on the other side of that thick metal hatch I listened to the sadness and the anger and all the loneliness in the world pouring out as Bear Shirt beat against the tank’s armour. Maybe it was the hoarseness in the voice that reminded me of Cat, but there was a part of me that wanted to let go of the lever and let it open so I could tell them they weren’t alone.

But then I remembered I’d killed their friend who might be called Jip, and so nothing good would come of it. So I held on, torn in this odd feeling somehow both wanting to let go but holding on for my, and maybe Cat’s and the girls’ and the babies’ lives.

And then as quickly as it began, it stopped.

I heard Bear Shirt jump off the tank and hit the ground in a splashy crunch. I heard them swear one last time. And then I had a last glimpse of the bear in the hat looking back at me, and then all I could see was a back view as they turned and lifted the pack on one shoulder, put the bow on the other and walked away.

As they did so I heard them whistle, not a tune, but the kind of whistle Cat and I did to each other when we wanted to get the other’s attention. And the last I heard of their voice was it calling out that name again, like it was trying to summon someone who was lost.

Jip! they shouted. Jip! Come on, good boy, where are you?

I watched until they were out of sight and as I hung there I decided that Jip might not be a person. I thought he might be a dog, Digger’s friend, and I tried to figure out why I felt almost as sad to see Bear Shirt go as I felt relieved. Because it didn’t quite feel as if something entirely bad had left.

Cat told me that night, when I tried to explain it all to her, that though I’d done the right thing it felt sad, because I had always hoped when and if we ever found strangers who were safe to mix with that they would be our friends. So the sadness was seeing my optimism die a bit she said. Maybe she was right about that. Maybe not.