One

'We were going to swim to the raft,' the man said, his eyes strafing the shore. 'We were going to cut it free and fuck the fuck off. Sick of hanging around. Waiting for people to turn up. Too many people get here, they said they'd start some fucking lottery to decide who was in the first bunch to leave. Fuck that. We were here first. Me and Dad. First.'

His voice became strangled. He screamed and pounded his fists into the shingle. He collapsed into it and quietened down. Jane thought he might have gone to sleep. After a while, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and stared out at the water.

Jane talked to him. They talked for a long time. They talked about fathers and sons. They both cried. Sutton was known as Loke. His real name was Eddie, but he'd always been called The Bloke by his dad and gradually, as all names seemed to do, it got whittled down over time.

'I don't know if the raft is the answer, Loke,' Jane said. 'It's given people hope. Maybe that's the thing that matters. I just can't see what it can offer. You untie it. You launch it. You go where?'

'Anywhere is better than this,' Loke said.

'Is it?'

Loke nodded, wiped the tears away from his face. He was gradually cleaning his hands with that water. 'I don't want to be pissing into the pebbles when the Skinners finally suck all the meat off the bone of the big cities and come down here to pick their teeth with what's left of us.' 'What if you go to France, or Holland, or wherever, and it's the same? If it's worse?'

'Dad's gone. It doesn't fucking matter. I don't care one way or the other any more. I just want some kind of result. I want to force the issue. I want to be a catalyst.'

He looked out to the water as if he was considering charging back in to make some attempt at rescue. Perhaps it bothered him that he'd given up so easily. Jane wanted to put an arm around him, to tell him that it was all right. Things had changed so much, it was hard enough to keep track of it, to keep ahead mentally, let alone react quickly enough when something horrible happened right in front of your eyes. Everyone had a tale to tell. Tragedy had not spared a single person. He didn't need to say a word.

'So you'll stay?' Loke asked him.

Jane found himself nodding although he had not come to any kind of decision. He had walked all this way to be with Becky. Maybe because there was some decision brewing to try to persuade her to stay in the UK. The thought of her on some rickety floating island with a baby inside her was unbearable.

If it's a boy . . . and it is a boy, I know that, I know . . . we'll call him—

'But what will you do?' Loke persisted.

'We'll keep going. It's all we've ever done. We'll fight them on the beaches.'

'Jesus. You must have kids. You must be a dad.'

Jane nodded again, and was able to smile. 'I was, I am. And will be again,' he said.

'I never had kids,' Loke said.

'It changes you,' Jane said. 'You lose your ego. You realise that life isn't just all about what you want, what you can have, or take. It's a good feeling. You slowly pull your head from out of your arsehole. You make sacrifices, and you do not resent it. Not one bit.'

'Yeah, well. Maybe now's not the best time to become a dad.'

Jane nodded. He hadn't really thought a great deal about that. The shock of the news had blinded him to what it actually meant. Becky giving birth would be hard enough. Where were the paediatricians, the midwives? What if the baby was born as Stanley had been, limp and grey, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck? And what kind of world was this in which to bring up a child?

25. THE FARM

The beach grew chill and dark. Jane recalled a bluff in Keri, on the south-west tip of Zakinthos, a Greek island that he had visited with Cherry. It had been renowned for its sunsets. He remembered Cherry leaning against him as they sat on the rocks watching the sun sink. A girl of around nineteen took off her clothes and stood with her arms outstretched towards it, smiling broadly. Her skin had been dark pewter. When the sun vanished, they stayed on to watch the colours in its wake, amazed by the range it shifted through, as if someone were applying ever more dramatic filters to the sky.