Last One at the Party Read online

  Not that day.

  Ginny was breastfeeding, so I hadn’t seen her have a drink for over a year. That day, she ordered the two most expensive bottles of wine on the menu and downed four large glasses during our ninety-minute lunch.

  Ginny was scared.

  She didn’t want to discuss work or jobs. She said I’d have my current job for another week, if I was lucky. I already knew that, so wasn’t surprised. She said there would be no government bailout. She doubted there would be a government a few months from now – at least not one that we recognised.

  But she didn’t stop there.

  She started asking me questions about my survival plans. Did I have any idea how unsuitable I was for how life would become? Could I grow my own food? Make my own bread? Did I own chickens? Could I milk a cow? Did I know how to make my own clothes? Did I have any transferrable skills?

  Obviously, the answer to all of these was no.

  My husband, James, and I lived in a flat in central London with a ‘no pet’ clause, so the chickens and cows were definitely out of the question. We had no garden, just a window ledge with a dying pot plant and a herb pot on it; so, unless this counted as growing food, we were also out of luck there. As for the rest I, like millions of others, was cash rich and time poor, so sourced my food, clothes and anything else I needed from those with far less money than me.

  Ginny said that money would soon be worthless. That we would live in a world of survival of the fittest – provide what you could for you and yours and then beg, steal and borrow what you couldn’t.

  Ginny said I should get a gun. I laughed.

  Ginny didn’t.

  She poured the leftover wine into a plastic water bottle and told me she had been stockpiling food, water and medicines since the day after the first case of 6DM had been discovered in Andover. Her husband, Alex, had family in the middle of nowhere up in Yorkshire and they were leaving to go there in three days.

  They’d bought two guns to take with them.

  When I told James about lunch that night he laughed and said Ginny would never survive that far from Selfridges. James promised that we would be fine, he would take care of us, like he always did.

  But later, I saw him looking at our flat with fresh eyes, in the same way I had been doing since I got home, and when I looked at his phone later he had been googling ‘easy vegetable growing’.

  In the end, of course, Ginny’s dire prediction didn’t have time to come true. There was no time for the economy to fail completely, no government collapse, no time to start growing our own food, and no need to buy a gun.

  Ginny and her family are some of the hundreds of people about whose fate I know nothing.

  I like to think that she made it to her Yorkshire wilderness. But I’m pretty certain that she didn’t.

  November 24th 2023

  Britain had its first reported case of 6DM on November 24th.

  We never knew whether someone with the virus had managed to sneak into the country or if the incubation period was longer than we thought and it had been here all the time.

  Scotland and Wales immediately tried to separate themselves from Britain by whatever means possible. Wales blew up all the bridges of the River Severn – no one knew where they got such weapons of destruction from – and Scotland closed and patrolled all roads across their border.

  But of course, it was too late.

  I was at work when the first case was reported.

  It was a Thursday and by then we had all been told that Friday would be our last day. Most people had stayed in order to earn as much money as possible, but about a quarter of the office had not bothered coming back to work once they’d received the news.

  There were already signs that Ginny’s tale of doom would become reality: food prices were rising steadily and most petrol stations had signs to say they were empty.

  I hadn’t stayed for the money (which I was pretty convinced would soon be worthless anyway), but because I was trying to delay the inevitable. Trying to delay the moment at which the comfortable little life that I had built for myself would become completely obsolete.

  At about 3 p.m. on November 24th, the New Business Director opened the door to her office and stood in the doorway. I think only a couple of people noticed at first, but one by one the eighty-seven people in that massive room became aware of the increasingly oppressive silence around them and reluctantly looked up.

  We saw her grey pallor, her slack-jawed, hopeless expression, and we all knew immediately.

  A couple of people jumped up and left straight away, the rest of us waited for the inevitable.

  ‘You should all go home.’

  No one asked for clarification.

  The office split in two. Those with families were out the door within seconds. Those of us without kids or, in some cases, without anyone, milled about, unsure of what to do.

  This didn’t feel the same as 2020. This already felt like an end of sorts. We knew that when everything shut down this time it wouldn’t be opening again.

  I think it was George who first suggested it, but I can’t be sure.

  In any case, someone said: ‘Let’s get drunk.’

  I can’t remember much about that night to be honest.

  I know we started at a pub, then a bar, and then moved on to a club for some dancing, and that is when things begin to get hazy.

  I know at some point I was ready to go home, but was pretty easily persuaded to stay and go to another club.

  Then it all got increasingly blurry before I face-planted on to my bed at about 4.30 a.m.

  Is it weird that the pubs and bars and clubs stayed open? Is it weird that we went out and got blasted rather than going home and sealing ourselves in?

  Yes.

  But the city was madness that night.

  It didn’t just seem like half of London was out to get pissed, shagged, and fucked-up; half of London was out to get pissed, shagged, and fucked-up.

  There would be no coming out of lockdown this time.

  People knew this was the last stand of humanity and our last night of freedom.

  And in true Blitz fashion we were going to do our British best to mark the occasion with beer, vomit, and other bodily fluids.

  I woke up at 11.30 on the morning of November 25th with 6DM.

  All right, I didn’t have 6DM, but I am sure what I had felt pretty close to it.

  It turned out to be a three-day hangover.

  I could barely leave the bed for the first forty-eight hours. I was expelling the contents of my stomach violently from both ends of my digestive tract, and my brains were slowly being pushed out of my eyes and ears by the regular BOOM, BOOM, BOOM of my head.

  Death would have been sweet mercy.

  But, by day three I could open my eyes again, and on day four I was suddenly better, starving, and desperate for chicken in any form.

  I am ashamed when I look back on those three days now. Not because of my hangover, but because of what it meant for James. Maybe things would have worked out differently if I had been able to leave the bed.

  Maybe not.

  Either way, by the time I had showered, brushed my teeth, was pink, perky and dribbling chicken juice down my chin, the world as I knew it had changed.

  Late November 2023

  The last two weeks of civilisation can be best summed up by the following newspaper headlines:

  22 November 2023 – We Must Stand Strong: UK continues to repel refugees. Keep UK 6DM free.

  24 November 2023 – FIRST 6DM CASE REPORTED. STAY IN YOUR HOMES. AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH OTHERS.

  27 November 2023 – Government close to developing 6DM cure as number of reported cases rises to over 2.6 million.

  29 November 2023 – Parents disgusted as Government admits there is no cure for 6DM and offers T600 ‘death pill’ instead.

  1 December 2023 – ‘Give us T600’ cry distraught parents. ‘Our children are dying in agony.’

  2 December 2023 �
�� Grieving families told bodies must be burnt in mass graves as death toll reaches 22 million.

  3 December 2023 – God Save The Queen … and us all.

  That was the last time a newspaper was printed.

  The government made T600 available without prescription on 1 December.

  T600 was quick and painless. Two pills, then a deep sleep and death.

  At first it was supposed to be rolled out on a need-by-need basis, but within two days the need outgrew the process, and pharmacists had other things to worry about, so boxes were left on counters and in doorways for people to take.

  One of the only good things about that last week is that no one abused or tried to take advantage of the T600 situation. No one hoarded boxes or stole the pills and sold them on. When I went to get mine there were plenty left, and people were only taking one or two blister packs as needed. It may have been that everyone was just too sick to take advantage, but I hope not. It felt as though it was a choice, and one that would have made me think under any other circumstances that there was hope for the future of humanity after all.

  If we had had a future of course.

  It seems around a quarter of the population got the breakout news on the 24th, grabbed whatever they could, then sealed themselves in their homes and never reappeared. We think flat number 11 on our floor of the building did this. For a few days we heard them moving about as normal, radio on, TV, sounds of cooking, laughter even. A few days later we heard a long, sorrowful wail. Then silence for a couple of days, before the regular moaning began. We were on the top floor of our building so had no flats above us or to one side but as the volume and regularity of the moaning from Flat 11 increased, we became aware of similar noises in other flats below us, so we started to leave music or the TV on all the time.

  Those who didn’t confine themselves to their homes became like ghosts. People no longer walked the streets, they darted or flitted from spot to spot, heads down, avoiding physical or even visual contact with anyone else.

  In 2020 we had been advised that two metres was a safe distance, but this had now organically increased to three or even four. If you got closer than this, people bristled, shouted, and moved quickly away. No one was taking any chances this time. Everyone wore a face mask of some description: some people had official masks, but others made do with gas masks, dust masks; even a bandana wrapped around your nose and mouth was better than nothing. Most now wore bio-terror suits, dust suits, or something homemade fashioned from plastic coveralls – even bin bags at a push.

  It was ridiculous really; without knowing how the virus was transferred it was impossible to protect against it. It might have been carried by plastics or fabric for all we knew.

  While I had been in bed/throwing up, James had been providing for our future.

  We didn’t have a car, so he took both our suitcases down from the top of the cupboard and went shopping.

  Well, I say shopping, really he went polite looting.

  On the morning after 6DM arrived James got up as I was going to bed and went to our local supermarket. It was 6 a.m. and the shop was due to open at 7 a.m. There were already about fifty people there, standing in silence, three metres apart, in the relentless drizzle that the British weather system does so well.

  No one came to open the shop.

  At about 8 a.m., the queue, which was now at least a hundred strong, started to get restless.

  A bedraggled woman wrapped in black bin bags walked to the front of the queue, causing rumblings of dissent from those waiting. She looked at the closed doors and then calmly took a brick out of her shopping bag and threw it through the automatic door, shattering the glass. She picked her way delicately through the shards and took a shopping basket.

  James said the queue paused for maybe five seconds and then all walked politely inside in turn. He said there was no pushing, no violence, everyone kept their distance, and there was even some polite chitchat.

  It was all terribly British.

  James went to five shops that morning. Two had been broken into, two had left their doors open, and one was yet to be looted, so James smashed the window himself.

  He said he’d felt exhilarated and then terrified he was going to be arrested, so he came straight home after that one.

  James emptied our freezer of ice cream, ice cubes and the frozen ginger I’d never got around to using, and replaced them with milk, bread, cheese, fresh fruit and veg. He got tins of beans, bags of rice and pasta, candles, matches, and huge plastic tubs to store water in.

  And yes, he got toilet roll.

  He had provided us with everything we needed to survive when society completely broke down.

  He had provided for us.

  While I lay in bed for three days, he had left the flat time and time again with only a fabric face mask for protection.

  He had taken care of me, and, just like he always did, he had made things better.

  Like he had been doing from the very beginning of our relationship.

  I met James when I was still working as a journalist.

  Well, I say journalist, I worked in a very junior position for one of the national music papers reviewing gigs and interviewing the bands that no one else was particularly interested in, so there wasn’t too much research or undercover work involved.

  I had blagged the job at the end of the noughties, at a time when the British print music press was just about hanging in there and there was still money to be made and jobs to be had. I was young, blonde(ish), pretty(ish), posh(ish), and had written a couple of reviews for my college newspaper, which happened to be read by someone’s brother who worked for a national. That was enough.

  They sent me on a trial run to review The Pain Beneath at a small venue in Windsor. I didn’t have enough money to pay for my taxi and a ticket so had to pretend to be a roadie to get in. Hilarity ensued. I wrote a 500-word review with only 25 words being about the band (‘They were good but should try looking up from the floor and at the audience some time. I especially liked the song about the hat.’). The paper loved it. I finished university and went straight into a job writing for them full-time.

  And that was how I spent the next four years of my life.

  I wasn’t the best writer, never managed to delve that far below the surface of on-the-road antics and origin stories (hence the reason I was still a junior staff member after four years) but bands, and the people who looked after them, liked me. I was polite and friendly (but not so friendly that I shagged everyone or tried to stay past my welcome on tour), I drank (but not so much that I was a liability), I didn’t take drugs (but wasn’t judgmental of those who did), and my interviews could be spiky but I was never mean. I travelled the world, slept in hotels, villas, mansions, tour buses, and on a couple of floors in the beginning. I drank the best alcohol and ate the finest food.

  I used any free time to work on my first novel, loosely based on my experiences: it was the tale of a young woman who falls in love with a rock star but soon learns a life of luxury in the spotlight is not all she thought it would be. It was funny, full of interesting details gleaned from my time spent with bands, and had a strong female lead. I was convinced I would soon be able to add novelist to my CV.

  Those four years were free from commitment and worry. I couldn’t drive, didn’t own anything that wasn’t small enough to put in a suitcase, and none of my relationships lasted more than a few weeks because I was always too busy travelling to my next assignment. I didn’t care; I was perfectly happy in my own little carefree, commitment-free world.

  But, as the decade came to a close, things started to change. Girl power was here to stay, and a new wave of female writers was emerging. Writers with ideas and unique voices. I was now in my mid-twenties, old enough to start having my own opinions, and my spiky irreverent style wasn’t enough: people wanted to know what I thought about wider issues, rather than which major band was going to implode next.

  I became increasingly aware of women writin
g powerful pieces about gender and sexism and what it meant to be a woman in the modern world. Of course, women had always been writing these pieces, but now it felt like I should be writing them too. What were my politics? Why did I wear make-up? Did I wear skirts because I wanted to, or because that was what was expected of me?

  I didn’t know the answer to any of it. I didn’t know how to change a plug, let alone work out if I could wear lipstick and still be a feminist. I felt an increasing urgency to define who I was and commit that to paper. But I wasn’t ready for that sort of commitment. I wasn’t ready for any sort of commitment.

  At about the same time that I was beginning to recognise the lack of any real substance in my articles, and maybe in me, my novel was being rejected for the exact same reason by literary agents across London. They ‘loved the world’, declared I wrote ‘with vivid detail about the machinations of life on the road’ but also (literally) thought ‘the central character lacks substance’ and that ‘she just seems to drift through the novel with no emotional journey of her own’. One particularly memorable rejection note explained: ‘she learns nothing about herself in the novel’.

  They were polite but final – every single one declined to represent me.

  Within a couple of months my easy, carefree world started to crumble. I had no coping mechanism for what was happening to me, for the changing emotions and newly developed doubts that were crowding my mind. I’d never had to think about the purpose of my life or my writing before. I don’t think I really knew how to.

  What I should have done is had a serious think about what I really wanted to say, what I really wanted to write about. I should have thought about my me, thought about my journey, written about not being ready to define myself, about feeling pressure to say who I was before I even knew. I should have realised that I wasn’t the only one feeling like this, that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel like she had all the answers at the age of twenty-five. But I didn’t.