U-Turn

A story of preparation

Nora looked at the green head with disgust. It didn’t know yet what it was — Flower? Vegetable? Broccoli had always been her least favourite green. A huge amount of cheese couldn’t even cancel the earthy blandness. The wind was shaking hard on that day — as it often was the case. The harvest had just started and Esme had put her on duty.

No one enjoyed being on duty, but since she had turned seventeen, Nora had built the habit of questioning every instruction Esme would give her. At first, it was the laundry: “why do I need to touch this if I find it repulsive?” she told Esme. Then it happened again, in the kitchen this time: “why can’t we eat normal food? Something that isn’t cabbage?” Though disconcerted — where had that sweet little girl gone — Esme had resigned; her response consisted of a sigh and two words: teenage angst.

Nora came back to the kitchen where some of the girls were already cooking. Strong smell of blood — a black pudding pie. Ciara was vigorously trying to flatten the dough with a rolling pin while the others, like a swarm of bees, were acting as if they were given the most meaningful task.

Even just six months ago, Nora would have taken part in all the fuss. But something had changed in the farmhouse — was it her? Was it the place? On her seventeenth birthday, Esme had given her a box: consider it a very special gift, she had told her. Both a feeling of warmth and fear had struck her as she had unwrapped the package — soon followed by a slight disappointment: a book. A hard-cover, second-hand looking book. Stingy, Nora thought to herself. Anticipation is no Science Fiction read the title. No author was mentioned — makes sense, who would claim the authorship of such a rubbish title?

“This is not something we usually do, Esme had said, but since you’ve been here a while, we thought some outside perspective would, you know, help understand things.”

I don’t understand, Nora said boldly.

Esme had smiled and vanished back to the kitchen, leaving Nora disoriented. On that evening, after dinner, as the girls were going to bed, Nora had shown them her gift. “I read it one month before I arrived here, it’s brilliant!” Ciara had exclaimed. The girls didn’t seem much surprised: after all, you still don’t know what is about to happen so, makes sense, I guess, said Lily.

The following day, Esme sent Nora along the Wharfe to do some nettle picking. Nora had brought the book with her, hoping she could have a look into it alone. The introduction, A Day that Will Come, was written in a very cryptic way:

“A friend might have told you, maybe some neighbours, but you were not ready, as most of us are when being told the Unspoken. The truth is out there — but where exactly? Where things haven’t been told. No matter how this book got into your hands — all that it means is that you’re ready to hear the truth.”

As she was reading, Nora could feel excitement growing into her, as well as a steep sense of danger. She turned the page to the next chapter entitled Tabula Rasa. She wasn’t really sure what that meant. Latin is just a way to show off, or at least she thought.

The weather had suddenly turned very cold and as she glanced at her basket, she realised she could probably feed a soup for forty famished people. What was Esme thinking, giving her that book? Back home, she put it on her bedside table. I’ll get on with it later, she thought with a sense of guilt.

A month after her birthday, the book was full of dog-eared pages. Nora had become obsessed — she was saying so herself. Chapter Three — The preparation — had had a big impact on her. On the evening that followed its reading, she had gone to the pub. Ciara had lent her her ID and Esme seemed to have things on her mind preventing her to be her usual self. It was an appropriate time to sneak out.

The Gardener’s Arm was the local pub, which meant that people went because they had no other choice. The average population was around 60 and above — most of them being retired lawyers and doctors. The place wasn’t grim per se but the atmosphere was certainly leaning towards death. The owner had hung film posters on the walls — an unusual pub decoration that made the place look like it was stuck in the 90’s: Forrest Gump, Notting Hill and an impressive collection of Sandra Bullock film posters.

Nora had ordered a fruit beer and was standing in front of the bar. There was something awkward about standing up while drinking, an ambivalent feeling of taking a step back from the world while being completely immersed in it. She didn’t know what to do — luckily, two men were standing next to her, talking loud enough so that she could overhear.

They were younger than the average population — she would have guessed around thirty. Nora quickly understood the topic of conversation, something only young adults had an interest in; stag dos.

“So, we start at 11, go to the cabin, we’re all there, it’s bants, spend the whole day there, head back, drive a few miles, and we realise he’s not in the bus!”

“How far were you!”

“20 or 25 minutes away I think, I turn my head and I’m like, where’s Matt?”

“So how did you find him?”

“So because there’s no signal, he tries to find his way back to the village, follows some light in the distance, takes us about an hour and a half to find him — I swear, he was so hungry he started to eat mushrooms!”

They started to laugh hysterically while Nora was having the last sip of her pint.

“You should never eat mushrooms.”

The two men turned to her, startled by her voice. The tall one quickly reacted:

“’Cause they’re so dull?”

They both laughed but Nora ignored him.

“When we’re left with nothing, mushrooms should be the last thing we turn to. They can be poisonous, but they’re also the first vegetable to get contaminated, you know, in the event of an attack.”

She suddenly realised she must have sounded like a patronising prophet and she hated herself for that. But she had caught the guys’ attention. The one who was telling the story turned to her:

“What do you mean, an attack? Martians?”

“No, I mean, if, or when, we’re attacked by people who cut off our resources.”

“You really believe that would happen?”

“Just need to look around you — not just Boston Spa or Wetherby or even England but the actual state of the world. It doesn’t make sense for things to go on as they were, question is, how come it hasn’t already stopped?”

“Are you part of FIRE or something?”

Nora had no idea what fire was. All she wanted to tell them was to get prepared. They ordered another round and this time she got a pale ale: they needed to take her seriously and a fruit beer wouldn’t help.

“What do we need to prepare for?”

She smiled, shrugged, took a last sip and walked away. There wasn’t enough time to explain.

The morning after that night, Esme had gathered everyone in the living room for “a meaningful lecture”, as John — her husband — had told Nora beforehand. “I want us to go through the events as if it was going to happen today” she started. As she was drawing diagrams on the black board held in front of the fireplace, Nora raised a hesitant hand.

Esme willingly ignored her until Nora raised her voice: “What if nothing happens?” Everyone turned to her. They all looked appalled, as if she had asked the stupidest question. But now that she had started, she couldn’t stop — the words were escaping from her mouth: “what if I choose to ignore what comes after? What if I decide just to go for drinks with my friends and not care about what happens next?” Her tone was not vindictive — she was genuinely thinking out loud.

Everyone froze, and for a minute it felt as she had raised a shared concern. “Right — let’s get back to where we were”; Esme turned to the board and continued scribbling, almost as if the lights had turned back on after a power cut. Ciara, who was sitting next to Nora, turned to her: “But don’t you understand preparation is the end goal?”

The words resonated and penetrated Nora’s ears: preparation is the end.

In December, Nora finished reading the book. The last chapters had been difficult to process; not just because the language was still cryptic but also because she realised she knew some of the sentences from before. She first thought it might be because Esme had used them, until an image of her mother suddenly appeared in her mind: Nora, watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour.

She remembered hearing that while being tucked in — the equivalent of a good night kiss, her mum hated physical contact.

Nora was born on the 5th of June 2003 in Seacroft Hospital. Her mum had always told her she didn’t want any other child — a mother can’t share love is what she used to say. Nora had learned from a young age to play on her own and quickly grew the idea that she also didn’t want to share her mum.

Food had always been the main concern. Both mother and daughter would spend hours in supermarkets getting as many supplies of tin cans as they could. Her mum always used to say “Tin cans are very valuable, Nora, and you know why? Because they’re sustainable”. Nora would be six and nod at everything — her mum kept going: “sustainable means that it doesn’t fall apart”.

She would then fill in the trolley with sweet corn, peas, carrots, tuna, complimenting herself on how good a mum she was. As a teenager, Nora could only remember the shame she had felt when aged eight, she had been invited to a house party and had eaten fishfingers for the first time. She had a very vivid image of herself, stuffing her face with processed food while the other kids were mocking her for being so greedy. Her stomach was so bloated that day that she had to lie down as soon as she got home while her mum complained about how a low quality birthday that had been.

When she turned eleven, her mum lost her job. Times started to get harder as her mum had to accept any job that would come, leading to her working all the time. As times became more difficult, so did the mum’s attitude. It first started with nightmares in the middle of night resulting in death screams. These would wake Nora up — she would lay in her bed, terrified, waiting for her mum to go back to sleep. Her behaviour also became more erratic.

Some days would result in over exaggerated enthusiasm towards daily chores — she had come up with a washing up song — others would be spent moaning. Nora would try to comfort her, taking more and more responsibilities within the house. By the age of 10, she already knew how to cook herself a wide range of meals and was able to go to the shop get groceries.

One day after school, she was about to boil water to make her mum a tea when everything became dark. The mum immediately ran down the stairs: it’s happening, it’s happening, she kept saying. Nora tried to calm her down: it’s just a black out, mum. They both looked through the window — everything had turned black, except for car lights. She remembered thinking precisely that everything had turned upside down, they were in the sky and the cars were stars.

A few minutes later, everything went back to normal, but the next day, Nora had to pack all her things as her mum had decided to drive her to Boston Spa. You need to be safe, she had told her. Nora remembered that day vividly — the endless car drive, the arrival in the farm, Esme waiting on the porch with her thick crossed arms that seemed to fill the lone purpose of supporting her breasts, and finally, her mum, silent. She had given her a cold hug and whispered bye before driving back.
Esme, on the contrary, had been very warm and had spent the afternoon showing Nora around.

Seven years later, the memory of her mum had slowly faded away. No one had replaced it, certainly not Esme, but she had accustomed to life in the farm, and the community was, in a way, her family.

It was only a few days after the lecture that it happened. The girls were all making bread in the kitchen, quietly supervised by John. The dough was sticking on Nora’s fingers and after a few attempts at rolling it, she pretended to go to the bathroom, hoping someone would take over.

As she was washing her hands under the warm water, she heard a thumping noise. It was almost as if someone had fallen from the roof. The noise was soon followed by another one, then another one, then another one — until it completely replaced silence. She came out of the bathroom and looked at the window: football-sized hailstones were falling from the sky. Everyone started shouting and instinctively gathered to the cellar.

The cellar wasn’t big enough for everyone, and a sense of panic started to spread. Calm down, shouted Esme, as she was raising her arms, a copy of Anticipation is no Science-Fiction in her pocket. We knew about this, and now is the time: there is no need to be afraid, because we’ve been preparing for this. She opened the book on chapter two and started reading: they will come up into your place and your bedroom and your bed, into the houses and into the ovens. But I have raised you up for this very purpose.

Nora closed her eyes. She was trying not to think about anything, but all that came to her mind was the pounding image of a day she had tried to forget.

She could remember the kitchen, the phone ringing and Esme’s face becoming irked. She remembered following her outside, sitting on the porch, a bunch of euphemisms, “she has left us, she is not coming back”, as if she was apologising for bearing the news, the sense of guilt — “I knew she wasn’t sane, was I meant to tell anyone?”, the inability to process anything.

She opened her eyes; Esme seemed to be in a trance, her eyes revolving as she was chanting chapter four of the book. They all had their eyes closed and no one seemed to notice the hailstone rain had stopped. For the first time, Nora felt scared. She looked around — they weren’t paying attention to anything.

She slowly backed away and started climbing the stairs. It was still morning, but the sky was completely dark. Her piece of dough was still on the kitchen table, waiting to be rolled, and a deep silence filled the house. She walked out of the house, her hands groping around as she couldn’t see anything. She wasn’t thinking anymore, but she knew she was prepared.