Chapter 5 ⭐️ Full Circle

The Barefoot Rambler

1

Fiona and Jack hadn’t made it because Fiona had gone back to Lanthrone to ‘so-say’ collect something urgently when really she’d arranged to meet Will and by the time she had got back to the river crossing again it was lost; the militia had taken it and torn it down. Many were forced back to ruined Lanthrone or killed where they were. Celine had waved to Fiona from the far bank and tried to call to her, but it was no use, Mannie had aggressively dragged her on. She remembered seeing Fiona sat there, her head down with Jack by her. They walked on to a pathway that led through the forest. That was the last she ever saw of her.

Fiona’s meeting with Will that fateful day in the bombed- out, derelict building had been all too brief. She had gone back to say good-bye to him as he wouldn’t leave his suburb. He had found a way of surviving, working with the Militia, but secretly in contact and helping the fallen and much disorganised government. She had worked it out that she had about an hour with him. They hugged, kissed and talked, but he wanted more, caressing her passionately. She looked at him as he tried to peel her clothes off. He was just like all the others, she pushed him away and saw his hot arousal. Was this all she was to him?

2

Will was married to Olivia (Liv) and she knew about Fiona, but kept quiet about it as she didn’t want to be on her own. She could tell when he had seen her as he was happy and relaxed. She knew that he loved her. It was always Will and Fiona, but true lovers are not designed to be together they are cursed with bad luck and so through a twist of fate they split away from each other. Every day Will and Liv saw the militia marching by rounding people up and knew it was only a matter of time before it was them. But what could they do from their bombed out basement flat that stank of human and cat urine except wait. They could not run, too many people knew who they were.

3

The militia knocked on their door numerous times telling them to move on and one of them was Charlie. He was their leader. Charlie had said if they didn’t get out now that when the real Militia came they’d be shot out, so they'd better get moving, but they stayed. Where was everyone going anyway? she asked. Away he said. It didn’t make sense. Things had changed since that series of thunderstorms. The lightning had gone on unusually long and it was so colourful and pretty to look at. It had been a trigger for something she knew that much, people changed afterwards.

‘What are you doing with that loser anyway?’ Charlie asked her rhetorically at the damp and dismal doorstep at 11am in the morning.

‘He’s not, don’t talk like that,’

‘Where is he anyway?’

‘Looking for supplies,’ she lied. He was actually meeting a government agent about restoring order with help from the capital, but they needed people to make a stand.

‘Are you making any coffee?’

‘We don’t have none,’

‘I can bring some. Tomorrow, if you like,’ he said with hope in his voice.

‘OK,’ she said, flashing him a defensive glance and shut the door. The next day he was back at 11am with a tin of army issue coffee. They sat at the kitchen table and talked. He found out a little about her and some of her secrets and she asked him a few questions that gave her the basis of attraction and not repulsion. ‘You’d better go now, Will will be back soon. Saying nothing he went. They talked more excitedly the next day, he brought her wildflowers and tried to kiss her. ‘No, you can’t do that,’ she said looking at him, his tall flat frame, his gritty skin, his everlasting smile.

‘No?’ he said challenging her. ‘No’ she quietly replied thinking of Fiona and Will together. He reached out and touched her forearm. She let it hang there until she moved away. The next day he came earlier, a lot earlier.

‘You’re way too early,’ she said standing across the door in her PJs, but he burst in, kissed her and held her tight, pressing them together. He walked them to the kitchen table. His love was strong and steady and afterwards he collapsed on to the tiled floor, gave her a brief look and then left.

4

Charlie was seeing a woman called Imogen on and off. They met in secret as she was a Viscountess and had owned many properties around Lanthorne which had caused her and her now dead husband, Viscount George Marlborough IV many violent confrontations. Everybody knew who she was and so she had to keep a low profile and only go out at night, but there were some places they could go, some accepted her. She always wore her collar up, large face-covering sun glasses and a silk headscarf.

‘They’ve ransacked three Marlborough Crescent you know, it’s full of squatters,’ she shrieked at him from the small metal table outside the cafe. The shadow made it cool on the back street, she sipped her gin for warmth and drew on her lighted cigarette.

He didn’t care and didn’t know what to do about it, he thought she had first world problems, after all everywhere was being destroyed or occupied by force. ‘Yeah,’

‘What am I going to do? now George is dead, I can’t contact the estate, they won’t do as I say anyway,’ she said he sharp tones cutting through the air.

He and everyone he knew didn’t understand royalty even in the old days, when everything was normal. They were an oddity that had no place in a world where you fought for your survival. ‘I don’t know,’

‘You are extremely useless, Charlie, I don’t know why I bother with you,’

‘When can we meet properly. You know,’

‘That’s all you think about,’ she said looking at him, his gun propped against the glass window frame, his brown, green and black army fatigues. His big brown eyes. Their meeting was very dangerous. ‘If you and your men cleared one of our houses out we could meet there,’ she smiled at him.

‘We can clear one out, but how long will it stay like that?’

‘Oh’ she said also remembering that George had signed everything over to Zoe the chambermaid he’d been having a long and well-known affair with. Zoe was twenty-five years younger than him. She wasn’t going to tell Charlie that, that she didn’t have any real claim to any of the properties. She was hoping that Zoe was dead, but Zoe had disappeared.

‘We can’t maintain it, it’s impossible,’

‘No, ooo-no,’ she said. Zoe had a fine look to her that appealed to men and a sharp wit to match. She struck while she hadn’t been looking, behind Imogen’s back. She had put herself in a position so George couldn’t help but bump into her, literally and things went on from there. Zoe hadn’t disappeared too far away, she had gone to stay with her friend Celine.