Were it not that I have bad dreams
I am writing this so that I can stop dreaming about it.
He was emptying the dishwasher when his phone buzzed. He glanced at the message, then put down the plates he was holding to pick up the phone and read it again. The words didn’t make sense; it was like turning on the radio and having to wait a few seconds to resolve the noise into music. Then the words had meaning, and then nothing else did. He checked the BBC; he checked Twitter; it was real.
He looked around the kitchen and didn’t see what he was looking for. He didn’t know what he was looking for; there wasn’t time to make the best decision. He opened the back door, took a can of bitter from his outside shelf, poured half a glass, and drank it before he’d put the can down.
His phone was still on the table, still on. He tried to pick it up and it buzzed again as his hand shook and took an accidental screenshot. Should he call...? No. There wasn’t time.
He stepped into the hall, and called up the stairs:
“Darling? Mary? Could you do me a favour?”
His wife’s voice came back:
“What is it angel? I’m just changing the beds.”
She hadn’t seen. She didn’t know.
“Could you please bring down The Hobbit? I want to read it to Gus. I left it in the bathroom – could you get it for me now please? Quickly?”
“Umm, okay?”
She sounded annoyed, but he heard her moving. Good.
He crossed the hall and looked into the playroom. The girls were arranging cups and saucers around a pile of cuddly animals. Gus had heard the promise of a story and was already looking up, still holding his toys.
“Daddy look, Thunderbird 3 is going up into space! It’s going to take Alan to Thunderbird 5 and they’re going to-”
The girls spoke over him together:
“Daddy look we’re having a tea party-”
“And Daddy look pusscat is drinking milk-”
“And we have cake Daddy!”
He laughed, and it hurt.
“Hello girls and boy – would you like me to read you a story?”
Gus bounced up and over, but the twins looked cross.
“No Daddy, we’re having a tea party!”
“No thank you Daddy, you mean”, he said. He was, briefly, idiotically, annoyed at their recalcitrance; he realised just as quickly how selfish it would be to disturb their game. Let them play. He stepped over and kissed them on the head instead; they squealed in protest.
Gus was already climbing onto the sofa. “Are we going to read the Hobbit, Daddy?”, he asked.
“Yes, Gus, Mummy is just going to bring it down.”
Perhaps he should go himself; there wasn’t time! He turned; she was there. She had the book, but her other hand held her phone, and she was crying.
So, she knew. This was the moment he had been dreading, more than any other. He was again briefly furious; could it not have happened without her knowing – without her pain? He went to her, quickly, before the children could see her tears, and took her back into the hall.
She was shaking, her hand over her mouth, and could hardly ask the question.
“Oh, my god, have you seen? Is it-?”
He couldn’t answer at first; he managed to nod. Then, holding her shoulders:
“Yes, I think it is. Look, darling, they don’t need to know – let's just be with them and together and be happy. It won’t be long. I love you.”
And then she straightened and wiped her eyes with her fingers, and nodded, and said “yes, you’re right, I love you”, and reached out, and took him, and kissed him. And then she walked ahead of him into the room and he felt a fierce pride in her courage.
“Children”, she called, and he could hear the break in her voice and could hear her hiding it. “Children, we’re going to say a quick prayer and then Daddy is going to read a story.”
“Why are we saying a prayer Mummy?” asked Gus.
“Because I want to”, he answered, and knelt before any more questions could be asked. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven...”
Gus joined in, and after a few lines so did Lucy and Catherine, not looking up from their tea-set. He forced himself to think about the words.
“-and deliver us from evil. Amen.”
He sat on the sofa; Gus jumped up next to him, dropping his atomic rocket on the carpet, and Mary sat on his other side, her arms around her son.
He opened the book and turned to the first page.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.”
“Daddy, what’s a Hobbit?”
He laughed again, and it hurt; he could barely speak for the pain.
“You know what a Hobbit is, Gus, I’ve read this to you before. And anyway, it says what a Hobbit is in a moment, so don’t interrupt. Now: Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a bare, sandy hole with nothing in it...”
He looked up as he read. Lucy, who could never resist the chance of a cuddle, despite her earlier protestations, was hauling herself onto her mother’s lap. He picked up Gus and put him on his own lap, kissed his head, and shuffled up so that they were all together. Catherine, still pouting from the loss of her playmate but deciding that if tea was over she could at least hear the story, was also at his knee.
“Oh, this is nice,” he said, and kissed Mary on the cheek. “We’re all together.” Then he took his phone from his pocket and after a few shaking presses managed to unlock it.
“Say Cheese!” he said, holding it up. The children gurned, the screen flashed, and he returned to the book. Mary was gripping his leg so tightly it was tickling the nerves in his inner thigh. It was so wonderfully undignified, he thought.
“...nor yet a bare sandy hole, with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat...”
He was impressed with himself, this last performance, that he could speak, that his voice was level, that no-one else could hear the screams from inside his own head.
“...it was a Hobbit hole, and that means c-”
And then there was sound, and then silence.
One of the last photos that was automatically uploaded to the Microsoft datacentre in Slough before its destruction was of a family sitting on a sofa, holding a book: a smiling man, a crying women, and two girls and a boy pulling faces. The previous image uploaded to the same storage account was an accidental screenshot of the BBC News home page, which carried the single headline:
“Nuclear weapons fired at London. Five minute warning given.”