THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

I should give him a message. I can’t write it down here. I don’t even know if I can spell it.

The three of us are still in our school uniforms, or what’s left of them.

Many of the entries that came after that were fragmentary. Laura’s future self was worried about using up the paper in her diary. And her life became so unfamiliar to Laura that it was hard to work out what was going on.

There was a longer entry from 1966. Laura would have been eighteen.

Saturday 30th July, 1966.

OK. OK.

Two things to write about today.

Another day in the potato fields.

I’m a Land Girl now, working on North-West Protectorate Collective Farm Number Twenty-Seven, otherwise known as Sefton Park. Back-breaking. Sun like a hot iron over your head. You sweat like a wet rag.

There’s no petrol for the combine harvesters, which is why I’m digging in spuds by hand. There’s talk they are doing up a steam-powered tractor, an old Victorian relic out of one of the museums. I’ll believe that when I see it.

The bomb has messed up the weather.

Sometimes I remember how cold it was, that first winter and spring after the bomb. All that smoke and ash in the air. That all cleared in the end. Now there’s hardly a cloud in the sky from April to October, hardly any rain. The sun burns your skin, and it’s doing in everybody’s eyes. Some people are living underground to escape it, in old cellars and basements. All you can do is cover up, even though it’s so hot.

On my day off yesterday Corporal Wesley marched a bunch of us into Liverpool, and back out again, to look for stuff.

We went into the ruins of the old stores, and actually found a cellar full of stock that had only been gone through a few times. C&A Mode. I’m sure I remember this place.

Seems so long ago. I found a coat and men’s trousers and a decent pair of leather boots, even if they are pink.

The whole city is like a huge rubbish tip, with people picking over it like gulls. That’s all that’s left of the old world. Just garbage. I mean, if the fashions hadn’t stopped we wouldn’t be wearing pink leather boots now. It’s as if time stopped in 1962, and everything turned to junk.

Corporal Wesley gave me a big floppy straw hat.

I’ve hated Corporal Wesley since I was put under him, after the National Reorganisation of 1964 when the army took over. He’s about fifty. Got through the Sunday War in a command bunker in the country. Now he’s based in the big Protectorate compound in the crypt of Paddy’s Wigwam. All mod cons down there, they say.

He’s fat, when we’re all half-starved and working to death.

And he likes having power over us workers.

He has this way of looking at you.

Of course he’s in a position to get what he wants. I’ve seen him take girls into the officers’ tent.

Last night the squaddies were in a good mood. They brought back a crate of whiskey from Liverpool. They let Joel bring a gramophone into our hut, and an old car battery to run it. Joel had some records. One of them was “Love Me Do” by the Beatles. “The only proper record they ever made,” Joel said to me.

It was strange to hear music again. We all danced. We had our heavy clothes on and our boots. The mothers with babies dandled them on their knees. “We looked like Russian peasants,” Joel said. Although if there are any peasants left in Russia these days they might as well be on the Moon, for all we hear about them.

Today, at the lunch break, I thought of the Beatles again.

As we queued up for our bread and blind scouse, the loudspeaker over the serving table blared out the news from Radio Free Britain.

“Headlines for today, Saturday July 30th, 1966. President for life General William de Vere, who is touring the South-East Protectorate, announced that the General Survey of Britain he ordered on taking power from the corrupt government of Prime Minister Edward Heath is nearly complete.

“The population of the British Republic is about five million citizens. This compares to fifty million before the Sunday war. This is about the population of Britain in the Middle Ages. President de Vere said this is probably the post-War minimum, and our numbers should rise from here on.

“But he warned that mothers who hide any radiation-damaged infants from Protectorate inspectors could expect a severe penalty.

“In London, the execution was carried out today of a thousand dissidents. The executions were held at the Wembley Stadium Special Provisions Detention Camp. Among those eliminated were the notorious ‘underground’ leader musician John Winston Lennon…”

Poor old Beatle John. Just when I’d heard his record for the first time in years.

And there was something funny about today’s date too. Something from before the war.

Joel said today would have been the date of the football World Cup Final. “It was all scheduled, before the bomb. Roger Hunt might have been playing for England in the Final, in front of the Queen. Instead they’re using Wembley to shoot pop singers.”

He couldn’t say much more. He is in the army himself after all.

In the evening, when I lined up for chow again, Wesley called me over. He had my food, bread and a bit of cheese and a scrag-end of meat. My mouth watered just looking at it.

I knew what he wanted. I’ve seen him do it before. I had to go into the officers’ tent with him. If I did I’d get the food. If I didn’t, I’d go hungry, and I’d get no food tomorrow night either. Until I gave in, or dropped.

I went with him. What else could I do?

He lay on top of me, and grunted and sweated like a pig. I was a virgin. I think that got him more excited. At least it hurried him up.

He’ll do it again tomorrow. But I hope