Empty World by John Christopher

around—here and there. One place was like another. Survivors? Yes, he’d seen three or four. What ages, Neil asked? Clive shrugged: different ages. Any adults? He shook his head: they’d all been younger than himself. But hadn’t he thoughtof joining up with them? Clive looked surprised. He was all right on his own, he said. The caravan didn’t have room for more than one—not for comfortable living, at any rate.
    He was rather more forthcoming when asked about supplies. He had all that very well organized, he claimed. He had found a place that had been the main supply depot for a chain of supermarkets: everything you could possibly want, and enough to last a lifetime. He only smiled knowingly, though, when Neil asked him where.
    He had good access to petrol, too. He kept the boot of the Rolls full of cans, which gave him a range of seven or eight hundred miles, even at twelve miles to the gallon. He had two spare sets of tyres put by, and chains for the winter.
    Although he was obviously proud of his personal provisions for the future, when Neil started talking in more general terms of what things might be like in a world stripped of all but a handful of people, Clive’s interest slackened again. He was similarly uninterested when Neil talked about the Plague. Neil pointed out that the resistance-factor, whatever it was, that had been responsible for theirsurvival was obviously age-dependent. The younger you were, the more chance you had. On the other hand, below a certain age the survivor would not have been able to cope with the basic problems of living. You needed to be young, but old enough to look after yourself.
    Clive nodded indifferently. “I saw one kid about three or four.”
    â€œWhat happened to him?” Clive shrugged. “You didn’t bring him with you?”
    Clive took off the lensless gold spectacles and twirled them. Instead of replying, he said:
    â€œSomething I forgot to show you. Come see.”
    He led the way back to the smaller living room. There was a wooden box in one corner, something like an Armada chest, secured with an iron clasp and a heavy lock. Clive produced a key, unlocked it and lifted the lid.
    â€œWhat do you think of this little lot?”
    It was like something out of a corny pirate film. The chest was heaped with jewels: necklaces, armbands, tiaras, brooches, with all kinds of precious stones in elaborate gold settings. A snowy heap in one corner must have comprised a dozen strings ofpearls at least. Clive picked up a black cloth bag and undid a string at the top. He held it open for Neil to look in. There were at least a hundred rings there, each with one or more big diamonds.
    Comment was clearly required. Neil said:
    â€œYou brought the family jewels with you, then?”
    Clive gave him a quick look; then nodded.
    â€œThat’s right.” He retied the bag and put it away carefully. “You bring any?”
    â€œOnly a ring of my mother’s.”
    â€œCan I see it?”
    Neil fished out the opal ring from his anorak pocket, and Clive looked at it.
    â€œPretty,” he said condescendingly as he handed it back. He shut and locked his chest, and stowed away the key.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    The charitable explanation was that he was mad; though whether he had been like that originally or recent events had unhinged him there was no way of knowing. His present life, certainly, owed more to fantasy than reality. The trace of cockney accent, increasingly noticeable as time passed, did not fit with being Viscount D’Arcy. For that matter, could therehave been an Earl of Blenheim? It had been the name of a house, surely—the Duke of Marlborough’s?
    All the things here, like the caravan itself and the Rolls, were items he had acquired, jackdaw-like, in his travels. Neil had been surprised that he showed such slight interest in other survivors, and shocked that he had left a four-year-old to fend for