I’m going to have to be quick. I’ve got this battery and one spare, so that gives me, what? 8-10 hours of typing time? About that, I think. I turned off the WiFi, turned the power settings to maximum eco, but even so, it’s a juice-hungry laptop.

Okay. So this is today.

3

Eventually, Charley whispers to me in the dark.

“What’s happening, Daddy Rob?”

“There’s been an explosion.” The pain in my legs is bad, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling in my stomach. My gut is churning, and I can feel sweat popping all over my back, my face.

“Is that what broke the window?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” The darkness is total. Absolute. I close my eyes anyway, trying to picture the layout of her room in my mind. The bedside table with the clock and the lamp, on the other side, her bookcase, wardrobe.

“What blew up?”

“I don’t know.” Which is true, but I’m pretty sure, given the direction and size of the explosion, that it was London.

I think Luke’s name, but push it back down before I can picture his face. No time for that shit.

What to do? That’s the question.

The rain is still coming down, the kind of summer shower that’s a drag during the day, but normally comforting at night, as it drums against the walls and roof and windows of your house and you lie, snug and safe and warm and dry. Soothing.

Not so much when you can hear the raindrops landing inside the room.

“Is that why the lights went out?”

“I think so, yeah.” EMP, or just grid disruption? My mind’s running back through all those CND horror pamphlets and books I inhaled in my 20s, megatons and blast radius, psi circles and rem per hour and fallout…

“When will they come back on?”

My mind is still trying to run away, trying to calculate, like the maths problem from hell. If a nuclear warhead detonates in or over London, and the explosion is powerful enough to shatter windows and sway houses in Milton Keynes, how long is a five-year-old girl likely to survive the resulting radiation poisoning; and, for extra marks, after how many days will she start vomiting blood?

“When will they come back on? Daddy Rob?”

I take a deep breath. I move slowly, sliding to one side a little, but still covering most of her with my larger frame. I place my head on her pillow and talk softly, directly into her ear.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Probably not tonight.”

“You mean it’s going to be dark all night?”

“Yes, I think so.” And the rest.

“I don’t like the dark! I can’t sleep in the dark!”

“Sweetheart…” She’s getting riled now, that stubborn, angry tone entering her voice.

“No! Daddy Rob…”

“Listen, Charley…”

“No, I can’t sleep in the dark, I can’t…”