Snapshots of the Apocalypse

Snapshots of the Apocalypse

Min despised the Tate Art and Refuge Centre. It contained little art and more refuse than refuge. She'd been approached by pimps in the café there, had witnessed fist-fights over chocolate, and had once seen an artwork used as a frisbee. But today, staring at the empty food cupboard in her squat, she knew she'd have to go there if she wanted to eat.

"Shit," she muttered, slamming the cupboard door.

Cursing the guy who'd yet again failed to deliver the bootleg goods, Min grabbed her bag and slung on her black PVC cape and beret. She then padlocked her squat's front door and marched down the long staircase.

On the ground floor, the sign on the wall read, THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF URGEONS. If anyone asked 'what she did' these days, she said she was an 'urgeon'. A reasonable word, she thought, for how she kept urging herself on despite the relentless crap around - and indeed within - her. Fortunately, few asked her 'profession' these days. Had it really taken an apocalyptic world to end small talk?

The former Reception area was dusted with cobwebs, its blue carpet muddy with footprints. Min still recalled her first visit to this place years ago as a medical student, but she tried not to think of the past. That was a different era, before the floods and chaos, and she'd never finished her studies, anyway. It'd been how she'd known about this place though, and why she'd come here to hide when her flat near Tottenham Court Road had burnt down in a riot.

Outside, as ever, it was raining but thankfully it was the Cameron kind - light, unobtrusive drizzle. There were a dozen official sorts of rain, all named after previous Prime Ministers. Min's favourite was Blair, in which swirling eddies made the rain spin; she didn't mind Rashford - a refreshing spring downpour; she disliked Thatcher - hard, unforgiving; the worst was Johnson - deceptively lightweight but soaked you through-and-through.

Min hurried across the deserted Lincoln's Inn Fields. A decaying, six-storey building had cracks in its walls colonised by moss, like furry veins. She turned right, down a passageway in which was a dead oak. Two parrots perched on a branch made her eyes widen in surprise. They were kingfisher blue, defying the grey day. How Damien would have loved them! Remembering him, Min felt as if she was falling, but she steadied herself and continued on.

She walked down Chancery Lane, her boots splashing through puddles. Her shoulders tensed as a male voice called out from the other side of the road; keeping her gaze ahead, she picked up her pace. It wasn't safe here, but notwithstanding a mugging last year, and despite being alone, she was wily enough to have survived - so far. A phrase from somewhere popped into her head: mere survival is insufficient. What bullshit, she thought. Mere survival was all there was; hope belonged to another era.

When she got to the Embankment, she was relieved to find more people. London often seemed like a mausoleum these days, many having fled the city, many having died. At the Millennium Bridge, she frowned up at the building once known as Tate Modern, now the Tate Art and Refuge Centre or TARC. Its tower poked into the sky, like a one-fingered gesture at a mean cosmos.

Tired after the long walk on an empty stomach, she entered TARC and in the foyer took off her beret and shook herself to get rid of raindrops on her cape. At the turnstile, an armed guard scanned her with a weapon detector, then nodded for her to carry on. At Reception, a woman scowled at Min, but stamped her ration book and gave her a free café token. Min veered right, up one side of the Turbine Hall, avoiding the refugees and their beds in its centre.

The café was on the first floor. Handing over her token, she was given a tray containing: chicken soup, a bread roll, a chunk of cheddar cheese, an apple and tea. As she searched for a free table, she noticed a fair-haired man with a pony-tail at the edge of the room. She'd seen him in the café a couple of times before. He stood out not only because he wore a neat dark suit, but because unlike most solitary men here, he didn't try to catch her eye.

She sat at an empty, scuffed wooden table without taking off her cape - the place wasn't heated. She began to wolf down the food; the soup and bread were good. By the time she started on the apple, her energy had improved.

She was halfway through her tea when the pony-tailed man approached. "May I sit?" he asked politely, indicating the chair opposite hers.

She normally told men to piss off, but his clean-shaven face made her curious enough to take a second look: a short, handsome man with bags under his eyes. "If you must."

He sat, putting his mug of coffee on the table. He was quiet for a few minutes, just sipping his drink. Min had expected him to talk and both his silence and presence set her a little on edge.

He looked at her inquisitively. "I've noticed you here before."

"Bully for you." She took a gulp of tea.

"I thought you'd be the 'bully for you' sort."

"Bully for you. Again."

He laughed, the first genuine laugh she'd heard in ages. A stray strand of blonde hair flopped over his face and he tucked it behind his ear. "Sorry. It's just you seem different."

"Everyone's different."

"No. Everyone in this café's pretty similar. They either live as refugees downstairs, scared of what's happening, or they come in groups from outside and hang out for hours. But you, a woman alone, waltz in with that outlandish black cape, eat, then disappear."

She met the gaze of his grey-blue eyes, wondering what he wanted. "And your point is?"

"You seem fearless. or reckless."

She raised an eyebrow. "You seem full of bullshit."

He rubbed at his neck. "Would. you let me show you something?"

"If you're looking for sex, the answer's no," she snapped.

He held up his palms in a gesture of appeasement. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. Really. I'd like to show you some art."

"Oh?" She frowned. "Aren't the galleries all closed?"

"Yes, but I'm a doctor here. Well, the only doctor at present, which means I get the keys to the kingdom." He put a hand in his jacket pocket and jangled keys there.

She studied him, pondering if it were wise to trust him.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'd never make a pass at anyone with such a silly cape."      

She barked a quick laugh and then wondered what age he was. As he'd completed his medical training, he must be older than her. "What's your name?"

"Max."

"Well, I'm Min."

"Really?"

"Really."

Despite her normal wariness, she was warming to this unusual man. She gulped down the rest of her tea, and then let him lead her upstairs to the second floor, where he unlocked a door of what looked like a gallery and went in. She felt a moment of fear - was it wise to follow him? Curiosity got the better of her. She took only a few steps inside, though, staying close to the entrance. A dehumidifier was humming and, when Max switched on the light, she saw large framed photographs all over the walls. Her skin tingled. Oh, god.

"This exhibition was Snapshots of the Apocalypse, 2058, by Lucy Yorke-Hirst," he said. "Do you know her work?"

"No."

Min walked slowly round the room, taking in the photographs. A skeletal man dressed in a black bin-liner stared up at the boarded-up Harrods store. A girl sat hunched in a rowing boat outside a flooded Brixton Tube, her face pale as a bone. A tower of piled-up tyres in Trafalgar Square had Monument to Bugger-All written on it in blue paint. A woman in a black PVC cape and beret sheltered from rain under an archway, cuddling a boy with a black PVC coat and cap.

Min felt light-headed, as if spinning. She stepped back, her eyes narrowing. "Why the fuck did you bring me here?"

"Sorry. I-"

She took a deep breath and forced herself to face Max. "You knew that was me?"

"Yes."

"You thought a trip down memory cul-de-sac would be nice?"

"I thought you might tell me about the boy." He spoke gently.

A stab of anger. "Why would I tell a stranger?"

"Because you come here alone, so I assume you lost him. I. I lost my daughter, too."

Not an answer she'd expected. As she met his candid gaze, sadness swelled inside her and she had to will the pain back. "How did you lose her?"

A muscle twitched in his neck. "A flash flood in 2056. Karina was swept away, her body never found."

"Christ!" Min pressed a hand to her chest. "I'm sorry."

"What about your boy?" he asked.

She moved close to the photograph and touched Damien's face with her fingers, feeling grief welling up. "He died in the malaria epidemic of 2057."

Max approached and placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

"Damien was my baby," she spluttered, and the sobs came. She let Max hold her as tears burned her cheeks. When was the last time she had been comforted like this? She could scarcely remember.

After a few minutes, when her tears stopped, she stepped back from him, becoming conscious of a slight awkwardness developing. His face was handsome but, more importantly, compassionate.

"Do you have family left...