Page 25 of 59 Minutes

CARRIE

Carrie and Grace are now at the bottom of an unending corkscrew. The curved walls are lined with metal ribs, grey-black from dirt and age. A great steel oesophagus.

They climb, and climb. Hands smearing the metal handrail, dull footsteps echoing.

‘Not long now,’ she says to Grace. ‘We’ll get you home.’

Grace doesn’t reply, but a sound that could be a sob echoes up and down the shaft.

Lactic acid spikes, shins clip steps and toes scuff.

Her thighs burn. It is insane, Carrie thinks, that she can still notice any discomfort.

Can feel bruises from her earlier fall seeping across her skin like ink blots, can taste the blood from her gums. How can she think of anything besides the imminent attack on her city, of Clementine and Emma unnaturally separated from her?

Clementine will be oblivious, and although Emma will know what’s happening in the big picture sense, she’ll have no idea Carrie is on her way home.

Will she hope for the best or assume all chance is lost?

Might Emma even pray ? They both went to a church primary school, half-learned parables about donkeys and Good Samaritans, but praying has certainly not crossed her own mind.

‘Are you okay?’ Grace asks, as they march up and up.

‘Just thinking about God.’

‘God?’ Grace says. ‘Oh, are you religious or something?’

‘No, just desperate.’ They march in silence for a moment.

‘Actually, I was thinking about Emma more than God,’ Carrie says.

‘Emma?’

‘My partner.’

‘You’re not married then? God, sorry, I don’t know why I said that. My mum and dad weren’t married either, it’s not like I—’

‘Don’t be sorry, it’s a good question. I guess … I guess we just didn’t need to get married, we were already … no, that’s not it actually.’

‘You really don’t have to answer, I’m sorry. My mum always says I’m too curious for my own good.’

‘Stop, it’s nice to talk about this. About her.

Honestly, I think it’s actually that … well, it’s a few things.

Some of our good friends, our older friends, never got to marry the people they loved in time.

And even though we can now, we wouldn’t want to do it in a half-arsed way.

And there’s always something more urgent to spend the money on.

It’s expensive raising a kid in London. But, to be honest, I guess we didn’t want to change anything in case it changed us. ’

‘I get it, I think. Like, my mum and dad used to say the same kind of thing, like they didn’t need a piece of paper to … um … and then …’

‘And then what?’

‘Nothing, just … tell me about Emma. What’s she like and stuff?’

Emma , she thinks. Let me tell you about Emma.

Her hair is the colour of ketchup but she always smells of peaches.

Everyone has their own smell, and that’s hers.

The quieter she tries to be the louder she gets.

She has the sweetest tooth Carrie has ever known, can eat a stick of Brighton rock like it’s a carrot baton.

She loves pick-and-mix sweets more than anything and sometimes she’ll go into the cinema and not see a film, just buy a huge bucket of pick-and-mix and bring it home so they can all eat it in front of the telly.

Even though they had all these plans about how Clementine wasn’t going to eat sugar until she was at least six.

Emma can cook amazing meals from guesswork and imagina-tion but can’t follow the instructions on a packet of noodles.

Charlotte Upton broke her heart in Year 10 and Carrie put dog poo in Charlotte’s bag and got caught and had after-school detentions for weeks, but it was worth it to stop Emma crying.

Stupid that she hadn’t realised then … she was almost sick with jealousy when they got together.

Emma says there’s no excuse for being uncomfortable and takes slippers on train and plane journeys.

Emma never knew her dad and says she doesn’t care about that unless she’s drunk and then she and Carrie whip themselves into a Nancy Drew fever doing Facebook investigations into people with his name but they’re never him.

Only when they’re really, really drunk do they acknowledge that Clementine may some day have these same questions.

Emma’s stepdad is nice but he’s quite thick, and the only music he listens to is novelty comedy records.

His mobile ringtone is ‘Star Trekkin’’ by The Firm.

Emma loves her mum more than almost anyone.

Maybe even neck and neck with Carrie and Clementine.

Emma drops it into conversation like it’s just a vague idea and thinks she’s being subtle, but she’s desperate to live in Brighton and smell the sea every day. Why didn’t we move to Brighton?

‘She’s amazing,’ Carrie says. ‘She’s a brilliant mum, she’s the best partner, she’s … I should marry her, frankly.’

The light overhead changes. An almost imperceptible shimmer that sets her eyes watering again. She can see slivers of white ceiling lights. The top.

‘There’s a door!’ Grace shouts from above, hidden in the upper coils. ‘There’s a door!’

‘Just wait,’ Carrie pants. ‘Just a minute, you don’t know what’s on the other side.’

‘I’ll be okay.’

‘I need to keep you safe, what would your mum say?’

‘She’d say hurry up, the end of the world is coming.’

‘How much time do we have left?’

‘I don’t know.’ Grace’s voice bounces around the stairwell, a sudden chorus of teenagers. ‘My phone died at Waterloo.’

‘Fuck. Sorry. Fiddlesticks.’

‘Oh my god, Carrie, it doesn’t matter. Just say fuck.’

Carrie reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out her filthy, smashed-up phone as she puffs her way up.

She can’t even see the time. She can’t see anything.

If the network comes back, she cannot call Emma, or Pepper, or her mum.

All her photos of Clementine are gone too as she’s never bothered with the cloud.

Three years and thousands of moments. Three years.

How can someone that little be living through this?

Facing final moments.

No, not final.

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Carrie finally gets her legs to run.