“In how long?” said Josella. “Generations? Perhaps not until after our time. No—the world’s gone, and we’re left… We must make our own lives. We’ll have to plan them as though help will never come…” She paused. There was an odd blank look on her face that I had never seen before. It puckered.
“Darling…” I said.
“Oh, Bill, Bill, I wasn’t meant for this kind of life. If you weren’t here I’d——”
“Hush, my sweet,” I said gently. “Hush.” I stroked her hair.
A few moments later she recovered herself.
“I’m sorry, Bill. Self-pity…revolting. Never again.”
She patted her eyes with her handkerchief and sniffed a little.
“So I’m to be a farmer’s wife. Anyway, I like being married to you, Bill—even if it isn’t a very proper, authentic kind of marriage.”
Suddenly she gave the smiling chuckle that I had not heard for some time.
“What is it?”
“I was only thinking how much I used to dread my wedding.”
“That was very maidenly and proper of you—if a little unexpected,” I told her.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that. It was my publishers, and the newspapers, and the film people. What fun they would have had with it. There’d have been a new edition of my silly book—probably a new release of the film—and pictures in all the papers. I don’t think you’d have liked that much.”
“I can think of another thing I’d not have liked much,” I told her. “Do you remember—that night in the moonlight you made a condition?”
She looked at me.
“Well, maybe some things haven’t turned out so badly,” she said, smiling.
WORLD NARROWING
From then on I kept a journal. It is a mixture of diary, stock list, and commonplace book. In it there are notes of the places to which my expeditions took me, particulars of the supplies collected, estimates of quantities available, observations on the states of the premises, with memos on which should be cleared first to avoid deterioration. Foodstuffs, fuel, and seed were constant objects of search, but by no means the only ones. There are entries detailing loads of clothing, tools, household linen, harness, kitchenware, loads of stakes, and wire, wire, and more wire, also books.
I can see there that within a week of my return from Tynsham I had started on the work of erecting a wire fence to keep the triffids out. Already we had barriers to hold them away from the garden and the immediate neighborhood of the house. Now I began a more ambitious plan of making some hundred acres or so free from them. It involved a stout wire fence which took advantage of the natural features and standing barriers, and, inside it, a lighter fence to prevent either the stock or ourselves from coming inadvertently within sting range of the main fence. It was a heavy, tedious job which took me a number of months to complete.
At the same time I was endeavoring to learn the A B C of farming. It is not the kind of thing that is easily learned from books. For one thing, it has never occurred to any writer on the subject that any potential farmer could be starting from absolute zero. I found, therefore, that all works started, as it were, in the middle, taking for granted both a basis and a vocabulary that I did not have. My specialized biological knowledge was all but useless to me in the face of practical problems. Much of the theory called for materials and substances which were either unavailable to me or unrecognizable by me if I could find them. I began to see quite soon that by the time I had dismissed the things that would shortly be unprocurable, such as chemical fertilizers, imported feeding stuffs, and all but the simpler kinds of machinery, there was going to be much expenditure of sweat for problematical returns.
Nor is book-installed knowledge of horse management, dairy work, or slaughterhouse procedure by any means an adequate groundwork for these arts. There are so many points where one cannot break off to consult the relevant chapter. Moreover, the realities persistently present baffling dissimilarities from the simplicities of print.