Flood by Stephen Baxter Page B

enough too. Doors were opening, and people were reluctantly emerging from their houses, bearing kids, suitcase, bundles of possessions.
    Piers looked at Molly, and down at the swirling water. This is something I can do, he thought.
    He put his hands on Molly’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Are you sure you’ve got everything you need? Your bank book, your NHS card—”
    “Oh, yes, all packed, Kevin gave me a list. Large print too, he’s really very good.”
    “This is a bit awkward—but do you need the lavatory for a bit? I’m not sure when we’ll get to a toilet.”
    She laughed at that. “I’m all right, dear, let’s get on with it.” She peered past him. “Still can’t see your car.”
    “Well, I don’t have a car, I’m afraid. Let’s see how we’re fixed.” He dug under his jacket, and took the belt from his trousers. He looped this through the suitcase handle and buckled it, and then hung the case around his neck so it dangled behind his back, over his slimmer emergency pack. It wasn’t terribly heavy. Then he reached for Molly. “Now then, madam—”
    When he picked her up she laughed again. “Oh my word, what a day this is turning out to be.” But she put her arms around his neck, and settled easily.
    He stood in the hall, balancing her weight. She was a solid woman, and heavy, but if he stood straight the case on his back acted as a kind of counterweight. He knew he was thin from his captivity, his muscles wasted; he wouldn’t last for ever. But he was confident he could make it for maybe a kilometer, which might be enough. “Off we go, Molly.” Carefully he stepped over the sandbags, and out onto the path.
    He let her fumble for a key so she could lock the door. “Last time I was carried over this threshold it was by my Benny, and that was going the other way, oh I’ll remember today all right.”
    “So will my back,” Piers said ruefully. He splashed down the path.
    “And these sandbags go back to the war. Really they do. I was a little girl then but I remember it clear as day. My dad dug the sand into his garden but he always kept the sacks, never know when they might start up again, he said, and he was right wasn’t he, in a way . . .”
    Letting her talk, he bent his head away from the rain and walked slowly, carefully. He headed east, roughly, toward the line of the DLR. The current of the flood water was fast, and though the water was still below his knees it tugged at him surprisingly strongly. One step, another, in the swirling, increasingly fetid water. He was determined not to get knocked over or trip.
    “Oh, I’ll remember this day I will, are you sure I’m not too heavy? I’ve got some mints somewhere, do you want a mint? . . .”

    The AxysCorp chopper lifted Lily and the others from a soggy sports ground in the lee of the flyover. The helicopter dipped its nose and they flew north, panning over a peninsula that was becoming an archipelago. The water lapped all the way around the Dome now, and the car parks had vanished. Soaked to the skin, Amanda sat with her kids at her sides, holding them both close, shuddering.
    The pilot glanced back.“Thought you might like to see this, Captain Brooke. Seeing as you missed the Games and all . . .”
    The chopper sped across the swollen river, and surged further north. Here, spreading up across Tower Hamlets and Newham as far as Hackney, was the Olympic Park. This was in fact the valley of a tributary river, the Lea; it too had burst its banks. Lily recognized a velodrome, and what looked like a complex for hockey or soccer, and a bowl of a stadium, all of it abandoned, desolate, rusting, even vandalized. The filthy water spread across the valley and swirled around the Olympic facilities, as if coloring in a map.
    The chopper dipped again and soared away to the west, toward central London.

    People in Millwall knew Molly Murdoch. One old man a couple of streets from Molly’s home, who was determined himself to stay