Saturday, 24 September 2022 | 7.8°C Dublin
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S eptember’s winning short story
Illustration by Alex Fortune for The Bunker, September's New Irish Writing short story
Natalie Robinson, who wrote September's New Irish Writing short story
It was that magical hour before high tide when the water slackened, calm as glass. She loved the dull teal of this sea set against the darkening September sky. Her Peter and their twins were out there, brave; it was already too cold for Louise, only a swimmer on the brightest and best of days. So she would sit on the side, often with a book in hand, though not today. Today Louise focused on remembering: taking in the muted colours of the afternoon and the joy of her children and the sweetness of Peter spending this time, teaching them safety and freedom. She would remember them like this and their days like this and the sky like this. She would frame this memory in her mind, treasure this moment on Sandycove beach. She took out her phone and snapped a photograph too. She could look at this and almost forget the fear and the wars and the death, so much death and the coming — no, the already arrived — apocalypse.
I t had been one thing to worry about terrorism. Louise and Peter were always vigilant with their travel arrangements, rarely leaving Ireland. But Louise remembered going through Dublin Airport only a few years ago, with the girls on a trip to Dubai. She had been horrified at the security protocol. Taking her boots off, placing her belongings in the plastic tray, being patted down when her jewellery triggered an alarm. It was frightening to think of the reasons for this. The threat hung in the air the whole trip — not just in the airport but in the hotel lobby, over dinner, at the bar. She looked around her for any sign that someone was armed, was — God forbid — wearing a bomb under their shirt. She had called Peter in tears. Was it possible to do anything at all now, without the worry that the person beside you, behind you would murder you? Wars were getting closer and closer. She had thought of her children and she had felt sick. What kind of life was this for them?
And then this weather. The weather that just kept coming and coming. Storm warnings were frequent now, orange and red, and on those days the waves were higher and the wind more ferocious than she’d ever known them to be. Climate change was real, she had realised, and it was a paralysing kind of emergency, so grand in its scope, so unvanquishable. She turned off needless lights, bought Bags for Life, drank through paper straws and always recycled, and she felt pitifully inconsequential. The Doomsday Clock was at a minute to midnight! And no one seemed able to act.
And now this virus. A killer that was airborne, unseen. There would be new variants, Louise knew. While she had long since stopped watching the nightly news, she kept a close eye on Twitter. She knew because the schools were open, then closed, then open again. She knew because we were all still wearing masks. She knew because she still couldn’t go to yoga. The virus just kept morphing. This was the cataclysm, their Ragnarok; this was surely the end of days. Louise was terrified.
Survivalism, it was called, and it made more sense to Louise than any religion. It was Peter’s friend Reed who had first introduced them. Reed was the director of a buoyant venture capital fund in the States. He lived out in Silicon Valley and he talked easily and with a kind of delight about his plans. Reed had a basement full of supplies, a motorbike for a quick getaway, multiple guns, a stockpile of gold.
Reed said the world governments were fragile, were nearing collapse, that this virus would be “the final straw”. Louise had laughed at first, amused at what she’d thought to be a symptom of Reed’s eccentricity. But Peter agreed. He’d started making their garage in the image of Reed’s. He was buying all sorts of books, had started spending time in subreddits. It was the article in The New Yorker that changed things for Louise; suddenly this all seemed more serious. The New Yorker wasn’t for idiots and here it was in print. CEOs of big tech companies were doing this, she’d read. People who had the money were taking real precautions, relative to the scale of the doom impending. Well, Louise thought, Peter and I have money too.
The money was mainly Peter’s. When his parents had sold their sprawling South Dublin property to a semi-retired rockstar, they’d created trust funds for Peter and his sister Aoife — released to them once they each turned 25. When Louise met Peter at Trinity, she’d known nothing about his wealth, only that he had keen blue eyes that flashed in the light and took her in totally; that he seemed deeply committed to her from the start.
They married quickly, straight after college, and two years later Kieron and Ciara were born and the money poured into their joined-up world. It had felt heavy, like something they were supposed to do something important with, something philanthropic or for the children’s futures? They weren’t sure.
They had their home in Dún Laoghaire inherited from Louise’s side — her late grandmother; they had their jobs: Peter in finance and Louise with Solaris, her wellness business. They had what they needed in abundance, and so this money just sat accruing interest for a rainy day; for The Flood.
“Mammy! Mammy! Look!” Ciara was running towards her, holding up a long string of seaweed. Peter was laughing. He grabbed their towels from next to Louise and rubbed Ciara and Kieron dry before he reached for his own. Louise found the flask of hot chocolate in her bag and they huddled up and shared it, warm and powdery. The sky was changing now, the clouds were moving in, throwing their veil over the setting sun. “How was the water?” she smiled. “FREEZING,” they shouted in unison, like they always did.
Louise and Peter had started to research in earnest. They found out that New Zealand was the most coveted location for what were actually referred to as “end of the world bunkers”. This was out of the question though; they both agreed that they needed to stay on (/under) Irish soil. Ireland was home, and still one of the “top five” places to be during the crumbling of civilisation, which was happening now. They’d looked into planning permission to build on their land in West Cork but had come up against thick bureaucracy, numerous hurdles. They had to be “contributing to the community” — the church, the local GAA; they had to be building “at least three houses” (above ground), and on and on went the rules. Then Reed connected them with Tadhg and Michael Hogan.
The Hogan brothers ran a holiday rental company in North Tipperary, old-world cottages for a summer crowd. But their real business was bunkers. The bunkers were deep underground, accessed via a more remote cottage which was never let, always empty. There were several very large bunker spaces available, each with more than twice the square footage of their current home. They drove out to see for themselves.
It was so perfect. The windows looked out as if on to the ocean. Or with the flick of the remote control, a woodland, rolling hills, a cityscape. The system would automatically detect the right season, the true time of day, and adjust its projected vista accordingly. There was also an option to see the real “out there”, from the viewpoint of a discreet camera atop the cottage but, Louise thought, that might drive you mad.
Tadhg Hogan had given them the tour; Michael, it seemed, was purely back-office, dealing with the NDAs and the contracts and the money. Tadhg was a slight, unassuming man in his late forties, a friendly but almost instantly forgettable face. They’d gone down and down — first via stairs and then in an elevator, further. It felt like miles and miles. Tadhg had laughed when she’d said that, told her it was “approx. 720 feet”. He showed them all of these rooms — tastefully decorated, spacious, homely even. He’d taken them down again into a “garden area” and Louise had felt stunned; it made you feel like you were genuinely outdoors, or almost. Peter had bent down and run his hands along the grass; it was fake but you wouldn’t know it. There was a greenhouse — they’d be able to grow fresh veg — and a palm house, for real plants and bright flowers, which Ciara would love. “There’s also a seed store,” Tadhg had told them, “for if you’re able to go above ground again and need to… reintroduce certain agricultural aspects.” Louise imagined herself and Peter, repopulating barren ground: Adam and Eve.
They piled into Peter’s Audi, sandy towels, salty wet hair; the drive back was short around the bay — an easy enough walk, but it was best to get home and warm. Louise turned the heat on the seats all the way up, the way she liked it. She liked to feel it intense through her body even without having been in the water. Within five minutes the tyres crunched gravel on their driveway; their house stood beautiful, tall, its seaside yellow walls glowing brighter in the headlights. Louise always felt pleased to be home. It was strange that they had so little time left here.
After dinner and TV and the ready-for-bed routines, Louise tucked Ciara and then Kieron in. The twins had slept in separate rooms for over a year now, ever since Kieron started having his night terrors, his waking dreams. When she’d first witnessed this, Louise had felt the same fear she perceived in Kieron’s eyes. He flailed around the room. He turned and seemed to look straight at her as he spoke, but what he was saying made no sense. Neither of them were in control. Ciara had been inconsolable, unable to reach her brother who appeared before her as if awake, but different, unknown. He was right there with them and yet at the same time he wasn’t there at all; he was in some other realm. Louise was so sure that this was a result of their exposure to social media, the stress of it. They were of course too young to access it on their own, but it hummed around them. This world was damaging their precious hearts.
“Goodnight moon,” Ciara smiled and wriggled down. This was the ritual, recalling a book from their younger years. “Goodnight little house,” Louise kissed Ciara’s cheek gently. “Goodnight stars,” Ciara yawned. “Goodnight air.” And after, in Kieron’s room they did the same again. “Goodnight noises everywhere,” Kieron concluded as he curled around his pillow in that odd way he insisted on sleeping. Louise turned on the nightlight and closed the door with a click.
As soon as they’d signed the contract and made the weighty Bitcoin transfer Louise knew for sure that it was the right thing. They had set a date, six months away; it was fast approaching. They had made all the arrangements. All that was left now was the leaving, the going underground.
Louise walked slowly down the stairs. She saw Peter in his chair pretending to be reading but actually nodding off, as usual. She smiled and walked to him and kissed his head and she walked past him through the living room and into the kitchen with the plates still piled ready-to-be-loaded into the dishwasher and she walked on, into their oval-shaped conservatory, to the long French windows and she opened them wide into the dark. She breathed in deeply, imagining taking all the stars in the sky into herself, holding them; and exhaling, glittering. She closed her eyes and thought of the bunker and felt something like relief.
Natalie Robinson, who wrote September's New Irish Writing short story
Natalie Robinson is a writer currently living in Co Limerick. You can read more of her short fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry on patreon.com/natalierobinsonpoetry
New Irish Writing, edited by Ciaran Carty and appearing in the Irish Independent on the last Saturday of each month, is open to writers who are Irish or resident in Ireland. Stories submitted should not exceed 2,000 words. Up to four poems may be submitted. There is no entry fee. Writers whose work is selected will receive €120 for fiction and €60 for poetry. You can email your entry, preferably as a Word document, to newirishwriting68@gmail.com. Please include your name, address and contact number, as well as a brief biographical paragraph. Only writers who have yet to publish their first book can be considered.
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