The End We Start From

“We hide under the duvet with a torch like children. I ask R if he still would have done it. If he had known. He doesn’t answer.”

Many expecting parents have reservations about bringing children into a world with so many problems. Although the characters knew that a climate crisis was on the horizon, they wanted a child, and the narrator asks her husband if the new information about evacuation would have changed his desire to have a baby with her. He cannot answer, highlighting the uncertainty they are both experiencing. While having a child is an adult milestone, the narrator uses a simile to compare her and her husband to children, highlighting their powerlessness in the face of the upcoming crisis.

“In the bed across from me a girl possibly just young enough to be my granddaughter cuddles her toddler on one side and her newborn on the other. Schoolboys come to visit her and let their eyes roam over my udders as they pass.”

The narrator’s observations in the maternity ward use disturbing language to discuss birth, introducing the novel’s meditations on sexism and gender dynamics. The young girl with two children raises questions about whether this young girl has endured some other tragedy. Her youth—and the corresponding youth of her children and her visitors—makes the narrator worry for her, even as the narrator feels dehumanized and objectified by the schoolboys’ gaze. The young girl is never mentioned again, and her story never receives clarification, which adds to the unsettling effect of her introduction.

“The news on the hour, 14th June, one o’clock. Tina Murphy reporting. An unprecedented flood. London. Uninhabitable. A list of boroughs, like the shipping forecast, their names suddenly as perfect and tender as the names of children. Ours.”

The narrator has just given birth in a hospital on the brink of collapse when she and her husband hear that London has been rendered uninhabitable. The comparison of the flooded boroughs to the names of children imbues the disaster with a sense of intimacy and vulnerability, suggesting that the city and its inhabitants are cherished and vulnerable entities. This underscores the devastating impact of the flood on both the physical landscape of London and the lives of its residents. The word “ours” in the context of the flooded boroughs emphasizes a sense of collective ownership and responsibility, highlighting the interconnectedness of human communities and the shared experience of grappling with environmental catastrophe.

“This not-stopping seems to be the first side effect. Everything has been unstopped, is rising to the surface.”

The narrator uses water metaphors to describe her frustration with her in-laws. Just as the flood waters have risen and covered London, the narrator feels that the people around her are unable to stop talking or worrying. The sense that everyone is unstopped and overflowing contributes to her unsettling experience of life after the flood.

“Words float up the stairs like so many childhood letter magnets. Endgame, civilizations, catastrophe, humanitarian.”

These details illustrate the fact that the narrator remains ensconced in her insular world, prioritizing her baby above any curiosity about external events. Rather than being fixated on the television, she passively absorbs fragments of information. While the natural calamity is the narrative’s central event, it is portrayed in nebulous terms, with this excerpt offering a rare glimpse into its details. The absence of precise descriptions mirrors the protagonist’s singular focus on safeguarding her infant. To her, the intricacies of the disaster hold little significance; her sole concern is its ramifications on her role as a caregiver.

“I eat more than I need. If I don’t, I might float away. There is only Z holding me to the earth, and he is still so light.”

Although groceries are scarce, the narrator confesses that she eats a little more than is purely necessary to sustain life. In the aftermath of G being crushed to death in a stampede, the narrator feels smothered by her husband and father-in-law’s grief and the pressures of caring for the house and family with no support. Water imagery is present here, as the narrator feels unmoored in her situation and uses food as a tether to keep her rooted in place.

“I have come to admit that I love the smell of his nappies. There is little else to love here, or everything. The way the kitchen table shines when I have cleaned it.”

This reflection highlights the narrator’s experience with the complexities of love and parenthood. The admission of finding love in the scent of her baby’s diapers is a stark reminder of the narrator’s altered reality, where the mundane details of caregiving take on profound significance. The juxtaposition of affection for the smell of diapers with the bleakness of her surroundings underscores her isolation and the intensity of her maternal bond. The simple act of cleaning the kitchen table becomes a moment of solace and beauty in an otherwise chaotic and uncertain existence. 

“There are so many different kinds of quiet, and only one word for them. The quiet in the house has matured from quiet as lack of noise to something else, a textured, grainy quiet, a thickness to stumble through.”

This introspective reflection explores the nuanced nature of silence and its evolving presence in the narrator’s life. Although it’s easy to imagine that a climate disaster and the experience of living with a newborn would be loud and chaotic, the narrator instead finds that her life is strangely quiet. The metaphor of stumbling through thick, grainy quiet conveys a sense of disorientation and uncertainty.

“I wonder how long we would survive, how quickly human milk runs out in famine. I itch to google.”

The narrator compares her desire to Google information to the discomfort of a physical itch, highlighting how modern habits have molded lives in ways that could be unsustainable. The narrator can no longer perform a task that once felt so easy and essential. This absence highlights the loss of modern convenience and the lack of immediate access to information.

“Their clothes are covered with bright, smart waterproof jackets bought for Sunday walks. Orange, purple, turquoise. They stick out of the gloaming like flags.”

As the narrator drives toward the border with her husband, she observes the brightly colored waterproof jackets worn by other refugees who are walking along the roads. The juxtaposition of the vibrant hues against the somber backdrop of the post-apocalyptic world accentuates the characters’ resilience. The “smart waterproof jackets,” typically associated with leisurely walks, now become symbols of adaptation and survival as the family contends with the aftermath of the disaster. The colors—orange, purple, and turquoise—stand out prominently against the dimness, and the narrator uses a simile to compare them to flags, representing pride or steadfastness.

“I am unsure, I realize, if they do this any more. If a baby is still something. It is. They react.”

When Z needs emergency treatment at a hospital, the narrator grapples with the uncertainty surrounding societal norms and expectations in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. The narrator’s uncertainty about whether babies still hold significance in their changed world speaks to the profound disruption and disorientation caused by the disaster. The simple declaration, “It is,” underscores the undeniable truth that despite the upheaval, the arrival of a new life continues to evoke a response from those around them. Humanity is not lost.

“It is hard to get used to listening again. The first few times I hear nothing but a rush in my ears, like holding up a shell.”

When the narrator first begins to interact with other mothers in the refugee camp, she struggles to reacquaint herself with the sounds of the world after a period of isolation and upheaval. The simile comparing the sound to holding up a shell vividly conveys the overwhelming sensation of noise but also underscores the narrator’s sense of disconnection from her surroundings.

“I go and sit with them. They are the husbandless. They are the milk drippers, the exhausted ones, with hair streaked with grey and rips in the knees of their jeans.”

As the narrator develops friendships with other mothers in the refugee camp, she observes that they are like her, left to navigate the challenges of motherhood without their partners. The description of them as “the husbandless” and “the exhausted ones” emphasizes their shared experiences of loneliness and fatigue, highlighting the isolating nature of their circumstances. The imagery of “milk drippers” suggests the physical demands of motherhood, while the mention of “hair streaked with grey” and “rips in the knees of their jeans” evokes a sense of weariness.

“We are told not to panic, the most panic-inducing instruction known to man.”

In this succinct observation, the narrator uses repetition to encapsulate the paradoxical nature of the instruction not to panic. She highlights the inherent contradiction in attempting to quell panic through verbal command. This observation speaks to the fragility of the human psyche. Additionally, the use of hyperbole underscores the severity of the situation faced by the characters, who have already lived through multiple catastrophes and are on the verge of living through another one.

“Here is the poor relation of there, with facilities so basic we laugh at our previous ignorant luck. Maybe this will be the way it goes from now. Every few months fresh knowledge of the past, of how good it was compared to the present.”

This passage takes place after the narrator follows O to another refugee camp farther north. Their old camp has been evacuated, and they are in this new camp because it is on higher ground. Although the narrator and her friend are still actively in crisis, the differences prompt her to compare life in the two camps and imagine them as if they are related to one another, with “here”—their present camp—depicted as an impoverished relative of “there”—the camp where they previously lived. The vast differences between the two camps also remind her that, even as refugees, their lives can be better and worse by varying degrees.

“I have read that, when someone knows they are going to die, the world becomes acutely itself.”

As the narrator travels with O, their babies, and two young men, the narrator contemplates the very real possibility that they all might die and ponders the clarity that accompanies the imminent prospect of death. By asserting that “the world becomes acutely itself” in such moments, the narrator suggests that impending mortality strips away the veil of distraction and reveals the world’s essence in its raw, unadorned form. The use of the word “acutely” emphasizes the heightened sensitivity and intensity of this perception, implying a deepened appreciation for life’s intricacies and complexities.

“He is the most comfortable person on the boat, his softness slouching against mine, the rocking motion undulating his cheeks. The others watch him hungrily, as though they can catch his contentment.”

As the narrator travels across the sea with O and their babies, she reflects on the comfort and contentment embodied by her infant son amid the chaos and uncertainty of their journey. Z’s peace on the water is especially striking given the adults’ experience with the destructive horror of the sea. The imagery of Z’s “softness slouching” against the narrator emphasizes the physical and emotional closeness between mother and child, highlighting the solace they find in each other’s presence.

“How quickly the everyday fills up time again. Glugs upwards from the earth, invisible until you’re splashing in it.”

As the narrator adjusts to her new, stable life on the island with O and her friends, they find a new sense of normality that stands in stark contrast to the chaos of their existence as refugees. Comparing their run from climate disaster and their peaceful routine on the island, the narrator is surprised by the all-encompassing relentlessness of everyday life and likens it to a substance that emerges unexpectedly, like water surging from the ground. The metaphor of everyday tasks and obligations “filling up time” suggests a sense of inevitability and inexorability, highlighting the ceaseless cycle of routine that can consume one’s existence. The imagery of the everyday “glugging upwards from the earth” conveys a sense of hidden potency and latent force, implying that, just like slowly rising flood waters, even mundane activities have a profound impact on our perception of time and reality.

“Most mornings, I wake with Z’s elbow in my eye, his knee on my mouth. Some mornings, his face is above me, a shining son, dribbling.”

As they begin to thrive on the island, the narrator describes the intimate and sometimes chaotic experience of waking up next to her infant son. The physical proximity and closeness depicted in the imagery of Z’s “elbow in my eye” and “knee on my mouth” convey intimacy and connection, highlighting the bond shared between them. The wordplay at work in the phrase “shining son” illustrates that, like the sun, Z is both sunshine and the force that awakens the narrator each day.

“O tells me she won’t say goodbye. She hates goodbyes.”

Because the narrator’s bond with O has been so important to her, she expects their separation to be an emotional and painful moment. But just as O has lovingly supported her friend throughout their journey together, she offers a final gesture of support by refusing to leave herself or her friend feeling distraught from an emotional goodbye. Because O hates goodbyes, her avoidance of this convention allows the friends to pretend that they are not undergoing a painful separation and may hope to find each other again, although this is unlikely.

“Our city is here, somewhere, but we are not. We are all untied, is the thing. Untethered, floating, drifting, all these things. And the end, the tether, the re-leash, is not in sight.”

When the narrator and Z return to the refugee camp in Scotland, she is surprised to find that society’s efforts to rebuild and carry on are almost more disorienting than living in the aftermath of immediate destruction. Adjectives such as “untied,” “untethered,” and “floating”—water metaphors once more—describe emotional disorganization and convey loss and displacement, suggesting that the characters are adrift in a state of uncertainty and instability. The absence of a clear endpoint or resolution, represented by the absence of the “tether” or “re-leash,” underscores the pervasive sense of dislocation that permeates the narrative.

“The scenarios for his death are the most vivid daydreams I have ever had.”

Postpartum anxiety is a common experience for many mothers who worry about the harm that may befall their newborn baby. For the narrator—who has had so much to worry about throughout Z’s short life—it is only as Z begins achieving milestones associated with developmental independence that she experiences vivid mental images of the harm that could come to him. As Z learns to crawl, she worries about him with the same intensity that she worries about R because she fears that she may be unable to protect either of them from harm.

“R will be able to leave soon, the nurses tell me. The key is the afterplan, they keep saying. I leap on that, but it seems that the afterplan is me. I am what they have been waiting for.”

The narrator expects professional advice when R’s nurses speak of an afterplan. However, because medical resources are so limited as the United Kingdom attempts to rebuild, the narrator is horrified to find that her presence in R’s life is the only afterplan in place. As much as she wants to support R, she feels ill-equipped for the task and wishes she had more practical advice. This mirrors the situation earlier in the novel when the narrator had to care for R and N as if they were also children. Though the world is being born anew, domestic labor is still feminized.