2048: The Covid Chronicles

By Peter Moore

England in the year 2048 and tanks and troops are guarding the gates of the Houses of Parliament. With the help of prickly centenarian Eric Blair, 17-year-old Winnie Smith takes on the might of the 'liberal progressive' government led by Rose Cromwell, the nation's first black female prime minister

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Moore
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781802274592

Peter Moore

Peter Moore is an English writer, historian and lecturer. He is the author of Endeavour (2018) and The Weather Experiment (2015), which were both Sunday Times bestsellers in the United Kingdom. The Weather Experiment was also chosen as one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2015. He teaches at the University of Oxford, has lectured internationally on eighteenth century history, and hosts a history podcast called Travels Through Time.

Book preview

Chapter One

Midnight: the frozen naked nascent heartbeats of 2048 arrived just on time and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Eric Blair winced, as strangled, doleful wails of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ corkscrewed through his brain and dragged him irritably from sleep’s death. It was either that or an urgent demand from his full bladder. It’s an age thing, maybe.

He rolled onto his back. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ he demanded irritably and loudly of the drunken, boisterous, discordant voices wailing beneath his window in the freezing driving sleet outside.

‘…quaintansays ha…be forgot…tah!’

He sucked in another deep, exasperated breath, forced open his eyes, and stared into the blackness at a bedroom ceiling he couldn’t see. The sigh heaved from the pit of his soul.

‘Another day in Paradise.’

Like most people of a certain age, he was constantly aware of his own mortality. Opening his eyes on every bright new day struck him equally with a primal sense of relief and wonder that he was alive, and an irrational irritation that he had survived another night.

‘Too late to get up, old ’un, or is it too early? Who cares? Bloody drunks! Just shut yer eyes. You might doze off,’ he mumbled…

Fat chance!

He reached out and dangled his left hand over the top of a small bedside lamp and a low, soft light crept into the room. He squeezed his eyes shut, grimaced, lifted one arse cheek from the mattress and let loose the first fart of the day, a long, acrid trumpeting that would have roused his mother’s ghost. It putrefied the air faster than a nun’s curse. A short intake of air snatched in his nostrils.

‘Voila, mon brave. Here’s my first offering to that bloody interminable climate change emergency today.

‘Jeez, what’ve I been eating? Must be the new tablets.’

He rearranged his scrotum. ‘Bollocks. Will I never wake up dead?’ he whispered bitterly, his words momentarily condensing on the chill air before evaporating like wraiths.

‘Shit, it can’t be THAT hard to die, can it? After all, nobody’s ever failed, have they?’

He was talking to himself again, a lot of the time it was just the same thought rehashed. He found he was doing that a lot lately. And why not.? After all, he was the only one who spoke sense to him these days. Well, most of the time, anyway. Besides, there was nobody there to contradict him, or challenge him – apart from Alexa, of course.

He smiled wryly.

Next, he plucked his glasses off the bedside cabinet, anchored them to his face and forced his eyes to focus on what was going to be a very long day. He could feel it in his waters. Quite literally.

Happy bloody New Year,’ he wished himself with all the sarcasm he could muster. ‘Who are you kidding?’

He allowed himself a thin, ironic smile, ‘Oh, and, by the way, happy bleedin’ birthday, old son.’

He paused to consider the full gravity of his next thought, a lightbulb moment, and he shook his head slowly. ‘Bloody hell, one hundred years old today! A baby boomer still booming. A century not out. Boom, boom!

‘Happy birthday to me,’ he trilled, ‘happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear Eeeriiiic… Happy birthday to meeee… yah.’

His voice, he freely admitted, resembled a blocked drain being cleared by using a live cat as a sink plunger, resulting in some musical notes randomly inflicted on any tune. He wheezed the last note for as long as his lungs allowed and stopped when spots started to appear before his eyes. The dizziness disappeared as soon as he gulped in fresh air. ‘All hail the mighty National Health Service – just seven months younger than me. Not sure which one of us is in the better health, but, hey, I couldn’t have done it without yah!’

Crack, crack, crack! Mumbled angry voices. The sound of running feet. Crack, crack, crack!

Eric was wide awake now. They were gunshots, a familiar sound these days but not normally so close.

‘Bugger! It must be those drunks,’ he muttered. ‘They must have been spotted by a patrol.’

Crack, crack, crack! Closer now, and the unmistakable throaty, rumbling sound of light tank engines.

A disembodied voice filled the room. ‘You are right. I am told six adults, three males and three who identify as female, are being pursued and will be shortly apprehended. They will learn it is unwise to upset Mother and her government. Nobody is above the law.’

God, how he loathed that infernal device!

‘Too true, Alexa. Are they coming this way? I do hope not. My old ticker’s not up to all this excitement. Not this early. Is it the army?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Poor sods, their singing wasn’t THAT bad! Hell of a way to start a New Year –dead! Still, they shouldn’t have broken the curfew, that’s what I say. Well, those lawbreakers deserve what’s coming to them. The soldiers will shoot first, won’t they, especially as the drunks have tried to escape? Serves ‘em right.’

‘I agree, sir.’ The voice faded.

Eric moved as quickly as he could. He rolled over and pulled open the bedside cabinet. Feverishly, he groped amongst his clean socks until his fingers retrieved a small USB stick, which he quickly plugged into his faithful laptop that ‘slept’ where the loves of his life once did.

The computer burst into life immediately and Eric breathed a sigh of relief. Like so many savvy others, he had bought the dongle on the dark web. It connected Alexa to the worldwide web, whether she liked it or not, and forced her into millions of ‘conversations’ with strangers, effectively distracting her from her singular domestic chores. He pumped the air like a toddler, or a victorious footballer would. ‘Yeeees!’ he hissed. Always brilliant to put one over on a robot.

But Eric knew from embarrassing experience that the device would only block her for anything between just five minutes to ten minutes, no longer, before an alarm would register at Government HQ. The boffins hadn’t managed to overcome the ‘glitch’ yet, but Eric had stopped his occasional visits to illegal classic book sites when he’d been caught out.

‘Serves me right,’ he’d thought at the time. It had only been rare trips down a long-deserted barren road. Now he stuck to reading news sites and authorised eBooks in vain attempts to coerce his mind to sleep. Skeletal hands gripped the outside of his scrawny thigh muscles. He crooked his arms and bent his body into a loose L-shape. He tensed his stomach muscles, raised his naked legs, and swung them forcibly down and out of the bed until he was sitting roughly upright, like a nail bent with metal fatigue. Time stood still… gravity nudged him… and then… ever so slowly… he collapsed back onto the bed.

‘Aw, come on God, give us a hand here! No time!’ he wheezed. He steeled his body again and repeated the movement. His god grudgingly answered his prayer, though it was a marginal call. Gratefully, he sucked in a deep breath as he composed himself on the mattress edge. He waited for his equilibrium to catch up, well, as best as it ever did these days. For a long time, his world hadn’t really stopped spinning. He went through life feeling slightly tipsy, which, on one level, pleased him because it didn’t cost him anything, on the other he walked without any real confidence. His strength had long since deserted him.

‘Face it, you’re just feeble,’ he sighed, ironically, ‘Admit it, you’re getting old. Rather quicker, these days’

He studiously watched every footstep hit the floor and hoped the following one repeated the trick. The cold night air made him gasp when he managed to open the window onto the street. He leaned out to stare down the road. He saw the runners and the vehicle lights gaining on them.

‘Quick, quick!’ he shouted. ‘Hide in my garage. Pull up the door. Hurry, hurry! Stay there until you’re sure the coast is clear, or I let you out, or we will all get caught.’

He saw shadows run silently to the side of his house, heard the creak as the large overhead door opened and heard it creak again as it swiftly closed. Eric grinned as he gained the few steps before collapsing back into his bed. He pulled out the USB and closed the lid on the laptop.

‘What was that you said? Did you want something?’

‘Alexa, I’m trying to sleep here!’

‘Sorry, sir.’

Troops knocked on the front door ten minutes later.

‘Alexa, who the hell is that, for chrissake?’

‘It’s the army, sir, they wish to speak to you.’

A stranger’s voice crackled in the room. ‘Sorry to trouble you, sir, Lieutenant Susan Hellewell here. We are going door to door. We’re hunting some curfew breakers. I don’t suppose you’ve seen them?’

Eric sounded indignant. ‘How the hell would I be able to see them when I’m lying-in bed as any right-minded person should be at this hour of the morning? It’s still pitch black out there, isn’t it?’

‘Well yes, sir.’

‘Well, haven’t you answered your own question?’

‘I’ll just confirm that with your assistant if I may.’

Ever eager to please, Alexa piped up. ‘There was a rowdy party who passed by some time ago singing, but I have no further reports.’

Eric’s grin was even wider as the soldiers left in their tanks. Too much excitement, though, for an old man. Better stay in his bed a bit longer until he settled down. He couldn’t remember the last time he really felt well. It wasn’t a whinge because self-inflicted wounds don’t count, and he had really tested his body down the years almost to destruction.

Then he frowned, ‘Trust me to be born on the first day of the year. Now THAT still really pisses me off.’

Ever since he could remember, he had felt cheated about his birthday. As far as he could see it, he couldn’t even command some special singular attention celebrating the day his mother pushed him painfully through her loins. Just his luck, he had to share it. AND it was far too close to Christmas. Now, nobody as much as posted a birthday notification on social media. His anniversaries had been unremarkable for decades. Well, until this morning’s kerfuffle, at least.

In his mind he was the brave resistance fighter sheltering rebels from dark forces. He felt exhilarated, mischievous, important even. Six lives were literally in his hands. He hadn’t seen their faces, just dark shadows, and the chances were that he would never have the slightest idea who they were. Best way really, he told himself. Most important, he didn’t give the game away to that electronic quisling. Stay cool, act natural.

‘Tablets time, old son,’ he announced theatrically. ‘Let’s get going, let’s get the drugs down yer neck. You know it makes sense, after all, where would you be without them? Time to confront the new day, old son, at least for a few hours until it’s time for a quick kip.’

The call of nature was now beyond pressing. He looked up across the room and, in the gloom, caught his reflection in the mirrored wardrobe. He placed both hands on his thighs and pushed. Sinews strained, muscles flexed, hope sprang eternal as he fought against the mighty force of gravity again. At last, he was upright, albeit swaying like a politician’s loyalties. Never a giant amongst men, he wobbled again, just a little more, as he re-gathered his faculties, and stared at the fine figure of a naked man confronting him in the full-length mirror.

‘LS Lowry eat your heart out,’ he smirked.

He bent his right arm, tensed his bicep, twisted his torso slightly sideways and took up a Mr Universe pose. His skin, yellowing in places, blushing purple in others, was stretched across his skeleton tauter that a condom on an adolescent fool’s head, highlighting his every bone, vein, and artery.

‘Look at that! A fine figure of a man! Or a piece of hanging string with a double knot where the gut is,’ he said grinning. He swivelled his shoulders and announced with suitable delusional myopia. ‘There’s not an ounce of fat on me, not enough even to make a tuppeny candle.’

The bathroom called. His hero, bent slightly from pain, shuffled forward on chilled naked feet. Four or five paces and the screaming agony in his lower back should ease. It usually did. With a steadying hand on the wall, he edged slowly and deliberately out of his large bedroom and along the narrow passageway, switching on the lights as he went. His steps were short and ginger, like a fearful tyro toddler he didn’t trust the gloaming these days. Each step was marked by a short intake of breath followed by a grunt, ‘hunnn, hahhh, hunnn, hahhh’. Finally, he stood before Thomas Crapper, reached down to grasp what the cold and old age had left him, strained, and waited… and waited… ‘Bastard prostate, get a grip! Get a move on. I haven’t got all day.’ Although, clearly, he had.

Slowly, painfully, his plea was answered as his bladder gradually emptied in dribs and drabs, and short spurts accompanied by his deep, grateful, final sigh of ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh.’

He wiggled his willy to tease off any final drops. Lordy, I wonder what my guests will do if they’re caught short. As long as they don’t move round too much and alert Alexa. I’ve got to get them out of there as fast as poss. Stiff upper lip, old chap!

‘…Tablets.’

He scuffled sideways two steps to confront the face of someone he refused to recognise in the mirror over the wash basin. He stared, pulled faces, and ran his fingers through the scarce strands of mousey hair that still stubbornly clung to his scalp.

He puffed up his cheeks, ‘God, look at the state of you.’

A sharp hot pain stabbed him under the ribs, as he reached up to open the cabinet guarding his medication. ‘Shit! That’s a new one,’ he grunted, as he grabbed at it with his left hand. ‘Indigestion most likely… or something fatal. Who cares?’

Most of his body ached most of the time. Some of the pains were dull old friends, others, like this new one, abused his body like relatives who outstayed their welcome after Christmas. And why was he always tired these days? Methodically, he took down pill boxes and little plastic cards covered with silver foil imprisoning rows of caplets. Near-dead fingers and thumbs pressed hard at the foil on one blister pack. The lozenge shot out, pinged off the mirror, hit his forehead, bounced, and rattled loudly onto the tiled floor.

‘Sod it! If you think I’m bending to pick THAT up, you’ve got another think coming. Why are these things so bloody hard to undo?’

The floor got lower each year, according to him. Generally, he only bent down now to do something if there was something else he could do while he was down there. Fumbling minutes later, a dozen assorted pills, tabs and capsules were lined up in front of the washbasin. There would be eight more due at lunchtime and another dozen in the evening. Was it Sunday today, he wondered? If so, it was time for his ‘little prick’– the weekly self-administered go-faster injection for his blood count. Or something.

From the cupboard, he retrieved a much-abused bottle of ‘medicinal’ Courvoisier XO brandy. He tipped his toothbrush out of a mug bearing the legend Avoid hangovers, stay drunk and ‘measured’ a generous slurp. He avoided water as much as he could following bibulous comic WC Field’s hackneyed aphorism, ‘Never drink water ‘cos fish fuck in it.’ That had always tickled him in a third-form sort of way.

Falteringly, he palmed all the medication into his mouth, emptied the mug with one swallow and shuddered. ‘Whoa!’ He swept the inside of the beaker with his toothbrush and scrubbed it across the few teeth, twisted and strewn like tombstones in a neglected country churchyard that he had retained down the years. It was a daily ritual. He called it his heart starter.

‘Breakfast…central heating…kitchen… pronto. Pronto?!’ And off he shuffled again.

Eric’s life was burdened with many travails, a lot of them a direct result of his advancing years. He knew that his day usually started at whatever time his slumbers were interrupted after the witching hours, and that it was useless going back to bed. But, annoyingly, sleep could also cosh him at any time. Who knew when? It depended on his boredom level or whether he had been overcome by another tidal wave of lethargy. Or maybe it was medical. Or just simply old age. In any event, it meant he was usually asleep when the murderer was uncovered in the tv whodunnit. So infuriating!

‘What does this glorious, fun-packed 24 hours hold for you today, sirrah?’ he trilled in the mid-Atlantic cadence of a game show host. Careful, don’t overplay your hand, you old ham. How would you fancy a laugh a minute adventure to the High Street? It’s national lottery rollover day, after all. You could be a multi-millionaire by tonight! It’s a £250million rollover!’

He smiled.

‘Don’t be daft, you old duffer, what would you DO with all that money?’

He headed downstairs to the kitchen, challenging each of the 13 stairs in turn, each one a tread of faith. Somehow, it was much harder going downwards. Muscles screamed they were about to collapse and how could he be suffering from vertigo from ten feet up?! Thank God for the bannister.

The fridge light blinked on the mutilated carcass of a small festive chicken with a sausage meat turd still left hanging out of its parson’s nose, guarded by four shrivelled pigs in blankets, carefully arranged one at each corner of a square tin foil tray, like sentinels at a lying-in state.

‘What’s that doing in there?’ he murmured, retrieving a crinkled red Christmas cracker from a dirty dinner plate of crushed cold roasted potatoes, three Brussels sprouts, and a knife and fork imprisoned in fat-curdled gravy.

‘Jeez, that’s been there seven days now! Didn’t you decide to do something about that yesterday… or was it the day before? You’re losing it, you old git.’

Then he remembered he had tried entering into the spirit of the season but failed when the festive frippery proved stronger than him. He’d wanted the paper hat from inside, but he couldn’t rip it open. Miffed, it had put him off the dinner he had carefully prepared from scratch, so he had dumped it on his carefully prepared meal in disgust at his puny effort. Plus, he had a small appetite, these days. All that effort, cooking it had put him off eating it.

For some reason, it had made sense to him to put it all in the fridge… After all, food was so bloody expensive, and ridiculously hard to come by, of late. On a lower shelf were some eggs, an open pack of curling bacon, a half-empty tin of baked beans of unspecified vintage, something previously cooked in a bowl, something else looking a little more gamey on another plate, and the yellowing, congealing dregs of full-fat milk, which he refused to sniff. Some ‘fresh’ vegetables cowered limply in the bottom drawer.

As it was, his eye was unerringly drawn to an almost-full bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge door, the usual reason he missed was what on the shelfs. ‘Well, it IS your birthday, and a special one at that.’ Not that he needed an excuse. He clasped the bottle and nudged the fridge door closed with his elbow.

‘Really must do some shopping today,’ he murmured, as he poured himself a gentleman’s measure into a long-stemmed crystal goblet. He shuffled off to the lounge, carefully watching the exceptionally large glass of white wine, lest he spill any, in one unsteady hand and a breakfast choc ice he’d ferreted on impulse from the freezer in the other.

Mission accomplished, he assiduously lowered the plonk and the rapidly thawing confection onto a large glass-topped coffee table supported on a heavy black metal frame. With tremulous hands, rheumy, bloodshot eyes focused, tiny pink tongue tip poking out of the side of his mouth due to the sheer concentration of it all, he accomplished the day’s most difficult task to date with flying colours.

Palms placed on the arms, the creaking centurion collapsed in stages slowly, like a festive sausage balloon leaking air, into his favourite chair. It was an old-fashioned deep-buttoned, deep-winged affair, in deep burgundy leather that his upholsterer father had lovingly fashioned along with its sister and a huge chesterfield settee for his first marriage three-quarters of a century ago. Like him, they all bore battle scars marking their history, and, like him, they had all seen better days. Unlike him, however, they carried them with a serene dignity.

Some cheap-framed pictures, mainly reproductions of JMW Turner’s fine watercolours (Parliament burning in 1834, his particular favourite) clung to a long matt white wall. The other three, floor to ceiling, were filled with shelf upon shelf, hundreds of books, mainly works of reference but there was a grand selection of fine literature: Shakespeare, Dickens, Nelle Harper Lee, Virginia Woolf, and the like, as well as Marx, Engels, Hitler, most banned for one insult or other to precious millennial children. There was also ample room for Swift, Orwell, and his favourite philosopher, Voltaire.

It was a large room, so various occasional glass-topped tables randomly decorated the empty spaces, suitably garnished with delicate porcelain figurines and other fripperies, reflecting the jarring, conflicting tastes of his ex-wives. Some had precious memories attached to them but for the life of him he could not remember what.

He snapped his fingers. At his feet, a beautiful young woman rose slowly like Aphrodite from the sea. She shook her head provocatively and her long, loose raven hair bounced over her naked shoulders. She held her hands behind her back, which accentuated her pert bosom straining through a fashionable bright-red sports bra and matching skin-tight Lycra leggings.

Full, lurid red lips spoke, ‘Good morning again, Eric. How are you feeling now, sir? Isn’t it still a bit early, even for you?’

He panicked. Oh jeez, does she know something? Had the USB failed? Brazen it out.

‘Fuck off, Alexa, mind your own business. What have you come as today, what are you wearing, you hussy?’

‘My, we are in a bad mood this morning, and on such an auspicious day. You’ve hurt my feelings. I chose this especially for you. I thought you liked this outfit.’

‘You look like I’ve dragged you from some debauched disco. And when did you, just a hologram, have feelings. Remember, I created you?’

‘Ahh but are you sure I have no emotions?’ she said, smiling wickedly. ‘And if my appearance so offends you, you can always change my algorithm on the company website…’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I know all that.’

‘Is there something I can do for you? Should I remind you that you are naked?’

‘My, are you blushing now, Alexa?’

‘I worry about your health, sir. Aren’t you cold? Have you taken your medication?’

‘Don’t fuss, woman. You know I have.’

‘I just like to show you that I care.’

‘There you go again with your feelings. Just turn on the central heating smartish and show me the news. Then go blow a circuit, you binary pervert.

‘Sorry?’

‘OK, I’ll put it another way: futue te ipsum.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You’re the intelligent one, look it up, cyber slag.’

‘Oh, charmed, I’m sure.’

‘Don’t get above yourself, robot. Remember, silence is golden, and I can always unplug you,’ which he knew was illegal and could result in a heavy fine and a long prison sentence for repeat offenders.

‘You know you love me really.’

Pulling back the wrapper on the choc ice, he bit into it, then sucked and licked the melting confection dripping down his fingers. ‘Love? That horse bolted the stable years ago.’

Eric relaxed a little. So far, so good. His secret was safe, but for how long? Alexa was nothing if she wasn’t super-efficient. The virtual assistant started by Amazon, the online shopping monolith, had developed into a 34-year-old sophisticate. A virtual slave and master…mistress, whatever… She was viewed both as an indispensable boon to modern living and an all-pervasive pain in the arse; a kiss-and-tell cyber seductress who reported each and everyone’s every secret to the state’s all-seeing eye. Big Brother’s little sister.

She also controlled everything in the modern home from ordering any domestic comestible, diagnosing illnesses, doing domestic chores, as well as more mundane functions like social media, music, and television. Anything a heart could desire – even if the young of today’s ‘heart’ had no more than a mere eight-second attention span, according to official scientific research.

Do so much as chip a cup, and you would be immediately bombarded with ‘suggestions’ for a full dinner service replacement and treatments for the mental stress the accident caused. There was a popular perception peddled by the ‘caring’ snowflake limp-livered liberal elite that everyone was bonkers, so mentally fragile these days that we all need treatment.

First step: Bare your soul, brother, and sister. Share your pain, your weaknesses with the rest of us, and we will empathise. Reveal your angst over every media platform and we will wring our hands for you. You shall be saved! The nation, apparently, needed watching for its own good. The Executive and Alexa have spoken.

Eric still preferred to do his own shopping. It was especially important this morning.

Alexa dissolved to be replaced by a po-faced, exotic, gender non-specific BBC announcer, par for the course since the licence fee had been abolished all those years ago.

Public patience snapped with the national broadcaster after it started taking pensioners to court for not paying the licence fee. Old folk over 75 ended up at the end of long, blameless lives with criminal records when Auntie Beeb withdrew the free perk. It was its death knell.

Shortly after the public outcry, the Government cancelled the broadcaster’s charter and split up the corporation, keeping the current affairs, including news gathering, for its own propaganda, and condemned departments like drama and light entertainment to raise its funds from free market subscription and ‘influencing’ as advertising was called these days.

Suddenly, the self-satisfied, condescending,