Jenny looked at the dried up remains of the River Orwell as she
travelled by bus from the centre of Ipswich to the train station.
She was looking for another place to live but had been
unsuccessful.  Living in her present flat was like living under a
tin roof on which rain constantly fell.  The trouble being that it
was not real rain.  Her garden which she had assiduously tended for
ten years was dried up, but she no longer had the enthusiasm to
care.
Since her new neighbour had moved in, six months ago, she had given
up.  She could always hear the noise of his drills. He was doing
woodwork as a hobby at home and was unemployed. She believed that
he probably sold some of the furniture he was making, for
obviously, he had now made enough for his own needs.
These flats were not meant to be used to run a business, for every
sound carried through the poorly insulated ceiling.
The one thing she was not concerned about was the lack of rain.

On the other side of the world, people in Siberia were more
cheerful. The weather was becoming warmer. They no longer belonged
to the Soviet Union and had been left to their own devices.  They
had found a way of warming up their frozen earth.  Deep underground
were the remains of plutonium supplies, sold to them by desperate
Army Majors, formerly in the Soviet Army, but now unpaid, and
unable to feed their men or even themselves.

They were paid in an old-fashioned way; not in money but in
supplies of frozen meat, trapped in the Taiga, and preserved in
ice.  A good way of disposing of their unwanted plutonium!

But now the Taiga dwellers, who had always kept themselves to
themselves, because even as Soviet citizens they had maintained an
independent way of life as trappers, were taking to a settled way
of life. With the fields warmed up and growing good crops, after
the first season there was a distinct lack of moisture. So they
sent a few light aircraft up to seed the clouds. Soon it was
raining all through the Spring and their crops grew merrily.

Meanwhile in France and England, not to mention Spain and Portugal,
the rivers were drying up. Scientists were trying to discover why
was there no rain. People in England were unused to conservation.
They were still using hose-pipes to water their gardens and the
washing machines were going full blast.

Meanwhile Jenny was looking for somewhere to live.  At length an
old man with a spare room took her in and she settled in
Manningtree. This old man had a garage in which were stored many
bottles of water bought from the local shops. Jenny had her own
room but shared the kitchen. She soon found employment looking
after old people in a rest home in the nearest town. She caught the
bus to work each morning.

A Polish friend whose anglicised name was Peter often visited John.
At the week-end he sometimes stayed for a day and cooked a meal for
John. One day while Peter was using the kitchen at the same time as
Jenny, he said, "I've had a letter from my brother.  It is in
Polish but I can translate it if you would like to hear what it
says."
Jenny was tired and was about to say, "Not now, please, but there
was an anxious, insistent tone in his voice, so she said "As you
like!"

"You know that after I left my employment with the Soviet Science
Park in Siberia, when the Soviet Union broke up, I was taken in by
a group of Siberian trappers.
"I was grateful and interested in their project. They had persuaded
a few of the disaffected ex-Soviet scientists to join them and
succeeded in finding a peaceful use for plutonium. You would never
think it possible. Now we have every Western comfort in our small
town deep in the Siberian taiga, and the Russians are too busy with
their own internal squabbles to interfere with us.
"Unfortunately it may affect you in England and I think you ought
to store some bottles of water. Don't ask me to give more details.
Not yet any way."

"What a funny letter," said Jenny. "But I am worried about our
garden. And there is a shortage of vegetables in the shops. There
are lots of tinned goods but I get tired of them."

"I think we had better use all our spare savings to store up food,"
said Peter.

------------

Barbara, the old lady in room ten was feeling snappy.
"Dear," she said to Jenny in the dining-room. "Why don't we have
fresh vegetables?"
"We can't get them any longer," said Jenny. "You should be thankful
to have some vegetables and fruit out of tins. And you have a good
plate of meat and bread and butter. You should be thankful for
that."
"In my young days we all grew vegetables in our gardens. We could
never have afforded the tinned goods. And we knew that fresh
vegetables are better for you," replied Barbara.
Barbara had a sharp mind. Not all the old ladies in the home were
so lucid, so were inclined to take the situation placidly.
Jenny was worried. "Barbara," she said, "There has been no rain.
Mr. Green who lets me a room locally is retired and likes to dig up
his garden each Spring to grow vegetables, but this year he thinks
that it is a waste of time."

Next week the Water Board had issued a drought order.  There was a
complete ban on the watering of gardens. Cars were not to be
washed. People were advised to use their washing machine no oftener
than once per week.
"There will be no rain until the end of April," the weather
forecaster said on BBC television which Mr. Green watched nightly.
"It is lucky we have so many bottles of water in the disused
garage. I never had a car, but am glad I have a garage," said Mr.
Green.
"But what will the poor ladies at the rest home do?" asked Jenny.
"No -one is buying bottled water for them."

"Perhaps we should just think of ourselves," said Mr. Green.

"Hold on a moment, we cannot do that. I escaped from the Soviet
Union in 1980 and came to live and work here in England just at the
time that my brother volunteered to work for the Soviets in
Siberia. My brother and I had different political views. But now I
think the West is becoming more like the old Soviet Union, and
worse may come," said Peter.

"Why do you think that?" asked Jenny.

"I don't think the Water Companies care much about the general
public," continued Peter. "The privatised gas company where I work
is much like the Water Companies.  They cut off the gas before
people have had a chance to pay, sometimes."

A week passed and it was the beginning of May. The tulips had long
since died.  There were no longer any Spring flowers left to
brighten the May gardens.  In the parks, the grass was already
brown. There was a look of late Autumn.  Jenny could hardly believe
that it was Spring.
One morning she got up as usual to prepare for work, and found the
taps in the bathroom and kitchen were dry.  There had been no prior
warning that the water had been cut off.  Luckily there was
sufficient water in the kettle for three cups of tea.  Jenny and
Peter went to work without washing their faces.

Meanwhile Mr. Green listened to the nine o'clock morning news.
Water will only be supplied for two hours per day, between six and
eight in the evening. People are advised to store sufficient for
their needs.  It was dismal news.  His younger friends Peter and
Jenny were at work.  Normally he could occupy his day agreeably,
but without water there was little he could do.  The garden was too
dry for cultivation.  Even his pot plants were wilting.  At lunch-
time it was difficult to do the cooking.  He made do with bread and
cheese, but could not make a cup of tea.  He went to the garage and
got a bottle of water.  To a glass he added a little lemon squash
and water from the bottle.
Six o'clock came and sure enough he was able to fill his kettle for
tea, but the flow was slow. He found that it took half an hour to
fill the bath, and it was hard work filling all his saucepans and
bowls.  That evening Peter was returning to his own flat in the
village, but Jenny would be in for an evening meal.  She normally
did her own cooking, but this evening Mr. Green thought that it
would be more economical if he cooked for the two of them, thus
preserving their precious water.  He resolved that the ritual of
filling the bath would have to take place each evening in future.
At least he did not have to go to stand-pipes in the street to draw
water.  Not yet anyhow.

At the week-end his Polish friend Peter visited again. He had
received another letter from his brother asking him to visit him in
Siberia.  The letter was written in Polish, for which Peter was
thankful, as the information would not be easily available to
casual readers.  The situation in Siberia was deteriorating.
Apparently some of the children's hair was falling out, and some
had become ill with leukaemia.  Peter was not well qualified in
science. Unlike his brother he had not been academically gifted,
but he was an avid reader of newspapers.  The illnesses in Siberia
seemed very like that reported from scenes of previous nuclear
accidents.  But there had been no accident in Siberia.

"John," said Peter to his friend John Green, "I think I will have
to visit my brother in Siberia. I will write to you from there."

By next week-end John Green was accompanying Peter to the railway
station.  He was travelling to the nearest airport where he was
going to fly by Aeroflot to Moscow. From there he would be able to
get a plane to Irkutsz where he could proceed to a village in
Siberia to visit his brother.

Mr. Green was terribly surprised, but Peter said, "Maybe I will ask
you and Jenny to join me, because the water shortage may get
serious here."
"Perhaps it is better to deal with water shortage than radiation
sickness?" queried John.

Two weeks later they had heard nothing from Peter, so John and his
young lodger Jenny tried to settle down to a normal life.  The
routine in the village meant filling their containers with water at
6 o'clock, even if this meant missing the early evening news.
Jenny did not usually arrive home from work until 6.30 pm, so John
usually accomplished this task on his own.  At the old people's
home the evening shift were also filling up the containers and the
baths.
On the nine o'clock television news there were frequent shots of
demonstrators against the Government.  Placards near the houses of
Parliament were frequently seen including an old man bearing the
message, "IT'S GOING TO GET WORSE."
Police had banned someone from repeating a comedian's slogan from
Margaret Thatcher's days "LET'S BOMB RUSSIA."  Russia was an
independent capitalist country now.  But troubles were not caused
by the Russian Government who were becoming as worried as those in
Europe. Crops were not failing in the Ukraine.  But there was an
increased incidence of cancer. Unfortunately the Russian Government
knew as little about the activities of Siberian ex-trappers as did
the European administration.

The summer came and John's garden remained a dried-up patch.  There
had been a few light showers but nothing which would increase the
water supplies.  It was now acknowledged that patriotic people
drove dirty cars.

By August, John's stores of bottled water were still intact, but he
was filling containers daily.  He noticed that the neighbours put
less washing out on the lines.  In the old people's home where
Jenny worked, the outer clothes of the residents became grimy and
bedraggled before they were washed.  The staff's clothes were also
stained.  The customary smartness disappeared both indoors and on
the streets, where bank counter staff walked out to lunch in soiled
uniform blouses and shirts.
"John," said Jenny one evening, "Thank you very much for giving me
a home here.  If I had remained in London, I would have been very
depressed by now, for the water shortage is even worse there, and
alone in an unhealthy flat, I don't know how I would have stood up
to it."
"I'm glad of some occasional company," said John.  "It is a pity
though that you are not able to go out more in the evenings."
Jenny went to a monthly meeting where she met a few friends, but
social activities were severely restricted.  Most restaurants had
closed down two months ago, owing to the water shortage.  Jenny ate
her mid-day meal in the staff canteen situated in the old people's
home.  She ate similar meals to those residents who had no special
dietary needs.  The residents had their own dining room; meals were
carried to the rooms of the sick residents.
In late August there was an ominous announcement on all television
and radio news programmes and in all the newspapers.
"The Government has issued a special order suspending elections and
placing the country under martial law."
This had never before happened in peace-time in England in John's
memory, and he was now 72 years of age. The water supply was
further restricted to two hours every two days.
Long queues started to appear at British airports of people leaving
the country to stay with relations in the USA, Canada and the
Caribbean Islands which were unaffected by the drought.  No-one
guessed that the activities in Siberia had drawn the water supplies
mainly from Western Europe. When we had cold weather in England
people often used to say "The wind is blowing off the steppes of
Russia".  Now the reverse was happening. Siberia was warming up and
drawing rain from Europe whereas Europe was becoming colder and
dry.  The scientists in Siberia had succeeded in changing the
weather across a large area of the planet.
It was all unknown to most people but John gained some knowledge of
what was happening when he received a letter from Peter.

"I would like you and Jenny to visit me here," wrote Peter. "You
will find the weather warm and wet, much like England used to be."

John and Jenny were trying to conserve the bottled water in their
garage. But they were drinking some of it on alternate days when
the water was cut off. Unfortunately on the 31st of August there
was a knock on their door. It was Major Harris from the barracks in
Colchester. Three armed soldiers accompanied him.

"We have orders to search your house and garden," said the Major.

That day the soldiers removed 1000 bottles of water from John's
garage leaving him only 30 bottles for personal use.

"So much for our precautions and forethought," said John when Jenny
came home that night.  He understood the military methods, as he
had himself been a soldier in the Second World war, and had slept
for a time in Colchester barracks.
John and Jenny began to consider Peter's letter seriously.

John was 72 years of age and thought that the trip to Siberia might
kill him, because he sometimes suffered from bronchitis. However
his Polish friend Peter whom he had known for four years assured
him in the letter that the climate in Siberia was now more like
England.   John reconsidered his position and thought that he could
not suffer more from bronchitis in Siberia than in England.

A week later they were packed. Jenny had regretfully given in her
notice at the old people's home and on the day before departure had
deposited the remaining thirty bottles of water there as a parting
gift. She bid good-bye to a tearful Barbara.  They were not flying
to Irkutsz entirely for their own benefit but because Peter thought
that a group of people from England might persuade the Siberian
trappers to change their methods.
At the airport they bought a newspaper. A front page report read
"Three deaths from drought - the first to occur in England. There
are likely to be more. These deaths occurred among old people whose
taps had run completely dry, and isolated in their homes, had not
been able to store sufficient water to see them through a dry
period, or alternatively to contact the authorities to get help."

On the trip up to London John and Jenny noted the low level of
water in the rivers.  Some rivers had already run dry.

In Irkutsz they entered a different world.  In some respects it was
poorer than England, but there was no shortage of food or water.
Irkutsz was an industrial town and there was considerable pollution
from the steel-works, but it did not seem much worse than
Manchester in the 1960's.  There were not so many private cars on
the roads. They stayed two nights in a hotel and were able to
admire Lake Baikal.  In Western newspapers there had been reports
through the years that this lake was becoming lifeless owing to
pollution.
The situation had improved.  When John and Jenny visited, the lake
was teeming with fish and water birds were plentiful round the
edges.

Peter arrived to accompany them to a small village called
Kirovskaye.  There he kept a helicopter at the house of a friend of
one of the Siberians. The last lap of their journey was beginning.
Russia was now a land of untrammelled free-market enterprise. The
authorities in Moscow no longer had the power to control peasant
and trappers' activities, or even to collect taxes.  But the place
was prosperous. Roads were made up.  They had to fly over miles of
forest of larch and pine. The atmosphere was cold. This was the
Taiga. Few clearings had been made, for the land was too cold for
growing crops. But times were changing.

"We are flying to a secret place," said Peter. "It is even more
secret and impenetrable than the former Soviet cities which
foreigners were not allowed to visit.  But it is a secret for a
different reason. Few people have the energy to make the journey
here.  Official surveys of Siberia were formerly carried out by
geologists and biologists from the former Soviet Russian Scientific
Civil Service, but there are no longer sufficient government
revenues to pay for that. The Russian Government has virtually
abandoned these areas. And the opinion among private companies and
individual businessmen is that these areas are unprofitable. But
when you reach the Siberian Shangri-La you will be pleasantly
surprised."

"Did you notice on the world map that Irkutsz is almost on the same
latitude as London?  But considerably colder.  Well, where we are
going is on the same latitude as Glasgow, and normally you would
expect it to be very much colder than Glasgow, as it is situated in
the middle of the Northern Asian land-mass", Peter remarked.  "But
wait until you feel the mildness of the climate."

They were flying over the Taiga, the massive forested area of
middle Siberia.  Down below traditional trappers were walking among
the tall larches and pine trees. In early autumn the earth had no
snow cover and though cold, it was a pleasant way of life.  For
their own consumption they were shooting a few black grouse and
roasting them on their camp fires.  In the traps were large bears
which were shot for the sake of their fur.  However the trappers
were comparatively few, and they took care to visit the traps
frequently and to let the pregnant and young bears go free, in
order to maintain their population and a sustainable life-style.
It was lucky that commercial companies had not penetrated their
area.  But though the Soviet Government had done many bad things,
one of its good points was the fact that commercial large-scale
operations had not been allowed in the forests of the Taiga. So
far, Western capitalist companies had not penetrated here.

But the entrepreneurs from the former Soviet nuclear industry had
done some shady deals here in Siberia.  Pater, Jenny and John were
going to see the results, which on the surface might seem
beneficial and peaceful.

The helicopter approached a green field.  John rubbed his eyes in
disbelief. This seemed like a field of pasture in Essex, the sort
of place where sheep might graze.  They landed quickly and were
taken in a small bus to the place where they would be staying. They
passed more green fields in which sheep were actually grazing.  The
landscape resembled the Essex fields which were abundant in John's
youth and in some places still existed, in those areas where oil-
seed rape had not completely taken over.

Eventually they arrived at the house of Peter's Russian friend,
Yury Vetzin.  Peter was Polish, but had anglicised his name having
lived ten years in England, and no-one knew what his original name
was.  His brother had adopted a Russian name and was now called
Andrei Adrianovich Komarov.  He was lodging in Yury's house. Peter
had been married but had left his wife in Poland where she was now
drawing a pension and allowed to visit Peter each summer for six
weeks.  This year she had not come, hearing of the Western European
drought, which had not yet affected Poland.  Andrei was unmarried.
Yury introduced John and Jenny to his family, his wife Svetlana,
and children Tonya and Boris.
They were prospering in the new village, except for one thing.  The
previous day Boris, who was seven years old, had started losing his
hair. This affected one tenth of the children in his school.
Gradually their physical abilities were failing and they were
falling behind normal children in their development.
Some of the children had died.  About two months after the hair
loss, in some cases the sickness started.  They had sickness and
nausea and within a week were dead.  The resident doctor said that
this was radiation sickness.
" Why does it not affect everybody?" asked John. No-one quite knew
but thought that like the children of Chernobyl some were more
susceptible than others.

It had taken a doctor that the villagers had hired from Moscow to
convince them of the seriousness of their situation. They had been
living in this village for a year after the ground had been warmed
up by the burial of radioactive fuel elements, which a Russian
entrepreneur had assured them was a safe practice.  He had sent a
team of Russian engineers to prepare the ground. They had all been
employees of the former Soviet nuclear weapons authority who had
been made redundant since the run-down in nuclear armaments. This
had been meant to lead to peace. Now it looked as if mistakes had
been made.

But crops were growing on this warm ground and helicopters were
still aloft, seeding the clouds to make artificial rain. This was
what had produced England's drought. The rains had fallen here and
only a dry wind had reached Western Europe.

The following evening there was a public meeting to discuss health
and safety in the village. Quickly Peter told Jenny and John that
there were two factions among the workers.  Some wanted to continue
growing crops and living here.  Some wanted to abandon this area,
which was the size of Wales, and return to their old life-style as
trappers in the Taiga.  Most of this vast area was safe, and was
still receiving rainfall. It was land far to the West of Siberia
which was affected.  In England people were starting to say that
the dry weather was caused by the climate on the steppes of Russia.
This was a casual expression as no-one remotely guessed what was
happening in the midst of the forests of the Taiga which were North
of the "steppes of Russia".

Next evening the meeting was opened in the village hall by Doctor
Nikolai Potapov.  He advised people to abandon the village if they
wanted to save their children's lives. No-one was very eager
because the life in the village was more comfortable than anything
they had previously known.  Luxurious villas had been built for
people who had previously lived in wooden shacks and had been
continuously on the move.  Someone had fixed up a tennis-court on
his lawn. It was like a village in Surrey.
Peter, John and Jenny spoke about life in England and how they
thought the seeding of clouds by local people to produce the
increased rainfall had caused drought in England, so severe that
there had been some deaths and much ill-health.
"Shall we have a vote?" said Sergei, an agricultural worker who
owned cows and sheep and many fields. He wanted to stay in this
village. His children had not been taken ill.
Nikolai Potapov arranged the ballot box. The vote was secret.  The
total adult population voted the next day for "Go or Stay"
There were 500 people taking part. John, Jenny and Peter acted as
observers and at the end of the day counted the votes, assisted by
three Russian workers. The vote was: To Go-256;  To stay- 244.
Some people had already packed their bags and within a week there
had been an exodus, but many people refused to leave their homes.
Peter, John and Jenny with Dr. Nikolai Potapov stayed to try to
persuade these people to change their minds. The helicopter pilots
had left and returned to a town in Russia. They had not been local
people; therefore the rains needed to produce more crops would not
continue. But this year's harvest was safe.

After a fruitless three weeks of argument, the professional workers
left; Peter arranged for his brother to return to Poland and the
family who had become friendly with him decided to fly to Poland
with him.  They wanted to seek medical treatment there for their
son, Boris.  Andrei thought they could sell the story of the life
of the village to the Polish newspapers.

-----

When Jenny resumed work at the old people's home she found Barbara
rejoicing because the rains had come just in time to fill the
British reservoirs for the approaching winter.

"By the end of October we thought we were going to die," she told
Jenny.

Next Spring there was a small article in the Guardian newspaper.
"140 people have been found dead in a Siberian village. Luxury
items found in their houses were computer games for the children,
expensive clothes and even refrigerators, which had never
previously been needed in Siberia.  One child was found dead
clutching her Teddy Bear."

About the same time Peter received a letter from his brother,
Andrei, now living in Poland.

"I have obtained a good job at the University of Cracow," it read.
"Perhaps you would like to read a letter from  Boris, my friend's
8-year old son. "

"Dear Peter,
            "Thank you for coming to see me when I was ill in
Siberia.   I am here in Poland with Mummy and Daddy and Tonya.  We
are building a snow man in our garden.  Smoky my dog is knocking it
down.
The doctor says that I'm well now. I am growing some hair on my
head.  I am going to school.
I hope you have plenty of rain.

Love from Boris."

There was a childish drawing of a snowman and a dog on the other
side of the paper, which Peter showed to his friends John and
Jenny, now happily settled in Manningtree.
 

4700 words approx