Before This Is Over

by Amanda Hickie

  “Come on, Oscar, we don’t have time.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t touch that, it’s dirty.”

  “It’s a bead, it’s pretty.”

  “Now your hands are dirty.”

  Oscar dropped the bead surreptitiously into his pocket and looked at his hands in distress.

  “Don’t pick things up from the ground. You don’t know what’s touched them.”

  “Can I still eat the chocolate?”

  Dirty hands. If she said no, he’d have a meltdown, and the woman was heading straight for them. “We’ll take it home, you can wash your hands before you eat it.” She cursed herself inwardly—this was the kind of situation she should be prepared for.

  The woman’s hair was cropped so closely that her scalp showed through. Hannah considered covering Oscar’s ears, although that would only make it more of an incident for him. If they could get past quickly, if the woman wasn’t too loud, he might not even register her. Hannah braced for the tirade.

  The woman’s voice was high-pitched, piercing, and strangled. “Are you Jesus today? I am, I’m Jesus today.” She reached a hand out to Oscar, and Hannah realized, with guilty relief, that he wasn’t looking. Hannah had never noticed how thin her arms were and wondered if someone looked after her. Her hands were clean enough, but her fingernails were crusted with dirt.

  Hannah softly jerked Oscar back out of reach. “Not today.” She smiled at the woman, trying to divert her attention from Oscar.

  “I am. I’m Jesus today.” She seemed satisfied with Hannah’s answer. Something on the other side of the road captivated her and she wandered onto the crossing, oblivious of them and the cars. Hannah loosed her grip on Oscar and he shot into the corner store.

  By the time she caught up with him, he was picking up and putting down the different bars in turn, slowly reading the words he knew to work out what each was. His hands transferred the germs from the bead onto every wrapper, which in turn would be transferred to the hands of the people who bought them. “Mouse, look with your eyes and not with your hands.” Since when had she become a compendium of parental platitudes?

  Lily leaned over the counter. “He’s fine. It’s hard to choose.”

  Hannah restrained herself from hurrying his decision-making. That way led only to buyer’s regret, tears, and, sometimes, another chocolate bar. Oscar walked all the way along the shelf and back again before he hesitantly stopped in front of a particular box and picked one out. He took it to the counter and put it down in front of Lily.

  “He’s a good boy,” Lily said to Oscar with a smile.

  Normally Hannah would give the money to Oscar to give to Lily, but today she handed Lily the coins herself. She flinched when Lily picked up the chocolate and pressed it into Oscar’s hand, embracing it with her own.

  “A good boy.” Lily opened a jar of jelly babies, pulled one out with her fingers, and put it in Oscar’s other hand, cupping it with hers. Oscar had popped the jelly baby in his mouth before Hannah got a word out.

  Lily’s hand had held the coins that Hannah had given her, that Hannah had received from who knows where, that had been held by who knows who, like all the other coins and notes Lily had handled today. And the jelly babies. She didn’t want to think how many children’s hands had gone into the jelly babies jar even in the last few hours.

  Lily watched her looking at Oscar. “Every day more cases. You make sure you look after this boy.”

  Hannah walked the rest of the block and around the corner as if the disease were on her heels. Oscar ran ahead, pulled by the chocolate he couldn’t quite have. It was safely unobtainable, in her pocket. He’d never been so eager to wash his hands.

  As they came through the front door, Oscar suddenly said, “Why is she Jesus?”

  “I don’t know. I guess she thinks she is.” Oscar seemed satisfied and ran to the bathroom, leaving his backpack, his hat, and his fleece dotted down the hall. Hannah let the front door fall back behind her. It closed with a reassuring click.

  Oscar came rocketing back up the hall, his hands held out. “They’re clean.”

  She looked at the water dripping off them. “You have to dry them—germs like water. You gave them a big pool to swim in.”

  “Okay.” He was already halfway back down the hall.

  “And pick up your stuff and put it in your room.” Oscar was gone. “After you eat the chocolate.”

  He was back again, hands wiped but still damp. Holding the bar at the bottom, with the other hand she carefully peeled it like a banana so that the wrapper never touched the chocolate.

  Oscar grabbed it and ran off again, “Thanks, Mum” hanging in the air behind him.

  She heard sounds from the living room. The world she had just shut out with the door was leaking in through the airways. “Television off until you’ve done your homework.” She picked up the bag, hat, and fleece and tossed them into the bedroom as she passed. When she got to the living room, Oscar was on the floor in front of the blank television, holding the remote.

  As a treat, Oscar was allowed to stay up. When Hannah suggested it, Sean raised his eyebrow, said, “Really?” but didn’t take it any further. He was the one who liked to bend the rules. She drew the line closer, so the laxness surprised him more than the bedtime. Calling it a “treat” allowed her to gloss over the fact that she’d lost track of time on the computer and had completely forgotten to run Oscar’s bath.

  Oscar came bouncing into the kitchen. “Can we eat outside, like a picnic?”

  Sean frowned. “It’s dark outside, buddy, and your dinner will get cold.”

  They ate at the table over Oscar’s groans, but he quickly lost himself in retelling his day to Sean. He kept up a stream, Sean only having to throw in “Oh, really?” and “What happened then?” occasionally to keep him going. Hannah had already heard these stories this afternoon, which left her mind free to roam. She tripped upon the realization that there hadn’t been a single moment in the day when all four of them were together.

  The absence of Zac was so strong, it felt like a presence. Watching Oscar now, she found it hard to superimpose Zac’s looks and personality on a body that small. But he had been that little once and they had eaten in this kitchen before Oscar was born, three around the table. Two grown-ups and a five-year-old. Then it had just been normal, now it could only be strange. In four years, Zac would be an adult. By the time Oscar was Zac’s age, they would be three around the dinner table again.

  Before the renovation, where this table stood had been a laundry. Then, the washing machine looked out on the garden. The kitchen had taken up the other half of this room, and its only view was of the side fence. The ghosts of the old Zac, Sean, and Hannah sat at the ghost of the old kitchen table, and the ghosts of the walls she had pulled down cut the room in half.

  Sean sat in the dark on the edge of one of the garden beds, backlit by the string of colored fairy lights on the fence. Next to him were two glasses of wine. He held one out to her. “Here, I thought you might need this. To recover from your big day.” She sat down on the cold brick and let the tension dissipate as she leaned into him. He was warm, even through their clothes.

  Light spilled from Natalie’s side of the fence, escaping through the glass doors that spanned the back of her house. Hannah could hear voices—they had friends over, again. The sounds were reassuring, other lives going on, completely independently of her own. She couldn’t make out words but the voices rose and fell, sometimes interrupted by an outbreak of laughter, maybe four people in all. From time to time she heard Ella squeal. Hannah was happier to sit in the quiet of her own garden listening to the sounds of Natalie’s dinner party than to be at it. It seemed odd that a doctor would have people over now, with the case in Newcastle and everything happening overseas.

  A thought drifted across her mind. “How was your sister?”

  “My sister? Oh, I couldn’t get on to her.”

  Hannah sat up. “Did you try?”


  “It was late there when I got to work, so I missed their day. I tried just now when you were reading, but no answer. I’ll try her again before bed.”

  “Did you ring work and home? She’ll be at work by now.”

  Sean shrugged. “I checked the time. I rang work—she wasn’t there so I rang home.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be there?”

  “Because she’s on her way to work? Because she didn’t go home? Because she drank too much last night and slept through the phone? I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “No, it doesn’t bother me. She’s hundreds of miles from Manchester. Her biggest risk is being scared to death by fear-mongering tabloids. She’s in no more danger than us.” He rubbed the back of her hand. “Which is none, right? Which is as much danger as Zac is in.”

  “You and the doctor. You should get together and take turns telling me I’m imagining things.”

  “Doctor? Did you have an appointment I forgot? You didn’t say anything this morning.”

  “You don’t need to know about every appointment.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Fine. Some young doctor who knows everything. He thinks I’m a hypochondriac.”

  “You’re paranoid. That’s very different from hypochondria.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “I know”—he gave her a goofy grin—“it’s my only skill.”

  The noise was muffled, irritating, persistent. She tried not to think about it, tried to go back to sleep.

  It was still there. But it wasn’t in the room and it wasn’t coming from the street. She turned over and hoped it would wake Sean. He could deal with whatever it was.

  He didn’t.

  It invaded her sleep, some kind of an alarm. It wasn’t her phone, or a car, or even a burglar alarm. She pulled the pillow around her ears, waiting for it to stop by itself. Hoping. But if anything, it was getting louder. There was no possibility of sleep for her and no chance that Sean would wake. She got out of bed, wrapped her dressing gown tight, and followed the noise.

  To Zac’s room. And his clock, still set in the absence of its owner.

  She whacked it on the top to make it go away. It took a moment for the numbers to make sense. She rubbed her face. Six o’clock. His alarm from yesterday, set early to get to the bus. Why couldn’t he have turned it off before he left?

  Sean bustled into the kitchen an hour and a half later, well rested. “Oscar not up yet?”

  “You should ring your sister.”

  “And good morning to you.”

  “Ring her now. It will be getting late there.”

  “I have, in fact, already rung her. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me. I’m surprised Oscar slept through. We had a terrible line. I had to yell.”

  “So why didn’t she answer yesterday?”

  “She overindulged at her birthday celebrations and turned off the phone. Then forgot she turned it off.”

  “And the epidemic?”

  “Is literally hundreds of miles from her. Did you make enough coffee for me?”

  “I drank it. I’ve been up for ages.”

  “You shouldn’t get up so early.”

  “Did you tell her to be careful?”

  “I told her not to drink so much. London to Manchester’s the same distance as Sydney to Canberra. She’s fine, she’s safe.” Sean contemplated her. “Zac’s safe in Canberra.”

  “Says you.”

  “My sister and Zac are a long way from anybody who is sick. As are we. Breathe.”

  “It will come here. It will get to London, probably before it comes here. In fact, it’s almost certainly already in London.”

  “There’ll be warnings, first cases and second cases, and we’ll do all the sensible things when the time comes. If you go on like this, you’ll be a mess before anything even happens.”

  “It will come…”

  “Yes, it might, and we’ll be ready. But that’s not yet. I’m not saying ignore it, but you only need to be ready.” He put his arm around her shoulder and rested his head on her hair. “You taking Oscar to school today or is it my turn?”

  “I’ll take him. I’m working from home.”

  He straightened and threw his hand up in exasperation. “You didn’t go in yesterday. This is what I mean…”

  “It’s Tuesday. I work from home on Tuesdays. I didn’t go in yesterday because I had an appointment. It doesn’t mean I have to go in today. I’ll go in tomorrow.”

  “Then I’ll do the school run tomorrow.”

  They got to Oscar’s school seconds before the bell. The footpath was crowded with children in white polo shirts and blue track pants drifting randomly like atoms in a gas. She wove her way between them to the gate, Oscar clutching the tow rope of her sleeve.

  The bell rang and the atoms ricocheted around, more vigorous but no more purposeful than before. Oscar hugged her around her middle, and she kissed him on the head.

  “Bye, Mum,” and he was off. She watched him run into the crowd surging towards the school doors until she couldn’t tell which blue-and-white back was his.

  Hannah turned on the computer with every intention of reading emails, easing herself into work. It wouldn’t hurt to have a quick look at the Herald and the Times, maybe the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control websites. And the weather in Canberra. Fifteen degrees Celsius maximum, four degrees minimum. She thought about checking if his fleece was still in his room, but it wasn’t as if she could take it to him. She opened her email and looked for something from Zac. Nothing but work.

  Mr. Moon jumped onto the keyboard and rubbed himself along the monitor. He registered a nonviolent protest by going limp in her hands as she dropped him on the floor, and used the momentum of his fall to spring back up. “Go and bug someone else.” Half an hour gone and the most riveting information she’d found was that parliament was recalled for an emergency sitting to pass legislation allowing quarantining of individuals. One of the minor parties was calling for a proper debate.

  She typed in “Manba” and scanned down the page of results. The little snippets didn’t tell her anything she didn’t know.

  Manba Respiratory Distress Syndrome—Wiki…

  www.medical.wiki…/Manba

  Manba Respiratory Distress Syndrome (also known as MRDS or Manba) is a recently identified disease…

  Manba Symptoms and Treatment

  www.info.medical.manba…gov/Symptoms_and_treatment

  The first symptoms of Manba appear within two days and include coughing, fever, headaches, and diarrhea, progressing to…

  Is Manba God’s Wrath?

  www.trueanswers…org/lessons_from_manba

  Is Manba a punishment from God? All around us we see an increase in crime, lawlessness, and immorality brought about by…

  Wow! Grandmother discovers this weird cure for…

  naturalhealth.simple…/blog/medicine/manba_cure

  Doctors won’t tell you this simple cure for Manba. They make their money from selling you cures invented by Big Pharma for…

  She’d read all of these. Somewhere, if she searched hard enough, there had to be something else, some new information, something to tell her what was happening right now.

  She clicked on a blog at the end of the first page—An Aussie in Paradise. The last entry was yesterday.

  Just back from helping at the hospital. Taking two minutes to let you guys know I am still hanging in there. Sleep, eat, and back again as soon as I can. Two of my students are helping out. I told them helping the sick was more important than classes. They told me they could do both. So now they know how to say I would like a cup of coffee and This patient has a purpuric rash and must be isolated. I’ll post again when I can, don’t worry about me.

  Hannah looked back through the previous entries. One was on the right way to haggle in the local market, another about the students laughing at her attempts to speak Thai, and a lightheart
ed complaint about the traffic in Bangkok.

  She had to stop, clear this from her mind, think about something else. Time to work. As she clicked the little red plus sign on each tab, she tried not to look at the page that appeared below, but as one disappeared, its screaming headline caught her eye. “First Local Cases—Family Quarantined.” Her fingers fumbled on the keys to reopen it, and there was the headline, stamped across the top of her screen. She skimmed the article for what she really needed to know—where.

  The North Shore. So much closer than Newcastle but still with a harbor between them. A harbor and three hundred kilometers between the disease and Zac. And there at the bottom, another reason she should put this out of her mind—they were as yet unconfirmed.

  She read the article again, more carefully. Under the headline was a photo of a couple and two boys, a posed family shot in a leafy backyard. Eight and ten, it said. No travel overseas, no contact with any known cases. The parents were sick and the boys had been placed in isolation, just in case.

  All those details couldn’t calm her. It could be Manba or it could be the flu. It might be a one-off case, but they don’t come from nowhere. These people had to have caught it from someone, someone who wasn’t currently in hospital, someone who was wandering around coughing, touching door handles and coins and other people’s hands. And the people that person had touched in the last few days were touching their children, their children were going to school. Germs have a chain of custody, however invisible it might be. They don’t appear spontaneously.

  She sat, not reading, not thinking, waiting for something to happen. All she found was a small flame of fear for her family and sadness for the one on the screen. But the first was real, and the second was like the image of sadness. It had the same reality as celebrities on the news. Somehow the screen turned them into fiction. Her legs twitched. She had to stand up, to just move.