“So what do they need to do to fix it? When will that happen? And why can’t we just boil it?”
“No one wants to take a risk with people’s lives, sir. They would have to be sure they’ve located the source.”
“Why aren’t they filtering it or something?”
The woman looked past them into the room, avoiding their eyes. “I think—I’m not an expert, they just gave me a sheet of paper to read—but I heard someone say—I’m not sure I’m right about this—that there was some equipment they could get from overseas and—you understand, no planes are flying here, although the air force, I mean, of course, since it’s an emergency and you know—but the places that they have to get them from, they’re having their own problems, with the”—her paper mask inflated and deflated as she spoke—“outbreak.”
“When?” Sean bellowed so hard, it hurt Hannah’s ear. “Just tell me when.”
“We’re doing everything we can. They’ve turned the school into a shelter.” She’d found a way back to her script and slipped into a well-worn groove. “And we will be providing water, food, everything necessary. So we’re urging you, if you have any doubts about your ability to stay in your home, to come to the shelter. We ask that you don’t bring any belongings other than clothes and sleeping bags or blankets. New arrivals should expect to be quarantined for two days.”
“Why aren’t you bringing water round?”
“There’s water at the shelter, sir.”
“If you brought water round, people wouldn’t have to leave their houses.”
“We’re doing what we can, sir. It’s not easy. If you decide to stay, we are organizing water trucks, but I have no information on how long that will be. You are strongly urged to make your way to the shelter. Can everyone here walk that far?”
“We’re staying.” Hannah didn’t give Sean a chance to answer.
“I’ve got some information.” She pulled some sheets off her clipboard.
“Leave it near the door.”
The woman pinned the paper down with the doormat but hesitated. She trudged back to the window.
“There’s someone next door, an old lady or something. She wouldn’t answer at all. You try to help, because that’s the right thing. I’m knocking on people’s doors to help and she screamed without even opening the door. Someone like that, someone who can’t look after herself, needs to be in the shelter. I left some info, but if you talk to her, try to make her see she’d be better off there.”
“She’s got us,” Sean said firmly.
The woman made her cumbersome way down the steps, along the footpath, and then up to Natalie and Stuart’s door. They watched her knock. She waited, knocked again. Sean let the scrim fall, frosting the view. He walked towards the front door.
“You don’t know who she’s touched. Leave the pamphlet there. We can read it tomorrow.”
He stared at Hannah with a strange look of sadness. “The cat can’t understand.” She tried to make sense of the words coming out of his mouth. “Things just happen in a cat’s life. Someone gives you food, they don’t give you food. They rub your tummy or they kick you. A cat can’t have a concept of compassion or betrayal. It has habits. Someone gives it food, it keeps coming back. When the food stops, it’s not emotional for the cat, it’s about finding another source of food. Do you think he’s getting food?”
“Yes.”
“Then cats are not very bright, because they don’t understand betrayal or loyalty. It’s about having to do the least worst thing, even when that thing sucks. Do you think it’s worse to do a bad thing, or to do nothing and risk a terrible thing?”
“We did the best thing.”
“I did it. The least worst. And now the boys know their dad doesn’t care if Mr. Moon dies. They don’t know that I only care that they live.”
“I think they understand.”
“I don’t want them to. This shouldn’t be part of their lives. I know worse things happen every day, but not to my kids, the ones I’m supposed to look after.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I hope Daniel doesn’t understand. Because his mum is like the cat. If they’d rung and said she was dying, we wouldn’t have let him go to see her and he would have hated us. And I don’t know what’s in his head. He’s just here, being polite and well behaved…” Sean fell silent before the words burst out again. “If I thought I was dying, if I thought I wouldn’t see Zac and Oscar again…” He couldn’t follow the idea through. “We’ve been acting like it’s a long sleepover. He’s a smart kid—he knows what’s going on.”
“Maybe he talks to Zac.”
“Every decision I’ve made so far, I’ve messed it up. I don’t seem to be able to grasp the real stuff. What’s wrong with me that it takes this long to work out what that kid’s going through?”
She took his hand and stroked the back. It was still damp from wiping his face.
Pulling the tins to the front didn’t hide that the shelves were half empty. Two tins of tomato soup for lunch now left only two more. One more lunch, one more reasonably unsatisfying lunch. Every meal eaten now was one that wasn’t there later. Every meal she managed to conjure out of leftovers was another half a day they could stay inside. She forced herself not to count how many tins, how many packets of pasta, just closed the pantry doors.
Despite what it felt like, not every meal was leftovers. Odds and sods from the fridge and the cupboard—a couple of flabby carrots, a stick of wobbly celery, some dried beans she used for holding down baking paper, half an onion—lay on the counter. Together they looked like soup. Some barley, which she had no recollection of buying, would do instead of bread.
This was what her grandmother used to talk about, saving jars and making soup. If only she had a chicken carcass or a ham bone. Hidden at the back of the fridge she discovered a couple of dried sausages that Sean had brought back from a farmers’ market. For six months they had been waiting to be made into something sophisticated. Now they completed a farmers’ market Depression soup. The sausages probably cost more than her grandmother spent on a whole meal. She smiled.
At the kitchen table, Oscar colored-in. Lots of the coloring, not so much of the in. This was the last of the activity books Sean had bought on the first day. Left for last because it was the most uninteresting, rote, uncreative. He did it only as an excuse to sit near her, and to watch for Mr. Moon. The instant she laid out the ingredients, he hopped down. Something, anything else, was more interesting than the book. “Can I help?”
“Sure.” She looked out at the deserted garden. “You could pick me some herbs. Anything you like the look of in the herb pots. Remember to break the leaves off, not pull them up.” She handed him a bowl and moved the chopping board to the kitchen table so she could keep an eye on him.
He came back with the bowl full, mostly of parsley. “What do we do now?”
“Um…” If she let him chop veggies they would be eating lunch at dinnertime. “You could get some water for the soup from the rainwater tank.” She searched out a clean soft drink bottle. “Fill it up, and remember to put the lid on.”
“Okay.”
He walked across the garden, swinging his head from side to side, scanning for feline danger. It reassured her that he jumped when a bird lighted on the fence. She could trust him to be cautious. It was safe to look down for a few moments at the sausage she was cutting up.
She heard what could have been a wail of surprise from Oscar and on its heels the slam of the office door. She dropped the knife and bolted to the back door. Oscar lay splayed face-forward on the grass, his T-shirt soaked with water, the bottle flattened underneath him. Sean spoke in a harsh tone.
“You weren’t looking where you were going, were you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“I was watching you. And why wasn’t the lid on tight?” Sean stood over Oscar.
“It was.”
“What were you even doing? That’s a day’s water for someone and it’s gone.”
>
“It wasn’t my fault.” His face streaked red with tears.
“This isn’t a game, we can’t get more at the store. You want chocolate, you want another drink? There isn’t any more when it’s gone. Do you understand?”
“I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t my fault.” Oscar’s voice rose higher in proportion to the injustice of the situation.
Hannah ran to put herself between Oscar and Sean. “What do you think? He’ll learn by being yelled at? I told him to do it. Yell at me.”
Sean turned away and trudged back to the office. She helped Oscar up from the grass.
“My”—sob—“pajamas”—sob—“are wet.” He choked on his indignation.
She knelt down to pull him to her, but he held himself stiff.
“I’m wet.”
Sean’s voice took her by surprise. Crouched next to them, he took Oscar’s hand and looked him in the eye, modulated his voice to make it soft and calm. “I’m sorry, Oz. That was unfair of me. I didn’t know Mum told you to get the water.” Sean didn’t make eye contact with her. “It wasn’t fair of me to get mad at you.”
“Okay.” Oscar’s sobs abated and his body softened.
Hannah shepherded Oscar inside and hung his wet pajamas over the back of the kitchen chairs to dry. They weren’t really dirty. Not bits-of-mud-on-them dirty. Not worth-wasting-more-water-on dirty.
Once the soup was finished, she would have to ladle out a container for Gwen. Daniel and Zac were taking turns to bring her food. They changed which door they left it beside each time, knocking and running away like pranksters. Oscar wanted to take his turn as well, but not after yesterday’s incident. Against Hannah’s better judgment, they had let him take it to the front, but he thought he saw the door opening and dropped the meal. When Sean dashed around, there was no sign of the dropped container. She spent the afternoon listening for noises from Gwen’s side of the hallway wall without hearing her. But then they never did.
There were only a couple of takeaway containers left. She wrote a quick note. Gwen, could you please leave the water bottles and food tubs outside so we can reuse them? She couldn’t bring herself to put love, and cheers was too jaunty under the circumstances. So she didn’t put anything. It was obvious who it came from.
When Oscar came running into the living room, she jumped, barely catching her laptop as it slid off her knee. He was gone again before she registered what he said. She entered the kitchen prepared for bad news, but all she saw was Zac and Daniel standing by the back door, ominously silent. Whatever the problem was, it was in the garden. Please, she thought, don’t let it be Mr. Moon dead or, worse, injured or sick.
But in the middle of the yard stood Ella, like a statue busker at the Quay, in pink from head to toe. Riotous, discordant shades of pink. One chubby foot was shod in a strappy, sparkly sandal, the other in a pale pink runner. Her legs were firmly planted on the ground, covered in long stripy fuchsia-and-mauve socks that nearly met her hot-pink shorts. Over the shorts, a net fairy skirt stuck out like a shelf, covered in more sparkles. Her purple T-shirt sported a mass of flowers in pastel shades on the front, and Hannah could just make out, peeking over her shoulders, fairy wings to match the skirt. A plastic tiara was pushed in among her tangled curls, set at a rakish angle. And around her face, elastic knotted through her hair, a white surgical mask covered her mouth, nose, and chin. In the absence of the rest of her features, her eyes peeping out over the top appeared impassive.
Sean broke the trance by calling through the window. “Ella, sweetie, what are you doing here?” Hannah hadn’t even heard him come into the room.
Ella shook her head.
“Are you cold? Where’s your dad?”
She shook her head again.
Sean looked to Hannah and shrugged. Hannah murmured so the boys wouldn’t hear, “Is she crying?”
Sean called out to her again. “You have to go home, Ella. Your dad will be worried.”
Next door might be farther afield than she was prepared for any of them to venture, but it was only at the other end of a copper wire. Hannah dialed.
“We finished our game and she was there. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. We weren’t watching the garden. She might have been there for ages. I’m sorry. We didn’t see.” Zac tripped over his words trying to explain.
The line connected and Hannah willed Stuart to pick up. Simultaneously, she could hear a faint ringing from next door. “Ella, did you leave the back door open?”
“Yes.” At least she had said something.
“Does Daddy know where you are? You should go home.”
Sean touched her on the elbow and said softly, “She can’t climb the fence. There are no footholds on our side.”
“You’re not going out there to give her a boost.” She looked at Sean, at a loss as to how a grown-up would act in these circumstances.
Sean called out in a reassuring tone, “Honey, I’m going to open the side gate and you can run round to your front door. Your dad will let you in.”
“Daddy’s not home.”
Hannah tried again. “Where’s Daddy gone?”
“He went to Mummy.”
Hannah hoped that meant to the hospital.
“Stay there, honey, just for a tick.” Sean sprinted, as much as his father-of-a-teenager’s frame would allow him, down the hall. Hannah tried to gain some insight into the boys’ thoughts through their faces. Faces that reminded her of the two boys who had died, who had known, before they died, that sometimes parents leave, sometimes you can’t rely on them when you need them. But her boys already knew that—they’d known for years, no matter how much she explained in a neutral tone what cancer was, no matter how much she told herself that Oscar was too young to understand, really understand the implications of what she told him, no matter how much she hoped that Zac was so used to the words that they were meaningless to him. They knew what Daniel had learned in the last two weeks—that sometimes parents fail in the worst possible way.
Sean jogged back in, puffing. “I think I can see their car in their garage.”
“He could have walked.”
“Maybe someone came for him, like an ambulance, or Natalie,” Zac piped up.
“Yeah, maybe.” Sean didn’t sound convinced. “What do we do?”
Hannah took the phone into the living room for privacy. She dialed the hospital.
“Hi, yes, I’m trying to find Dr. Cope, Dr. Natalie Cope. No, I don’t know the extension. She doesn’t normally work there but I know she’s volunteering.” The receptionist transferred her to emergency, who transferred her to a ward and then another ward. Each of them was helpful but some things were clearly important—the status of the patients, how many beds were available, how much antibiotic they had on hand, the number of doctors they needed to staff the wards. Keeping track of the names of the doctors who had turned up to help was not. Eventually, one woman transferred her to human resources. She hung on until it rang out.
Back in the kitchen, everyone was still in the same place although now wet patches on Ella’s mask traced her tears sinking in.
“Her mobile rings out, his rings out. The home phone rings out too. But we know that, we can hear that.”
“Ella, do you know your grandma’s phone number?” A tiny shake of the head. “What’s her name, sweetie?”
“Nana?”
“Does she have another name?” Head shake. “What about Mummy and Daddy’s friends, what are they called?”
“Sue?”
“Sue who?” The head shake again.
There was no way out, there was no one to hand her to. If there was some way to make the little girl standing on their back lawn not their problem, they couldn’t find it.
Oscar pushed at the back door, but Zac took firm hold of his hand and called through the open crack. “Hey, Ella, can you spell?”
“She’s not even in school, Zac.”
“Ella, do you know how to play I Spy?” Ella nodded. Oscar tucked himself into Zac’
s side, watching. “Well, I spy with my little eye something beginning with, I mean, something that’s red.”
Ella looked around the garden with big eyes. It was clear to Hannah that Zac was thinking of the bright red wind vane on the garage. Ella, her feet rooted to the spot, was never going to turn around to see it.
“I know, I know what it is.”
“Give her a minute, Oz.”
“Umm.” Ella looked around more frantically. “Ummm.” She looked harder at Zac. “Umm, your shirt?”
“Cool, you got it.” Hannah had to smile—Zac had learned how to cheat like an adult. “Your turn.”
Sean leaned into Hannah and murmured, “We need to talk where they can’t hear us.”
She whispered back, “I’m not leaving them unsupervised.”
“Zac’s got it under control.”
They tiptoed to the other end of the kitchen, Hannah keeping her eyes on the boys, ready to jump if Oscar made a move.
“So what do we do?” Although Sean whispered, from his stillness she thought it likely that Daniel was eavesdropping.
“She can’t come in. She’s probably seen Natalie and who knows what’s happened to Stuart. For all we know, she’s infectious. She’ll have to stay outside till we find someone to take her.”
“There is no one.” Sean was firm.
“She can go to a shelter.”
“Are you kidding me? You won’t let us walk around the block, but a three-year-old can go to a shelter?”
“You can’t have forgotten. One and a half thousand”—she noticed Daniel twitch and dropped her voice—“dead, yesterday. Nearly three times Monday.”
“Out of five million. Less than a tenth of a percent. She’s one little girl out of five million, and you want to send her into that.”
“Her mum’s working at germ central and her dad ditched her. I guess Gwen could take her.”
“Gwen’s a crazy lady. I’m not knocking on her door and I wouldn’t give Ella to her.”
Before This Is Over Page 18