“So…what?”
Hannah waited for Sean to say something. And waited. And then she cracked. “So, she has to stay here.” Sean seemed relieved that she had said it. “She can sleep in the office for a couple of days. We’ll have to work out some way of keeping her in there when we’re delivering.” Sean looked at her with horror and she felt she had to explain. “Like Gwen. We’ll have to take meals to her like Gwen.”
Sean was clearly struggling, trying to find the right words. “She’s three. She’s”—his eyes slid away as he shook his head in disbelief—“three. You can’t seriously expect a three-year-old, a three-year-old, Ella for Christ’s sake, Ella, not some stranger, to sleep all alone, to be all alone for the next two days out in the office. Can you imagine how terrifying, how mind-fuckingly”—Hannah glanced at the boys—“terrifying that would be? You can’t treat her like the cat. Even if she wasn’t someone we know, even then, she’s a human being, a little girl whose parents have disappeared and you think it would be appropriate to incarcerate her in the garage?”
“Why do you think Stuart dumped her here? He’s not my favorite person, but he wouldn’t ditch his own kid without a good reason. And why do you think he put a surgical mask on her? Because he was sick and she’s probably got it too. He’s gone off to hospital and he hasn’t taken her. Why would he? If there’s any chance she’s not sick, the hospital is more likely to kill her than save her. But we have three kids here, one of them not even ours, and we have a responsibility to them. To keep them safe. We know she’s been exposed.” Sean looked at her coldly. “I’m not going to apologize for putting my kids first. I can’t be responsible for everyone.”
“Not even for the one toddler in your backyard.”
“I’m not throwing her out in the street. I’m not going to starve her. She just has to sleep in the office for two days.”
“And if she gets sick?”
“Then I was fucking right, wasn’t I?”
“And you’d leave her to die out there.”
“No. I don’t know. But how does it help her if Oscar and Zac and Daniel get it too?” The boys had stopped playing their game and were watching them in solemn silence.
“So you won’t let her in?”
“No.”
“She has to sleep out there alone.”
“For two days.”
“Fine.” He strode out the door, shoving Zac and Oscar out of his way. Hannah saw Oscar on his toes, ready to follow. She sprinted over and slammed the door. The four of them huddled together at the glass, watching.
Sean put his arm around Ella’s shoulders, talking to her quietly, gently, but they couldn’t make out what he was saying. Hannah felt an ache, a physical pain as he moved away. She was angry at him, angry for making her feel her actions were wrong, for making a decision that she wouldn’t have. For putting Ella ahead of his own family. He was right there, but gone. Just to the end of the garden, but maybe never to come back.
“Right,” she said loudly to a spot over the boys’ heads. “Well, this is an adventure. Just us for two days.”
“Yeah, some adventure.” Zac turned his back and led the walk away from her.
The TV went on in the living room, too loud. She didn’t care. She could go in and rouse on them, but it would achieve nothing. Her aspirations had changed. She didn’t have to worry about whether they ate right or did their homework or played violent video games at their friend’s house. There was only one thing she had to achieve—to get the boys through this.
By now it was done, even though she could see Sean, just across the lawn, even though he looked the same. By now he had the virus or he didn’t. And she had to decide, at this instant, that if he came back in two days she would celebrate, and if he didn’t, then he was gone from this very moment.
She was startled from her thought by a fist banging on the glass of the door. Sean, belligerent but slumped. “I need gloves. I need disinfectant. I need a face mask.” He colored slightly. They both knew he should have thought of these things before he gambled his life on his principles. “And something to put water in, a bottle or a jug.”
“You can’t come into the house, not even to use the toilet.”
“I know.” He looked worn. “We’ll improvise. There’s the back lane.”
“How does she seem?”
“Scared, sad.”
He was going to make her ask. “Is she sick?”
“She doesn’t look sick.”
Sean had spent time in the office before, and even though she couldn’t see him, she had still been aware of his presence. Now she was only aware of his absence. The kitchen drove her out—it was filled with her angry yearning for the other end of the garden, so she exiled herself to the isolated safety of their bedroom, curled up in the duvet that smelled of them. The cold of the room crept in under its edges.
The street was quiet, the room was quiet, there was no way to escape herself. The noise of the television lured her back to the living room.
She caught Zac’s face contorting into a scowl as she walked in. Oscar had a contented, almost Mona Lisa smile as he cuddled into Zac. And Daniel, Daniel looked blank. Attentive, polite, amenable, but blank.
“Hey, Daniel”—she winced at her own lameness—“how are things going?”
“Fine, Hannah. It’s good.”
“Watching something on TV?”
Zac looked thunder at her.
“Yeah, you know.” Daniel gave her a polite smile and a half nod. “We’ve seen it before but there’s nothing new on. They keep looping the same couple of days’ programs.”
She worried that he recognized her attitude towards him in the way she had reacted to Ella.
“You know, Daniel, I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry about your mum, but you’re always welcome here. Like one of the family.”
“We’re watching TV, Mum. Can’t you see?” Zac snarled. “Like he doesn’t know. He knows, so if you don’t have anything important, can we get back to watching?”
But what Daniel knew, and she knew, was that she wasn’t telling the truth. She would do everything humanly reasonable for Ella and Daniel. For Zac or Oscar she’d do the unreasonable. She would risk her life for them. Daniel and Ella weren’t her family.
She made dinner by herself, cleaned up by herself. From now on, she was going to have to do everything by herself. At the end of the garden she could see the two plates she had left outside the office door, empty and abandoned. Ella was perched on the office chair. Sean must have adjusted it to its highest to let her reach the computer.
Sean came out of the garage—not once looking towards the house—with two sleeping bags, an old bar radiator, and an almost new plush purple teddy bear that Oscar had never taken to. They each stood in their own pool of light at the ends of the dark garden, but he didn’t look towards hers.
Zac was standing next to her, smacking two empty hot chocolate mugs on the counter.
“You finished them quickly.” She plunged them into the opaque washing-up water. It was tepid now but it would be a waste to boil more just to heat it up. “I need you to do something for me. Fill up some bottles from the water tank so we don’t have to keep going out.”
“Dad might die.”
“We don’t know that Ella is sick.”
“Why didn’t you stop him? You order us around enough.”
“He’s a grown-up. I can’t make his decisions for him.”
“Yes, you can.” Zac’s chin wobbled. What was endearing on Oscar was distressing on Zac. The possibility that he might lose control, her self-contained, independent boy, unnerved her. She put her arm around him and he didn’t pull away. He opened his mouth twice, and though she thought he was going to say something, she knew he wouldn’t let himself talk until he was sure he could do it with no signs of childishness. “He might die. He’s my dad and he might die. Don’t I count for anything? You keep saying you’re protecting us, but he’s my dad and I want my dad to live.”
“Daniel wasn’t going to kill anyone. Doesn’t Dad care enough about us not to die?”
She ran her hand through his hair, and he only turned his head away slightly. “Some decisions are more complicated than that.”
“Whatever.” He twisted out of her arm. “It’s his life, right?”
But it wasn’t just his life. She knew it and Zac knew it and one day Oscar would know it. He owed them something, he had a duty to them, a terrible duty to stay alive. She’d been doing it for eight years. Blood tests and mammograms and drugs that made her tired, made her sweat, made her feel sick, even now. She did anything the doctors told her, because it was her duty to Zac and Oscar. Sometimes it exhausted her, the process of living. How could Sean not realize, even now, the commitment he made when he took part in creating them, to do everything he could to stay alive?
Keeping a happy face was wearing, and the kids didn’t buy it. She was drained. She needed peace, needed this to be over. Her mood sent a subliminal ripple of anxiety through the house. What she wanted was to send them all to bed so she didn’t have to present any kind of face to anyone. She hated that she was deceiving them with her fake enthusiasm and plastered-on smile, but she comforted herself that whatever she did with her face, it wasn’t really a lie. She needed them to believe that things were what you made them. This time could be miserable or it could be bearable, depending how they saw it. Right now, all she wanted was to fast-forward through this. Tomorrow she would look at it all in the new light of the morning. She would do her damnedest to be a good person tomorrow.
The boys were draped over the sofas, interlocking like a barrel of monkeys, watching TV.
“Okay, that’s it. Bedtime.”
“Oh, what? It’s not even Oscar’s bedtime.”
“Well, get ready for bed. I think everyone needs some quiet time.” The resentful teenage eyes looked back at her again. “All right, you don’t have to sleep. You can stay up so long as you don’t bother me.”
“Yay!” Oscar was wide-eyed and too loud. “I don’t have to sleep.”
“You have to sleep.”
“Aaaawh.” His protest ascended a scale.
“Wash. Pajamas. No arguments.”
She boiled a jug and carried it, steaming, into the bathroom. Oscar jogged in front of her, forcing her to swerve to avoid tripping and spilling the water. She poured it into the sink and added some cold from the bucket on the floor, swishing it gingerly with her fingers.
“That should be cool enough.” She left him stripping off.
In her corner of the sofa, in the hostile silence of teenage contempt, she hid behind her laptop, pretending she was working. She only opened emails with businesslike subjects. They allowed her to escape, for a short time, from this small box. Somehow it made it better that out there other people were living their lives. She let her eyes slide over the other messages. She didn’t want to know the bad stuff. She didn’t have anything that would help them.
A chat window opened in front of everything else.
Hey babe.
Kate. She’d left herself logged in. If she ignored it, Kate might go away.
You there? I haven’t heard from you in a while.
Hi Kate.
Are you hanging in?
We’re surviving.
You got enough water and food?
She couldn’t share any more. She couldn’t take anyone else in. Her fingers hung above the keys. Kate’s words formed on the screen with a rush.
The water’s back on here, but word is the east is still out. How are you making do?
We have rainwater.
Tasty.
She typed, How is everyone? then backspaced over it. Typed, I can’t cope, then deleted it. We’ll manage.
Hey I could get my cheese and crackers and you could get your cheese and crackers and we could pretend we’re out to lunch.
You have cheese and crackers?
I stocked up on junk. When we get back to work you’ll recognize me—I’ll be the one with hardened arteries.
Oscar jogged into the room.
Have to go. Wet boy to tend to.
Hug them all for me.
“Oscar, you’re naked, that’s gross. Put some clothes on.” Zac’s voice was full of older brother outrage.
Hannah barely looked up. “He’s not technically naked, he’s got a towel on.” The bath sheet went around his small waist several times. He clutched tightly to a handful of the folds in front of him and the towel sagged loosely around his back, making him mostly naked from behind. “Go get your pajamas on.” He meandered in the direction of his bedroom. “Go on. Bedtime.” She hadn’t told Kate about Sean, but she needed to hear that she was right and he was wrong. If only she could be sure Kate would think so.
Oscar came back damp and pajamaed. Zac submitted to a good night hug from him, but played no part. Hannah put her laptop on the sofa to let him give her a kiss and a cuddle. “Do you want me to read you a story?”
Oscar silently stood his ground.
“You don’t want a story?”
“It’s Daddy’s turn.”
“You know he can’t read to you tonight. He’ll read twice when he comes back.” She got up and expected him to follow her to his room, but he didn’t budge. “Come on. Bedtime.”
“I haven’t said good night.”
“You just did.”
“I haven’t said good night to Daddy.” His small, smooth face was set with determination.
“Sure, of course. You have to say good night to Daddy. He’d be upset if I’d sent you to bed and he missed getting a good night.” She called over to Zac. “Hey, you want to come say good night to Dad?”
Zac’s lips curled dismissively. “I’m fine.”
She stood with Oscar at the back door. The glass was cold. They could see Sean clearly at his desk. Oscar jumped up and down waving his arms, yelling “Dad, Dad!” so loud it hurt her ears.
“Wait here. I’ll ring him.”
Oscar reached up to the kitchen light switch and flicked it on and off rapidly. “Look. You don’t have to ring.” Looking at him stretched out on his tippy-toes, she could see how he could grow into Zac.
Sean looked up at the pulsating of the lights.
“Oscar, he’s seen us.” Oscar went back to pogo-ing wildly with his arms waving. He was so revved up, she thought he might never get to sleep.
Sean leaned over to the sofa and said something. He slowly crossed the small patch of grass, watching where his feet fell. Fatigue draped over his shoulders and pulled like gravity. He stopped about a meter from the door and only then raised his eyes to them.
His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him through the glass.
“What?” She cracked the door open a little, making sure she held it firmly and that Oscar was behind her arm. “Oscar wants to say good night.” For a shocking second she thought Sean was going to cry.
She leaned on the back door, watching the ghost of Sean’s face lit by his computer screen. She could stand here in the dark all night, her face getting colder against the glass, but she would still be here and he would still be there. What she needed was sleep.
Outside the bathroom, the floorboards were wet where Oscar’s undried body had dripped. She threw a towel down to soak it up.
The dry toothpaste was rough in her mouth. She poured a centimeter of boiled water into the tumbler and swirled it around, then spat. She could still feel the grit in her teeth.
The hallway was dark and silent, but Zac and Daniel were, surprisingly, already asleep, and she wasn’t going to risk reanimating the house by turning on a light. Something snagged at her foot. She tripped forward, flailing her arms to keep herself upright. The towel wrapped itself around her leg and she stepped heavily s
ideways, slamming into the door of the pantry. The handle thrust itself into her ribs. She gasped, the air knocked out of her. She held in the pain that she wanted to howl out, waiting for a sound from Zac’s room. She hugged the bruise on her side, pulled the towel from around her feet. The pain stabbed as she stumbled down the hall and fell into bed.
The cold of the sheets clung to her. She curled, trying to minimize contact with them. The thin layer of air around her slowly warmed, but the bottom of the bed stayed icy, her feet numb. If Sean were here…If Sean were here…to hold her for warmth, to take the ache away. But his side of the bed was cold. She tried to lift herself out of the pain in her side, inhabit a spot just above her body. Her mind drifted, moving around the house, the books strewn on the living room floor, the clean plates in the drying rack. Her thoughts snagged on the back door. She couldn’t conjure the memory of locking it, and if she hadn’t, no one had.
Surely she had. The door was locked.
Unless it wasn’t.
Someone in the backyard only had to turn the handle to let themselves in. She could almost picture them, an indeterminate shadow, all threat. And here she was, at the far end of the house, a useless first and last defense. The room contracted, but the house echoed its vast emptiness.
This is what Sean had done—left her with the hard, ordinary job of carrying on while he, dramatically, took the easier route of acting on principle. Heroic gestures didn’t ensure the back door was locked, that there was enough food and water.
She felt her way by proprioception and memory through the darkness, jumped at the figure of a person sitting on the sofa—a cushion and its shadow.
The handle of the back door channeled the cold of the night from outside. A slight pressure told her it was locked. On the far side of the short garden, deep shadows engulfed the dark office. No sign of life but the slow movement of the wind in the lemon tree.
Before This Is Over Page 19