She scanned through her mobile for Zac’s number. He answered right away.
‘Hi.’
‘Zac, are you all right?’
‘Hi Mum, I’m good.’
‘What’s happening? Is everyone okay?’
‘The bus driver won’t take us. He says he won’t go back to Sydney, he’s safer here.’
‘What?’
‘It was so cool, ’cause we were all on the bus and everything, and the bus driver made us take all our stuff off. And then Mr Abrahamson came, ’cause he was looking for Simon, and he told us to put our stuff back on. And Brandy was crying and when she rang her mum, her mum really flipped out and she was yelling so loud we could all hear her. It was awesome but it was bad for Brandy because she’s really homesick. And I guess it’s bad for her mum too. But Mr Abrahamson swore at the driver. You should have heard him. And the driver said he wasn’t risking his life for someone else’s kids. And that’s when Brandy was crying.’
‘So what’s happening now?’
‘Mr Abrahamson says we need to find another bus company, but Ms Eisler says that we won’t find anyone on a Friday afternoon.’
‘Where are you?’
‘We’re in the park across from the hotel. They said we can’t come back in, but they’re trying to find somewhere that can take us. They’re really nice. They had some conference that was cancelled, and they brought us all the cakes and sandwiches and stuff, and some juice.’
She had accommodated everyone else. All she needed was for them to do what they said they would. She gulped a breath. There would be a time to give in to how she felt but not on the phone, not to Zac.
‘Hey Mum, I have to go, okay? I’m holding up the soccer game.’
‘Ring me as soon as you know anything. Ring me.’
‘Course.’
‘Bye, Zac, I love you.’
‘Yeah.’ And he was gone again.
She took a few rapid steps towards the garden, the office and Sean, then stopped. The school would look after it. Mr Abrahamson was a sensible man, she’d met him, he was sensible. But if they got in the car now they could be there and back before midnight.
Mr Abrahamson was looking after it.
She picked up the notepad lying on the counter. The top sheet had the beginnings of a shopping list from this morning. It needed to be finished. She stared at it blankly. Nothing came to her beyond that she needed to make a list and Zac was stuck in Canberra.
She strode across the lawn, past Oscar still playing solo soccer, and into the office. Sean looked up. ‘Hiya.’
‘We’re going to Canberra.’
Sean looked nonplussed but not surprised. ‘You planning on waving to Zac when we pass him at Campbelltown?’
‘There’s a problem with the bus and they’re looking for another and somewhere to stay.’
‘So, they might come back tonight?’
‘It didn’t sound promising. If we set off now...’
‘Nothing has changed since Monday. There are still no cases in Canberra. He’s still having fun with his mates. So he spends an extra night. It’ll be good for him, it’ll teach him to cope with adversity, give him a bit of resilience.’
‘Because nothing has ever gone wrong in Zac’s life.’
‘This is not the same.’
Only one thing had changed—the time she had to wait. Zac didn’t need his mother turning up like a crazy woman. For now he was safe, away from the cases. He would be back tonight and if he wasn’t back tonight, then he would be back tomorrow.
Notepad in hand, she stood in front of the pantry. Oscar, like a small shadow, was standing just behind her. He stared seriously at the shelves. She knew what was there, she’d only topped it up on Tuesday. She ran her hands along a row of cans. Meals. Meals that allowed them not to go out. She straightened a can of tomatoes that was sitting halfway between its row and the tinned beans. She pushed each row so the last can hit the back of the cupboard.
‘Now they’re all squiggly at the front. You should put them back.’
‘This way I can see the holes I need to fill up.’
‘Well, you should count them and then put them back. They don’t look neat.’
‘What do you want for snacks?’
‘Muesli bars, chocolate biscuits, ummm, chocolate.’
‘We can get those.’
She shooed him into his room and sat down to order from the online supermarket. The process was pleasingly simple, a series of questions and all she had to do was answer. Suburb? She filled it in. Delivery time? She didn’t care since they weren’t going anywhere. But the weekend was already booked out, and there were only two times free on Monday. One first thing in the morning and one later with a slightly cheaper delivery fee. It made sense to get the cheaper one, since they were home all day. Her finger hesitated over the mouse button. But what if they cancelled deliveries between the morning and the afternoon? What if she saved two dollars but lost the groceries? She clicked on the morning slot.
The website opened up in front of her. Choice, possibilities. She worked methodically through her list, pulling down each menu and burrowing through. Pantry—breakfast—cereal. A nice long list to choose from. Healthy things, muesli and oats, as well as things that she liked but weren’t good for you. A variety pack of all the different kinds of sugary fluff. That way the boys could choose which little box to have. If she was honest with herself, she wanted to recreate the vacations she had as a child, waking up in a rented holiday house, splitting open the box, turning back the waxed paper and adding the milk. Needing nothing but a spoon. She’d made Zac do that once. He had given her a quizzical look as he had followed her instructions. When he had finished and she asked how the cereal had been, he’d said ‘Just the same, only a bit more messy.’
She got a little shiver of satisfaction from seeing the list on her notepad transferred to her online cart. Now that she’d collected the things she had to have, she relaxed a little. Some things could be controlled. Now for things they didn’t need—microwave popcorn, chocolate.
She clicked through to the checkout. A pop-up blocked the page, with important letters blazed in red.
The World Health Organisation advises that the Manba virus lasts less than two hours outside the human body. We have taken every precaution to reduce potential exposure of our products. All our service personnel wear gloves while handling your order. Please continue to store cold items in the fridge immediately as delay risks spoilage.
Words on a screen were no guarantee of protection. She’d go to the WHO website and check for herself. And if was true, the timeslot was before the day warmed up so the milk should survive. But if she had to, she could use gloves to bring it in and forbid anyone from touching the carton. The rest could sit on the porch until it was safe.
She typed in her credit card number, clicked submit and leant back on her chair to enjoy the warm satisfaction of having kept them safe for a few more days.
Pans everywhere. Every bowl cluttering the bench top. When Sean made dinner, she stayed out of the kitchen, driven in only to suggest that Oscar could do with some food soon. An open packet of almonds sat squashed between the onion skins and the plastic supermarket tray the chicken came in. ‘You’re putting almonds in that?’
‘I was peckish.’
‘Then finish making dinner. And don’t graze on the contents of the pantry while the rest of us go hungry.’
‘It’s only a handful of almonds.’
She tried to supress a sigh of exasperation. ‘You eat it and it’s gone.’
‘Dinner’s ready now. You could go and grab Oscar.’
While they ate, Oscar analysed in great detail the television programs he’d watched. Hannah listened closely, hoping the newsbreak wouldn’t come up. Maybe he’d forgotten it.
Sean cooked a good meal but when she looked at her plate, she saw food taken out of the pantry. The chicken and the cream would go off if they weren’t eaten, so they had to be used. Begrudgi
ngly she admitted that the noodles had to be there to bulk it out and the couple of mushrooms left in a punnet were not enough to make anything on their own. Herbs from the garden pots. That was fine, herbs grew. She picked through the food on her plate, sorting the ingredients. He’d added a tin of tomatoes, a small handful of capers and some leftover olives. With every olive she tasted, she couldn’t stop herself thinking of pasta puttanesca. Tomatoes, capers and olives, a meal all by itself, a meal of things that could be kept in the pantry and didn’t go off.
Oscar went for his shower, Sean put the meal that would have been Zac’s into a plastic tub, Hannah scraped the waste into the bin. All of Oscar’s olives and capers. Sean finished stacking the dishwasher and she ran a sink to wash up the things that hadn’t fitted. Still thinking about olives, tomatoes and capers.
Sean picked up the tea towel and started to dry. ‘You seem a bit quiet.’ She went on with washing up. He studied a glass carefully before placing it on the bench. ‘Is there something?’
She said nothing.
‘Is it Zac?’
‘You really don’t get it.’
Sean threw the tea towel over his shoulder and leant back against the bench. ‘This is because I wouldn’t go to Canberra.’
Hannah dropped the saucepan back into the sink, splashing the dry glass. ‘You didn’t listen to what I said, so I must be angry?’
‘About the almonds? You’re pissed off at me because I ate a handful of almonds? That’s what I heard you say. I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means what I said. You wasted food.’
‘I know it’s been a long day. Oscar can be draining and you wanted Zac home. The week didn’t work out exactly the way you planned it and I think you’re taking it out on me because I ate a handful of almonds. A handful, enough to keep a mouse going for half a day.’
‘You didn’t have to use the olives and the capers.’
‘I thought it tasted all right. I liked the capers. I thought you liked capers.’
‘It’s not about like, it’s that they’re gone, like the almonds. Once they’re eaten, you can’t get them back.’
‘There’s still half a packet. We’ll buy some more. We’re not buying take-away, we can afford to have a spare packet of almonds. Just add some to the delivery.’
‘The order is done and they weren’t on my list.’
‘So, next order. It’s not a big deal.’
‘The bus driver won’t come back to Sydney. How long do you think before it’s the truck drivers?’
‘At which point the government will be forced to do something. They’re not going to let the food supply fail.’
‘You have an awful lot of faith. But I’d rather be in a position to look after ourselves.’ She shook her wet hands into the sink, more vigorously than necessary. ‘I didn’t buy a load of random stuff. I worked it out. You use a tin of tomatoes and we don’t have it for dinner another day. We didn’t need tomatoes and capers and olives as well as the chicken. Next time don’t put in anything you don’t need.’
Sean looked at her, the tea towel suspended in mid-air above the saucepan. ‘I’ll ask permission before using seasoning.’
‘We have to plan. I mean we have to plan. The pantry is there to keep us safe. But that counts for nothing if you don’t think.’
‘How was I supposed to know? You didn’t say.’
‘Before this week it was just a pantry. I shouldn’t have to tell you our situation. Can’t you see for yourself what’s happening?’
‘What I can see is a lot of things that might happen but haven’t yet. We can’t plan for everything that might happen.’
‘I do.’
‘And then you never get to live. Then you’re always planning for disaster, planning for the next lump. Can we at least move past the last one?’
She pulled the plug out of the sink with force, splashing water on herself and onto the floor. It could stay there for all she cared, a puddle of water to stand in for the words she couldn’t find. Let him clean it up.
Her anger carried her loudly out of the room but with the slam of the door behind her, it vanished. All she was left with was the sound of the shower running and Oscar’s light tuneless voice singing to himself through the bathroom door. She breathed out the tension as she leant back against the wall. The pantry door was ajar and through the crack, she could see the incomplete wall of supplies. Those gaps should be filled right now. So many things could go wrong between now and Monday.
And where was Zac? He was supposed to be here. The front door couldn’t be shut for good until she had Zac and a full pantry. She would happily fast forward through this part of her life. Couldn’t it just be agreed that she had done everything right and they could skip the next bit?
Oscar poked his head around the bathroom door. He was shiny and his hair dripped.
‘You’re making the floor all wet, what are you doing?’
‘I want you to dry me.’
‘You’re a big boy, you’re perfectly capable of drying yourself.’
He closed the door behind himself and through it she could hear a cheerful monologue that drew her in. When she opened the bathroom door, the towel was loosely wrapped around him but the water had dripped into a puddle just off the bathmat.
‘Here you go.’ She gave him a good rub. He wriggled as if she was tickling him.
It wasn’t her turn for a story but right now the thing she wanted most was not to go back to Sean. Surprisingly, Oscar didn’t notice, or at least didn’t object, to the change in routine. The act of reading the story, a Dr Seuss she almost knew by heart, was meditative. Each nonsense word relieved her of some of her adulthood.
The light was off, Oscar was quiet. Stranded here in the hallway, still she craved a few more moments before confronting Sean and her own bad behaviour. She rested her head against the front door, feeling the cool of the evening conducted through the wood. No sound found its way in. She felt a pressing need to see what was on the other side. With the door open, the breeze blew through the security grill and onto her face. The street was quiet and empty, the only movement a man walking his dog down the dotted lines in the middle of the road, mask over his face. Her eyes followed him to the corner, tracing his invisible path when he disappeared.
She missed the daytime, the beautiful crush of humanity, the human contact by osmosis. The passing schoolgirls, ringing mobile phones, the leaked music from iPod headphones and the steady stream of people, now absent, who walked down her street on an ordinary day.
The quiet was gradually replaced by a rumble. In the gloom, she could just make out a street sweeper at the far end of the road. It passed her door, spraying the gutter, and she smelt hospital.
As she followed the sound of the television back into the house, all she wanted was to delete this bad mood between them. But when Sean looked away from the screen, his forehead was lined. In his eyes she saw a disturbed sadness and it was her fault. She had infected him with this.
The image of a reporter on the scene was superseded by a beaten and bloodied face.
‘What happened?’
‘He coughed. He didn’t cover his mouth and he coughed in front of some guy’s girlfriend and they beat him.’ Two men in handcuffs, glowering at the camera.
She sat down close to Sean. ‘Where?’
‘In town, some shop in town.’
She was crying but not for the beaten face on the TV, nor for the two boys whose parents had died. She was crying for things that might never take place. She was crying because every day, everywhere, small tragedies happened and she didn’t know how to care about every single one, until they were aggregated and magnified and became incomprehensible.
Sean put his arm around her and pulled her in, swathing her in his shirt. She felt heady, gasping and rebreathing the warm recycled air caught in the folds. The sobs fought their way out of her until they were gone. Her head ached and she wiped her face with her sleeve.
The phone w
as lying on the sofa beside him and he turned it over and over slowly, as if looking for some answer hidden on it. ‘The teacher rang, they’re staying the night. They opened one of the local schools and the kids are camping in the hall. Apparently a pizza place around the corner donated dinner for them.’ He sounded unsure of the truth of it. ‘They sound like they’re having fun.’ He looked at her, debating whether to go on. ‘The Department of Education has told them to stay put until the situation here is clearer. Mr Whatever thinks they’re going to be there all weekend. I talked to Zac, he’s fine with it.’ He pressed ahead a little more firmly. ‘I think it’s the right decision, I think it’s good for him. I don’t think we should go and get him.’ He looked set, like he was ready to dig in.
The choice had been made and she couldn’t find the energy to do anything but go along with it. There was a comfort in being handed a decision she didn’t like instead of fighting against events she couldn’t affect.
‘Hey, I know this sucks,’ Sean pulled a strand of damp hair from her face and smoothed it back, ‘but maybe it’s the best thing. If it will help, you can yell at me or break some plates. I think there are some old ones in a box in the garage.’
She buried her face in his neck, it was warm and familiar. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be fine.’ She breathed in his smell. ‘Where are they?’
‘In a school.’
‘Which school?’
There was a moment’s pause as if Sean was trying to assess the significance of his answer, but he had only one to give. ‘I don’t know.’
The phone rang. He answered then handed it to her.
‘Hi. It’s Susan, Daniel’s mum. Has Zac called you?’
‘Sean talked to him, but I think the teacher called.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’
An Ordinary Epidemic Page 8