An Ordinary Epidemic

by Amanda Hickie

  Even when tomorrow seemed an uncertain prospect, the bills still had to be paid. There were times when one thing mattered—keeping yourself alive, getting through chemo, rationing the food, keeping the virus outside—one serious thing. But these draining distractions, these bureaucratic formalities, demanded attention out of proportion to their importance. When you were dying, when you were actually dying as opposed to possibly dying, did they consume your time even when time was almost gone?

  She rewarded herself with a bit of net surfing. Or punished herself with exactly what she wanted. She found a website called ‘Not the Government Line’. The front page was a mosaic of stories and she clicked on one at random.

  We stopped seeing pine boxes a week ago, now it’s all cardboard and we’re having trouble getting even them. I rang the factory three times yesterday because my boss won’t bury without a box. So we stopped answering the phone in the afternoon because we’ve got nowhere left to put them. I can’t face telling one more person to take them into the street and call the hotline. Just now a woman knocked on the door, crying because her father was laid out in her living room. I told her she can’t keep him there, it’s not safe. She thinks the government will bury him in a pit with a bulldozer. I didn’t know.

  If it were Sean or Zac or Oscar... She pushed out of her mind the thought of sitting in the living room with their shells. Clinging onto their empty wrappers, having nothing else left.

  Click.

  It’s all very well for the government to say work from home but who can do that? We’re builders. You can’t do that from home. The tradies, the factory workers, all of us that actually do something, that make all the stuff for everyone else, we’re stuck at home. How am I supposed to pay my subbies? And who’s still getting paid? The people who are pushing paper, staring at their computer screens in their own homes, typing something now and then. It’s not like that’s real work. Meanwhile the rest of us are going out in it, risking our lives, for what? To keep things going for the nerds. They could all die tomorrow and who would know the difference?

  Click again.

  We only got here yesterday, but they closed the shelter this morning. Halfway through the night one of the staff told me to move my kids to the other side of the gym and not let them near anyone. In the morning, they tried to keep it quiet, but I saw some bodies lined up on the floor in the hall next door. An ambulance pulled up and I saw a woman begging to be taken to hospital. They said if she could walk, she wasn’t sick enough. There’s only one other school in walking distance inside the quarantine zone. We didn’t go there yesterday because someone said it was already full. Even if it wasn’t, now they won’t let us leave for two days.

  At the bottom of the page was a breakout box. ‘From the Health department website.’ A column of dates and beside each a number. The last entry was yesterday—two thousand eight hundred and twenty-six dead, all in Sydney, all in one day. She tried to think about just one person, the one that made six, and wondered how they could be sure there wasn’t another one, uncounted, that made seven. If Ella had carried it into the house, if they all died here, who would know? She looked out the window at the row of houses opposite. Were any inhabited by the dead? She felt their threatening presence pushing against the front door.

  She shivered. The room was cold but the world outside was colder. She should have been crying but all she felt was a chill.

  A window appeared on her screen.

  I hoped you might bring breakfast.

  And after a brief pause.

  It would have been nice to see you.

  I’m not the one who walked away.

  How normal it felt, to be chatting on the computer.

  How did you sleep? How’s Ella looking?

  No temperature, no cough. Slept fine. A bit upset. Then she forgets. Then she remembers. She’s three.

  She wanted him to keep typing. It was like getting a note passed in class from a secret crush. Even with the heater, it must have been freezing in the office but he knew better than to expect sympathy. She started to type I want us to be together but another line from Sean scrolled up.

  Stuart told her to keep her mask on. She may never take it off ag

  The cursor sat blinking after the ‘g’, waiting for the computer to catch up with the rest of Sean’s sentence.

  That’s fine by me.

  Sean’s sentence still wasn’t complete. She went back to browsing while she waited for him to think. ‘Page not found.’ She clicked another tab—‘Page not found.’ She clicked, fast, though all the tabs, opened a new page—‘Page not found.’ The network icon had a red line through it. She rebooted the machine. Still no network.

  She walked back to the living room where the boys had arranged themselves in parallel lines on the floor in front of the TV. Oscar jumped up.

  ‘Mum, can we...’

  ‘Just a minute, Oscar, I have to check something.’ The phone was dead. She unplugged it from the wall, plugged it back in and rang the home number from her mobile. In her ear, the line rang, but the home phone didn’t. She tried Sean’s mobile.

  He answered before she heard a ring. ‘Something happened to my computer. I’m not seeing the network.’

  ‘The phone line’s not working either.’

  ‘It might be us. Try ringing Gwen.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to Gwen.’

  ‘Just ring it, you’ll be able to hear her phone through the wall. You can hang up.’

  ‘I don’t know her phone number.’

  ‘Look it up in the book.’

  ‘We don’t have a book anymore.’

  ‘Look her up on the net, then.’

  She waited a moment to let that sink in.

  ‘You could ring anyone we know, they’re all stuck at home.’

  She rang Kate, counted twenty rings, another twenty, and another. Then Daniel’s home number. Again it rang out.

  Her mobile rang. Sean. She couldn’t wait for pleasantries. ‘What if the phones are working but there’s no one to answer?’

  ‘Take a breath. More likely it’s the phone network.’

  ‘If it’s the whole city, people will be blogging about it. Look what you can find on the net.’ Her turn to forget. ‘The TV’s still working.’ She looked at the clock. ‘The news will be on in half an hour.’ There was an uneasy silence from the other end. ‘We’re safe inside for now. There’s nothing we can do and no hurry to do it.’

  ‘Text if you need me for anything.’

  ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I haven’t gone anywhere.’

  ‘I know.’

  Zac was standing in front of her, speaking before she’d even hung up. ‘So, Mum, if you’re not using your computer, can Daniel and I have a go?’

  ‘All the games are in the office and you’re not going out to get them.’

  ‘We’ll surf the net. Come on, there’s nothing else to do.’

  ‘The net’s out.’

  ‘Aw what?’ He was indignant. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘It’s not a punishment. It’s just life.’

  ‘And Dad gets the computer and all the software.’ Zac muttered loudly as he moved off.

  ‘Live with it Zac. He didn’t cut you off from the computer on purpose. We didn’t disconnect the internet to spoil your day. You know what’s going on out there, don’t you? You’ve noticed what’s happening outside our front door? People are dying, Zac.’ She tried to stop herself but her voice kept saying the things that were crowding her head. ‘People are dying, there are people starving to death in the same house as their family because the people who love them are too scared to bring them food. You know what’s crappy about losing the internet, Zac?’ He looked defiantly at her, raising his eyes though his face was turned down. Stop, she told herself. ‘It’s not that you can’t flush away the next two hours of your life playing a flash game. That’s not what’s crappy. What’s really crappy, what’s terrifyingly crappy, if you stopped to think about i
t, is that now we have no way of knowing what’s going on out there. And when we run out of food, we’ll have no way of knowing what’s waiting out there.’

  He raised his head and looked her full in the face. ‘Gwen and Dad and Ella are out there. You’re scared of them.’ He sneered the word scared but his tone became off-hand, as if he didn’t care what she thought anymore. ‘You could ring someone on your mobile.’

  ‘No one is answering.’

  ‘You were talking to Dad. Dad answered. On his mobile. I bet you didn’t ring another mobile. You can’t get to the internet because your computer uses the phone lines to get to it. You want to check the internet? It’s on your mobile.’ As he stalked away, she noticed how tall he had become.

  She could ring someone, there just wasn’t anyone she wanted to ring. She stared at the contact list on her mobile. She could ring Kate if she wanted to. Or Daniel’s parents. Or someone from work. Or one of the mums from school. But no conversation could change what was happening in her house right now. There were no words that someone could speak down the phone that would make Sean safe.

  Her head ached—from the tension, from the pain of the bruise, from clenching her muscles to stay warm. Her feet were still cold. Every part of her was still cold. And when she wrapped one hand around the other and blew into them, the warmth stopped the minute she did.

  The only thing she needed to say was I feel alone but if she rang someone to tell them her problems, she owed them, she had to listen to theirs. And if they didn’t have food or masks or water, what would she say then? Come over, we’ve got plenty? Everything she needed to survive was in the house and her plans depended on all of it. She felt the urge to throw the mobile to the ground and stomp on it. Better to be unable to ring anyone than to have to admit she didn’t want there to be anyone to ring.

  Her mobile rang and she snatched it up. Sean would tell her she wasn’t such a bad person, that it was okay to have such a strong desire not to share. ‘Sean.’

  ‘Oh, hi.’ The voice on the other end sounded disconcerted and she was taken by surprise, as if strangers no longer existed. In the moment of silence, she could hear the speaker’s doubt. ‘Um, is this Hannah?’

  ‘Oh,’ she tried to sound business-like. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Danny’s dad.’

  Beep. The line died, she looked at her phone, a blank screen. She couldn’t remember when she last charged it. Through the house, through the living room, startling the boys, to the kitchen, to the charger next to the kitchen window. She was leashed to an area three paces along the bench, a tether to the outside world. Hannah fumbled the phone, trying to find Daniel’s dad’s number. The phone rang again.

  ‘Hi, yes, sorry. My phone ran out of charge.’

  ‘We’re nearly there. Could you ask Danny to get his stuff together.’

  ‘You’re taking him home?’

  ‘The doctor’s just left, she says it’s safe. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  ‘But isn’t that a risk? If you’ve just had a doctor in the house?’ He’d hung up.

  She was standing in the living room, saying the words, ‘Daniel, your dad is coming to get you.’

  Daniel said nothing. He stood, as if empty of intent, in the centre of the room.

  Zac gave him a subdued dig in the side. ‘Hey, that’s great.’

  Daniel blinked.

  ‘You need to pack your stuff.’ Daniel still didn’t move. ‘Zac, can you give him a hand.’ Was she doing this because it was the right thing to do, to let him go? ‘He’ll be here any minute.’ And who was it right for?

  Daniel followed Zac passively, Oscar buzzing around them. She could hear Zac in the bedroom, bossing Daniel into organisation.

  The doorbell rang and Daniel was past her like a streak. It rang again. ‘Don’t open the door!’ She yelled after him. His mother, the doctor, she had a responsibility to keep him safe. Although with one less mouth to feed... She was appalled that the thought was hers. ‘Don’t. Don’t open it!’ She ran, her muscles cold and stiff and refusing to recognise the urgency. Daniel was on the balls of his feet, a few steps back from the door, looking to her for permission. Someone was knocking. She jogged up behind Daniel.

  The door had to be opened, Daniel had to go. This was his dad’s decision, she wasn’t his parent. ‘Don’t open the door, I’ll do it.’

  Daniel stood like a taut spring, still not quite sure this was happening. She wasn’t prepared.

  ‘Hi, who is it?’

  ‘Danny, are you there?’ At the sound of his dad’s voice, Daniel’s eyes lit up.

  Zac came trotting up the hall with Daniel’s bag. He looked sheepish, shy, as he held it out. ‘I might have missed some things.’

  Daniel took it from him firmly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He looked down at the bag in his hand and then back at Zac. ‘Thanks.’ He felt that was inadequate. ‘Thanks, man.’

  She grabbed the handle firmly and opened the door. A sharp, damp breeze blew through the grate and down the hall. ‘Hi.’ She sized up the stranger on the other side of the grill, unsure if he was responsible enough to be handed the care of Daniel.

  ‘Come on Danny, we’ve got to get you back to your mum. Quick as you can.’

  He wasn’t even talking to her. She had a responsibility to, to, to... Daniel’s parents, to the man on the other side of the grate, to keep Daniel safe. ‘Are you sure that’s it’s a good idea?’

  Daniel’s dad was shaking his head as if he hadn’t allowed himself to believe what he was saying. ‘Susan’s desperate to see him. When she woke up this morning, she couldn’t think of anything else. She’s been counting down the days.’ He looked back to his son. ‘The sight of you is going to do your mum a world of good.’ Daniel already had the grill unlocked. Zac took a step towards him. ‘Hey, bye.’ Hannah pulled Zac back, a metre back.

  ‘Yeah, bye. Thanks for having me, Hannah.’ Daniel was on the other side of the screen door, his dad’s arm around him.

  ‘Thanks, we owe you. I don’t know what we would have done without you looking after him.’ Daniel’s dad looked at his son, almost the same height as him, and Hannah could see the sheen of tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t know what we would have done.’

  They walked to their car, got in and drove away. Just like that. While Hannah and Zac watched. Oscar trotted up the hall full of naive curiosity. ‘Where’s Daniel gone?’

  ‘Home, sweetie.’

  ‘Is he coming back?’

  ‘No, he’s gone back to his mum and dad.’ She was relieved and ashamed.

  ‘I bet they were sad without him.’

  ‘I bet they were.’

  Zac was still standing, staring at the empty place on the concrete in front of the house where Daniel’s car had been. His arms wrapped tight around him.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  His body turned to her but his eyes stayed glued. ‘It’s a bit cold.’

  As they walked down the hall, she was shivering.

  She pulled a chair up to the kitchen bench, next to the window that was her portal to Sean, next to the charger that kept her phone going. She texted. I need to see you. Her phone trilled at her instantly. Coming out for play time.

  Ella kicked the ball around the yard. When it came too close to the house, Sean kicked it back. He leant against the outer wall of the kitchen, two layers of brick separating them. Through the window, open a crack, Hannah told Sean calmly, matter-of-factly, about Daniel leaving. She promised herself she wouldn’t mention the argument with Zac but her head hurt and air blew through the open window, encasing her in a blanket of cold. As much as she tried to hold them back, the words fell out. And the tears. She couldn’t stop the tears although there was nothing to cry about. She cried for everything, the whole horrible mess. The fight, letting Daniel leave, her cold feet and hands, Ella playing alone in the yard, the window between her and Sean. She shifted in her seat, bumping the edge of the kitchen bench against her bruise. She cried for the pain.

/>   The ball strayed off the grass and Hannah was bereft for the seconds it took Sean to retrieve it. Her nose was streaming, it mixed with her tears. Her face was flushed, her eyes were swollen, hot, red. She swallowed down phlegm, snorted as she tried to breathe. The hotter her face got, the colder her body became. She gulped, tried to stop crying, but choked as another sob came. She was gross and pathetic.

  On the other side of the glass, Sean shifted from foot to foot, and when he couldn’t look at her anymore, they both watched Ella.

  Hannah calmed her breathing long enough to say, ‘She looks healthy.’

  ‘Better safe than sorry.’

  Hannah wiped her face with her hands and her sticky hands on her jeans.

  ‘Now you have one less to look after. That has to be good.’

  ‘Daniel and Zac looked after each other. Zac will miss him.’

  ‘Yes.’ They fell into silence again. Sean sighed heavily. ‘At least the rain filled the tank.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hannah splashed a little of the cold water from the bucket in the kitchen on her face to try to make herself look normal. It sent a shaft of cold through her. Her reflection in the window was still red and swollen but she couldn’t waste any more water.

  She would stay in the kitchen forever if it weren’t for Ella’s stripy socks and pink shorts, soaked through from the damp grass. The fairy skirt did nothing to keep her warm. Hannah rifled through Oscar’s wardrobe, hoping to find some old clothes small enough to not fall off Ella. He had socks, at least, and one of his pants with a belt could be cinched tight. Oscar watched from the doorway. Her face still felt hot but she hoped it didn’t show.