An Ordinary Epidemic

by Amanda Hickie

  ‘I guess I’m doing the heavy lifting.’

  ‘Please can we open the window?’ Ella smeared her hands on the glass.

  ‘Yeah, please Mum.’

  ‘Come on Mum,’ Sean smirked at her, ‘a bit of fresh air.’

  She unlocked the windows and swung them back. The air was brisk, she could smell a hint of diesel and hear a soft rumble. Down past Stuart and Natalie’s house, near the corner, a large truck with an open tray lumbered forward, a smaller dull khaki jeep following.

  ‘Mum, I can’t see anything.’

  Hannah lifted Oscar up to the sill. He bent himself into a right angle to get his head as far out as he could. They all watched the truck inching slowly towards them.

  ‘I told you it was a convoy.’ Zac stood a little back from the window, feigning indifference. As the engine got slowly louder, she began to hear a voice over the top.

  ‘Do not approach the truck. We do not have facilities to treat the sick. Do not approach the truck if you are sick. If you are sick, return to your house and call triple 0. We can provide you with limited first aid kits. If you need supplies, signal to the truck and wait where you are for one of the workers to approach you.’

  Mr Henderson was out on his lawn, watching the truck, watching them. When he turned his gaze on her, it seemed to be with malevolent suspicion. She told herself off for imagining things and just to prove her courage to herself she held his eye for an instant before she looked away. When she looked back, he was still watching her.

  Oscar teetered on the windowsill and she leant out next to him to try to see the other way, past Gwen’s wall. Looking up the block, clusters of people stood on three of the front lawns and there could be more watching from inside their houses like they were, behind curtains. Every truck was bound to have an audience—there was nothing else to do. Except watch television. However uneventful watching a truck drive past was, it felt more real than TV.

  The further two groups were too far away to make out clearly and the wall limited her view of her side of the road and anything beyond the next intersection. The only group she had a good view of were the family she’d seen leaving and coming back in the night. The mother and father with their daughter.

  The woman was pallid and thin and her husband held her arm as they walked out, holding her up. Yesterday when the truck came around, the girl had sat at her mother’s feet, but today she was standing, pulling her mother forward. The woman smiled at her daughter straining away. Their hands, clasped together, were skeletal.

  Sean gave Hannah a nudge with his elbow, inclined his head towards the idling truck. Two people sat in the cabin and four more stood on the tray, all of them in fatigues, paper masks hung around their necks. And Ella was right, several of them were conspicuously carrying guns. Big guns. One, a young woman, looked down at something, then towards their house and spoke to the man standing next to her. They jumped down from the tray and headed, with the wide-legged saunter of people in authority wearing baggy pants, in their direction. The woman said something to the man. He laughed in the way he would if he were walking down the street with a colleague at lunchtime. As they walked, Hannah could almost think they were deliberately not looking her way. When they were within ten metres, the man pulled up his mask.

  It felt like the whole street was looking. The woman waited at the bottom of Hannah’s steps, the man strode up to the window, pulling gloves on as he came.

  ‘Is this your daughter, sir?’

  ‘She’s our neighbour...’

  As Hannah listened to Sean speak, she noticed that both the soldiers were wearing flak jackets.

  The man bent down to Ella and talked over the top of Sean. ‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘Ella.’

  ‘Ella what? Is this where you live?’

  ‘Ella Cope. That’s my house.’ She pointed. He tried to hide his glance to the woman, she nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘This child is listed as missing. I’m afraid she has to come with us.’

  Hannah jumped in. ‘Who reported her missing? We’re hoping to hear from her mum. She works at the hospital.’ Hannah noticed how young the man was, not ten years older than Zac. His fatigues, his sidearm, his mouth twisting into a frown, gave him a thin veneer of age. ‘So, who then?’

  Sean let Ella slide down from his arms and inside the room. A look of unease came over Oscar as he slid down next to her. Hannah felt Sean take her hand and stand a little closer, a little more defiantly. If she kept her feet on the ground, what could these people do? The guns were for show, they weren’t going to fire on them.

  ‘Her father left her with us.’ Sean spoke with a measured calm designed to make an impression on this kid in khaki.

  ‘Look mate, I understand how you feel. This is happening all over. But I still have to take her into care. This is the contact details of the shelter.’ He had a card prepared. ‘If you can show some proof that he intended for you to keep the kid, you might have a chance.’

  Ella and Oscar sat on the ground behind them. Zac had his head turned to the view down the street, not looking at the scene unfolding but watching, wary.

  ‘We’ve been looking after her. She knows us.’

  ‘It’s not up to me. There are kids all over that don’t belong to anyone.’ The young man put his hand on Sean’s shoulder. ‘I have to take the kiddie. She’ll be well-looked after. Lots of other kids. It’s like camp in there.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Hannah considered the open window and how quickly she would be able to slam it. Not quickly enough. ‘You’re telling everyone to stay at home but you want to take her to a place full of strangers. All those kids, people coming and going. You could’, she dropped her voice for the word, ‘kill her.’

  The woman stepped forward with a nonchalant truculence, broadcasting with a voice the whole street could hear. ‘Don’t worry. There’s staff there, there’s nurses and stuff. They know what’s what. If she gets sick, there’ll be treatment for her. Not for idiots doing stupid things but for the kids in the shelters, there’s enough.’

  Sean let go of Hannah’s hand, crouched down and took Ella’s. He breathed hard a couple of times. ‘Ella.’ He breathed in and out again. ‘Ella, you have to go with these people, okay?’

  The woman came up the stairs, leant in the window, so close Hannah could hear the crack of the paper mask as it inflated and deflated with her breaths. ‘If you could get a few things for her.’ The woman looked Ella up and down with a faint wrinkle of her nose. ‘A clean change of clothes and if she needs a blanket or a toy.’

  Hannah recognised the stale smell coming from them all, a smell she had lost awareness of. The woman’s pressed uniform drew attention to the grime on Oscar’s shirt.

  ‘Hold on to the rest of her stuff, someone will come and get it when she’s sorted out.’

  Despite every part of her body urging her to pick up Ella and run, Hannah found herself nodding. It wasn’t about the guns. It was about two soldiers, clean and well-fed, right in front of her and four more on the truck. It was about the social agreement of civilisation. It was inevitable and her actions could only make the situation more or less difficult for herself, for Ella, but nothing she could do would stop it.

  ‘No, Mum, no!’ Zac was standing in front of her. ‘You can’t. She has to stay here.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Yes you can.’ The edges of his mouth were turned down and trembling. ‘You can say no, don’t get her clothes.’

  ‘Your mum’s right...’

  Hannah held up her hand to the woman soldier.

  The man spoke to Sean with casual authority. ‘Bring the girl out here now, sir.’

  Zac grabbed Sean’s arm. ‘She lives here. She has to stay here.’

  The young soldier ignored Zac. ‘You’re not doing her, or your other young one, any favours by making it harder. You’ll do the right thing, won’t you, mate.’

  ‘You don’t know what it will
be like there. It might suck. She’ll be alone.’ Zac’s pleading lost any teenager he had left. ‘Who will look after her? There’ll be no one to look after her.’

  ‘Look, kid.’ The man leant into the window, over Zac. ‘She’ll be looked after fine. That’s their job.’ He reached down and swung Ella through the window and onto his hip and called out to the woman soldier. ‘Catch up with the truck when you’ve got her things.’

  Ella hung passively like a sack of potatoes in his arms until he hit the path at the bottom of the steps. A switch flicked and she started to wail and thrash.

  Zac looked at Hannah, his mouth open in outrage. She was pinned in place by Ella’s screaming.

  ‘Look, ma’am, I have to get back to the truck. If you don’t get her things now, she’s going without them. Is that what you want?’

  ‘No.’ She could barely hear her own voice, she cleared her throat and tried again. ‘No.’ She kept her eyes down, ashamed, as she pushed past Zac. Sean grasped at Oscar’s legs as he scrambled onto the windowsill but he slipped through Sean’s hands and down the other side. Oscar bolted down the steps and grabbed the soldier’s leg. Ella wailed, Oscar screamed, but the soldier walked on lopsided.

  Sean flung open the front door and took the steps in one pace. The soldier stood rock still while Sean prised Oscar off his leg. Sean, his face dark and stony, carried the screaming Oscar up the steps as Ella was carried, arms flailing, to the truck. At the top of the stairs Sean mumbled, ‘Sorry Zac. That’s the way it is.’ He kept on going straight through the house. They could hear Oscar shouting all the way to the backyard. The truck drove by, bringing Ella closer again. The guttural rasp of the diesel engine and the fumes could barely cover the sound of her calling between sobs. ‘I want Mum, I want Mum.’

  Hannah realised she’d never got around to charging the camera. She didn’t have a single photo of Ella.

  Hannah washed the few clothes they had brought over for Ella from next door. When they were dry Oscar helped her pack them up, with Ella’s teddy bear and a couple of his picture books, into a small backpack. Oscar placed the backpack next to the front door, ready to be collected and stood looking at it, as if it could explain why Ella left.

  ‘Should we ring Ella again, Mouse?’

  Hannah had called the number they had been given for the social worker, in the hopes of talking Ella back to them but it was clear that Ella’s uncle could prove who he was. As soon as quarantine was lifted, he was free to pick her up.

  When Hannah asked to speak to Ella, the pause on the other end indicated that she had committed a faux pas, but she didn’t care. She let the silence hang until the social worker put Ella on the line.

  ‘Hi Ella, how are you going?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘How’s the centre?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Do you have other kids to play with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hannah was running out of things to say. ‘Do you want to talk to Oscar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She handed the phone to Oscar.

  ‘Hi Ella.’

  She watched him listening, looking far ahead as if he could see her if he squinted. After a moment, he said ‘okay’ and held the phone out to her.

  ‘Hello?’ She couldn’t hear anyone on the line.

  ‘She went to play, Mum.’

  The third time she walked by the bag of clothes in the hall, she found Oscar sitting in front of it. She moved it inside the door of her bedroom.

  The house was quiet, even though Ella had been a silent child. At the kitchen table, Zac and Oscar went back to school, with email and Wikipedia as teachers. Silently, electronically, they were all flooded with communication from the outside world.

  ‘I was right, it’s gone.’ Zac appeared noiselessly, his voice startled her.

  ‘What’s gone?’

  ‘I put today’s number on my graph and it fits. I think it’s exponential, or the opposite of exponential. I think that’s still exponential.’

  ‘You need to give me some context. What is exponential?’

  ‘The curve. It dropped yesterday, a lot. No one new is getting sick.’ He stopped to consider this. ‘The people who are dying are people who were already sick.’

  ‘Or you might have a couple of days that are anomalies and the numbers will go up again tomorrow. That’s what happens in the real world.’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘It can’t be gone gone. These things don’t disappear overnight. If you’ve got one sick person, they’ll be infecting others.’

  ‘Not many and only some of them are going to die, because they can treat lots of them.’

  ‘Then it’s not gone.’

  ‘But it will be, in, like, a week, it will be. Even if we got it now, we’ll probably get better ’cause the less people who are sick, the better they can treat them. If we got it now, by the time we ended up in hospital it would be almost over. I saw some guy on the internet, dancing. Outside. It’s weird.’

  ‘I’m taking the TV, kids.’ Hannah changed the channel.

  ‘But Mum, we were watching.’

  ‘This is important.’

  Zac pointed at the screen. ‘What, an empty stage with some suit hanging around the back?’

  ‘Give it a minute.’ The suited man stood self-consciously to the side of the podium as if he wasn’t sure whether to stay put or slink off. ‘There’s some big announcement.’

  Zac sat forward like he had money on it. The image didn’t change, two commentators filled up the dead air with chatter that said nothing.

  Sean wandered in holding his laptop. ‘Are you watching this? Oh, you’re watching this.’

  The Minister for Health finally arrived, followed several large paces behind by the Prime Minister. They took up well-spaced positions on the podium. Hannah noticed that the suit had taken a step into the background. Maybe no one wanted to be responsible for losing two high ranking government members to a virus that was supposed to be on its way out. Odds were they were both wearing mask, gloves and gown the second before they walked in the pressroom. The Health Minister’s suit was perfectly ironed, her hair formed a satiny bob. She was immaculate and healthy.

  She spoke of pulling together in a time of crisis, of the unwavering spirit of the Australian people, of the sacrifices made by us all in this time of hardship. She pressed her lips together in a thin smile of solidarity, she furrowed her brow in concern and grief. She smiled at her own words of hope but not too much, not disrespectfully. There were real words to be said but these weren’t those.

  The Minister leant forward on the lectern and gave a tight smile as she invited the first question.

  ‘Can we ask the Prime Minister, there are already cities in Europe that have declared themselves disease-free. Can you tell us how you will define what “disease-free” means and what criteria you will use to decide that this epidemic is over?’

  The Minister promptly vacated the lectern for him. The Prime Minister smiled and nodded, as if the journalist had asked just the right question. His answer referenced the experts who were working on the problem, the post-pandemic role of international and non-governmental organisations, the patience of the Australian people, the complexities of the issue and the necessity for caution. He promised the nation he would give the matter the serious consideration it deserved.

  The coverage cut to news footage from around the world. Celebration in Europe, a roundup of cities, all looking much the same. Hannah searched the faces in case one was Sean’s sister but they knew from her emails that she wasn’t in a celebrating mood, she’d lost too many friends. Youth hugging in the street. A young woman ran at the camera, arms outstretched. ‘Kiss me.’ She called out. ‘I’ll kiss anyone.’ Hannah was torn between deploring her recklessness and celebrating her optimism.

  When she wasn’t looking after Oscar, Hannah worked diligently. Not because the work was important or engaging but because it was a reason to delay reading her emails.
They sat there on the computer, gathering weight, demanding attention. She didn’t need to open them to know what was in them. They were an invoice for her random and unfair survival.

  It was a bleak roll call. The first one was a client of Kate’s, a man she didn’t really know. She sat with the email on the screen, trying to remember something specific about him, the tone of his voice, a time she’d spoken to him, a meeting they had both been in. If she could make the electronic message real, she would know that he was dead, say goodbye.

  The second was a list of teachers from Zac’s school. Five names. A couple taught subjects Zac didn’t take, two more she didn’t recognise, but one was Zac’s maths teacher from last year. And in her mind, Hannah could see her, on the other side of the desk at the last parent-teacher night. The way she had smiled at Zac and talked about her own sons was more real than the pixels on the screen. A woman she had only met once.

  Hannah made herself read on. The email finished by advising that a memorial would be held for teachers, children and family lost once the school reopened. Like a note sent home that the Sports Carnival was coming up, or Tuesday would be mufti day. Her inbox still held five more emails that she knew would be like this. To even look at the subject lines brought to mind Victorian mourning announcements, black bordered and florid. They formed an unseemly deluge of memorial services, as if everyone realised that if they didn’t lock in a time next week, the best slots would be gone. When she had read them all, with their bold typefaces and their funeral director approved phrases, she wiped her face, breathed. Her head felt as if it was crushing in, as if the act of crying had desiccated her.

  She gave herself permission to go to the kitchen for a glass of water. In the small hall just outside the bathroom, she passed Sean. He whispered conspiratorially, ‘What are we going to do about Oscar’s teacher?’

  ‘Not her too?’ Mrs Gleeson’s face was in front of her, her way of smiling when she was annoyed, the after school conferences about Oscar’s misbehaviour. Someone she never really knew. ‘Do we tell him?’

  ‘He’s going to find out but I don’t know the right words. Or what to do, do we take him to the funeral?’