“Hi Mum, it’s Lucy.”
“Hello, sweetheart, where are you? Are you all right?”
“Yes and no. We’re at the petrol station at Little River. I’m almost out of petrol and they’ve run out here. I was hoping that Dad could come and get me and bring some petrol?”
“Oh no, out of petrol!”
“Yeah. There are a lot of angry people here.”
“Will you be all right?”
Lucy looked over at the crowd surrounding the poor attendant. Some of them were still yelling at him, but he was just shrugging helplessly and trying to back away from them.
“I think so. No one’s done anything stupid yet. I don’t envy the poor kid working here though.”
“Well, be careful, Lucy. Don’t get involved. Here’s your father.” Lucy could hear her mother murmuring to her father.
“Hi, Dad,” she said when he picked up the phone.
“Hello, pumpkin, what’s the matter? Your mother said you ran out of petrol.”
Lucy told him what she’d just told her mother.
“Are you in the actual town, or at the servo on the highway?”
“On the highway.”
“All right, hold tight, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Lucy moved her car out of the now useless line-up and parked next to the building. Some of the other people drove off after finding out there was no petrol left, but quite a few stayed. Lucy wondered why, then realised they were probably as stuck as she was. Her father wouldn’t get there for about two hours.
“Are you hungry?” Mitch asked. “I’m gonna go in and grab some food.”
“Yeah, a bit actually. I’ll come in with you.”
They got out of the car, Lucy locked it out of habit. She looked into the car parked next to them. A middle-aged lady was sitting there, crying. Lucy bit her lip, contemplating whether to say anything to the woman or not. Lucy hated it when people asked her if she was okay or all right when she was crying, when she obviously wasn’t. Whatever this woman’s problem was, there was most likely nothing Lucy would be able to do about it, and what was the point in interfering if she couldn’t do anything to fix it? It was probably the whole asteroid blowing everyone to smithereens thing that had her upset, and there was definitely nothing that Lucy could do about that.
She turned and followed Mitch through the automatic doors. The shelves looked a lot more depleted than they usually did. Lucy grabbed a packet of chips, a cold bottle of water, and an ice cream out of the freezer, and then joined the line-up of people waiting to pay. Looking around the shop as she stood in line, she noticed quite a few people who didn’t seem to bother with paying for their sweets or drinks. They just grabbed them off the shelf and with a furtive glance towards the harried cashier, walked outside. She raised her eyebrows at Mitch, who was hovering over the almost empty newspaper stand, but he just shrugged at her.
The woman in front of Lucy was taking a long time at the register.
“I don’t think it’s working,” the woman eventually said. The flustered cashier took the debit machine, looked at it and swore.
“Do you have cash?”
“No, I only have my cards.”
“Ah, just take it,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “All of you! Just take it! Take it all! I don’t even know why I’m here. Screw this for a joke.”
The man tore off his name tag, threw it in the bin and stormed out the back through the ‘Employees Only’ door. The lady in front of Lucy looked around in alarm. Lucy looked over at Mitch. He looked bemused. The cashier came back out and looked around at the startled patrons. He grabbed an armful of chips and chocolate bars, looked defiantly up at the security camera and walked out.
Lucy sidled over to Mitch.
“What do we do?”
“You heard the man. Just take it.”
“It feels wrong.”
“The world is ending, Lucy. It’s gonna get worse than this if they don’t figure things out.”
Lucy nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”
Mitch grabbed a couple more bottles of drink out of the fridge, elbowed his way to the freezer and pulled out a few of their favourite ice-creams.
“Never know when we’ll be able to get these again, better make the most of it while we still can,” he said in response to Lucy’s quizzical look.
Lucy picked up a few more things, paused in front of the register and left a $10 note.
“You know someone else is just going to take that,” Mitch chided her.
“It makes me feel better.”
They sat under the shade of one of the trees behind the service station quickly eating their ice creams before they melted, which was rapidly happening in the afternoon heat. Word of the free-for-all inside seemed to be spreading, and the stranded people were swarming in and out of the shop laden with food and to Lucy’s utter amusement, lottery scratchies.
After an hour and a half Lucy saw a familiar dirty blue ute drive in. She jumped up and waved at her father. She pointed towards her car. He parked opposite it and Lucy ran over and leapt into her father’s waiting arms. Her father’s arms had always been a safe place, somewhere no one could get her, and nothing could hurt her. Not anymore, but remnants of that childhood fantasy still clung, and his hug did make her feel better, at least for a few moments. After hugging her for several minutes, he patted her on the back and put her from him.
“All right, let’s get a move on, your mother’s anxious to get you home.”
“You got here quick,” Lucy said.
“Uh, I came the back way and may have taken a few liberties… ones that you will not repeat.”
“Do as I say, not as I do?”
“Exactly.”
Mitch coughed behind her.
“Oh! Dad, you remember Mitch, don’t you?” Lucy stepped back and pulled Mitch forward. “Mitch, this is my Dad, Bill. You met him at my birthday party a few years ago.”
The two men nodded and shook hands.
“Okay then, Mitch, can you carry this jerry can for me, I’ll take the other one.” Lucy rolled her eyes at her father’s back. She was perfectly capable of carrying a jerry can. She trailed after them as they took the cans over to her car. Her father had started pouring the petrol directly into her tank when the crying woman noticed him. Lucy watched as her eyes widened and she scrambled to get out of her car.
“Oh my god, please, please, can you please sell me some of that petrol?”
Bill looked sharply up at the woman, then warily around at everyone else. Lucy looked too, but no one else seemed to have noticed them yet.
“I’m sorry, this is for my daughter.”
“Please, I’m begging you, I’ll give you all my cash, I need the petrol.” The woman looked like she was about to start crying again.
“So does my daughter.”
“My mother, you see, my mother, she’s in a nursing home. I need to go and get her. All the staff have left. There’s no one there to look after her. I need to get her and bring her home. I need to get her.” The woman really was crying now.
Bill looked uneasily at the woman, then at Lucy.
“Dad… maybe… umm,” Lucy looked helplessly between her father and the distressed woman.
“Mitch, where do you live?” Bill asked.
“Just the other side of Geelong.”
“How about this. Mitch, I give you enough petrol to take Lucy’s car to your parent’s home and, Lucy, you can come home with me and, ma’am, I’ll give you the rest and you can go and get your mum.”
The woman blinked rapidly a few times then leapt forward and hugged Lucy’s father.
“God bless you! You’re a lifesaver! Thank you so much!” she exclaimed and went over to her car and pulled out her purse and a wad of fifty-dollar bills.
“No, no need for that.” Bill waved her away.
Lucy stood back beside Mitch as Bill helped the woman pour the petrol into her empty
tank.
“You’d better take good care of my car,” she said to Mitch.
“Don’t worry, I will. I’ll even wash it for you.”
“Good. ‘Cause I’ll be wanting it back when all this blows over.”
“Uh huh.”
A man wandered over just as Bill finished pouring the last of the petrol into the woman’s tank.
“Hey! Do you have petrol? I need some! My kids are at boarding school, I need to pick them up!”
“I’m sorry, mate, I don’t have any left.” Bill held his hands out. The man eyed the woman’s car.
“You should probably leave now,” Lucy muttered to the woman. She nodded and scampered around to the driver’s door, thanked them again and drove off.
The man swore.
“I hope you get your kids, I do, but I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
The man swore again and kicked Lucy’s tyre.
“Hey!” she exclaimed.
“Lucy,” Bill warned. “Mate,” he said to the man. “We’re all in the same boat. I’ve just come to get my own daughter,” Bill nodded towards Lucy.
“I know, I know, I just…” the man let out a frustrated growl and stalked off.
Lucy warily watched the man, but no one else approached them. She opened the back door of her car, pulled out her two bags and put them in the back of her father’s ute.
“Okay. Well.” She handed Mitch her keys. “Be careful.”
Mitch slowly reached out and took them.
“Yeah. Thanks. You too.” He looked down at his feet, then up at the sky. “Keep in touch okay?”
Lucy nodded and after a slight hesitation, leant in and gave him a hug.
“It’s not the end. It can’t be,” Mitch whispered, and then let her go.
Bill offered Mitch his hand again. “Take care of yourself, Mitch.”
“I will, sir. Uh, thanks for coming to our rescue. And I’ll take good care of Lucy’s car ’til this all blows over and she can come and get it.”
Bill nodded. Lucy waved as she climbed into the ute, and kept waving as her dad started the engine and drove off down the highway.
“How are you, Lucy?” her father asked once they’d been driving for a while and Lucy’s eyes were dry again.
“I don’t know, Dad.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Present…
The dining room was rarely used. When Lucy was a child, the large, bright room with its huge mahogany table had only been used on special occasions; Christmas, Easter, and the odd dinner party her parents had thrown for their friends or visiting relatives. As a family they had usually eaten in the warm, cozy kitchen, seated around the old wooden table that Bill had inherited from his great-grandfather.
Tonight they sat in the dining room.
The large table was heavily laden with mounds of delicious looking food. The table was set for three with the family’s best china dishes and bowls, and the good silver cutlery that had been a wedding present when Lucy’s grandparents married. A sudden memory of summer mornings spent polishing the silver under her grandmother’s demanding gaze flashed through Lucy’s mind. Lucy sat in the seat her grandmother had always occupied and took a deep breath. Her mouth started salivating immediately and her stomach grumbled loudly.
“This smells delicious, Mum,” Lucy told Liz when she came into the room carrying the last dish from the kitchen.
“Thanks, love, I hope it tastes as good.”
“I don’t even know where to start.” Bill sat down at the head of the table and eyed the table with a gleaming eye.
Once they were all seated, they paused and looked around at each other.
“I feel like we should say something,” Liz said.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Bill stood up and went to the wine cabinet that had always been out of bounds to Lucy and Claire. He fumbled with the key that was kept hanging next to the cabinet. Lucy had always wondered at her father’s security sensibilities. He carefully pulled out a dusty bottle and placed it on the table in front of Lucy. She eyed it. Penfolds Grange. Expensive.
“Wow, Dad. Going out in style!”
“I bought this the year you were born. I was going to give it to you on your 30th birthday.”
“Wow, Dad,” Lucy repeated. “I hope it’s not corked,” she added with a grin.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Liz handed him the bottle opener. He wrestled with the cork, and then took an appreciative sniff of the wine. He reached over and went to pour Lucy the first glass.
“Wait, shouldn’t we decant it?” Liz stopped him.
“Too right, love. Where’s the decanter?”
“In here somewhere.” Liz crouched down in front of the crystal cabinet that was full of inherited crystal. Lucy had never bothered to give her parents wine glasses for Christmas -they could stock an antique store with the amount of crystal that had ended up in their house, it had trickled down from various grandparents, great-grandparents and spinster great-aunts.
“Aha!” Liz carefully manoeuvred the decanter from the back of the cabinet and managed not to knock anything else over. “Here we go.”
Lucy watched as her father carefully poured the bottle into the old decanter.
“How long are we meant to wait?” Lucy eyed the wine, and then looked at the food.
“No idea. Liz?” Bill looked over at his wife. Liz just shrugged.
“You can see we got a lot of use out of that decanter. I think Auntie Mildred gave it to us as a wedding present.”
“This is when I’d normally Google the answer.” Lucy looked at the now useless computer that she could half-see through the door and sighed.
“I think it will be fine.” Liz reached for the decanter and poured them all a glass. She held her glass up. Lucy and Bill followed suit.
“To my wonderful husband and my darling daughters and grandsons.” The three of them clinked glasses and muttered cheers and took a sip. The wine danced across her tongue.
Bill coughed, and then held his glass up again.
“I’d like to say something before we eat, if you don’t mind.” Lucy and her mother both nodded. “I don’t know what our world is going to look like tomorrow, or if we’ll be here or not to see it. I hope that we will be, but… well, in case we’re not…
“Liz, you’ve been my rock for almost 35 years. I didn’t think it would be possible, but I love you even more now than I did on our wedding day, and you grow ever more beautiful with each passing year. You’ve inspired me and supported me and I couldn’t have asked for a better wife or partner in life.
“Lucy, I couldn’t be prouder of you. You’ve grown from my little imp into a beautiful young woman. I always knew you had a good head on your shoulders, but how you’ve handled yourself over the past couple of months has really confirmed it in my mind. I am one lucky father to have a daughter like you. And Claire.
“Claire… it goes without saying that we miss her terribly, and wish that we could have spent these past harrowing months with her and our grandkids. But life doesn’t always work out the way we want it, obviously, and now we…” Bill paused and took a deep breath.
“We hope that she’s okay, our Claire, and that she knows that we’re thinking of her and love her very much.” Bill stopped and took a big gulp of wine.
“I’m sure she does, Dad.”
“All right, let’s tuck in before all this wonderful food gets cold.”
Lucy piled up her plate with a little bit of everything (except the roast pumpkin) and a lot of the lasagne. Her mouth started watering and her stomach grumbled again. She suddenly realised she hadn’t really eaten anything yet today, apart from a small bite of Tim’s bread and an apple. Earlier she’d wondered how criminals on Death Row could possibly eat with their impending demise staring them in the face, but now she understood. This was probably - despite what her father thought and hoped for - the last time she was going to get to eat. Like the ride home, she wanted to savour it and appreciate it. She loa
ded up her fork with a large portion of lasagne and shoved it in her mouth. It was as delicious as it always was. The three of them ate in silence for a few minutes, too occupied with all the food in front of them to speak.
“Mum, Dad, I just wanted to say something…” Liz and Bill both put their knives and forks down and looked at her attentively. “This is probably going to sound totally sappy, but I want to say it anyway.” Lucy paused and took a sip of wine followed by a gulp of water.
“Thanks for being such great parents. I couldn’t have asked for better. I know I was a horrible toddler and a bit of a…challenge… when I was a teenager, and I’m sorry for being such a brat, but I really do appreciate all that you’ve done for me and taught me over the years and I know Claire would say the same if she were here too. Actually, no, she’d say it heaps better than I am but I… yeah, well, just thanks. I love you both.” Lucy looked up at her parents. Her mother looked like she was about to cry.
“Mum, don’t cry. That was about the worst speech ever in the history of speeches.”
“No, it was lovely. Thank you, sweetheart.” Liz sniffed and wiped her eyes. Bill leaned over and patted her on the shoulder.
They continued to eat until they were all full, chatting about this and that, steering away from anything asteroid or end of the world related. After polishing off two full plates, Lucy patted her full belly in contentment, and then squeezed in one last spoonful of sticky date pudding.
“Mmm, that was great, Mum!”
“I’m glad.”
“Looks like the dogs are in for a treat,” Bill observed, looking over the table. They’d all eaten more than their fill but the three of them had made barely a dent in the food. There was enough there to feed a small army.
“It almost feels like a waste, but then I think…” Liz stopped and let her breath out. She stood up and started gathering their plates.
The Last Day on Earth Page 6