‘I see. You won’t give us a hand, because your hands are all tied up grasping at posterity.’
Curtis seemed unmoved. ‘I’m filming for my usual imagined audience, people who know and understand me already, and who’ll be interested in what I’ll have to show them.’
‘Wrong-headed Theresa and her misled crew?’
Curtis just shook his head and raised his camera between them.
*
After a time the survivors were so used to what they were doing that they scarcely reacted to anything they found. They didn’t shed tears or shut their eyes, but they never stopped being shocked by these illustrations to grotesque stories. The greater their puzzlement, the more a cold forensic need to know would kick in, as if, by unravelling the events at 16 Bowen Grove, or 71 Haven Road, it would be possible to come to some understanding.
Theresa in particular kept thinking that if only she could keep her cool, she could make a pact with the parade of horrible facts. If her gaze remained unflinching and her head clear then the catastrophe might explain itself—for these corpses were its piecemeal speech, and perhaps it was possible to piece everything together and understand what it all meant.
While the teams were moving from house to house, car to car, street to street, Dan was busy using the digger to make graves. He was forced to dig at widely separate locations, for there was a shortage of flat, open, and unsealed land in Kahukura. He dug one long trench in the lawn at Mary Whitaker, and another in the little park behind the public restrooms; another was in an empty lot, two more on the school’s playing field.
They gave up their wariness after only a few days on their grisly job. Bub stopped carrying his jack handle. Theresa holstered her gun, and then took it off altogether. It turned out that Bub and William had managed to gather all the dogs, and there was only one occasion when Theresa’s team went into a house and was startled by a trapped and maddened cat. After all, houses had cat doors. The cats were often to be found still at home, sitting in a favourite chair with their feet tucked under them, too distraught to curl up and sleep, too hungry and exhausted to prowl about—and waiting patiently for something to change for the better.
So—there were the cats, but apart from that the houses were quiet. If the front door was locked the team would assume the house was empty. Since the power was on, any alarms would be armed and they didn’t want to have to deal with that. Those houses were left undisturbed. There were one or two places where the smell of death was accompanied by a scent of scorched metal, and they would find some overworked heater, though it had been a sunny spring morning. All these things provided signs if not of life then of things still happening—a heater creaking as its thermostat switched it on again in the cold breeze from a newly opened door; a refrigerator shivering into its cooling cycle; a cat jumping off a chair and running under a couch to cower while someone coaxed it, making kissing noises through their mask, and beckoning with gloved fingers.
Bub traipsed back and forth through the house, opening cabinets. Belle told him to mind his feet, she’d just cleaned there. Bub said, ‘We’ve got more bodies than heads,’ and started looking behind the cushions on the couch.
Belle watched this for a time, wondering at it. What was he seeing that she couldn’t? The house was tidy, pristinely clean, its furnishings colour-coordinated, haphazard only in one square metre—the crowded corkboard in the kitchen. There was a place for everything, and—Belle suddenly understood—that was why Bub was searching for something tucked out of sight, at the last minute, as if at the sound of a knock on the door of the kind of dinner guest who arrives too early.
Bub was checking behind the curtains now, moving them with his elbows. His hands were gloved, but the gloves were spotted with gore. He said, ‘I’ll look in the bedrooms again,’ and set off upstairs.
In the living room, William was picking up teeth. He gathered them in the palm of one gloved hand and tipped them into the shroud, where they made a small pile that nestled up against the neck of the body.
Belle stepped up to take a photograph of the smashed face. She put her camera down and wrote the woman’s name and address, and the names of her two children—Ashley and Oliver—on a sheet of paper, using an indelible marking pen. She opened one of the ziplock bags they’d salvaged from the supermarket, and slipped the paper inside. She gave the bag to William, who fastened it to Robyn Clark’s shirt with a safety pin.
Belle stepped back and got Robyn Clark framed again, making sure the woman’s ID was visible. She took another photo.
Upstairs the small unfussy amount of noise Bub was making stopped altogether. There was a short, contemplative silence, then, ‘Okay. I’ve got it.’
Sam carried the woman’s smaller child into the living room and laid it on her lap, feet touching her knees and head resting on her belly. William and Sam carefully closed the sheet and fastened it with pink binder twine.
Sam and William picked up the bundle and carried it out to the ute. Bub followed with the body of the older child—one part bundled in a sheet, the other in a knotted pillowslip.
Belle finished wiping down the kitchen and used a box cutter to remove the patch of sticky, darkened carpet. She pushed the stiff square of hacked-off carpet into a rubbish bag, twisted the bag’s top, tied it, and set it down by the gate as they were leaving. They would come back later for rubbish, which they were burying separately. Belle retrieved her bucket and rags and cleaning products, closed the front door and took a photo of the house, with the letterbox clearly visible in the foreground. In the evenings, she and Warren would load the data from their cameras onto two separate computers. Each file of images had a name. A name like Haven Road, numbers 31–77.
Lily flashed across a distant intersection. Bub looked up and stumbled. One of the bundles he was carrying came apart in his hands and dropped with sodden thumps onto the road. William, without comment, fetched another sheet and spread it on the ground. He and Bub got down on their knees to gather up what had fallen. They filled the sheet and lifted it into the tray of the ute. The tray was full so they drove off to the latest grave—an empty swimming pool at the Bayside Motel.
Theresa’s team was there already, unloading. Theresa drew Bub and William aside, away from the margin of the blue-painted grave. She removed her goggles and pulled down her scarf. ‘We got to the last house on Orchard Road,’ she said. ‘How about you?’
‘There were only two houses on Stanislaw’s Close with bodies in them.’ William indicated the ute’s burden. ‘Plus a few in the street.’
Theresa pulled her hand-drawn map from her pocket and they bent over it together. Sam and Belle joined them. After a moment William said, ‘That leaves the daycare centre you found on day four.’
It was one of those private early childhood education centres, which is why Theresa hadn’t been aware of its existence, as she had the Area School’s. When she found it she had hurried through its rooms and seen only scattered toys, and no bodies. But there were a couple of dead adults lying in the backyard.
‘Let us take care of it,’ William said. He turned around and signalled to Jacob, who left off what he was doing and came over. ‘Can you and Warren help me and Bub with the bodies Theresa found in the daycare centre?’
‘Let’s not ask Warren. He’s been stoned for days. It’s his way of coping.’
‘You mean he’s not?’ Theresa said.
‘Not really.’
William said, ‘Three of us will be enough.’
Sam began wiping her eyes with her gory gloves.
‘Don’t do that,’ William told her. She didn’t seem to hear him, so he gently pinned her arms and held her still.
‘I’m not crying,’ Sam said, though she was. She had been a steady, stalwart, tireless worker. She’d sometimes needed to be reminded what she was about, but she hadn’t shirked or cracked—till now. ‘Have we finished?’ she asked.
‘We have,’ Theresa said.
‘Go home to the spa,’ said Bub to Belle. ‘Have a nice relaxing bath.’
Belle gave a cracked laugh. ‘Home.’
The daycare centre was in a quiet cul-de-sac and looked like any other house, but with sturdier fences and, in its front yard, a wealth of brilliant plastic playground equipment.
William went in first, Bub and Jacob following. William opened the front door, immediately flinched from the smell, and stepped onto Jacob’s foot.
There was always something new, some further subtle initiation into the job they had set out to do. William took a whiff of the air indoors, and despite the Vicks VapoRub coating his top lip he discovered something that seemed to fly to the centre of his skull and roost there—evil, soft, silent, usurping.
The smell of decay was thin and different, sweeter, as if what was spoiled was more vegetable than meat.
They retreated, tearing off their masks. Jacob draped himself over the plastic slide and hid his face in the crook of one elbow. Bub retched a few times, then kicked the playground bark chips over the patch of watery vomit. William hung on the fence and sucked in cold air scented with the gingery perfume of a flowering magnolia.
Someone was standing across the road watching them.
‘Look,’ William said. He didn’t turn to the others—didn’t dare take his eyes off the figure in black clothes. ‘Hey, Bub,’ he said. ‘It’s him, your firefighter.’
Bub wiped his mouth and came over. ‘Where the hell has he been hiding?’ It was four weeks since the man had helped Bub put out the fire on Haven Road.
The man crossed the street. He stopped at the gate, pushed it, then, when it didn’t yield, he looked at the childproof catch and—after a moment where it seemed he was working it out—he lifted the catch’s sprung plunger, pushed the gate open, and came in. He took in the sheets laid out ready on the ground. Then he looked into each of their faces. His expression was compassionate. It made William feel feeble, then grateful—then very suspicious.
The man went up the steps and into the building.
They followed him, and found him standing in a quiet, stinking room. He looked puzzled.
The room was redolent of decay, but there were no bodies visible. The floor of the main room was littered with books and blocks and scattered Duplo, and flat cars, trucks, trains, cakes, cows, and every other category of thing from spilled wooden puzzles.
William leaned through the kitchen hatchway. He saw that the floor was covered in pots, pans, broken crockery.
The man opened the door to the nursery. More sweet bad air billowed out. The tangle of bedding and mattresses appeared unsullied. The room was silent. The building’s windows and doors had been closed and the flies hadn’t got in.
For a moment or two they stood, exchanging looks. And then the stranger stooped, hooked his finger into the catch of a cupboard and pulled it open.
The children had been tidied away, like their toys. Everywhere, what belonged in cupboards was on the floor, and what didn’t belong was stuffed into cupboards, and into the big pot drawers in the kitchen, into the pantry, and behind the sliding doors where puzzles were normally shelved.
William looked in horror, then mercifully remembered then that no one had suffered long; how, after that first hour, everyone who wasn’t killed had simply keeled over as if at a signal. A signal, he thought, and his brain started up again. He recommenced thinking where he’d left off three weeks before, when they’d embarked on the urgent and reasonable task of taking care of the dead.
The black man was carefully prying a body free. He handled it gingerly and gently.
‘You probably shouldn’t be doing that with bare hands,’ Bub said, and then, when he didn’t get a reaction, he went out and found a pair of rubber gloves and offered them to the man. The man laid the little body down on the piled toys, and pulled the gloves on.
Back at the spa the others did what they always did at the end of each day: they trooped into the industrial laundry and stripped. Holly used tongs to lift their overalls and masks into the washing machines. She set about rinsing their gloves. They put on the spa’s thick white towelling robes and picked their way through rain puddles to the side door. They went to their rooms and showered, soaked, shampooed, showered some more. They washed the menthol rub from their raw nostrils, then went downstairs and poured themselves drinks. Except Theresa, who went straight to bed, flanked by a hot water bottle, and the big labradoodle.
Oscar posted himself at the foot of the stairs. When Belle appeared he followed her into the dining room, talking. ‘You’re back early. What’s up? Warren is wasted, and Theresa looks squashed flat. Sam came in from feeding cats then went out to the garden—she’s still out there, floating about. Where are the other guys?’
Kate came to the door of the dining room and said that dinner was ready—then went to the foot of the stairs to call.
Oscar followed Belle into the dining room and pulled out a chair for her.
She said, ‘Bub, William and Jacob are doing what, with any luck, will be the last horrible job. Don’t crowd them when they come in.’
‘Am I what passes for a crowd around here?’ Oscar felt he was being fobbed off. The adults were all forming shells. There were times now when they wouldn’t just postpone talking to him; they’d not even meet his eyes.
It was after midnight when the men returned. Oscar was on the veranda, waiting for them, eager to count them all in, like bombers after a raid. Holly had waited up to wash their clothes, Belle to serve them dinner. And Sam was just there, in the shadowy atrium, awake, and sometimes spinning to inaudible music.
When the headlights of the Holden showed on the driveway, Oscar hurried out, for it was his job to hose down the ute. He uncoiled the hose, but the men got out of the cab and stayed, leaning on the side of the tray in a way that made Oscar think, for an icy moment, that they were hiding something there.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ Jacob said, nonsensically.
‘That’s okay,’ said Oscar, and continued to wait for them to move.
Bub said to Jacob and William, ‘No one else needs to know what happened to those kids. We’ve buried them—okay?—and we can burn the building down.’
‘What happened to them?’ Oscar asked, but they wouldn’t even look at him. ‘Hang on, are you talking about that daycare centre? I thought there weren’t any kids there.’
Jacob continued to ignore Oscar and said to Bub, ‘If anyone asks we can make stuff up.’
Belle came down the steps and told them to please come in out of the cold. She tried to take Bub’s hand, but he drew away from her. ‘Don’t touch me. I’m covered in filth.’
‘Was it bad after all?’ Belle asked. Then, when she got no answer, ‘For heaven’s sake, come indoors.’
Jacob slogged off in the direction of the laundry and, after a moment, the other two followed, Bub stumbling with tiredness.
By the time they’d stripped and wrapped themselves in robes they were docile, and half asleep. They went upstairs, showered, and Bub went straight to bed. Jacob and William reappeared and sat in the dining room, and Holly served them. She spooned chilli into bowls and passed them buttered wedges of cornbread. Jacob’s hands were shaking. ‘It’s just as well this is spoon food,’ he said, and smiled at Holly.
Oscar went into the kitchen to make coffee. The espresso machine was off, but there was a six-cup Moka on the back of the stove.
Belle came in with dishes. She said, ‘Perhaps I should get into bed beside Bub tonight.’
Oscar’s ears began to burn.
Belle went on, musing. ‘This isn’t just exhaustion. He’s climbing inside himself. Theresa’s coming down with something, but her spirit isn’t going to break. She’ll get sick for a bit and we’ll make her stay in bed. Bub isn’t going to get sick. He’s too tough for that. Instead
he’s going to go all remote, and we can’t have that.’
‘Whereas it’s perfectly all right for Lily to be doing laps of the bypass, rain or shine?’ said Oscar.
‘Staying in shape is Lily’s bottom line—it was before all this.’
Oscar asked Belle what her bottom line was.
‘My kakapo. They’re eight per cent of all the kakapo in the world.’
Oscar filled a milk jug and grabbed a handful of paper sugar straws. He looked around for a tray and asked Belle if she knew where Holly was keeping them now. ‘She keeps reorganising stuff. It’s a nervous thing, I guess, but I worry about it. If you were here all day like I am you’d be worrying about it too.’
‘People have different ways of coping,’ Belle said, then went back to what was on her mind. ‘So—do you think I should climb into bed with Bub?’
‘Um—yes,’ said Oscar. He didn’t want to discourage anyone from asking his opinion.
Belle relaxed, then said, ‘Last time I looked the trays were in that skinny cupboard by the dishwasher.’
Once they were back in the dining room and Oscar was pouring coffee, Belle said, ‘You should hit the sack, Oscar.’
He went off, walking backwards, saying he’d be up early and he’d see them at breakfast.
As Oscar climbed the stairs William called out after him, ‘We’re sleeping in.’
‘Quick save,’ said Jacob.
Belle realised that William and Jacob had been making a pretence of having recovered their spirits. She could see the strain of it in their eyes.
Jacob pulled her down into the chair beside him.
Holly had begun to clear away. William invited her to sit too, then, when she misinterpreted his invitation as politeness and shook her head, he said, ‘Sit down, Holly.’
Holly looked put-upon, but pulled out a chair and perched.
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