Soon

by Lois Murphy

  I sit on 130 the whole way, the engine wailing. I keep the radio on, to keep track of the time through the news updates, not wanting to risk taking my eyes off the road for a second, not even to glance at my watch. Gina has caught my sense of urgency and she fidgets, looking first out of the windscreen, then turning to the passenger window, as if continually gauging our progress. As we fly past our usual rest stop she throws me a puzzled expression.

  When we reach the Nebulah turn-off I still have the headlights off, but the light is starting to fade. We have about ten minutes to spare.

  At Milly’s I screech into the long driveway and pull up right at the front door, don’t bother going round the back, there’s no time. I grab the esky and whatever shopping bags I can reach and sprint up the front steps just as the sun drops completely behind the trees, which start to writhe with sunset murmurings.

  None of the curtains are shut and the house is open. I dump the esky in the hall and slam the door behind Gina. I check the back door and pull the curtains on that side of the house, then see to the ones in the lounge before heading into the light of the kitchen.

  Milly is on the phone. I try to catch her eye, mouth ‘Liz?’, but she keeps her eyes down and won’t look at me. Outside the mist has already built to a howl. I pull the kitchen curtains as Milly says into the phone, ‘Yes, he’s here now. Would you like to speak to him? No, actually, I think I’d like to speak to him first.’ She sounds unusual, there is a touch of strain to her; she is conclusive, almost harsh. ‘Well, I can’t really thank you for calling or say that I’ve enjoyed talking to you. But it’s been most interesting.’

  By now I’m intrigued. I’m pulling a beer from the fridge, still hyped from the rush, when Milly puts the phone down. Only then does she meet my eye. ‘You made it,’ she says flatly.

  ‘Just. Who was that?’

  ‘Your friend. The “mind-reader”. The one you find so convincing.’ She entwines her fingers and places her hands firmly on the benchtop. It is through the preciseness of this gesture that I can tell how angry she is.

  ‘We had a most charming conversation. She said that I will be responsible for killing you.’

  I take a long pull on the beer. I say, carefully neutral, ‘Yes, she’s told me that too.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  Outside there are fingernails scraping at the window and a frenzied scratching at the back door. Laughter rises. Neither of us moves to turn the radio on. It is the background noise we need for this conversation.

  I clear my throat. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘You’ve met her once, when she almost got you killed, and you’re willing to believe any unfounded, malicious thing she says. Sorry – predicts.’

  ‘She’s not like that. She’s … normal.’ I’m struggling. Outside there’s a shriek.

  ‘Normal,’ repeats Milly. ‘Ordinary.’

  ‘Sane.’

  She won’t play. I have never seen her like this, her face is grey and stretched tight. ‘I wouldn’t have believed you could be so underhanded, keeping this sort of thing from me.’ She delivers each word with deliberation. ‘I have never asked you to stay here with me and I have certainly never asked you to martyr yourself for me. How many other people have you discussed your noble sacrifice with, going valiantly to your doom because of a stubborn, selfish old woman who doesn’t know what’s good for her?’

  ‘You’re overreacting.’

  ‘No, I’m reacting. I’m furious and disgusted, and tomorrow you’re packing your bags.’

  ‘I won’t go without you.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do. Move back to your own place if you’re too stupid to leave town, but you’re not sacrificing yourself for me any longer.’

  Outside there’s another howl and a thump that shakes the house. The laughter starts anew, shrieking and gleeful. Gina starts to pace and whimper.

  I look down at her. My stomach lurches. ‘Milly …’

  ‘I won’t be accused. I won’t be seen as a death warrant. If you stay here, it has nothing to do with me.’

  I turn on the radio to drown out the noise and Milly raises her voice. ‘More than capable of looking after myself,’ she’s saying, and then she suddenly stops as I kneel beside Gina, who’s trembling and whimpering, her ears flat. And the radio isn’t quite loud enough to drown out the noises from outside, as she realises that the phone call that upset her so much had distracted her from Felix, who was outside, asleep in the ute, when darkness fell.

  PART

  FIVE

  I don’t mind the cold of the winter nights, even the streetlights are still a novelty. I get a kick out of the biting air, being out in the darkness, with the humid warmth from a steaming parcel of fish and chips, deliciously vinegary. I’ve taken to finding excuses to go out for something just on dark: a newspaper, milk, rollie papers. It’s not a long walk from Sean’s to the shop, but it’s not exercise I’m after. It’s the sense of freedom, still so new, and such a celebration.

  Once I get back to Sean’s, Milly and I will wrap ourselves in blankets and sit outside to eat, even though it means our food is instantly tepid from the cooling evening air. There aren’t many stars to see so close to the centre of town, but we silently acknowledge the need to get ourselves out into the dark, recondition ourselves to living normal lives. Otherwise we’d continue as before, holed up like moles, nervous and, in hindsight, probably stir-crazy.

  Milly is already in position on the back deck when I get there, wrapped in her doona with a beanie pulled down over her ears, a glass of wine in front of her and a beer ready for me. Sauce, lemon wedges, salt and pepper. Even a candle. Little things. For us, fish and chips is a special meal, a treat to be savoured. We frequently assert how bad it is for us, swear off it, and still succumb to it every second night. The salty taste of civilisation.

  We left Nebulah the same morning I buried the little that remained of Felix, Milly too limp with grief and guilt to resist. Strike while the iron’s hot, was my thinking, grim but determined. Poor old Felix. But he’d been the linchpin I’d needed and I wasn’t averse to making sure his death wasn’t in vain. You see, I was geared up to say, see how easy it is to be careless, and it only has to happen once. No second chances. But I’d spare her the details of how he died; I couldn’t be that callous.

  But after all these months of resistance, I didn’t even have to say anything. The instant she realised she’d left Felix outside in the mist, she knew she was lost. She had no chance of asserting safety or survival after that. Felix had been her responsibility, her devoted pet. And I was getting desperate: I wasn’t prepared to offer placations, or say that his death wasn’t her fault.

  She’d spent that night sitting rigid on the couch, her hands clasped like claws in her lap. No tears, no pills. I tried to sit up with her at first, but the day had been too much for me and I staggered off to bed around midnight, to spend a hellish night filled with hunks of rotting fish, writhing between the jaws of a dirt-encrusted dog. I woke up feeling demented, worn to the point of collapse; much more and I’d be joining Rolf. That was when I determined that Felix wasn’t going to have died for nothing.

  But my carefully rehearsed speeches were never given. When I shuffled out into the kitchen I found the cupboard doors open, and most of the food already sorted for packing. A suitcase and a box of books waited by the door.

  Milly’s face was grey, her eyes huge dark pits. ‘There’s coffee on the stove,’ she said.

  I poured myself a cup, strong and black. ‘Did you sleep at all?’

  She shrugged, shook her head tensely. ‘Don’t think I’ll be sleeping for a while,’ she said softly.

  ‘Milly, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Yes you do. Only you know you don’t need to. That would just be cruel.’ She bent and peered into the cupboard by the stove. ‘I guess we won’t be needing the saucepans for now. Come back for them when we’re settled somewhere.’ She trailed off. There was a patc
h of weak winter light which had peeped around the corner of the unopened curtains, gleaming faintly on the benchtop beside her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  She turned to me, her face utterly bereft. ‘No,’ she said. ‘My dog. I’m a coward. I haven’t even been outside to check.’

  ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘I have no right to ask you to.’

  ‘Forget it.’ I cleared my throat, awkward. ‘Can you keep Gina in here?’

  ‘God, of course.’ She beckoned Gina over and hooked her fingers through her collar, scratching her neck, then she straightened up again. ‘I’m so sorry I’m asking you to do this.’

  ‘Just keep packing. As long as you keep packing, that’s all you need to worry about.’

  I buried what remained of Felix under a tall, stately gum, the kind of tree that would be an interesting conversationalist if it had the power of speech. I had to use the hose and the outside broom to clean off the back door, the coffee sour in my gullet. I was glad of my empty stomach.

  We didn’t take very much: the food, some clothes and bedding, papers and books. By lunchtime we were loaded up, Gina already in position, although subdued, in the passenger seat. We left in convoy, me tailing Milly’s ute. As we turned from the driveway she didn’t slow or look back.

  At our rest stop she watched Gina sniff around the scrub and her hands shook.

  ‘Well,’ she said, raising her coffee cup. ‘That’s that, then.’

  ‘A beginning as well as an end.’

  She flung the dregs from her cup. ‘Oh, it’s an end, all right. It’s over.’

  That was over three weeks ago, and things are okay. We’ve avoided the question of where we will live, or how. The chances of finding a rental affordable for two pensioners, even in Woodford, are pretty slim. Our two homes, looked after and loved, worth nothing at all. I have no idea what we will do. But we have Sean’s for nearly another month, plenty of time to worry. For now, we are revelling in fish and chips, and suburban evenings spent sitting outside, Gina still unsure and alert to every movement. The noise of people; distant laughter that doesn’t make your blood run cold.

  I ring Alex. Solstice is three days away. Her relief is palpable.

  ‘Couldn’t have you lose another old man,’ I tell her.

  ‘Thank God,’ she repeats over and over. I couldn’t really have asked for more.

  I ring Alice too, but only get her answering machine. I remember she’ll be well into exams, is probably snowed under. I leave a brief message, just asking her to call when she can.

  Liz cries for Felix in the same way she grieved over Li. Always extremes. She’s been advised by social services it could take over a year to provide her with state housing. I have plenty of time to worry about that sort of thing. It’s a grim thought, and one that makes me feel extremely lucky.

  Saturday 20 June dawns cold and wet. We sit by the open front door, watching the rain through the steam from our coffee, our picnic packed and ready and now forlorn on the kitchen bench. Not long after our arrival we’d wandered past the nearby school at lunchtime, and the noise of children playing was intoxicating. We breathed it in, filling our souls in the way that people rescued from drowning gulp to fill their lungs. The sounds of children, snatches of music from passing car stereos. People jogging, people with noisy leaf blowers, with prams and bags of shopping and screaming toddlers, anything. We started to feel drunk with the unaccustomed movement, the energy and the noise, realising with a start just how vacant our lives had been, confinement notwithstanding. The lack of company we’ve suffered, that basic human contact, however brief or fleeting, hits us with a force obvious in hindsight, but unexpectedly affecting.

  We discovered the urge to get out, to be around company, and had taken to spending time at the riverside barbecues and picnic benches, lolling close to groups and bathing in the sounds of families at play together. We spent our first weekend at the local park, with sandwiches and a thermos of tea like a pair of displaced grandparents, watching parents cheer junior football matches, clustered in groups to laugh and barrack. Couples wandered past, and women with kids who chased the seagulls unendingly. It was all magic.

  Birds.

  Milly’s book lay unheeded in her lap as we soaked up our surroundings like the sun’s rays. It went without saying that Saturday’s picnic lunch was already prepared and packed before we turned in on Friday night.

  But now the rain, driving and insistent. There would be no family outings, no barbecues.

  ‘Bugger,’ Milly curses, the prospect of a day cosily confined unappealing now that our world has expanded. We regard each other with shamefaced disappointment. By lunchtime the rain still isn’t letting up, and we’ve accepted defeat. Milly has settled with David Copperfield for probably the hundredth time, and I’ve rummaged through Sean’s hall cupboard and found a 1500-piece jigsaw, a tiny distant villa surrounded by acres of autumn leaves. I’ve spread it over the dining table and am halfway through sorting it into edgy bits and middle bits, thinking about the egg sandwiches wrapped in the fridge, and perhaps a beer, when my mobile shrills. I’m not in the mood, but when I check it the display says it’s Alice. The day brightens.

  ‘Hey,’ she sings to my greeting. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Paradise. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at your place.’

  I feel a chill like a hand with long cold fingers. ‘What?’

  ‘In Nebulah. Where are you?’

  ‘In Woodford. With Milly.’

  ‘You’re joking! That explains why the place is all shut up. I was panicking a bit there.’

  ‘What are you doing there? Why didn’t you call?’

  ‘Well, it was a whim thing, really. As soon as I finished exams we decided to take off, left last night in a rush, stayed with friends in Mandurah, and now here we are!’

  ‘You should have rung first. We’re at Sean’s for the time being, but there’s probably enough room for you.’

  There’s a short, uncomfortable pause. ‘Um, there’s five of us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a group of us. I thought maybe we could stay at Li’s place.’

  ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘Well,’ she starts to hedge, ‘when I got back to Perth I was talking about what I experienced here, you know, the figures and the poem. And a few people were really interested. My friend Alan is Cambodian as well, so he was pretty taken with what happened, and Xandrea is an expert at supernatural phenomena.’

  ‘An expert?’

  ‘She’s a medium. Don’t laugh.’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘Don’t be all cynical. There are people around who are tuned in to these things, like a special frequency. Xandrea’s a really powerful witch, and she thinks she can translate what’s happening with the mist, she was totally unfazed by what I told her. I know you probably won’t believe me.’

  I feel like a complete hypocrite, but I’m also angry. ‘Who are the others? Witch’s apprentices?’

  She ignores this. ‘Rob’s my … friend, and Polly is studying the occult with Xandrea.’

  ‘The occult. With Xandrea.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. I’d have thought you of all people would be open-minded. She thinks she’ll be able to help.’

  ‘I am open-minded, but I’m also familiar with Nebulah. Believe me when I tell you she won’t be helping.’

  Her voice is small. ‘You sound angry.’

  I take a breath. ‘I won’t be when you’re safe in Woodford. I’ll book you some rooms at the motel. Two? Three?’

  There’s an awkward pause. I can hear muttering. A woman’s voice says, ‘I haven’t driven all this way to stay in a friggin motel in Woodford’. Alice covers the phone, then returns a moment later. ‘Um,’ she says, ‘everyone really wants to stay on here.’

  ‘Alice, you can’t be serious. Nebulah isn’t a holiday destination.’

  ‘Well, it’s just. You know. It didn
’t seem that bad to me when I was here.’

  ‘That’s because it wanted you to come back.’

  She takes this the wrong way. ‘Really? Well, I wanted to come back too. I guess I felt that connection.’

  ‘Alice, for God’s sake, it was seducing you.’

  ‘It was like that. But it was magical, a really affecting experience. To be honest, quite lovely. I feel like it’s unfinished, like there’s more it wants to tell me. And Xandrea’s pretty sure she’ll be able to communicate with it.’

  I think I hate this Xandrea. ‘Alice, this isn’t some gentle northern breeze whispering sweet nothings. It’s deadly. It kills people.’

  ‘Xandrea thinks we’ll be all right as long as we don’t intrude on it. She’s pretty experienced.’

  ‘Experienced? She’s seen people torn apart before?’

  She’s getting miffed. ‘We’re not stupid. We’ll be careful, stay safe.’

  ‘Where will you do that?’

  ‘I’d thought Li’s. Or maybe Milly’s?’

  ‘No way,’ I say to Alice. ‘Be prepared to leave. I’ll be there in less than three hours.’

  I hang up, aware of my blood thumping in my ears. I’m so angry I feel like putting my fist through the window. So much for hating violence. Milly is standing by the couch watching me, her book hanging at her side. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Alice is at your place with an action team led by some flake who calls herself Xandrea. They’re expecting a spiritual evening, a bit of om shanti and a nice chat with the mist.’

  ‘Alice? Surely she’s too bright for that?’

  ‘Remember the night she was with us? It hooked her, reeled her in. Singing Cambodian poetry, all that chanting. It was after her. Hook, line and sinker.’ I can’t believe how stupid we were to let her stay.

  ‘Where are my keys?’ I still haven’t got any better at them.

  Milly limps to the stereo and picks up my keys but doesn’t hand them to me. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘There’s still time. I can’t leave her in the hands of some moron who claims to be psychic.’