She dreamt she was walking with Deedee. The stack of firewood had gone, and in its place was a car. It sparkled in the sunlight, so clean that it looked brand new. Then they were inside, and she was reaching forward and turning the key. Immediately the car purred into life. A thrill of excitement ran through her as they left a whirlwind of leaves in their trail. Why hadn’t she thought of this before, it was silly to walk, she would go and pick Nathan up and then drive to Bethel. They were on a freeway now, the road clear in every direction. They passed many road signs and arrows and they all pointed to Blue Springs, but then gradually they changed. Pointing to places, she had never heard of; the color of the signs changing as well. They became rusty, bent and twisted. Then all at once, the car was gone, and Deedee with it. She was completely alone, on a road she did not know, standing in the darkness with fat snowflakes falling softly around her. In the distance, she heard a night creature howl and then she began to scream.
She became aware of someone shaking her and she opened her eyes. Lola was leaning down over her. ‘You were moaning in your sleep, figured I better wake you.’
Georgia brought her eyes into focus, feeling somewhat befuddled, as she looked around, the lonesomeness of the dream refusing to let go. It was late afternoon now, the shadows long, and the air was filled with the tantalizing smell of cooking fish. She sat up, ‘I had this dream,’ she said, ‘that my car was parked a little ways off, I was driving.’
Lola smiled. ‘Well that doesn’t sound like a bad dream to me, not unless you were stuck in peak hour traffic.’
‘No, I wasn’t stuck in traffic, but it was a hellish dream, all the same, I lost Deedee, left you all behind.’ She rubbed her face, trying to wake up, then added, ‘you should have woken me sooner. I feel terrible about sleeping so long.’
Lola got to her feet. ‘Well we are all here, and dinner is nearly ready, Ruby and I got the fire going and I just sent the kids to bathe and change into their pajamas. Anyway, you were obviously worn out and needed the rest.’
The fire had burnt down, a row of catfish, gutted and split, sat on the hot embers, the skin curling back from the flesh. As Georgia took a long drink from her water bottle, Lola crouched down by the fire. ‘We have freshly boiled water over here in this pot, and boiled cabbage, ‘a la Georgia’, in the other one.’
Georgia smiled to herself. ‘A la Georgia’, also known as anything that had been boiled for at least twenty minutes. She could not remember who had first called it that, but it had to be either Deedee or Lola.
‘And you will be happy to know,’ Lola continued, ‘that Ruby thoroughly approves of your method of cooking vegetables. Apparently anything less than twenty minutes and they would still be raw.’ She gave an exaggerated sigh, ‘Of course there won’t be any nutritional value left in the greens, but at least they will be safe and sanitized.’
Georgia grinned, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘You could always drink the water they were boiled in, pretend it is soup.’
Lola grimaced. ‘Been there done that and it was bitter as hell, as you well know.’ Her face was flushed from the rising heat of the red hot ashes. ‘This is not easy to do,’ she muttered, as she carefully turned one of the catfish to see if it was cooked underneath. Sitting back on her haunches, she wiped an escaped lock of hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘The skin keeps sticking to the ash. At this rate I can see them all falling into little pieces and we are going to be eating charred fish Macnuggets.’
They both laughed.
‘Well it smells really good.’ God it smelt good. ‘And they think so too. Look at them.’ Georgia nodded towards the Bostons, who were sitting a little way off, their dark eyes reflecting the firelight as they watched every move that Lola made. Millie’s bottom firmly in the sit position, the ‘I am ready to be given something to eat position.’
‘Yes, they have been keeping close to me, of course it is nothing but cupboard love,’ Lola laughed, then, speaking to the dogs, said, ‘you’ll get some, girls, but you will have to wait until it is cooked and your mum has picked all the bones out.’
Millie dropped her ears at this, as though she understood Lola perfectly and was more than a little distressed at the thought of having to wait so long.
‘Poor Millie,’ Georgia said, ‘I don’t know about you Lola, but it smells so good, I don’t want to wait either.’
‘Yeah, it sure smells good, but what I wouldn’t give for a nonstick fry pan!’
Georgia settled down on a log nearby, ‘Actually, I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have some Cajun seasoning and a couple of lemons and…’
‘Butter,’ Lola said, a wistful look in her eye.
‘Yes, butter,’ Georgia agreed.
The two of them fell silent; they had just broken their cardinal rule, not to talk about food from the old days. Georgia looked over to where Jamie and Deedee were now building a sand castle of sorts by the water’s edge. Bath time, had clearly been forgotten. Deedee was giggling about something Jamie had said and Rebecca sat on the shore gazing across the lake.
It did her heart good to see Jamie playing like a boy of eleven should, and it was lovely to see how close he and Deedee had become. She just wished that Rebecca would join in.
‘Do you want to call the kids?’ Lola asked. ‘The fish are… just… about ready.’ As she spoke she reached over and picked up the larger of the cooking pot lids, turning it upside down, to use as a serving dish. Then, she began hooking the fish, one by one, out of the fire with her knife.
Much later, the children all asleep, the dogs curled up with them, and Ruby finally settled in her makeshift bed, Lola and Georgia sat by the soft flickering flames of the rekindled fire.
‘So what did it feel like?’ Lola asked suddenly.
‘What?’ Georgia asked.
‘Driving the car.’
‘It was only a dream.’
‘Yeah I know,’ Lola sighed. ‘But what a dream.’
Georgia pondered this for a moment. ‘Well like I said, it was only a dream, but before it turned bad, it felt wonderful. It felt so free, so unbelievably free.’
Lola smoothed back her hair, retying her ponytail. ‘I think about driving sometimes, I lay awake at night and imagine I am in my car, driving places. It can feel so real, remembering places I have been, I try to recall every detail, the trees lining the road, the faces of waitresses in truck stops, the frill on their aprons, the sound of breakfast cooking on the grill, I am afraid of forgetting the details of how it used to be.’ She slapped at an insect, ‘but I reckon memories are better than real life.’
‘How so?’ Georgia asked as she watched a small brown beetle that landed on one of the rocks, edging the campfire. Its elytra slightly raised; the wings beneath not quite folded away. Georgia held her breathe. Don’t fall in the fire! She watched as it paused, its antennae wavering back and forth. If you make it to safety then all will be good tomorrow, if you fall in the fire then…. The beetle scuttled forward. Heart in mouth, Georgia watched it. It was heading straight for the flames! In a flash, she bent down, caught up a twig and flicked the beetle to safety. Did that count? Can you cheat fate that way, or would it simply come back later and try again, when she was not there to intervene?
Lola had not responded immediately as she had also been watching the beetle, her legs folded up against her chest, chin on knee. Now she answered, ‘because they are just memories, and there can be no unpleasant surprises. I only visit the good times. Some places are best left not revisited.’
There was a sadness in her voice that made Georgia look up. She was tempted to ask her about that sadness, but then decided against it.
Instead, she nodded. ‘I know what you mean, sometimes I am tempted to leave the bad parts out of the journal, but then I remind myself I am writing it for Nathan, so he won’t miss out completely on all the things that his children are going through, but if it wasn’t for that, I would just let the bad stuff fade away.’ She frowned then added
, ‘I don’t think I ever want to go back through the pages and read it again though.’
Lola unfolded herself and took a sip from her water bottle. She screwed the cap back on, speaking slowly, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know, I think it is important not to forget, but I think it is just as important not to dwell on the bad things, never forget them, keep the memories somewhere tucked away, but just don’t visit them, if that makes sense.’
Georgia nodded in agreement. It did make sense. ‘What I find frightening is how much I am forgetting, after only a month. The things that were so important, like phones, and cars and getting to places on time. It is all dreamlike, it is hard to recall how it really was.’
Much later, after Lola had slipped under the blanket between the children and fallen asleep, Georgia took the first watch. With the shotgun balanced across her knees, she mulled over Lola’s words as in the distance night birds cried. Lola was right, there could be no unpleasant surprises when recalling memories. Those roads had already been walked down.
Chapter Thirty Five
August 10th, Day 31
The night had been a peaceful one, Lola had relieved Georgia at around one a.m. and she, in turn, had woken Jamie and Deedee shortly before dawn to take the last watch. It had been a long time since Georgia had felt this well rested. Once she had rekindled the fire and had put the pots of water on to boil, she had gently woken Ruby and offered to help her, but aside from needing assistance to get up from her makeshift bed, she assured everyone that she could manage well enough on her own.
‘Oh dear, not sure why but I seem to be a little on the stiff side this morning,’ she had explained as Lola and Georgia had hoisted her to her feet. Then still in her dressing gown, curlers and slippers she had made her way down to the lakes edge and disappeared behind some shrubs to perform her ablutions.
They had all discretely kept an eye on her while she was away. Badger, Millie and Ant, weren’t quite so discreet, frequently racing down to investigate their newest member of the group with great enthusiasm, remembering the previous evening no doubt, when she had been easily persuaded by their pitiful looks, to feed them delicious titbits of baked catfish.
Ruby returned half an hour later, hair brushed out, dressed in linen trousers, a cream blouse, sensible shoes, a liberal coating of face powder and a touch of lipstick. ‘Ah that’s better, now I am ready to face the world,’ she said as she carefully tucked her compact away in her handbag and snapped the clasp shut. ‘Now dears, what would you like me to do?’
Georgia stared at her, practically speechless. This dear old lady had walked such a long way yesterday, eaten catfish and boiled cabbage by firelight, practically slept on the ground in the wilds, without a tent, and to top it all off, she had done it all, without a single word of protest or complaint. Now, as if that wasn’t enough, she was asking if she could help!
‘You could help with breakfast if you like,’ Georgia had finally managed to croak out. I was thinking we could boil some potatoes, to eat with the left over cabbage?’
Ruby looked mortified. ‘Oh goodness, that won’t do, not for breakfast. Shall I make us a damper instead? We have enough flour, and we certainly have plenty of water,’ she said, as she gave a little flourish indicating the lake. ‘Of course Bertie always liked me to add sultanas to the mix, but I daresay we don’t have any of those.’
‘And you were worried she would be a hindrance,’ Lola hissed quietly in Georgia’s ear, as they both stood staring in disbelief as Ruby sent Deedee scuttling for the flour.
‘I wasn’t the only one,’ Georgia said, her voice sounding just a little plaintive.
In no time at all, it seemed to Georgia, they were sitting down to a breakfast of freshly baked damper bread (which was really quite delicious), washed down with cups of slightly smoky, black tea.
‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day you know,’ Ruby said, as they began repacking. She offered Lola her slippers to pack away. ‘There was a lovely quote my father used to say. Let me think how it went, oh yes, ‘one should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast.’ It was a quote by Robert A Heinlein,’ she went on to explain.
‘I don’t know who that is,’ Lola said.
‘How very apt, ‘the end of the world’ bit,’ thought Georgia, grinning wickedly, as Lola squirmed under Ruby’s scrutinizing gaze.
‘Don’t know him? I can’t imagine why not, He was one of your own countrymen, a famous author, born in Missouri in 1907, I believe.’
‘Nope, never heard of him.’
‘Wrote science fictions stories,’ Ruby added helpfully.
‘Sorry, no,’ Lola admitted.
‘Fancy that, well no matter. Do you have room for my dressing gown as well, or should I give it to Jamie?’
Once they were all packed up, they made their way back onto Missouri Route 7. The road shimmered beneath the unrelenting heat of the sun, mirages danced and buckled far ahead, dark pools of blackness that vanished as they neared and then reappeared in the hazy distance. Saplings grew by the wayside, the long grass lining the interstate, dusty, yellowed and needing rain.
A side road led off to the left. Georgia had been expecting this road. She knew from the map, that it wound half a mile or so, in amongst the saplings and came to a small settlement. They would not be travelling along it, but it marked another point along their way. There was no sign post. Georgia imagined that a month ago, it had all been beautifully mowed here, and probably the sign post naming this place was now laying somewhere lost forever beneath the tangled weeds and grass that stretched before them.
‘Howdy there,’ a voice called across the way, startling all of them and setting Millie and Badger to a low growling. Standing on a graveled pathway that ran parallel to the main road down an embankment, stood a dumpy looking middle-aged man in a faded fishing hat. He was waving his arms wildly above his head trying to attract their attention. That none of them had spotted him sooner was not surprising, he was as dusty as the track he stood on. Their little group came to an abrupt halt, staring at this dumpy apparition.
‘He looks harmless enough and he certainly doesn’t look hungry or desperate,’ Lola said quietly, echoing Georgia’s thoughts.
‘He does look harmless,’ Georgia murmured, ‘but that doesn’t mean anything.’
Jamie and Deedee stood intently, their bows drawn, waiting for a sign from Georgia. She suddenly had an image of this man lying in the dust, the fat rolls of his belly riddled with arrows, looking somewhat porcupine like, a look of puzzlement on his face as the life dimmed from his eyes. His last words, ‘but I only wanted to say hello’.
She shook the image from her mind, motioned for the children to stand down and then raised a hand in greeting.
‘Where have you come from?’ the man called. He looked hot and anxious, as though he would rather have been anywhere else. Even from this distance, Georgia could see he was sweating profusely.
After a moment’s hesitation, she called, ‘From north Kansas City.’
The man slowly scratched at his unshaven chin as though considering this, then called out, ‘been a few of you, come down this way, but no one for at least a week.’ His voice carried clearly across to them.
‘Ask him if he is on his own,’ Lola whispered.
‘As if he is going to tell us the truth,’ Georgia thought, as she asked him how many were in his group, her voice somewhat hoarse, unused to talking so loudly.
‘Eighteen of us, at the moment, mostly women and children. Five of our men went out early yesterday to look for deer.’
This was ridiculous, Georgia decided, to be standing so far apart, shouting at each other. Nevertheless, they were in a bit of a quandary. He appeared unarmed, but they were armed, and making no secret about it. She could ask to go over to him; but what if he was to insist that she come unarmed.
What would be politically correct? A refusal could be deemed as being insulting. What would etiquette demand? Not the prissy, who
sits where, and does what, dinner party etiquette of her past life, but the new era etiquette. It seemed rude to go armed, but if she went unarmed, even with Jamie and Deedee protecting her, she could be putting their entire party at risk, aside from the fact that Lola, or worse, Ruby or Rebecca, would be the ones holding the shotgun while she went over.
‘Did you see them by any chance?’ The man called rather anxiously.
She shook her head. ‘No, haven’t seen a hunting party, in fact, you’re the first person we’ve seen in days.’
The man cupped his hands behind his ears. ‘What was that?’
‘Bugger it,’ Georgia thought, then yelled, ‘hang on, I’ll come down to you and bugger political correctness, She held up her shotgun, ‘I am armed and if it is okay with you, I am going to stay that way.’
‘Sure, long as you don’t intend to shoot me.’
She shrugged off her backpack, leaving it with the others and headed down the embankment.
‘Cute dog,’ the man said, indicating Ant, when she reached him. ‘What kind is she?’
‘Teacup Boston terrier,’ Georgia replied as he reached out to pat her, but Ant was having none of it. A raccoon like sound emitted from the back of her throat as hackles raised, head tilted to one side and eyes bulging, she lunged at his hand.
Horrified, Georgia grabbed at Ant as the man jerked back his hand. There was a distinct clack as the ‘cute’ dog’s tiny, but razor sharp teeth closed on thin air. That had been a near thing.
The man wiped his hairy forearm across his sweating face. ‘Guess she’s not too friendly.’ He sounded more amused than anything else.
‘I am so sorry,’ Georgia exclaimed, ‘she has never done that before.’
‘Nah, don’t worry yourself about it, I should have known better.’
Ant, no doubt feeling vindicated for the ‘cute’ comment, settled back down into her bag.
They talked for a good twenty minutes and Harold, Harold Fargo as he had introduced himself, was more than a little concerned about his hunting party. They had been due back the previous evening, he told her.
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