by Claire Zorn
I called Mum again. She made me list every food item I had bought from the supermarket. At the same time I was talking to her, Kara, my step-mum, arrived home carrying grocery bags, still in her yoga outfit.
‘Is that your mum?’ she asked. ‘Tell her I got water, so she can stop calling me.’
‘Did you hear that?’ I asked Mum.
‘Yes. I also want you to get every bottle and container you can find and fill them with tap water. Do it now, straightaway.’
‘Okay.’
‘Fin, they want me to go to Canberra. I don’t know if I will. I’m not too sure what’s going on yet, but I want you to stay where you are, okay? If things change I will find a way to get to you. Do you understand?’
‘Yeah. Mum, do you think people could be overreacting?’
‘Fin, it’s my job not to overreact.’
We did as she said and filled every available container with water, lining them all up in the garage. After that, we all stayed in front of the television, watching the never-ending news bulletin. The picture regularly dissolved into a stutter of pixels.
There were no pictures from the disaster zone. We’re used to having pictures of everything – from security footage of suicide bombers to Nicole Kidman’s kids. There were no pictures and no live crosses to reporters in the disaster zone. There was nothing in the disaster zone. All that was left to broadcast was endless speculation about the immediate future of the planet, the weather, food – and the estimated death toll. Entire nations had been vapourised. What a way to go. At least it would be quick, that’s what people were saying, as if that was a consolation.
The news coverage went round in circles and the prime minister called for calm. There was footage of a huge television screen erected in Martin Place to show the news to city workers. News showing the news.
I sent a text to Lucy. R u ok? I didn’t know what else to say.
Dad got home just before dinner. He came through the living room and nodded at us, then went into the kitchen and talked to Kara quietly. I could hear Kara’s voice getting all high-pitched and emotional, then Dad came out of the kitchen, clapped his hands together and announced dinner was ready. Kara put the bowls on the table without making eye contact with anybody. It was some sort of lentil and chickpea curry. Hell, if I had to cook dinner for my step-kids, I’d probably make sure it was something just as inedible.
‘Is it going to snow?’ Max asked. ‘Radioactive snow?’
‘No, it’s not going to snow radioactive snow,’ Dad said, shaking enough salt on his food to preserve it.
‘How do you know?’ Max asked.
‘Yeah, Greg, how do you know?’ Kara said.
Dad glared at her discreetly, but not quite discreetly enough for me not to notice. He shovelled food into his mouth. ‘I don’t know. But I bet you it’ll all be over in a couple of weeks.’
‘What if it’s not?’ Kara said. ‘They said on the news it could affect the climate for years.’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen the news. I’ve been at work.’
‘Oh, is that a hint, Greg?’ Kara asked. ‘I told you I’ve got some work on next week.’
‘That wasn’t a hint. I was simply saying that I’ve been at work all day and I haven’t had the luxury of watching the news.’
‘Can’t you look at it online, Dad?’ Max asked. He looked genuinely puzzled.
Dad sighed. My phone beeped. Lucy? I got up to check. Dad pointed at my seat.
‘Sit,’ he said. ‘Have dinner as a family and then look at your bloody phone.’
‘Kara’s not family,’ Max said.
‘She is your family,’ Dad said.
‘No, she’s not.’
Dad slammed his fist on the table. ‘She’s married to me and that makes her family, Max. Right? Anyone else got any comments?’
‘I didn’t marry her,’ Max said and gulped his juice. Kara put her fork down and stood up.
‘I’m going to my mum’s,’ she said calmly.
‘Max, go to your room. Kara, sit down.’
‘No thank you, Greg,’ Kara said.
‘No thank you, Greg,’ Max said.
‘Max Heath, if you are not in your room in three seconds, God help me. Kara, can you please sit down?’ He spoke in the same tone to both of them. I ate my curry. It wasn’t that bad. Kara picked up her keys and went out the front door. Dad put his head in his hands.
‘Bye, Kara,’ Max said in a singsong voice. With one swoop of his arm, Dad knocked everything that was in front of him off the table and onto the floor. He stood up and pointed at Max, his finger quivering.
‘You . . . You . . . ungrateful little . . .’
He followed Kara out the front door.
‘Good one, Max,’ I said. ‘Way to go.’
‘Shut up. Just because you’re in love with Kara.’
‘What are you doing, man? What are you doing?’ I started to pick the things up off the floor: cutlery, bowls, salt and pepper shakers. It was a mess. ‘Can you give me a hand instead of standing there like an idiot?’
Dad came back inside, slamming the door shut behind him. He picked his keys up off the bench.
‘I’m following Kara,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon and I’ll speak to you then, Max.’
And then he was gone.
The message on my mobile was from Lokey. I tried to go online to chat with him about what was going on but the internet was all jammed up and the connection kept failing. I left it for an hour then tried again. It still wasn’t working. I called the internet company but their line seemed to be down. Then it occurred to me that maybe they operated their call centres from places that didn’t exist any more.
Dad didn’t come home. I tried to call him but his phone must have been off or out of range. Eventually I told Max to go to bed and I did the same.
It happened quickly. Quicker than they were expecting. Quicker than they told us it would happen. Or maybe Lucy was right and the government knew how bad it would be and they just didn’t tell us. Or maybe we knew all along and we were like kids covering our eyes for the scary bit of the movie.
It was the cold that woke me the next morning, biting up my legs and over my arms. My room was almost completely dark except for a hint of light seeping through my curtains. There were no bird sounds. Still in the drudge of sleep I figured it must have been really early. I hunkered down under the covers and was sliding back toward sleep when I felt a prodding on my arm. I opened my eyes expecting to see Dad, but it was Max, standing there with a blanket around his shoulders.
‘Are we going to school today?’ he asked.
‘Jeez man, I don’t know. It’s early, go back to bed.’
‘It’s not early. It’s nearly eight-thirty.’
‘Yeah, funny, Max. Go back to bed.’
‘Fin, I’m telling you. It’s nearly eight-thirty.’
I sat up. ‘Is it raining?’
‘No. It’s snowing. Radioactive snow. Loads of it. It’s glowing.’
‘Ha, ha. Is Dad home?’
‘No. It’s not glowing, but it is snowing. Serious.’
I still half thought he was taking the piss, but it was freakin’ freezing and he was standing there wrapped in a blanket. Max went over to the window and pulled the curtain back. The sky was a flat brownish grey. I got up and went to the window.
Mum and Dad took me on a trip to the snow when I was three, a couple of years before Max was born. I remember heaps about that trip because it was the only time I’d seen snow. I remember driving to the snowfields in the milky early-morning light and Mum pointing to the white-capped mountains in the distance. I had a blue plastic toboggan with a piece of rope to hold on to and steer with. It was that waxy, plasticky rope, threaded through two holes, tied in a knot and the ends melted in a white glob. I took my gloves off to ru
b my thumb over the smooth glob of plastic. It looked like used chewing gum. Mum made me put my gloves back on again. I remember hurtling down a slope and flying over a mound of snow and sliding across the icy bitumen of the car park. I remember the white, the searing, aching white.
The snow outside my window wasn’t white. It was dirty grey slurry and it lay in patches over our front lawn and formed a little peak on the top of our letterbox.
‘Told you. I’m going out.’ Max raced out of my room and down the hall. I stood at the window mesmerised by the scene. Then I remembered something.
‘Max!’ I shouted after him. I bolted down the hall. ‘Max, wait!’
I got to the door just before he opened it. ‘Don’t,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘It might be radioactive.’
‘No way.’
‘I’m serious. You might get sick. We should stay inside.’
He actually looked thrilled at the fact the snow could be poisonous. I went into the living room and turned on the television. Nothing. I flicked a light switch. Nothing. Back in my room I turned on my laptop, it had a full battery. I tried to connect to the internet to find out what was going on, but it wouldn’t work. I found my mobile among the mess on my desk. I dialled Dad’s number and was told again that it was switched off or out of range. Mum’s number gave me the same response.
Max reappeared in my doorway. ‘The TV’s not working,’ he complained.
‘I know. There’s no electricity.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why. Maybe because of the drop in temperature.’
I got dressed and then I pulled some tracksuit pants on over my jeans and put on an old hoodie. A pretty poor substitution for a radiation suit. I went into Dad’s room and opened his top drawer, where he usually kept a bit of cash. I took out a ten-dollar note and told Max I was going to see if I could get a paper. I took a deep breath and went outside.
The cold hit my cheeks with a wet slap. I shoved my hands in my pockets. Most cars were still in their driveways, it didn’t seem that many people had gone to work. Ellen, who lived across the road, was standing out on her front path watching her two little kids pelt each other with bits of sludge-grey snow. She saw me and waved.
‘Hi,’ she called. ‘Isn’t this wild?’
I crossed the road and met her on the nature strip in front of her place. I didn’t know her very well, but she and her husband were friendly, always said hello. Her cheeks were rosy with the cold and her eyes were bright.
‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’ she asked.
‘No. Can’t say I have. Do you have any electricity? Our power’s out.’
She shook her head. ‘When Mick got up this morning he said it was out. He didn’t know what to do, whether to go to work. Went in the end, put chains on the ute. Can you believe that? Chains! Here!’
Mick was a builder – a short guy who played league and was roughly the shape of a rectangle. Their kids were about three and five. The youngest one, Zadie, was squealing while her brother, Zac, chased her around with a handful of slurry. They had made an attempt at a snowman, but really it was nothing more than a grey mound with a few twigs sticking out of it.
Ellen noticed me looking at it. ‘We don’t have any carrots,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to use for a nose?’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never made a snowman before. This is the first time they’ve seen snow. It’s a shame it’s so dirty. From the bombs, yeah?’
‘Yeah. I guess . . . Hey, I don’t know if it’s safe for them to play in it.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Yeah, I mean I don’t know for sure, but . . .’
‘Should probably get them inside then.’
‘Do you have lots of food?’
She frowned.
‘It’s . . . there might be food shortages. You should make sure you have a lot of canned food.’
‘Oh. Um, I have a bit.’ She shrugged.
‘Look, I’m going up the road to the shop, do you want me to grab you some?’
‘Really? That’s nice of you. I don’t know what you should get, soup maybe. They won’t eat tuna. I’ll just go and get you some cash.’ She went inside. The kids looked up at me.
‘Snow!’ said Zadie. She had pink mittens on. Her brother didn’t have any gloves on. He had a trail of dried snot over his cheeks like a slug had wandered over his face.
‘We made a snowman!’ he said and pointed. I had no idea what to say to little kids, so I just nodded and said, ‘Cool’. He seemed pretty happy with that response. He picked up some more snow and ran off down the side of the house. Ellen came back outside and gave me a twenty-dollar note.
‘Do you reckon that’ll be enough? That should be enough.’
‘Sure, I’ll just get whatever I can with that.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Say bye-bye to Fin, Zadie,’ she instructed. Zadie waved a mitten at me and smiled.
I have known Mr Starvos, the guy who owns the little supermarket, nearly my whole life. Or maybe it is my whole life. He’s been there as long as I can remember. When I was small, Dad used to take me up the hill to the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon before the footy started on television. He would hoist me up onto his back when my legs got tired. He’d buy me some Wizz Fizz or a bag of mixed lollies. The freckles were my favourite. I used to give the banana lollies to Dad. Them and the lolly teeth – they used to freak me out.
Starvos was open even on Christmas Day, so I figured he wouldn’t let something like a power shortage stop him. Sure enough, the front door was open and he was sitting behind the front counter, the store dimly lit with a few mozzie candles. Starvos was in a T-shirt despite the cold. I suppose that was his winter uniform, in summer he always wore a white singlet. He was rolling a cigarette, which he then stuck behind his ear.
‘Mr Findlay!’
‘Mr Starvos.’
‘What you need today?’
‘Newspaper. Oh and some canned stuff for Ellen. Can you believe the snow?’
‘It is crazy.’ He shook his head and clicked his tongue. ‘No paper I’m afraid. The truck not come. There is not a lot of canned food either; everyone has been buying up.’
He was right. There wasn’t a lot left. The general population did seem to have an aversion to baked beans in barbecue sauce, though. I filled a basket with a selection of soups and canned vegetables. Starvos wrote the prices in a notebook.
‘Eighteen-dollars-twenty, my friend.’
I gave him the money. He bagged up the cans and handed them to me.
I walked back down the hill as I had done so many times, but now the scene was completely alien. I couldn’t quite comprehend the weight of it. When we were little kids we used to ask Dad if it would ever snow here. His answer was a definite no. But on really cold mornings I would still run to the window, half-believing that I would find a scene like in all those American Christmas movies. Miracle on Bellbird Crescent. And here it was. Only it was like someone had leaked brown ink into the snow dome. It was no winter wonderland.
When I got to Ellen’s, the kids’ faces were pressed up against the window and they breathed blooms of fog against the glass. They watched me walk up the front path. I knocked on the door and Ellen answered.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, taking the bags from me. ‘Hopefully it’ll tide us over. This can’t last that long. They’d have stuff in place, don’t you think? So we don’t run out of food?’
‘I don’t know. I guess if there’s no electricity and all the roads are snowed under . . .’
‘Yeah. I guess it’s best to be stocked up.’
‘I’ll see you later, anyway.’
‘Okay. And thanks again.’
She shut the door and I turned to walk down the path
. Zac was gone from the window, but Zadie was there, watching me. I waved and she waved back, pressing her nose against the glass.
Lokey’s Jaffa-red Datsun was parked at the top of our driveway. I navigated my way carefully down the slope. Outside our front door I took off my shoes, my hoodie and the tracksuit pants I was wearing over my jeans. I left them on the porch and went inside. Lokey was in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. His shoes had left puddles across the tiles.
‘Dude!’ he said. ‘Snow! Can you believe it? It’s fully awesome.’
‘I can’t believe you drove here, there’s ice on the road.’
‘It was sweet. Bit slidey. I brought my board down.’
‘What? Your snowboard? The snow’s patchy as.’
‘Yeah, but I reckon I could get a sick run down your front lawn.’
Max walked in holding an esky lid. ‘Will this do?’ he asked Lokey.
‘Maximum. That’s awesome, dude.’
‘Hey Lokey, can you put your shoes outside?’ I got a roll of paper towel and then reconsidered and put on some washing-up gloves.
‘Who the hell are you, the cleaning lady?’ Lokey took his shoes off and dumped them on the front porch.
‘Fin thinks the snow is poisonous, radioactive,’ said Max.
‘Serious?’ laughed Lokey. ‘How do you know?’
I blotted up the puddles with the towel and put it in a garbage bag, tying the end. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the recommended procedure for nuclear waste management.
‘We don’t know. That’s the point.’
‘But wouldn’t they tell us?’
‘How? There’s no electricity.’
Lokey let out a low whistle and shook his head. ‘Poison or no poison, I’m going to ride your lawn, man.’
‘I’m coming!’ said Max, holding up the esky lid. ‘Toboggan.’
In my mind I heard my mother shrieking disapproval.
‘No you’re not,’ I said.