by Claire Zorn
I told Max I was going to see Mr and Mrs White – he would have been unbearable if he’d known I was going to see a girl.
It had been days since I’d been outside. I expected to step out, go up the drive and onto the street, breathe in the space, look out over the valley and see that my world was still here. I didn’t expect to feel the claustrophobia of a world faded to grey. The pressing wall of the sky. Air that may or may not kill me. A deadened, suffocated still. The silence was oppressive. The only movement was my own breath. I made my way up the hill, looking at each house as I passed, each lawn smothered in grey, curtains drawn against the cold. The Ketterlys at number nine had their roller shutters down. Their house was one of those places that seemed designed to make all the other houses in the street look inadequate – roughly the size of a hotel with a fountain out the front. I mean, a fountain – what a wank. The guy was a surgeon and liked everyone to know about it. I bet he was wishing he had a heated driveway like Bill Gates. With the shutters down the house looked like a prison.
It seemed like the world was in hibernation. There were no birds calling, no breeze ruffling the trees, no cars passing down the street, no kids squealing, no lawnmowers. It wasn’t like the pause before a breath. It was like the world had suffocated. I lifted my face to the cold unfamiliar face of the sky and walked up the hill.
I wondered where else it was snowing. Was it snowing in the city? Was it snowing in Perth? Adelaide? It was impossible to gauge the seriousness of the whole thing without any information from the outside world; like being blindfolded in deep water and not knowing where the edge was. Mum used to talk about going on holidays to the country when she was a kid. No television, no phone. It was like taking a break from the rest of the world for two weeks, she said. A war could start and you wouldn’t even know about it until you got back. I used to struggle to imagine living without even a mobile. Surely the electricity was back up somewhere, it was just the mountains left in the dark, wasn’t it?
If things got bad Mum would come back for us. I clung to that while I trod water in the deep. Where the line was between this and bad, I didn’t know.
Lucy’s house was close to Starvos’ supermarket. From the outside, it looked as closed up as every other. I went up the drive and knocked on the front door. I waited – nothing. I knocked again. Still nothing. I followed the driveway down the side of the house where I came to a large window, the curtains were drawn across but there was a gap. With my hands cupped against the glass I could see into the living room and through to the kitchen. There were no signs of life. I knocked on the window anyway, called through the glass. Nothing.
I tried to replace the hollowed-out feeling in my chest with the idea that she was somewhere else warm and safe.
The walk to Lucy’s did yield one positive: Starvos’ shop was still open. I didn’t have any money on me though, so I went back home with the plan of collecting some, along with Max so that between us we could get as much food as we could carry. I made him put on four layers of clothing and then some old tracksuit pants and a jumper over the top. I took the last of the cash from Dad’s room. We found some beanies, an army green one for me and a striped Swannies one for Max.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ I told him. ‘You have to remember that.’
He nodded enthusiastically, practically pawing at the door. When we went out Max cupped his hands over his mouth, breathing into them, his skinny frame visibly jarring against the cold. He laughed and looked around.
‘It’s freakin’ freezing!’
‘Yes.’
The soles of our shoes crunched in the snow as we trudged up the drive. Twice Max lost his footing and slid backward, he put his hand on the ground to steady himself, then he looked at me in alarm.
‘Just don’t go licking your hand,’ I said.
Starvos was wearing a jumper. He sat on a stool behind the counter, doing the crossword in the back of a Woman’s Day. The shop was lit with tea lights, the air sharp with the tang of citronella.
‘They are the only candles I can find. At least the mosquitoes won’t be biting me!’ He laughed and shook his head. Barked a ragged smoker’s cough. ‘How are you boys? Your father, is he back?’
‘Not yet.’ I told him what the cops had said about people being stuck on the roads. I tried to sound positive, hyper aware of Max listening to my answer. ‘Don’t think it will be much longer.’
‘I hope not. Anyway, what can I help you with?’ Starvos motioned to the empty shelves. The only things left in the shop were chocolate bars and chewing gum at the counter. ‘My stock is in the storeroom. You can’t trust people in times like this. And I tell you now, four cans only, that’s all I can give you,’ Starvos instructed. ‘I’m sorry, I do want to help you with your father away, but I can’t let one person buy the lot, you know? I have a responsibility as a shopkeeper. I am in a difficult position.’
I asked for two cans of spaghetti and two of creamed corn. ‘Can I get a packet of chips?’
‘Yes. One. You must understand I have to be fair to everybody.’
‘No worries.’ I gave Starvos some money. He handed me the change.
‘Two-eighty change? How much are the cans?’
‘The cans are four dollars each. There is no stock coming in, prices go up.’ He shrugged as if it were a phenomenon completely out of his control. ‘I do not have to open, you know, but I do. It is my responsibility. As a shopkeeper.’ He handed me the plastic bag.
‘Right. Sure.’
‘You have a good day.’
‘That’s robbery,’ I muttered to Max as we left the shop.
‘Nah, this is robbery.’ He pulled two Mars Bars and some Juicy Fruit out of his pocket.
I laughed. ‘Where’d you learn to do that?’
He shrugged.
I took a Mars Bar from him. ‘You make a habit of shoplifting?’
‘He was ripping us off.’
‘You little klepto.’
‘What?’
‘Kleptomaniac. Compulsive shoplifter.’
‘At least I’m sharing.’
‘At least.’ I ran forward, swivelled my feet so I slid in the snow. Max laughed and did the same. We chewed our Mars Bars and slid our way down the hill.
Six
We found a wire rack in the kitchen cupboard – the kind you use to cool cakes on. I propped it up on two bricks over the fire. Max watched me, gnawing his nails.
‘There,’ I said. ‘Instant barbecue.’
We heated cans of mushroom and chicken soup. Max found a packet of marshmallows. We stabbed them with forks and toasted them over the fire until their skin charred and they burst thick pink goo.
‘How come Mum and Dad never took us camping, you think?’
‘You’re too annoying without a TV.’
‘Shut up. I’m fine with no TV.’
We chewed marshmallows, staring into the fire.
‘It’s good that the police can help us find Dad,’ said Max.
‘Um, yeah.’
‘They’ll come back as soon as they find him, won’t they?’
‘I guess.’
‘Do you think it’ll take much longer?’
‘Max, I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you think they’ll be able to?’ His tone changed, like he was pissed at me.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But that’s what you think.’
‘I don’t know what I think.’
‘He’s coming back.’ There was a tremor in his voice.
‘I hope so.’
In the dark I could see tears beginning to slide down his cheeks.
‘He wouldn’t just leave us here, Fin. He wouldn’t. Even if he couldn’t drive through the snow, he’d still come back to us.’
‘I know he would. If he could. I’m not saying he wouldn’
t.’
‘But you think he’s dead or something.’
‘I don’t think anything, Max. It’s gonna be alright, yeah?’
‘Why did he have to follow her? He should have stayed here with us.’
‘Yeah, he should have.’
‘It’s my fault he went.’ He sniffed loudly, wiped snot with his sleeve.
‘It’s not, Max.’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘He’s the adult, Max. He’s the parent. Not you, not either of us. He was supposed to stay here with us. Just like he was supposed to be here that afternoon when Mum left. He was supposed to be the one to find her gone, but he was off . . . dicking around. If he wasn’t such an arsehole Mum would have stayed.’
Max frowned at me. I could see his mind ticking over. ‘What do you mean?’
I wanted to tell him what I meant. I wanted to tell him what I knew about Dad, but that would mean destroying the picture he had of Dad. I couldn’t do it. I knew too much what it felt like to realise your father wasn’t the hero you thought he was. I knew it meant your childhood was over.
‘Nothing. I just . . . don’t blame yourself.’ I shifted closer to him, put my arm around his shoulder. I pulled him in and tried to remember the last time I’d hugged him. ‘He was the one that decided to follow Kara.’
‘I freakin’ hate Kara.’
‘Yeah, Maximum.’ I tried to laugh. ‘We all know you hate Kara.’
‘Maybe she kidnapped Dad.’
‘That’s probably it. Dunno how she expects us to pay for his ransom, though. She’s spent all his money.’
‘Bitch.’
‘That’s my boy.’
That night we moved our mattresses into the living room, partly to be near the warmth of the fire. Partly to be closer to each other.
The snow kept falling. Every morning we woke up, the scene outside was greyer than the day before, softer around the edges like it would eventually go completely out of focus and fade away. We made a significant dint on the can supply. Started cooking rice, boiling the water over the fire. Time sagged over the frame of the days and we played endless cards and Trivial Pursuit.
I rationed myself to one song on my iPod a day to save the batteries. I would lie on my stomach by the fire and draw. I drew the stack of wood in the kitchen. I drew our clothes drying on a makeshift line strung between the dining chairs like bunting. I drew Lokey snowboarding down a mountain of glowing snow.
There was no news of Dad.
We finished all the bread, and baked bean sandwiches became a memory of indulgence. Steaks and pizza and hot chips took on mythical qualities.
Mrs White visited again. She sat on the edge of our couch with her ankles crossed, feet squashed into the space left between the couch and my mattress. I made her a cup of tea, heating the water on the fire. I didn’t like to use the drinking water, but she had brought us a Cherry Ripe each and it would seem pretty stingy not to offer her a cup of tea. (She seemed surprised a teenager knew how to make tea.) She talked a lot, mainly about running low on dog food and her poor garden suffocating beneath the snow. Max told her about explorers that got lost in Antarctica and ate their sled dogs. She smiled politely.
‘Are you able to keep warm enough, Mrs White?’ I asked, remembering that my grandma used to struggle in the cold.
‘It isn’t so bad. And Mr White is very organised. He’s gathered all the firewood and worked out exactly how long it will last and how much we can use each day. The same with the food, he’s drawn up a big diagram so we both know how much to eat and when. Caught me stealing a bag of crisps, and well, didn’t he do his block then!’ She looked away and patted her carefully arranged hair.
‘It’s very difficult, not being able to contact our girls. Mr White finds that hard, I know he worries.’ She gazed out the window as she spoke and it was like she was talking to herself. ‘He gets himself very worked up over things and I should work harder not to upset him. He’s only trying to look after us.’ She paused and was quiet for a few minutes, sipping her tea. ‘Well. I should get back or he will worry! You boys behave yourselves, won’t you?’
As if we might be thinking of throwing a wild party and passing out on the lawn.
In the evening I drew Mr White in his business shirt with the Financial Review tucked under his arm. His grey hair was slicked back in the style it always was whenever I saw him over the fence. I drew him with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the food chart he had made etched into the skin of his forearms.
Later we heated water and poured it into the bath so it was an inch deep. I washed using a pink washer printed with daisies. My grandma used to call a face-washer a flannel. I remembered her washing me in the bath as a kid – me trying to convince her I was old enough to do it myself. She has been dead two years, the last of my grandparents to go. In the light of one of Kara’s sandalwood candles with the cold stinging me, I was glad for the small mercy that she had been spared this.
The gun nudges into my skull and I am pulled back to the present. With my cheek pressed against the bricks I wonder if I will get to grow old, with kids and grandkids and a garden. I wonder if I will even see the next day.
Seven
Yelling. A woman’s voice. It echoed through the silence, finding us when we were still in our beds. Half asleep, I pulled on some clothes.
‘Stay here,’ I said to Max.
‘Yeah right,’ he said with sarcasm.
We walked up the hill toward the noise. Starvos was standing in the doorway of his shop. The woman was throwing her arms up.
‘You can’t close! You have all that food in there! You can’t!’
‘I can do what I want,’ Starvos said.
The woman saw me. ‘He’s closing!’ she said, as if she expected me to do something about it. ‘He’s keeping it all for himself.’ She turned back to Starvos. ‘First you rip us off and now this. You selfish bastard!’
‘It’s my stock! I can do what I want with it.’ He stepped behind the glass door and tried to push it shut as the woman blocked it with her foot. He flung open the door and shoved her away, stumbling back she slipped on the ice, falling on her side. ‘You stupid bitch! Get off my property!’
‘Oi!’ I jogged over.
Starvos glared at me, jutted his chin out. ‘Fin, you stay out of this. This is my business.’
‘You can’t do that,’ I said.
‘Watch me.’ He closed the door in my face.
I went to the woman on the ground, took her arm and tried to help her up. ‘Are you okay?’
She turned her face to me, eyes red with tears. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, hitting me away. ‘You could have helped me get in there. Thanks for nothing.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Useless.’ She got to her feet and I watched her trudge away with a limp.
Max stood there, his mouth hanging open. ‘Starvos totally pushed that lady! I can’t believe he did that!’
I turned him away, my hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s just get home. We’ve got stuff to figure out.’
Max sat on the kitchen bench with a pen and an exercise book on his lap. I stood in front of the open pantry cupboard, pulled each item out one by one, named it and put it on the bench: two cans of baked beans, one kilo of rice, one sachet of burrito seasoning, half a packet of almonds, almost-empty jar of Vegemite, almost-empty jar of honey, and on and on until everything had been listed. We then sat down at the dining table and worked out how much food we would eat each day and how long what we had was going to last us. Two weeks, at the most.
In the evening, after Max was already asleep, Lokey came back. He wandered into the living room and slumped on the couch.
‘I had to get out, man. My mum is driving me freakin’ nuts.’ He tilted his head back, closed his eyes.
‘You drove here?’
‘Yeah. Got chains on the tyres. Nearly outta petrol, but it’s not like I need to go anywhere. Your dad hasn’t shown up?’
‘No.’
‘He’s probably okay, the roads are just blocked.’
‘I’m trying not to think about it.’
We sat in silence. Eventually Lokey opened his eyes, yawned. ‘You got any cards?’ Lokey’s eyes roamed the room, his gaze landing on Dad’s liquor cabinet. ‘Actually, I got a better idea.’
The idea of numbness was appealing. The thought had crossed my mind before but I hadn’t wanted to get wasted on my own. It felt kind of pathetic. And desperate.
‘We can have a bit, Loke. Not heaps. If my dad ever comes back he’ll kill me.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
Dad collected booze like some people collected stamps – he would get all excited over a rare vintage. All I was thinking about when I selected the oldest, most expensive-looking bottle that I could find – and the bottle after that, and the bottle after that – was how he’d chosen to go after Kara that night and left us behind.
Eight
I drew Lucy. I drew her sitting cross-legged on the roof of our school bus while floodwaters rose around it. All sorts of objects bobbed on top of the water: toasters, television sets, computer monitors. I know they would have sunk in the real world, but I wasn’t sure the same rules applied any more.
Days passed. I didn’t touch the wine again.
Max and I were playing Monopoly when we heard it. The sound of the engine rumbled down the street like the low groan of a tired animal. We rushed to the front door, practically tripping over each other to get there.