by Claire Zorn
She leads us into an adjoining room, a different one to last time. There is a table covered with papers and manila folders, she picks one up and shuffles through it.
‘You will stay with me at Government House. There’s accommodation for officials’ families—’
‘I’m not staying with you,’ I tell her.
She looks up from the papers. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You said you can’t help Lucy and Noll. I’m going to stay with them. We’re leaving the city together.’
‘Findlay, you are coming with me. We spoke about this.’
I try to explain to her about the settlement but she just shakes her head, pushing my words away.
‘We talked about this, Fin. You are safe now.’
‘Bullshit! You said so yourself about the lack of resources and the famine that’s coming. No one is safe. Not here, not living in a freakin’ office building. I don’t care how many guys with machine guns you’ve got around.’
‘You’re scaring Max.’
‘I’m scaring Max? You don’t think that maybe it’s the people out there killing each other over a packet of cigarettes that are scaring him? We’ve seen people on the borders, the borders you put up, shot in the head. And you think I’m scaring him?’
‘Fin,’ she pleads. ‘We’ve talked about this. You know there’s nothing I can do—’
‘I’m not staying with you. And you have to let Max decide whether he’s going to or not.’
She looks at my brother. He swallows, wiping at his tears with the back of his hands.
‘I want to go with Fin.’
‘No, no, no, no. You’re coming with me, both of you.’ She clutches at Max’s hands.
‘Mum, no. We’re not.’ I ignore the tears tracking down my cheeks. I put a hand on Max’s shoulder.
‘I want to go with Fin.’
‘You can’t. Fin, please. Please.’
‘Do you really think this is what’s best for us? You know it’s not.’
She covers her mouth, closing her eyes. I step toward her and kiss her on the cheek. She wraps her arms around me and then Max. She holds onto us with a grip I have never felt before. She lets out a wail, an animal sound that feels like it could split my chest apart. Someone else comes into the room, tries to steady her as her legs give way and she crumples to the floor, her whole body is shuddering with sobs.
I crouch next to her and she gathers Max and I to her chest again. She presses her nose into our hair. She holds us there for the longest time.
We begin rolling our bedding into tight bundles, selecting what will be left behind. It will be harder to fit everything in the car with one extra person.
Matt sits on the floor, arms wrapped around his legs. He nods when I tell him we are going.
‘You’re coming with us,’ I say.
‘Nah, really, it’s okay.’
‘You’re coming with us.’
Matt reckons the only place we’re going to find any petrol is in the tank of an army truck. He changes into his uniform, tells the rest of us to wear as much black as possible.
‘No Swannies beanie, then?’ Max says. I don’t think Matt gets it.
I use my best negotiating skills to try to convince Max to stay behind. But short of physically tying him to a concrete pillar, it’s impossible.
‘You do what you’re told, yeah?’ I warn him.
‘I think you’ll be surprised how useful I can be on this operation,’ he counters.
‘Just don’t be a dickhead, Max.’
Noll and Matt come with me to collect the hose pipe, torches and a crowbar from the car. I open the boot and Matt takes out his assault rifle, slings it across his back. Then I open the front door, take the handgun from under the passenger seat and tuck it into my jeans.
‘Haven’t we already been through this?’ says Noll.
I sigh, hand him the gun. ‘What are you going to do with it, anyway? Throw it at someone?’
‘My granddad had a farm. He taught me how to shoot.’
I raise an eyebrow.
‘Asians can have farms too, you know.’
‘I’m more worried about the fact he taught you to shoot with a handgun.’
‘Okay, so it was a rifle. Same principle. And I’ve still got more experience than you.’
‘Whatevs.’
Noll tucks the gun into his belt.
We leave the car park and enter the street wordlessly, like a flock of mourners from a graveyard. The moonless sky is a black void above us. We have two torches and we follow their tentative beams through the dark, empty streets. We pass beneath the looming multi-storey apartment blocks, between clusters of townhouses. Matt says the last time he was out here a small military station was set up in a big park a few blocks east. We follow him through a lifeless intersection and along a row of abandoned shopfronts. Lucy is beside me, Max next to her and up ahead, Noll follows a metre behind Matt. We walk in silence and approach another intersection. I step out on to the road and see the pool of ice next to the kerb a moment too late to warn Lucy. She steps right on it and, with a yelp, her legs slide from beneath her and she is on the ground.
‘Luce? Shit. Are you okay?’
She grimaces, grips her left ankle, the same one that was hurt during the riot. She takes my arm and tries to stand. Fails. She kicks at the ground with her heel in frustration. Max and I help her to her feet, Max enjoying the process a bit too much for my liking. Lucy tries to take a step and I can feel her tense up with the pain.
‘Go. Get fuel. I’ll wait here.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I look toward Noll and Matt. ‘I’ll have to help her back.’
‘Absolutely,’ says Noll.
‘No. No. I’m fine. You go.’
‘As if, Luce. C’mon.’ She can barely put weight on her leg. I bring her arm over my shoulder and hold her waist firmly.
‘Max,’ I say. ‘You have to do exactly as Matt and Noll tell you, yeah?’
Max nods, taking the hose pipe from me.
‘You got him?’ I ask Noll.
‘Definitely.’
‘All good,’ Matt says. ‘You take her back.’
Lucy and I turn and hobble our way back along the street. I take a look back over my shoulder and see the three of them, Matt, Noll and Max, walking into the darkness. No more than shadows.
All our things are packed, so I sit Lucy in the car. Rosa brings a box for her to prop her foot up on.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lucy says. ‘This is so pathetic. It really does hurt. I’m not just being a sooky girl. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Luce, this just gives me a chance to get back a bit of dignity.’
I dig a blanket out of the boot and put it under her heel. We sit in the car and wait. Rosa fusses over Lucy, brings us cups of hot tea. Then I hear the slap of feet on bitumen as someone comes bolting down the ramp into the car park. I look up and when I see him there are no words to describe the sound that comes from me.
Max’s hands are bloody. It’s smeared on his face and all over his clothes. His jeans are soaked through as if he’s been kneeling in the snow.
‘What happened?’ I pull open his jacket and look over him. His jumper is soaked crimson. ‘Where are you hurt? WHERE ARE YOU HURT? Fuck. FUCK.’
He shakes his head, pulling his jacket closed. Rosa is hysterical, shrieking. I actually push her out of the way. Some people come over to see what is going on; one of them brings a blanket, wraps it around Max, saying something about shock. I pull off Max’s beanie and tilt his head forward, back, side to side. There doesn’t seem to be any cuts. He’s looking at me like his eyes aren’t quite focused, like he can’t see me properly.
‘What’s happened? Where are Noll and Matt? Max, talk to me.’
Lucy is next to us, God knows how she got there. It’s
only when she tells me to try to calm down that I realise I have been shouting. By the time we get Max to the car there is a small crowd of people gathered around us.
‘Where are they, Max? Just tell us where they are.’
When I was ten, I left my bike in the rain. The wheel spokes turned orange-brown with rust. It got on my hands, it got on my clothes.
The snow that Matt and Noll lie on is the same colour. There is an army truck a few metres away, the driver’s door is open. Next to it is the dark shape of a body on the ground. Someone has covered Matt’s face with a towel and from the bloom of colour around his head I know there is no point looking under it. I go to Noll. His eyes are open, staring up into the sky. I kneel on the snow beside him. He is so still I think he is already gone, but his eyes shift and look directly at me. I yank the gloves from one of his hands and grip it in mine. He blinks at me and opens his mouth. It’s then that I see the bullet hole in the chest of his coat. Deep red pooling on the heavy fabric. I tear off my jacket and press it down over the hole, that’s all I can do.
‘Noll, Noll, don’t leave us. Hang on.’
The expression on his face is more of mild curiosity than anything else. Surprise more than panic. He says something and I lean closer to him to hear.
‘I’m going home.’
‘Noll, no, no. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.’
He is still looking at me. But he is not there. There is nothing left in him. I feel for his pulse.
There is nothing.
I sit in the snow. I don’t know for how long. Eventually I get up, go to the body next to the truck. It is face down, head turned to the side, eyes closed. It is a woman in army fatigues. I stand there looking at her, then kneel down to see if she has a pulse. She doesn’t. I look around. Nothing, but still, silent black. I turn and as I am walking back, past the end of the truck, I see it, clipped on the back door. A fuel container. As I grasp the cold handle and lift it from its bracket I can feel the weight of it. Full.
Lucy doesn’t cry. Neither do I. Shock. She doesn’t ask about the fuel. Max watches wordlessly as I fill up our car. He is white and has vomited onto the concrete twice. His hands shake too much to hold a cup steady and Rosa comes over, crouches next to him and holds a cup of warm tea to his lips. Lucy opens the back of the car and starts pulling things out. Noll’s things. She unzips his bag, riffles through it, pulls out two thick woollen jumpers, some pants, and the most crucial of all items, socks. She places them in our bags.
She sorts through the rest of Noll’s possessions, leaves them in his bag. Except for his bible. I take it from her and turn it in my hands. The cover is worn and scratched, most of the gold lettering worn away. Inside, the delicate pages are scrawled with notes: Noll’s writing crammed into the narrow margins. I put the book under the front seat of the car.
Lucy and I help Max to his feet and I begin to peel his clothes off him: coat, jumper, shirt. He starts to cry and the sound of his sobbing is unbearable. His head hangs and the tears run down his chin. I have a memory of him, as a child, a toddler in a bib holding my mother’s hand. When there is only one layer of clothing left he reaches around to the back of his jeans. Then he holds the gun out to me.
We leave soon after. I retrace the route Noll and I took from Mr Effrez’s house. The three of us are silent in the car, until a few blocks from Effrez’s house, when Max speaks.
‘We got to an army truck in the park. Matt told us to hang back behind a wall. He went up to the driver’s side and the driver got out. I couldn’t hear what Matt said to her. I could only see because there was a light in the cabin. Whatever Matt said, she mustn’t have fallen for it. He pointed his gun at her. That’s when Noll yelled out. He told Matt to stop, ran toward them and pulled the handgun out. He didn’t even point it at her, but the army woman, she didn’t hesitate . . . she . . . she shot Noll . . .’ Max’s body starts to shake, tears tracking down his cheeks. He shakes his head like he is frustrated by the crying. ‘I guess Matt shot her then. She fell in the snow. Matt looked over to me. Then he put the gun to his head and shot himself.’
I grip the steering wheel hard to stop shaking. I can’t. I can only see Noll in primary school, standing among the shards of glass, blood dripping from his forehead.
I stop the car out the front of Mr Effrez’s house. It’s pretty clear that Max is too much of a mess to get out. Lucy stays with him and I go up the path to the front door. I can’t help but worry that I’ll find Effrez dead as well, it seems to be my new habit. My luck isn’t quite that bad, though. Effrez opens the door and gives me a wide smile, something I have never witnessed before.
‘You came back,’ he says, leading me into the lounge.
‘Yeah’ is all I can manage to say. He must have noticed the defeat in my voice because he stops and turns around.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Noll. He’s dead.’
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there looking at me. Then he turns around and walks through to the lounge. He motions to a seat and I take it.
‘Well, that’s . . . that’s just appalling news.’
Effrez crouches down and opens a small cupboard beneath the window. I realise it’s a safe. He pulls out a bottle and takes a glass from the cabinet that stands where most would have a television. He pours a glass of the thin, golden liquid and hands it to me. I take a sip, it scorches my throat.
‘What happened? Did he get sick? He seemed well when he was here.’
‘No. I don’t know exactly. He was shot.’
‘Shot?’
I tell Effrez what happened, about our search for fuel and Max running back covered in blood.
‘This just happened?’
I nod.
‘Where is your brother?’
‘He’s in the car, out front.’
‘And you’re going to go south? Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re in shock. You’re not driving. Bring Lucy and your brother inside. You will stay the night, sleep. Go in the morning.’
His offer is not negotiable.
Effrez brings a double mattress into the living room. It fills the entire floorspace. The three of us will squish together on it, with some cushions stuffed down the side for extra width. I don’t know if it’s his mattress or where he plans to sleep if it is. I imagine him hanging upside down from the ceiling like a bat.
He heats two cans of spaghetti over the fireplace in his bathroom sink. He has cheese, which he grates over the top and it’s the most delicious thing any of us has eaten in months. The three of us sit cross-legged on the mattress. Effrez doesn’t talk, just watches us eat and then takes the bowls away when we are done. He returns with a notepad and pen.
‘I will give you the directions on how to get to the settlement. I also have a letter that I wish you to give to my friends when you arrive. There are six of them there plus others whom I don’t know. I will write my friends’ names down for you, you’re not likely to remember them if I tell you now, you look much too exhausted to remember your own names.’
It is past midnight by the time we get to bed. I fall asleep after what feels like hours. When I wake up sunlight is streaming through the window. I hear a loud knock at the door and get out of bed, careful not to wake Lucy and Max. I open the front door and feel the warm sunlight on my face, so bright that I have to shield my eyes. There are three people standing there: Noll, Alan and my father. They smile at me.
Then I wake to the gloomy half-light of the early morning.
Before we leave, Effrez hugs me tightly, then gives me a firm handshake.
‘Will you have enough fuel?’
I nod. ‘Can you please come with us?’
He shakes his head. ‘I cannot do that,’ he says. ‘Are you driving, Lucinda?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then I w
ill not fear. You all take care, won’t you? I will be thinking of you.’
I weave the car through the streets, out of the city and into the southern suburbs. We reach the barricade. It is manned by a single army officer who opens it as we approach. There is no issue with letting people out of the city. We follow the highway and the houses become trees. The headlights throw yellow light on the road in front of us and it occurs to me that it has been much easier to see on this drive than it was on the way down.
‘It’s stopped snowing,’ I say.
‘You’re right,’ murmurs Lucy.
Above us, the light is trying to push its way into the sky. It is still thick with grey, but it seems higher than it was before. The landscape unfurls on either side of the road, acres and acres of gently undulating scrub, broken only by large clusters of eucalypts. The greens and browns of the vegetation are less vivid than I have seen before and the gumtrees don’t look as strong as they were, as if the colour from their leaves has bled into the sky. But they are still standing, still reaching up. Waiting.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, a gigantic thank you to my husband, Nathan. Thank you for your unfailingly honest feedback, the most valuable thing a writer can have. Thank you for believing that I do have the skills to pay the bills, especially when I was convinced otherwise. Thank you for being a single parent from time to time so I could write.
A big thank you to Associate Professor George Bryan for his help answering my ‘what-ifs’ about all things nuclear winterish, for being a boffin in general and knowing about random things like what is and isn’t possible when it comes to handbrake turns. (Even when I chose to ignore your input re the latter.) Thanks for also being my dad. In fact, thank you to both my parents for your enthusiasm and for never asking when I was going to get a real job. Thank you for teaching me the value of hard work.
Thank you to my dear readers: Marcella Kelshaw, Carla Brown, Lauren McCorquodale and Jo Mason. Thank you for your input and ideas and for offering to read my stuff. Thank you for being top people and the bestest, most loyal friends.
A massive thank you to my agent Sheila Drummond and also the team at UQP for taking a punt on a newbie. Special thanks must go to the ever lovely Kristina Schulz for always being so encouraging and just downright lovely in general. Also to my editorial team: Cathy Vallance, Kristy Bushnell and especially Jody Lee, whose wisdom, very, very early on, helped make this story the book it is today.