by Stuart Keane
Hannah rolled over and slowly sat up, raising to the child's level. "I'm sunbathing. Ever tried it?"
"No. You need a sunbed for that."
Hannah chuckled. "Is that what Mummy told you?"
Mia nodded.
"And Mummy has a sunbed?"
Again, Mia nodded.
The simplicity of the gesture almost broke Hannah's heart. She'd known Mia for some time now, nearly three months, but not once had she stopped to consider the young girl's personal plight. Rich parents, busy parents with their life-consuming work permanently on the mind. A life dictated by regular business meetings and multiple flight schedules and willing servants-come-babysitters, not to mention herself. It was no life for a child; children needed nurturing at such a young age, especially one as uniquely curious and extensively intelligent as Mia.
Hannah breathed out, flinching as a vivid ray of sunlight flicked across her eye line and almost blinded her. She wondered if Mia's parents even noticed that they were, for all intents and purposes, neglecting their adorable child.
Hannah knew the price of responsibility. Some people have no choice, as harsh as that sounds. Work always comes first; raising a child with next to no money is just as bad as raising them with a silver spoon in their mouth. In both situations, the parents are cast into an impossible situation, and finances – comfortable or not – will always dictate the daily routine. The kid always suffers, because the parents have no choice but to dedicate themselves to providing for their family, regardless of the personal situation.
They had no choice.
But Hannah did.
After all, it was her job.
She smiled wide, gaining Mia's mature attention, tried to remember the context of the original conversation, and continued, "Sunbeds are for busy people. Your mum and dad are hardworking people, which is why I get to look after you. Your mum has a sunbed because she doesn't have time to come here and take you…"
Hannah trailed off, and decided to choose her words carefully. Mia just stared at her, blankly, awaiting the woman's continuation.
"What I mean is … Mummy works hard to provide you the best life. And so does your daddy. The nicest clothes, the yummiest food, and an education that will be important when you grow up."
"I want them to come swimming with us, though."
"And they will, one day. You have a pool at home, right?"
Mia hesitated, looked around, and finally nodded.
"But it's not the same, is it?"
Mia lowered her gaze and shook her head. "No. There's people here, other children. I like the noise they make. I like watching people. It makes me laugh. At home, I'm all alone apart from Greta, and she's very boring. Always making cakes that no one eats. It's more fun this way."
Hannah uncurled the girl's towel on the ground and patted it. "Sit down."
Mia followed the instructions, lowered her tiny body onto the soft material and crossed her stick-like legs. Once comfortable, she looked up at Hannah, who now towered over her.
"When I was your age, my mum and dad used to do the same thing. They worked every hour of every day, to make ends meet, and I hardly saw them, but when I did see them, it made the time I spent with them all the more special. Do you understand that?"
Mia nodded slowly.
"Your mum and dad love you, they always will, and it might not seem like it now, but working all the hours to provide for you is a way of ensuring that you have a bright future. When you grow up, you want a fun job, to be successful, to earn money, right?"
Mia bit her lip. "Like my parents?"
"Yes, like your parents."
"They are cool. I wish I had Daddy's money, his car is really nice."
Hannah chuckled. "And one day, you will. This is their way of making sure it happens."
"Cool," Mia responded. A smile finally adorned her thin lips.
"It doesn’t mean you can't enjoy the swimming, though."
Mia sighed. "I'm not in the mood today. Can I just sit here with you?"
Hannah nodded. "Sure."
"Maybe I'll sunbathe with you."
Hannah chuckled. "We'll see. I give it ten minutes until Cayden comes back with a story about the pool monster, or something."
Mia laughed. "He does that a lot."
"He sure does."
Mia raised her chin, a twinkle in her eye. "It's just the dinosaurs painted on the underwater tiles. He's silly."
Hannah nodded, and silently revelled in the girl's advanced intelligence. Children should live for moments of joy and uncertainty as they grow and mature, learn through experience that there's no such thing as terrifying monsters beneath the bed or residing in the closet, or even devise that popular figures such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were invented to boost the failing economy.
To most children, the innocently-painted dinosaurs alluded to by the small girl added to the natural swimming experience; they enhanced the unscripted adventure and discoverable joy that so commonly takes place in the active imagination and unpredictable life of a child, and created a fond collection of images within the memory bank, images that would place a smile on a face, or emit a laugh from a child as they go on their adventures. Memories that would travel with them for life.
But to Mia, they were nothing more than fancy artwork. Her intellect was years ahead of the remaining children in her care, and Hannah was proud to embrace it, happy to nurture the girl's bludgeoning curiosity since her parents didn’t. Mia saw things like an adult – she wasn’t the first child to do so, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, but she was the first that Hannah had experienced.
"Hannah?" Mia asked, preparing a question. She struggled to find the right words at first, and Hannah observed the young girl's face as it contorted in pure thought. She withheld a chuckle, refusing to put the girl off.
"Hannah. What's … what's making ends meet?"
The woman dipped her chin and beamed. Her blinking eyes watched the young girl, full of personal pride. No talk of teddy bears or ice cream here. She was curious about the things that no child finds interesting. "You're all about the questions, huh?"
Mia smiled. "I like to learn."
Hannah narrowed her eyes. "So, I see. Making ends meet is when a person, like me and you, does anything in their power to exist … to live. People need money to live, to buy things and pay for their houses, and put petrol in their car. Some people do this easily … like your parents. And then some people don't have it so fortunate. They struggle to make ends meet, which is where the saying comes from. Sometimes, they might not be able to pay the rent, or buy a car, or even food."
"So, those people are poor?" Mia queried.
"Not poor … but not rich either. Some people earn less money than others. Everyone is different."
Mia nodded. "Are you poor? Do you struggle to make ends meet?"
Hannah chuckled. "I did once, but not anymore. Like I said, my parents did right by me, but there were moments when it was touch and go."
Mia nodded. Flicked her gaze to the swimming pool and said nothing.
"Now … how about that sunbathing?" Hannah said.
She laid down on the warm tiles and waited. A moment later, Mia disengaged from the pool, studied her babysitter and copied, laying on the towel beneath her. Her eyes studied every movement of Hannah's body and mimicked her pose. Hannah noticed, placed a hand on her stomach, and chuckled when Mia copied.
"When you sunbathe, make sure you're not covering any skin. Or you get tan lines."
Mia giggled. She placed her hands beside her, watched Hannah do so, and finally closed her eyes. The older woman glanced up quickly, searched for the other children, realised they were in the care of dutiful swimming instructors, and laid her head on the tiles below.
"Hannah?"
"Yes, Mia?"
"What's touch and go?"
TWELVE
Nicky hobbled over to the window, parted the blinds with quivering fingers, and observed the cul-de-sac beyond with
a stoic gaze. She felt warm tears rolling down her cheeks, and her heart pounding in her chest, smashing against her ribcage in an effort to escape her very being, but did her best to ignore them. With the other hand, she took a swig of her chosen drink, a can of Dr Pepper Zero, in order to calm her nerves. Her sips were gentle, delicate, in order to make the drink last.
Her gaze was endless, studious yet unnervingly vacant. Chaotic events were taking place in her wavering line of vision, on the manic circular road right outside her home, but she didn’t register and process them like a person should. She watched with total emotional detachment as her neighbours, both close friends and total strangers, some fearful for their lives and others prematurely panicking due to the journalistic vitriol that now graced every news channel, abandoned their homes and lives.
Miss Johnson from number thirty-nine, a woman with hair as dark as her biting sense of humour, and an unhealthy penchant for all things Batman, was loading her saloon car with suitcases, filling the boot with her personal belongings. It was no surprise that her black feline carry case, one that provided sanctum to her beloved cat, Bats, was adorned with various Batman insignias and stickers. The sleepy cat watched her with utter disdain, his eyes half closed, the strange behaviour of his owner irrelevant. As Miss Johnson slammed the boot shut and climbed into her vehicle, she took a final look back at her neighbourhood. She flipped the bird and mouthed something aloud, words that went amiss at this distance, but Nicky's ability to read lips provided her with the answer, although she wasn't quite sure what a 'hoof wanking bungle cunt' was. She averted her gaze and studied another part of the street – in a strange way, despite their minimal interaction, she would miss that hilarious woman.
As Miss Johnson's vehicle reared away from the driveway, spilling smoke into the tension-filled air, two of Nicky's closest friends, Jo Orm and Becky Narron, conversed on the street corner. The stressed facial mannerisms and tense body language of the two women pointed to one thing; the best friends were in the middle of a heated debate. Fingers pointed, arms were raised, hissing sneers were in dutiful supply. This was confirmed when Orm suddenly punched Becky and knocked the woman onto her rump. The victor quickly walked away, retreated up the path to her home, and disappeared through the front door. Narron, not done, wiped her bleeding lips and climbed to her feet, walked into Orm's garden, and launched a chipped garden gnome through the front window. The sound of shattered glass prickled at Nicky's ears as Narron leapt through the window and fought broken glass and flailing curtains to get at her new foe, venturing into her former friend's house to continue the fight.
In the distance, Nicky could see a coiling plume of thick black smoke; her first actual sighting of what had caused the sudden chaos. That, along with the constant news updates, had people in a frenzy. Several cars whizzed by, their engines a brief spurt of noise, bound for pastures new. She breathed out; her life was collapsing around her, and there was nothing she could do about it, from her partially crippled state. She took another sip of her drink, and no longer cared for the taste. "Can I get some whiskey with this?" she asked, to no one in particular.
Luke looked up, and carefully placed the disassembled pieces of his firearm onto the coffee table. He wiped at his fingers with a white towel, smearing the cloth with grease. He smirked, "I don't think that's a good idea, do you?"
"Well … what does it matter."
"There's no need to think like that. Besides, we don't have any whiskey."
Nicky took a quick sip and dribbled some fizzy drink down her chin. She curled her lips to prevent any more spillage, and wiped it away with an agitated swipe of the arm. She glanced out at the street again, and saw nothing but silent isolation. She sighed. "We're all dead anyway. You said … suggested so, yourself."
"We don’t know anything yet. Like I said, we'll cross that bridge … besides, shouldn’t you be resting? Why are you standing up? Get away from there, someone might see you."
Nicky removed her hand from the blinds and faced her brother, her face rippled with vehemence. She hissed, "Are you telling me what to do?"
Luke stood up, suddenly worried. "No … no, I'm not."
"Then shut the fuck up. This is my house. If I want to stand by the fucking window and pathetically drink my woes away as my life collapses around me, I fucking will."
Luke held his hands up in resignation and sat back down, but remained silent.
Nicky held up her mobile phone. Urged it to ring, for the screen to light up with that adorably dorky profile picture of her husband she had saved on the device. She desperately yearned for Alex to call her, for him to confirm he was okay. To let her know he was on his way home.
He didn’t.
And she doubted he was sitting in a car right now. The roads would be either empty of rammed with masses of people fleeing. If Luke's revelation about the water system was now public knowledge, anyone could be a potential target on the vast empty stretches, or sat in total gridlock for hours, from city to city. In that respect, she would rather Alex stayed where he was, have him hide out until it died down. Alex coming home alive rather than in a body bag would be her preferred choice, and there was no point in taking stupid risks to speed up the former. She hadn’t witnessed any violence just yet – aside from her lovely neighbours, Becky and Jo – but according to the news teams, the bastards who revelled in broadcasting the blight of others peoples' misery, it was happening all around the country right now. The looting and attacks had begun as primitive survival instinct took hold.
And then there was Oedema itself, but no news or current information about the fatal virus had yet been revealed, although that would surely come about in due course. Nicky knew not of the symptoms, aside from the basics Luke had revealed, although she felt he was holding out on her. Which was fine by her, that was his sacred right; the details were classified after all, and he shouldn’t have revealed one iota of truth about it to begin with, but she dreaded the eventual discovery.
Her medical knowledge denied her a right to be squeamish or weak-willed in the face of gore, or any exposed facet of the human anatomy, but with the unknown comes a level of horror that no one can prepare for. There was always a new 'something' on the horizon that would push the envelope, breach the barrier that tickles a person's gag reflex. A person can only stand so much, and if half of the information Luke had revealed about the virus was true, she was in for a horrific revelation at some point down the winding road.
Alex should stay put.
He should come home. Now.
No, he could hole up, until it dies down.
If it ever dies down.
Nicky's bottom lip trembled. Where are you?
Nicky yelped as a stifled sob blurted from her open mouth. She wiped her eyes with the back of a trailing hand, but didn’t disguise her growing anguish from her brother. She had no need to.
Luke lifted a small brush from the table and started to clean the barrel of his gun. The action was well-versed, routine. He could do it with his eyes closed. He looked at his upset sister, and felt his heart dip a little. "He's probably fine, you know."
Nicky folded her arms. "How the hell can you know that…"
Luke shook his head. "Trust me, I know."
"You don’t know Alex. He's impulsive, he's always willing to step up to the plate when the situation arises, whether its required or not. He's comfortable in his little familiar bubble, with his job and his hobbies and me, but otherwise? He's a liability. He'd walk into a burning building before realising its fucking hot. He's not dependable in a crisis."
"I know him well enough –"
"You do not!"
"He's a sensible lad, Nicky. He married my sister after all."
Nicky briefly smiled, the compliment touching, piercing the torrents of emotional torment that currently possessed her tortured body. She wiped the tears away and felt a gentle wave of relief washing over her.
Luke looked up. "But … he married you, so…"
Nicky ch
uckled. "Arsehole."
Luke smiled and returned to his cleaning. He placed the barrel down and lifted the firing mechanism. "He's probably on his way home now," Luke uttered. "Or holed up somewhere. You're his whole life, Nicky, that much is clear in the way he dotes on you, and he wouldn’t do a thing to jeopardise that. He's a love-sick puppy."
He sipped his drink, caught a breath. "No, there's a very good reason he hasn't got in touch, yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the explosions took out some of the phone lines. It'll bring communications to a standstill. That'll be why he's not calling you."
"And what if … what if something else happened?"
"Nothing happened."
Nicky insisted, "But what if it did? What if he was caught in an attack? Or was visiting one of the targets when it got hit? He could have been picking up some lunch, or been out and about during his free time. I don’t know how these training seminars work."
"He'll call you, when he can."
"But what if –"
"He'll call," Luke said, defiantly. "You shouldn’t be worrying about things you can't control, not in your condition. There's too many variables, and you shouldn’t stress out about them. Come and sit down."
"But –"
"Sit!"
Nicky paused, and then did as she was told. She wandered over and slumped back onto the sofa with a wheeze of cushions, landing in her usual spot. She took another sip of her drink, and eyed her brother as he went about his dutiful routine. She licked her lips. "You just told me what to do."
Luke breathed out, and placed the firing pin back on the table. "It's for your own good, sis. You need to heal. I won't have you opening that surgical scar and getting an infection … or worse. Not on my watch. We can’t take that risk now, the hospitals … we don't know if they're still standing. And with the explosions … we don't know what's happening out there. No, we need to stay put. The less injuries the better. Feel free to worry about your husband, by all means, but don't put yourself in jeopardy while you do it. He wouldn’t want that, and I certainly don't want that. I'm here to protect you, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."