Unsheltered

by Clare Moleta

  Praise for Unsheltered

  ‘Unsheltered reads like a thriller, is utterly convincing in all its invention, and kept a hard hold of me from beginning to end.’

  Elizabeth Knox

  ‘Li is an unforgettable character, whose scars are as compelling as her extraordinary resourcefulness – she powers an urgent, heart-stopping novel.’

  Emily Perkins

  ‘Unsheltered is a fist-clenching, breath-holding, heart-accelerating reading experience. Clare Moleta writes with clarity and force, conjuring a terrifyingly real world of environmental desolation and bureaucratic mercilessness, but also, vitally, one in which empathy, love and hope stubbornly persist. In temperamentally tenacious and teeth-grittingly tough Li, Moleta has created a heroine who is utterly believable in both her ambivalence about becoming a parent and in her single-minded determination to keep that child safe.’

  Emily Maguire

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  For Leon and Franka, my best place

  This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can’t start again.

  John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

  Author’s note

  The setting of this novel is Australian but not Australia. Geography, distance and time have been altered, some things moved around and others invented entirely.

  This is how Weather came.

  They were out in it, the two of them, yelling and laughing till they choked on the rain. Then they were quiet, just standing in it. Dust to mud under their feet and the smell of wet pulling up memories like fish. Li fell against Frank and he licked rain off her.

  I bloody told you, he said with his mouth on hers. Didn’t I tell you we weren’t going anywhere?

  Yeah? Well it better stop soon or it’s gunna wash everything away.

  You’re a hard woman to please.

  They danced a bit, tried to. Slow mud circles with the rain running them together. She couldn’t tell if it was his hair plastered against her forehead, or her own.

  He turned his face up to the rain. Let’s go and get her.

  They’d talked about it before, tried to imagine what it would be like for Matti the first time, and Li could hear his regret that she wasn’t with them now. But she wanted to go inside with him, wet like they were. Pulled him towards the door with her hands at his belt. And then over his shoulder she saw Matti running down the driveway towards them, running hard through the rain as if it was something to shelter from. When she got close enough Li saw that she was crying. It irritated her that Matti was having this reaction, and not the one they’d imagined for her.

  It’s all right, she said. You don’t have to be scared of it.

  Frank crouched down in the mud. What’s wrong, beansprout?

  And Matti said, Robbie went past the bend and he won’t come back.

  * * *

  Robbie was Carl and Angie’s boy. A quicksilver kid with a light in his eyes that came straight from his mother. He was six and Matti was five and they lived for the same things: matches and pocketknives and secret hideouts. When they were together you couldn’t break in. His fast grin was just for her.

  Li had thought they were at Angie and Carl’s and Angie thought they were with Li. They’d been playing in the stormwater pipe for weeks and nobody knew. And Matti and Robbie, they didn’t know what it was, what it was for. Who would have thought to tell them? Neither of them had ever seen rain.

  * * *

  The drain grate had rusted through. It wasn’t hard to lever it up and drop down into the cavity under the road, where the dry concrete pipes led off on either side. The two of them had been going down there after school, taking torches and lollies and leftover sandwiches, chalking how far they got and daring each other to go further.

  When the air turned thick and electric just after four o’clock, they hadn’t felt it. Didn’t see the sky fatten like a bruise, bringing people outside to look up and remember. Matti was at the first bend and Robbie was up ahead in the dark. He’d just yelled back that he’d passed her chalkmark when she wet herself. She hadn’t known until right then that she needed to go. She started shuffling backwards without telling him she was leaving.

  Why not? Frank asked later.

  And Matti, head down, Because I peed.

  It was so easy for Li to imagine her down there with her undies and the front of her T-shirt soaked, elbows raw and stinging, overwhelmed by shame because Robbie would have to crawl through it too.

  And when Matti came out backwards into the heavy purple light? That was harder to imagine. Did the world smell changed? How did she make sense of the water that started leaking and then flooding from the sky; the noise of it?

  She told Frank, I thought I’d got to the sea. She said she called to Robbie down the tunnel but she couldn’t even hear her own voice.

  * * *

  Angie and Carl left town a few months later. Their millet was ruined anyway. Li had known them more than ten years, Frank since primary school, but they didn’t say goodbye and Li thought that was right. She couldn’t look at them without a debilitating sense of relief.

  People said they’d gone down the highway to Valiant on the edge of the Gulf coast. Valiant was the only city in West. It was a place you could go and try to forget things. But most people figured Angie and Carl would only stay there long enough to buy their way onto a boat and get across the Gulf to East. Why not? Why not leave this whole unsheltered state behind, if you could? The newspapers said Weather was better over east, not so fierce yet. And the three External Border precincts were there – maybe Angie and Carl could find a way into one of them. Start again, sheltered. Maybe they could outrun Robbie.

  The last story Li heard was that they were in a makecamp outside Sumud, trying to queue or buy their way inside. It made sense. Sumud was the closest XB precinct, just across the Gulf. The man who told her that story was a customer in the hardware store – he’d hardly known Angie and Carl. She didn’t tell Frank. It would be tough hearing about his oldest friends third-hand.

  Ange told Li something, though, the one time they talked after the flood. She said she’d decided to live. I can’t leave Carl on his own with it, so I’m gunna keep going.

  How? Li was standing on the verandah, holding her casserole, because Angie hadn’t asked her in.

  You just decide to. Every time I stop, the hole opens up and I wanna fall. All I wanna do is fall. The only way I know not to is just keep deciding over and over. Everything’s a decision now. Opening my eyes, putting clothes on, eating, going outside. Nothing just happens.

  * * *

  All the neighbours had helped them search. The roads were under water, rain still belting down, and they could hear it roaring in the drains beneath their feet. They nearly lost Angie trying to climb down into the pipe; Frank had to drag her out and hold onto her. Someone brought a concrete cutter and tried to dig up the road to cut through the pipe. The hole they made filled up with mud and Carl dug in it with his empty hands.

  * * *

  Leaving was a decision for Angie. For most people it just happened. Because after the flood came howlers so vicious that the smell of them coming made you freeze up. Then the drought again, and then fire. Within two years everything was gone. When Li and Frank and Matti walked out of Nerredin onto the highway, all that was left was the pub and the ruin of the old school building. But
Robbie was the town’s first real victim; their unbearable, inadequate offering against what was coming. Robbie was the end of Nerredin.

  Matti wouldn’t talk to Li about it, not ever. She shouted and pushed her away, ran out of the house. But Frank said she asked him one question. Where will Robbie wait for me?

  And Li was glad it was Frank because she didn’t know the answer, had never known it since Matti was born. There was nothing here for a child, but they’d had one anyway. Like Angie and Carl had Robbie.

  What Li knew, what she understood before Frank, was the size of Weather. People could build their firebreaks and desalination plants and early warning systems and bunkers, but they couldn’t withstand it. Nobody could.

  She would have gone sooner but Nerredin was Frank’s home. So she waited for him to understand that home was finished. That all they could do now was try to keep their kid alive and look for somewhere safer.

  * * *

  The night before they left, they slept in the pub, bedding down on a single mattress on the floor. Their house, the olive grove, gone. Everything stank of ash. Others talking or sleeping around them – the ones who’d hung on, like them.

  The three of them had a long walk ahead, through the hot season, to reach Valiant. It would be hard on Matti, but Matti wasn’t sleeping. She had lost Goldie, her rag horse, as they ran from the fire and now she held tight to a new wooden horse Frank had carved for her, small enough to fit in her hand.

  Li felt Matti watching her in the semi-dark but she kept her eyes closed until she heard her roll over to face Frank.

  Dad, are we going to live with Hani and Auntie Teresa and Uncle Navid?

  For a bit, yeah. Till we find somewhere else.

  And is Hani excited about meeting me?

  Keep it down, beansprout. People’re sleeping.

  But is he?

  I bet he is. I bet he’s jumping off the walls and his mum’s saying, Calm down, mate, don’t bust a gut before they even get here.

  Matti wriggled, pleased, pushing backwards into Li. Her hair smelled of smoke. How long till we get there?

  It’s a pretty long way. We’ll be walking for a few weeks.

  Every day?

  Yeah, but we’ll stop and have a rest when it gets too hot. It’s gunna be good. You’re a good walker. And we can make up some new games.

  Like what?

  This kind of talk would keep Matti awake all night. But Li didn’t want to stop them, she just wanted to pretend she was asleep so she could hear it up close, the way they were with each other. How Frank made it sound so easy.

  Matti said, But are we going to stay and live in Valiant?

  You plan on doing any sleeping tonight?

  This is my last question.

  Okay. Well, we’ll see what we can find for work. Find you a school to go to.

  Matti had had six months at Nerredin Primary before the first howler tore off the schoolhouse roof and sent the teacher running back to Valiant. Homeschool since then, for the kids that were left. They’d shared it out, taught what they knew.

  And if we can’t find anything for work and a school, then will we go across the water on a boat?

  How about you stop worrying about everything, Frank said. Let’s just wait and see.

  Li tried to read his voice, because they hadn’t talked about this. About East. Getting to Valiant was what they’d talked about – how far a kid could walk in a day. Heat. Where there might be water and how much of it might be contaminated by ash. They’d talked about the size of the flat where his sister and her husband lived with their three-year-old son, above their garage and repair shop. There might be some work for Li there, and Navid knew people down at the port. That was far enough ahead for her. But even blinded by the loss of Nerredin, Frank might still think bigger.

  What’s it like inside the walls? Matti asked.

  I don’t really know, sprout. A bit crowded, maybe? But you and me and Li don’t take up much space. Except when your mum sleeps sideways.

  Did he know she was awake? Did he understand why she wasn’t helping with this, why it was better left to him? She couldn’t look Matti in the eye and talk to her about the future.

  So, will we go inside them?

  Maybe. Maybe we’ll find somewhere we like more, that’s not inside the walls.

  Like where?

  I dunno. Somewhere with a bit more room, maybe.

  Dadda?

  Matti.

  Okay, but would there be horses there? Cos there probably isn’t room for horses inside the walls?

  Sleep was coming, closing Li down. But she could feel the wire wound tight in her child. Four nights ago Matti had lost Goldie running from the fire. Yesterday she had seen the black ash of her home. Two years since the flood – nearly a third of her life. Did she even remember Robbie?

  Where, Dadda? Where are we going?

  Frank touched the back of Matti’s head and she burrowed in against him, away from Li.

  Go to sleep now. We’re going to go to the best place we can find.

  Makecamp

  Li woke like she was climbing out of a hole. Cold. Something pressing on her eyes. She tried to open them but the dark knuckled in under her lids and she squeezed them shut again. Something clothy and claggy inside her head, every thought was like lifting weight. It hurt to breathe and there was pain or the memory of pain at the surface of her skin. A sharp antiseptic smell. Underneath it, sweat, dust, dank concrete. No sounds from makecamp, no voices, but she wasn’t alone. She could move her hands but not her arms. Fear arrived too slowly. Matti, she thought.

  A woman said, She’s awake.

  People breathed around her, bad air and unwashed bodies. She listened for lighter breath, a faster heartbeat, for anything childlike. There was something she needed to remember.

  It’s okay, you’re safe. The woman turned away and spoke to someone else. Get Rich.

  Her voice was familiar but Li couldn’t do the work of placing it. She was sinking back down in the hole, her head filling up with glue.

  * * *

  Rolling a six is the best, Matti said.

  Yeah? Li was half listening. The burn had gone out of the sun and the highway to Valiant was soft and warm. Their best walking hours ahead of them. What does a six get you?

  Well, two things. You can add or take away six points from your total points, depending how close you are to winning. And a truck stops and gives you a lift.

  How far?

  It depends.

  * * *

  She clawed up and out again, got clear. She was lying on a hard surface. There was a delay between her and the pain, between her and thought. Her arms were tied, she couldn’t lift them. Something was wrong with her hands and her face. Why couldn’t she open her eyes? People were talking but no one talked to her. No one told her what she needed to remember.

  Matti, she said, and her voice was blurry in her own ears.

  There was a low whistle, a little way off. Sudden quiet movement around her, then a different, waiting quiet. She flinched as a hand came down over her mouth, but lightly, briefly.

  The woman said, Shhh, up close, and Li smelled her fear.

  Then a man called, We’re good. It’s Rich.

  The sound of a metal shutter being wrenched up. The man spoke quickly to someone else and the shutter came down again.

  There were no shutters in makecamp, no one would waste the metal. She was somewhere else. Somewhere closed in but big enough to make echoes. Footsteps on the concrete, getting louder. She tried to make her muscles work, to get ready.

  The woman said, She’s in and out but she’s awake. Then, to Li, You want to sit up?

  Her first try brought on cold sweat and a rush of nausea. The woman steadied her while it passed. Take it easy, you’re pretty drugged.

  She tried again and sat up slowly.

  I’m Safia, from the ready shop. You remember me? The woman was untying something at Li’s waist. We had to do this to stop you from
scratching.

  Li felt her arms come free of her body. When she started to speak she coughed and kept coughing until the woman held a bottle to her mouth and she resisted and then swallowed water and worked to get her breathing under control. Pushed the bottle away and discovered each of her hands was bound with cloth. The padding made her clumsy and her skin felt raw under the fabric. She touched her bandaged hands to her eyes; they were bandaged too, and the side of her face and neck. Pain pushing up through whatever drugs they’d given her.

  Matti, she said, her tongue thick and slow. Matti?

  No answer. Her arms went wide. Where is she? Tell me where she is. She lurched forward in the dark, fighting nausea, reaching to drag Matti in out of empty space.

  Your daughter’s not here, Safia said. We haven’t seen her since they cleared makecamp.

  Li stopped moving. Everything stopped. When?

  Two days ago.

  Two days. Black noise came rushing in but she clenched her fists and the pain brought her back. What happened?

  You don’t remember?

  She was trying. Remembered Matti saying, Don’t go tonight. She remembered smoke. Running till she couldn’t breathe or see.

  Safia filled in the gaps. XB Force and loud hailers and dogs. Batons, studded gloves. Tear gas. Saltwater cannons. What had happened to the people who tried to gather up what they owned, or stay, or fight. What happened to the sick ones. How fires had started and were left to burn. Too much useless information. Two days. Two nights. Where is she where is she where is she —

  Don’t do that.

  It was a man’s voice. She realised she was trying to pull the bandages off her eyes but the bandages on her hands were getting in the way. She sensed him move to touch her and reared back.