by P. S. Lurie
My parents smile when we enter the room.
‘All fine up there?’ my father asks.
I hesitate because they could not have seen the killing spree from the lower ground as our back fence stands in the way but they must have heard the screams even if they don’t acknowledge them.
‘Just chatting,’ Selene says.
‘Food’s still warm but I can heat it up a little,’ my mother offers.
‘It will be great as it is. Are you sure there’s enough for me?’
‘Of course. There will always be enough for you,’ my mother says, and then I see it, the sadness in her eyes, that this is a hollow offer.
‘Thank you.’ Selene sits and loads her plate.
‘This looks great,’ I say, but I am still lost in my memory.
‘We’ll be teenagers before we’re homeless,’ I said to Theia as we neared the coast. It seems much more than three years ago but I vividly remember there being little encouragement in those words even then.
I also remember it as the day we attempted to escape, which not only failed but ended in tragedy.
Theia
I don’t want to arouse suspicion but I need time to make sense of what I overheard outside the bathroom and that means having space to think. I can’t fathom my mother choosing her life over Ronan or any of us but five minutes ago I couldn’t imagine she would choose another man over my father, even in his mental debilitation. I doubt he knows. My parents, despite my father’s depression, are a team. They may argue about trivial things but never anything serious or lasting. Except for one matter.
Henry’s parents never wanted children. In spite of this, Mrs Argent found herself pregnant. ‘One too many’, I overheard them tell my parents on more than one occasion but they follow this with delight at how everyone that crosses Henry’s path says that he has turned out to be ‘a charming young man’. He isn’t gorgeous like Ruskin Peters with his friend’s chiselled jaw and blonde curls but he does have these piercing eyes and messy brown hair and a face that endears everyone to him and I can see the charm they describe, at least on days we haven’t bickered. Henry’s parents were honest about their disappointment that he was a mistake pure and simple, a cruel result of an accident sixteen years ago that they would come to regret.
My own case is worlds apart. My father was adamant he wanted children whilst my mother was resolute that she didn’t, that her work came first and we would be an obstruction. ‘Why bring more people into this godforsaken world?’ she asked him repeatedly. ‘Why not allow ourselves the happiness from a family?’ he would retort. ‘Why can’t we be a family?’ she would argue. ‘We could be so much happier,’ he shouted. ‘We are happy,’ she screamed. Despite this long-suffering difference they fell deeper in love.
On it went as months became years until the couple could not separate even if they wanted to. But my father could not be satisfied with what little my mother craved and even though she cared for none of it accidents happen and I was born. The Silverdale family extended by one then my mother found herself pregnant twice more and, whilst I was blessed with siblings, she never held back that it was not what she wished. She loved my father enough to go through with the pregnancies and loved us and resented us equally, and as little as a few weeks after each one of us was born and my parents found ways of sharing the load so that my mother could return to work, they fell in love all over again.
‘Theia? Earth to Theia.’
I snap out of my daydream and look around the table, too disoriented to place the voice. ‘Sorry?’
‘Don’t be rude to your grandmother,’ my mother says.
I want to scoff at her hypocrisy and I could shut her up in an instant but I don’t. I conceal her secret for a while longer and let her off the hook, avoiding World War Four. ‘Sorry grandma, I didn’t hear you.’
‘How’s school dear?’ she asks in between weak breaths.
I’ve been out of school for over a year but am unfazed by her confusion. Her dementia means she can’t remember my name so understanding what is happening tonight is a big ask and for that alone, for the illness that causes her to be absent, I’m jealous. It’s more concerning that my mother might not even be addressing me in the first place as she often believes I am my mother, her own daughter, at a younger age. I’ve learnt it’s easier to play along than resist or correct her.
I decide she is the luckiest out of all of us tonight, luckier even than Leda because she has at least had her time. My mother diagnosed her mental deterioration around the time Ronan was born as being in an early stage of the degenerative disease. Her incoherence rises in conjunction with the encroaching sea. To her benefit she would have forgotten the announcement immediately after hearing it so I don’t know whether in that moment of comprehension it would have distressed her or if it washed off her carefree. If so, lucky her when, for the rest of us, the knowledge of death approaching is inescapable.
I opt for a vague response. ‘School’s interesting, thank you.’
‘You need to be a good girl. You’ll have a brother or sister any day now.’
I nod and watch as my grandmother looks at the young faces around the table and at the contradiction between their presence and her words. Ronan tugs on my father’s sleeve. He is too young to understand why she has never acknowledged him.
My father leans in and whispers something I can’t hear and Ronan laughs. I cherish these moments when my father reappears and still has the ability to diffuse situations with the words we need to hear.
My grandmother makes a little ‘oh’ sound but my grandfather stays resolutely silent the entire time.
‘Has everyone had enough to eat?’ my mother asks. No one has time to answer before we are rudely interrupted by a gunshot. A few seconds later the sound of a second blast reverberates around the room.
Selene
I gasp for air but can’t breathe.
The food lodges in my throat when I am startled by the gunshot. Panic overcomes me and I can feel my chest burn. My vision blurs and I can’t see if anyone else has noticed I can’t breathe. In that brief moment two thoughts occur to me, that I’m going to die but at least it solves one problem for the Argents. But I don’t want to die. Somehow the next blast that comes a few seconds later catches me unguarded once more and reverses the choke because I jolt and this helps dislodge the food. I gulp and clear my airway. It occurs to me that a death somewhere in the neighbourhood may have prevented mine. My eyes stream and I swallow some cold tea to help the chunk of food slide down.
Henry did notice and is out of his seat ready to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre but I put my hand up to stop him, no longer needing his assistance. ‘Are you ok?’ he asks.
‘What was that?’ My voice is hoarse.
‘Two gunshots,’ Henry says, stating the obvious. ‘A few seconds apart. Nearby. Theia?’
‘No,’ says Henry’s father. ‘It’s not the Silverdales.’
He doesn’t know that but I’m grateful all the same because Henry would be beside himself and I don’t want him worrying about Theia right now when he has me to contend with.
‘That’s more people believing the announcement’, Henry says. ‘Why are they giving up so easily?’
His innocence has been a wonderful trait through his life but lets him down tonight. It’s obvious to me why this is happening but I don’t want to be the one to break it to him. Still he wants an answer. Whether he will receive an adequate one is a different matter.
‘Why?’ he asks again.
Henry’s mother clears her throat. ‘They’re not giving up. They’re stepping aside.’
‘But there is still time.’
I think of my mother alone by herself. She has no one to compete with and no one to step aside for so she has plain sailing to being Rehoused. Yet even through our fallouts and disagreements I wonder how she feels about me not being there. A terrible thought races through my head that if my mother and I were in the same house and alone together what
would be the outcome?
I say a silent prayer for whoever was on the receiving end of that gun. And I say one more for whoever fired it.
Theia
The clamour of the gunshots disorients me but I think it comes from the Ethers’ house next door. My ears ring and my mother’s voice sounds distant.
‘Stephen and Joyce,’ she says in disbelief.
My mind races with competing versions of what happened. Leda does her rare thing of crying. My grandmother says, ‘There there Penelope,’ and my father wraps his hand around Ronan who is demonstrably pale. I cradle Leda, once more ignoring my grandmother’s open arms and give my mother a cursory glance as she sits by doing nothing at all.
But we are all safe. The shooting happened too quickly to run out of the room or dive for cover and even though a bullet could still pierce through the wall and ricochet into any one of us we remain in our seats. Two shots. I can’t prove it but I sense that there will be no more danger from the old couple’s house.
‘One for each of them,’ I say. I wager that Mr Ethers must have shot his wife and then himself thus dying together rather than one living without the other. If this is true then the retired fishmonger took on the burden of ending his wife’s life.
‘They died with dignity,’ my mother says, having come to the same conclusion as me.
‘Why didn’t one of them,’ I start but realise the alternative is unimaginable. The Ethers never argued a day in their lives and the main reason for building the walk-in fridge into their house was to spend every day in one another’s company.
My father speaks up for the first time since his declaration that I will be Rehoused. ‘Tonight death is not a mark of weakness. We cannot judge the decisions people make with or against their loved ones. Ending life may be the most honourable and bravest act.’
I picture the scene. The Ethers offer the other the chance to survive but they know each other better than their words meaning anything more than a polite gesture. They know they will die in their house and Mr Ethers insists that he carries out the shooting. They make themselves comfortable and he instructs his wife to close her eyes until there is nothingness.
This is conjecture but makes sense to me given the circumstances.
‘Who do you think did it?’ my grandfather asks.
‘Mr Ethers but that is purely an assumption,’ my mother says, again agreeing with me. Then she adds something naive. ‘Why did he have a gun?’
I guffaw, unable to stop the sound of incredulous laughter spill out of me before everyone turns to face me, confused that I could find the situation funny.
‘Sorry,’ I say. My family think I’m being inappropriate and I suppose I am but since we are discussing a dead couple’s demise as they lay lifeless nearby I can’t see why my response makes much difference. ‘It’s just,’ but I can’t go on as I laugh again. ‘Why did he have a gun? Are you serious? He wanted to do anything to protect himself and his wife from the homeless and then they were out of options. They took control of their lives.’
‘Theia,’ my father warns. ‘That’s enough.’
‘Come on.’
‘Theia, I’m warning you.’
‘I need some air. Do something useful,’ I say to my mother as I pass Leda to her.
The announcement never said the garden was off-limits and in my state I’m willing to risk it so I enter the back room, open the sliding door to the outside and close it behind me.
The wind is appropriately bitter and pierces my skin where laughter now gives way to free-flowing tears over the old couple. I can’t believe the Ethers are dead.
I didn’t know the family behind me and it shocked me rather than upset me. I could rationalise their deaths as malicious and that the girl despised the rest of her family but I knew the Ethers loved one another and have now made the announcement more real again. If I don't wipe away the tears soon I fear the moisture will freeze down my face but I leave them there for a moment of remembrance and I only brush them away when I grudgingly accept that more of us will die.
The moon has almost dominated the sky above me but there is still the husky hue of sunset but no, it’s not sunset, it’s the streetlamps behind the houses. I had forgotten they were left on but it’s eerie as it’s been years since light filled our houses after sundown and my eyes have to adjust to the glare. Besides the lamps, a shade of navy blue hangs low and prevents blackness from conquering the horizon but I know that won’t be for long. A lack of electricity meant that the stars have always been vivid, even in the most urban sprawls of our neighbourhoods, but not tonight. I used to stare up and fixate on a star, envious how each basks in its own glory, aware how far removed they all are from our drowning planet. I can’t see the stars because of the light pollution and feel remorse that I might never see them again. We only appreciated the electricity when it was gone but we never appreciated the stars.
Sunrise will be around five in the morning, which is when the Upperlanders will collect the survivors. Maybe I will be alive to see it but I have no idea what the rest of the night will hold and this thought alone chokes and overwhelms me. Terror that I have bottled down rises to the surface and causes my knees to buckle so I steady myself against the sturdy tree in the corner of the garden.
I look up but the girl with the messages is not in front of her window and I turn my mind to questions of when and how her parents will die. I turn a fraction but can't see into Henry's house from here and I deliberately don’t look in the other direction towards the Ethers’ house even though I couldn’t see anything sinister from here. Then I think about the murderous girl behind the fence and whether she’s still in the room with the dead bodies and whether she’s in disbelief and whether she feels regret.
Standing out here and knowing that for even those Rehoused there will be no happy ending becomes too much to abide. Fate has brought me here. Where I was born has determined that I am likely to die soon whilst those in the Upperlands have limitless time. I re-evaluate this and realise it’s not fate at all. The Upperlanders are fortunate in where they reside but they are guilty. They are the ones to blame. They could rectify this right now. Anger pulses through my body and then leaves it just as quickly but it has served a purpose: it has reignited my spirit.
I won’t accept what everyone else around me has. Everyone else has forgotten that there is always another option no matter how improbable. But I need time to think. Space too.
Henry would only distract me and I don’t want to disturb his family.
‘I can work this out,’ I say out loud to myself and, before I question my sanity, my feet have taken launch and I find myself climbing over the fence and jumping down into the Ethers’ garden.
Henry
I watch the hand on the clock push on with each passing second and it’s painful how long it takes for it to move full circle but the minutes accumulate and I waste time in which we should be acting but instead are doing nothing. The silence is more unbearable than gunshots because at least with murder or suicide the frustration of waiting is removed. Violence has not entered my house but it is only a matter of when and how.
With the impending tide life has always been a time bomb and the reminder of death crawling towards our front doors made it hard to not end each day with a sigh. Now the day is upon us and I should cling on to every remnant of life and appreciate it for what it was. I should tell my parents I love them, read my favourite passages, do something wild, but I just can’t see the point. Or I could put myself out of my misery and then it will no longer matter but I come to the same conclusion I always do, that always keeps me striving for the next day: there’s still hope. A second announcement could retract the first and explain this was a mistake and that we will all be Rehoused.
Hope may be fading but it’s still there in the back of my mind, desperate to be heard.
I considered being a teacher so that I could inspire children and give them the encouragement many of their parents and teachers were unable to
offer. I didn’t want to follow the rest of the neighbourhood into fishing. Not after what happened when I was last there. I also couldn’t be a fishmonger like Mr Ethers or it would be a constant, depressing reminder of the ocean as it won its battle. None of that matters anymore.
My parents and Selene run through all the families in the neighbourhood. ‘Who seems unstable?’ ‘Who has access to a gun?’ ‘The noise was loud. Does that mean it was close?’ ‘Does that mean one person remains? Or was it a suicide pact?’ ‘Were tears shed as well as blood?’
They go on and on becoming increasingly numb to the violence with each question. ‘Was that policeman involved?’ ‘Or was it a family?’
I listen but don’t contribute as I don’t see the value of speculating on our neighbours apart from how it allows the time to pass before it is our turn. They don’t see the bigger picture. Two homes have suffered already within our vicinity and, whilst one family may be an anomaly, two families is the start of a contagion. That’s only two houses we’re aware of but there must already be many other silent, private deaths behind closed doors.
I’m certain Selene won’t be here come sunrise but keep it to myself. She’s fearless and impulsive and I’m confident that if there’s a way to leave the house before then she’ll take it. I don’t let her know this because it would encourage her and make me feel responsible if she did leave. If she does go then that will leave my father, my mother and me, and all the declarations of pacifism will mean nothing. Only one of us can survive. Inflicting violence doesn’t sit well with us but I saw the rise of an attack in my father when he swung the hammer. I wonder what this night will do to people’s morals.
I turn my attention back and forth between my parents and think of abundant reasons why either should be Rehoused and only one for why they shouldn’t: that they wouldn’t put their life in front of mine. Both my parents must have considered this even if it has gone unspoken but I am no different in my own thinking; I’d rather die before taking the place of either of them.