An Ordinary Epidemic (46 page)

‘Muuum. That hurts.'

‘Quiet.' She could hear sounds, a door slamming, someone running. ‘Did you see Daddy?' She whispered.

‘Where was Daddy?' Oscar stage-whispered back.

‘Don't talk.' She could barely hear herself. ‘Nod or shake. Did you see Daddy?' Shake. ‘Did you see Zac?' Shake. ‘Did you see anyone?' Shake. She held Oscar to her tightly, her heart knocking hard against him. He squirmed in protest at the constriction.

‘Crawl along the fence back to the house. Go inside. Be quiet, keep Ella quiet.' She let go of Oscar but he froze, a panic of indecision on his smooth face. ‘Go.' He still didn't move. ‘I'll be in soon. You have to be quiet. Inside.' She could see his chest heaving as he crawled away.

‘Hey Oscar,' she whispered after him, ‘it's all right. It really is all right. Daddy did something silly.'

She lay still, listening for noises. Nothing, not even the sound of Zac. Between the palings she saw nothing but the next fence. She counted seconds, to calm herself and measure the moments of danger. Every minor noise—a bird in the distance, a branch in the breeze—distracted her from the count and forced her to start again. And again. By now it was minutes.

She crouched, her head just below the top of the fence, and looked through the gap between two planks. No sign of anyone. She raised her head slowly until her eyes just reached above the palings. Still no one. She climbed on the fence, just high enough to see Zac lying along the fence three yards on, calmly staring at nothing. She waved a little, one eye on the distant backyards. She waved more vigorously.

He looked up and she gestured for him to come but he lay still and pointed down the side of the house. She couldn't bring to mind which house he was behind, what it looked like from the front, whether it had a gate, whether a fence blocked the side passage. Whichever one it was, it was too far away. If the way was clear, he could possibly crawl to the front but then he had to cross both halves of that semi and Gwen's house
before he could make it onto their front porch. But only if the way was clear. And all that time he would be out of her sight. She gestured more frantically for him to come to her. He shook his head. She tried to look commanding. He shook his head. Although he lounged back, he wasn't completely relaxed, he had an air of calculated apprehension.

She mouthed at him, ‘You are safe.' A shrugged incomprehension. She mouthed again, ‘Come now,' and beckoned with both hands. ‘Now.'

He moved into a crouch and unfurled himself slowly. Once his head reached the top of the fence, he twisted to see behind him, his feet fixed to the ground. He darted to the first fence and vaulted it without stopping, running straight to the next. His foot caught, tumbling him over the top, somersaulting him into the fence on the way down. Plenty of noise. She bobbed down, keeping watch through the palings. As he pushed himself up on one arm, she saw him grimace and glance at Gwen's back door. He would be fine, he could outrun an old lady. Unless he'd hurt himself on the way down. Unless the yeller decided to take a tour of the houses looking for Sean. She wasn't willing to wait, they had to make a move. She stood to her full height, a landmark in the empty scene. Still no one.

‘Can you climb the fence?' She tried to sound normal, practical, not motherly.

Zac looked up at her, aghast, and waved at her to sit back down.

‘I need you to stand up and tell me if you can climb the fence or if I need to come around and help you.'

His left ankle collapsed under him as he tried to stand.

‘I'm coming around.'

‘Stay there. I can walk.' He looked over his shoulder at the palings.

‘Go up the side of Gwen's house, stay hidden. Don't come onto the street until you see me.'
Zac rolled his eyes at her but he got up. He disappeared into the side passage in a couple of limping steps.

She opened the front door slowly, turned the key in the grill as smoothly as she could so as not to make noise. She tried to keep herself concealed behind the wall dividing Gwen's verandah from theirs, although that put her in full view from the other direction. No one in sight. The only life she could see was the edge of Zac's face around the corner of Gwen's house, inappropriately impish. On her wave, he bolted the gap, jumping the small wall between the properties and skidding onto the porch.

‘Mum, where's Dad?'

‘I saw him run. I don't know where.'

Zac nodded, looked as if he were about to say something, stopped and then started again. ‘I saw Gwen's breakfast. It was still next to the front door where I put it this morning.'

‘Oh.' She thought for a second about what to say.

‘I should have gone to help Dad.'

‘No you should not.'

‘He might have got in a fight.' Zac was rocking from foot to foot.

‘Zac,' she wanted to put her arms around him, keep him still. ‘He ran away.' Zac looked shocked. ‘Which is exactly what he should have done.' She couldn't stop herself. ‘Except what he should have done is not gone thieving gas bottles. But since he did, the very least he could do is to not get into a fight and make an enemy who knows where we live.'

They waited in the kitchen. A change of scenery from waiting for Sean at the front door, but Hannah was growing impatient with his recklessness. Repetition didn't extinguish her anxiety. She tried to let the time wash over her, keep her mind away from things she couldn't control but Zac kept getting up to listen at the front. Still, she started when Sean scrambled over Stuart's fence.

‘I went a couple of houses along and waited until I knew no one was coming, then headed to the back lane.' He was smiling, satisfied with the way he handled the crisis. ‘Headed all the way back to the other end and jumped the fence of the house with the brick wall. To misdirect anyone who happened to see me. I've been making my way through the backyards.'

‘You're an idiot.' She turned to Zac. ‘I apologise for lumbering you with the DNA of an idiot.'

‘I was careful.'

‘You were robbing the house of someone who was at home.'

‘I was passing through their yard. I told you I wasn't taking from anyone who was there.'

‘How the hell would you know? They don't put a sign out. If they have any sense, they're trying to stay hidden.'

‘I could tell.'

‘And that's it, you could tell. We're supposed to put our safety in the hands of “I could tell”.'

‘I thought it was empty but I wasn't sure, so I didn't take anything. I was passing through. What did you want me to do? We can't eat uncooked rice and the water won't sterilise itself. Have you seen the colour it is when it comes out of the tank?'

‘And what if you've taken someone else's cooking gas? What happens to them?'

‘We are out there every day, every fucking day, three times a day, cooking. How many of them have you seen at their barbecues?'

She could tell that he knew he was wrong, that he was looking to be excused but she wasn't going to help him feel justified. Let him stew in it. Even if they couldn't see the people around them, they were there, their needs were just as real.

He continued in a tone filled with self-justification. ‘What do you think they do, cook in the middle of the night? We are so close, so close, we are not going to fail because the gas
runs out.'

‘Dad, Gwen hasn't eaten her breakfast.'

‘Hasn't she?'

‘We can't go next door, Zac. If she's,' Hannah didn't know how to say it, ‘gone, she's gone. And either she's gone and there's nothing to be done, or she's
gone
and there's still nothing we can do.'

‘I know what you're talking about, Mum.'

‘You didn't go into Stuart's, Zac. You don't understand what it's like.'

‘Look,' Sean broke in, ‘seeing won't help her or you.'

‘But, Dad, what if she's sick?'

‘Then there's more reason not to go, not less. We have no medicine, we don't even have any Panadol left.'

‘But she's alone, Dad. We can't do nothing.' Zac was close to tears.

‘We haven't done nothing, we've kept her fed. That's what we can do. We have the three of you to consider.'

‘I'll go.' Zac looked resolved.

Hannah held the side of the table. ‘That's not your decision to make, we have a responsibility to keep you alive. And you have that responsibility to us.'

‘We could get her help, ring an ambulance.'

‘Zac, you have to be realistic, we can ring someone but there's probably not much they can do.'

‘I'll go and look.' Sean was sombre, eager to redeem himself. ‘I'll try to see through her windows.'

Before she had chance to think of another solution, Sean was out the back. From behind the kitchen door, Zac watched his dad jump the fence and once Sean was out of sight, he meandered around the room, as if he needed something to distract himself. Hannah cast around for some explanation to put this in context.

‘Monkey...'

He turned around and his look challenged her to say something, anything that he could feel contempt for. The silence between them drowned out the sounds of Ella and Oscar playing, the song of the birds outside. He held her gaze, then dropped into one of the chairs, and took an unlikely interest in the picture book Ella had left lying there. This was a time to play the parent role but his posture told her he wouldn't respond. And she didn't have the appetite to argue that practicality trumped morality. She would lose, after all it wasn't a debate she wanted to win with him.

Sean was back sooner than she thought, sooner than she hoped, sooner than would indicate good news.

‘Yeah, well. The food's gone now. Maybe we woke her. I think I saw the container on the kitchen table but she's got all the curtains drawn. It was pitch black in there and I couldn't see her.' Sean looked back and forth between Zac and Hannah. ‘Yesterday's food was on the table too. I'm not sure she's been eating.'

‘Maybe we should call someone.' Hannah spoke to Sean as if no one else was in the room.

‘It might be time to consider the shelter.'

‘It would be best for her. I think you're right.'

‘Oh what? You can't be serious, Mum.'

‘If she's not eating it might mean she's sick.'

‘So you're going to dump her?'

‘To a shelter set up for situations like this, Zac. A place where she can be properly looked after.'

‘And you don't have to share your food with her.'

‘Our food, Zac, our food. And who benefits from her throwing food, that we can't replace, into the compost? A moment ago you were begging us to ring someone.'

‘Whatever.'

‘Zac,' Sean held Zac gently by the shoulders, ‘what do you want us to do?'

‘Just don't pretend you're doing the best for her.'

‘So what is the best for her?'

Zac looked at him and then at Hannah. ‘Mum? People get sick in the shelters, I read it. You can see it on the graph. There's this big spike, and it's four days after the water went off.'

‘We ring the shelter or we do nothing.' Sean was very calm. ‘You have to tell me exactly what you think we should do.'

Zac chewed at his lip. Hannah could see him turning it over. ‘Ring someone. I don't want her to die by herself.'

‘Don't go yet. Stay.' Sean's voice was blurry. He put his arm around her, nuzzling into her neck. For a few more minutes they lay still, warm. His breathing was regular as if he had fallen back to sleep but when he spoke again, his voice was quiet but clear. ‘I bags Zac.'

‘Go back to sleep.' She whispered, trying to find a voice that was almost subliminal.

‘I want to make it clear before we get up, I'm spending time with Zac today.'

‘I'm sure he'd like that.'

‘But.'

‘Ella really likes you.'

‘Ella doesn't
not
like you. I'm doing all the little kid stuff, you get to do all the teenage stuff. I've had my fill of colouring. And they ask so many questions.'

‘At least you know the answers to the questions.'

‘Hey, I'll take “if the electrons are negative and the protons are positive why don't atoms collapse in on themselves?” over “if they bury me when I'm dead how will I breathe?”.'

‘Like you knew the answer to Zac's question.'

‘Yeah, I do, it's “I don't know”. My turn.'