Before This Is Over

by Amanda Hickie

  There had to be something she could give him to do, to make him feel less like a guest. “You could carry some things over for me. What about the salad?” The salad was leftovers as well, the last of the fresh, leafy greens. If the power came back, she should look on the Internet to see if you could eat any of the weeds in the garden. Anything to be able to stay out of the world a bit longer. Not that two square meters of weedy lawn would keep even a caterpillar going for more than a day or two.

  Daniel watched his hands while he ate, as if keeping himself in check. She wished he wasn’t quite so well behaved. But this was his first meal out of his room. Candles on the table. For all he knew, they always ate this way. “There’s salad too, Daniel. Dig in.”

  “Thanks.” He handled the salad servers awkwardly, scooping a mound of lettuce between the two spoons. She could see a look of anxiety on his face as he held it suspended over his plate. He tried to put it back into the bowl, but a few leaves fell on the table. His hands held the servers so tightly, he had trouble releasing them. “I think I took more than my share,” he mumbled.

  “Never mind. Dig in,” she said. Daniel inhaled his food—she had only looked away for a moment and it was gone. “Help yourself to some more.” This time she didn’t need to urge him.

  “Thanks, Hannah, it’s really good.” The second plate vanished nearly as fast.

  Zac scraped everything remaining in the bowl onto his plate then stopped to watch Oscar pushing his food around, eating it half a spoonful at a time. “Are you going to finish that?”

  “Mum, Zac’s telling me what to do.”

  “I asked you a question, I didn’t tell you anything. If you’re not going to eat it, I might as well have it.” Not that long ago, Zac would have died rather than eat someone else’s food.

  “Oscar’s food is Oscar’s and he’s going to eat it. You had two helpings—you can’t still be hungry.”

  “Well, not hungry…”

  “Zac, you’ve had your fair share.” Hannah injected a warning tone into her voice.

  “Dad! He’s going to waste it. What good will that do?”

  “What about Daniel—have you considered if he wants more?” Sean was uncommonly stern.

  “He had seconds. And he doesn’t want Oscar’s leftovers. That’s gross.”

  “Well, your mum hasn’t had seconds—what about her? I’m surprised at you, Zac. You’re usually more considerate than this.”

  “I’m fine,” Hannah jumped in. If it came to feeding herself or Zac and Oscar, she’d go without. And Daniel, of course—she should be ready to give up her food for Daniel too.

  So much for the leftovers. Her recalculations had assumed six people ate one and a half times as much as four. But she’d never realized how much of their food was consumed by Zac. Gwen subtracted very little, but another teenage boy…All her plans for making biscuits and cakes to keep their spirits up were naive if she couldn’t keep enough bread and meat on the table.

  Daniel had reverted to sitting up straight with his hands neatly folded. When it became clear there would be nothing left on Oscar’s plate, Zac slouched back. Daniel shifted a little. “Could I be excused from the table?”

  Sean looked at him with surprise and awe. “Did you hear that, Zac? Daniel has manners. He asks if he can leave the table.”

  “That’s only because he’s a guest. He doesn’t do it at his place.”

  “Is that true, Daniel? Because if it is, you shouldn’t be a guest. Behave as badly as you would at home. But if you’re just well-mannered, try to influence my son.”

  “I wonder whose job it was to teach me?” Zac grinned.

  Daniel was still looking politely at Sean.

  “Of course you can go.”

  Hannah cut in. “Stack your dishes in the dishwasher. We can live in hope that the power comes back on.”

  “But if it doesn’t, you’ll have to take them out again and we wasted our time.” Zac looked smug.

  “If it doesn’t, you boys will get to do the washing up, so why don’t we assume it will?”

  Despite the grumbles, the boys threw themselves into the stacking with vigor, and Hannah bit her tongue. They were doing what she asked, so if plates got broken, it was no one’s fault but her own.

  “Great job.” Sean stood sentry as they finished up. “Go run around for a bit, burn off some energy. You could play Murder in the Dark or something.”

  Oscar and Zac were gone, but Daniel held back at the door. “I’d like to ring my mum, if that’s okay.” Sean, behind him, shook his head at Hannah slightly.

  “Sorry, Daniel, I don’t think any of the phones work without power. Because they’re all cordless, you know.” An excuse with so many holes in it, she could only imagine that Daniel was too polite to point out all the mobile phones they had.

  “And, you know, mate, it’s getting late,” Sean jumped in. “We don’t want to wake your mum up. She needs all the rest she can get just now. We’ll ring tomorrow. That’ll be better.”

  Hannah held the words in until Daniel had followed the other boys out. “And we’re not ringing why?”

  “She’s pretty sick. I got an email from his dad today. Maybe tomorrow she’ll be on the mend. There’s no need for him to worry until he has to.”

  They watched the boys from the kitchen door. Oscar had endless energy, pent up from so many days with only his feeble parents for company, and Daniel was a new playmate. An unknown quantity to be tested to destruction. As Daniel sat in the middle of the lawn, pulling strands out of the grass, Oscar threw himself at Daniel’s back, as if to climb it. Daniel gently rolled himself sideways, depositing Oscar on the grass. Oscar took another leap and held on tight. Daniel patiently peeled Oscar’s hands from his shoulders, and once he had himself free, moved to the wall of the garden bed, out of the field of play. Hannah wished for something that could distract him from whatever inner conversation he was engaged in.

  In one of the kitchen drawers, she unearthed a scrunched box of bent sparklers, left over from Oscar’s last birthday. “Hey, guys,” Hannah called from the doorway, “look what I’ve got.”

  Sean helped Oscar hold his steady in the flickering flame of the candle. Zac and Oscar leaped and whooped, made after-image circles and wrote their names with light. Zac challenged Daniel to a sparkler duel and the two boys danced around each other, thrusting and parrying, Daniel without much enthusiasm, for the few seconds the sparklers spat.

  The transitory joy was broken by a wail from Oscar. “I stubbed my toe.” Punctuated with sobs. “I stubbed my toe!”

  “Hey, mate, I think you’ve had too much fun. You haven’t cried like this since you started school with the big kids. It’s nothing.” Sean held out his hand to stop Hannah from rushing to comfort Oscar. “It’s nothing. He’ll be fine.”

  But as his sobs subsided, Oscar crept into Hannah’s arms. She didn’t think his tears were only for his sore toe.

  “Right, time for bed.”

  “Oh, what? It’s too early. Come on, Dad.” Zac was filled with moral outrage at having his new freedom arbitrarily removed when it was barely dark.

  “Okay then, not you two, but definitely you.” Sean picked up Oscar from Hannah’s lap and tossed him over his shoulder. “Time to wash this sack of potatoes. You can’t eat dirty potatoes.” Oscar was grinning again.

  Zac and Daniel were company for each other and she could use the moment of freedom to find out what was happening about the electricity. At least the battery in her laptop had power. She set herself up at the kitchen table by the light of a candle. The hum was reassuring as she turned on the laptop, but she couldn’t get any further than opening a browser. The phone line, and hence the Internet, was still connected, but the router needed power. The bits and bytes she needed were right there, in the wires behind the wall—she just couldn’t tap into them.

  People got information before there was an Internet. There must have been—must still be—information lines. Except that she no longer h
ad a phone book because any number she needed was on the Internet and she wasn’t prepared to use her mobile if there was a chance she couldn’t charge it.

  She stood outside Oscar’s door, listening to the end of his bedtime story. The lights came back on as dramatically as they’d gone off. She pushed open the door to let in the hallway light and flicked on the light switch in Oscar’s room. Sean blew out the candle, and Oscar burst into tears again.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “I liked it dark. It was so much fun.”

  “The lights will go off again—I can just about guarantee that.” Sean tucked the sheets tight around Oscar and slipped Teddy into the bed, even though Oscar had left him on the floor for months. “We don’t need to wait for fun—we can make it ourselves.” Oscar suspended his tears as he gave this proposition careful consideration.

  Sean’s arm lay along the back of the sofa, his hand resting on Hannah’s shoulder, a small patch of body warmth. He held her tighter, pulling her in. The two of them looked out of the cave of their house through the small portal of the TV screen at the strange world they had left.

  The minister for energy made a statement trying to paint the outage as just one of those things that happens, even at the best of times. An unfortunate coincidence. His image gave way to the opposition spokesman, wearing an equally audience-tested costume of sober suit and dependable tie, declaiming that the day’s events only served to demonstrate how woefully underprepared this government really was.

  Images of large machinery, tired men and women hunched over panels in some sort of control room, the bulbous cooling towers of a coal power plant. The face of a woman—the grainy picture froze and jumped, presumably an interview by webcam.

  “Do you resent your colleagues who didn’t volunteer?”

  The dark shadows under her eyes gave her a look of exhausted desperation. “The people here, we’re mostly the ones who don’t have family depending on us. We all agreed to be locked in. I don’t resent the others. I know them, I’ve been to their houses, I know their kids. We get food brought to us, we’re being looked after. In some ways it’s easier. Everyone has to make hard decisions now, do what’s important to them. Here, we’re working hard, but we can catch up on sleep when this is over. My friends out there are on their own. I only hope they’re all right.”

  Sean had the remote in his hand, finger resting on the channel button. “She should go home.”

  “The power plant’s probably safer than her home.”

  “The newsreader. Look at her eyes. She’s been on every news report this week. She needs to sleep.”

  The mayor stood on the empty steps of Sydney Town Hall and cheerfully declared, “I can tell you that today the council has unanimously voted to remain here, in the city, until this crisis is over. This city, our city, has the best hospitals, the best infrastructure in the world.” Footage of the mayor glad-handing smiling patients in hospital beds. No footage of her being doused in antiseptic the second the cameras were turned off. “And I challenge the prime minister to join us here to show her support for the citizens of this, the most vibrant city in the world.”

  “I’ve had enough.” Sean kissed Hannah’s hair and smoothed it down with his hand. “You look done.”

  “I miss going to work. No, I miss having downtime when the kids are at school, even if it’s at work.”

  “I know. They’re so…there. All the time. I ended up bribing Oscar to stay quiet this morning. A biscuit for every five minutes he didn’t talk to me.”

  “You are the worst parent.”

  His eyes softened as he smiled at her. “I am.”

  “How many biscuits did he get?” From my pantry.

  “One. And that was an incentive—he didn’t last two minutes.” Sean stretched as he stood. “Come on. Bed.” He pulled her up from the sofa, snaked his arm around her hip, and rubbed his face into her neck. It sent a shiver down her side and made her laugh.

  She tilted her head in the direction of Zac’s room. “We’ll disturb them.”

  “God forbid his mother should laugh.” He was still smiling. “Come on.” With his arm still wrapped around her, he guided her to the hallway.

  She liked being so close to him, feeling him through her clothing, smelling him. The time they spent the last few days wasn’t together, it was side by side. It was Mum and Dad, always monitoring what they said in case small ears were overhearing.

  She looked closely at him, wondering if some remnant of this morning’s bad mood still hid in his face. “Is everything okay?”

  “In the whole wide world?”

  “In your world.”

  He didn’t answer right away, but opened his mouth to speak, stopped, then gave a mirthless “ha” and shook his head.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to tell me you told me so.”

  “Told you what?”

  “A bunch of people from the office are sick.”

  He watched her face for her reaction. She felt an icy anticipation. “How sick?”

  “Two in hospital. Three more got turned away.” She could see him struggle to dam the words in his mouth, hold them back. “Apparently being turned away is good—it means you’re not going to die yet. There’s no room in the hospitals for anyone who isn’t dying.”

  She didn’t have any more emotion to call on. The cold dread that sat between them was not part of her and she had no words to dispel it.

  “I didn’t know whether to tell you about them. It’s been on my mind, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  Voices in the street. Natalie under the streetlight, facing her house. Stuart holding Ella, perched on the wall of the veranda. Ella leaning forward with her hand out, squirming in Stuart’s arms.

  Hannah moved sideways, shifting the narrow view presented by the curtains from the street to the veranda and back.

  Ella twisted around and said something to Stuart as he leaned into her. Natalie blew a kiss to Ella, who caught it and kissed her hand where it landed. Ella wriggled down from the wall and away from Stuart’s grasp. Natalie took a step towards her and then one back with her hands up. Ella was halfway down the steps before Stuart caught her.

  Natalie wiped tears off her face. She took a chocolate bar out of her bag, gave it a kiss, then put it in the mailbox. She gave a wave and got back into her car. Through the window, Hannah could just hear Ella, struggling to get out of Stuart’s arms. “Mummy, Mummy.”

  Daniel hovered in the kitchen, stiffly moving from one spot in Hannah’s way to another. He silently observed her getting breakfast ready, not quite comfortable enough to offer to help, not quite relaxed enough to leave her to the preparations.

  “Have a seat, Daniel. Breakfast will be out soon.”

  “Would I be able to ring my mum?”

  Sean answered from the kitchen table. “Why don’t you wait until after breakfast, mate.”

  Daniel glanced at Zac for support. “My mobile’s out of charge and I want to ring my mum.”

  Sean picked up the phone, shifted it from one hand to the other. “I think I should…I’m going to talk to your dad first and see if she’s well enough to talk.”

  “I can talk to my dad.”

  “Just let me speak to him first. After breakfast.”

  Daniel had an expression on his face that almost approached resolve.

  “Why don’t I ring him now.” Sean took the phone into the garden and Hannah followed him out. He held the phone sideways to let the sound escape. It rang and a voice answered. “Hi, is that…” Sean stamped his foot to get her attention and raised his shoulders in a question. She shrugged—she’d never actually met him. “…Daniel’s dad?” An inaudible reply. “It’s Zac’s dad. Daniel wants to talk to his mum. I don’t know what to tell him. Is she, is she all right?”

  Hannah heard the sobs on the other end of the phone and the tinny, strangled voice. “Susan’s alive. Oh God, she’s still alive. Last night, I didn’t think…She was so bad, I coul
dn’t see how she could last the night. But she’s still here.”

  The kids were lined up behind the glass of the back door, watching. Sean turned his back, a shred of extra privacy. “What do you want me to do? I can tell him she’s okay but she can’t talk if you want.”

  “No, she can, she can, she wants to. Put him on, I’ll tell him.”

  “Do you want a moment to get yourself together?”

  “We’re so…we’re so grateful you’ve got him. That’s what Susan said last night. He’s safe with you—she couldn’t have borne it if she’d put him at risk.” The thin voice was crying again.

  “Maybe you should put her on first, give yourself a moment. You know.”

  Sean forced a smile before he turned back and beckoned to Daniel. Hannah turned to see Daniel’s reaction as he took the phone. She saw the hope become confusion and concern.

  Oscar came running across the yard. “Mum, Mum. Someone’s at the front door and Zac says we can’t open it. Zac told him to go away, but he said he wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll go.” Sean took Oscar’s hand.

  “No! He says he wants Mum, he has to talk to Mum.”

  Hannah sighed. “Maybe it’s Mr. Henderson. Maybe he needs groceries too. We can start a co-op.”

  Oscar ran in circles around her, getting under her feet as she tried to walk. “I was scared he might try to break the door, but Zac said the grille was made of metal and he couldn’t break that.”

  Zac and Daniel formed a concerned huddle halfway down the hall. Zac pulled himself a bit taller as she pushed past. She could hear someone moving on the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

  “Groceries.”

  Her forehead creased and her lips pursed even though he couldn’t see her. “Just leave them on the porch like it says on the instructions.”

  “It’s not that.” He sounded hesitant, not dangerous. She tried to imagine what dangerous sounded like—probably nothing like her imaginings. “I’m trying to tell my regulars and you’ve ordered from us a few times now.” Don’t let him be one of the end-timers that she’d been reading about on the net, ranting about Manba being a punishment for, well, pretty much anything.