The breeze through open bus windows, on the way back to the hotel, smells like turpentine and ocean. I’m pretty sure the fluorescent lights aren’t very flattering, but I try not to care as the man from the bar kisses my neck. Our knees touch. My eyelids warm up. There’re only a few other people about and they seem to not care (well, that’s what I tell myself; I don’t really look up). His mouth tastes a little like cigarettes, but also a little like mint cream. Like promise. A little like beer.
The hotel reception is boarded up by the time we get back. I pour some rum from one of those tiny mini-bar bottles, then the last of the duty-free vanilla vodka – room temperature and sweet.
‘Magnifique view,’ the man with the plaited wrist says, acting nonchalant and walking over to the hotel window. He’s wearing those crisscrossed leather sandals, the kind all the men over here wear. The water laps on the beach. He – well, he has a name: Jacques – stays quiet, but sometimes looks over his shoulder and smiles. I’m on the hotel chair; there’s just one – feeling something like warmth from the crème de menthe, and a little too calm for the situation, I think.
So lame, sure, I know, but for just a moment I wonder if he might be the one. You know, we’d have avocado toast in bed and he’d make me coffee – the real kind – whenever I had a hospital shift ahead. Maybe we’d go to the movies together and talk about the things we’re scared of: the warming world, or that feeling you get when polyester anything clings to your skin.
We sit on the tiled decking and he lights a cigarette, the glow of its end brightening as he breathes in. I think of burned skin.
At 2am I wake up with the smell of smoking things again. I step out onto the balcony, two emptied glasses on the small table, mini-bar bottles strewn. There are no birds at this time of night and I wonder where they all go to sleep. ‘Mon Cherie,’ I say, mostly because it’s what I’ve heard them say in movies. ‘Mon Cherie,’ I say again, because I’m trying to talk myself into the obvious beauty of this place.
‘Abby?’ I hear the almost-stranger ask from the hotel bed. The fly screen door that should be closed between us is open, and for some reason unhinged.
‘Yeah?’ I say, almost not knowing how to respond to my own name.
‘Are you okay?’
‘What?’ I say, and I wonder if I’m actually still dreaming. I smell the cigarette ash, lingering. I feel dried out, but happy – like there’s been sun, and saltwater, on my unburned skin.
‘Abby,’ he repeats, ‘are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything?’
About the author
Alice Bishop is a writer from Christmas Hills, Victoria.
Her first collection of short fiction, A Constant Hum, will be published via Text in July 2019. The book explores Alice’s hometown’s experience of Black Saturday, particularly through untold stories of bushfire aftermath.
Alice now lives in Coburg, Victoria, and works in communications and marketing. She still escapes the city for the bush, often. Find her @BishopAlice.
Lilly of the Locust Fields
Melanie Crouch
Highly Commended
‘Fried orthoptera!’ Lilly calls as she pushes her wooden cart down the cracked pavement towards the markets. ‘Katydid flour!’
Grasshopper or cricket flour doesn’t have the same ring to it, but people will trade for anything these days. Anyone could tell by the short antennae that she is fibbing. They aren’t katydids – it’s been months since Lilly saw one of those. Daisy says people forget and that Lilly could call it magic superfood flour and people would still believe. Marketing is what Daisy calls it. Besides, Lilly likes the sound of katydids. The ones she saw were beautiful, with a touch of green. Any colour other than brown or grey makes her smile. Through her goggles and the perpetual haze, her path is blurred, but the colours are distinct. Grey crumbling buildings surrounded by brown dust, and the occasional charred tree stump surrounded by brown dust.
The cart’s wheels hit a pothole. Her plastic drums of culinary fare fly into the air. They land back down with a thud and a vigorous chorus of chirps, oblivious of their short-lived fate. Lilly clasps the handles and guides it straight before it falls.
‘You’re a master with that thing.’ Mister Alonso grabs the side, but Lilly doesn’t need any help.
She didn’t notice him come outside. Stay alert – that’s what Daisy always says – no matter what.
‘Live, fried or pummelled?’ she asks him.
‘Just the flour, thanks Lilly.’
‘Pummelled it is.’ She opens the lid of her drum as Mister Alonso pulls a tatty brown paper bag from his pocket. ‘Two cups?’ she asks.
‘Make it three. Eliza found an old can of peaches beyond the dust sails. She thought she’d try making cake. Daisy gave us a recipe that doesn’t need eggs or milk.’
Lilly’s mouth waters.
‘Come back tomorrow and we’ll give you some as payment.’
‘It’s a deal.’ The lie flows from Lilly’s lips without hesitation. Will they worry if she doesn’t turn up tomorrow?
‘On second thought . . .’ Lilly peers between the metal fence to his courtyard. ‘Can I have those bamboo stakes?’
‘If you need things to burn, I have a log.’
‘The bamboo is fine.’
Mister Alonso unlocks the padlocks to his gated yard and fetches the two stakes. He places them in the cart and shuffles her drums to keep them in place.
Mister Alonso scouts the street. ‘If you come back tomorrow, we can share a bite anyway.’
‘I’ll try.’ She pushes onwards towards the market. She doesn’t want to look back. He will see the lie in her eyes.
Instead, she focuses on the path ahead. The massive sails shimmer in the sunlight as they flap in the breeze.
She is nearly at the market when she hears Dunstan’s meek voice.
‘We heard chirping,’ Dunstan coughs, as if hacking up a frog. ‘We’re running low on most things, but we can pay you later.’
Lilly spots their smashed kitchen window. It’s boarded up with planks, but peeking through it is fabric. ‘How about your curtain? I can give you enough flour to get you and Angie through the week.’
‘Curtains are –’ His hacking cough cuts through. He’s been foraging beyond the dust sails too much. ‘Curtains are fine,’ he finishes. His hand taps his leg with a nervous twitch. ‘Isn’t it ironic?’ he says.
‘What is?’ Lilly waits for him to give her a container or bag to fill, but he keeps talking.
‘End of the world and we’re feeding on a locust plague. And we’re surviving thanks to a little girl.’
‘They aren’t locusts,’ says Lilly, somewhat more defensively than intended. ‘Not yet anyway. Chemicals make them change so they can fly to new food sources. I take enough so they don’t become locusts.’
‘Your mother would be proud you worked out how to fend for yourself.’ There is an edge to his voice.
‘You knew her?’
‘Yes. Before the heat, the fires, the browning . . . I have an old photograph.’ His eyes widen, making his face appear gaunt. ‘Do you want to see?’
Amid the longing to see her mother is an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. ‘I can’t leave my cart.’
‘Bring it inside. We’ll look after it for you.’ He coughs and spits mucus on the street.
The temptation tantalises. Her last memory of her mother was as she headed off to battle a blaze out west.
‘I’ll bring the cart to the doorstep, and say hi to Angie.’
‘Yes, we’d like to say hello.’ There is a quiver in Dunstan’s voice, but Lilly pushes her fear aside and parks her cart at the doorstep. A stale smell hits her as she enters the house, but it’s soon overtaken by something more acrid.
‘Here.’ Dunstan spots a bowl with specks of some meat. He wipes it with a skeletal hand and passes it to her. ‘We’ll get that photo.’
‘And the curtain,’ Lilly reminds him.
‘S-sure,’
he stutters. ‘Maybe Angie can help you pull it down from the kitchen. Angie!’ he yells towards the kitchen.
Lilly takes the bowl.
‘Photo,’ Dunstan reminds himself and wanders down the hallway.
She waits until he’s out of sight and sniffs the bowl. Definitely meat. Rat? She hasn’t seen one in a while, but a bloke at the markets insists they still rummage around some of the houses. She ladles a few cups of flour into the bowl and places it on a frayed deck chair. It’s the only furniture they haven’t traded.
She looks at her cart, not wanting to leave it unattended. She peers out the front door looking for scavengers then darts to the kitchen.
The acrid smell consumes her as she tiptoes past dirty dishes littering the kitchen bench, which isn’t surprising. She usually lets the ants clean her plates and saves her meagre rainwater for drinking. A bit of mould doesn’t explain the smell though. It intensifies as she walks past the pantry. Every instinct tells her not to open it, but she nudges it ajar. The smell roars out, making her eyes and nose water. A trickle of dried blood lines the dusty floor. Holding her nose, she peers at Angie’s lifeless body slumped against the pantry wall. Blood is encrusted around her lips and maggots cover the end of her severed leg.
Bile rises in her throat like acid and her stomach churns. She pulls the curtain. The railing falls down as well. A pile of smelly bowls crash from the kitchen bench to the ground. Lilly dodges the porcelain shards dotting the floor and races to the front door.
‘The dust has been making Angie cough so much.’ Dunstan stands over her cart, glaring at the drum of flour with his rifle grasped in quivering hands. Lilly doubts he has any bullets left.
‘She’s coughing up so much blood,’ he says. ‘And she’s so hungry. We’re both so hungry.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It explains the blood. In her heart, she knows the explanation for the severed foot and Dunstan’s insanity.
‘There’s enough flour, for both you and Angie,’ she says, keeping up the pretence. She steps past him cautiously and throws the curtain on her cart. ‘Daisy says real thunderstorms are coming. Crops and trees are going to grow again,’ she tries to sound as cheerful as she can manage.
‘Daisy said that?’ Something almost resembling a smile crosses Dunstan’s lips and he lowers his rifle. ‘Angie will love that.’
‘She will. She’ll love all the flour, too.’ Lilly attempts a reassuring smile as she yanks the front door shut. She exhales an in-held breath and then throws up the morning’s grasshopper bread.
The markets aren’t far. She grabs her cart and races down the street as fast as she can without spilling her goods. She hears the familiar flapping of the sails. Not until she is at the entrance does she slow down and permit herself to look back at Dunstan’s home.
She pushes her cart down the aisle between the sails. With so many traders she feels safe here. Wind howls against the canvas, plastic tarps and sheets that make up the market’s pseudo tent. It’s a reassuring noise. Rocks, slabs of broken concrete and pegs keep them tethered to the ground, but they still billow like they are trying to puff up their cheeks and suck everyone out to the empty plains beyond the town.
Lilly peeks through the gap created between the sails. The sand dunes seem to have crept further since she was last here trading. Just a few metres of the old highway peek through the accumulated red dust, and beyond that is an old service station nearly swallowed by sand. The scorched pumps are just visible. The bushfires haven’t been through there in ages. There is nothing left to burn.
At the first stall, artefacts of old are strewn across a table, spaced out to make it look like there is more than there is. Amid bits of metal and plastic, Lilly spots a mask. Not like the goggles everyone else wears – it covers both eyes and nose.
‘What’s this?’ Lilly asks.
‘They used to wear it in the ocean,’ the man behind the table says. ‘No cracks. It’s worth more than a bit of flour.’
‘How about a whole drum of live ones?’ Lilly knows it’s not a fair trade, but the hunger in the man’s eyes betrays him. His chapped lips tighten, before he gives in with a meek nod.
She makes the deal, places the mask in her cart and carries on.
‘Shirts!’ a young woman spruiks. There are just a few, all faded, all worn, all tatty. But still, there are a couple of people trying to trade junk they’ve collected from around town.
Erin sits just beyond the clothing stall in the shade cast from the shirts. The shade won’t last for long, but she has a piece of cardboard that will serve to protect her from the sun later. Lilly parks her cart, pulls out a handful of fried grasshoppers and sits down alongside her. She isn’t much younger than Lilly. She’s certainly skinnier, but that’s to be expected. She hands over a couple and munches on the rest.
Erin smiles a thank you. Lilly knows she won’t speak, not after all she’s endured. She devours them slowly, savouring the tiny meal. They crunch on their food together and watch people saunter by: some trading, some begging, some making threats.
Lilly takes off her cracked goggles and hands them to Erin. ‘I don’t need these anymore. Or this.’ She reaches into the depths of her cart and pulls out a stick with a wonky stick and an old fine sieve attached. She finally has everything she needs, and the timing is perfect.
Erin barely has the strength to clasp it in her tiny hands.
‘Show it to Daisy and she’ll explain how to catch them,’ Lilly tells her.
Lilly gets up to leave but Erin clasps her hands with slender fingers. She can’t say anything, she won’t say anything, but she knows this is goodbye. She may be young, but she’s more intuitive than the rest of the town.
Lilly strolls to the end of the alley between the sails. She always saves the best for last, especially this time.
Daisy sits at her stall, nursing a withered arm in a sling fashioned from some cloth that’s seen better days, better weeks, better years.
‘Scavengers are about, Lilly.’ Daisy looks at her bruised elbow peeking through the torn fabric. ‘Took my last can of beans.’ Daisy uses her good arm to push up from her chair. Unsteady on her feet, she staggers to Lilly’s cart and lays the curtain over her drum. ‘Cover your wares on your way home.’
Lilly helps Daisy back to her chair. She doesn’t want to hear about scavengers.
‘Trade?’ she asks, although she doesn’t wait for an answer. Daisy always trades with her. Lilly heaps out her usual two cups of flour into empty tins.
‘You want a fried one? They aren’t actually fried, just charred,’ Lilly whispers. ‘I bundle the rank grass into bricks and burn them on a low heat. Don’t tell anyone that though.’
‘We’re all about secrets here, Lilly.’ Daisy moves her chair closer to her stall and Lilly. ‘You sure you can spare one?’
Lilly plucks a handful, which ends up only being four, but Daisy’s eyes shine wide and bright with appreciation. Lilly passes them over the stall and leans against the edge of her cart.
Daisy’s stall is just a plank of wood between two piles of house bricks. It sags in the middle under the weight of her cans: chickpeas, lentils, and a can of peaches. Most of the good ones have gone. Most of those left are starting to rust, but food is food.
‘So what will it be, Lilly?’ asks Daisy.
‘I like surprises,’ Lilly explains. ‘Surprise me.’
‘I can tell about the ice-cream trucks. Like your cart, they rode around the streets selling cold sweet treats. They played music and kids like you would rush out before they passed their house.’
‘Like my musical insects?’ Lilly asks.
‘Sometimes it was “Greensleeves”, which was just as beautiful as your chirping cart, but different.’
‘Music about green clothing?’ asks Lilly.
‘Not exactly, but the ice-cream man often wore bright colours.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ begins Lilly. ‘You made me think about greenery. Tell me once more . . . tell me about the
island.’
Daisy leans forward and whispers in a hoarse voice, ‘Across the ravaged plateau is an oasis so green, the colour hurts the eyes.’
‘As green as my katydids used to be?’
‘Greener. It isn’t a desert. The rain never stops. There are no bushfires, no dust bowls, no ravaging hot winds. Fruits grow on trees as tall as buildings. Bushes grow broad and proud. There are insects galore, rats, and even birds.’
‘Do they fly like locusts can?’
‘Oh, yes,’ says Daisy.
‘As far as the flying machines you told me about?’
Daisy pops a grasshopper in her mouth. ‘They don’t need to when they live in paradise.’ Daisy grabs the tin of peaches and hands it to Lilly.
‘I can’t. They’re worth too much.’
‘So are you,’ whispers Daisy. ‘And I won’t have no scavengers steal my last tin of fruit.’
Lilly gets up, takes the offering and hugs Daisy around her frail shoulders.
‘What’s wrong?’ asks Daisy.
‘Nothing.’ Lilly knows Daisy can sense something isn’t right. ‘I’m fine. I just wanted to say thank you.’ For everything, she wants to add, but she can’t bring herself to say it.
The trek back to her fields is arduous with her cart full of odds and ends. Under the curtain, items clank about as the cracked pavement transitions to hardened soil. Away from the dust sails surrounding the town and market, the haze thickens. She pulls her T-shirt collar over her mouth and puts on her new face mask as a breeze skittles dust around burnt tree stumps.
Twiggy remains of bushes scratch her cart. They stand like monuments surrounded by a pedestal of soil that the roots still cling to. Everything else has eroded and faded. Eventually the roots will weather and fade too.
Relief fills her as she spots the burnt-out farm shed she calls home on the ravaged plateau. Surrounding her home are a dozen straggly saltbush. Midges hover above like a fine mist and below she spots at least four locusts looking for food, but the leaves have all gone now. On a tuft of dry grass growing out of a crack in the soil are at least six more, all searching for greenery. Once she gets her eye in, she can’t help but spot them. Dozens more leap across the barren soil, searching and scavenging.
Hope Shines Page 5
