While I Live

by John Marsden

  I was almost sorry when Gavin came back because I knew it meant I had to go in the water again. The only consolation was that it meant Gavin had to go in too. He didn’t even blink though when I told him what I wanted, just marched down to the water’s edge and started on in. ‘By God,’ I thought, following him, ‘you’re not bad sometimes.’

  Being so short he had a problem getting to Major Harvey and at the same time keeping the hay dry. He was virtually swimming when he was only halfway there. I could see that wasn’t going to work. I got him to come out again and went up to the ute and got the smaller tarp and we put the hay on that. Then with Gavin pulling it and me following and pushing, we set off again.

  We had the steer’s interest now. It never fails to amaze me how cattle love hay. They’ll do anything for it. To them, hay is like Neapolitan ice-cream, mangoes, Cherry Ripes, all of the above.

  Major Harvey eyed it greedily, at the same time as he eyed me suspiciously. ‘Meals on wheels,’ I said to him as we approached. ‘Hay to take away. What about a tip? Don’t fool in the pool? I can’t believe we have to go to all this trouble just to save your miserable life.’

  He took a greedy grab at the hay as soon as Gavin got close enough to swing it around in front of him. I waited till he was on his second mouthful, then, just as he was finishing, got the rope onto him.

  After that it was easy but we’d wasted another half an hour and it was getting seriously dark and seriously cold. I was shivering like crazy but there was nothing else for it but to go in again.

  The blackness of the water made it look evil. I took half a biscuit of hay with me, to see if she was interested. Although her head wasn’t far out of the water she wrenched a good bunch of it from my hand and munched it down. That was encouraging. But I had the feeling she was there for the night. I couldn’t see any way to get her out. The hay should give her a bit of strength but I was worried she would get too tired to keep her head out of the water, and she’d drown.

  I waded back to the bank. I started thinking almost longingly of the rifles in the ute. A swift flash in her brain, no time even to feel anything, and then the darkness. It would be kinder to finish her off, and most farmers would have been reaching for a gun by now. We’d done all we could. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours the mud was going to seep into her mouth as her head dropped, and her mouth would fill with water, and then her lungs, and she’d disappear forever. The rifle was the way to go.

  Instead we made yet another trip to the house. Squelching into the ute we drove back and got the old table from the shearing shed kitchen. At the same time I filled a few five-gallon buckets with hot water.

  When Gavin realised I was going into the lagoon again he suddenly starting bossing me around. I’d seen him do it with other people before, but never with me. It’s true I was shivering uncontrollably. He told me to go in and dry off and change clothes. ‘It’s a waste of time,’ I said. ‘More laundry, and for no good reason.’

  ‘You do it,’ he said, using both his arms to push me away from the ute.

  ‘But we’ve got to get back.’

  ‘The cow can wait.’

  Honestly, it was like having a mother again. But I did feel a bit better when I came back out dry and warmer.

  I floated the table out to the cow and jammed it in the mud and got it under her head while Gavin shone a spotlight from the bank. It looked like it might work but I still didn’t know if she’d die of hypothermia during the night. Poor thing. I gave her a hug then went and got the first bucket and poured that around her, to give her a few minutes warmth. Then backwards and forwards with the other two buckets.

  I did the same routine with the buckets three more times during the night, without waking Gavin. Pulling on wet clothes is absolutely and totally my worst favourite thing in the world, but I knew if I wore dry stuff every time, I’d break all records for laundry.

  I took her down a biscuit of hay each time, but I still didn’t see a way to get her out. I tried to think laterally. Get a bulldozer and dig a trench to her? Get a front-end loader and lift her up in it? Wiggle my nose and say a magic spell?

  The last time I went out, at three in the morning, under a clear cold sky, she was sinking, and not just literally. They say that three in the morning is when a lot of creatures, including humans, are at their lowest ebb. It’s when hospitals have the most deaths. But there wasn’t anything else I could do for her.

  Or was there? I had set the alarm for six o’clock, because I thought our best chance would be at first light. Gavin, yawning and grumbling and about a quarter awake, came with me. I had a plan but it wasn’t much of one. I chucked another biscuit of hay into the back of the ute, got in, started it up and drove forward, towards the first gate that would take us to the lagoon.

  And suddenly, to Gavin’s shock, I turned hard left. Because now I did have an idea. I don’t know where it came from and even as we reached the road I was trying to figure out how it might work, but, totally stupid though it was, I sensed it might give us a chance.

  Only ten minutes down the road were the Anlezarks. Jamie went to Wirrawee High School. Each morning he caught the same bus as Gavin and me. He was older than me. He was one of the best cricketers in the district. He had a girlfriend called Natalie. He had the personality of a cane toad out of mating season. And he had more drugs than the rest of Wirrawee put together.

  Mr Anlezark just about swallowed his toothbrush when he opened the door and found it was me.

  ‘Ellie, what’s wrong?’ he asked, but it was hard to understand him with his mouth full of Colgate.

  ‘Is Jamie home?’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s so . . . I think he’s still in bed.’

  ‘Do you mind if I see him? It’s only for a second. Project for school. It’s important, otherwise I wouldn’t bother you at such an early time.’

  I was already going up the stairs, hopeful that if I kept talking I wouldn’t give him a chance to stop me.

  Jamie’s room smelt like he’d drenched it in cologne that he’d picked up for $1.99 a litre. I hadn’t met Natalie but I don’t think she had a lot of class.

  If he hadn’t been awake before I burst in he was wide awake a moment later.

  ‘Ellie? What the hell is this?’

  The shock sent his voice so high that it was like puberty had never happened.

  I got down close to his ear, though it wasn’t pleasant. I still hadn’t had breakfast. I could feel my stomach going murky.

  ‘Jamie, I want a truckload of those little pills you’ve been telling me about for so long.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ His voice had gone hoarse and husky now. ‘You come here at six thirty . . . my parents are right downstairs. What did you tell them?’

  ‘Nothing to what I’ll tell them if you don’t give me a couple of dozen tabbies.’

  ‘You are crazy. I don’t even have anything. You are just plain crazy. Get the hell out of here.’

  ‘Not without something very stimulating. Something wild.’

  There was a knocking on the door. I heard Mrs Anlezark’s nervous voice. ‘Ellie! Are you OK? Can I help you?’

  ‘I’ll only be a couple of mo’s, Mrs Anlezark. I just need a bit of help with something.’

  Jamie got out of bed, kicking the doona aside, muttering and cursing and glaring, then stumbling over his cricket bag. He threw open his wardrobe and groped around at the back of the top shelf. He chucked a small plastic bag at me, but because it was so light I had to go halfway towards him to pick it up. There seemed to be about twenty green pills in it.

  ‘Here. You owe me a thousand bucks. Now get out.’

  I got out, feeling a laugh rising inside me. At six o’clock this morning, if anyone had told me I’d be inside Jamie Anlezark’s bedroom . . .

  I still don’t know what Jamie’s parents thought. I jumped down the stairs three at a time, yelled ‘Thanks’ to both of them as they stood in the kitchen door and was away before they could recover.
r />   Gavin, still sitting in the ute, and getting cold, made a face at me. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  I tore back to the lagoon, hoping desperately that the cow wasn’t under the water and blowing bubbles. Or worse, not blowing bubbles. It seemed to take an age for Gavin to get out of the ute and open each gate. At one point I blasted the horn to make him hurry, and of course he heard it in the clear morning air, and scowled at me. He recognised the sound all right.

  There she was, tired eyes barely open, head half off the kitchen table. She only had minutes left to go. I waded into the lagoon, giving a yell as the cold water bit into me again. I struggled out there to her. ‘This is bloody crazy,’ I thought, opening the little plastic bag. I tipped the tablets into my hand. There were only twelve. I got her mouth open and pushed them down her throat. She offered no resistance. ‘Wish I’d asked him how long these take to work,’ I thought. I offered her the biscuit of hay as well but she’d given up on food now. There was nothing more I could do in the lagoon itself. I backed away, watching with fascination and hope. Would anything happen?

  My original plan had been to use the calf to motivate the cow, and I thought I should still do that. We got a lasso on him and dragged him around till he was as close as possible to his mum. I was still watching her to see if there was any reaction. I felt that something had to happen, sooner or later. Surely she couldn’t swallow all that stuff and not be affected? Were cows so different to humans?

  I turned away from her to get the other rope, to help drag her out. Gavin suddenly pulled at my arm. He pointed. There was the cow, shaking her head, then a moment later tossing her head backwards and forwards. She was certainly coming to life but she didn’t look too happy. Maybe she was hallucinating little green men or little green bulls.

  Now was our chance. I whacked the calf hard on the nose a couple of times. I’m not sure if any of the agriculture manuals would have advised this, but it was all I could think of. They probably wouldn’t have advised using Ecstasy either.

  Well, the calf played his part. He set up a wailing and a hollering that would have put a baby with a burnt bum to shame. I looked around anxiously at the cow, just in time to see her rise up in a wild eruption out of the mud. She came floundering towards us, her white eyes looking murderous. Smelly bucket-loads of mud slid from her flanks, the water splashed around her, she mooed fit to burst, and I had the feeling she’d forgotten all the favours I’d done her during the night. Drugs or no drugs, she still wanted to look after her kid.

  I grinned at Gavin. He was wide awake now. We had about two and a half seconds to get the lasso off the calf before we were butted into a weekend in late September. It was a close thing too, as the more desperately I tried to get it off the more I fumbled it. In the end I dragged it clear when she was two steps away. Gavin and I ran like hell, laughing hysterically. We slipped on the frosty grass, and rolled down the hill together, still laughing.

  For the first time since the shootings I felt good. I had no idea what the long-term effects on the cow would be. Maybe I’d poisoned her so badly that she’d be dead by lunchtime. Maybe her calf would get a dose of Ecstasy for himself by feeding at her udder. Maybe when she eventually went to the Great Slaughterhouse in Stratton a hundred people would take a wild trip by eating steak and sausages carved from her side. But for the time being, a cow that should have been dead was alive. Alive and out of the swamp.

  The shivers were getting worse, so we didn’t spend much time on the cold ground. The cow was bucking around and looking nervous and more than half crazy. She was spooking her calf too. But she was eating from time to time, and the calf had managed to get one good long suck.

  There was nothing more we could do for either of them at the moment. I wouldn’t dare tell a vet what I’d done as we’d have the inspectors on the doorstep in five minutes and be struck off for a hundred years. So we pushed the cow and calf back into the paddock, put the fence up again, and drove home in a hurry. The bus wasn’t going to wait for us.

  I didn’t learn much in school that day. I reckon I fell asleep in half a dozen different lessons. And I only had half a dozen classes. Jess elbowed me awake a few times, then she gave up. At least Bronte lent me her History notes, and warned me about the Legal Studies test. That’s what I call friendship.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE VERY NEXT day I saw another Liberation article in the paper. It was similar to the first one, only this time it was on the front page. Either this was a slow news day, which seemed quite likely, as there was also a story on the front page about Elvis Summers getting remarried, or else the group was becoming better known and starting to get serious attention.

  A group calling itself Liberation has been credited with another successful cross-border raid.

  It is believed the group rescued a man and a woman who were being held on suspicion of espionage. The names of the couple have been suppressed.

  Sources close to Army Headquarters say they strongly discourage vigilante activities, but there had been grave fears for the safety of the couple.

  The group is believed to operate in a number of areas but a division based around Stratton or Wirrawee has been credited with the latest mission.

  It was frustratingly lacking in details. I read it in the library at school. I’d cancelled Mum and Dad’s sub-scrip tion to the paper, as another small way to save money.

  At lunchtime I went and found Homer. It was raining on and off and he was in a classroom at the end of the corridor, with Bronte and Jess, along with Sam Young, Shannon’s twin, the comedian from our bus. I didn’t want to mention the delicate subject of Liberation in public, so I just settled into the conversation, which was about the usual subjects: the war, the peace, the prospects for the future. And relationships.

  Jess said slyly, ‘I reckon Homer and Ellie’ll get married and never leave the farm and just walk around all day chewing on bits of hay and talking about the weather.’

  ‘Yeah right, Jess,’ I said. But I knew I was a bit pink. ‘Homer’s only ambition in life is to find a bimbo, the blonder the better. Someone who’ll bring him breakfast, lunch and dinner in bed.’

  ‘And serve herself covered with trifle as the dessert,’ Sam added.

  I rolled my eyes at Bronte. She just grinned back.

  ‘You guys know me so well,’ Homer said, smirking away like he really thought it was going to happen.

  ‘Whatever happened to Lee, Ellie?’ Jess asked me.

  Jess was always so, I don’t know what the word is, forceful. You were never left wondering about her opinion. And she liked to know everything. She’d never even met Lee, as far as I knew, but she sounded like she and he were old buddies.

  I shrugged. I didn’t feel like telling them all the details of my love life. I didn’t want to tell them about the flow of letters I got from Lee straight after the shootings, letters where he raved with such passion about what had happened that I started to worry he was cracking up. I didn’t want to tell them about the way the letters had stopped suddenly and how I hadn’t heard from him since. And most of all I didn’t want to tell them about the nights I spent in bed on my own or with Gavin, dreaming of nights with Lee, longing to feel his hot hard body against me again.

  So I just shrugged.

  ‘Tell us about your love life, Jess,’ Bronte said provocatively, like she was winding her up.

  ‘Ah, wouldn’t you like to know?’

  I wasn’t sure if I would actually, but it was good to have the spotlight off me again. The truth was, my mind went like a washing machine on spin cycle when I thought about Homer and Lee. Was it possible to like them both at the same time, to be attracted to both of them, even to be in love with both of them? And to have regular rage attacks towards Homer as well? Oh, and by the way, Jeremy Finley wasn’t so bad. I didn’t necessarily want to leave him to Jess.

  ‘You know who really likes you?’ Sam asked Jess.

  ‘Well, pretty much everybody,’ Jess said.
‘But who in particular did you have in mind?’

  ‘He’s in our year. He’s a townie. I reckon he’s pretty gay myself, but the girls don’t seem to think so.’

  ‘Cal Graham?’

  ‘He’s not a townie,’ Homer said.

  ‘Someone in this room had a relationship with him,’ Sam said.

  Well, seeing that Bronte was new and it obviously wasn’t Jess, that didn’t leave many possibilities.

  ‘Steve,’ Homer guessed.

  Sam just grinned.

  I tried not to react. Seemed like it wasn’t enough that Jess had my old black top, the one with the silver edging. She had to pick up my old boyfriend too. There was a pattern here.

  I had been with Steve for a long time before the war. We’d kept away from each other since school started again. I don’t know why. With some people it seemed like the stuff that had happened was too much to cope with. You couldn’t talk about the war because it was too big, and you couldn’t talk about trivial things because compared to the war they were too insignificant, so you were left with nothing.

  But I liked Steve. I’ll always like Steve. He was funny, nice, friendly to everyone, confident. He believed in himself and what he could achieve. And I didn’t think I wanted him to be in a relationship with Jess. That’s the thing about relationships, once you’ve been in one you think you have some kind of ownership of the person for the rest of your life.

  Of course the other thing about Steve is that he’s pretty immoral. He’d go with a vampire if he thought their blood groups matched.

  It was a frustrating lunchtime because I wanted to ask Homer about Liberation but it was hard to get a chance. He looked tired and was yawning a lot. Well, I could relate to that. But as we headed off to class I said to him casually, ‘I saw another Liberation article in the paper today.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Scarlet Pimples I call them.’

  ‘So what’s your connection with them?’

  ‘Connection? Who said I’ve got a connection?’