And it was the noise of that small cheer which brought Chris out from his hiding place.
He looked funny, dressed in pyjamas, standing there, rubbing his eyes and staring at us. But we probably looked funny to him, like scarecrows in shock, staring back at him in astonishment. He’d come out of their old piggery, which these days was just a row of old sheds, so obviously abandoned and derelict that it was a good choice for a hiding place.
Time was getting short. We had to make some quick decisions. It didn’t take Chris long to decide he wanted to come with us. For a week he’d had no contact with anyone, just watched from a tree, and later the piggery, as patrol after patrol came through the property. The first group had taken all the cash and jewellery; Chris had buried the other small valuables after that, but had spent the rest of the week in hiding, emerging only to check animals and pick up supplies from the house.
His story, told from the back seat of his family Merc as we cruised the side roads, made us realise how lucky we’d been to avoid ground patrols. His house was closer to town than ours, and much grander and more conspicuous, and he’d had daily visits from soldiers.
‘They seem nervous,’ he said. ‘They’re not into being heroes. They stick close together. The first few days they were really jumpy, but they’re more confident now.’
‘How did it start?’ I asked. ‘Like, when did you first realise something funny was happening?’
Chris was normally quiet but he hadn’t talked for so long that now he was the life of the party.
‘Well, it was the day after Mum and Dad left for their trip. You remember? That’s why I couldn’t come on the hike with you. Murray, he’s our worker, was taking his family into the Show and he offered me a lift, but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t think it’d be much fun without you guys, and I’m not heavily into that kind of stuff anyway.’ Chris was a lightly built boy with intense eyes and a lot of nervous habits, like coughing in the middle of every sentence. He wouldn’t be into Commem Day or woodchopping competitions; he was more into the Grateful Dead, Hieronymus Bosch, and computers. He was also known for writing poetry and using more illegal substances than you’d find in the average police laboratory. His motto was ‘If it grows, smoke it’. Ninety per cent of the school thought he was weird, ten per cent thought he was a legend, everybody thought he was a genius.
‘Well, Murray never came back that night, but I didn’t realise, because their house is quite a way from ours. I didn’t really notice anything unusual. There were Air Force jets racing around, but I just thought it was Commem Day stuff. Then, about nine o’clock, the power went off. That’s so common I didn’t get excited, just waited for it to come back on again. But an hour later it was still off, so I thought I’d better ring up and see what was happening. Then I found the phone was off too, which is unusual – we often lose one or the other, but not both. So I walked over to Murray’s place, found they weren’t home, thought “They must have gone out to tea”, came home, went to bed with a candle – if you know what I mean – woke up in the morning, found everything was still off. “Now this is serious,” I thought, went back to Murray’s, still no one there. I walked along the road till I got to the Ramsays’ – they’re our neighbours – went in there, it was empty, kept walking, found no one at the Arthurs’, realised there’d been no traffic, thought “Maybe I’m the only person left on the planet”, went round a corner and found a wrecked car with three dead people in it. They’d hit a tree, but that hadn’t killed them – they’d been shot up badly. Well, bad enough to kill them. You can imagine, I freaked out, and started running towards town. Around the next corner was the next shock – Uncle Al’s house, which had been blown up. It was just a pile of smoking rubble. I saw a couple of vehicles coming, and instead of jumping on the road and flagging them down, which I would have done if they’d come along earlier, I hid and watched. They were military trucks, full of soldiers, and they weren’t ours. So I thought “Either I’ve been using some very strange and heavy stuff or else this is not a typical day in the life of Wirrawee”. It’s been pretty weird ever since. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a BMW floating in the middle of the dam was just another part of it.’ Chris kept us entertained for a good half-hour by the time he’d told us what had happened to him and we’d told him our story. And more importantly, he kept us awake. But long before we got to my place Homer and Robyn were heavily asleep. Chris and Lee and I were the only ones still conscious. I don’t know about the other two but it was a terrible struggle for me. I resorted to things like dabbing my eyelids with spit, which might sound strange, but it did help a bit. It was with deep relief that I saw the first soft light from the east reflecting off the galvanised iron roof of home. Only then did I realise I’d spent all that time driving the most elegant car I was ever likely to have, and I hadn’t thought about it once. What a wasted opportunity. I was quite cross with myself.
Chapter Twelve
There’d been a few visitors in the short time we’d been away. Looters had come, and like at Chris’s they had taken jewellery and a few other bits and pieces. My watch, some silver photo frames, my Swiss Army knife. They hadn’t done much damage. I felt sick about it but was too tired to feel the full impact. Corrie and Kevin and Fi had come too – all the stuff on our list had been removed, and they’d left a message on the fridge: ‘Gone where the bad people go. See you were!’ I laughed and then rubbed at it till it was completely removed. I was getting really security conscious.
Homer and Robyn had Lee’s dressing off and were inspecting his wound, Robyn with her newfound fascination for blood. I peered over their shoulders. I’d never seen a bullet wound in a human before. It didn’t look too bad though. Mr Clement had done a good job, for a dentist. There were only a few stitches, but there was heavy bruising all around it, lots of interesting blue and black and purple colours. Some fresh blood had seeped out from the bottom of the row of stitches; that was obviously the blood I’d seen on his bandage.
‘It looks swollen,’ I said.
‘You should have seen it yesterday,’ Lee said. ‘It’s improved a lot.’
‘Must have been the physio I gave it in the shovel.’
‘What’s it feel like to get shot?’ Chris asked.
Lee put his head on one side, and thought for a moment. ‘Like someone’s stabbed a big hot piece of barbed wire through your leg. But I didn’t realise it was a bullet. I thought something in the shop had fallen and hit me.’
‘Did it hurt?’ I asked.
‘Not at first. But suddenly I couldn’t walk on it. That’s when Robyn grabbed me. It didn’t hurt till we got inside the restaurant and I lay down. Then it felt like it was on fire. Really killed me.’
Homer had washed the whole wound site down with Dettol and now started putting the bandage back on. Robyn inspected my face and found a gash above my hairline that she Band-aided. Seemed like they were our only wounds. When she finished I went looking for the Landrover, and found it, neatly packed and hidden where we’d agreed, about half a k from the house, in the old orchard where my grandparents had built their first home on this land.
We had the whole day to waste before we went on up into the mountains to join the others. Sleep was everybody’s first priority, except for Chris, who’d had quite a lot of it compared to us. He got dumped with the first sentry duty. And the second, third and fourth. It was too dangerous to sleep in the house, so we got blankets and set up in the oldest, furthest away haystack. I made everyone nervous by going and getting the firearms from the Landrover, but always in my thoughts now was what had happened at Corrie’s and how Homer said we had to learn from that; we had to learn new ways.
Then we slept and slept and slept.
They say teenagers can sleep all day. I often used to look at dogs and be amazed by the way they seemed happy to sleep for twenty hours a day. But I envied them too. It was the kind of lifestyle I could relate to.
We didn’t sleep for twenty hours, but we gav
e it our best shot. I stirred a couple of times during the morning, turned over, had a look at Lee, who seemed restless, glanced at Robyn beside me, who was sleeping like an angel, and dropped back into my heavy sleep. For once, I can recall my dreams vividly. I didn’t dream of gunshots and smashing into vehicles, and people screaming and dying, although I know I’ve dreamt of those things often enough since. That morning I dreamt of Dad barbecuing for a whole lot of visitors, at home. I couldn’t see what he was cooking, but he was working away busily with his fork, pricking sausages or something. It seemed like all the town was there, wandering through the house and garden. I said hello to Father Cronin, who was standing by the barbecue, but he didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen but it was too crowded with people. Then Corrie was there, asking me to come and play, which was fine except that she was eight years old again. I followed her and we went down to a river and got in a boat. It turned out most of the townspeople were there, and Dad and Mum were captaining the boat, so as soon as Corrie and I were aboard they cast off and we sailed away. I don’t know where we were going, but it was hot, everyone was sweating, people were taking off clothing. I looked back at the shore and there was Father Cronin waving goodbye – or was he shaking his fist angrily because we were all stripping off? And I didn’t know now if we were stripping because we were hot, or for other reasons. Corrie was there still, but we weren’t eight-year-olds any more, and then she had to go somewhere, with someone, and in her place Lee was standing. He was undressing too, very seriously, as though it were some holy ritual. We lay down together, still being very serious, and began touching each other, gently and lovingly. We were still doing that when I woke up, sweating, and found that I was now in full sun. The day was getting really hot. I turned and looked at the others, and the first person I saw was Lee, watching me with his dark eyes. I was so embarrassed after the dream that I blushed and began talking quickly.
‘Oh, it’s gone up about ten degrees. I’m baking away here. I’ll have to move. I must have been asleep longer than I thought.’ I picked up my blanket and moved to the other side of Lee, but about the same distance away. I kept gabbling. ‘Do you want anything? Can I get you anything? Did you sleep much? Is your leg hurting a lot?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
I calmed down a bit now that I was out of the sun. From my new position I could see right across the paddocks to the bush, and on up into the mountains. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Living here all my life, some days I don’t even notice how beautiful it is. I still can’t believe we might be about to lose it. But it’s made me notice it all now. I notice every tree, every rock, every paddock, every sheep. I want to photograph it in my memory, in case ... well, in case.’
‘It is beautiful,’ Lee said. ‘You’re lucky. There’s nothing beautiful about the restaurant. And yet, I feel the same way about it as you do about your property. I think it’s because we did it all ourselves. If someone smashes a window they’re smashing glass that Dad cut, glass that I polished a thousand times, and they’re tearing curtains that Mum made. You get an attachment to the place, and it becomes special to you. I guess maybe it does take on a kind of beauty.’
I wriggled a bit closer to him. ‘Did you feel awful when you found it all wrecked?’
‘There was so much to feel awful about I didn’t know where to start. I don’t think it’s hit me even yet.’
‘No, me neither. When we got here this morning and I found they’d been here ... I don’t know. I’d expected it, but I still felt awful, but I didn’t feel awful enough Then I felt guilty about not feeling worse. I think it’s like you said, too many things. Too much has happened.’
‘Yes.’ Only one word, but I’ll always remember the way he said it, like he was really involved with everything I’d been saying. I rolled around a bit so I was even closer to him, and kept talking.
‘And then I think about Corrie and how it must be terrible for her, much worse than for me. For all you guys with little brothers and sisters. That must be terrible. And imagine how Chris’s parents would feel, being overseas, probably not being able to get back into the country, not having a clue what’s happened to Chris.’
‘We don’t know how widespread this thing is. It could involve a lot of countries. Remember that joke we made, up in Hell, about World War Three? We could have been right onto it.’
He put his arm around me and we lay there looking up at the old wooden rafters of the hayshed.
‘I dreamed about you,’ I said presently.
‘When?’
‘Just now, this morning, here on the haystack.’
‘Did you? What did you dream?’
‘Oh ... that we were doing something like what we’re doing now.’
‘Really? I’m glad it came true.’
‘So am I.’
I was too, but I was confused between my feelings for him and my feelings for Homer. Last night I’d been holding hands with Homer, and feeling so warm and good about it, and now here I was with Lee. He kissed me lightly on my nose, then less lightly on the mouth, then several more times, and passionately. I was kissing him back, but then I stopped. I didn’t have any plans to become the local slut and I didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved with two guys at once. I sighed and shrugged myself free.
‘I’d better go and see how Chris is getting on.’
Chris was getting on all too well. He was asleep, and I was furious. I shouted, screamed, and then kicked him, hard. Even while I was doing it I was shocked at myself. Even now, as I think about it, I’m shocked at myself. The thing that scared me most was the thought that maybe all the violent things I’d been doing, with the ride-on mower and the truck, had transformed me in the space of a couple of nights into a raging monster. But on the other hand, it was unforgivable for Chris to have gone to sleep. He’d risked the lives of all of us by being so slack. I remember on our Outward Bound camp, talking one lunchtime, someone had said that in the Army the penalty for going to sleep on guard duty was death. We’d all been so shocked. We could see the logic in it, but maybe that was the shocking part, that it was so utterly logical. Cold-blooded, merciless, logical. You don’t expect real life to be like that, not to that extreme. But I really felt for a moment like I could have killed Chris. He certainly looked scared of me when he rolled away and stood up.
‘Geez Ellie, take it easy,’ he mumbled.
‘Take it easy?’ I yelled into his face. ‘Yeah, that’s what you were doing all right. If we take it easy any more, we’re dead. Don’t you understand how it’s all changed Chris? Don’t you understand that? If you don’t, you might as well get a rifle and finish us all off now. Because you’re as good as doing that by taking it easy.’
Chris walked off, red-faced and muttering under his breath. I sat down in his spot. After a minute or two I think I did go into some sort of delayed shock. I’d blocked off all my emotional reactions because there hadn’t been the time or the opportunity for those luxuries. But it’s like they say, ‘emotion denied is emotion deferred’. I’d done so much deferring, and now the bank had called in the loan. Most of that afternoon is a blank to me. Homer told me much later that I’d spent hours wrapped in blankets, sitting in a corner of the haystack, shivering and telling everyone to be careful. I guess I went down the same path as Corrie had, just in a slightly different way. I have a clear memory of refusing all food and becoming very hungry, but not eating because I was sure I’d be sick if I did. Homer said I was ravenous and I ate so much that they thought I would be sick and they refused to give me any more. Weird.
I was very upset when they wouldn’t let me drive the Landrover, because I’d promised Dad so faithfully that I wouldn’t let anyone else behind the wheel. Suddenly though I got tired of arguing, crawled in beside Lee in the crowded back section, and went to sleep. Homer drove it up to Tailor’s Stitch. If I’d known that I wouldn’t have given up the argument so suddenly and so completely.
Somehow I walked into Hell l
ate that night, crawled into a tent beside Corrie, who was hysterical with joy to see us, and slept for three days, waking only for occasional meals, toilet trips, and brief mumbled conversations. I do remember consoling Chris, who was sure that he’d been the cause of my having a nervous breakdown. I didn’t think to ask how Lee had got in to Hell, but when I gradually got my wits back I found that they’d made a bush stretcher and carried him in; Robyn and Homer taking turns at one end of the stretcher and the lightly built Chris carrying the other, all the way down in the dark.
So I guess he atoned.
During my three days I had the nightmares I hadn’t had that morning on the haystack. Demonic figures ran screaming from me, I felt skulls crush under my feet. Burning bodies stretched out their hands, begging for mercy. I killed everyone, even the people I loved most. I was careless with gas bottles and caused an explosion which blew up the house, with my parents in it. I set fire to a haystack where my friends were sleeping. I backed a car over my cousin and couldn’t rescue my dog when he got caught in a flood. And although I ran around everywhere begging for help, screaming to people to call an ambulance, no one responded. They seemed uninterested. They weren’t cruel, just too busy or uncaring. I was a devil of death, and there were no angels left in the world, no one to make me better than myself or to save me from the harm I was doing.
Then I woke up. It was early in the morning, very early. It was going to be a beautiful day. I lay in the sleeping bag looking at the sky and the trees. Why did the English language have so few words for green? Every leaf and every tree had its own shade of green. Another example of how far Nature was still ahead of humans. Something flitted from branch to branch in the top of one of the trees – a small dark-red and black bird with long wings, inspecting each strip of bark. Higher still a couple of white cockatoos floated across the sky. From the cries I could tell that there was a larger flock out of my sight, and the two birds were merely outriders, strays. I sat up to see if I could glimpse the rest of the flock by leaning forward, but they were still out of sight. So I shuffled out of the tent, clutching my sleeping bag to me like some kind of insect half-emerged from a chrysalis. The cockatoos were scattered across the heavens like raucous angels. They drifted on, too many to count, until they were out of sight, but I could still hear their friendly croaks.
John Marsden - Tomorrow 1 Page 14
