The Sky So Heavy

by Claire Zorn

  Then whoever it was thumped the door and I heard his footsteps leave the front porch and head up the side of the house.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Max asked.

  Zadie started to cry. I heard the back door slide open. I got to my feet and met him as he was coming through the kitchen.

  ‘Where is it, you little shit?’

  It was Mr White. The only words we had ever exchanged were a polite ‘hello’ when I used to see him over the fence in the mornings. Now, his hands were fists at his sides, his face twisted with aggression, eyes popping.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wood, you mongrel. Where’s my firewood?’ He pushed past me into the living room. Zadie started screaming.

  ‘Where’s my firewood?’

  He used to get The Australian delivered.

  ‘What firewood?’

  He turned around and grabbed the front of my hoodie. ‘The firewood you little shits stole from my yard!’

  Max jumped to his feet, chest puffed. A bantam. ‘Oi!’

  Mr White shoved him away, provoking something inside that was curled up and lying dormant until that moment. I threw a punch. I missed. Mr White shoved me into the wall and I shoved him back. In my mind, detached, I stood outside watching the scene and it was hilarious. I was fighting Mr White in my living room. Okay, fighting might not be an accurate word but I was working up to it. I threw another punch. I got him this time, just in front of the ear. He went off – screaming, spittle showering my face, his fist landed in the hollow of my stomach. He’d had more practice then I had. I’d only been in a fight once before, in year five with Jason Esbit and it had involved mainly inaccurate kicking. I wasn’t expecting my next fight to be with Mr White from number seventeen.

  ‘We don’t have your firewood!’ yelled Max. All this was happening to the soundtrack of Zadie’s high-pitched wail, like a siren or a very urgent ice-cream van. I yelled and pushed my hands into Mr White’s face, not a classic fighting move, but effective. Hell, if I’d had a handbag I would have hit him over the head with it. He slapped my hands away from his face.

  ‘We’re burning furniture,’ Max yelled. ‘Not your wood.’

  Mr White’s head snapped to the fireplace.

  ‘It’s the chairs from outside. Not your bloody wood.’

  He dropped his hands to his knees, leaning forward. His back heaved with his breathing. Max picked up Zadie. Mr White straightened up. He looked back and forth between us, jaw rigid.

  ‘It’s the chairs from outside. We didn’t nick your wood,’ I repeated quietly.

  He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked out the back door, the way he had come in.

  Fifteen

  Zadie grew quiet. In the afternoon she vomited all over the Transformers doona.

  Another day passed. Max sat next to Zadie and read her books.

  Water was okay but our supply of food was getting low.

  I had never seen such stillness. There was not even the movement of shadow as the day passed. There were no shadows. I wondered where the birds had gone. I wondered if they were dead from the cold. Where do birds go to die? Do they drop from the sky while they are flying – their hearts stopping dead like my gran’s when she was at church, halfway up the aisle to get communion?

  Now there is movement, lots of it. Mainly the movement of my head, my cheek slamming into the brickwork. I imagine how the scene would look from behind us, I see the arch of the torchlight up the brick walls. I see the white pressure marks from his fingers in my neck. There is spittle in my ear and I have had no practise at fighting since last time. I’m not really doing a whole lot of fighting anyway, you don’t, when there’s a gun pressed into your skull. And now things seem to slow down. I feel a creeping warmth up the back of my neck. A comfortable warmth nestling in the base of my skull. I close my eyes.

  Sixteen

  Two cans of tomato soup, a handful of sultanas and a cup of rice left. Two and a half litres of water though. That was a plus.

  Still no Mick.

  Zadie vomited again, twice. She was quiet and slept a lot. We fed her soup from a teaspoon and did not talk about what was happening to her.

  Mum had said not to go into the city, but I couldn’t imagine that everyone there had been left for as long as us without more rations. The thought that we might have been abandoned was beginning to follow me around and I couldn’t shake it. If Mum was still there she would have a plan. Leaving would mean letting go of the hope that Dad would come back for us.

  If we were to go we would need a car. Either way we would need more food.

  I decided to go for a walk, see if I could track down more food. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that someone would just hand food over without anything in exchange. My eyes roamed the living room for something I could trade. They landed on Dad’s liquor cabinet. I selected three bottles of whisky and placed them carefully in a plastic grocery bag.

  When I finally prepared to go, as I looked at Max and told him that I would be back, I thought about what the air would feel like outside on the street, what the space would feel like. I remembered going on holidays to the Great Barrier Reef, riding out on the clear sea in a boat with Mum and Dad and Max. My diving mask fogging up again and again as we waited to plunge into the blue. (‘Don’t breathe through your nose, matey,’ Dad had to keep reminding me.) The expectation of it was an ache in my stomach. The space, above and below. It was freeing, that endless space. But at the same time intensely threatening, like the grey that seemed to now stretch on forever.

  The asphalt was smothered in snow, unbroken by footprints or tyre tracks. I kept to the side of the road where there was grass beneath the snow – better traction. I didn’t want my palms skinned by the ice if I lost my footing. My feet sunk into the grey. I climbed the hill and felt like I was climbing into the sky.

  When I reached the bus stop at the top of the hill I stopped. The cold was brutal, sharp in my lungs. I started to cry. I let myself because I couldn’t cry in front of Max. I cried for the year sevens that scrambled to get on the bus. I cried for Lucy and my school and Lokey and Mr Effrez. I had never felt the merciless roll of time like I did then. The pull of it, always in one direction. No going back. I wanted to fall onto my knees and howl but I knew that I would do that and then I’d stand up again and I’d have to keep going and nothing would be any different. But I did let myself cry. I didn’t bother to wipe the tears away, I let them go. I imagined that the moment they hit the cold ground, their warmth would melt the snow for just a fraction of a second before they became part of it.

  I looked up the road toward the highway, the route my bus used to take to school, the way out. The red bricks of some of the houses stood out stubbornly against the cover of grey. I made my way past Starvos’ shop. Posters advertising Cornettos and Pura milk and a scratch and match Coca-Cola competition popped colour. Above the shop the blinds were drawn across the windows of Starvos’ flat.

  There was no plan. I didn’t know where I was going, I guess I thought I’d just keep walking until I saw somebody else, someone who might give me some food. I trudged, eyes searching the blank façade of each house. And then I saw it, further up the street. Someone closing the roller door of their garage. Walking up their path, opening the front door.

  ‘Wait!’ I ran toward the house. ‘Wait!’

  Of course they heard me. There was no other sound. The figure looked over his shoulder. I jogged toward him, up the driveway.

  It was Arnold Wong.

  I stopped. ‘Hey,’ I said quietly.

  Arnold Wong didn’t say anything. He looked at me. In his left hand was one of those green enviro bags. Whatever was in it looked heavy.

  ‘Um, I’m Fin,’ I said slowly.

  ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘Okay, cool, it’s just I wasn’t sure if . . . okay.’

&nb
sp; ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Can I talk to you for a second?’

  The look on his face served to highlight the fact that I was already talking to him whether he liked it or not.

  ‘I live just down the street, round the corner, down the hill, Bellbird . . . um, look, do you know where I can find some food? We’re out. It’s just my brother and me. And our neighbour’s little girl.’

  He looked at me, expressionless. ‘Come inside,’ he said. He went through the front door and left it open behind him. I took off my shoes and went inside.

  The warmth met me as soon as I entered the hall. There was a living room on the right. It had thick brown shag-pile carpet and furniture that looked like it had been found at Vinnie’s, it was crazy-tidy. I followed Arnold down the hall further until it opened into a kitchen on the right. The kitchen had the same old-fashioned vibe as the living room: orange tiles and green laminate bench tops, totally spotless. Other than the cans of food, which Arnold took from the green bag and stacked in the pantry, there were no clues that the world had fallen into disorder. Arnold didn’t look at me or say anything, so I just stood there. A small part of me was tempted to say, ‘Well, how about this weather!’ but I didn’t. Arnold emptied the bag and then turned to me.

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  He looked at me as if I was a bug he was deciding to squash or not, sort of detached. I couldn’t meet his stare.

  The fridge was covered in photographs, lots of a couple I assumed to be his parents.

  ‘My dad’s missing,’ I blurted out. ‘Haven’t seen him since this all started.’

  Arnold’s eyes softened a little. ‘I’ll get you some food.’

  ‘No, hey. I’m not after yours. I just thought you might know––’

  He ignored me, went down the hall and out the front door. I waited in the kitchen. The melted snow in the drainpipes outside dripped like the tick of a clock. The photographs were stuck to the fridge with neon alphabet magnets. There were a lot from what looked like Asian countries, maybe they went to visit family. There were some with African school children. There was a postcard with a portrait of another family, parents and three kids. Beneath the photograph it read ‘Pray for the Kellys on mission in South-East Asia’ and there was a web address.

  The front door opened and closed. Arnold came into the kitchen with the green bag. He handed it to me. I took it.

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. Hey, do you want these?’ I held out the bag of whisky bottles. ‘In exchange . . .’

  He frowned.

  ‘It’s whisky.’

  Arnold raised an eyebrow. There was almost a smile. ‘Keep it.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’ I turned to leave.

  ‘I have some orange juice. Would you like some?’ It sounded more like an exam question than an invitation.

  ‘Oh. Sure. Thank you.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Okay.’ I sat in one of the orange vinyl kitchen chairs.

  Arnold opened a cupboard and took out two orange and mango Poppas. He handed me one and sat down in the other chair. He didn’t speak and I wasn’t exactly bursting with conversation starters, so we just sat there sipping juice through our straws like we were six-year-olds.

  ‘Are, um, your parents around?’ I asked when I couldn’t handle the silence any longer.

  Arnold didn’t answer right away. Then his gaze flicked away. ‘They’re gone. They were over there, when the missiles hit. They were working for a church.’

  ‘Shit. That’s really intense.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I finished my juice and stood up.

  ‘I should get back to my brother.’

  Arnold got up. I followed him down the hall. He opened the front door.

  ‘When you’ve run out again, come back,’ he said. He didn’t look at me when he said that, his gaze remained focused out the door, looking into the distance.

  I went out. Hesitating on the front step I turned back.

  ‘Really, thank you.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m . . . you know . . . sorry you copped it at school.’

  His eyes met mine. ‘Are you sorry you treated me like shit or are you sorry that I’m the one who has the food?’

  I swallowed. ‘Um . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He closed the door.

  Seventeen

  Mick came back. He was slighter, somehow smaller, like a building with its foundations sinking into the ground.

  ‘Is she still here?’ he asked, swallowing. His face had lost colour. I could see the wiry roots of his black beard beneath his skin. I led him inside. I didn’t ask him to take his shoes off. He didn’t look like he could manage it.

  ‘Dadda! Dadda!’

  He saw Zadie lying in her bed. He grabbed the doorframe to steady himself. Then he went to her, dropped to his knees, cupped her little head and pressed his nose into her hair. He looked up at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. As if there was anything I could have done to prevent her getting sick.

  Tears ran down over the sharp drop of his cheekbones and into his beard.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ Zadie asked.

  He closed his eyes and pulled her small body to him. She laughed.

  ‘Do you want a tea? We’ve got tea. You look cold.’

  He shook his head

  ‘Where’s Mummy? Where’s Zac?’

  ‘Zac’s at home, sweetie.’

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  He looked at me again and I could see the answer.

  I stuffed Zadie’s clothes into her bag and gave it to Mick.

  ‘It’s messed up out there, Fin,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘The community hall first. But there wasn’t much help there. A lot of folding chairs and some first-aid kits. No doctors, just some SES guys. I asked them if the hospital was still open and they said they didn’t know. There’s no communication. All the batteries in their two-ways are flat. I drove down the mountains to the hospital. The highway was closed, barricaded off. But there were no cops there so I drove through. It took an age with the roads iced over but I got to the hospital. It was madness. No power. The back-up generator had died.’ He paused.

  ‘Were there doctors there?’

  ‘Some. They were doing their best to help people. They found beds for them, they helped Zac, they had medication for him. But Ellen . . . they couldn’t . . . they couldn’t do anything.’ He looked to the ground. ‘Dehydration,’ he said quietly. ‘She couldn’t keep anything down and there weren’t enough fluids for a drip. Dehydration got her.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  His tears came in a silent stream. He rubbed his palms over his face. ‘Apparently people from the country are more at risk of radiation poisoning. Something about less exposure meaning less tolerance to radiation. What the hell is happening, Fin? I mean.’ He looked around, gestured outside. ‘This is insane. I keep on expecting to wake up, my wife will be next to me, I’ll swear at the alarm, drag myself out of bed and go to work . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  We both gazed out the window at the soft, grey picture of our backyard, the tops of the trees melting into the sky, the axe leaning against the half-demolished outdoor setting.

  ‘Do you have any food?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘We’ve got a little bit, I met a guy up the street. A guy I went to school with, he gave me a bit more . . . I was hoping the army would have come back.’

  ‘Fin, I didn’t see any sign of them the whole time I was out.’

  ‘They said they’d come back,’ said Max.

 
; ‘I know, but I’m telling you, I didn’t see any trace of them. A couple of SES blokes, that’s it. They didn’t have any food, either.’

  ‘Take some of our cans,’ I said.

  Mick looked at me with a steady gaze. He munched his lips a little. He wanted to say no, I could see it. But he needed the food.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said quietly.

  I put two cans of beans in Zadie’s bag. Mick picked Zadie up with one arm and took her bag with the other. Zadie gripped her pony by its fuzzy pink neck. We watched them walk up the driveway.

  Silence found a new space in our house.

  Eighteen

  We saw the cop walking down the driveway, didn’t hear the car pull up. It was CSI. I was at the door before he had time to knock.

  ‘Hi there,’ he said in a voice that was more Play School host than cop. He looked like he could do with a shave and his shirt was crumpled. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a name badge. I opened the screen door a little, meaning to come out and talk to him, but instead he pushed past me, striding into the kitchen. He gave Max a little salute.

  ‘So, how you guys doing?’

  ‘Okay, did you confirm it was Dad?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Did you confirm it was Dad? Are you bringing him back?’

  ‘Oh, no. Ah, no movement on that as yet.’

  ‘But you said it was probably him. And he was on the highway, I mean, that’s not heaps far away – it’d be easy to check and bring him back here.’

  CSI straightened his back a bit as if he was trying to make himself bigger. He reminded me of the footy dickheads at school. ‘Like I got nothing better to do! We are pretty busy, buddy.’ He sniggered.

  He walked around with his hands on the bulky holster on his hips. He couldn’t seem to keep still. I noticed he didn’t have a gun.

  ‘Look buddy – what’s your name again?’

  ‘Fin.’

  ‘Yeah, Fin, I’ll tell you what we’re doing: we’re going around to every house and collecting all the food people have got. We’re going to redistribute it equally so that everyone will have enough.’