by Mark Smith
‘Like this?’ She stands on her toes and holds her arms up straight.
‘Perfect. You’d make a great surf lifesaver.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Never mind. Stay with Rowdy.’
The current is strong and by the time I make it across the bar, my arms are starting to feel it. It’s good to duck dive under a set on the way out, keeping my eyes open underwater and watching the rolling force of the wave come at me. I sit up and look back at Willow, who’s racing up and down the beach with Rowdy. Like every other time I’ve surfed over the past three years, I check up the river as far as I can see, then turn and paddle towards the peak. The water hasn’t settled after the rain and there are little bits of weed and leaves that have been washed down the river. But the offshore wind is glassing off the surface and the waves are hitting the bar and peeling along the line.
What I’ve missed through not surfing much over the winter is doing something that’s not just about survival for a change. But, for some reason, I feel uncomfortable today. I keep looking at the beach, where Willow has stopped running along the sand and is staring out to sea. I take a wave and paddle back out. When I look again, Willow has both her arms in the air. Kas is standing a little way behind her, arms in the air, too. My heart starts to race and I scan the dunes for signs of trouble before catching the next wave and belly-boarding in over the bar. I tuck the board under my arm and run towards them.
I’m out of breath by the time I get close enough to yell to them. ‘What is it? Where are they?’
‘Come here,’ Willow calls.
I splash through the shallows until I reach her.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I wanted you to come in,’ Willow says.
The offshore blows her hair from behind, making it fly around her face like a halo. She puts her hands on her hips and juts her jaw out. ‘I want to swim, Finn. I want to go in the water,’ she says.
I’m relieved but a bit confused too. I look to Kas, who’s standing a few metres back but she doesn’t meet my gaze. ‘What’s stopping you?’ I ask Willow.
‘Come with me,’ she says.
‘Why?’
‘We’ve never been in the sea before,’ Kas says. ‘Remember?’ Her voice sounds different, more lively, and there’s a half smile on her lips.
I take my board up to the dry sand and put it down. Willow and Kas follow me and shyly strip off to their underwear. Kas has her arms across her chest and Willow jumps up and down to keep warm.
‘We reckon the wetsuit’s not fair,’ Kas says. ‘If we’re gonna get cold, you are too.’
‘All of us together,’ Willow says, kicking at the sand.
So I unzip it and peel it off. I’m glad I left my jocks on underneath. Willow runs ahead but pulls up short of the waterline. Kas walks down next to me and I steal a glance at her. Her body is thin but her dark skin glows in the sun. She has a singlet on and a pair of black undies that might have been Mum’s. I could be imagining it but I think she’s leaning in to me as we walk. Our shoulders touch and her hair brushes against my arm. We reach Willow, who’s bouncing on her toes in the shallows.
‘Is it safe?’ Kas asks.
The sea is second nature to me, part of who I am. I remember Dad carrying me into the water when I was really little. I could swim by the time I was five and I started going to the beach on my own when I was ten. I’ve never felt fear in the water, though Dad always taught me to respect it, not to take anything for granted, especially when the bigger swells are running.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘the waves are pretty small but there’s a strong current running along the beach. You’ll have to brace against it.’
I’m peering out to sea and when I look back at Kas and Willow I can tell they haven’t understood a word. So I hold out my hands and they each take one.
‘Come on,’ I say, and we walk out until the white water pushes against our knees. The water is freezing and I can feel the goosebumps rising all over my skin. Willow grabs hold of my arm with both hands, while Kas lets go and edges back towards the beach, looking uncertain.
‘Take Wils first,’ she says, ‘I’ll wait here.’
Willow climbs onto my back and we walk out to where the waves are breaking on the bar. She seems so much bigger and heavier now than a few months ago. The current is strong but I hold my footing and before long we are pushing through chest-high waves. Willow’s squealing with the excitement of it, her arms squeezed around my neck hard enough for it to hurt. Slowly, she slips off and dives under a wave.
After a few minutes she’s shaking with the cold so I guide her back in to where Kas is standing in the shallows. Willow runs up the beach to dry off and Rowdy follows her.
Kas looks at me with wide eyes. I mean really looks at me, like she hasn’t since Rose died. She takes my hand and we turn to walk out into the waves. By the time we get to the bar she’s bracing her body against the sweep.
When a bigger wave pushes through, she turns her back and it knocks her off her feet.
I show her how to dive under them and before long she’s sliding through the water like she’s been doing it all her life. When she surfaces her hair is a slick of black down her back. Her mother’s ring, looped around her neck on a strip of leather, falls out of her singlet.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘try this now.’
I pick up a wave and body surf it a few metres towards the beach. She can’t quite get the hang of it at first but eventually she throws herself down the face of a smallish wave and comes up spluttering next to me. She surprises me by standing and hugging me. Her skin is cold and I hold her, not quite sure what’s going on. Her breath comes in sharp little pants and when she lifts her head I see she is crying, her body jerking with the effort. I’m so surprised, I don’t know how to react. I thought we were having fun.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her voice shaking. ‘I’m so sorry, Finn.’ ‘Sorry for what?’
‘Shutting you out.’
‘It’s okay, Kas. She was your sister.’
‘And your friend.’
Her eyes are red from the crying and the salt.
I don’t see the next wave coming. It bowls us over and we roll across the bar, a tangle of arms and legs. Kas throws her hair back and grabs my hand.
Willow is huddled in the pile of clothes further up the beach. She stands and runs down to meet us. Kas nuzzles into her neck and hair, and kisses her. Willow puts her arms around Kas and the three of us stagger and fall in a heap on the dry sand. Rowdy dances around and barks excitedly.
‘I’m sorry to you, too, Wils,’ Kas says. She is still hanging on to me, our wet skin covered in sand. We get to our feet, link arms and walk back into the water to wash off. With Kas and Willow rolling over each other in the shallows, I would’ve taken a photo of this back before the virus. Moments like this are so rare now, when we forget about surviving and actually enjoy ourselves. When I think about everything we’ve lost—our families, our friends, our homes—it’s easy to forget about what we’d be doing if the virus hadn’t swept them all away. I’d be in senior school, playing football, surfing whenever I could and living with Mum and Dad. Willow would be with Harry and Stella where she belongs, and maybe even Kas would have a better life, living with Stan and Beth and Rose, riding Yogi and working on the farm.
I look at them now and try to hold onto the smiles on their faces before we go back to the business of staying alive.
We make our way up to the platform, where I stash my board and wetsuit in the bushes and throw on a warm jumper. The wind is stronger up here and it pricks at our skin. Kas leads the way and Willow and I follow. Rowdy has raced ahead. I find I’m looking at Kas. I watch the way her calf muscles flex with every step and her hair swings behind her, all wet and tangled. She turns and walks backwards for a while, a smile easing its way across her face.
She doesn’t say anything, but she laughs and the sound rings around inside me.
Dinner tonight feels totally different. Wil
low and I don’t have to edge our way around Kas, we don’t have to coax her into talking or try to convince her to eat. Whatever decision she’s come to, we’re grateful for it because we’ve been carrying her these last few months. And there’s no room for passengers. I’m hoping she will hunt with us now, that she’ll help more with picking the mussels off the reef, even plant some of our stored seed in the veggie garden.
After dinner, Kas sits and reads with Willow, the two of them tucked up under blankets on the couch. Kas is more patient than I am. She doesn’t race ahead or get frustrated when Willow forgets words. Eventually Kas’s voice drops away. She strokes Willow’s blonde curls and glances up at me. There’s a look of contentedness on her face. Willow sways off down the hall to bed. Kas sits close to the fire.
‘We need to talk,’ she says.
‘What about?’
She gives me one of those looks that reminds me of Rose—her lips pressed together as though she knows exactly what she wants to say but is unsure of how to say it.
‘We’ve been kept safe here by the winter. We haven’t seen Wilders since we left Ray’s place the day—’
‘But?’
‘They’ll come back for us. For me. They’ll find us eventually. And that means they’ll find our stores, too.’
‘I’ve been thinking about the same thing for a while now. You just weren’t there.’ This isn’t quite true—I’ve pushed the idea to the back of my mind for months.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. There is a hint of anger in her voice. ‘But I’m back now.’ She reaches over and holds me by the wrists. ‘I’m back.’
‘I couldn’t get through to you, Kas. I tried. I really tried.’
‘I felt it. But you were giving up on me, too. Both of you.’
‘We had to hunt. We had to fish. We had to keep us fed.’ I know I sound defensive, but I can’t help it.
‘You seemed to be carrying on like nothing had happened. To Rose, I mean. But all I felt was this huge emptiness. I wanted to reach out to you but you shut me down.’ There are tears welling in her eyes. One escapes and she swipes it away. ‘I wanted you to comfort me but it felt like you just wanted to kiss me and that’s not what I needed.’
She’s turning this onto me, like it’s my fault. I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. I can’t look at her. If it wasn’t for me and Willow we would’ve starved by now. We’d have had no wood to burn if we hadn’t collected it, no water in the header tank if I hadn’t pumped it up by hand.
Kas kneels in front of me, her back to the fire. I try to look past her but she follows me with her eyes. Then, slowly, she leans forward and touches my cheek. ‘Truce?’ she says.
‘Truce.’
She gets up and sits on the arm of the chair. She puts her lips to my ear and says, ‘I missed you.’
I can feel my face go red.
While I struggle to find the words for how I feel, she slides off the chair onto the floor and sits cross-legged, her hands reaching out to the fire again.
‘What do you think we should do?’ I ask. ‘About the spring. The summer. Staying safe.’
‘We can survive in Angowrie,’ she says. ‘We can hunt, fish, grow veggies. Our supplies are here. But we’ve got to make it safe.’
The heat from the fire has made her birthmark more noticeable. It rises like a dark map on the side of her face.
‘And I made a promise to Rose. To find Hope and bring her home.’ She pauses and looks straight at me, defiant. ‘We have to go to Longley,’ she says.
I’ve known this was coming since that first night back from Ray’s when Kas was angry and exhausted and said she wanted to hunt Ramage down, but I’ve tried not to think about it. ‘Travelling into Wilder country would be so dangerous. And what about Willow? We couldn’t take her with us.’
‘We could take her home, first. Think about it, Finn. We don’t know what happened in the valley after we escaped but, either way, Harry and the farmers will be in the same position as us, living in fear of Ramage. With their help, we could maybe attack Longley.’
‘Hang on! Attack?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘I thought we were going to find Hope.’
‘We are, but have you forgotten what Ramage did to Rose?’
‘Course I haven’t. But what if Ramage controls the valley? What do we do then?’
‘I don’t know. But if we’re smart about it we could stop the Wilders being a threat for good.’ She pauses then, waiting for my response.
‘It’s a long shot, Kas.’
‘I know. But what’s the alternative? Sitting here jumping at shadows, waiting for them to come and find us. I don’t want to live like that.’
All the softness has left her and in its place is the fierceness I first saw at the meeting in the valley when she attacked Tusker.
‘And as for Willow,’ she says. ‘She deserves to be back with Harry and Stella.’
‘But we escaped from the valley. They wanted to hold us prisoner. Why do you think anything would have changed?’
‘That was before Ramage found them, when they thought they were safe. They’ll know they’re not now, if they haven’t been overrun altogether.’
What she’s saying makes sense, but we’re okay here at the moment. We’re actually starting to enjoy ourselves a little bit. Today at the beach was really special. If we were careful, stayed low and never allowed them to see us, maybe Ramage and his men would leave us alone. But even as I build this argument in my head, I know it’s not realistic. They could come and burn the town to the ground just to spite us.
She follows my eyes again, not letting me get away with avoiding a decision. ‘You know doing nothing isn’t an option, Finn. We have to leave Angowrie one way or another.’
She’s right but I’m too tired to think.
‘Let me sleep on it,’ I say, getting to my feet.
‘Sure,’ she says, her voice lower and softer. ‘But I remember something else.’
‘What?’
‘You promised Rose, too. I heard you.’
Maybe it’s exhaustion from everything that happened yesterday, but I oversleep. The sun is streaming in through the curtains and I know the wind is up from the cypress rustling against the spouting outside my window. Kas is standing in the doorway, her hip pushed to one side. She’s wearing an old woollen jumper of Dad’s and shorts. She holds a cup of hot water to her lips and the steam curls around her face.
‘How’d you sleep?’ she asks.
‘On and off. You?’
‘Okay.’
I bunch the pillow behind me and sit up, holding my breath to make my chest look bigger. Eventually I have to breathe out, though.
She comes and sits next to me, putting the cup on the bedside table. ‘Sorry about last night,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to be so pushy.’
Willow walks through the door, rubbing her eyes and yawning. ‘Come here, sleepyhead,’ Kas says and Willow puts her arms around her.
This is how we should be able to live, just the three of us looking out for each other. But my mind swings back to our conversation from last night, the one about leaving Angowrie. I know Kas will bring it up again.
Willow has become our egg collector. She’s named all the chooks and they’re so used to her, they follow her around. Yesterday she brought home another six eggs, so we cook them for breakfast. Kas looks at me across the table and smiles. Willow jigs up and down, eager to get outside. The weather is warm again today and I’m guessing she will want to go for another swim.
Kas puts her knife and fork carefully on her empty plate and says, ‘So, you know what we talked about last night?’ Her eyes widen and I know she wants to bring Willow into the discussion.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Have you thought about it?’
Willow pipes up. ‘Thought about what?’
I nod to Kas.
‘Now it’s getting warmer, we reckon the Wilders’ll come looking for us again. And,’ Kas continues, ‘we might
have to leave Angowrie.’ She says this slowly, looking at Willow for her reaction.
‘Where would we go?’ Willow asks, her face screwed up, sceptical.
Somehow it seems the decision has already been made about leaving.
I push the last of my eggs around on my plate, just long enough for her to see I know what she’s doing. ‘We’ll go out and see Ray first. But then—’ I hesitate, as though by saying it out loud it becomes final. ‘Then, we’ll make our way to the valley. Back to Stella and Harry.’
Willow jumps out of her seat. ‘Home?’ she says. ‘Home? To Mum and Dad.’ I can almost see her mind ticking. ‘We’ll have to check the traps first,’ she says, working through a list in her head. ‘And have another swim and get some more eggs and lock up the stores and pack some clothes and…’
Her enthusiasm is infectious. Kas and I both smile at her excitement.
Leaving is more Kas’s decision than mine but I don’t have a better plan. And, in the back of my mind, there’s the promise we both made to Rose.
‘There’s something else,’ Kas says after Willow has gone to start packing. ‘We can’t leave the house like this. If they find it, they’ll know we’ve been living here and they’ll look for the stores.’
‘So, what are you saying?’
‘We need to make the place look deserted, like all the others. We should take everything we need to keep and put it in with the stores. Then we’ll trash the house, just enough to make it look as though it was ransacked after the virus: cupboards open, stuff spilled on the floor, chairs thrown around, beds turned over, doors open.’
I know she’s right but this is our home, or the closest thing to it I’ve had in three winters.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘We’ll clean it up when we get back.’
It takes us two days to get organised. I know I’m stalling, but I convince Kas we have to plan carefully. We’re going to miss having Yogi. He made carrying food and gear so much easier. Kas is looking forward to seeing him again out at Ray’s place. In the meantime, though, we bring supplies in from the garage and spread them on the floor. Along with the food—cans of beans and sardines—we’ve got to carry sleeping bags, the bow and arrows, a couple of knives, the can opener, extra clothes, the torch, batteries and matches. We bundle everything into food bags and thread pieces of rope through loops at the top so we can sling them over our shoulders. They’ll be uncomfortable but we don’t have a choice.
