Thirty-three
I draw Alan floating on the sea sitting in a bookshelf, pages scattered on the surface of the water. I draw the scene I remember from the supermarket, with the doors smashed and the shelves nearly bare. It occurs to me that drawings may be the only lasting record of what is happening.
Dinner: dried apricots, canned baby carrots and sweet corn, rice crackers: ‘Now 92 per cent fat-free!’
‘Is there anywhere else you can think of where we might be able to find your mum?’ Noll asks.
I stab a baby carrot with my fork. ‘She left with army officers. Government House maybe, army barracks. Nowhere we can go looking without getting caught.’
‘But if you gave her name, said you were her son?’
‘I don’t have any proof.’
‘She would know the situation on the other side of the border. You’d think she would have tried to get you out.’
‘Well, it didn’t work, did it?’
‘Should we have stayed there?’ asks Max. ‘What if she goes back for us?’
‘It’s too late now.’
‘But what if she goes back for us, Fin, and we’re not there?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.’ I throw the empty tin can into the fire, stand up and walk away from our camp. I head up the ramp onto the darkened street. It’s colder up here away from the collective warmth of the campfires. It’s also pitch black. I pull my hood up over my head. There are footsteps and a torch beam behind me, I turn around to see Lucy jogging to catch up to me.
‘Fin, slow down.’
‘You shouldn’t have followed me.’
She falls into step beside me. ‘Well, I don’t want you to fall over in the dark and break your neck. I like you, you see.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘I know. Me neither. But for now we just bide our time, enjoy the serenity of the car park.’
I kick at the snow, harder and harder, it flies up, a shower of white flecks in torchlight. ‘And I’m sick of being asked. I don’t want to make any more fucking decisions.’
‘I get that. Do you want to walk for a bit? It’s probably ridiculously dangerous, but YOLO and what not.’
‘I like to live on the edge.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed you’re the risk-taking type.’ She takes my arm.
We drift along the streets past houses and a crippled petrol station, shops and a school. The night sky is a void, no light, no stars. We are lost to the universe. We can’t see out. I wonder if anyone can see in.
We pause and gaze up into the void. Lucy brushes my cheek with her fingers. I look down at her, take her face in my hands and kiss her gently on the mouth. A ball of heat wells in my stomach, and other places if I’m honest. I pull away and lean my back against a telegraph pole, raising my face to the cold sky and trying to breathe like a normal person. Lucy watches me and I don’t know how she isn’t embarrassed. She traces her fingertip down the line of my jaw.
A collective decision is made that a trip to the shops is needed; firewood is getting low and we could do with more soap and toilet paper. The four of us climb the concrete stairs, around and around. Then we hit a fire door and when we push it open we find ourselves in the darkened shopping centre. The dull light that filters through the skylights reveals polished floors, high ceilings and frozen escalators. The glass facades of most shops have been cracked or smashed right through. Random objects are strewn along the walkways: bits of clothing, papers, bottles, broken EFTPOS consoles, coathangers. Our footsteps echo eerily through the silence. And I can’t help but think of a zombie movie I once saw that was set in a shopping mall. I grip the heavy handle of the axe, and look around for anything wooden, but everything is stainless steel or plastic. We roam past clothing shops and mobile phone vendors, all four of us taking in the place as if it’s an ancient ruin.
‘Why not stay in here instead of the car park?’ asks Max. ‘Way comfier.’
‘I think it’s because there’s more exits from the car park, more places to hide,’ Noll answers. ‘Also, it’s not well ventilated enough for campfires. The place would fill with smoke.’
In the centre of one of the walkways is a piano. It stands like some sort of regal animal among the chaos. Lucy pauses before it, then sits down. She begins to play the first music any of us have heard for months. The notes fill the cavernous space, the sound is luminous. My skin prickles with goosebumps. She finishes the piece and gently closes the lid over the keys. Then she stands and we all just pause there for a minute looking at the piano. It’s made of wood. Lucy’s expression is like she’s watching a beloved animal that has to be put down.
‘We should keep moving,’ I say.
We come to a department store, its roller security doors long since kicked in. We take a trolley and light our way with torches, there’s no skylights inside the store. The electronics section has been gutted: phones, cameras, televisions all gone; bet those people are rethinking their priorities. We go through to the clothing department and pull new clothes from the racks, changing out of our dirty layers on the spot. Then it’s to manchester where there are no blankets left, but plenty of towels. We stock up on fancy soaps and, surprisingly, gift-packaged herbal teas. Finally we find the home furniture department. The ‘Livingstone Nine-Piece’ dining suite is on sale for nine-hundred and ninety-eight dollars. We take turns hacking into it with the axe and then throw its parts into the trolley.
In the evening we sit by our newly fed fire. We have moved our camp closer to Alan so we can share our fire with him. He and Lucy read novels. I draw the scene from the shopping centre. Noll reads his bible.
‘Is this the end of the world?’ Max asks him.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘Jesus hasn’t come back.’
‘Serious?’
‘Serious.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘Max,’ I warn him.
‘It’s okay,’ says Noll. ‘I really believe that.’
‘Are you mad at God? I’m mad at God, you know, if He’s real.’
‘I don’t think God did this. People did this. People suck.’
‘Not all people suck.’
‘You don’t think?’
‘Do you think I suck?’
‘Well, we all robbed a guy of food that was rightfully his.’
Alan glances up from his book. I desperately want Noll to shut up.
‘But he had heaps!’ says Max.
‘Doesn’t change the fact.’
‘So you’re saying we deserve this?’ I ask.
‘No. I’m just saying that we’re all flawed. Like I said before, I cling to the knowledge that God is not.’
‘That’s crazy,’ says Max.
‘Perhaps. But do you have an alternative?’ Noll asks.
‘I dunno. I just reckon the idea that everyone is bad deep down is really depressing.’
‘I just… I mean that we have choices. We chose to rob a guy of food that wasn’t ours.’
‘You think we made the wrong choice,’ I say.
‘I’m not some moral arbitrator here just because I read the bible.’
‘You’re the one saying this shit. You were there too, you did it as well.’
‘All I’m saying, Fin, is what you already know.’
‘So, what’s
