The last story Li heard was that they were in a makecamp outside Sumud, trying to queue or buy their way inside. It made sense. Sumud was the closest XB precinct, just across the Gulf. The man who told her that story was a customer in the hardware store – he’d hardly known Angie and Carl. She didn’t tell Frank. It would be tough hearing about his oldest friends third-hand.
Ange told Li something, though, the one time they talked after the flood. She said she’d decided to live. I can’t leave Carl on his own with it, so I’m gunna keep going.
How? Li was standing on the verandah, holding her casserole, because Angie hadn’t asked her in.
You just decide to. Every time I stop, the hole opens up and I wanna fall. All I wanna do is fall. The only way I know not to is just keep deciding over and over. Everything’s a decision now. Opening my eyes, putting clothes on, eating, going outside. Nothing just happens.
All the neighbours had helped them search. The roads were under water, rain still belting down, and they could hear it roaring in the drains beneath their feet. They nearly lost Angie trying to climb down into the pipe; Frank had to drag her out and hold onto her. Someone brought a concrete cutter and tried to dig up the road to cut through the pipe. The hole they made filled up with mud and Carl dug in it with his empty hands.
Leaving was a decision for Angie. For most people it just happened. Because after the flood came howlers so vicious that the smell of them coming made you freeze up. Then the drought again, and then fire. Within two years everything was gone. When Li and Frank and Matti walked out of Nerredin onto the highway, all that was left was the pub and the ruin of the old school building. But Robbie was the town’s first real victim; their unbearable, inadequate offering against what was coming. Robbie was the end of Nerredin.
Matti wouldn’t talk to Li about it, not ever. She shouted and pushed her away, ran out of the house. But Frank said she asked him one question. Where will Robbie wait for me?
And Li was glad it was Frank because she didn’t know the answer, had never known it since Matti was born. There was nothing here for a child, but they’d had one anyway. Like Angie and Carl had Robbie.
What Li knew, what she understood before Frank, was the size of Weather. People could build their firebreaks and desalination plants and early warning systems and bunkers, but they couldn’t withstand it. Nobody could.
She would have gone sooner but Nerredin was Frank’s home. So she waited for him to understand that home was finished. That all they could do now was try to keep their kid alive and look for somewhere safer.
The night before they left, they slept in the pub, bedding down on a single mattress on the floor. Their house, the olive grove, gone. Everything stank of ash. Others talking or sleeping around them – the ones who’d hung on, like them.
The three of them had a long walk ahead, through the hot season, to reach Valiant. It would be hard on Matti, but Matti wasn’t sleeping. She had lost Goldie, her rag horse, as they ran from the fire and now she held tight to a new wooden horse Frank had carved for her, small enough to fit in her hand.
Li felt Matti watching her in the semi-dark but she kept her eyes closed until she heard her roll over to face Frank.
Dad, are we going to live with Hani and Auntie Teresa and Uncle Navid?
For a bit, yeah. Till we find somewhere else.
And is Hani excited about meeting me?
Keep it down, beansprout. People’re sleeping.
But is he?
I bet he is. I bet he’s jumping off the walls and his mum’s saying, Calm down, mate, don’t bust a gut before they even get here.
Matti wriggled, pleased, pushing backwards into Li. Her hair smelled of smoke. How long till we get there?
It’s a pretty long way. We’ll be walking for a few weeks.
Every day?
Yeah, but we’ll stop and have a rest when it gets too hot. It’s gunna be good. You’re a good walker. And we can make up some new games.
Like what?
This kind of talk would keep Matti awake all night. But Li didn’t want to stop them, she just wanted to pretend she was asleep so she could hear it up close, the way they were with each other. How Frank made it sound so easy.
Matti said, But are we going to stay and live in Valiant?
You plan on doing any sleeping tonight?
This is my last question.
Okay. Well, we’ll see what we can find for work. Find you a school to go to.
Matti had had six months at Nerredin Primary before the first howler tore off the schoolhouse roof and sent the teacher running back to Valiant. Homeschool since then, for the kids that were left. They’d shared it out, taught what they knew.
And if we can’t find anything for work and a school, then will we go across the water on a boat?
How about you stop worrying about everything, Frank said. Let’s just wait and see.
Li tried to read his voice, because they hadn’t talked about this. About East. Getting to Valiant was what they’d talked about – how far a kid could walk in a day. Heat. Where there might be water and how much of
