It wasn’t even disappointment she felt, not really. There was still the rabbit and her snares. She was just tired. What had she thought – that she’d bring Matti back here? Build a shelter? Hide or trade when people came through, trek two hundred k to the nearest Source booth once a month for a status update? She was an idiot. This place would be unimaginable in the hot season, worse than Nerredin.
She ate two crackers and checked the seals on the still – the plastic had already steamed up. Might as well rest her ankle while the bottle filled. She moved back from the water’s edge to where it was dry, loosened the compression bandage and lay down. Eyes closed, faced turned up to the sun. Then she remembered Rich telling her that healing skin would burn easily, and she pulled her cap down. Thought about Eddie’s northern rivers flooding down to make an oasis in the dry. People said the sacrifice zones were mostly dumps now, that there was nothing left to dig up and everything was contaminated, and Weather was too extreme up there for Company investment anyway. It was just an uninhabitable Old Testament wasteland. But the stories Eddie told Val had never been about poison, they were all about how fast life came back.
It’s about to start in five seconds!
They came running, Li from the woodpile, Frank from the pressing shed. Li was thinking this better not be another false alarm, with everything they had to do before dinner. Matti had lined up three chairs under the jam tree, one each for Frank and Li and one for her rag horse, Goldie. She came out from behind the tree and they clapped and she stood behind the card table. This is a magic show, she said.
She was wearing an old black singlet of Frank’s, dishwashing gloves that were too big for her and a newspaper cape with a hole cut out for her head. She had three tins and she put a stone under one of them and shuffled the tins and then asked someone to guess where it was now. Frank guessed and she got a stubborn look and told them to shut their eyes.
Hoka poka! And when they opened them she lifted the tin and the stone wasn’t there. They whoo-hooed and clapped.
Matti said she was going to make one of the tins disappear as well.
Close your eyes! There was a clang of metal rolling away on the hard ground. Da-da! Now I need a volunteer.
Frank waved Goldie’s foreleg in the air.
Okay Goldie, you can come up. And I need my disappearing chambler. She dragged a cardboard box out from behind the tree. Frank passed up Goldie. Matti swished her cape around, said the magic words and threw the horse into the box. Da-da! She stood there with her hands on her hips, daring them to doubt her. Frank’s shoulders started shaking. Matti looked at him hard to make sure she wasn’t being mocked, and then, satisfied, threw herself in sideways after Goldie, almost toppling the box. And now I’m gone! she yelled from inside.
Li couldn’t stop laughing. It was so easy to love her child at this moment. So basic and uncomplicated, even someone like her could get it right.
Okay, now I’m the teacher and I’m going to go through the roll. But hang on, where is it? Unfortunately the roll is missing. Matti ran for the kitchen, yelling over her shoulder, Sorry about this, I just need to be doing stuff in a rush, so you’ll just have to wait.
The screen door banged behind her. Frank picked up the discarded parts of the newspaper neither of them had had a chance to read yet and started piecing them together. Li listened to Matti inside slamming drawers and telling off invisible children. Frank dipped the paper to show her a headline: Lance extends north west sacrifice zone.
She looked at the dotted lines and skull icons on the map. The redrawn southern border was a thousand k north of where they sat, give or take.
That’s getting close.
He squinted at her. You reckon?
You know what I mean. There’ll be more people coming down.
They won’t stop here. They’ll take the redistribution money and keep moving south.
Okay, right, ready to go. Matti was back with a piece of paper and a pencil. Where have all the kids gone? She started calling the roll.
Li thought about the wood waiting to be split and felt a slow burn of frustration. Frank kept reading his salvaged newspaper, glancing up now and then to play his part. He was just better at this. His appreciation was real but he had no qualms about cheating, and at a certain point he would find a way to end Matti’s endless show without crushing or enraging her. Whereas Li would just sit there nursing her boredom and irritation until all the pleasure had dried up, and then she’d roll her eyes or raise her voice and the whole thing would be ruined.
You know I went to high school with him, down in Warrick?
With Peter Lance? Li had never heard this. He grew up in West? Bet he keeps that quiet.
I don’t know, Frank said. He got inside the XB, didn’t he? Got into government. I’d put that on my CV.
Quiet, children! Matti yelled. You’re not listening.
Sorry, beansprout.
My name is Ms Twinkle.
Hang on a minute, Li told her. Then, to Frank,
