After Nerredin’s school closed, when they were running classes in their kitchens and sheds and paddocks, Li made Matti her own magic garden. Not from a packet – Wars had put an end to the flow of cheap goods. She and Angie had done it as a science experiment with the kids. It turned out the main ingredient was salt.
One by one the kids had got bored and drifted off but Matti stayed, hardly blinking while the liquid soaked into the crystals because she wanted to be the first one to see it. But it had taken too long, or they got the ratio wrong, or the temperature. In the end even Matti ran off. Then Angie said, casually, like it was nothing, Why don’t you hang onto it? Take it home, just in case.
And in the morning there was a green crystal forest in the fridge. Matti wrapped her arms around the bowl and hung over it, staring. Touch it, Frank said. But she shook her head. I don’t want to wreck it.
People arrived at the end of the day. Three adults and two kids. They were pushing bikes with panniers and hauling a small, heavily loaded trailer. Their faces, hair and clothes, the bikes, everything was caked in red dust. They stood, staring, taking it all in. Then they whooped and hollered and ran down to the water. Li looked away, went back to her drying fish.
When she looked again, the woman and the two men were setting up tents at the foot of the dunes about a hundred metres down the beach, while the kids hauled up water in collapsible containers. Then they all sat down to eat. Later, the kids chased birds, making shrill sounds as they explored the shoreline. They stared over at her from time to time, but they didn’t approach. Li stopped paying attention when one of the men waded in with some kind of speargun.
There were so many things she might have got wrong with her fish. Not enough salt, not enough drying time, too many flies. The strips she’d left to dry had a brittle jerky texture that seemed right but the smoked fish needed longer. She couldn’t afford to get sick. She would keep the fire going tonight as long as her wood lasted.
She did a stocktake. There was food to last a week, a little more if she was careful, and all the water she could carry. She envied the shop family their wheels.
What are you doing?
The older boy was standing behind her. She hadn’t heard him come. Her pulse sped up with the shock of proximity, of speech.
Smoking fish, she said.
He pointed downshore at her still, the jerry can sitting beside it. What’s that for?
So I can drink the water.
He looked sceptical. We use pills.
Huh. You got many of them left?
Yep. We got everything. We had the shop in Lawrence but there were too many dusters and then everyone went away.
Lawrence. She thought briefly of the couple with the baby. A breeze came up off the water, shifting the direction of the smoke. She made adjustments. The boy was still there, staring.
Are you on your own? he asked.
Yeah.
Why?
Nalanjin! The woman was walking fast down the beach towards them. Get back here!
The boy said, You could camp with us. That’s my mum and my dad and my uncle and my cousin Laz. His mum’s dead. He said this with the ease of a child who knew themselves personally immune to loss. We’re going down to the big camp. Mum says we can stay there till they let us in.
Did he mean makecamp? She cleared her throat. You see any other kids on the way here?
He looked at her blankly.
Maybe a group of them? Without any grown-ups?
The boy shook his head, backing away a little at her tone. His mother called again, getting closer. Nalanjin! Leave the woman alone! Li heard her fear and felt no answering tug of feeling. She would get her child back.
His face cleared suddenly. There was this one boy, just with his dad? They tried to steal our bikes at night but my dad shot at them and they ran away. He paused, satisfied. My dad says people like that are how come there are walls.
She didn’t want this boy with two parents and a bicycle. Didn’t want his voice, his skinny child’s body, his dumb certainty anywhere near her.
Here. She scooped up four fish she’d left salting. You want to rinse these and cook them straight away.
I don’t really like fish.
She stared at him. Don’t eat them, then. Give them to your parents. And tell them they can have whatever water’s left in that jerry can.
He stood back, unwilling. The same look on Matti’s face when she was, how old? In the highchair, still. They’d collected the eggs together, laughing at the weird places the chooks hid them, and Li was flush with good parenting. But in the kitchen Matti scowled and pushed her plate away.
You need to eat your dinner.
No. Yuk.
Come on, Matti, just try it.
Matti picked up the egg by its oily fringe and dropped it onto the ground. Li scooped it up and put it back on the plate. Yolk seeped out. You’re not getting down till you eat it, she said.
Matti sat in the chair until it was dark. Halfway through, she wet herself. She didn’t cry and she didn’t eat the egg. Li was trapped in the kitchen, unable to leave her alone in the chair, hostage to the lesson of not wasting food. Matti watched her and her eyes were murderous. They held their breath, waiting for Frank to come home and break the spell.
Will they still be so smelly when they’re cooked? the boy asked.
No. She was desperate for him to be gone. You got wood, right?
We got pellets. They burn better than wood.
Okay then.
He took the
