An Ordinary Epidemic (10 page)

Wedged between Hannah and the sink, Oscar stood on a low stool, washing the carrots while she reached her arms around him to scrub the potatoes. It kept him occupied and he liked to feel useful, grown-up. The carrots came out clean, if dripping
wet, and most of the water ended up on the bench or down the front of his t-shirt.

‘Mouse,' she tried to sound stern, at least stern enough to impress Oscar, ‘be a little careful. You'll get cold.'

‘I'm not cold.' He laughed and shivered as one movement.

She tried not to let on her amusement at his impish smile. ‘Try to keep the water in the sink, okay?'

‘I can see Natalie. Is she making Ella's dinner too?'

Through the window and over the top of the side fence, Natalie's head silently bobbed around in her kitchen. Here they both were, doing the same things at the same time, no more than a couple of metres apart. Another life, separate but mirror to her own, being lived in spitting distance and yet totally isolated from hers, intersecting only to pass conversation on the front step or in the back lane.

‘Don't stare at her, Mouse, it's rude.'

‘But that's where the window is, and I'm standing here. I can't not look there.' Fair point, neither could she. He twisted himself so his hands were in the sink and his head pointed at the ceiling.

Hannah glanced across to see Natalie laugh as she floated across the room and out of sight in the direction of the garden. Through her own back door, Hannah heard Natalie's back door open. She heard her call Ella for dinner and Ella call back.

They could have moved this window when they were renovating to give a view of the garden, but she'd had other distractions that year. Even in the renovation, there were higher priorities. The kitchen functioned without it.

The time she had now with Sean and Zac and Oscar had been paid for by putting one foot in front of the other when her feet were as far as she could see. She had done what was required of her, been through all the hard stuff. She should get to sit this one out, right here, with her family. Other people
could deal with this virus, other people could get sick—she had paid already.

Sean offered to do bedtime but that meant giving up the last moments with Oscar before sleep claimed him. The day had worn Hannah out, so she chose a short book and by the time she kissed him goodnight, his eyes were nearly closed.

She sneaked into their bedroom. Sean had already told her once tonight not to bother, but it was Wednesday and Zac hadn't rung. Independence was important but all she had to do was press the dial button.

‘Hi.' He sounded bright and alert.

‘Hi Zac, it's me.' She spoke softly, so as not to wake Oscar in the next room. ‘How's Canberra?'

‘Oh, hi Mum.'

‘Were you expecting someone else?' She was mortified to hear something that sounded so much like a mother slip out of her mouth.

‘Well, we had to go into a room for four so Daniel and Ben ended up in a room with two other kids, and we're not allowed to walk around the corridors unless we're going to the activity room, and their room's the other way, so we can't go there and they can't come here. And they want us to go to the activity room, but Jamie won't go so they keep ringing us. They rang everybody else's phone.'

‘So are you having fun?'

‘Sure.'

‘Is Canberra interesting?'

‘I guess.'

‘Is everybody well?'

‘Mum,' she could hear the sigh, ‘no one is sick here, what do you think?'

She waited for him to say something more. ‘Well, stay safe. Have a good time.'

‘'Kay. Bye.' And he was gone to more immediate things.

She opened the living room door quietly, trying not to break Oscar's sleep spell. Sean was halfway between standing and sitting on the edge of the sofa, his face screwed up and red. He started to speak but she put her finger to her lips. She softly closed the door behind her but he had already slipped out the other way. She followed his shadow though the unlit kitchen and found him silhouetted by the moon and the fairy lights from the garden.

Hannah tried to read his face in the gloom. ‘Are you okay?'

‘It's an island. It's an island. How hard can it be to keep something off an island. Germs can't swim. Sick people can't swim. You shut the fucking airport and we're all okay.'

‘So we shut
our
door, and
we're
okay.'

‘People are dead. There are people dead. That's not okay. One or two dead people,' his figure shrugged with contempt, ‘well, that just happens sometimes, doesn't it. Nothing anyone can do about that. Ten people all at once, that's a disaster. Enact a law, rebuild the highway.' Sean punctuated his anger by pummelling the darkness in front of him. ‘But if you space them out, ten dead people just not all at once, that doesn't require any new laws.'

‘Ten. I didn't know it was ten.'

‘Not yet but it will be. Neatly spaced out, but each one sooner than the last until it explodes.'

‘It's not like this wasn't coming. I said this was coming.'

‘So are you happy about this, are you happy that you're right?' His raised arms shook slightly.

‘Why would I be happy? My being right doesn't change the way things are.' Hannah took a deep breath to try to slow herself down. ‘I don't want there to be an epidemic, but since there will be, and since we both should have seen it coming
but only one of us did, maybe you could listen to what I've been saying. And stay home.'

‘It didn't have to come here. The government could have made it easy, cut it off before it started, but they missed a chance. They should have shut the airports.'

Hannah soothed his arm down and held his hand, as if she could anchor him. ‘And in this reality they didn't, so there's no use wishing for a different one. We work with what is, we have to if we want to get through. Please. Stay home.'

‘That doesn't solve it.'

‘It does for us, which is all I can care about now.'

‘What about everybody else? They're going to wait until twenty, thirty, a hundred people are dead. They're going to wait for the confirmed cases. It doesn't have to be a crisis, they could have slowed it down, they could have bought time, they could have shut the damned airport.' He walked off into the dark of the garden, and she let him go. She didn't have anything to say except
yes
.

Ten thirty. Two and a half hours of doing something that looked approximately like work to anyone looking into the office from the outside, and still no nearer to completing the reading she'd planned for herself this morning. But the only people looking in from the outside were Oscar and Sean, roughhousing on the small patch of grass that passed for a backyard. She was enthralled by their physicality, something she noticed between Sean and both the boys that she could only imitate. It seemed to come naturally to the three of them.

In two hours' time, by agreement, she would break for lunch and Sean would get the uninterrupted office for the afternoon. Sean's heartbeat was in the house now and she could feel it. But it wasn't enough, she would only be beside it at mealtimes. There was a rightness in the three of them being within the same walls. And in six hours' time, she would have Zac too.

Canberra, windy, clouds clearing in the afternoon, fourteen. She tried to think herself six degrees colder, to feel what he was feeling. Tried to imagine the walls of the National Gallery, the paintings he would be looking at. She tried to think herself into his thoughts—coming home, the art in front of him, or some computer game. Even when he was right in front of her, she had no access.

Twenty past eleven. She watched Oscar carry a can of cat food out to the patio. Mr Moon followed, weaving in between his legs, fawningly rubbing against him, as if Oscar was not already feeding him. Oscar squatted on his heels and put down the can, engulfing Mr Moon in a hug, and the cat took the
opportunity to stretch out his neck and lick the top layer from the tin. He had become Oscar's in the last few days, to be found demanding pats while Oscar watched TV on the sofa, or hidden at the bottom of his bed before lights out. A furry substitute for friends or a brother.

Twelve fifteen. She reached the end of a paragraph and forced herself to start the next section. Twelve twenty seven. Close enough.

The kitchen was oddly quiet. No Sean or Oscar in the living room but through the closed door to the front of the house she could hear puffing and panting, giggling and little feet thudding. She opened the door to the sight of Oscar sprinting up the hall and back down again. He slammed into Sean, who was watching the stopwatch on his phone and barely swayed back.

‘Whoa, six point three. What's five minus three?'

‘Two!'

‘Point two of a second faster. That's the fastest yet. Good job.'

Hannah made a face at Sean. ‘Maths and fitness, what are you, Superdad?'

‘I'm doing it for you.' He gave her a kiss. ‘I've drained all the energy out of him. He should be an angel this afternoon.'

‘What about poor old Gwen, the noise is probably driving her nuts.'

‘I haven't heard her. Maybe she's not home.'

‘Maybe
she
doesn't go running up and down the hall.'

‘She adores Oscar, she wouldn't begrudge him a bit of exercise. Anyway, she's a bit deaf.'

‘Do you think she's,' Hannah lowered her voice although Oscar was right there, ‘all right?'

‘I haven't heard any coughing.'

‘I mean coping, by herself.'

Sean shrugged. Oscar was splayed out on the floor at her
feet, his still slightly chubby arms and legs flung out. ‘I'm (pant) so (pant) hungry.'

She reached down and tickled his exposed strip of belly. He contracted into a convulsing, laughing ball. ‘Well, lucky for you it's lunchtime.'

Oscar stretched himself out. ‘What's lunch?'

Sean picked him up and hoisted the wriggling boy over his shoulder. ‘I don't know. Let's see what we've got.'

‘Toasties.' Oscar wiggled his legs in the air.

‘Let's go look.'

Oscar got toasties. When Hannah looked in the fridge, it was full to bursting but all she saw was the food they didn't have, so she cut the ham and cheese in paper-thin slices.

Sean asked as she handed his plate to him, ‘Did you put mustard on that?'

Oscar paused from eating his way frontward into his sandwich and looked at it with horror. The food dropped out of his mouth. ‘I don't like mustard.'

‘Don't be disgusting, Mouse, it won't kill you. Anyway, there's no mustard on yours, did you taste mustard?'

‘I need some milk.'

‘There's no mustard.'

‘Some milk!'

‘Just one cup, or a glass of water instead.'

Sean came back with the tumbler of milk. ‘Your mum's right, water after this, the carton's empty.' Sean looked over at Hannah. ‘I'll get some more after lunch.'

‘Where from?'

‘Around the corner.'

‘Through the front door, around the corner?'

‘That's where the corner store is.'

She gave him a look.

‘I need a cup of coffee. I mean
need
a cup of coffee after wrangling Superboy this morning. I can live without it being
a cappuccino, just, but I can't live without the milk. I'm all for not dying, as long as I don't have to do it without coffee.'

‘It's not a joke.'

‘Come on, five minutes. I spent the whole day at work yesterday. Five minutes outside today won't kill me.'

‘You can't be half in quarantine. It's all or nothing.' She held up a finger to stop him. ‘And it's
all
, so you're not going to the corner store.' She turned her back on Sean, focusing all her attention on Oscar. ‘Eat the rest of the sandwich. The crust's not poison.'

Oscar threw his head back in his best theatrical display of despair. ‘But I hate them. They're revolting.'