An Ordinary Epidemic (13 page)

Sean looked at her, the tea towel suspended in mid-air above the saucepan. ‘I'll ask permission before using seasoning.'

‘We have to plan. I mean we
have
to plan. The pantry is there to keep us safe. But that counts for nothing if you don't think.'

‘How was I supposed to know? You didn't say.'

‘Before this week it was just a pantry. I shouldn't have to tell you our situation. Can't you see for yourself what's happening?'

‘What I can see is a lot of things that might happen but haven't yet. We can't plan for everything that might happen.'

‘I do.'

‘And then you never get to live. Then you're always planning for disaster, planning for the next lump. Can we at least move past the last one?'

She pulled the plug out of the sink with force, splashing water on herself and onto the floor. It could stay there for all she cared, a puddle of water to stand in for the words she
couldn't find. Let him clean it up.

Her anger carried her loudly out of the room but with the slam of the door behind her, it vanished. All she was left with was the sound of the shower running and Oscar's light tuneless voice singing to himself through the bathroom door. She breathed out the tension as she leant back against the wall. The pantry door was ajar and through the crack, she could see the incomplete wall of supplies. Those gaps should be filled right now. So many things could go wrong between now and Monday.

And where was Zac? He was supposed to be here. The front door couldn't be shut for good until she had Zac and a full pantry. She would happily fast forward through this part of her life. Couldn't it just be agreed that she had done everything right and they could skip the next bit?

Oscar poked his head around the bathroom door. He was shiny and his hair dripped.

‘You're making the floor all wet, what are you doing?'

‘I want you to dry me.'

‘You're a big boy, you're perfectly capable of drying yourself.'

He closed the door behind himself and through it she could hear a cheerful monologue that drew her in. When she opened the bathroom door, the towel was loosely wrapped around him but the water had dripped into a puddle just off the bathmat.

‘Here you go.' She gave him a good rub. He wriggled as if she was tickling him.

It wasn't her turn for a story but right now the thing she wanted most was not to go back to Sean. Surprisingly, Oscar didn't notice, or at least didn't object, to the change in routine. The act of reading the story, a Dr Seuss she almost knew by heart, was meditative. Each nonsense word relieved her of some of her adulthood.

The light was off, Oscar was quiet. Stranded here in the
hallway, still she craved a few more moments before confronting Sean and her own bad behaviour. She rested her head against the front door, feeling the cool of the evening conducted through the wood. No sound found its way in. She felt a pressing need to see what was on the other side. With the door open, the breeze blew through the security grill and onto her face. The street was quiet and empty, the only movement a man walking his dog down the dotted lines in the middle of the road, mask over his face. Her eyes followed him to the corner, tracing his invisible path when he disappeared.

She missed the daytime, the beautiful crush of humanity, the human contact by osmosis. The passing schoolgirls, ringing mobile phones, the leaked music from iPod headphones and the steady stream of people, now absent, who walked down her street on an ordinary day.

The quiet was gradually replaced by a rumble. In the gloom, she could just make out a street sweeper at the far end of the road. It passed her door, spraying the gutter, and she smelt hospital.

As she followed the sound of the television back into the house, all she wanted was to delete this bad mood between them. But when Sean looked away from the screen, his forehead was lined. In his eyes she saw a disturbed sadness and it was her fault. She had infected him with this.

The image of a reporter on the scene was superseded by a beaten and bloodied face.

‘What happened?'

‘He coughed. He didn't cover his mouth and he coughed in front of some guy's girlfriend and they beat him.' Two men in handcuffs, glowering at the camera.

She sat down close to Sean. ‘Where?'

‘In town, some shop in town.'

She was crying but not for the beaten face on the TV, nor for the two boys whose parents had died. She was crying for
things that might never take place. She was crying because every day, everywhere, small tragedies happened and she didn't know how to care about every single one, until they were aggregated and magnified and became incomprehensible.

Sean put his arm around her and pulled her in, swathing her in his shirt. She felt heady, gasping and rebreathing the warm recycled air caught in the folds. The sobs fought their way out of her until they were gone. Her head ached and she wiped her face with her sleeve.

The phone was lying on the sofa beside him and he turned it over and over slowly, as if looking for some answer hidden on it. ‘The teacher rang, they're staying the night. They opened one of the local schools and the kids are camping in the hall. Apparently a pizza place around the corner donated dinner for them.' He sounded unsure of the truth of it. ‘They sound like they're having fun.' He looked at her, debating whether to go on. ‘The Department of Education has told them to stay put until the situation here is clearer. Mr Whatever thinks they're going to be there all weekend. I talked to Zac, he's fine with it.' He pressed ahead a little more firmly. ‘I think it's the right decision, I think it's good for him. I don't think we should go and get him.' He looked set, like he was ready to dig in.

The choice had been made and she couldn't find the energy to do anything but go along with it. There was a comfort in being handed a decision she didn't like instead of fighting against events she couldn't affect.

‘Hey, I know this sucks,' Sean pulled a strand of damp hair from her face and smoothed it back, ‘but maybe it's the best thing. If it will help, you can yell at me or break some plates. I think there are some old ones in a box in the garage.'

She buried her face in his neck, it was warm and familiar. ‘It's okay. I'll be fine.' She breathed in his smell. ‘Where are they?'

‘In a school.'

‘Which school?'

There was a moment's pause as if Sean was trying to assess the significance of his answer, but he had only one to give. ‘I don't know.'

The phone rang. He answered then handed it to her.

‘Hi. It's Susan, Daniel's mum. Has Zac called you?'

‘Sean talked to him, but I think the teacher called.'

‘I don't know what to do.'

‘I don't think there is anything we can do tonight.'

‘We should be doing something.'

How wrong and weird it was to be the one urging caution now, so opposite to her real feelings. ‘There's nothing to do. We have to wait.'

Sean's voice woke her. She stared stupidly up at him with no idea what he just said. ‘Huh?'

‘We're going.'

‘Are we?'

‘Get up.'

‘Where?'

‘Canberra. Now. Get up.'

She stumbled into the kitchen. Sean looked at her sharply. ‘You're not dressed.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘Canberra. I told you. To get Zac.'

‘Did he ring?'

There was a pile of random food on the counter. Water bottles, apples, some bread. Sean was throwing it all into a backpack.

‘Why are we going to Canberra?'

‘They're going to close the roads.'

‘I thought you said he was safer there.'

‘They will close the roads. And when the disease gets to Canberra he will be alone.'

‘They told everyone they were going to close the roads before they did it? That doesn't make sense.'

‘It will happen. Today. If we don't get going, he'll be stuck there.'

Hannah knocked on Gwen's door. First she rang the bell but when she couldn't hear the chime from inside, she knocked,
not too loudly, on the door. She didn't want to be knocking on Gwen's door. She thought they should all go. Sean had seriously suggested leaving Oscar in front of the TV with a bag of chips and a bottle of soft drink. ‘And what happens when we get killed on the highway because you're in a panic to get there?' Sean's answer was, ‘Then he won't be dead.'

They should have gone on Friday. Hannah knocked on the door harder, but willed Gwen not to answer. Gwen's deafness worked in Hannah's favour, that and she was probably still asleep.

She walked back to the kitchen, ‘We're taking Oscar with us.'

‘For fuck's sake, leave him with Gwen. Or the two of you stay, that works. That makes sense.' He was throwing his hands around.

‘She's not answering and he's not staying here by himself. And you going alone is not an option.' She had plans to get them through and every one required that Sean still be around.

Hannah swilled the remains of Sean's coffee. It was bitter and sweet but better than a headache. She took a piece of bread from the bag on the counter, smeared it with peanut butter and bit into it. Chewing, she pulled out another one.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Eating breakfast. Oscar needs something too.'

‘He's eaten. We're going now. Bring breakfast with you.' He grabbed the backpack and called Oscar in from the garden. ‘Go to the toilet. We're going now.' She was already in the car when she remembered the shopping.

Sean called after her as she ran back to the house. ‘What now?'

‘A moment, that's all,' she yelled back. She fumbled with the key in the lock, pounded down the hall, the joists bouncing underneath her. Gwen was surely awake now but there was no way she was leaving Oscar. She flung open the kitchen
cupboard and grabbed a cooler bag, threw some ice bricks from the freezer into it. Running past Oscar's room, a crayon on the floor caught her eye. She grabbed it and a piece of paper he had drawn on. At the front door, she leant the paper against the wall of the porch and wrote in crayon over the top of the printing on the back, ‘PLEASE LEAVE SHOPPING BEHIND PORCH WALL BEHIND YOU, COLD BAG FOR MILK. THANKS', and wove the paper in between the bars of the screen door.

She doubled back, grabbed masks, gloves and hand sanitiser from the hall table and sprinted to the car.

‘Burglars can read.'

‘They have eyes to see a pile of shopping on the doorstep too.'

Sean backed out into the road, Hannah faced the front door and her note. It seemed easy for someone to pick up flagrantly unattended groceries and a lot more effort to break into the house. Right at this point in time, she cared more about the groceries. The engine idled as Sean checked up and down the road then pulled out in an arc. On the corner, Mr Henderson was weeding the patch of lawn that made up his front garden. He was a soft spoken, diffident little man, who seemed to live in that yard. As they drove past, he straightened himself up and gave a wave salute. She waved back. The only noise was the short synthetic chirps from Oscar's game. Hannah rested her head against the wing of the car seat.

‘Are you okay there?'

She rubbed her face with her balled hand. ‘Still asleep.'

As they approached the tunnel under the airport, Sean called out to Oscar to look up and watch for planes landing above them but it was unsettlingly peaceful—the last moment of interest before the long featureless road. Concrete sound barriers embossed with waratahs and abstract sea patterns were interspersed with warehouses, clusters of shops and
endless rows of open, identical backyards. After an indeterminate time of letting her eyes roam, Hannah broke the silence. ‘Where do you want to change drivers?'

‘What about Goulburn, that's about halfway.'

‘Not in the town.'

‘Obviously, round there, outside the town somewhere.'