Sprawl, page 23
I could almost pretend the war had never happened. For all I knew it hadn’t—it’s not like there was much to see. Radio silence. Television snow. Intermittent Internet for a month or two. Then Al Messina raised some chatter on the shortwave. We learnt about the witches’ market and other groups like ours. After the initial exodus from Sydney, not much. The flotilla to New Zealand. Planes flying overhead. I often wonder how many of them made it. We had some trade with other friendlies, then that business with the gangs. Swore you’d never have gotten me off the Crescent after that. Six months of sporadic gunfire and ceaseless hungry dogs.
I kept my head down, hoed cabbages along the verge. Collected rainfall, boiled it fresh and clean. Thanked God for the fecundity of chickens and the fact we were the first to raid the Westfield ruins.
Truth is, the world has fallen silent. None of us know what’s out there any more. Beyond the shortwave, the best we’ve got is Jeannie’s stories. Quite frankly, I don’t believe a word. That girl never suffered a day in her life. Never worked either—she’s far too smart for that. Her sordid tales run like half remembered movie plots. Teenage novels. Television dreams.
Three roads lead me to the city centre. I pick the one least convoluted. Fewer opportunities for ambush—or so I hope.
I mount the hill that rises up behind the Crescent. So bare and naked with half the houses burnt. I hope the rain has washed away the details. I don’t want to know what happened here.
I’m scared for Jon and I’m scared for me. I keep the knife gripped tightly in my hand, eyes scanning left and right for movement. But there’s nothing. Where did everybody go? There were people up here not that long ago.
The tar is cracked, strewn with leaves and broken branches. I make a note to tell the others—all this excellent firewood. When I get back… I put one foot before the other. When I get back covers so many things.
Down the dip and up the second hill. I’m too far gone now. Out of safety’s reach. Now might be the time for feeling lucky. I’m not falling for it. Too many movie moments crammed inside my mind. My heart sinks when I spot the barricade. It looks abandoned but I’m going to play it safe. Find another way to join the main road. Dogleg down around the kindergarten, a steep decline to where the station used to be.
I move quickly, no time for indecision. If I stop too long to think I might change my mind. Take fright and run back home to Jon and Jeannie. But how would I ever live with myself if he died?
There’s something moving around inside the kindy. I hope its only possums and jog quietly down the hill. The train tracks would be quickest but there’s so much room for ambush. No. I’ll take my chances on the road.
A row of garbage bins still standing, their plastic wheels choked thick with weeds. A lone ibis prowls the pavement. Keeps its distance. Checks me out.
Ugly white and purple agapanthus flowers have claimed these ruined suburbs as their own. Bowing sagely in the breeze acknowledging my predicament.
I hear the rumble, spin around but it’s too late. A gang is bearing down upon me. Rollerbladers with helmets, weapons raised. I can’t outrun them. There’s nowhere to hide. I’m stunned like a rodent caught in headlights, the sound of their wheels thunder like a road train.
So I drop to my knees, cover my head, kiss the tar goodbye. The road shakes so hard it might swallow me up. Yet it doesn’t. I wait for pain that isn’t going to come. They have passed me. They didn’t even stop. Skated around my whimpering form like I was a pothole or a log.
I sit in the road for ages chewing my fingernails. The world has ended, right? There really was a war? Because some times I can’t be sure, and this is one of them. Skating the post-apocalypse simply never occurred to me.
I wish Jon were here. It’d have made him laugh. But he wasn’t laughing, was he? He was dying.
Dusting off my faded jeans, I put the knife back in my hand. Scan first the empty gardens, then the train tracks for… whatever. Continue my trek into city central, sticking to the cyclone fence this time. Figuring I’d be able to see anyone approaching from the tracks.
Other people have the same idea. We maintain a respectable distance. I long to ask all the usual questions. Who are you? How well are you surviving? But I don’t. I keep on walking, eyes firmly fixed upon the prize.
Some are ragged, others dress like joggers, pre-apocalypse. Shamed, I put my knife away. No-one else is wielding weapons, although several walk with staffs. I keep my distance, shun eye contact, yet all the while I’m filled with wonder. Something’s going on here. Something strange.
Garbage blows down Keira Street. I try to picture what the shop fronts once contained. They’ve all been looted, the glass smashed long ago. That fact aside, the structures seem in place. At the end of the street, a paved and shaded plaza. The centre of town as much as it ever was. The stage still stands, once the domain of fashion promotions and teenage beauty pageants. Today it’s filled with jamming musicians: guitars, flutes and clarinets. A sax to the side. Two dreadlocked girls with bongo drums. People join or leave as they see fit. The sound they make is surprisingly melodic.
At the foot of the stage little children sit in groups. Children in the open. Unprotected! I stare at them as though they’re apparitions. Surely no parent would take such a risk. Am I the only one who understands?
I feel invisible as I move amongst the crowd. And it is a crowd—the largest I’ve seen for years.
They’re garbed in many colours, a hodge-podge of pre-war fashion trends. Some clearly enjoy the art of it. Diamonds over khaki camouflage, suits and swimwear mixed. Definitely something Caribbean going on with hair. And makeup. Too many clown eyes for my liking. Some look like they’ve been living in pyjamas for eons.
Vendors hoist wares up high on sticks. Clothing, paperbacks, tools. Others seem to be selling potions. Pharmaceuticals mixed with other things. Or maybe it’s all just lolly water. How am I ever supposed to tell? I need a doctor, a pharmacist, a nurse. None of this lot looks to fit the bill.
“What have you got for typhoid?” I shout up at one of them. Up because he was wearing stilts to make his presence felt.
“Sounds serious,” he says as he rummages in coat pockets. Draws something out for me to see. “Take three spoonfuls and call me in the morning.” He laughs like an ocker Baron Samedi.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” The stuff he’s selling looks suspiciously like Vegemite. He’s not getting my honey or chocolate in trade for that. I push on past. There’s plenty more clowns where he came from. Plenty more of everything except what Jon needs.
A blanket spread with children’s toys brings me back into the moment. Little plastic action figures from shows no-one will ever see again. More traditional items. Plushie animals. Coloured blocks. Jeannie and his baby. I keep walking.
Further down the mall I see more serious types of shopping. Bearded men in greatcoats, hunting rifles unconcealed. Smoked meat strung across a doorway. What kind is anybody’s guess.
And, inevitably, arguments. Squabbles over details of exchange. But I don’t see a single fight. Impressive in itself.
The wafting tempt of ganja. Two scruff-haired teenagers, both stoned. No-one has bothered to tell them the world has ended. Like it makes the slightest bit of difference.
And then, finally, a group of women cooking pancakes on a skillet, looking like they might have stepped out from a Sunday bingo hall.
“I need medicine. Real medicine,” I tell them, crouching. “Know anyone who can help?”
“Not ’round here,” says one of them, dusting sugar. “Feeling poorly are we, love?”
I tell them about Jon and the other two sick neighbours, omitting all mention of Jeannie and other things.
“You want a dispensary,” says the one who still sports relatively suburban hair. “Last one left’s at Corrimal Surf Club. The bike track’s your best bet.”
They give me a pancake. That was nice of them. I remember that bike track since back before the war. A haven for muggers and rapists, even then.
When night falls, things begin to change. I realise I’m no longer safe. Daylight was such a civilising factor. I look for the pancake women but they’re gone, back to their fortified bingo hall, or wherever. I curse myself for being stupid. For taking my eye off the ball. Would the beach be safe? Would anywhere? All I know is that I can’t stay here.
The music has gotten heavier, skaters on battered boards muscle in as people drift off into twilight groups of two and three. This is tribal country and I do not belong. I grip my knife, certain I’ll have to use it. Knowing I’ll be lost if I even try.
That’s when the fear starts working me over. How did everything fall so quickly into ruin? I’d had a life, a man, a home, then she walked in and all of it was lost. Suddenly I’m walking down a darkened street with a knife, praying I won’t be killed while she lies safe and warm in what used to be my bed. And he lies dying. Not if I can help it. That’s the thought that spurs me on my way.
Just you try and take him away from me… That’s what I’m thinking as I pass a group of three. They eye me with great interest. My scowl seems to put them off. I don’t know why—they could take me down in seconds. But they don’t so I keep moving. I hear the beach about a block before I see it. The stadium sulks alone in shadow. Without power, it might as well be a rock.
The beach is a fairyland of bonfires and flaming torches. Squeals of laughter, screams of something else, all mixed and mashed together. Behind the fire, the pounding of the waves. I’m not going near it. I can reach the bike track overland.
Abandoned apartment blocks stand guard along the coast road, the cafés looted long ago for foodstuffs. Now and then I pass a solitary traveller. None make eye contact. Maybe they’re all like me? Cast out from their homes and hearths, fugitives from everything that’s sane. Women and men whose tribes no longer want them. Can they smell my fear like I can smell my own?
I spend the night in the ruins of a looted boutique. Torn curtains stained with oil provide a bed. I sleep with the knife. I don’t sleep, mostly. Maybe drift for a couple of dreamless hours.
Morning light brings with it inspiration. I can do this thing and be home within a day. I realise I’ve been selfish. It’s about Jon, after all. The man is dying, yet all I think about is me. And Jeannie, of course. That bitch is never out of my mind. I’ll bet she never spares a thought for me. She’s already scored her trophy, especially if she’s really pregnant.
Three people die if you don’t make it. Four. I forgot to count myself. So I steal through the urban undergrowth, eyes alert for ambush.
The beach is strewn with bodies. Hard to tell if they’re sleeping or if they’re dead. Huddled clusters of folks who might be families. It’s ages until I get why no-one’s bothering me. I look fucking dangerous. I have murder in my eyes. Wielding my knife as though I know how to use it. I smile when I realise this is Jeannie’s legacy. I don’t even look like a woman anymore.
But the old bike track looks dangerous too. Am I any kind of match for it? One little knife against the ruins of civilisation. Doesn’t matter. I’m not going back without those drugs.
A stiff breeze rips along the headland, tousling long ribbons of grass. It’s beautiful, the view, stretching all the way past three beached cargo ships and out to sea. A thousand countries I’ll never get to visit. Nameless strangers speaking in foreign tongues. The brisk sky streaked so innocently with clouds. Like nothing ever happened. Like the world was always this way.
A string of people walking single file. They look harmless so I put my knife away. We nod at each other, pass politely. Women mostly, two small children in the middle.
Will Jon and Jeannie expect me to care for their baby? Am I supposed to be its aunt? A domestic helper. An aging au pair. Not fucking likely, I declare.
I stomp on fallen branches, kick stones out of my way. Space is at a premium on Crescent. No spare rooms, garages or empty caravans. If I throw them out, there’s nowhere else to stay. Two days ago, that house had still been mine. My choice to leave has tipped the power balance. When I get home they’ll make me take the room out back. I’ll bet the bitch has moved my stuff already.
And then, way out to sea, I glimpse something wonderful. A whale spout. No. Wait—two! A big one and a little one. I stop to shield my eyes. Whales had long been choosing to swim this coast, but in all my years down here I’d never seen one. Probably because I’d never stopped to look.
I walk on, steeling myself for the inevitable. They’ve become a family. Rules of ownership have changed. What you have to offer is what counts. I try not to think about Jon and Jeannie. The track is strewn with garbage, picnic tables overturned.
Treetops pulse with the hum of cicadas, brown abandoned husks litter the ground. Weeds already choke their way through fences. Another year or two and this path will be gone.
The sight of Corrimal Surf Club is welcome, as is the orderly queue snaking along the sandy path. I claim a sun-bleached plastic seat beneath a vague attempt at shade. The woman beside me nurses a broken arm.
“Fell off me roof,” she says before I’ve even asked. She doesn’t look too worried. If it had been me, I’d have been in a panicked state. Broken bones, infected gums. Appendicitis. All these things can kill us. Not to mention all those things we haven’t thought of.
The guy in charge is clean and that speaks for something. He might have been a doctor once, although he looks a little young. Others mill around the red brick structure—whether they’re doctors or nurses too or just people embracing newfound purpose, I can’t say.
I turn my chair to face the ocean, surprised to see it packed with bobbing heads. A moment of panic until I get the picture.
“They’re surfing!” I announce to the woman with the broken arm.
I might as well have said the sky was blue. Life goes on and life for them is surfing. Always was down Corrimal way. It makes more sense than many things I’ve seen. I mean, why not surf just because the world has gone? Why not skate or rollerblade? Play guitar or bongo drums. Am I the only one who doesn’t get it? Me with that knife pressed so hard against my heart.
Where are the roving bands of cannibals? The Mad Max cars and displays of outlandish human cruelty?
“Am I missing something?” I ask the woman. She didn’t hear me. Probably just as well.
“I’m Daniel,” says the doctor, wiping his hands on his pants before offering to shake mine. “Got a problem?”
‘Sure. The world ended—only nobody seems to have noticed,’ I answer dryly.
He smiles. “Some days it seems like that. Other days…” He glances across to an area near the treeline. Once again, it takes awhile for me to get it. Row after row of human-shaped dirt mounds. So people have died here after all.
I tell him of Jon’s symptoms: the fever, shits and rash. “Three of them have it,” I add, almost an afterthought. Everything’s not about Jon, I remind myself. Only, it is. My entire world.
“Might be typhoid fever,” says the doctor. “They keeping fluids up? Got some amoxicillin left, that’s all.”
When we go inside he rummages through shelving that had likely once held books. The red brick walls feature sporting plaques and trophies, most to do with surfing.
“Nosebleeds?”
I nod.
“Gut ache?”
“That too.” And hey, how about some cyanide to take care of my domestic issues…
“The bus goes back tomorrow. Do you think you could lend a hand?” His voice trails off. Something boring about boxes and shovels.
“The what, excuse me?”
“To leave now means you’d have to walk. But I could really use some help with stocktake.”
He’s talking about a fucking bus that travels into town along the road!
“Only once a month,’ he says. “You’re lucky you turned up when you did.”
And in that instant I have a vision of the future. The bus a hundred years from now, hitched behind two horses, dragged on patched up rubber tyres. Making its gentle rounds of a district choked by weeds.
“I can stay,” I tell him, fascinated.
Turns out three of them in the surf club had been doctors. Mad keen surfers too which is probably why they stayed. We lie on lounges drinking beer kept chill in tidal pools. Way past expiry date, like anyone cares.
Sharon and Brianna, the other two, catch waves until the sun goes down. I tell Daniel everything from both before and after. He nods knowingly when I get to Jeannie. I find myself wishing she’d wound up here with him.
“You did the right thing. What else could you do?”
“He might be dying while I’m lying here drinking your beer.”
Doctor Daniel shakes his head. “Unlikely,” is his prognosis. “Unless I’m wrong,” he adds as afterthought.
All of this is wrong, and I don’t know what to make of it. We drink beer long into the twilight. We think we see the whales again just as the sun is setting. A mother and baby cavorting off the rocks. But Daniel’s not sure. As he’s fond of saying, those whales might turn out to be something else.
Brian is on lookout when I make it back to Crescent. “Where the bloody hell have you been,” he sings down from the treetop, hunting rifle slung across his back.
“Shopping,” I tell him, holding up bright blue boxes of amoxicillin.
He slaps the air, exaggerated, lets me through.
The Crescent seems much smaller than it was before I left it. Work has begun on pickaxing up the tar. I catch a few hullos as I wander down the road. Strange, as though I’d just popped up to the corner shop for milk. Was it merely two and a bit years past we were doing such mundane things? Only a week since I’d gone out for the drugs? The sound of my own footfall troubles me. I walk like a gunslinger marking out new territory.
What was I expecting? Children running out into the street? Kind-faced mammas with hair tied back in scarves? Is Jon dead or does he live? In a couple of minutes I’m going to know for sure. Those minutes lengthen as I stride across the yard. Slip through the side entrance, heart thumping. I pause in the hallway, relief flushing my skin like heat rash. There’s a gentle strumming of guitar out back. A style I’d recognise anytime and any place. Jon once told me he played every day for thirty years. So he wasn’t dead of typhoid after all.
