An Ordinary Epidemic (35 page)

She looked at Sean and saw a ghost. She put her hand on his arm to make sure he was real. He smiled at her and slipped his arm around her shoulder.

‘You're here.'

‘I wasn't far away.'

It felt only like a reprieve. The men at the door, she surely must have dreamt them. They strained belief. But Sean dying? People died every day, that was easy to believe, that was real.

He kissed her head. She felt his touch indirectly though her hair, his hand was on the fabric of her pyjamas. She put her hand to his face, to feel the warmth and solidity.

‘It's okay, they're gone.'

‘You're here,' she kissed him on the cheek, ‘you're here.'

‘That's a problem, isn't it. I can go back to the office. I haven't touched the kids.' He looked down the hall. ‘We better let them know it's safe.'

‘Is it? Is it safe? The men might come back. If they break in the front we wouldn't hear them from the yard.'

‘Then you stay here.'

‘And when they come over the fence and you're on your own?'

‘What about the kids?'

She held onto him as they crossed the threshold, just to be
sure, and only let go to lay the knife gingerly on the hallway table. The house was so quiet that she could follow the sound of Sean's footfalls through the living room, down the hallway, into the kitchen. The back door opened and closed with a clatter, leaving the house filled with a smothering silence, the returned absence of Sean. She stood still, straining to hear anything. The quiet crushed in on her. It was lifted only by the back door banging. She listened to his footsteps make the return journey.

His face was clouded by a grim determination. ‘I can't see them. So we search room by room.'

They moved through the house methodically, punctuated by calling out Zac and Oscar's names. She looked in Oscar's toy box, in his wardrobe, under his bed. Despite the camouflaging piles of clothes, books and games on the floor, they weren't there. She went back to their bedroom, even though there was no way three kids could have got past them and she looked under the bed, opened the wardrobe.

She met up with Sean as he was coming out of Zac's room. On their way through to the kitchen, she opened the pantry and pulled back the shower curtain, just in case. Zac wouldn't take such a little kid's hiding place unless he was desperate but there weren't many places big enough to hide three.

She hesitated at the back door.

‘What's the problem?'

‘They'll unload the truck and come back.'

‘How many houses do you think they did? Somebody might have rung the police. That's a risk they won't want to take. They'll move on, I would, if I were the kind to turn over other people's houses.'

‘Or they've gone to get something to break down the door. How can you possibly know what those thugs have planned?'

‘As if they needed something to break down the door. If they wanted to take us, they would have. You can obsess about
this but in the end it doesn't matter. What matters is finding the kids.'

‘I had to stay at the front, you understand that. I couldn't be with them.'

‘I'm sure you made the best choice and I'm sure they did whatever it was you told them to.'

‘I told Zac to run if I screamed. And it's possible I screamed.' They both stared at the empty garden.

Sean pulled her into a hug and spoke into her hair. ‘I wouldn't have done different. Now let's find them.'

Sean held her hand as they walked through the backyard, he stood on his toes to look over the fence to Ella's house. ‘The door to Stuart's is still shut. They could have gone anywhere.'

They wouldn't go to Gwen, they wouldn't go
to
anyone. She'd made them afraid of people. Danger at the front door, danger from their parents.

Sean got down on the office floor and pivoted on his stomach, looking under the desk and the second hand sofa, even though the spaces were too small for three. Hannah scanned the room looking for somewhere, anywhere they could be. Her eye caught on every possibility, however impossible. The filing cabinet drawers, the gap next to the bookshelf. All too small. Sean pushed himself slowly up on his elbows, then his knees. As he got to his feet, she could see a smeared circle of dirt on his t-shirt and a look of defeat in his eyes.

They had to be in the garage. She held her breath and instructed the universe—
they will be in the garage
. The roof made soft metallic clicks as the sun heated it. Behind the clicks, she heard a deeper silence than they had found anywhere in the house, as if the walls were holding their breath.

‘Zac? Zac? They're gone. It's safe.' No sound, no movement. The garage was filled with old furniture and boxes. Things they had no use for but she couldn't bear to throw out. Old toys, the kids' old clothes, a shelf filled with tools and pieces
of wood, ready for some DIY emergency. One wall was covered with a ziggurat of storage boxes, a neat aggregation of paperwork and castoffs, all labelled.

Sean grabbed the box at the nearest end and yanked it forward, then the next and the next. The fourth box sat slightly out of line and as Sean yanked, Hannah could see a dark gap, and Zac looking back, his body making a shield between the two little ones and the outside world.

In front of him, Zac grasped a hammer with both hands. He crouched, primed like a cat ready to pounce.

Ella burst into tears. ‘I breathed, I couldn't help it.' Even her sobs were muted. ‘I'm sorry Zac.'

‘You can come out, it's safe.'

Zac looked warily at Sean. ‘What happened?'

‘Some...' Sean was struggling to find words that would convince Zac without scaring the littlies. ‘Some people came to the front door. They're gone now.'

‘What people?' He held the hammer like a light sabre.

‘No one. No one we know.'

‘Mum chucked.' Zac threw it out like a challenge. Sean didn't look surprised, just spent. He looked to her for an answer.

‘I wouldn't be better this morning if it was Manba. And I don't have a cough.' But what she was thinking was,
too late now anyway
.

Zac shook his hammer at Sean with less resolve. ‘You might be sick. It's not two days.'

All three children were watching Sean. ‘It's possible, but I don't think so.' The hammer wobbled in Zac's hand as his grip loosened. ‘You're standing next to Ella, you're breathing her air, so there's no point worrying about me.' Zac twitched and his eyes were forced wide. He opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. Sean put his hand on Zac's shoulder. ‘You did a good job. You found a safe place for Oscar and Ella.' The hammer fell to the ground. Zac wrapped his arms around
Sean's middle and buried his face in his clothes. ‘How did you keep them so quiet?'

‘We're good at hiding. Zac said so.' Ella's voice was soft and solemn.

‘Is it two o'clock yet?' Oscar looked for permission from Hannah. ‘Do Daddy and Ella have to go back in the office?'

‘It's fine.' She enfolded Oscar and Ella in a tight hug.

‘Mum, you're squashing me.' She let them go, reluctantly.

Zac, with relish, rigged up a trip wire along the front path, complete with a booby trap of empty cans salvaged from the recycling bin. When he had no choice but to move from the shadow of the house, he darted out and ran back. Only once the front was booby trapped could Hannah feel safe out of earshot of the front door.

They laid a blanket out in the backyard. The sun infused into her cold bones, it felt like days since any warmth had reached them. Ella and Oscar lay on either side of her. They spread their arms and legs, turned their tummies up to collect the sun's rays.

Sean mixed some peanut butter and soy sauce with water, poured it over a mess of rice and leftovers and called it satay. Even when it was placed on the blanket in front of her and a fork was in her hand, Hannah didn't feel like food. All she felt was exhausted and shaky. It was an unappetising mess but the need not to waste food overrode her instincts.

Ella prodded the mashed up pile on her plate. She swirled it around with her fork, and when she lost interest, she wandered over to the lemon tree and started pulling off the lower leaves, scrunching them and putting them to her nose.

‘Ella,' Sean called over to her, ‘come back and eat lunch.'

‘I don't like it.'

‘That's fine, honey, I'll make you something else.'

‘Hang on,' Hannah made annoyed eyes at him, ‘she has to eat what everyone else eats.'

‘I can't blame her,' he pushed his own food around, ‘it's slop.'

Zac stiffened slightly, listening more closely, and Oscar leant in, not bothering to disguise his interest.

‘She has to eat what everyone else eats. It's only fair.'

‘She's barely eaten anything in two days.' Sean's face was stony. ‘She didn't like anything.'

‘None of us like it but it's what we've got. She won't starve.'

‘You think.'

‘She'll eat when she's hungry. For God's sake, we don't have anything else.'

Zac and Oscar both eyed Ella's plate while they wolfed down their food. The instant the last forkful went in his mouth Zac leant over and scooped up some of Ella's.

‘Hey.' Sean pulled the plate away from him.

‘You're making her something else. I'm hungry.'

Hannah put the plate back near Ella and called out. ‘Ella, come sit down now. Leave the tree alone.' Hannah dropped her voice and turned to Sean. ‘Give her more time to eat. She has to eat what we eat.'

Zac and Oscar watched every mouthful make its slow way from the plate to Ella.

‘Righto, kids, you're going to help me tidy up while your mum gets to enjoy the sun.'

As Sean shooed them into the house, Oscar was explaining the intricacies of his room to Ella like a good five-year-old host but Ella was unmoved in the face of the enticing description of Oscar's toys.

Hannah closed her eyes and indulged herself in the sensations of the garden. The irregularity of the grass beneath the blanket, the rustle of the lemon tree's branches in the breeze,
the back door slam. She opened them again to the sight of Sean bearing two mugs. As he put one on the blanket, the smell reached her, warm and bitter.

‘I don't know that I want any.' She picked up the mug in her hands just to steal the warmth. ‘I don't want to test my stomach too much after yesterday.'

‘Ah, but I couldn't be so mean as to not share it. It's the last pot. Unless you're hiding a packet somewhere.' He looked hopeful.

‘How will you cope?'

‘I've convinced myself that this is the best coffee ever, even though I am completely aware of the process of its creation.' He took a sip. ‘It's not bad. It comes close, even with powdered milk and not enough grounds.'

‘You could put mine in the fridge and microwave it tonight.'

‘Then this cup wouldn't be special. And there's only so much the magic of the moment can overcome. I think being three hours old and reheated as well would be a stretch too far.'

Zac wandered through the open door, ambled across and dropped down on the grass beside Hannah. ‘That smells good.'

‘Do you want it?'

‘No, but it smells like breakfast on Saturdays.' He pulled out a blade of grass. ‘You know, real breakfast. Bacon and eggs and toast. And some mushrooms.'

‘If we had mushroom farm, we'd have fresh mushrooms.' Hannah said. ‘A fresh vegetable. Do you think mushrooms stop you getting scurvy?'

‘A big bottle of vitamin C will do to stop you getting scurvy.'

‘Daddy's so romantic.'

‘What about eggs, Mum? If you'd bought some chickens and a mushroom farm, we could have a cooked breakfast.'

‘I think even factory chickens get more space than this.' Sean considered the yard. ‘There's a tiny green lemon on the
tree. We could all suck on a slice.' He gave Zac a big grin.

Zac looked mildly concerned. ‘Are we really going to get scurvy?'

‘We're not going to get scurvy. This will be over soon.' Sean didn't sound completely convinced.

Oscar appeared at the back door, his trousers held loosely around his waist. His face was a mixture of outrage and despair. ‘Didn't you hear me calling? I've been calling and calling and no one came.' He threw his hands up in a theatrical gesture, quickly grabbing his trousers again as they started to fall.

‘What's up, Mouse?' Sean sounded offhand. If he hadn't had a restraining hand on her arm, she would have been up, trying to comfort Oscar. But Sean had answered first. She couldn't be responsible for everything and she didn't have the energy to argue.

‘There's no toilet paper.'

‘Well, get some from the cupboard outside the bathroom.'

Oscar looked affronted. ‘I looked there, there's none there.'