The Sky So Heavy (18 page)

Thirty-nine

It is late and Max, Matt and Alan are asleep. Noll, Lucy and I sit by the remains of the campfire, cutting plastic bags into strips and winding them into balls.

‘The best thing about going south is it’ll give us something to do,’ says Noll. ‘The worst thing about this is the fact there are no distractions. It’s like being locked in your own head on a permanent basis.’

‘I would have thought . . .’ I hesitate.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What? Come on.’

‘Well, don’t you pray? Doesn’t that help, like, occupy your mind?’

‘Not exactly leading the most prayerful life at the moment.’

‘Why not?’

He smiles sadly. ‘It says in the bible that when Jesus is getting crucified, he looks up to the sky, and . . .’ Noll sighs and I see that there are tears in his eyes. The first I have ever seen, even through all the shit he went through at school, even when he told me his parents were dead and he was all alone, I’ve never seen him cry. ‘He says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”’ Noll tries to laugh. ‘We don’t use words like forsaken any more. Why is that? All I can think now, when I try to pray is, God, why the fuck have you forsaken us? We’re just fucking kids, Christ was Christ, he could take it, but us? Why the fuck would you forsake a bunch of kids? And Fin, you really, really shouldn’t swear at God.’

I swallow hard, feeling the ache of tears behind my own eyes.

‘I think He can take it, Noll.’

His tears start to spill. ‘I don’t want to die. I’m
afraid
to die. My parents willingly stayed in a place they knew would be destroyed. They waited for their deaths, they didn’t run away to save themselves. Look at me. I stole food from another man and here I am scrambling around in a car park,’ he motions to the twine in his hands, ‘trying to hold onto this world, this screwed-up world.’

‘I don’t think you should feel guilty about being scared,’ says Lucy. ‘You said that God doesn’t want this. Doesn’t that make it okay to be scared?’

Noll keeps talking, I’m not sure if he has even heard her.

‘I really don’t want to die. And, you know, it’s ironic because for ages I did want to. I used to come home from school and scope out places where I could hang myself.’

‘Shit, Noll.’

He laughs a little. ‘Now look at me.’

‘Noll, don’t stop praying,’ I say. ‘Please don’t stop praying for us, Noll. Please.’ Maybe it’s because I’ve just witnessed my mother give up every principle I thought she believed in. I don’t think I can handle Noll caving. I can’t. But the idea that we are the wisest beings in existence is terrifying, like Lucy said. Maybe I’ve developed a faith in God that is second-hand, I need Noll to hang onto it.

‘I’m sorry, Noll. About all the horrible things you went through at school,’ says Lucy.

He smiles. ‘Oh, it’s okay. It made me what I am, gold that’s tested in fire and all that,’ he says glibly. ‘I used to ask God to save me from that as well.’

‘Well, He kind of did,’ I say. ‘Might have been overkill, though.’

‘Yeah, nuclear holocaust wasn’t really what I had in mind.’

‘Noll, I’m serious,’ says Lucy.

‘I know you are. Funny, but sometimes I almost prefer this. At least I’m not alone in this particular version of hell.’

Later I lie beside Lucy and grip her hand.

‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ she says.

‘So am I. I just can’t get my head around the fact that she is part of all this.’

‘Maybe she was just doing what she had to. There really isn’t enough for everyone.’

‘Why not? We kind of created this for ourselves, society, I mean. We created a way of life totally dependent on outside sources: electricity, transport. She’s been researching this for years, this kind of disaster. She would have known that our total way of life was precarious. And what does she do? She buys me an iPhone and moves in with her boyfriend.’

‘Are you saying she should have been teaching you to grow vegetables or something?’

‘I don’t freakin’ know. She should have done something.’

‘Like what, though? Taught you Morse code instead of buying you a phone? She didn’t know
this
was coming. If anyone said it was going to be a bloody nuclear apocalypse we would have thought they were paranoid or crazy.’

‘Do you remember that last day at school when you asked what Mr Effrez was yelling about in homeroom and Lokey said he was talking about hippies starting a commune?’

‘They’re the same people? In the national park?’

‘Yeah. They knew this was coming. You’re right. We thought they were nuts, we mocked them. Why, do you think?’

She is quiet for a minute, thinking. ‘Because the alternative was terrifying. The thought that this seriously could happen was too frightening to contemplate. It’s like those people out in the ration line complaining about people from over the border taking their share. They have to believe that we’re greedy, ’cause the idea that we were actually left to starve is just too awful.’

We lie in silence for a while. I listen to the sounds of the camp settling around us, as familiar to me now as home.

‘You know, I wouldn’t blame you, if you wanted to go with your mum,’ says Lucy.

‘I’m not leaving you. It would be a truly shit life anyway.’

‘How do you know it will be any better down south in the settlement?’

‘You’ll be with me.’

She nudges me. ‘You’re a total sucker, you know that?’

‘Yeah, I’m aware of that.’

Lucy props her head up on her hand. I gaze at her face in the dying light of the campfire.

‘I love you, you know,’ I whisper.

‘I know.’ She leans over and kisses me.

‘And I know you don’t need me to, but I will try and protect you.’

‘I know.’

In the morning we rise and prepare breakfast like every other morning. Only the mood is more subdued than usual. Max, who usually buoys everyone with inane facts from
National Geographic
or lame jokes, is silent. He sits beside Noll to eat his breakfast.

Alan doesn’t get up from his bed. I take him some tea. His eyes are closed. I talk to him softly to wake him up, but he doesn’t move.

‘Alan? Al, wake up.’ I touch my fingers to his forehead. It is cold. I sit down on the concrete next to him and feel myself starting to break apart inside. I’m not sure how long I stay there. When Lucy comes over, my face is saturated. She puts her arms around me and my whole body shakes. People come and stand by Alan’s bed and cry. I can’t move. I stay there with him. It’s Noll that comes and pulls the sheet up over his face.

‘We’ll take him away,’ he says. ‘Lucy and I will take him.’

‘No. I’ll come.’

In the night we leave Max with Matt and Rosa at the camp and Noll, Lucy and I carry Alan’s body up the ramp out of the car park. We walk through the streets for what seems like miles. Then we come to the harbour.

To be there in a place that used to be so alive with light and colour and sound, to be there in utter darkness, is the most surreal experience of my entire life. Thick, impenetrable darkness all around, our torch light insignificant against the swallowing black – it feels like being in a wilderness. Even though you can’t see the buildings, you can feel their presence towering over us. And it’s so, so quiet. For almost two centuries this place has been smothered by the noise of people and their stuff: cars, buses, ferries, trains, conversations, music, inane PA announcements about train tickets, sirens, footsteps, buskers, beggars, street sweepers, garbage trucks. All of that has now been silenced. And all that is left is the lapping of water in the harbour. Now we stand at its edge, on the walkway lined with abandoned takeaway food vendors, ice-cream shops, and souvenir shops with smashed windows. If we could see them, the Harbour Bridge would be almost directly in front of us, and the Opera House on our right.

The three of us grip the white sheet that wraps Alan’s body. We know what we have to do, but the act of actually throwing somebody, somebody that you care about, into deep, dark water feels almost impossible. Even when we all know he is long gone already.

‘On three,’ I say. ‘One, two, three.’

We drop Alan’s body into lapping, undulating darkness and I watch the white sheet dance and swirl as he disappears. No-one moves for a long time. We stand and gaze at the water – the rhythmic roll and swell of its surface – and I realise that there is something soothing in the way it still moves the same way as it did before, back when the world was so different.

Forty

Max sits on his bed, plucking lint from the blanket. I sit down beside him.

‘I’ll take you to see Mum.’

He nods, not looking at me.

‘She’s going to want you to stay with her. She won’t want you to come south. You have to do what you want to do, okay? Don’t be pushed into anything.’

He shrugs.

‘I know it’s hard. I’m sorry it’s turned out this way.’

He looks at me. ‘Do you think Dad is dead?’

‘Dad?’

‘Yeah. Do you think he’s dead?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yeah.’ He now holds my gaze, unwavering.

‘I think . . . I think if he was still alive he would have found a way to get back to us, at home. I think he might have died trying. Maybe he crashed the car. That’s honestly what I think.’

Max bites his lip.

‘I know that we can’t stay here. And I know that Mum can only help you and me. And even if we did stay with her, what she could do for us is minimal. In the long term . . . I think we’re better off to leave. But it’s up to you, Maximum.’ I try to mask the fault-line in my voice. ‘I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.’

Max and I have to double on Noll’s bike. I don’t know if it’s because it’s so slow or maybe it’s just because Max is with me, but it feels way more exposed and vulnerable than when I crossed the city with Noll. The only people who are out on the streets are men and their cold stares follow us as we pass. I do have the gun, still. And the possibility of using it doesn’t feel like as much of an abstract concept any more.

When we finally make it there, I leave the bike leaning against the fence in front of Town Hall. The soldier at the gates glares at me like he wants to give us a parking fine.

‘We’re Libby Streeton’s kids,’ I tell him. ‘She’s expecting us.’

The soldier has obviously been told that we would show up because instead of pointing his gun at me he looks us up and down then says something into his two-way radio. He listens to the response and opens the gates, motioning us in with a jerk of his head.

We walk into the busy foyer. My mother rushes over to us, one hand over her mouth. She pulls Max into her arms. He loses it then, sobbing into her shirt.

‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ she says, stroking his hair. ‘You’re safe now. Come with me, both of you.’

She leads us into an adjoining room, a different one to last time. There is a table covered with papers and manila folders, she picks one up and shuffles through it.

‘You will stay with me at Government House. There’s accommodation for officials’ families—’

‘I’m not staying with you,’ I tell her.

She looks up from the papers. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You said you can’t help Lucy and Noll. I’m going to stay with them. We’re leaving the city together.’

‘Findlay, you are coming with me. We spoke about this.’

I try to explain to her about the settlement but she just shakes her head, pushing my words away.

‘We talked about this, Fin. You are safe now.’

‘Bullshit! You said so yourself about the lack of resources and the famine that’s coming. No one is safe. Not here, not living in a freakin’ office building. I don’t care how many guys with machine guns you’ve got around.’

‘You’re scaring Max.’

‘
I’m
scaring Max? You don’t think that maybe it’s the people out there killing each other over a packet of cigarettes that are scaring him? We’ve seen people on the borders, the borders you put up, shot in the head. And you think I’m scaring him?’

‘Fin,’ she pleads. ‘We’ve talked about this. You know there’s nothing I can do—’

‘I’m not staying with you. And you have to let Max decide whether he’s going to or not.’

She looks at my brother. He swallows, wiping at his tears with the back of his hands.

‘I want to go with Fin.’

‘No, no, no, no. You’re coming with me, both of you.’ She clutches at Max’s hands.

‘Mum, no. We’re not.’ I ignore the tears tracking down my cheeks. I put a hand on Max’s shoulder.

‘I want to go with Fin.’

‘You can’t. Fin, please. Please.’

‘Do you really think this is what’s best for us? You know it’s not.’

She covers her mouth, closing her eyes. I step toward her and kiss her on the cheek. She wraps her arms around me and then Max. She holds onto us with a grip I have never felt before. She lets out a wail, an animal sound that feels like it could split my chest apart. Someone else comes into the room, tries to steady her as her legs give way and she crumples to the floor, her whole body is shuddering with sobs.

I crouch next to her and she gathers Max and I to her chest again. She presses her nose into our hair. She holds us there for the longest time.

We begin rolling our bedding into tight bundles, selecting what will be left behind. It will be harder to fit everything in the car with one extra person.

Matt sits on the floor, arms wrapped around his legs. He nods when I tell him we are going.

‘You’re coming with us,’ I say.

‘Nah, really, it’s okay.’

‘You’re coming with us.’

Matt reckons the only place we’re going to find any petrol is in the tank of an army truck. He changes into his uniform, tells the rest of us to wear as much black as possible.

‘No Swannies beanie, then?’ Max says. I don’t think Matt gets it.

I use my best negotiating skills to try to convince Max to stay behind. But short of physically tying him to a concrete pillar, it’s impossible.

‘You do what you’re told, yeah?’ I warn him.

‘I think you’ll be surprised how useful I can be on this operation,’ he counters.

‘Just don’t be a dickhead, Max.’

Noll and Matt come with me to collect the hose pipe, torches and a crowbar from the car. I open the boot and Matt takes out his assault rifle, slings it across his back. Then I open the front door, take the handgun from under the passenger seat and tuck it into my jeans.

‘Haven’t we already been through this?’ says Noll.

I sigh, hand him the gun. ‘What are you going to do with it, anyway? Throw it at someone?’

‘My granddad had a farm. He taught me how to shoot.’

I raise an eyebrow.

‘Asians can have farms too, you know.’

‘I’m more worried about the fact he taught you to shoot with a handgun.’

‘Okay, so it was a rifle. Same principle. And I’ve still got more experience than you.’

‘Whatevs.’

Noll tucks the gun into his belt.

We leave the car park and enter the street wordlessly, like a flock of mourners from a graveyard. The moonless sky is a black void above us. We have two torches and we follow their tentative beams through the dark, empty streets. We pass beneath the looming multi-storey apartment blocks, between clusters of townhouses. Matt says the last time he was out here a small military station was set up in a big park a few blocks east. We follow him through a lifeless intersection and along a row of abandoned shopfronts. Lucy is beside me, Max next to her and up ahead, Noll follows a metre behind Matt. We walk in silence and approach another intersection. I step out on to the road and see the pool of ice next to the kerb a moment too late to warn Lucy. She steps right on it and, with a yelp, her legs slide from beneath her and she is on the ground.

‘Luce? Shit. Are you okay?’

She grimaces, grips her left ankle, the same one that was hurt during the riot. She takes my arm and tries to stand. Fails. She kicks at the ground with her heel in frustration. Max and I help her to her feet, Max enjoying the process a bit too much for my liking. Lucy tries to take a step and I can feel her tense up with the pain.

‘Go. Get fuel. I’ll wait here.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I look toward Noll and Matt. ‘I’ll have to help her back.’

‘Absolutely,’ says Noll.

‘No. No. I’m fine. You go.’

‘As if, Luce. C’mon.’ She can barely put weight on her leg. I bring her arm over my shoulder and hold her waist firmly.

‘Max,’ I say. ‘You have to do exactly as Matt and Noll tell you, yeah?’

Max nods, taking the hose pipe from me.

‘You got him?’ I ask Noll.

‘Definitely.’

‘All good,’ Matt says. ‘You take her back.’

Lucy and I turn and hobble our way back along the street. I take a look back over my shoulder and see the three of them, Matt, Noll and Max, walking into the darkness. No more than shadows.

All our things are packed, so I sit Lucy in the car. Rosa brings a box for her to prop her foot up on.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Lucy says. ‘This is so pathetic. It really does hurt. I’m not just being a sooky girl. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Luce, this just gives me a chance to get back a bit of dignity.’

I dig a blanket out of the boot and put it under her heel. We sit in the car and wait. Rosa fusses over Lucy, brings us cups of hot tea. Then I hear the slap of feet on bitumen as someone comes bolting down the ramp into the car park. I look up and when I see him there are no words to describe the sound that comes from me.

Max’s hands are bloody. It’s smeared on his face and all over his clothes. His jeans are soaked through as if he’s been kneeling in the snow.

‘What happened?’ I pull open his jacket and look over him. His jumper is soaked crimson. ‘Where are you hurt? WHERE ARE YOU HURT? Fuck. FUCK.’

He shakes his head, pulling his jacket closed. Rosa is hysterical, shrieking. I actually push her out of the way. Some people come over to see what is going on; one of them brings a blanket, wraps it around Max, saying something about shock. I pull off Max’s beanie and tilt his head forward, back, side to side. There doesn’t seem to be any cuts. He’s looking at me like his eyes aren’t quite focused, like he can’t see me properly.

‘What’s happened? Where are Noll and Matt? Max, talk to me.’

Lucy is next to us, God knows how she got there. It’s only when she tells me to try to calm down that I realise I have been shouting. By the time we get Max to the car there is a small crowd of people gathered around us.

‘Where are they, Max? Just tell us where they are.’

When I was ten, I left my bike in the rain. The wheel spokes turned orange-brown with rust. It got on my hands, it got on my clothes.

The snow that Matt and Noll lie on is the same colour. There is an army truck a few metres away, the driver’s door is open. Next to it is the dark shape of a body on the ground. Someone has covered Matt’s face with a towel and from the bloom of colour around his head I know there is no point looking under it. I go to Noll. His eyes are open, staring up into the sky. I kneel on the snow beside him. He is so still I think he is already gone, but his eyes shift and look directly at me. I yank the gloves from one of his hands and grip it in mine. He blinks at me and opens his mouth. It’s then that I see the bullet hole in the chest of his coat. Deep red pooling on the heavy fabric. I tear off my jacket and press it down over the hole, that’s all I can do.

‘Noll, Noll, don’t leave us. Hang on.’

The expression on his face is more of mild curiosity than anything else. Surprise more than panic. He says something and I lean closer to him to hear.

‘I’m going home.’

‘Noll, no, no. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.’

He is still looking at me. But he is not there. There is nothing left in him. I feel for his pulse.

There is nothing.

I sit in the snow. I don’t know for how long. Eventually I get up, go to the body next to the truck. It is face down, head turned to the side, eyes closed. It is a woman in army fatigues. I stand there looking at her, then kneel down to see if she has a pulse. She doesn’t. I look around. Nothing, but still, silent black. I turn and as I am walking back, past the end of the truck, I see it, clipped on the back door. A fuel container. As I grasp the cold handle and lift it from its bracket I can feel the weight of it. Full.

Lucy doesn’t cry. Neither do I. Shock. She doesn’t ask about the fuel. Max watches wordlessly as I fill up our car. He is white and has vomited onto the concrete twice. His hands shake too much to hold a cup steady and Rosa comes over, crouches next to him and holds a cup of warm tea to his lips. Lucy opens the back of the car and starts pulling things out. Noll’s things. She unzips his bag, riffles through it, pulls out two thick woollen jumpers, some pants, and the most crucial of all items, socks. She places them in our bags.

She sorts through the rest of Noll’s possessions, leaves them in his bag. Except for his bible. I take it from her and turn it in my hands. The cover is worn and scratched, most of the gold lettering worn away. Inside, the delicate pages are scrawled with notes: Noll’s writing crammed into the narrow margins. I put the book under the front seat of the car.

Lucy and I help Max to his feet and I begin to peel his clothes off him: coat, jumper, shirt. He starts to cry and the sound of his sobbing is unbearable. His head hangs and the tears run down his chin. I have a memory of him, as a child, a toddler in a bib holding my mother’s hand. When there is only one layer of clothing left he reaches around to the back of his jeans. Then he holds the gun out to me.

We leave soon after. I retrace the route Noll and I took from Mr Effrez’s house. The three of us are silent in the car, until a few blocks from Effrez’s house, when Max speaks.

‘We got to an army truck in the park. Matt told us to hang back behind a wall. He went up to the driver’s side and the driver got out. I couldn’t hear what Matt said to her. I could only see because there was a light in the cabin. Whatever Matt said, she mustn’t have fallen for it. He pointed his gun at her. That’s when Noll yelled out. He told Matt to stop, ran toward them and pulled the handgun out. He didn’t even point it at her, but the army woman, she didn’t hesitate . . . she . . . she shot Noll . . .’ Max’s body starts to shake, tears tracking down his cheeks. He shakes his head like he is frustrated by the crying. ‘I guess Matt shot her then. She fell in the snow. Matt looked over to me. Then he put the gun to his head and shot himself.’

I grip the steering wheel hard to stop shaking. I can’t. I can only see Noll in primary school, standing among the shards of glass, blood dripping from his forehead.