Claudia Casper - The Mercy Journals

When the effects of the die-off settle and we start generating wealth again, you’ll see, it’ll be business as usual. Quick, he snapped his fingers, as a broker’s keystroke.

Those days are gone forever, Griffin countered. The model of eternal economic growth is finished. It was a mass delusion, created for the few to hoard a lot. No one is going to buy into that anymore. It defies the laws of nature. Maybe there’s a few holdouts in your generation, old wavers who can’t make the adjustment, but does my generation look unhappy? Do we look like we want to go back to your world? No. We get by, we work hard, have fun, make music, get drunk on occasion, smoke a little herb, and try not to mess each other up. Friends, Leo, ever heard of friends? Besides, there is no world if we go back to the old one. And my generation, unlike yours, wants to live.

The scar tissue on my scalp tingled.

Not just your generation, I said at the same time as Leo answered, Wow. The excitement of the “life”—he made air quotes around the word — you anticipate is killing me. In fact, I guess it almost has. Leo looked at me and grinned, whiskers gleaming with rabbit fat.

There’s behaviour that has a future, Griffin said, and behaviour that doesn’t. It’s easy to tell the difference. Everyone knows the difference.

A future? A bunch of Rasta boy scouts jamming their do-good lives away? No one controls the future. You can quote me on that.

At least we’re not all — If I can just cram all this money into the bank I’ll be safe forever. You call that excitement? You call that living? And by the way, Dermy, speaking of bean counters and people not doing their share. Griffin gave a bitter laugh. Not a dish! Not a vegetable! Not a finger on the broom or the stacking of a log. You too good for it? Now I know what my mom must’ve felt like.

Dermy? I hadn’t heard that nickname. Leo’s middle name is Dermid. I wanted to lighten the tone. I keep forgetting that I only know Griffin because he’s Leo’s stepson and that Griffin lived with Leo and Evie until he was a teenager.

If you were ruler of the world, Parker asked Leo carefully, concentrating, what would you have done? Something had to be done, didn’t it? Or we’d all be dead? Extinct?

Leo shrugged. Maybe we needed to put on the brakes. Go through a cleanse or something. But not forever. Definitely not for fucking ever. OneWorld is not a new religion. It’s a government. There’s nothing new under the sun. The only thing I believe in is my life. My choices. Everything else is guesswork.

We have to try, don’t we? We have to try and change.

A wee bit of a hypocrite, aren’t you? Leo nodded at her belly. Not your first, I’ll wager.

It was an accident.

And?

My first child was taken by his father.

I understand. But still, the planet …

Everyone went silent.

Well, well, I didn’t mean for everyone to get so solemn, Leo said, leaning back in his chair. I’d be doing just what you’re doing. I certainly would.

Parker began to cry. I’m not going to kill it. I’d rather die. The baby can have my place.

Griffin shot a look at Leo.

No, Parker put her hand on Griffin’s arm. I know it’s wrong. If everyone acted like me, our species wouldn’t survive. I don’t have the right to be an exception. I know it. I’m not one of those who are resisting the law. I think the law is right. Meanwhile the baby is growing and I can’t kill it. What hope is there?

Goodness gracious me! I said, mimicking our grandmother. If it comes to that, the baby can have my place. To tell you the truth, I haven’t enjoyed life much for twenty years now, with the exception of the last few months.

Leo looked sharply at me. Then he eased his chair back on its hind legs and said, This all started with my saying I’d like a spicy Spanish sausage. Lighten up, folks. I expect you’ll give birth to a beautiful baby, and even I will make like a socialist and help it flourish. He toasted an invisible glass in her direction.

Parker sat without moving, then said she was tired and went to bed. Griffin followed.

Not bad for one evening’s work, I said.

He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. But look at the pair of us. Neither one really caring if we live. What would the parents think?

I was thinking that Parker would have to be watched closely after she had that baby. I was thinking I was going to have to find an argument to get her off the hook with herself.

Our parents? They’d be happy we were here.

Well, you anyway.

I wanted to change the subject. I remembered his original pitch for coming up here. By the way, I said, when should we deal with Mom and Dad’s ashes? Where should we put them?

Let’s help Parker get the field established and the seeds planted first. Let’s get everything in place for next winter before we think about that.

I stared at the fire thinking how I couldn’t live without the idea that the world was going to get better in some way, and by “world,” I meant humans. By better I wasn’t thinking about progress or technology, obviously, but maybe about evolution. I don’t know, but my whole adult life I’ve always been checking the pulse of our country, our culture, our species. I’d never thought of it as a compulsion before, but it is; I need that sense of underlying purpose. Part of being a soldier maybe. Without that, the emptiness is unbearable. I’m the flip side of Leo. And nothing like Griffin.

I had an attack of vertigo this morning. Went back to bed.

I can’t shake the feeling that something is up with Leo. I don’t know what it is. I’m watching, listening for clues.

Late spring and we’re clearing and ploughing. Trying to get a field ready for planting in the first week of June. The three of us. Parker wants to help, but none of us want that baby to come early. She’s taking care of seed plants in the greenhouse, plus the goats and the chickens. We made a plough using a large, sharp stone and arbutus branches tied together. Mostly Leo and Griffin stand on either side and push against a yoke and, because of my peg leg, I guide the angled piece with the stone attached. It’s tricky work because Leo and Griffin have to push hard to get the damn thing moving and stop whenever we hit a stone. Then we dig the stone out and carry it to clearance cairns every five metres or so. Also we have to chop down alder that have sprung up in the years since dad last cleared the land and dig out the stumps. Burn piles are illegal, so we drag everything to the field’s edge. I don’t like the messy visuals and want to drag the debris further into the bush, but Leo and Griffin voted me down. We’re leaving a tree every couple of metres for shade.

Dad hired a guy with a backhoe to make this field; he had the idea of putting in his own driving range. I don’t think he ever sprang for the net, but Leo and I remembered him whacking cheap balls into the forest and me yelling Fore! and Leo yelling Skin! The first time one turned up when we were working in the field, I was confused, thinking I’d uncovered some kind of tuber or egg that was going to hatch something, and I just couldn’t remember what.

Digging up the old golf balls dredged up other stuff from the distant past. When we were kids we used to play with Mom’s pile of sea soil for her garden. We used her gardening trowel and I’d fill Leo’s dump truck with my backhoe and Leo would drive it over somewhere and make a big pile. We made encampments out of sticks and stones and staged battles with plastic soldiers Mom got at the dollar store. We played with those soldiers for days without getting bored.

Once we stole my sister Lucy’s Barbie from her bedroom. She never used it. She was practically still a baby. It must have been a gift from someone. When we first took the doll, we pretended Barbie was driving the truck, but that lasted about a millisecond. We stuck her pointy legs in the dirt and ran her over with the truck and the backhoe. The sea soil had plenty of worms and we watched in fascination as a worm slid over her nipple-less breasts and disappeared into the ground beneath. This triggered some kind of frenzy in us and we pulled her legs and arms off and threw the parts into the bushes.