Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

Silence. Oh shit. Too far. I thought she was talking about me and she wasn’t and, oh shit, now my ears are on fire. I glance at her. She is looking at me, she looks very serious. Stuff it. I lean over and gently place my hand on the side of her neck, my thumb on her cheek and she closes her eyes and I kiss her. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. We kiss and then stop, breathe, and she puts her hand on mine and looks at me but doesn’t smile.

‘Come with us,’ I say.

‘I can’t leave my family, my sister.’

‘She can come too.’

‘But my parents…’

‘They want you to get out, Luce. My mum will be able to help us. It’s… I think it’s your only chance.’

She puts her head in her hands. My anger at the world coils inside of me. It’s a directionless seething, there’s no name or face to aim at. I want to be the guy who has an ingenious plan, something to offer her. But I am utterly helpless. With her eyes still closed she beats at the lounge with a fist, harder and harder. Then she opens her eyes and looks up at the ceiling and I see a tear slide down her cheek.

‘Stuff it,’ she whispers. ‘I’ll come with you.’

I leave her and walk the short distance back to Noll’s house. I open the door and Max is standing there. The skin around his left eye is plum-coloured and swollen. He gives me his trademark killer smile.

‘Check it out, man!’

I grab him and hug him, holding on as if I’m afraid he’ll float away.

Noll comes to the door. I tell him Lucy will be coming with us.

‘That’s good. The more there are of us the better, I think.’

‘Did Max sleep?’ I ask.

‘He did. I stayed up and kept an eye on him for a while. I wanted to stay up all night, just to be sure he was okay. But I couldn’t, I fell asleep. I’m sorry.’

‘You were going to stay up all night to look out for my brother?’

‘You asked me to take care of him.’

‘Yeah, but… Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘The car is ready to go? All the food still in it?’

‘Yes.’ Noll looks like he wants to say something more.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Did you leave enough food there for Mr Starvos and his family?’

‘We didn’t take it all. There was still a bit… I think. He was going to kill me, Noll. He told me he was going to kill me.’

He nods. ‘How badly was he hurt? Do you think he would have woken up?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t see what choice we had. Lucy… Noll, she saved my life. He was going to kill me.’

‘I understand. We should go.’

Lucy takes a bag from off the top of her wardrobe and I sit on the edge of her bed. The room feels like a relic, a memory. The walls are crammed with photos, pictures torn from magazines, movie and band posters. There is a huge Radiohead poster at the head of the bed and another framed picture of Pablo Picasso holding a pistol.

Mrs Tenningworth comes into the room with an ice-cream container.

‘First-aid kit,’ she says. ‘Bandages, antiseptic cream, painkillers.’ She disappears down the hall and returns with a plastic lunchbox full of cutlery.

‘Mum, I’m pretty sure we won’t be having dinner parties.’

Mrs Tenningworth puts it in the bag and then looks through what Lucy has packed.

‘How many pairs of socks do you have? You need more than that, here…’ She opens a drawer. Lucy softly places a hand on her shoulder.

‘Mum—’

‘Where’s your red cardigan? I only got that for you six months ago.’

‘Mum.’

‘What? I’m your mother…’ She is crying. ‘I’m your mother and I’m supposed to let you go out there… because I can’t do anything else. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my darling. I can’t do anything else.’ She pulls Lucy to her and I look away to give them space.

‘Fin, you must look after each other,’ Mrs Tenningworth says to me. ‘You must.’

Noll has parked the car on the street. He and Max wait while I carry Lucy’s bag from the house. Lucy’s uncle pulls me aside on the front porch. He holds out his hand. In it is Starvos’ gun. I take it from him. It’s the first time I’ve ever held a gun and it’s heavier than I expected. Lucy comes out of the house, stopping when she sees the gun. She looks at her uncle, he says nothing, just nods his head. I reach around and tuck it into the band at the back of my jeans like I have seen dudes do on television. I hope the action comes across fluid and natural, like I am used to doing hardcore things with weapons all the time. I have to regain some dignity after having my arse saved by a chick with a cricket bat. It does make her a bit Lara Croft though, and I don’t mind that.

I carry the bags to the car and Lucy says her goodbyes. I don’t watch. I can’t imagine leaving Max behind, it would be like cutting off my own arm, tearing it off.

As I squash Lucy’s bag into the back of the station wagon, I feel the gun press into my hip. Lucy walks down the drive to the car, hugging herself against the cold. She looks up and her eyes are red and teary, but there is stubborn determination in her expression.

‘Are you ready?’

She nods.

I glance to the front seat, to Noll. He is very still, eyes downcast.

‘Are you okay with us bringing the gun?’ I ask Lucy quietly.

She frowns. ‘Are you okay with it?’

‘I don’t know. I… I’m thinking about Noll, I guess. He’s worried about Starvos and what we’ve done. I don’t think he’ll want to keep it, but I think we’ll be safer with it.’

‘Let’s just go. I need to go.’

I open the back door for her. She gets in and slides across to the other side. I get in next to her. There is one seat left.

‘Can we make a detour?’ I ask.

As we drive through the streets of our town, toward the highway, we are silent.

I haven’t been beyond Noll’s house for three months. The road is a wide strip of dirty snow. Houses stare out at it from beneath their cloaks of grimy ice. People’s gardens have died. The front of each house is populated with wiry skeletons reaching up for a sun that isn’t there. We wind through streets that all look the same. There are some tyre tracks on the road but not many. As we get closer to the highway we see a group of people standing out on the street, they are the first people we’ve seen and they are looking at something. As we approach, Noll slows down. On the right-hand side of the road are the charred remains of a house, black and stark against the snow, steam rising from it. I know Noll wants to stop, I want to stop, but as we approach the people turn their faces toward us, they stare out from under the hoods of their coats. I can’t make out how old they might be. Their eyes are cold and desperate, cheeks sunken, skin grey. They look like the walking dead. Noll keeps driving and it occurs to me we probably look no different. I turn and watch them out the rear window. They have turned their attention back to the house and stand motionless, like mourners at a gravesite.

We turn onto the highway and head east, down the mountains toward the city. I give Noll directions and he takes a left turn off the highway. We follow the street for a few hundred metres and I tell him to pull over outside a small weatherboard cottage. There are no cars in the driveway and I know there’s not really any point seeing if anyone is home, but I get out and walk up the front path anyway. The front yard is as familiar to me as my own. Beside the path, the broken trampoline I have spent hours on sags beneath the weight of melting snow. I go up the three steps to the front door and knock loudly.

‘Hello? Lokey?’