Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

Neither of us says a word until we are back in the car park. I drop the box to the ground and let my legs give way beneath me, still shaking with adrenalin.

‘That was him, wasn’t it?’ says Noll.

‘Who?’ asks Lucy, opening the box to see what we’ve scored.

‘The guy from the border, the first one, that put us up against the fence.’

‘He was there? He saw you both?’

I nod. ‘He gave me that.’ I point to the box.

‘He didn’t do anything?’

‘No,’ says Noll. ‘He just gave us these.’

‘Did he see you come back here?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Nobody followed us,’ says Noll.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, there’s nothing we can do if they did,’ I say.

‘We can leave.’

‘Nobody saw us. He didn’t rat on us. I trust him. He gave me back the gun that night. I think he’s okay.’

But I am uneasy for the rest of the day.

In the early hours of the morning Lucy and I lie beside each other in the dark, close, but not quite touching. The fire has withered to a mound of glowing embers. On the other side of me, Max snores softly in his sleep.

‘Have you thought about how we might never see our parents again?’ Lucy asks me, her voice so soft, barely more than a breath.

‘A bit.’

‘I used to be so afraid of my parents dying when I was younger.’

‘I don’t think they’re going to die, Lucy. I really don’t.’

‘You can’t know that, Fin.’

‘I know, I just—’

‘You can’t protect everyone. You can’t protect me.’

‘Luce.’

‘Like today, me staying back with Max while you and Noll go off and get supplies. What’s that about?’

‘I want you to be safe.’

‘What makes you think I can’t look after myself? What? Just because I’m a girl I need you to protect me?’

‘No, I… I don’t know.’

‘I saved you with a cricket bat, my friend.’

‘I know, I just… You saw those guys at the shelter…’

‘You think I’m going to get raped or something?’

‘I just want you to be safe.’

She sighs and I think she is pissed off. Instead she takes my hand.

Alan is camped against the wall adjacent to us. He has a swag, a small camp stove and two boxes crammed with books which he has stacked like shelves. He sits with his back against the wall and reads. I go over and ask him what he is reading.

‘Hemingway. Pull up a pew,’ he says, pointing to an upturned milk crate. I sit down and he makes me a cup of black tea. ‘Remember sugar? I used to have it white with three sugars. Not any more, hey?’

I take the warm enamel cup from him.

‘Hemingway was an arse,’ he says. ‘But he could write, gotta give him that. Have a look.’ He motions to the books. ‘You’re welcome to anything you want.’

I scan the titles and stop on the silver spine of Heart of Darkness . It’s funny the things that get to you. I try to swallow the lump in my throat. I pull the book free of its neighbours.

‘We were studying this at school,’ I manage.

‘Ahhh, Mr Joseph Conrad – what we are when nobody’s watching. Good stuff. Take it.’

‘Thank you.’

I drink my tea and think how I’ve drunk more tea in the last three months than I have in my entire life. I guess it’s what people do, isn’t it? Like after funerals. There’s something soothing about the normality of it.

Alan tells me that he’s from the country and was staying with his brother when the army first came into the city.

‘They went from street to street, syphoning fuel out of cars in exchange for food,’ he says. ‘Then a month or so back, when things started getting real hairy, they began exchanging food for information on people who were staying here from across the border.’

‘He told them about you?’

Alan shrugs. ‘Left before he had a chance. We were never that close. I was with him because my sister passed away just before all this started, before the missiles and what not. The young fella your brother?’ he asks.

‘Yeah. Don’t know where my mum and dad are.’

‘You keep him close then, won’t you?’

‘I will.’

I draw Alan floating on the sea sitting in a bookshelf, pages scattered on the surface of the water. I draw the scene I remember from the supermarket, with the doors smashed and the shelves nearly bare. It occurs to me that drawings may be the only lasting record of what is happening.

Dinner: dried apricots, canned baby carrots and sweet corn, rice crackers: ‘Now 92 per cent fat-free!’

‘Is there anywhere else you can think of where we might be able to find your mum?’ Noll asks.

I stab a baby carrot with my fork. ‘She left with army officers. Government House maybe, army barracks. Nowhere we can go looking without getting caught.’

‘But if you gave her name, said you were her son?’

‘I don’t have any proof.’

‘She would know the situation on the other side of the border. You’d think she would have tried to get you out.’

‘Well, it didn’t work, did it?’

‘Should we have stayed there?’ asks Max. ‘What if she goes back for us?’

‘It’s too late now.’

‘But what if she goes back for us, Fin, and we’re not there?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.’ I throw the empty tin can into the fire, stand up and walk away from our camp. I head up the ramp onto the darkened street. It’s colder up here away from the collective warmth of the campfires. It’s also pitch black. I pull my hood up over my head. There are footsteps and a torch beam behind me, I turn around to see Lucy jogging to catch up to me.

‘Fin, slow down.’

‘You shouldn’t have followed me.’

She falls into step beside me. ‘Well, I don’t want you to fall over in the dark and break your neck. I like you, you see.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘I know. Me neither. But for now we just bide our time, enjoy the serenity of the car park.’

I kick at the snow, harder and harder, it flies up, a shower of white flecks in torchlight. ‘And I’m sick of being asked. I don’t want to make any more fucking decisions.’

‘I get that. Do you want to walk for a bit? It’s probably ridiculously dangerous, but YOLO and what not.’

‘I like to live on the edge.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed you’re the risk-taking type.’ She takes my arm.

We drift along the streets past houses and a crippled petrol station, shops and a school. The night sky is a void, no light, no stars. We are lost to the universe. We can’t see out. I wonder if anyone can see in.

We pause and gaze up into the void. Lucy brushes my cheek with her fingers. I look down at her, take her face in my hands and kiss her gently on the mouth. A ball of heat wells in my stomach, and other places if I’m honest. I pull away and lean my back against a telegraph pole, raising my face to the cold sky and trying to breathe like a normal person. Lucy watches me and I don’t know how she isn’t embarrassed. She traces her fingertip down the line of my jaw.

A collective decision is made that a trip to the shops is needed; firewood is getting low and we could do with more soap and toilet paper. The four of us climb the concrete stairs, around and around. Then we hit a fire door and when we push it open we find ourselves in the darkened shopping centre. The dull light that filters through the skylights reveals polished floors, high ceilings and frozen escalators. The glass façades of most shops have been cracked or smashed right through. Random objects are strewn along the walkways: bits of clothing, papers, bottles, broken EFTPOS consoles, coathangers. Our footsteps echo eerily through the silence. And I can’t help but think of a zombie movie I once saw that was set in a shopping mall. I grip the heavy handle of the axe, and look around for anything wooden, but everything is stainless steel or plastic. We roam past clothing shops and mobile phone vendors, all four of us taking in the place as if it’s an ancient ruin.