Evie Wyld - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

Later, when Clive was drunk, Leon stood in front of the board and read the letter. Someone had drawn a stick lady with enormous tits that had been turned into targets and a badly drawn weeping dick was pointing towards them. Written underneath it said GET THIS OFF YOUR CHEST, BITCH! In several different hands were the words FUCK HER! and WHAT A WHORE! The letter was written on paper with a drawing of a light pink bow at the top.

Dear Clive,

It’s really not fair to keep on pretending, I know you’d want me to be straight with you. You remember Mike? You met him at the Summer ball at work? He’s an objector, Clive, and I have to say I admire his strength. I just feel like he’s the kind of person I need in my life, and I’m sorry if this hurts you, I just wish there was a nicer way of putting this.

I’ve been to see your mother and she knows how it is, so there’s no need to worry about telling her. I’m sorry if this is all a shock, but I just had to get it off of my chest.

Yours regretfully

Sally

PS Take care.

Leon picked up the pen on the string. Amy Blackwell, what did she think about the war and everything? He imagined her turning up at the shop, all finished up, and seeing it closed. He thought about Mrs Shannon bumping into her, whether she would tell her where he was, what he was doing. Maybe she’d write him a letter. Not like Clive’s letter, perhaps she’d write and say she always thought of him and how terrible it was that he was at war. And how brave she thought he was. Or maybe she objected and he’d get a letter telling him how it was better to tell them to stick it, that he was a murderer. But either way there was no mail any more, so it wasn’t such a problem. He left the pen on the string dangling, the token words he’d written, FUCK YOU, meaning nothing to him and directed at nobody in particular.

He woke to the smack of a gunshot. Sick rose in his throat and someone to the left of him swore and rolled off his bunk to the floor.

‘What the fuck’s happening?’ someone else yelled, but there were no more shots. Outside there was shouting, the tramp of boots, a thud. The first waves of light had lifted the night sky and peering low out of the barracks with the rest of the men he saw the scuffle on the ground, three men by the noticeboard. Clive was underneath Pete and Cray was crouching next to them. Pete gave Clive a heavy smack across the mouth and Clive lay still. Pete shook his head and looked up at the rest of the men holding on to their rifles uncertainly.

‘Stupid bloody idiot shot the noticeboard.’ The shot was a good one, Leon saw in the morning, a hole right through the pink bow at the top of the letter.

In Bi-Lo, Frank could not decide what he should eat, what he should wash with, what he needed and what he should have. He did one full lap of the supermarket and at the end all he had was a loaf of sliced white and a tin of Milo, and he thought, When have I ever drunk Milo ? He put the malt powder back in the wrong place, next to microwaveable sausages.

Back at the beginning again he started with the grapefruits and oranges, gawking at apples, trying to figure out which ones. When he felt sure that all the people who arrived at roughly the same time as him were at home unpacking, he made it to the checkout, a few bags of grey-looking greens, some potatoes, milk, bread, beer, nuts and a new toothbrush. The toothbrush had glitter in it, which he noticed when he was already queuing and couldn’t be bothered to change. He’d pretend it was for his daughter if anyone looked funny at him.

The shopping of the lady in front of him was curious. White envelopes and chicken livers. He imagined her at home, sitting at her kitchen table, scribbling addresses on the envelopes, stamping them and placing a chicken liver in each one, licking the seal shut; a pile of bleeding mail growing next to her, ready for the post.

A small boy stood by a pyramid of chocolate rabbits, alone, a deep crease appearing on the bridge of his nose. He turned his head before any other part of his body, top heavy and wobbly. Frank looked around him for a parent, but there was no one by the tills who looked the slightest bit concerned. When just looking didn’t solve the problem, the child’s eyes widened and he started to run, standing as tall as he could to try to see over shelves and through walls and round corners. He appeared at the end of an aisle, adrift and abandoned, looking for someone to ask but without the words, quite. His chin wobbled, his face reddened.

Frank felt heat in his stomach. The kid’s mother was probably at the meat counter, distracted, and would yell the kid’s name any minute. The boy murmured for his mother, not loud enough for her to hear but loud enough that Frank could, then he disappeared again and the calling got louder, and now it was angry, so that the kid was yelling in the voice of an older child, deep and furious.

Frank was nudged by the lady behind him and realised his shopping had collected past the checkout girl and she was waiting for him to pay. ‘Sorry.’ He said, digging around in his wallet for a note, trying simultaneously to throw his shopping into a bag. The checkout lady smiled at him, handing him his sparkle toothbrush and his change.

He was backing out of the car park before he thought about the kid again and he wished he’d stuck around to see him find his mother.

Back home, time passed strangely. He spent twenty minutes putting his food away and thirty just sitting inside, watching a black beetle as it moved across the room following the sun stripes. It seemed like a good life, following the yellow strip of heat, basking for a few moments, then following where it took you. The beetle wouldn’t be worried about what happened when it got to the end of the room. Perhaps this beetle had sticky feet and could walk up the wall. But then eventually the heat would go and what would it do then? How long did a beetle live? Guessing from its size, not very long. Perhaps it would only live as long as it took to reach the corner of the room. When it finally bumped its nose on the wall, he went over to it and thought for a while about treading on it. But once he’d thought it he knew he wouldn’t — the beetle was watching him and hoping he’d leave it alone. He prodded it with his index finger, trying to make it walk on to his hand, but the beetle pulled in its legs and he had to sweep it upside-down and into his palm. He threw it high in the air outside, but apparently the beetle wasn’t expecting this, or else it didn’t have wings. Either way, Kirk rushed forward and swallowed it in a second.

‘Sorry, mate,’ Frank called.

‘What does the bunyip look like?’

Part of the deal, it seemed, of Sal’s good work in the vegetable garden was this asking of questions. He’d hoped she’d ask something more survival-based, because he’d thought they could go down and hunt for pippies in the sand and bake them in their shells over a fire.

‘The bunyip? Well, it doesn’t look like anything.’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t exist. Bunyip’s just like Father Christmas, mate.’

‘You mean adults pretend to be him?’

‘No. Not that I’m aware of. I mean he’s just a story to scare kids.’

‘Father Christmas doesn’t scare kids.’

‘Okay, well, forget Father Christmas. Think ghosts. Bogeyman.’

‘Ghosts exist.’

‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion.’

‘It is my opinion that ghosts exist.’

‘And good for you.’

She took a long slow drink out of the tin cup he’d given her, eyes fixed stonily on his. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

He pretended to think hard. ‘Sort of roundish with legs.’

‘You are making that up.’