311 Days
To Go
I had a nightmare about my Period Tracker and woke at 6am epic-cranky. Something dumb was going on in my ovaries.
I walked through what felt like the most silent, remote place on earth. I was the only living thing awake while the globe slept, treading quietly towards my drinking hole, like a deer at dawn. It was as if Mahonyland had been built on a Himalayan plateau where sound barely reached. My feet left the first footprints in the dewy grass and –
No. Someone else's prints.
Adam's. Adam had been here.
The gap between my strides widened and soon I was running on the skinniest legs I'd ever had. Down the Riviera, then along Champs-Élysées Avenue towards my pond. I stole through a grass alleyway and emerged between two houses, and slowed, and my jaw opened.
KT was in the water of my drinking pond, cloaked in steam. Our drinking pond.
'LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?'
'Good morning, beautiful.' KT's voice was coming from a face masked with bubbles. She wiped her mouth and eyes clean. KT had built a steamy spa. Soapy bubbles appeared to have come from a bottle of dish washing liquid.
'Get out of there. OUT!'
'Man you're cranky in the mornings.' I watched her small breasts rise and settle on her thin torso as she rubbed soapy water into her arms. Heavy with water, her hair poured over down her shoulders like golden syrup. 'You can come in, it's all good. I can smell you from here, ha-ha. Room for more, actually, you should get some boys and we'll get craaazy. When's the last time you partied?'
'We need that to drink! That's our drinking water!'
KT glanced side to side, hoping for an audience to agree with her that I was ranting insanely. To me, it was KT who'd gone insane.
'The secret is hot rocks,' KT said with this instructional face and hand gestures as if she were on an infomercial. 'You leave them to heat up til they glow orange then carry the rocks in a skillet and dump 'em in the water and it fizzes up straight away. It's, like, Zoh-my-God warm. We should do this every day. C'mon, sister, strip off.'
'You've killed the oxygen plant. You've polluted the spring. We can't drink this. We – we – you – I'm giving you thirty seconds to get out. Then we'll work out your punishment.'
KT stood up, fully naked and dripping. The morning light was on her; her clean, taut body put my filthy, saggy body to shame. 'I didn't want to say this, but everyone's sick of you telling the clan what to do.'
'OUR SO-CALLED CLAN COULD DIE OF THIRST ANY DAY AND YOU'RE, YOU'RE, YOU'RE MUTILATING OUR DRINKING WATER?'
KT shrugged, folded her arms, sat back down in the water. 'You're not the boss of me. Adam doesn't take away people's bath water. Go nark on me to your little democracy.'
My boys and girls got to their feet groggily. Everyone checked the fire, which had collapsed into a pile of black dust since the big cooking rocks had been taken. There were a few hunks of cold turnip in one pot, and a mountain of mashed grapes from this berserk winemaking mission Kane had been on. Everyone grabbed their ration of seven grapes and followed me.
By the time I brought the mob to her, KT was sitting on the edge of her spa bath. Judging by the way she wriggled her legs in the foamy water, she wasn't guilty, just inconvenienced, as if the only issue was us interrupting her bath time.
'You woke us up for this B.S.?' Kane said, 'My sis needed a wash. A person's ass gets dirty, shitting in the bushes all the time.'
'You shouldn't be going in the bushes. We need a –a –a dedicated latrine with– '
'Ooooh. Ssss.' Watson gasped like he'd stood on a thistle barefoot. 'Latrines are tricky. Best place for it is a sewage pond emptying downstream so you don't get faecal matter near your food supply. Plus it needs to be filtered before it reaches the river. And treated. Even the Romans struggled a bit.'
Kane pulled his bedsheet toga off. 'Make way. I'm havin me a scrub.'
'DON'T EVEN DREAM OF IT.'
'Says who? You haven't been elected nothin. Quit tryina babysit everyone.'
KT kicked the water. 'No one's concerned in the slightest bit about Fatty Fatima here eating extra rations at night but God forbid someone around here takes a BATH.' KT grabbed one of the rocks from the bottom of the pond. The cords in her neck strained as she heaved then managed to heft it onto the grass.
'She took the stones back out, you can put 'em back on the fire,' Kane said, 'We all good now or what?'
I shook my head. 'What she did can't be undone. Plus there's no soap for anyone else. Have you even thought about how far we have to go to find fresh water now?'
KT lifted her dripping clothes out of the water, dried off and stepped into a frilly old-fashioned white gingham wild west-style skirt she must've got from a trunk full of dress-up props, humming a little song, trying to make it all amusing and delightful. Dressed, she walked towards Eli and Kane, who parted for her, and carried on walking. She tossed a ridiculous XXL SeaWorld tourist shirt in my face as she walked past.
'Got you something,' she said, 'New season's fashion.'
'Where are you going?' I called. 'I'm not even done –
'Yeah you are, BathCop,' Kane said. He wanted to punch me, I could tell by his hunched shoulders and pink face. 'That was my sister, man. That wasn't just anyone.' He turned to Chan, even though Chan hadn't said anything. 'I oughta put you to sleep right this minute,' he fumed, his angry words whistling against his teeth. Kane turned on Fatti next, prodding her chest. 'This fat Jabba the Hutt right here, she doesn't get in any trouble for gobblin' all the last bits of duck? Here's me waking up in the middle of the night, thinking I was having a nightmare – turns out I was. A fat blobby whale bloody Komodo dragon eating all the decent bits of cartilage off the bones and taking the marrow that shoulda been shared around? Yeah, that was my nightmare. Wanna see what's left of the duck bones?' Kane walked ten, twenty, then thirty metres away and pointed to a sleek patch of dirt or a puddle and started chuckling and whistling sarcastically.
'Puke,' I said. 'God damn it. That's where you've been throwing up, Fatima?'
'But the pond!' Fatima said. 'This isn't about me. It's about our DRINKING water. We have to make stakes – torches, even – and trenches. We can FIGHT that megalomaniac asshole. Booby traps? We can spend the day building booby traps, I – I –I – '
'I said no violence! Eva Perón never had to use violence, even when the army was being a bully to her. God, we haven't even seen stupid Adam in like a week. Now, listen: all food is the property of the group as a whole,' I said. 'Anyone who steals from our food supply will be disciplined. Same with anyone who messes up the good water. That's final.'
Eli smirked. 'It won't make a difference. Someone else has a plan for us.'
'I – I – I can make it up to everybody,' Fatima interrupted. 'I'll – I'll get you guys something real good. I'll be back in a minute, serious.'
Fatima strode away, sort of northwards, up towards the Riviera and we stood there, useless without someone to heap our problems onto. After a few minutes, we followed her, me and Eli jogging together, the others behind.
Ahead of us, Fatima sniffled as she walked, but no one wanted to take a position of supporting her. We marched like a posse for ten minutes right through the heart of Moneyland until she rounded the Riviera past Clement Road and past Broadway. North end of town. A part we hadn't explored much. Then she stopped and turned into an older-looking house with a wooden roof, like a gingerbread house. That cabin place, draped with bougainvillea flowers and hibiscus… and the electric hum of bees. They made curves and circles and elipses in the air, black and humming like blowflies.
Chan clicked his fingers when he worked out what she was doing. 'Honey for the honeys? I like this.'
'That hive is not safe.'
'C'mon, Ede. When's the last time you had honey? Treat yourself. No one's forcing her.'
'Fatti, you don't have to… .' I couldn't finish my sentence. My mouth was drooling too much. Sugar. Sticky teeth. I felt a shiver in my lower stomach. She'd led us to the Beehive. Part of me wanted to see her get a couple bee stings anyway. To pop her balloon of optimism.
Fatima took one last look back at us, put on a grin and waved with a real fake cheesy smile then blew us a big kiss and did a curtsey. Then the joy went out of her face and she trudged towards the cabin.
We stood on the footpath and watched as Fatima entered the property and headed for a disused-looking washing line with a big wicker laundry hamper under it. The lid of the hamper was open and the air was moving. I could hear the sounds of planes and I checked the sky a couple of times before realising the drone was coming from inside the hamper. There were only a couple of little black specks above the hamper. It didn't look dangerous. Fatima opened the lid and reached inside.
Fatima was all the way across the yard, plus it was hard to see her over the horse-sized bodies of Eli and Chan, but I got a glimpse of her slapping herself as her hand came up clutching something that looked like a wet brown sponge, dribbling on her wrist.
She slapped her right cheek, then dropped the dribbling gooey thing and slapped her left, then slapped her shins, and pulled up her shirt and slapped her belly.
We watched Fatima double over, her face against her knees, squashing her own belly and boobs, then she hit her left ear three times as if it was blocked with water after a swim. Then Fatima slumped to her knees and pulled her shirt halfway off her back, clawing at her shoulderblades awkwardly. She punched her ear again, then rolled over onto her back, hugging her knees.
I was too stunned to get in there and intervene. Esther was the first of us to break free and try stop what was happening. 'She needs first aid!' Esther started wheeling towards her, jostling over the hippy house's cobblestones, but Chan grabbed the handles of her chair and tugged her back while she screamed and struggled.
The buzzing sounded like a weed whacker. I thought of probability clouds of swarming protons. I thought of nanobots. I thought of dying animals with blowflies doing cartwheels in the air. I could see bees settling in her hair, crawling over 70 kilos of flesh that had to be de–
I grabbed Kane's collar. 'YOU HAVE TO HELP HER.'
Kane seemed hypnotised, except he was backing away. 'I'll – I'll get us an ambo… .'
'THE CARS DON'T GOT ANY PETROL.'
'WE CAN PUSH.' Kane looked down the Riviera, away from the bees, which were moving in a larger circle than ever. He looked at me dumb as a kid, waiting for criticism, or praise, or some kind of instruction. Then he just went for it.
'OVER HERE!' He'd chosen a hatchback car so little that its roof was the same height as his elbows. He was trying to shunt it out of the driveway of a house six sections along. 'HELP ME PUSH! WHO'S DRIVING?'
I gave Maeve a hard look.
'You're gonna help, right?'
She screwed up her face and walked towards Kane's car. 'This would never've happened if you'd been nice to him.'
'WHO? WHO?!'
'Him.'
Kane and Chan wordlessly smashed the self-drive panel with a brick and guided the car out of the driveway while Maeve unlocked the handbrake and moved the car into neutral. Either some spirit in the sky was blessing us with a car which didn't remain locked in Park without the key, or Kane had stolen cars before.
Maeve held the car in neutral and gently operated the brake pedal. I was the last one to run over and help. Esther couldn't do much except watch Fatima's hair seethe with wriggling insects.
I kept staring at Maeve up in the driver seat. I pushed with whatever strength I had, feeling like puking up my seven grapes. Eli and Watson worked the back of the car. We guided it into the middle of the road, cursing at each other. Finally the car found momentum and crept up on Fatima. We all sensed Maeve putting resistance on the brakes.
'Don't brake, moron! We're tryina push back here!'
'Anyone know how to deal with bees?' Eli called out.
'Smoke,' said Watson. He wasn't pushing, just standing alongside the car, arms folded. 'You'll want approximately one litre of oil, a towel and a source of ignition.'
'Oil in this heap of junk?' Maeve said. 'Hold up a sec.' Kane hauled the boot of the car open and tossed the stained track pants and rusty screwdrivers and McDonalds boxes aside and pulled out a small bottle of motor oil.
'Gimme your shirt, dick, hurry,' growled Kane. Watson glowered and complained, but he took his shirt off anyway. 'Don't worry, bookworm, it's not just you. Boys: you too.' Eli and Chan took off their shirts and supplied them to Kane, who laid the shirts on the ground. He rolled them tightly, knotted the sleeves and created a crude rope. He poured motor oil on the t-shirt rope.
'Lighter,' he demanded. 'FIND. A. CIGARETTE. LIGHTER.'
'Or flint and steel,' Watson piped up, clearing his throat, 'You'll find the chemical reaction between iron and oxygen is… ahem. Never mind. A lighter. Yes.'
We looked at one another. Wordlessly, I sprinted to the front of the car, rummaged in the glovebox then sprinted back to the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I could still see what looked like furry yellow flies buzzing round Fatima's body, slumped and fetal as if she were in a dog bed.
I found matches, handed them to Kane. He lit the shirts and the oil began to ooze disgusting white smoke. We all gagged, squinted, tried to weep the smoke out of our eyes. Kane marched to the bees, straddled Fatima and squatted over her body, squinting amidst the smoke.
'HURRY,' Kane yelled, 'What kind of an ambulance is this?'
Maeve frantically turned the steering wheel. I heaved until I was sure my intestines were going to burst out of my throat, but the car moved, finally. Maeve slowed beside Fatima's body, two wheels on the cobblestones, two wheels on the grass, bumping against the washing line. Kane flapped and struck and waved his weapon at the bees while Eli and Chan hauled the body into the boot of the hatchback, the body slippery with sweat, purple-skinned and covered in white lumps, and Watson tucked her shoes in the boot as if there weren't any feet in them, slapping the bees that tumbled off her like lint.
Then we pushed.
We pushed back onto the boulevard. We pushed until we came to Broadway. We got some speed up. We were going to make it up to Fatti. We were going to bring her back. We were going to be good to her from now on.
South down Broadway on the flat, shiny new subdivision road, the car seemed to reach a peak speed, surely only 15 kays an hour, but faster than anything in this land, rolling with its own momentum, Maeve steering perfectly.
Our muscles began to adapt, and finally to enjoy the torture, the frustration, the spread of the agony down our biceps and into our forearms and fingers, our cores, our spines, our quads, our calves, until we were plainly rolling, working as a team –
And then came a bend in the road, rounding a corner where for once, we couldn't see any houses.
The car either slowed by itself, or we gave up, stunned by the sight of a Jeep idling in the middle of the road, wasting petrol.
Adam hopped out of the Jeep. He was holding in his left hand a tin of Christmas cookies. In his right, he held Esther's MediKit – not that it was Esther's anymore.
'Thought we might trade on this fine morning.' He rattled both hands. 'What'll it be, boys and girls: food or medicine?'