An Ordinary Epidemic (15 page)

As they approached the promised T intersection, Sean slowed to a crawl and scanned the road in both directions.

‘What are you looking for?' She tried to follow his eye-line.

‘Even if we meet one now, we must be beyond the barrier, who's to say we weren't always here?' He looked at her as if she knew what he meant. ‘We should get petrol.'

Hannah gave a resigned shrug, she wasn't going carry the load of this decision.

‘Come on, you were happy enough to have the guy in the back. We need petrol.'

‘Not happy.'

‘Well, he was in the back and there'll be a station on the outskirts of town.' No answer. ‘We can't make it to Canberra and back on what's in the tank. That's not me being difficult, it's reality. This is probably the safest place to get it. So which way am I going? Town or freeway?'

She glanced at the petrol gauge. Not enough to get home from here, certainly not enough to get to Canberra and back. It was a long way from anywhere, off the trucking route, there were no reported cases this far west and they were probably the only non-locals to pass through in weeks. If they had to... and they had to. ‘Use gloves on the pump and hand wash when you're done. You pay with cash. And don't take any change.'

‘If I use gloves, why do I need hand wash?'

‘That's the deal.'

Sean took the turn back towards the town and half a kilometre on, they found it. It had been built for the main road this had once been and in its new circumstances was oversized and sun faded. Part of the hardstand had been reused for a ‘fresh produce' stand so long ago that it was empty and broken. They pulled into the wide, potholed drive, built for the trucks and buses that now took the freeway. They were the only car. Hannah looked through her wallet while Sean worked the pump. ‘You can put in fifty dollars' worth, after that we'd
have to go up by twenty.' Hannah watched the counter turning over by cents as Sean squeezed and released to get to exactly fifty.

The rest of the trip was easy, fast, uncongested. On this side of the roadblock, all the cars were from the ACT. Theirs were the only yellow plates and they stood out like flashing signs of guilt. Hannah was afraid they would be stopped for that alone.

Oscar grizzled from the back. ‘I'm hungry. My legs hurt.' ‘We're nearly there.' And it was enough truth to postpone the whinging. There was no need to tell him that when they got there they'd be turning around and doing it all again.

As they drove past the ‘Welcome to the ACT' sign, she felt like they had made it. Each remaining step seemed trivial, a process that had to be gone through. There was nothing standing in the way but the doing of it. She ratted through her bag for her phone, the next step. It rang out to voicemail. Damn it.

‘Zac, we're nearly there. Get your things and come out the front. Ring me back to let me know you got this message.'

Hannah watched the phone for subtle signs of Zac that it couldn't possibly convey. She held it until they pulled up across the road from the school gym. It looked just like any school day—behind the gym, the schoolyard was filled with kids, some of them playing soccer, some standing around in groups. Along the footpath in front, people walked, like they would on any day, so close she could touch them if she wound down the window. So strangely normal that it felt wrong. She pressed redial. ‘Zac, why do you have a phone if you don't answer it? Get out here, we're waiting outside.' She hung up and stared at the phone again.

Sean started to open the door. ‘I guess I'll have to go over.'

‘Give it a minute.'

‘A minute won't make any difference.' Sean shook the
wheel with exasperation. ‘He can't hear his phone.'

‘It took us five hours to get here. Five more minutes won't hurt.'

‘Five minutes won't make any difference either.' He pushed the car door all the way, and she put her hand on his arm, a gentle restraint.

‘You're not going like that.' She held a pair of gloves out to him.

‘Look at all these people.' He pointed to the pedestrians, the soccer players. ‘Not a glove, not a mask between them. That's how normal people behave.'

‘Not a chance. If they want to take a risk...'

‘They're not taking a risk, there is no risk. There's no panic because there is nothing to panic about. No disease here.'

‘Gloves and mask or you don't go out.'

‘This is absurd.'

‘Humour me.'

‘When there is a reason, I accept it. But I refuse to give in to irrationality.' He got one leg out of the car but she gripped his arm tighter.

‘Let me try one more time.' She let it ring until it went to voicemail. And again. And again.

‘If he was going to answer, he would have.' Sean pushed the door open again. ‘Give me the damned gloves.' Hannah's phone rang.

‘Yes. Zac.'

‘Hi Mum. There are a bunch of missed calls on my phone.'

‘I've been ringing and ringing.'

‘It was still under my pillow and we were playing this board game. Then someone said they heard something. And then we heard it again but we couldn't work out where it was.'

‘We're here, out the front. Get your things together and meet us out here. You can tell me the rest then.'

She watched the digits change on the dashboard clock. Ten
minutes at most and then she would... and then she would...
not
get out of the car and get him.

The double front doors of the gym bulged out. The left fell back, the right swung open and for a moment they saw Zac's outline in the doorway, before the door swung closed.

‘Where's Zac?' Oscar's light voice spoke for all of them.

Sean pushed his door open and swung his leg onto the bitumen. Hannah squeezed his arm but he pulled away. ‘I can't open the boot for his stuff from here.' He took the gloves, slipped them over his hands but tossed the mask back to her.

Both doors opened together this time. Zac came out of the right and another boy from the left. Behind them, slightly taller, was their teacher, Mr Abrahamson. He had always looked young to Hannah but today that was overwritten with tiredness around his eyes and a certain air of responsibility. Mr Abrahamson stopped on the far side of the road, his arm out in front of the two boys, keeping them in place. A couple walking down the street hesitated, looked to Sean and back to the boys, then chose to make a wide arc around the group.

‘Mr Halloran, Zac's got all his things and he's ready to go.' Mr Abrahamson looked at Zac with genuine affection. ‘He's been great. A real help with some of the other kids. I've told him how impressed I've been with his behaviour.'

‘That's good to hear.' The two men perched, leaning forward on opposite kerbs. They looked courtly and ludicrous, as if observing some arcane etiquette.

‘If you want to leave him, the school here has offered to look after us. They're going to try to find billets for the kids today.'

‘We're here, we'll take him back.'

‘Mr Halloran, I'm thinking about the kids. It's very safe here. I think maybe you should consider your options before Zac comes across the road. Do you have someone you can stay with in Canberra? I've made arrangements for the children
that I think are in their best interest and we don't know what's going to happen back in Sydney. You could try to get into a hotel if you don't know anyone, but better not say you came from Sydney.'

Hannah put her head out the window. ‘We're taking Zac home.'

She could see how earnestly he believed what he was saying. He seemed to give her statement more consideration than it deserved. ‘Even if you can't stay here, you should still consider leaving Zac. Sydney isn't the best option for him now. And you might not have a choice. The story is they're closing the highway. But once he's crossed the road, he's in your care. If you can't find anywhere to stay, I can't ask any of the families here to take him in.'

‘
From
Sydney.' Sean said firmly. ‘It's closed
from
Sydney. Unless you've heard of someone being turned back.'

Mr Abrahamson shifted on his feet. ‘One of the kids left here with their parents a couple of hours ago. They haven't come back.'

‘So we're going home and we're taking him.' Sean spoke with firmness.

‘Dad, can we take Daniel? His folks aren't coming.'

‘How do you know they're not?'

‘He rang them this morning, he wants to go home but they said they couldn't get here. He thinks his mum is sick and they don't want him to be in the house. We have to take Daniel.'

‘I guess...'

Hannah cut Sean off. ‘We'll talk about it, Zac.'

‘When, Mum? His mum will get better but if you leave him here, he's stuck. You came all this way for me, how do you think his folks feel? When are you going to talk about it? In the car when we're halfway to Sydney? Yeah, right. We're going now, so you have to tell me now.'

Daniel's mum had been so eager to come on Friday and had
sounded fine. Hannah tried to read Daniel's face. He was staring at the ground, his eyes turned away from them, although there was nothing unusual about the patch of concrete he was studying. His hair flopped forward, hiding any expression that might give her a clue to his feelings.

‘Zac, we can't just kidnap someone else's child. It sounds like they want him to stay here.'

‘And I can't let him go without his parent's permission.' Mr Abrahmson said to Zac. ‘You understand.'

Sean cut in. ‘Daniel, what's your parents' number?'

Hannah pulled Sean down so he could hear her whispers. ‘I think we should talk about this before we ring them.'

‘If they are happy for us to bring him back, why wouldn't we? He'll be better off with us than with strangers.' Sean stepped onto the road and held the phone out to Daniel.

‘Just hang on, no closer.' Hannah would have been out the door if she hadn't been on the wrong side of the car. As it was, she was stretched across the seat. ‘He can tell you the number, or at least wipe the phone with something before you give it to him.' She held out the hand wash. ‘Someone must have a tissue or a hanky.'

Zac disappeared inside the building and they waited in socially awkward silence until he returned with a handful of rough, brown hand towel, the kind found in school toilet blocks. The phone was transferred from hand to hand via disinfectant soaked paper, a round robin of conversation with Sean wiping the whole phone each time it crossed the road. Daniel dialled, spoke a few words, then Mr Abrahamson, then Sean. After Daniel nodded into the handset a couple of times, Sean took the phone again and spoke a few words decisively. Daniel stood with his arms crossed defensively, quarter turned away from everyone, his head bent. Zac, next to him, still faced forward, shuffling foot to foot, each step moving him slightly closer to Daniel.

‘That's settled, you're coming with us, Daniel. Sling your bags in the boot. In you hop.' Sean hesitated a beat. ‘Your mum'll be all right. I'm sure she's only got a cold.'

‘Wait, wait, wait.' Hannah was almost falling out of the car with urgency. ‘There are masks and gloves for you both.'

‘Mum!' Zac rolled his eyes at her. ‘We're not sick, no one's sick here, we've been here all the time.'

‘Meanwhile we've been breathing all over the car. So, better to isolate you.'

She put on her own gloves before getting two pairs out of the packaging, at arm's length. Zac put them on self-consciously, looking to Daniel from time to time to see if he thought it was stupid too. ‘If it's so dangerous why did you even come?'

As Zac slid into the back seat, Oscar tried to leap at him, jerked back by the seatbelt he forgot he was wearing.

‘Don't touch him!'

Oscar jumped, startled by the seatbelt and Hannah's screech. He looked to her with tear-filled eyes, not sure what he'd done wrong. She tried to calm her voice. ‘It's okay. You just can't touch him.' Oscar's face was a mix of guilt, fear and embarrassment.

‘Hey Mouse,' Sean leant into him, ‘Zac's been away for a few days, so he's got different germs from us. His germs are probably fine, and ours are too, but for a few days we have to keep our germs to ourselves.' Oscar unclenched a little.

‘I want to hug Zac.'

‘Not today, Mouse. Save your hugs for a few days.' Oscar drew himself in, trying to put space between him and Zac.

Half of Canberra seemed to consist of dusty tracts of land beside the road, dotted with gum trees. The best Hannah
could find was a triangle between nowhere and nowhere else, with no houses or office buildings nearby. It wasn't pretty but it was isolated. Oscar sat waiting for what would happen next on this strange day, cross-legged, a big smile on his face. As Hannah unpacked the eclectic assortment of food from the backpack, Zac stood looking down at it.