Burning for Revenge (22 page)

We did a stocktake, continuing it as we left the lane and found a hiding place in the backyard of a looted milk bar. They'd taken Homer's precious Swiss Army knife, as well as good knives from Fi and me. But the way Homer carried on you'd think he was the only one who lost anything.

They got everything I'd had in my pockets: a biro, a couple of Panadol in foil, my last tampon, a New Zealand compass, a photo of my parents, the ring Robyn gave me for my twelfth birthday and which I kept in my pocket, because I thought it was safer. Even my hankie. Worst of all, my watch, that had been a Christmas present from Grandma.

We'd been well and truly mugged, by a bunch of ten year olds.

To be on the safe side we took a really roundabout route back to Grandma's. We didn't know if the kids were still watching. We didn't want them to know where we were hiding, although I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd known our names, dates of birth, blood types and school grades. They'd been frighteningly efficient. I wondered if they'd been the ones squatting at Grandma's, but I thought there were too many of them for that.

When we got there and told Lee what had happened he was at first incredulous and then depressed. "Unbelievable," he kept saying. "After what we've been through. Unbelievable. God, what's going to happen to us? Even if we end up winning this war, the whole country's going to be a psychiatric hospital."

We sat glumly around the dining room table, where we had a view into the street. No one had the heart to disagree with Lee.

"Well, what's next?" Fi asked eventually. "We have to make plans. We can't just sit here for the next six months. We've got a lot of stuff to work out."

She looked straight at me as she said it. All I could think was how much we'd changed, and in such subtle ways. BTW, before the war, Fi would never have taken the lead like this. Especially not in front of Homer and Lee. She would have waited until we two were alone and then we would have talked it through between us. It was only a little thing and there was a time when I mightn't even have noticed it, but I noticed it then, and I felt a bit sad. So many things had changed that I clung even harder to the few things that hadn't.

"Well, we should try to stay here for a few days," I said. "Obviously we all want to get back to Hell but until the search dies down we daren't go back into that area."

"Food'll be a big problem here," Lee said.

"Yes, and security."

"Yeah, not just from the enemy, and the squatters, but from those bloody little sewer rats too."

"On the other hand..." said Homer.

He didn't finish the sentence and we were all puzzled for a moment until I suddenly realised and said: "Oh, your parents."

"Yep. I know it's a one in a million chance..."

He was right about that.

"We don't have to make a decision now," I said. "We should try to call Colonel Finley again tonight. He might have some suggestions."

"Yeah, so might Santa Claus," Lee said.

"Well he might."

I meant Colonel Finley, but it came out wrongly.

"It'd be a long hike to Hell from here," Fi said.

"At least we've still got food there."

"We hope."

"How can we get food in Stratton?" Homer asked.

"There's enough in the vegetable garden to last a week maybe. It's not exactly a gourmet diet, but at least we won't starve. And the longer the summer goes, the more new growth'll come up."

"Great," said Homer.

Homer wasn't designed to be a vegetarian.

"Those kids probably don't have a clue that vegetables grow in gardens," Fi said. "They probably think they're manufactured out the back of the supermarket. There's probably lots of gardens around here where we'd find stuff."

That was a good idea, although there was something in Fi's voice that made me suspect she wanted to sit the kids down at a long table and feed them greens. It was a frightening thought.

"It's not like we're trapped in the middle of New York," I said. "If we follow that creek I reckon we'd be in the bush in an hour."

"Yeah," Homer said. "That's true. If we did use this as a base for a while we could butcher some meat and bring it in. I don't mind vegetarian for a few days if I know there's half a dozen lamb chops waiting at the end of it."

"Half a dozen!" Fi said, looking faint.

"We need a safer way to cook though," I said. "I think it's really dangerous having the smell of a fire wafting through the neighbourhood."

"Especially with those kids around," Fi said.

"Yeah, they're scary. We're going to have to do something about them."

"I've got an idea," Kevin said.

I nearly swallowed my tongue.

"Yeah?" we all said eagerly. Too eagerly. For a moment I thought he was going to back off again. But finally he forced a few more words out.

"Boucher's. The trout farm."

"Yeah, what is that place?" I asked. I'd been past the turnoff often enough but had never been down there. It was about eight kilometres from Stratton.

"I've been there," Fi said. I wish she hadn't said anything, because for Kevin to start talking again was such a big deal that I wanted to encourage him to keep going. But she took over.

"It's great. They have this big dam filled with trout and they give you fishing rods and everything, and you catch as many as you want, then you clean them in a little shed and take them home and cook them. The cleaning's yucky, but I just smiled nicely at Mr. Boucher and he did it for me."

"You're a disgrace, Fi," I said.

"Typical woman," Lee said. "You all pretend to be feminists until you want a guy to do something for you, then you go all gooey and girly and wear a short skirt."

This was such a boringly predictable comment from Lee that neither of us bothered to answer.

"Anyway it was a good idea, Kevin," I said. "If we could score a few trout it'd make all the difference."

"Ellie, do you do that deliberately?" Lee asked. "Cos it sounds so sterile."

"What?" I said.

"Oh you know, that primary-school-teacher voice. That was a lovely idea, Kevin. You are a clever boy.'"

Kevin got such a smug smile on his face that I could have hit him.

We hadn't had a good argument for a long time—we'd been too busy—but we sure made up for it then. Sometimes it seemed like Lee was just spoiling for a fight.

I went upstairs. I wasn't planning on having a sleep, but I lay down on a bed and went out like I'd had a general anaesthetic.

It took me a few days to get over the argument. Normally I don't think I hold grudges for long. But I felt especially betrayed by Lee. I felt he owed me a favour or two. To be totally honest, I sort of thought that the fact we'd slept together might have made a difference. OK, I know it means less to boys than it does to girls—well, that's what my friends all say—but I still thought it would have made a difference.

And Fi hadn't stuck up for me, either. That hurt. With only two of us against three guys I thought we needed to take care of each other. I'd have taken her side if Lee or Homer or Kevin had a go at her.

So I sulked for a while. I spent most of the time doing something that was very important to me. I hadn't said much to the others about my reasons for wanting to stay at Grandma's. Of course it made sense to hide there and not try to reach Hell just yet. But my main reason was a great desire to take care of Grandma's things, to tidy up her house, to restore it to a decent state. That meant collecting all her letters and papers, which were scattered around the house, and burying them in a small Esky in the garden. It meant wrapping her best clothes in any plastic I could find—the shower curtains were a big help—and hiding them in a dark corner under the house. It meant picking up the remnants of her jewellery and ornaments, and storing them in among the pink batts in the ceiling.

I couldn't help feeling bitter as I looked at the pathetic little pile of jewellery. I could hold it all in one hand. Grandma had owned many valuable and beautiful things, which would have come to me one day. Many times when I was little she had got them out, put them on me, told me their stories. There was a silver and emerald necklace, a pearl necklace, a white jade brooch, a heavy gold bracelet, at least a dozen rings. One of the rings had a ruby the size of a peach stone.

Now those treasures were reduced to a few broken earrings, four bangles, a Wedgewood brooch and an empty locket.

The dusting and sweeping and tidying took a lot of time and energy. There was so much to do that it wasn't hard to keep myself busy, and in fact I hardly saw the others. When I did they seemed much the same as me anyway: kind of switched off. Kevin really did do some good stuff in the garden, clearing and watering and fertilising. Fi became the main cooking person and Homer was surprisingly good at helping her. But all of us seemed to spend time sitting staring at nothing, in different parts of the house. Quite unexpectedly I'd come across Homer or Fi, for example, slumped in an armchair looking like they'd been hit over the head with a pile driver. They'd stay like that for hours. I was the same. I'd curl up in the big old brown leather armchair at the rolltop desk and suck my thumb, while I gazed at the wallpaper. After some time I'd find that three hours had passed, but I don't know where they went. Maybe into the limbo where lost hours are stored, where thoughts and feelings that can't be put in categories are sent for safekeeping.

It took me a few days more to realise something else: that Lee was hardly to be seen. I went missing mentally but he went missing physically. At first I thought he was going off into the garden, in the shed or up a tree. Then Fi told me he was going a bit further than that. We were snuggled up in a double bed in a spare bedroom. It was very early, probably only 8:30 p.m., but that's the way we lived. The long hours on sentry and the lack of electricity and the lost sleep of the last few weeks: all those things had turned us into good little boys and girls who went to bed early.

Fi said: "Do you know what Lee's getting up to?"

"No. How do you mean?"

"Well, he's gone a bit feral. I think he goes into town on his own."

"Does he? What for?" I felt a little stirring of fear as I asked. Knowing Lee, if he was going into town it wouldn't be to visit the library.

Without waiting for Fi to answer my question I added: "What's wrong with him? Haven't we done enough for a while? When will he be satisfied? When he's dead I suppose."

I felt so angry and bitter suddenly, like I'd retched up something bad and swallowed it again. That's the taste of war.

"You can't blame him," Fi said. "Imagine if you found out the way he did. About his parents, I mean. It's amazing he's not totally crazy."

"Do you think he is a bit crazy then?"

Oh no. Just ... he's always been different. All that stuff you told me that his parents went through to get here, of course it'd make you different. It'd be strange if it didn't."

"He always seems so focused," I said. "I used to watch him playing his violin, in the school orchestra. It was like nothing else existed."

"Oh yes. You can tell so much about people by the instruments they play, don't you think?"

I'd never thought about that before.

"Guitar players are really loose," Fi said. "Like hippies or something. So alternative. And piano players are always perfectionists."

"Drummers are always idiots. Like Matt Cohen. He just got off on making a loud noise. Plus going to drum lessons got him out of class a couple of times a week."

"So what are violinists?"

I had to think about it. "Well," I said at last, "I think they're really sensitive, and kind of deep. The way Lee looked when he played. His eves were just so focused and at the same time, a million miles away."

"You're still in love with him," Fi said suddenly. I knew what she was doing; testing for a response, teasing, curious to see what I'd say. I was going to give some stupid funny answer, but I didn't. Instead I thought about it seriously. I hadn't thought about it for ages, hadn't wanted to, but now I tried to decide: did I or didn't I? I love him, I love him not. Where were the daisies when I needed them?

On the one hand there were Lee's beautiful eyes and his slow smile, his long lean brown body, his intelligence and honesty, his strength. Strength inside as well as outside. On the other hand there was the fact that he could be so cold and violent sometimes. Even more than me, and I was bad enough these days.

Also on the other hand was the terrible thing I'd done with Adam in New Zealand, that I felt so ashamed of, and that had put me off boys in a pretty major way.

Anyway, Lee and I were too young to have a relationship that went for years. That might have been OK in the old days, in my parents' generation. My mother was eighteen when she got married and my father was twenty-three. But that's not what I wanted.

The biggest thing was always the war. Sometimes it seemed like everything came down to that. I couldn't concentrate on a relationship while all around us were flames and death and hatred. Sometimes days went past without me thinking about liking Lee or anyone else, days when I didn't dream of some boy or imagine myself in someone's arms or feel the slightest bit interested in kissing and being kissed. Thanks to this invasion I was going to end up a sterile cold lonely old woman.

Now I turned to Fi, shifting my whole body around and finding a more comfortable position for my head on the pillows.

"Maybe I still do. I don't know. I mean, sure that's the easy answer to give, the automatic answer, but I seriously don't know."

"Well, you're in a good position in one way. You've got no opposition. If Lee wants a relationship it's either you or no one. And I think he still likes you."

I ignored the last part of what she'd said and concentrated on the other bit.

"There's you."

"No thank you. I like Lee a lot, and I think he's one of the most amazing people I've ever met, but I've never been interested in him that way."

"Well, maybe he and Homer'll decide they're gay and start going out with each other."