Tomorrow When The War Began (5 page)

Lee looked at me and said, ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I’m in a funny mood. A bad
mood.’

‘Yes, you seem a bit wound up.’

‘Maybe it’s those fires. I can’t figure them
out.’

‘But you’ve been uptight most of this
hike.’

‘Have I? Yes, I suppose I have. I don’t know
why.’

‘It’s strange,’ Lee said slowly, ‘but I feel
the same way.’

‘Do you? You don’t show it.’

‘I try not to.’

‘Yes, I believe that.’

‘Maybe it’s guilt,’ I added, after a while. ‘I
feel bad about missing the Show. We exhibit there quite a lot. Dad
thinks we should support it. It takes ages, grooming stock and
getting them in there and brushing and feeding and walking them,
and then presenting them. Dad was cool about it, and I did help
groom them, but I left him with an awful lot of work.’

‘Do you only take them in there to help keep
the Show going?’

‘No ... It’s quite an important show,
especially for Charolais. It helps keep your name in front of
people, so they realise you’re a serious breeder. You’ve got to be
so PR conscious nowadays.’

‘That’s one thing the same about restaurants
... Here they come.’

Sure enough Robyn and Fi, the last two people
left in the water, were coming out, dripping and laughing. Fi
looked fantastic, flicking her long hair out of her eyes and moving
with the grace of a heron. I sneaked a look at Homer. Kevin was
talking to him and Homer was trying to act like he was listening,
while he stared frantically at Fi out of the corner of his eye. But
looking again at Fi, I was sure that she knew. There was something
just a bit self-conscious about the way she was walking, and the
way she stood there in the cooling sunlight, like a model doing a
fashion shoot on a beach. I think she knew, and loved it.

It was about half an hour from the swimming
hole to home. I don’t know if I was happy that day – those tense
and edgy feelings were getting stronger and stronger – but I do
know I’ve never been happy since.

Chapter Six

The dogs were dead. That was my first thought.
They didn’t jump around and bark when we drove in, or moan with joy
when I ran over to them, like they always had done. They lay beside
their little galvanised iron humpies, flies all over them,
oblivious to the last warmth of the sun. Their eyes were red and
desperate and their snouts were covered with dried froth. I was
used to them stretching their chains to their limits – they did
that in their manic dancing whenever they saw me coming – but now
their chains were stretched and still and there was blood around
their necks, where their collars had held. Of the five dogs four
were young. They shared a water bucket but somehow they had knocked
it over and it lay on its side, dry and empty. I checked them
quickly, in horror, one by one: all dead. I ran to Millie, their
old mother, whom we’d separated from the young dogs because they
irritated her. Her bucket was still standing and held a little
water; as I came close to her she suddenly gave a feeble wag of her
tail and tried to stand. I was shocked that she was still alive,
after I’d made up my mind that she too must be dead.

The rational thing to do would have been to
leave her and rush into the house, because I knew that nothing so
awful could have happened to the dogs unless something more awful
had happened to my parents. But I had already stopped thinking
rationally. I slipped Millie’s chain off and the old dog staggered
to her feet, then collapsed forward onto her front knees. I
decided, brutally, that I couldn’t spend any more time with her.
I’d helped her enough. I called to Corrie ‘Do something for the
dog’, and started running for the house. Corrie was already moving
that way; her mind was working faster than the others, who were
still standing around looking shocked, starting to realise that
something was wrong but not making the connections that I was
making. I was making them too fast, and that was adding to my
terror. Corrie hesitated, turned towards the dogs, then called to
Kevin, ‘Look after the dogs Kev’. Then she followed me.

In the house nothing was wrong, and that was
what was wrong. There was no sign of life at all. Everything was
neat and tidy. At that time of day there should have been food
spread out on the kitchen table, there should have been dishes in
the sink, the TV should have been chattering in the background. But
all was silent. Corrie opened the door behind me and came in
quietly. ‘Jesus, what’s happened,’ she said, not as a question. The
tone of her voice terrified me even more. I just stood there.

‘What’s wrong with the dogs?’ she asked.

‘They’re all dead except Millie, and she’s
nearly dead.’

I was looking around for a note, a note to me,
but there was nothing.

‘Let’s ring someone,’ she said. ‘Let’s ring my
parents.’

‘No. Ring Homer’s parents, they’re nearest.
They’ll know.’

She picked up the phone and handed it to me. I
turned it to ‘Talk’ and started pressing numbers, then realised
that I’d heard no dial tone. I held it closer to my ear. There was
nothing. I felt a new kind of fear now; a kind of fear I hadn’t
even known about before.

‘There’s nothing,’ I said to Corrie.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she said again. Her eyes got very
wide and she started going quite white.

Robyn and Fi came into the kitchen, with the
others close behind them.

‘What’s happening?’ they were asking. ‘What’s
wrong?’

Kevin came in carrying Millie.

‘Get her some food from the coolroom,’ I
said.

‘I’ll go,’ Homer said.

I tried to explain everything, but I got
confused trying to do it as quickly as possible, and ended up
taking too long. So I stopped, and just said wildly, ‘We’ve got to
do something’.

At that moment Homer came in with a bowl of
mince and a smell. ‘The power’s off in the coolroom,’ he said. ‘It
stinks terrible.’

‘Terribly,’ I said, in absent-minded fear.

He just looked at me.

Robyn went to the TV as Homer and Kevin tried
to persuade Millie to eat. We watched Robyn as she switched on the
set, but it too was dead. ‘This is weird,’ she said.

‘Did they say they were going away?’ Fi
asked.

I didn’t bother to answer.

‘If your grandmother got sick ...’ Corrie
said.

‘So they cut off the power?’ I asked
sarcastically.

‘Some big electrical problem?’ Kevin
suggested. ‘Maybe if the power was off for days they had to
move.’

‘They’d have left a note,’ I snapped. ‘They
wouldn’t let the dogs die.’

There was a moment’s silence. No one knew what
to say.

‘There’s just no explanation that fits all
this,’ Robyn said.

‘It’s like UFO stuff,’ Kevin said. ‘Like
aliens have taken them away.’ Then, seeing the expression on my
face, he quickly added, ‘I’m not trying to make a joke of it Ellie.
I know something bad’s happened. I just can’t figure what it could
possibly be.’

Lee whispered something to Robyn. I didn’t
bother to ask them what it was. When I saw the naked fear on
Robyn’s face, I didn’t want to ask.

I made a big mental effort to get control of
myself.

‘Let’s get back to the Landrover,’ I said.
‘Bring the dog. We’ll go down to Homer’s.’

‘Wait a sec,’ Lee said. ‘Have you got a
transistor radio? A battery one?’

‘Um, yes, I don’t know where,’ I said, looking
at him strangely. I still didn’t know what he had in mind but I
didn’t like the look on his face, any more than I’d liked the look
on Robyn’s. ‘Why?’

But I didn’t want him to answer.

‘I’ve got my Walkman in the Landrover,’ Robyn
said.

He turned to her. ‘Have you heard any news
bulletins since we’ve been away?’

‘No. I tried a few times to pick up radio
stations, but I couldn’t get any. I guess the cliffs around Hell
cut them off.’

‘Can you find your radio?’ Lee said to me.

‘I guess.’ I ran to my bedroom. I didn’t want
to be wasting time like this; I desperately wanted to get to
Homer’s place and run to kind Mrs Yannos and have her hug me and
hold me and explain everything away, so that it became just a
simple little mistake. But there was something terrible in Lee’s
mind and I couldn’t ignore it.

I came back with the radio, switching it on as
I rushed along the corridor, spinning the tuner to find a station.
By the time I got to the kitchen I’d already scanned the whole
range once and got nothing but static. Must have gone too fast, I
thought, like I always do. I never learn. I started the second
search as the others watched anxiously, uncomprehending. This time
I was slow and careful, but the result was the same: nothing.

Now we were all really frightened. We looked
at Lee, as though we expected him magically to have the answer. He
just shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to
Homer’s.’

As with the radio, so with the Landrover. I
revved it so hard and dropped the clutch so roughly that Kevin, who
was still sitting down, hit his head and hurt it, nearly dropping
Millie, whom he was still nursing. The Landie kangaroo-hopped a few
metres and stalled. I could hear Grandma’s voice saying ‘More
haste, less speed’. I took a deep breath and tried again, more
calmly. This time was better. We went out the gate and down the
road, with me saying to Homer, ‘I forgot to check the chooks’.

‘OK Ellie,’ he said, ‘it’ll be cool. We’ll
work it out.’ But he didn’t look at me, just sat forward on the
seat, peering anxiously through the windscreen.

Homer’s place is about a k and a half from
ours.

The one thing we wanted to see, the only
thing, as we approached, was movement.

There was none. As we bumped over the cattle
grid I was pressing the horn, making it roar, until Lee called out
urgently from the back, ‘Don’t do that Ellie’. Again I was scared
to ask why, but I stopped pressing the horn. We skidded hard to a
halt near the front door and Homer hit the ground running. He flung
the door open and ran in, calling ‘Mum! Dad!’

But before I’d even left the driver’s seat the
hollowness of his voice gave me my answer.

I walked towards the door. As I did so I heard
the Landrover start up behind me. I turned and looked. Lee was at
the wheel. I watched. He was a terrible driver, but with much
over-revving he got the vehicle into the shadows under the big old
peppercorn tree, behind the tank stand. Memories of a light-hearted
conversation in Hell suddenly came back to me. And suddenly I knew,
and I hated and feared the memory. Lee climbed out of the car and
came walking towards me, heading for the front door. I screamed at
him, ‘Lee! You’re wrong! Stop doing these things! Stop thinking
these things! You’re wrong!’

Robyn came up behind me and grabbed my
arm.

‘He probably is,’ she said. ‘But the radio
...’ She paused. ‘Hold yourself together Ellie. Just till we
know.’

We walked into the house together. As we went
through the front door into the bleak dead silence she added, ‘Pray
hard Ellie. Pray really hard. I am.’

I could hear a bellowing noise from out the
back of the house, so I walked straight through to the yard, and
found Homer, grim-faced, trying to milk their cow. Milk was leaking
from her teats, and she was shifting uncomfortably and bellowing
whenever he tried to touch her.

‘Can you milk, Ellie?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, sorry Homer. I never learned. I’ll ask
the others.’

As I went back in he called out, ‘The budgie
in the sunroom Ellie’.

‘OK,’ I called, and ran. But Corrie had
already reached the budgie who was alive, but with just a little
bit of mouldy water in its cage. We brought him fresh water, which
he drank like Dad with his first beer after shearing.

‘You’ve got a milker at home, haven’t you?’ I
asked Corrie. ‘Can you take over from Homer, out the back?’

‘Sure,’ she said, and went. We’d all started
acting with unnatural calmness. I knew how frightened Corrie and
the others must now be for their own families, but there was
nothing we could do for them quite yet. I took the budgie into the
kitchen, where Lee was putting down the phone. I raised my eyebrows
at Lee; he shook his head. Homer came in a moment later.

‘There’s an RF radio in the office,’ he said,
without looking at anyone.

‘What’s an RF radio?’ Fi asked. I hadn’t
noticed her, standing in the door of the pantry.

‘Rural Firefighting,’ Homer said briefly.

‘Would it be safe?’ Robyn asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Homer said. ‘Who knows
anything?’

With desperate urgency, passionate to convince
them, I said, ‘This is ridiculous. I know what you’re thinking, and
it is completely absolutely impossible. Absolutely not possible.
These things just don’t happen, not here, not in this country.’
Then, with sudden hope, I remembered something. ‘Those fires!
They’ll be out fighting those fires. There must have been some bad
ones, so bad they couldn’t get back.’

Homer said, ‘Ellie, they weren’t that kind of
fire. You know that. You know what a bad fire looks like.’

Lee said, ‘I don’t know much about these
things, but shouldn’t your RF radio be alive with voices, while
those fires are burning?’

‘Yes!’ said Homer, turning in a hurry.

‘But there’s no power,’ Fi said.

‘They have back-up batteries,’ I said. We
rushed after Homer and crowded into the little office. Homer was
turning the volume knob on the radio up to full, but there was no
need. Endless monotonous static filled the room. ‘Did you check the
frequency?’ I asked quietly. Homer nodded, his face full of misery.
I wanted to hug him, looked for Fi to see if she might be going to,
then went ahead when I realised she’d left the room again.

After a minute Homer said, ‘Do you think we
should send out a call on the radio?’

‘What do you think Ellie?’ Lee asked me.

I knew I had to admit all the possibilities
now. I remembered how tense things had been before we left, all
those politicians shouting and carrying on. Trying to think calmly
I said, ‘The only reason for calling up would be if we can get help
for our families. If they’re in trouble, or danger. But if they
are, everyone must be in the same boat. And the authorities must
know about it. So we wouldn’t be helping our families by
transmitting the call ...’

‘The only other reason for calling is because
we’re so desperate to find out. But OK, I admit we may create
danger for ourselves ...’ I tried to keep my voice steady, ‘... if
there’s something bad happened ... if there’s people out there
...’

‘So on balance?’ Lee asked.

‘I don’t think we should call,’ I said
sadly.

‘I agree,’ Homer said.

‘Me too,’ Lee said.

‘Then it’s Corrie’s turn,’ Homer said. ‘And
Kevin’s. I don’t even know where Robyn lives.’

‘Just outside town,’ I said.

‘Well, I guess geographically Corrie and Kevin
come first.’ He looked at Lee, who nodded without speaking. He’d
already figured out who was last.

The seven of us came together in the kitchen,
with almost perfect timing Corrie carrying a bucket of milk. The
milk stank. It looked like pale scrambled eggs. Kevin was with her.
They were gripping each other’s hands, hanging on tight I poured
some of the milk into a salad bowl and gave it to Millie, who at
last started to show some enthusiasm. She sniffed it, then lapped
it eagerly.

Kevin said to Homer, ‘Do you mind if we go to
our places? We’ll go on our own if we can have a vehicle or ...’ he
looked at me, ‘... the Landrover.’

‘Dad said I was the only ...’ I started, then
stopped, realising how weak it sounded. But I’d done enough logical
thinking in the Yannos’ office.

Robyn took over. ‘We’ve got to think, guys. I
know we all want to rush off, but this is one time we can’t afford
to give in to feelings. There could be a lot at stake here. Lives
even. We’ve got to assume that something really bad is happening,
something quite evil. If we’re wrong, then we can laugh about it
later, but we’ve got to assume that they’re not down the pub or
gone on a holiday.’