Before This Is Over Read online

  “Hey, I picked up your schoolbooks.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell you what, why don’t we do some painting?”

  “Okay.”

  Out on the patio she set up the paints and brushes and tacked up some sheets of used printer paper on the glass door in lieu of an easel, just like last year, before he started school. She even dug out his painting smock, an old shirt of Sean’s that on Oscar nearly reached the floor.

  The third time she called him, he came from the TV, sluggishly, but refused her help getting into the smock—a self-sufficiency clearly learned at school. Even rolled up as far as they could go, the sleeves were too long and he flapped his hands around in the wide openings, engulfed in billows of fabric.

  “What should I paint?”

  “I don’t know. What craft were you doing at school?”

  “People we know. We made a chart of all the people we know, and how they go with us. You know, lines that say who they are.”

  “Well, why don’t you paint someone you know who isn’t here. Maybe you could paint where they are as well.”

  Oscar gave intense concentration to the featureless stick figure he was creating. She guessed it was a boy only because it wasn’t wearing a dress. He made two brown dots for the eyes and, with the brush, he scribbled the same brown all around the top of the head. Brown eyes and brown hair could be Sean or Zac, or lots of people.

  After a burst of effort, Oscar stopped, as if turned off by a switch.

  “What is it, sweetie?”

  “I don’t know how to paint a Canberra.”

  “It’s a city, it’s got buildings and trees. You can imagine it.” Oscar looked dubious about the propriety of “making up” Canberra. He painted a tree without much enthusiasm, then moved to the next sheet.

  In the top left corner, he constructed a stick figure. Around it he painted a wonky black box and another much narrower box next to the first. “That’s Mr. Turner’s class. Dylan’s in that class.”

  “You could paint you and Dylan playing.”

  “But I’m here.”

  “You could pretend you were there.”

  Oscar gave her a scornful look and went back to his work. This was like a gift of a few more moments of toddlerhood. Just him and her, and nothing that had to be done. When she thought back to last year, already she couldn’t remember how they had filled the time. Naps helped, but she was certain he wouldn’t be going back to naps. All those hours in a day. She started making a mental list of things they could do together and, more important, things he could do by himself. At least at the end of the week, Zac would be home. If she could prevail on him to do stuff with Oscar, they could be company for each other.

  She was deep in her thoughts and didn’t quite hear when Oscar said, “Am I going to die?”

  “Hmm, what’s that, Mouse?” She replayed the sentence. “No. Why would you die?”

  “That’s what happens. You have to stay home if you get sick. And then you die.”

  “Who said that? You’re not sick.” He stopped painting to listen. “You’re staying home so you don’t get sick.”

  “So will the people at school die?”

  “Has someone been scaring you about getting sick?”

  “At assembly they told us to wash our hands and not to eat anybody’s lunch ’cause you’ll get sick. Jack said Rose ate Anna’s apple at lunch and she was going to die, but she didn’t.”

  Hannah pulled Oscar and his paint-splotched smock into her arms. “I hope no one we know is going to die. The government is going to do everything they can to keep us safe.”

  “Will the government come to our house? You and Daddy can keep me safe. Then the government doesn’t have to do it.”

  “When we have to, we’ll all stay at home, just Zac and you and me and Dad, and we’ll be fine, okay? You don’t have to worry. But for now, we’re going to have a holiday, just you and me.”

  “Okay.” And suddenly the need to finish his painting completely replaced any thoughts of death.

  He abandoned the painting as enthusiastically as he had undertaken it. It was only just twelve, but she figured they could stretch out lunch for at least half an hour. And then he could start on his schoolwork. That would give her a chance to make progress on the manual. Enough, hopefully, to appease Kate.

  She rummaged around in the fridge for food she could use up. Half a cucumber, some cabanossi sausage. When she added the crackers to the slices on the plate, she noticed that everything was round, so she searched out foods that would continue the theme and added some dried apples and a cheese stick cut into tiny wheels. The apples were particularly pleasing—their circles within circles would tickle Oscar’s fancy.

  “Time for lunch.”

  He appeared in the door as soon as she called. “Can we have a picnic?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Oscar lay on the blanket in the sun, nibbling at a dried apple ring he’d pushed on his finger. His eyes closed for a moment—she could hope that nap times were back—but they popped open again. How easy it would be to curl up in the sun as well, but she had promised Kate a first pass by the end of the week, a draft she hadn’t done any work on yet.

  Hannah set up his schoolbooks and a couple of puzzle books on his little table and chair behind the door in the office. He stirred from the blanket, followed her in, and sank his head onto his table, undisturbed by the clack of her keyboard. After a few minutes, he raised his head and started looking through the activity books.

  “Hey, let’s do the schoolwork first and then you can have some fun.”

  “I like doing this one.” He pulled out a math book. For five minutes she read in silence, until the sound of a page turning broke her concentration.

  “Finish the first page, Mouse, before you start the next one.”

  “I have.”

  “Already?” What did they do at school all day? “Save the rest for later. What about doing some mazes? You like those.”

  That kept him quiet for just enough time for her to reread the last sentence before he popped out of his chair.

  “Look at this.” A thick scribbled line, crossing and crossing back through the boundaries of the maze.

  “Great, good job.”

  He kept up an almost constant chatter, narrating his every action, but if she dropped in a “Hmm” or “Is that so?” sporadically, she could read and keep him happy at the same time. Until she realized that he’d just said the same thing twice. “What, sweetie?”

  “Well, can I?”

  “Can you what?”

  “Play outside now?”

  “Sure you can.”

  The plastic clamshell filled with sand sat in one corner of the grass, pushed against the garden bed. She gladly took a break from working to open it for him and then left him, reluctantly. If she could only get another hour of work done, she’d take a break.

  But first she rang Sean and was sent to voicemail. “Hi, it’s me. If you have time, could you stop at a bookstore or a newsagent and get as many activity books as you can find? I’m going to need them.”

  Only half past one and already she was fighting the urge to crawl under her desk and sneak a nap, what with the trip to the school, the argument with Sean, and keeping Oscar occupied. But her exhaustion was overlaid with the nagging feeling that maybe somewhere something was wrong.

  She needed new words to make her calm, to know that right now everything was okay. But right now didn’t last long. Minutes, nanoseconds. In fact, maybe right now someone was typing terrible news, just about to click the “post” button. It was an unsatisfiable addiction.

  First Canberra’s weather. Fine and sunny. Minimum of three, maximum of sixteen. A nice day, but a bit chilly tonight. Zac would be at Parliament House now. Maybe walking around the grassy hill.

  The front page of the Herald snapped in place. “Eleven More Suspected Cases.” She scanned the article. More than what? More than last night? If she’d checked this mor
ning, she would know.

  The story was full of vague assertions and paragraphs lifted from previous articles. The only real detail was at the bottom of the page, a table of hospitals and cases. Newcastle still only had two deaths—the doctor and the very first woman who’d been at that conference—but they now had nine confirmed cases. On the North Shore, all seven cases were unconfirmed. And at the hospital just down the road, the hospital she had been at on Monday—her hospital—four unconfirmed cases.

  She looked around for Oscar. As if she would see a haze of contagion drifting towards him.

  He was standing with his toes on the middle rail of the fence, his chin not quite reaching the top. His head was tilted back so he could see over. Blanched tips and red knuckles betrayed the strain in his fingers as he held up his weight. On the other side, Gwen was patiently listening to what appeared to be a long and convoluted story. Through the glass, Hannah could barely hear the sound of their voices. Gwen smiled at Oscar, gently patted his small hand, then picked it off the fence and held it in hers.

  The very old and the very young, that was who the Internet said were most at risk. Oscar climbed down from the fence and ran back to her in the office.

  “Gwen asked why I wasn’t at school. She said I don’t look sick.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said I’m not sick. I said I’m home so I don’t get sick.”

  “Sweetie, it’s probably best if you don’t touch anyone over the fence.” She guided him back to the house, the bathroom, and soap. “Not Gwen or Ella or Natalie, not until you go back to school. You can talk to them, that’s fine, we don’t want to be rude. Just don’t go near the fence.”

  Wedged between Hannah and the sink, Oscar stood on a low stool, washing the carrots while she reached her arms around him to scrub the potatoes. It kept him occupied and he liked to feel useful, grown-up. The carrots came out clean, if dripping wet, and most of the water ended up on the counter or down the front of his T-shirt.

  “Mouse.” She tried to sound stern, at least stern enough to impress Oscar. “Be a little careful. Try to keep the water in the sink, okay?”

  “I can see Natalie. Is she making Ella’s dinner too?”

  Through the window and over the top of the side fence, Natalie’s head silently bobbed around in her kitchen. Here they both were, doing the same things at the same time, no more than a couple of meters apart. A mirror life, in spitting distance and yet totally isolated from hers, intersecting only to pass conversation on the front step or in the back lane.

  “Don’t stare at her, Mouse, it’s rude.”

  “But that’s where the window is, and I’m standing here. I can’t not look there.” Fair point, neither could she. He twisted himself so his hands were in the sink and his head pointed at the ceiling.

  Hannah glanced across to see Natalie laugh as she floated across the room and out of sight in the direction of the garden. Through her own back door, Hannah heard Natalie’s back door open. She heard her call Ella for dinner and Ella call back.

  They could have moved this window when they were renovating to give a view of the garden, but she’d had other distractions that year. The time she had now with Sean and Zac and Oscar had been paid for by putting one foot in front of the other when her feet were as far as she could see. She had done what was required of her, been through all the hard stuff. She should get to sit this one out, right here, with her family. Other people could deal with this virus, other people could get sick—she had paid already.

  Sean offered to do bedtime, but that meant giving up the last moments with Oscar before sleep claimed him. Still, the day had worn Hannah out, so she chose a short book, and by the time she kissed him good night, his eyes were nearly closed.

  She sneaked into their bedroom. Sean had already told her once tonight not to bother, but it was Wednesday and Zac hadn’t rung. Independence was important, but all she had to do was press the dial button.

  “Hi.” He sounded bright and alert.

  “Hi, Zac, it’s me.” She spoke softly, so as not to wake Oscar in the next room. “How’s Canberra?”

  “Mum.”

  “Were you expecting someone else?” She was mortified to hear herself sound so much like a mother.

  “Well, we had to go into a room for four, so Daniel and Ben ended up in a room with two other kids, and we’re not allowed to walk around the corridors unless we’re going to the activity room, and their room’s the other way, so we can’t go there and they can’t come here, so they keep ringing us. They rang everybody else’s phone.”

  “So are you having fun?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is Canberra interesting?”

  “I guess.”

  “Is everybody well?”

  “Mum”—she could hear the sigh—“no one is sick here. What do you think?”

  She waited for him to say something more. “Well, stay safe. Have a good time.”

  “’Kay. Bye.” And he was gone to more immediate things.

  She opened the living room door quietly. Sean was halfway between standing and sitting on the edge of the sofa, his face screwed up and flushed behind the blue reflected light of the television. He took a step towards the images and turned a face to her as if about to pour out what he had just seen, but she put her finger to her lips. She softly closed the door behind her, but he had already slipped out the other way. She followed his shadow through the unlit kitchen and found him silhouetted by the moon and the fairy lights from the garden.

  Hannah tried to read his face in the gloom. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s an island. It’s an island. How hard can it be to keep something off an island? Germs can’t swim. Sick people can’t swim. You shut the fucking airport and we’re all okay.”

  “So we shut our door, and we’re okay.”

  “Someone died today. There are people dead. That’s not okay. One or two dead people”—his figure shrugged with contempt—“well, that just happens sometimes. Nothing anyone can do about that. If it was ten people all at once, that would be a disaster. Enact a law, rebuild a highway.” Sean punctuated his anger by pummeling the darkness in front of him. “But if you space them out, ten dead people just not all at once, that doesn’t require any action.”

  “Ten. I didn’t know it was ten.”

  “Not yet, but this is how it started in Manchester. Just an isolated infection yesterday, an unfortunate death today. Neatly spaced out, but each one sooner than the last until it explodes.”

  “It’s not like this wasn’t coming. I said this was coming.”

  “So are you happy about this? Are you happy that you’re right?” His raised arms shook slightly.

  “Why would I be happy?” Hannah took a deep breath to try to slow herself down. “I don’t want there to be an epidemic, but since there will be, maybe you could listen to what I’ve been saying. And stay home.”

  “It didn’t have to come here. The government could have cut it off before it started, but they missed a chance. They should have shut the airports. Someone has died. It’s already too late.”

  Hannah soothed his arm down and held his hand, as if she could anchor him. “And in this reality, they didn’t, so there’s no use wishing for a different one. We work with what is, we have to if we want to get through. Please. Stay home.”

  “That doesn’t solve it.”

  “It does for us, which is all I can care about now.”

  “What about everybody else? It doesn’t have to be a crisis. They could slow it down, they could buy time, they could shut the damned airport.” He walked off into the dark of the garden, and she let him go. She didn’t have anything to say except yes.

  Ten thirty. Two and a half hours of doing something that looked approximately like work to anyone looking into the office from the outside, and still no nearer to completing the reading she’d planned for herself this morning. But the only people looking in from the outside were Oscar and Sean, roughhousing on the
small patch of grass that passed for a backyard. She was enthralled by their physicality, something she noticed between Sean and both the boys that she could only imitate. It seemed to come naturally to the three of them.

  In two hours’ time, by agreement, she would break for lunch and Sean would get the uninterrupted office time for the afternoon. Sean’s heartbeat was in the house now, and she could feel it. There was a rightness in the three of them being within the same walls. And in six hours’ time, she would have Zac too.

  Canberra, windy, clouds clearing in the afternoon, fourteen. She tried to think herself six degrees colder, to feel what he was feeling. Tried to imagine the walls of the National Gallery, the paintings he would be looking at. She tried to think herself into his thoughts—coming home, the art in front of him, or some computer game. Even when he was right in front of her, she had no access.

  Twenty past eleven. She watched Oscar carry a can of cat food out to the patio. Mr. Moon followed, weaving in between his legs, fawningly rubbing against him, as if Oscar were not already feeding him. Oscar squatted on his heels and put down the can, engulfing Mr. Moon in a hug, and the cat took the opportunity to stretch out his neck and lick the top layer from the tin. He had become Oscar’s in the last few days, to be found demanding pats while Oscar watched TV on the sofa, or hidden at the bottom of his bed before lights-out. A furry substitute for friends or a brother.

  Twelve fifteen. She reached the end of a paragraph and forced herself to start the next section. Twelve twenty-seven. Close enough.

  The kitchen was oddly quiet. No Sean or Oscar in the living room, but through the closed door to the front of the house she could hear puffing and panting, giggling and little feet thudding. She opened the door to the sight of Oscar sprinting up the hall and back down again. He slammed into Sean, who was watching the stopwatch on his phone and barely swayed back.

  “Whoa, six point three. What’s five minus three?”