Unsheltered by Clare Moleta

This is how Weather came. They were out in it, the two of them, yelling and laughing till they choked on the rain. Then they were quiet, just standing in it. Dust to mud under their feet and the smell of wet pulling up memories like fish. Li fell against Frank and he licked rain off her. I bloody told you, he said with his mouth on hers. Didn’t I tell you we weren’t going anywhere? Yeah? Well  it  better  stop  soon  or  it’s  gunna wash  everything  away. You’re a hard woman to please. They  danced  a  bit,  tried  to. Slow  mud  circles  with  the  rain  running  them together. She  couldn’t  tell  if  it  was  his  hair  plas-tered against her forehead, or her own. He turned his face up to the rain. Let’s go and get her. They’d talked about it before, tried to imagine what it would be like for Matti the first time, and Li could hear his regret that she wasn’t with them now. But she wanted to go inside with him, wet like they were. Pulled him towards the door with her hands at  his  belt. And  then over  his  shoulder  she  saw  Matti  running  down the driveway towards them, running hard through the rain as if it was something to shelter from. When she got close enough Li saw that she was crying. It irritated her that Matti was having this reaction, and not the one they’d imagined for her. It’s all right, she said. You don’t have to be scared of it.

Frank crouched down in the mud. What’s wrong, beansprout? And Matti  said,  Robbie  went  past  the  bend  and  he  won’t  come back. Robbie was Carl and Angie’s boy. A quicksilver kid with a light in his eyes that came straight from his mother. He was six and Matti  was  five  and  they lived  for  the  same  things:  matches  and pocketknives and secret hideouts. When they were together you couldn’t break in. His fast grin was just for her. Li  had  thought  they  were  at  Angie  and  Carl’s and  Angie  thought  they  were  with  Li.  They’d  been  playing  in  the  storm-water pipe for weeks and nobody knew. And Matti and Robbie, they didn’t know what it was, what it was for. Who would have thought to tell them? Neither of them had ever seen rain. The  drain  grate  had rusted  through.  It  wasn’t  hard  to  lever  it  up  and  drop  down  into  the cavity  under  the  road,  where  the  dry  concrete  pipes  led  off on  either  side. The  two  of  them  had  been  going  down  there  after school,  taking  torches  and  lollies  and  leftover  sandwiches, chalking how  far  they  got  and  daring  each other to go further. When the air turned thick and electric just after four o’clock, they hadn’t felt it. Didn’t see the sky fatten like a bruise, bringing people outside to look up and remember. Matti was at the first bend  and  Robbie  was  up  ahead  in the  dark. He’d  just  yelled  back  that  he’d  passed  her  chalkmark when she  wet  herself.  She  hadn’t known until right then that she needed to go. She started shuffling backwards without telling him she was leaving. Why not? Frank asked later. And Matti, head down, Because I peed.

It was so easy for Li to imagine her down there with her undies and the  front  of  her  T-shirt  soaked,  elbows  raw  and  stinging, overwhelmed by  shame  because  Robbie  would  have  to  crawl  through it too. And when Matti came out backwards into the heavy purple light? That was harder to imagine. Did the world smell changed? How  did  she make  sense  of  the  water  that  started  leaking  and  then flooding from the sky; the noise of it? She  told  Frank,  I  thought  I’d  got  to  the sea.  She  said  she  called to Robbie down the tunnel but she couldn’t even hear her own voice. Angie  and  Carl  left  town  a  few  months later.  Their  millet  was  ruined anyway. Li had known them more than ten years, Frank since primary school, but they didn’t say goodbye and Li thought that was right. She couldn’t look at them without a debilitating sense of relief. People said they’d gone down the highway to Valiant on the edge of the Gulf coast. Valiant was the only city in West. It was a place you could go and try to forget things. But most people figured Angie and Carl would only stay there long enough to buy their way onto a boat and get across the Gulf to East. Why not? Why not leave this whole unsheltered state behind, if you could?

The newspapers said Weather was better over east, not so fierce yet. And the three External Border precincts were there – maybe Angie and Carl could find a way into one of them. Start again, sheltered. Maybe they could outrun Robbie. The  last  story  Li  heard  was  that  they  were in  a  makecamp  outside Sumud, trying to queue or buy their way inside. It made sense. Sumud was the closest XB precinct, just across the Gulf. The man who told her that story was a customer in the hardware store – he’d hardly known Angie and Carl. She didn’t tell Frank. It would be tough hearing about his oldest friends third-hand. Ange  told  Li  something,  though,  the  one  time  they  talked  after the flood. She said she’d decided to live. I can’t leave Carl on his own with it, so I’m gunna keep going.How? Li was standing on the verandah, holding her casserole, because Angie hadn’t asked her in.You just decide to. Every time I stop, the hole opens up and I  wanna  fall.  All  I  wanna  do  is  fall.  The  only way  I  know  not  to  is  just  keep  deciding  over  and  over.  Everything’s  a  decision  now. Opening my eyes, putting clothes on, eating, going outside. Nothing just happens.All the neighbours had helped them search. The roads were under water, rain still belting down, and they could hear it roaring in the  drains  beneath  their  feet.  They  nearly  lost  Angie  trying  to  climb down into the pipe; Frank had to drag her out and hold onto  her.  Someone  brought  a  concrete  cutter  and  tried  to  dig  up the road to cut through the pipe. The hole they made filled up with mud and Carl dug in it with his empty hands.

Leaving was a decision for Angie. For most people it just happened. Because after the flood came howlers so vicious that the smell of them coming made you freeze up. Then the drought again, and then fire. Within two years everything was gone. When Li and Frank  and  Matti walked  out  of  Nerredin  onto  the  highway,  all  that was left was the pub and the ruin of the old school building. But  Robbie  was  the town’s first  real  victim;  their  unbearable,  inadequate  offering  against  what  was  coming.  Robbie  was  the  end of Nerredin. Matti wouldn’t talk to Li about it, not ever. She shouted and pushed her away, ran out of the house. But Frank said she asked him one question. Where will Robbie wait for me? And  Li  was  glad  it  was  Frank  because  she  didn’t  know  the  answer,  had  never  known  it  since  Matti  was born. There  was nothing here for a child, but they’d had one anyway. Like Angie and Carl had Robbie. What Li knew, what she understood before Frank, was the size of Weather. People could build their firebreaks and desalination plants and early warning systems and bunkers, but they couldn’t withstand it. Nobody could. She would have gone sooner but Nerredin was Frank’s home. So  she  waited  for  him  to  understand  that  home  was finished.  That  all  they  could  do  now  was  try  to  keep  their  kid  alive  and  look for somewhere safer.The night before they left, they slept in the pub, bedding down on  a  single  mattress  on  the  floor.  Their  house,  the  olive  grove,  gone. Everything stank of ash. Others talking or sleeping around them – the ones who’d hung on, like them.

The  three  of  them  had  a  long  walk  ahead,  through  the  hot  season,  to  reach  Valiant.  It  would  be  hard  on  Matti,  but  Matti  wasn’t sleeping.  She  had  lost  Goldie,  her  rag  horse,  as  they  ran  from  the  fire  and  now  she  held  tight  to  a  new  wooden  horse  Frank had carved for her, small enough to fit in her hand. Li felt Matti watching her in the semi-dark but she kept her eyes closed until she heard her roll over to face Frank. Dad,  are  we  going  to  live  with  Hani  and  Auntie  Teresa  and  Uncle Navid? For a bit, yeah. Till we find somewhere else. And is Hani excited about meeting me? Keep it down, beansprout. People’re sleeping. But is he? I  bet  he  is.  I  bet  he’s  jumping  off  the walls and  his  mum’s  saying,  Calm  down,  mate,  don’t  bust  a  gut  before  they  even  get here.Matti wriggled, pleased, pushing backwards into Li. Her hair smelled of smoke. How long till we get there? It’s a pretty long way. We’ll be walking for a few weeks.Every day?Yeah, but we’ll stop and have a rest when it gets too hot. It’s gunna be good. You’re a good walker. And we can make up some new games.Like what?This  kind  of talk  would  keep  Matti  awake  all  night.  But  Li  didn’t  want  to  stop  them,  she  just  wanted  to  pretend  she  was  asleep so she could hear it up close, the way they were with each other. How Frank made it sound so easy. Matti said, But are we going to stay and live in Valiant? You plan on doing any sleeping tonight? This is my last question.

Okay. Well, we’ll see what we can find for work. Find you a school to go to. Matti had had six months at Nerredin Primary before the first howler tore off the schoolhouse roof and sent the teacher running back to Valiant. Homeschool since then, for the kids that were left. They’d shared it out, taught what they knew. And if we can’t find anything for work and a school, then will we go across the water on a boat? How about you stop worrying about everything, Frank said. Let’s just wait and see. Li tried to read his voice, because they hadn’t talked about this. About  East. Getting  to  Valiant  was  what  they’d  talked  about – how far a kid could walk in a day. Heat. Where there might be water and how much of it might be contaminated by ash. They’d talked about the size of the flat where his sister and her  husband  lived  with  their  three-year-old  son, above  their  garage and repair shop. There might be some work for Li there, and Navid knew people down at the port. That was far enough ahead for her. But even blinded by the loss of Nerredin, Frank might still think bigger.What’s it like inside the walls? Matti asked.I  don’t  really know,  sprout. A  bit  crowded,  maybe?  But  you  and  me  and  Li  don’t  take  up  much  space.  Except  when  your  mum sleeps sideways. Did he know she was awake? Did he understand why she wasn’t helping with this, why it was better left to him? She couldn’t look Matti in the eye and talk to her about the future. So, will we go inside them? Maybe. Maybe we’ll find somewhere we like more, that’s not inside the walls. Like where?

I dunno. Somewhere with a bit more room, maybe. Dadda? Matti. Okay, but  would  there  be  horses  there?  Cos  there  probably  isn’t room for horses inside the walls? Sleep  was  coming, closing  Li  down.  But  she  could  feel  the  wire  wound  tight  in  her  child.  Four  nights  ago Matti  had  lost  Goldie running from the fire. Yesterday she had seen the black ash of her home. Two years since the flood – nearly a third of her life. Did she even remember Robbie? Where, Dadda? Where are we going? Frank touched the back of Matti’s head and she burrowed in against him, away from Li. Go  to  sleep  now.  We’re  going  to  go  to  the  best  place  we  can find.