I didn’t know the rules for this town though. Each place seemed to have its own rules. From listening to people in Camp 23 I’d learned that in one town prisoners could stay in their old houses, in another everyone was sent to a prison camp in the Showground or the footie oval, in another they were sent right out of the district. There didn’t seem to be any logic to it. Maybe it depended on who was in charge of each area.
As there was no sign of my own people in the streets I assumed they were restricted to the end of town where the flats stood. So I couldn’t walk confidently out in the open, hoping I’d be taken for another factory worker. Just like it had been all the way through this war I had to skulk along, keep in hiding, treat every noise and movement as a threat to my life.
That wasn’t so difficult. My real problems started when I got to the eastern end of the town. It was obvious the prisoners were kept here. Mrs Samuels was right. A high-wire fence had been put up around the whole area, and the only gate was guarded by a couple of women soldiers with rifles. Inside I could see people who looked more familiar to me, doing the same kind of stuff the people outside were doing, but doing it in a much more restricted and unattractive area.
It seemed it should be easy enough to get in, compared to the other stuff I’d done during the war, but the more I looked at the situation the more I realised the problems.
I waited and watched for an hour and in all that time not a single person came in or out. That was bad enough. But when someone did eventually arrive and go through it was a careful and complicated business. A minibus pulled up with a dozen prisoners on board, and two soldiers. One of the guards from the gate got on the bus and did a head count, then looked at some papers she was given. I was too far away to see, but I think they were probably security passes or identification cards. I didn’t have anything like that.
The only good news was the approach of darkness. It couldn’t come fast enough for me. I was in such a state of exhaustion and excitement that I was in danger of losing my commonsense: I was so tempted to run straight at the gate and crash through, ignoring the fact that I would have been shot down in the first dozen steps.
It seemed weird. After all, these buildings were a prison, more or less, and here I was trying to break in. Break into a prison. ‘Good one, Ellie,’ I thought. ‘Trust you to do everything backwards.’
Staying in the shadows I went for a tour of the complex. I couldn’t do a complete circumference because on the other side there was no cover: a newer suburb stretched away down the hill. There was no obvious way into the high-rises from any point.
It was too frustrating. I couldn’t believe it was so difficult. I felt more impatient with every passing minute.
I slouched against a tree, angrily, watching the suburban houses in their neat lines facing each other across their neat streets. I would just have to wait for full darkness. Somehow I’d have to ignore the terrible hunger that was making my stomach feel like an echo chamber. I could hear the rumblings and gurglings, all too loud in the still evening air.
And it wasn’t just food I was hungry for.
Then below me, in the streets, something funny happened. A woman came running out of the front door of a house. She was calling, not just calling: shouting. I suppose there would have been a dozen people in the street, doing the usual sort of stuff people do in the early evening, walking, talking, playing. For a moment every single one of them stopped, like they’d been frosted. Then they ran towards the woman. It was like a dance: it could have been choreographed. The woman stood in the middle of the road, waving her arms and talking nineteen to the dozen. I watched, puzzled. Behind me a bell started ringing, an urgent irritating noise. More doors opened, and more people started coming out into the street. Then, behind me, in the blocks of flats, there was sudden chaos. I heard people yelling, screaming. I strained to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t make it out. I moved quickly back into the trees. I didn’t know what was happening but I didn’t like it. I ran around to the other side to see what was going on there. People sprinted out of the flats, towards the sentries at the gates. The sentries unslung their rifles and dropped to their knees, aiming at the crowd. The people stopped suddenly, and gathered in a group, facing the soldiers. They were shouting and at last I could make out the words:
‘The war’s over, you bloody idiots,’ was the first thing I heard.
My skin got goose bumps everywhere. I took a few more steps forward. Had I got it right? Had I heard correctly? The words I’d been waiting to hear, all this time? In the distance a siren wailed, like an angry bunyip. The sentries hadn’t moved, and when a man stepped forward to talk to them, one of them fired a shot. She aimed to miss, I’m sure—she could have shot him easily if she’d wanted—but it was a frightening moment. Everyone backed up fast.
The sirens sounded closer and suddenly they were right on top of us, screaming so loudly I put my hands over my ears. Three police cars thumped to a stop, one by one, in front of the gates. A dozen or so soldiers piled out of them, and formed a line across the brow of the hill, dropping to one knee and aiming their rifles, the same as the sentries.
As they did that an officer, who’d been in the front seat of the first car, walked forward. He halted about ten metres short of the gate and held up his hand for silence. He got it.
‘Obviously you have heard some news,’ he said. He had a pleasant voice, heavily accented, but he spoke excellent English. ‘I don’t know how, considering that radios are illegal. The fact is we don’t know yet if the announcement is correct. Until we do know, my troops will confine you to this area. As of now, all exit passes are cancelled, all work parties suspended, and all privileges withdrawn. I’m sure you will understand the need for these precautions. I am now instructing my troops to shoot without warning anyone found outside this fence.’
It was as soon as I heard those words that I got my great idea. The only light came from the buildings and the police cars, and I thought it was dim enough for me to have a chance. As the crowd inside the fence, subdued by the officer’s speech, but still talking excitedly, started to fade back towards the high-rises, I came out from the shadows.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said to the officer.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘I heard what you said about shooting people found outside the fence. I got out just before you arrived. I think I’d rather go back in now. I think I’m safer in there.’
I said it with all the confidence I could muster, staring him straight in the eye, but at the same time trying to look like a contrite naughty little girl. Trying almost to make a joke out of it.
‘Very sensible of you,’ he said. ‘How did you get out anyway?’
‘It was total chaos when the news came through,’ I said. ‘The sentries didn’t know what to do. But I was the only one.’
‘You’d better be,’ he said. ‘All right. Hurry up.’
Ignoring me as I walked towards the gate he began giving the troops the big speech, in their own language, I suppose about how they had to kill us if we put a foot wrong.
As I approached the gate I heard very clearly, above the hubbub of chattering voices, a woman say clearly: ‘My God, it’s Ellie Linton.’
Everyone seemed to go quiet at once. I realised straightaway the danger it put me in. The last thing I wanted was to attract this kind of attention.
The two sentries at the gate had their backs to me. I assumed the soldiers behind me were listening obediently to their officer. So I took the risk and put my finger to my lips, to tell them to ignore me. It seemed like a long time before they got the idea. It seemed like five minutes. It was probably ten seconds. But all I could think about was how cruel it would be if I got this close to my mother, only to be arrested and dragged away. Ripped out of her arms, almost.
At last some bright guy got the idea and started talking loudly again. I kept walking at an even pace, counting the steps as I got closer and closer to the gate. My back felt like I was being mic
rowaved. I was only a couple of metres from the sentries.
Then I heard the officer’s voice: ‘Just a moment, young lady.’
I panicked. I was too close to turn back now. The sentries, startled by the officer’s voice, were turning. I accelerated and ran straight through them. The sentries yelled out something, the officer yelled out something else. Ahead of me the crowd separated. Behind me I heard the sound of rifles being cocked. That’s one sound you can never mistake. Doesn’t matter how much noise there is around you, the sound of a rifle being cocked penetrates right through your bones. To my right, the crowd threw themselves to the ground; to my left the rest went down equally fast. It was almost funny. Like a crop of wheat hit by a gale. I went to ground too, but unlike the others I kept rolling. I heard someone yell, to the officer I guess, ‘Don’t shoot, the war’s over’, then after a pause, he added, equally loudly: ‘It’d be murder if you shot anyone now.’
I was still rolling, kicking up dust. I fetched up against a concrete block, hitting it hard. It was a doorstep. I was up, twisting and scrambling through the door before my conscious mind even understood what it was. I found myself in a long dark corridor, cool, but smelling of a million different smells, most of them unpleasant. I didn’t know what to do so I kept going. My footsteps echoed in the long concrete tunnel. At the end was a stairway, so I aimed for that. There was a lot of yelling outside, but as I started up the steps the noise from outside was cut off completely, as though a wall had come between us. I just kept running. I didn’t even know if I was in the right building, but something kept me going. Up, up, up and despite my exhaustion and hunger and my bullet wound and my bad knee I didn’t feel any pain at all. I got to the third floor and at last started to think again. On a board at the end of each corridor was a long list of names. I guessed they were the names of the people living on that floor. I scanned down the list. There were so many changes—names crossed out and written over the top of other names—but I knew our family name would jump out at me pretty strongly, if it was there. It wasn’t. I headed up to the next floor.
It wasn’t there either, but I wasn’t discouraged. I went up again, to the fifth floor. I’d completely forgotten what was happening outside; didn’t give it a thought.
My mother was listed in Apartment 5A12, along with a heap of other people. But all the apartments were like that, a crowd of names scribbled together in the same way that the people must be squashed into the rooms. I ran along the corridor, looking at the letters and numbers on the doors. It wasn’t easy, because half of them—more than half of them—were missing. A lot of the doors were damaged too. This place looked like it had seen some hard times. I still couldn’t work out the lettering and numbering system. On one door was 5A17, but the next one was 5A22. I turned a corner to the right and the very first door was 5A12. I felt a tremble run through me, a deep, deep shiver like an underwater earthquake. I paused, said some sort of prayer without words, opened the door and walked in.
If you don’t believe in destiny, how do you explain that of all the huge numbers of people in those flats, my mother must have been about the only one actually home? I suppose it was the way the war affected her. But there were plenty of other people who’d suffered terribly in the war, and they were outside, milling around the front gate.
A lot of things had changed during this war. But apparently my footsteps weren’t one of them. My mother came out of a side room like a snake had bitten her. The light in there was dim—I found out later it was always like that because the authorities were too stingy to supply enough electricity for the apartments—but dim light or not I could see how pale her face was. No, not pale, white. As white as vanilla ice-cream. She grabbed me by the arms, so tightly she left bruises. I can still feel the pressure of her hands. ‘Hey, take it easy,’ I said. ‘It’s only me.’ She was terribly thin. She’s always been thin, but now she looked like one of those concentration camp photos. I put my arms around her. She started making these kind of whooping sounds, a bit like—I don’t mean to be rude—a bit like koalas during the mating season.
It wasn’t the way I’d pictured our reunion. I thought I’d be the one falling into her arms. I lowered her into an armchair and squeezed in beside her, half on the arm of the chair. It was a battered old chair, and it barely coped with both of us.
‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ I said, but I didn’t get up. I’d started remembering the shambles at the gate outside and I was wondering what was happening out there.
‘I thought . . . I’d never see you again,’ she said. Her voice was really croaky, like an old lady’s. She sounded like her mother.
‘We did say we were only going for five days,’ I said. ‘We got held up. Sorry.’
She was trembling so much, and it wasn’t getting better.
‘Hey,’ I said, realising I sounded a bit like Mum when I said it. ‘Come on. It’s OK. You’re OK. It’s over now.’
‘How are the others? How’s Homer?’
There was no gentle way I could answer that question.
‘They didn’t make it.’ I said, holding her closer and feeling her body shake.
She gave a sob and put her hand to her mouth. Homer had always been a big favourite of hers.
When she didn’t say anything else I asked: ‘How’s Dad? Do you know where he is?’
‘More or less. He’s mucking out stables on a stud near Absalom. Last I heard, he wasn’t too bad.’
‘Oh God,’ I breathed. At last I could let myself hope that he had survived.
There was a noise from outside. I jumped up nervously. With the briefest of knocks, a couple of people hurried in. I recognised one of them as Don Murray, a farmer from Wirrawee, but I didn’t know the woman. She was short and dark-skinned, and she gave me a great warm smile.
‘It is you,’ Don said. ‘Fantastic! This is just wonderful. The first good thing that’s happened in this whole damn war.’
‘What’s happening outside?’ I asked nervously.
‘It’s under control,’ he said. ‘We convinced the officer that it wouldn’t be a good idea to shoot you. Every last one of us assured him we’d testify to the UN that he was a murderer. He’s basically not a bad bloke. He didn’t take much convincing. Mind you, he doesn’t seem to know who you are. I don’t think he heard the dickhead, excuse my French, who called your name out. He knows something’s a bit suss; he’s just not sure what. But you’re safe now.’
‘Am I?’ I asked feeling a sickness in my heart. ‘With everyone in the place knowing I’m here? I don’t think so.’
To me it was like a replay of Camp 23.
‘Even if the war is over, I don’t think I’ll be safe as long as there are enemy soldiers around.’
Don came to a shuddering halt. ‘Yes. Yes. I see what you mean. Well, you’ll be safe until the morning. No-one’s allowed out till then. But if the radio’s right, and the war is over, I don’t think they’ll come in here looking for you. I’d say you’re safe for as long as you want to stay. Though why anyone should want to stay in this God-awful rat-infested apartment block I have no idea.’
The woman who was with him tugged his sleeve. ‘Let’s go, Don,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’re in the way here.’
‘What?’ Don said, looking puzzled, and then gradually realising what she meant. ‘What? Oh yes. Of course.’
The door closed behind them, and I went into the kitchen to make the cup of tea I’d promised Mum. It took a few minutes to find the stuff, although God knows it wasn’t because there was so much to choose from. The kitchen was as neat and clean as scrubbing could make it, but it sure was short of food and drink. The only reason it took me so long to make the tea was that I had to open at least a dozen empty containers before I found a cupful of tea-leaves.
When I went back to the main room I found Mum slumped down in the chair, with her eyes closed. I got a terrible fright. I put the cup down quickly and ran to her. When I lifted her she woke straightaway, but I couldn’t contro
l the pounding of my heart. I sat beside her, shaking like a Saint Andrew’s Cross spider.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, putting her hand on my arm, ‘it’s going to be all right now.’
But she was so shaky and weak that I had to become like a nurse. I made some soup out of some old soft spuds. At least there was plenty of salt and pepper. I put her to bed, then, because it was such a narrow bed that I couldn’t sleep next to her, I got in at the other end. For the first time in the war I slept without dreams, and when I woke the sun was shining and the war was over.
Chapter Sixteen
For two reasons we were in the first lot of people sent back to the reclaimed territory. One was that people with illness or disability had priority. Mum qualified under that, because she’d been really ill. A nervous breakdown I guess you’d call it. Don Murray told me, the morning after I arrived, that she’d hardly said a word for four months.
That’s why Mrs Samuels had been so guarded when she spoke to me, back at the prison camp.
Irrationally, in the middle of my concern about Mum, and my fear that she might get worse, was my anger that she wasn’t there for me. Instead of fussing over me and nursing me, which was the picture I’d imagined all through the war, she dragged herself around the place looking awful, and somehow I had to find the strength to look after her.
She had no energy, no stamina: she kept fainting all the time. So she sure qualified for the first bus, just on those grounds alone.
The other reason we got selected was that the committee in charge of the flats wanted me out of there, for my good and for everyone else’s.
‘If they know you’re here, there’s a chance they’ll try to abduct you. The sooner you’re gone, the better.’
I sure was happy to go. I found the overcrowded and smelly apartments extremely depressing and with every fibre of my being I longed to be home.