The Last Day on Earth Read online

  “Yeah. They’ll have to think of something. Surely.”

  “But in the meantime, you take care and be careful.”

  “You too.”

  “Keep in touch.”

  “Thanks for being such a good friend, Jess.”

  “Oh come on, don’t get sappy on me, Black.” Jess punched Lucy on the arm and started crying. “Damn it, now you’ve made me cry.”

  “Sorry,” Lucy half-laughed as she wiped her own tears away.

  “I’m gonna go now before I start crying buckets.”

  “Drive safe. Let me know when you get home.”

  “Likewise.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Present…

  Lucy savoured every moment of the ride home, but it was over too quickly. Time has a funny habit of speeding up when we least want it to. She tried to take everything in and to notice it all, the piercing blue sky, the rustling of the gum trees, the warbling of the magpies, the scurrying of the little sunbathing skinks as they fled the horses oncoming hooves, Lightning’s warmth and deep even breathes. She even took notice of the slight wind lifting the hair off her neck, the persistent fly that seemed fascinated with her nose, the sound of Lightning’s hooves on the road. The damn fly!

  Too soon for her liking, Lightning turned into the driveway. The dogs came racing up to meet horse and rider, barking excitedly. Lucy nudged Lightning into a trot and approached the house. She looked at it, almost with a stranger's eyes. The house was rambling and welcoming. It was part of the landscape, like it had been there forever and would be there forever more, surviving drought, bush fires, floods and inheritance. Not massive asteroids though.

  Lucy unsaddled Lightning and lingered over his last brushing. He seemed to enjoy it; although he enjoyed the apples she gave him when she put him back in the paddock more. She gave him a hug and kissed him on the nose, before heading back inside.

  “Mum! Dad! I’m back,” she called out as soon as she opened the back door.

  “In the study, sweetheart,” Liz replied. “How was Tim?” Liz asked as Lucy walked into the small, sunny room.

  “Okay. Considering. I invited him to come here for it.”

  Liz smacked her forehead. “Of course, I should have suggested it. Did he come back with you?” she asked, looking behind Lucy.

  “No, he’s not coming.”

  “What? Why ever not?” Liz frowned in puzzlement.

  Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he wants to be alone. Alone with his thoughts and his whiskey and his memories.”

  “That poor boy, he’s been through so much.”

  “We all have, Mum.”

  “That’s true, but… well, I wouldn’t wish that family’s past year on anyone.”

  “I wish we’d found Beth,” Lucy sighed.

  “Of course.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Just washing up, he’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay, I think I might too. What are you looking at?” Lucy asked as she belatedly registered that her mother was surrounded by scattered photo albums.

  “Baby photos, yours and Claire’s, and mine…and some of your grandmother’s. Your Gran looks so young in these.” Liz handed a photo to Lucy. There was a young redheaded woman holding a newborn baby, with a black haired toddler clutching her skirt.

  “Is that you?”

  “I’m the baby. That’s your Aunt Mary.” Liz pointed to the toddler.

  “Was Grandma’s hair really that colour?”

  “Yep, she was a natural red-head. Your Grandma was quite disappointed that she never had any redheads herself. Just Mary’s black, my mousy brown and Greg’s blond.”

  “She must have been happy when Patrick was born then.” Patrick was Lucy’s cousin, Aunt Mary’s youngest.

  Liz smiled fondly at the photo. “Yes, she was.”

  They spent the next half hour looking through the old photographs until Lucy’s father came looking for them. The smell of cologne preceded him into the room.

  “Wow, Dad, you look spiffy!” Lucy and Liz both looked up at Bill admiringly. He had somehow managed to tame his unruly hair, trimmed his beard, managed to get the dirt out from under his fingernails that, Lucy swore, had been under there since she was a child.

  “Just dressing for the occasion,” he said.

  “What, dying?” Lucy asked with a furrowed brow.

  “No. The last supper.”

  “Oh. Right, suppose I’d better too!” Lucy got up. Her father sunk into the spot she’d just vacated and started looking at the photos in Liz’s hands.

  Lucy paused just outside the door and listened to her parents reminiscing about a family holiday they’d taken to Perth when Lucy had been seven. She smiled fondly and made her way to the bathroom. It was still steamy from her father. She took her time in the shower, refusing to feel guilty. What was the point of saving water now? She inhaled the scent of the mango body-wash and enjoyed the feeling of the bubbles all over her skin. She turned the taps off once she started to get bored, and then dried herself under the heat light.

  Hair wrapped in a towel, she stood in front of her wardrobe trying to decide what to wear. Something nice. She ran her hands through her dresses hanging there, considering.

  “You look lovely,” Liz said when Lucy came into the kitchen a while later. She’d settled on the dress that her mother had given her last Christmas, and actually made an effort with her hair and make-up for the first time in weeks.

  “Thanks, Mum. Like Dad said, better dress for the occasion.”

  Liz nodded approvingly.

  “What can I do?” Lucy asked, eying the kitchen bench which had bunches of herbs and piles of fruit and vegetables on it.

  “The chicken’s already in the oven, your Dad’s just gone out to pick some basil for me, you can cut the potatoes for the roast while I finish up the lasagne. Thanks, love,” Liz said as she pushed a chopping board toward Lucy. Lucy went into the pantry and grabbed a half dozen large potatoes, plonked them in the sink and started peeling them. After she’d chopped up the potatoes, her mother pushed carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and pumpkin in her direction.

  “Bleh, Mum, I hate pumpkin.”

  “Too bad, I love it, and we’re having it,” Liz said firmly. Bill winked at her from his reclaimed spot stirring at the stove.

  The kitchen was warm and full of mouth-watering smells. Lucy thought it was pleasant, all of them cooking together. It was usually a solo job for whoever’s turn it was cooking that night. Lucy smiled to herself again as she listened to her parents exchange light-hearted banter.

  One of the dogs stuck his head around the corner, watching them with bright, alert and hopeful eyes. The dogs weren’t allowed in the kitchen, and they knew it, but it didn’t stop them from trying their luck every now and then. The smell of the roast chicken made it a most tempting challenge.

  Lucy stopped chopping.

  “What are we going to do with the dogs?” She looked up at her parents, who glanced at each other. “And the cat, she just had her kittens this morning… I know the horses and the goats can’t fit into the shelter…but…”

  “Well. I’m not sure. I don’t have enough food for four dogs and five cats and us as well,” Bill frowned.

  “That’s assuming we survive at all, my dear,” Liz said.

  Bill nodded.

  “Surely we can have them with us tonight. Give them the best chance if there is a chance to be had,” Lucy pleaded. She wanted to be surrounded by her animals - to give comfort and to receive it.

  “Yes, alright. I wouldn’t mind having them there at that.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  The phone rang. Everyone jumped. Liz fumbled with the satellite phone, and nearly dropped it in her rush to answer.

  “Claire!?” Liz yelled into the receiver. “Oh, I’m sorry, hi, Mary.”

  Lucy and Bill looked at each other, crestfallen.

  “No, no, no, of course it’s wonderful to hear from you, we jus
t haven’t heard from Claire for a while…we’re fine, considering. How are you and the kids?”

  Liz wandered out of the kitchen as she talked with her older sister. Mary lived up in Queensland with her three kids. Lucy looked at her father. He was an only child and barely knew his cousins, so she doubted that he was expecting any calls other than from his eldest daughter.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, my precious?”

  “Do you have any regrets?”

  Bill scratched his beard and appeared to think for a few minutes before answering.

  “I always thought I might like to climb Mount Everest,” he finally said.

  “Really? I never knew that.”

  “Mmm, I never really told anyone except your Mum.”

  “Why didn’t you do it? That would be pretty awesome,” Lucy said as she emptied the vegetable scraps into the chook bucket, and then wondered why as she’d already fed the chickens and ducks for the day and they wouldn’t be around to get this tomorrow.

  “Life got in the way. I had the farm, you girls, it costs a lot of money, plus your mother was terrified I’d die up there,” he said while he took the lasagne out of the oven.

  “You should have done it.”

  “Yes. I should have… too late now. Even if we do survive, I don’t think they’ll have the infrastructure in place for an Aussie farmer to go and climb Mount Everest anytime soon.”

  “Yeah, probably not.” Lucy looked around her for something else to do. She reached for the bowl of fruit and started chopping pieces up and throwing them in a bowl for fruit salad.

  “What about you, Goosey?”

  “Hmmm?” Lucy asked, so engrossed in cutting the nectarine just right that she barely registering her father’s childhood nickname for her.

  “Regrets. Unfulfilled dreams,” Bill prompted.

  Lucy put the knife down and stared at her father. I’m only twenty five years old, of course I’m full of regrets and unfulfilled dreams, she thought. She took a deep breath and blew it out.

  “Where to even begin? Travel’s a big one, I guess.” Lucy paused and thought for a moment. “I always wanted to go backpacking like Mum did when she was young, and like Claire did.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Bill asked, a frown creasing his forehead. Lucy shrugged then scowled.

  “I guess I was always waiting for someone to go with me,” she said. “I wish I'd had the guts to just go by myself like Claire did.”

  “Yeah, well, your sister always was more of a loner than you are. She’s not the most… co-operative… of people either. I don’t think Claire travelling with one of her friends would have ended very well,” Bill mused.

  “She went travelling with Tom a lot,” Lucy pointed out.

  “That’s different. They’re married. It’s a different dynamic.”

  “If you say so,” Lucy said. Privately, she regretted the thought that she’d never find out for herself what the dynamics of a marriage were. She tried to thrust the thought from her mind. So far, for the most part, she’d managed to keep most of those negative thoughts at bay. She didn’t want to start indulging in them now. “I dunno, Dad, I finally build up the courage to book my trip to Spain by myself, and then this happens before I get the chance to go. I also finally meet a guy who doesn’t seem to be a total dud like all my other boyfriends, and now I’ll never know if he was the one or not. It’s not fair, Dad.”

  “No, it’s not. Wait, what guy?”

  “Steve. I told you about him. The one I met at the beach.”

  “Oh… the one with the motorbike?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He was… he is nice. He told me he loved me the day after we found out about this.” She waved up at the ceiling.

  “Oh. Bugger.”

  “Yeah. Bugger.”

  It felt a bit strange for Lucy to be talking to her father about Steve and love. She usually saved this kind of talk for her mother. She picked the knife up again and resumed chopping.

  “I wish you could have met him. I think you would have liked him.”

  “Hmmm. We’ll see.”

  “No, Dad. We won’t.” Lucy sighed. Bill started to say something, but the look on Lucy’s face cut him off. He stared helplessly at his daughter.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I know you think we have a chance. I just… I don’t know. I don’t think we do. And even if we did, what’s the world going to look like on the other side? Would it be worth living in?”

  “I can’t answer that, Luce. I’m just not ready to see my wife and daughter die and I’m not going to go down without a fight.”

  Lucy put her knife down, went around the table and hugged her father.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two months ago…

  It usually took Lucy two and a half hours to drive home to her parent’s farm. Two hours after leaving their flat, Lucy and Mitch had only just made it over the West Gate Bridge. They’d wanted to leave the night before, but Mitch had heard on the radio that the West Gate Bridge out of the city had been closed due to a series of bad accidents. Volunteers were clearing the wreckages, but it would take a while, and the other routes out of the city were barely moving, so they’d decided to get up early and leave the next morning.

  Apparently, so had a lot of other people.

  Lucy looked nervously at her petrol gauge. She still had half a tank, but this kind of stop and start driving wasn’t kind to her tank.

  She glanced over at Mitch. He was tapping his fingers on the dash and sighing every now and then. It was starting to get on Lucy’s nerves.

  “Wish I had a private jet. We’d be home in a jiffy,” Mitch sighed again.

  “You’d still need to drive through this to the airport.”

  “Hmm. Well, it wouldn’t be so bad if we were waiting in a limo.”

  “With champagne.”

  “And Pringles.”

  “Pringles?”

  “What? I like Pringles. What’s wrong with Pringles?”

  “Nothing. As long as they’re the green ones, I’m cool with Pringles. They just don’t usually go with champagne and limousines.”

  “Strawberries then.”

  “That’s better,” Lucy laughed.

  “I wonder if there’s been another accident? I haven’t seen it this bad since they did a bunch of roadworks last Christmas,” Mitch pondered.

  “Could be… Jess told me you finally told her you like her,” Lucy said, taking her eyes off the unmoving car in front of her to look at her long-suffering housemate. He squirmed.

  “Yeah… terrible timing, I know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her before? You know, when you could have actually done something about it.”

  “I don’t know. I tried. It never came out right though. Or came out at all, really,” Mitch mumbled. Lucy thought he might even be turning red.

  “You’ve liked her for years.”

  “What! No I haven’t!”

  “Don’t lie,” Lucy teased.

  “I’m not! Maybe I am. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “You never know. This’ll probably all blow over. Some hot shot American will save the day, and you and Jess will live happily ever after.”

  Mitch just snorted and stared out the window at the traffic that was not budging.

  Ever so slowly, they inched their way out of the city. The traffic started to move faster once they hit the Princes Freeway and began leaving the suburbs behind. Lucy kept looking at her petrol gauge.

  “I’m going to need to fill up at Little River,” she told Mitch. He just nodded.

  They both stared in shock at the line up at the petrol station at Little River.

  “I’ve never seen it this busy before,” said Mitch.

  “No, me neither…I don’t think I can make it to Geelong…”

  “It’ll probably be just as bad there. Let’s just wait here.”

  They played noughts and crosses, then hangman, in Mitch’s sketchbook while the line slowly move
d forward. Lucy looked around at all the other people, anxiously, impatiently waiting. A fight broke out up ahead when one man in a hotted up commodore tried to skip the line and budge in.

  Finally, it was almost their turn. There were only two cars ahead of them now. The line up behind them was longer than ever.

  “Nearly there!”

  “I think you may have spoken too soon,” said Lucy after she watched the man at the pump shake the nozzle then throw it down in frustration before storming off into the shop where the cashier was. She looked over at the other pumps, where people were having similar reactions.

  “What? Oh no, they can’t have run out. We’re almost there!” Mitch exclaimed. “What do we do now?”

  “Wait and see, I guess.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. A young man dressed the petrol station uniform came out with a large hand-written sign that said:

  NO MORE PETROL

  LPG GAS ONLY

  (UNTIL THAT RUNS OUT TOO)

  SORRY!!

  Lucy and Mitch both swore at the same time.

  “Glad I’m not him.” Mitch nodded toward the attendant who was rapidly being surrounded by an angry looking mob.

  “I hope they don’t hurt him, it’s not his fault,” Lucy said, worriedly. So far it just seemed to be verbal. No one had thrown any punches yet.

  “What do we do? Do you have enough petrol left to get to my house?”

  Lucy looked at the petrol gauge. “Nope. Probably get halfway there. I’m almost running on fumes.”

  “Bugger.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll call my Dad. He’s got some petrol tanks on the farm. He can bring us some,” said Lucy as she rummaged through her handbag for her phone. She really hoped her father would be able to come. She didn’t fancy walking or hitch hiking the 170 kilometres in between here and the farm.