‘You sound like a fucking mouthpiece.’
He shrugged, that gentle smile again. Now it was irritating.
‘I’m happy, Mim. You don’t have to worry. The Department know what they’re doing here. I trust them.’
‘Bullshit! You’ve never believed in anyone in charge!’
A knock on the door. Mim looked up in surprise, instinctually cradling Essie’s head in her hand.
‘That’ll be Elwin. My coach,’ he added as Mim questioned him with her eyes.
Elwin made it clear that it was time for Mim to go, and Michael didn’t disagree. She tried to get him on his own as she changed Essie and packed up the nappy bag. Said she could go for a walk and come back when they were done.
‘That’s okay,’ Michael said. ‘Maybe next time.’
‘You didn’t even have a hold,’ Mim said and let the hurt sound in her voice.
He said he would next time and cupped the baby’s head for a moment at the door. Mim took the opportunity, despite Elwin hovering in the hallway behind.
‘You can call me, right, any time, it didn’t take that long to get here, I can come whenever. I’m a lady of leisure now, right?’ She laughed, but it was too high, too brittle.
‘It was good to see you,’ he said, like a script, and his eyes were skittery tired. She gripped him hard on the shoulders and didn’t want to let go.
She felt hollow as she approached the gates of the estate. What had happened to her brother? She’d thought that nothing could be worse than the dark days of his addiction but maybe darkness insinuates itself in other ways. There was a black SUV ahead of her and Mim slowed to a stop. A female guard was standing by the window of the SUV. She appeared to be listening. Her face was pleasant, relaxed. Mim wished she could hear the conversation. Then the guard shook her head, still the pleasant smile, and after a moment, the SUV did a U-turn around the small grassed roundabout. Mim tried to see the driver’s face as the car passed, accelerating slightly. It was a woman, her face set, and there was a child in the back seat.
Mim’s chest was tense as she approached the guard, waiting in front of the closed gate, discreetly holding up her screen to check the numberplate. The guard held out the screen and Mim hesitated before remembering, holding out her hand to swipe her brand-new chip. In the back, Essie mewled.
‘Just a moment, please,’ the guard said and Mim had to brake because she had already begun to move off at the sound of the woman’s voice.
‘Sorry?’
But the guard was stepping quickly towards the gatehouse, one hand behind her, palm splayed, telling Mim to stay put.
Mim could hear her blood swooshing in her ears. In the rear-vision mirror she could see Essie’s little leg kicking out from the capsule, her face in the mirror Mim had installed so she could always see her, eyes scrunched, mouth stretching.
The gate was very solid from this angle. She could see now that the artistically wound iron, as pleasing as it was to the eye, was impenetrable. She wondered what force the front of her car could withstand. The speed required to break a gate off its hinges. She closed her eyes and saw the other driver’s face. Was it blank? Or terrified?
Beyond the iron gate she could see the service lane to the highway, could imagine the coloured swish of other cars, driving back and away from here, on the outside. She thought she was going to hyperventilate. She pressed down on the handbrake, slid her foot to the accelerator. Wondered if what they say about airbags is accurate. Essie’s face, her kicking foot.
And then the gate was opening.
‘You’re good to go,’ said the guard as she tapped the door and stepped back.
Not until she was out on the highway had Mim truly begun to breathe. She lowered the front two windows, took great gulps of air, turned the music up loud and whooped in relief.
* * *
Mim shakes her head. She needs coffee, albeit the shitty stuff they’ll serve in one of the big highway stops. Dry paddocks, dumped rubbish on the shoulder of the highway, every now and then a hybrid that’s run out of juice of both varieties, waiting for a city owner who didn’t comprehend the distances out here, to come back for it before it’s nicked or torched. Sometimes, the sporadic gruesome splendour of a floral highway tribute to a loved one who’s become a tangled mess on this stretch of road.
The road signs are screens flashing info on kilometres, times and hazards onto the data screen in the car, always updating according to the road conditions. She remembers the old signs indicating the kilometres to a destination with fondness, the guessing games they’d play on the way to the beach, seeing who was closest in kilometres to their final stop. Steve always won. Of course. Now the signs give news updates too. The Department had decided everyone needed to be across a small and specific amount of news. Everyone’s curated news had become so filtered that people had started unknowingly driving straight into bushfires and flood zones. Or turning up at the airport to fly to a country whose democratic leadership had just been deposed. The new legislation had introduced a mandated minimum of news stories everyone was expected to know.
Up ahead is Clarke’s Pass, a mass of hills that rise up out of the flat pastureland, eons old, a dead volcano. She’s always loved the feel of it. Measuring the earth beneath her as the car shifts gear to accommodate the incline. She crests the rise and the lowlands stretch out before her.
Jesus fuck, it gets drier every year. The good earth of the plains, beneath which the aquifers pulse with their riches, drier now than it’s ever been. Fat pipes worming across the fields from the north, pumping some of the deluges that swamp them every wet season down to the drought-stricken south. At least they’ve stopped pumping it out of the ground. If the science hadn’t convinced the powers that be, the series of increasing tremors that cracked the foundations of industry from the west to the east soon did. It’s not a permanent halt, but it gives the earth a moment to recover.
* * *
She can see the neon signs of the service station in the distance.
Essie stays in the car with her screen on, but Sam is quick to jump out and hovers while she plugs in.
‘Can I get something, Mum? What can I get?’
‘There’re rice crackers in the car.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘We’ll see.’
She swipes her hand over the payspot on the charge station, waiting for the quick ping of the verification noise. It doesn’t come. Instead there is a buzz and the light flashes red. See attendant, the screen flashes.
Mim tries swiping her hand again, but the same message flashes. She sighs. Knocks on the window and motions to Essie that they are going inside. Essie nods, looks back at her screen.
At the counter she tries again on the machine. The attendant is young, bored, smiles thinly.
‘Sorry, that’s declined. Did you want to try choosing another method on the touchpad? Another account perhaps?’
Mim is out of the habit. She just knows that there will be funds, there has never not been. Ben’s wage goes in, does all the things it’s supposed to – mortgage, bills, a little aside for the emergency account, and the rest in the transaction.
‘Right, yes.’ She swipes her hand again, sees the options come up and selects the emergency account. She tries to remember the last time Ben told her what was in there. She squirms that she does not know.