In the morning Dad was making breakfast when I hit the kitchen. The room was warm, it smelled of bacon, eggs sizzled in the pan — what a picture of domestic harmony. I hope the cameras caught it all because the camera never lies.
Mum was still in bed and there was no sign of Noah, surprise surprise. Dad disappeared and I could hear the murmurings of calm and patient from him and exactly nothing from Noah. Dad reappeared. Noah snarled his way into the room not too many minutes later.
‘You stink,’ I said.
Dad sniffed. ‘Go and have a shower, son.’
Noah sat down — didn’t grunt, didn’t answer, didn’t shower.
‘Breakfast after your shower,’ Dad said, doing calm and patient again.
Noah got up but headed for the pantry not the bathroom. ‘Where’s the bread?’
Well, well — here was another delightful surprise. We’d eaten all the bread and when that happened, we had to make our own.
‘Why didn’t you say something last night?’ I asked Dad. ‘We could’ve put the breadmaker on.’
He tried for a hearty grin but to my expert eye, it was just a touch frazzled round the edges. ‘There’s no breadmaker, Min. We do it by hand.’
He was learning something, I guess. He hadn’t said you — meaning me — do it by hand.
Noah must’ve been hungry. He tried to score some bacon. Dad fended him off. ‘Shower then food.’
Noah caved, but it’s my bet that not a molecule of soap touched his skin. He came out with wet hair and the stink intact. Dad gave him food.
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘do not even think about leaving me here by myself to make bread.’ I glared at him.
He glanced out the window, then at the sofa where Mum hadn’t yet appeared. ‘All right. Just this once. Till you get the hang of it.’
I smiled and felt as dangerous as a shark. ‘I’ll make it every third time.’
‘Grow up, Min.’ No calm and patient for me.
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘From where I’m sitting, grown-up doesn’t have a lot going for it.’ I could have said a lot more — like if I had to grow up then I wanted my boyfriend with me and seeing as how he and Mum weren’t using the double bed, then could Seb and I have it? But in the interests of self-preservation I opted for, ‘I’ll feel like growing up when you sit down and talk to me about what’s going to happen with this family.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ he said and shut his mouth with a snap that Lizzie, Jax and Addy probably heard at home in their nice, warm houses that had telephones and computers and life.
Dad made Noah help him make bread. I did the listening watch. Dad found a jar of yeast in the pantry, which apparently you need for bread, and lucky for us it had a recipe on its label just like the macaroni had. It takes even longer to make bread than it does to cook a roast, and when it’s cooked, it’s awful — solid and sticky in the middle.
‘If we had a computer we could look up how to make bread,’ I said.
‘Well, we haven’t,’ Dad said. ‘Come on, Noah, we’ve got work to do.’
‘I’m hungry,’ Noah said.
Dad chucked the loaf of ugly bread into the backpack. ‘We’ll eat on the job.’ This could possibly have been a result of Mum turning up and collapsing on to the sofa twenty minutes before the bread was cooked.
‘How’s the meat?’ I yelled to his disappearing back. Must have been fine because he didn’t come back and say it was or it wasn’t. I didn’t go and check.
Another day to fill. I did the Mum chores and the chicken chores — had a nice little chat with the chooks, collected six eggs. ‘Good chooks,’ I told them. They chatted back and I gave them another weed to supple ment their otherwise boring diet which, so Dad assured me, was wheat and more wheat.
Which took me back to considering our diet. What I craved right now was bread and meat. ‘It’s just because I know I can’t have them,’ I told the camera, ‘but man — do I want them.’
I wandered back into the house and had a moan to Mum before I remembered I wasn’t talking to her. Oh, what the hell, there was going to be plenty of time not to talk to her when we got off this bird-shit place.
‘Make some bread,’ she said in that faint voice.
‘No point,’ I said. ‘That stuff Dad made was a disaster. We should’ve brought a breadmaker.’
‘Try,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll help.’
By which she had to mean tell me things rather than get up and dance around the kitchen. Oh well, why not? The idea of producing a fantastic loaf of bread and waving it in Dad’s face appealed. I set to work.
Turns out that Dad had been a tad on the impatient side. He hadn’t given the yeast enough time to rise. He hadn’t kneaded the dough enough — I quite liked the kneading — very tactile and my hands came out soft and clean although I decided not to think about what was now in the bread that used to be on my hands. And last of all, Dad hadn’t cooked it long enough.
‘Give it a sharp tap,’ Mum whispered, ‘It should sound hollow if it’s cooked.’
I did and it did. Minna Hargreaves, baker extraordinaire! I pulled it out of the oven and put it to cool on the table. Damn but it smelled good.
Mum smiled at me. ‘Well done, Min.’
I grinned at her, I was so pleased with myself. ‘You want a bit while it’s hot?’
She closed her eyes. ‘No. Thanks.’
She looked ghastly, worse than yesterday. Was morning sickness hereditary? Never have babies, Minna, just in case. I crouched down beside her. ‘Mum? You look real bad. Can I get something?’
Her eyes were still shut. ‘It’s just the smell. Turns my stomach. Don’t worry. Be okay soon.’
Yeah right. I carried the bread into my bedroom and shut the door on it. The only thing to do was open the doors and windows in the kitchen and blow the smell away and since there was a bit of a wind it didn’t take long.
I had bread for lunch. I swear it was the best bread ever, what with the butter melting through it. I thought of Dad and Noah and the ugly bread. ‘Enjoy,’ I shouted.
They came back at 4.25 by the kitchen clock, one minute after I’d decided that I was as musically talented as I was artistically.
‘I’m hungry,’ Noah grunted.
‘What’s for dinner?’ Dad asked, back turned to Mum.
I put the guitar down. ‘Whatever you want to cook.’
That didn’t go down any better than I bet the ugly bread had. Noah snarled, attacked the pantry and vanished along with a packet of gingernuts.
Dad sat down at the table, gave a sigh that was pure theatrics, hauled out some calm and patient and said, ‘Minna, this is not the most ideal of situations. I’m asking you to please make the best of it. I need your cooperation here.’
I sat down across from him. ‘Dad — I’ll start cooperating as you call it, although I reckon I’ve done a heap more cooperating than some people around here. Anyway, I’ll do it when you start talking to me about what’s going to happen to us.’ Challenge issued. Cards on the table. Gloves off. Eyeball to eyeball.
Did he take it up? No. ‘Minna, how many times do I have to tell you — there’s nothing to discuss. We’ll sort it out when we get home. Finish. End of story.’ He held up a hand. ‘No. Don’t say anything — you know what I expect of you. It’s not for long, just bite the bullet and do it.’
Well, we were into clichés and no mistake. I got up. No way was I going to tell him there was three-quarters of a loaf of the best bread in the world sitting in my bedroom, and if he thought he could get away with steamrollering me, he was in for a disappointment.
He stood up. ‘I’m going to check the meat. You sort something out for dinner.’
All right, Daddy darling — lesson coming up in how to cooperate while not cooperating. I grabbed the big bag of rice from the pantry and dumped it on the table. I chose the rice because it didn’t have any helpful recipes printed on it, and it didn’t give any hint of how to cook it.
He came back.
‘We’re having rice,’ I said.
‘Good. But I want you and Noah outside for a bit. The meat’s coming along well, but we need to turn it to get air to the bits that have been under the pegs.’ At least he didn’t ask me to get Noah. I got the camera instead and obediently trotted outside, like the good little girl I wasn’t.
Noah came, snarling and crunching. We went outside, a merry threesome, a picture of family harmony and togetherness. I sat on the verandah and pointed the camera down the line.
‘Leave it, Min, and come and help.’ Dad.
‘You do your job and leave me to do mine.’ Me delivering a masterly thrust because it was good for him to be reminded that this whole farce was his grand idea.
He turned his back and gave Noah a hurry up.
They worked, I filmed. I was about to shut the camera off when we heard a noise — a deep throbbing carried on a hell wind.
‘What’s that?’ Noah spoke! I aimed the camera at him. Was I getting my brother back?
‘Don’t know,’ Dad said. They stopped working and we all stared upwards to the hills. We didn’t have to wait long for the answer to the mystery.
A cloud of the blue birds with the white tummies zoomed over the tops of the hills, down the valley, all of them carried on a blast of wind. They cruised towards us, hundreds and hundreds of them. I filmed them hurtling onwards, blown on the wind or flying — or maybe a mixture of both. They darkened the sky and then they were over our heads and the wind that carried them hit us and tore at our hair and clothes. It swiped the camera sideways in my hands.
And then they were gone.
‘What was that?’ Noah again — not sulky, not grumpy — but covered in bird shit which might not do much for his temper.
I focused in on Dad. He wore a selection of bird shit globs too, but he was staring at the meat. I focused on that and started to laugh. ‘Behold! The great meat disaster of Isolation Island!’ I zoomed a shot along the line, taking in the straggly remnants that had survived the wind blast, and lingering on those that wore globs of bird shit. Not one paper cover remained.
I jumped up and walked the length of the line. ‘Nine pieces left intact and without decorations,’ I said. ‘You want to keep them, Dad?’
I got a great shot of his face — fed up, disbelieving but then he let loose one of his rip-roaring belly laughs. That did it. All three of us ended up rolling on the ground laughing till our sides ached.
Then we went inside, cleaned off the damage with water that must’ve just got a whole new sprinkling of bird shit and we cooked dinner together. Rice, tomato sauce and tinned fish. Not the best meal ever, but not the worst either.
I didn’t tell Dad about the bread. I gave Mum a cup of tea and a water cracker. Another day down. Would Mum be well enough to travel tomorrow? Would we go home tomorrow? Not if that hell wind kept up.