17

Xena passed Zorro over to Aiden and then fell into step with me.

‘Can’t get rid of you guys,’ she said. ‘No offence, but you’re like a bad smell.’

‘Thank you for helping my brother,’ I replied.

She laughed. ‘Hey. An accident. We’re going through an underpass after the storm and found this shivering … mess in a yellow dress, of all things. Holding a dog. I felt bad for the dog, not for the mess in the dress. I’d’ve just taken the dog but I couldn’t split him from the freak in yellow, so no choice. Amazing how they perked up after a spell in front of a fire. Even tried to feed ’em, but I guess they weren’t hungry.’

‘Thank you.’

We walked in silence for a couple of minutes. The park was behind us now and we were travelling through deserted streets. Aiden walked ahead, chatting with Ziggy. They seemed to have forgotten their differences, judging by the way Ziggy was smiling at something Aiden was saying.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Headquarters,’ said Xena. ‘A house a few streets away.’

‘Headquarters of what?’

Xena looked at me, shook her head and smiled.

‘I’d forgotten you don’t know nothing,’ she said. ‘The rich kid. Why should you know? Tell me something, princess …’

‘Stop calling me that,’ I said, ‘or I’ll punch your lights out. My name is Ashleigh.’

She stopped and laughed. She laughed so hard that she had to bend over double. Everyone stopped and looked back at her. It took a minute for her to recover and when she did, she waved a hand at the group. We started moving again.

‘Sorry, Ashleigh,’ said Xena, still smiling. ‘Us women shouldn’t put each other down. We’ve got enough problems with men doing it. Anyway, I was goin’ to ask. What’s your place like, eh? Tell me about where you live.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Big place, I reckon. Lotsa security. Your own gardens, so you grow craploads of veggies. Solar sail covering the roof – am I right? Plenty of shade and plenty of electricity. Maybe you sell some of the juice you can’t use to any poor people around. If you’ve got any poor people around.’

‘No underprivileged people around us,’ I said. ‘And you forgot our swimming pool. But, other than that …’

Xena stopped and whistled.

‘A pool? Wow. We hit the motherlode with you guys. Maybe I should take Ziggy’s advice. Ransom you, not your brother there. Can’t imagine he’s keen to go home since he ran away in a yellow dress. What ya reckon your folks would pay to get you back, Ashleigh?’

‘More than you can imagine,’ I said.

‘Doubt it,’ said Xena. ‘I’ve got a helluvan imagination.’

‘So you’ve got me stereotyped,’ I said. ‘What about you? Dirty. Will kill anything that moves. Not bothered about improving the world, just taking what you can. Am I close?’

She laughed again. Xena laughed a lot, I was beginning to realise.

‘Pretty close,’ she replied. ‘Dirty, yup. Kill anything that moves, nah. You’re still here. For now. Taking what we can, sure. No one gives us anything, prin … Ashleigh. What we got, we’ve had to get ourselves.’

‘Headquarters?’ We seemed to have moved away from the topic.

‘Ah, yeah. Now, no offence, but I’m gonna assume you know nothing, okay?’

‘Assume away.’

‘Right. So there’re three sections to society. Four, if you count the poor wandering buggers who’re even worse off than us. The top band – people like you. The ones with wealth and power. In control. The kind of people who screwed over the planet in the first place and then, when it all turned to crap, kept control anyway.’

‘But …’

Xena held up her hand.

‘Second, the people who work for those of you in the top band, keeping you safe and comfortable and, most importantly, still in power. The doctors, the nurses, the scientists, the teachers, the builders. But most of all, the security. Eighty per cent of people with jobs work in the security area. Did you know that?’ She laughed again. ‘Hey, dumb me, huh? Why would you know? That’s all way beneath you.’

We turned a corner. Everyone appeared to relax a little, as if somehow the environment was safer. I couldn’t see any change from one street to another, but shoulders seemed looser. Kids took their hands from the handles of their knives. They didn’t glance around as much.

‘These’re the people,’ Xena continued, ‘who live in the gated settlements. People who live by the laws, who get food delivered to them, who’ve got solar panels for lighting, heating and air conditioning. If they’re lucky, mind. Sometimes those things don’t happen, but what are you gonna do, huh? Who do you complain to? They’re also the people who have one child and that’s it. Pop out one, you get your bits seen to. Their communities are guarded. I mean, seriously guarded.’

I thought of Charlotte and her parents, working all the hours they could to protect their standing in their community. I imagined my friend poring over her schoolwork for hour upon countless hour, determined not just to protect what she had, but to climb further up the ladder, to become one of the ruling class by dint of willpower, education and a self-discipline I couldn’t begin to comprehend. It wasn’t just ambition that motivated her, I suddenly realised, but also fear. Fear of slipping from their nice house to just another ordinary one in the community and from there to one close to the walls and the warning sirens and from there to outside the gate and therefore beyond protection, becoming …

Xena snapped her fingers in front of my eyes.

‘Earth to Ashleigh,’ she said. ‘Are you receiving me?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about a friend. You were saying? The people in the communities are guarded. They’re guarded from …’

‘From us,’ said Xena. ‘The final tier. The outcasts. We’re the ones who don’t fit into the top two levels. The ones who can’t get a job in security. Or choose not to. The ones who’re free to live however we want. So we forage, we barter, we trade for everything, look after our own little … you’d probably call it a tribe. We say family.’

She pointed to a large house with a massive gate and a high fence surrounding it. It was about a hundred metres ahead on the right of the road.

‘Headquarters,’ she said. ‘Where the leaders care for our people. This district is ours. Other districts belong to other families. We defend our territory, they defend theirs. And then, of course, there’re the people who don’t belong anywhere. The wanderers. Now they’re really a worry. Especially if you bump into one on a dark night.’

‘This is what you talked to my brother about? That day in the park.’

‘Among other things. He wasn’t as … ignorant as you, but he sure had a lot to learn.’

I nodded. I was beginning to realise that despite my expensive education, maybe because of my expensive education, I knew virtually nothing at all. As if to prove the point, the closer we got to Xena’s Headquarters, the more baffled I became.

‘What is that noise and what is that disgusting smell?’ I asked.

Xena appeared genuinely puzzled.

‘That squealing,’ I added. It was like metal scraping along metal, the kind of high-pitched noise that sets your teeth on edge and feels like pain against the temples.

She laughed. ‘Oh, that noise. That smell. Pigs. Dozens of ’em. We keep ’em round the back. Their crap’s no good for the vegetables, but we compost it down. Couple of months it’s okay to use.’

‘You put up with that noise and smell for compost?’

‘Nah. We put up with it for bacon.’

‘Isn’t bacon a type of meat?’

Xena laughed again. I was apparently a source of considerable amusement for her and it was getting irritating. ‘Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. OH, YEAH! Only the best meat in the whole freakin’ world.’

‘You people eat meat?’ I thought back to Charlotte. She brought beef sandwiches to school, but she didn’t eat them. I think they were fake beef anyway. Like that chicken substitute her mother served us at her house. I suspected Charlotte only did it to impress. If that was the case, I didn’t know anyone who ate meat. Until now.

‘What else are you gonna do with it?’ said Xena. ‘Do they teach you nothing at that fancy school? Come on, girl. Let’s go in. I’ll introduce you to Nonna.’

Ziggy opened a padlock on the front gate and we all trooped through. The house seemed normal, though it could’ve done with a good coat of paint and some of the wood on the window frames was rotting and flaking. But the smell was making my eyes water, so I couldn’t take in too many details. Xena led me up the porch steps, through the open front door, into a long, dark corridor and then into what was obviously a kitchen. An old, large woman was at a central bench doing something with flour. She looked up, saw us and smiled.

‘Who have we here?’ she said. Her accent was strange. I couldn’t place it.

‘This here’s Ashleigh,’ said Xena. ‘Sister of the boy we picked up last night. And this here’s Nonna.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

‘And pleased to meet you, Ashleigh,’ said Nonna. She came over and gave me a big hug, which took me by surprise. A cloud of flour exploded behind my back and when she pulled away I sneezed. Nonna laughed. ‘Are you looking to stay with us?’

‘Just one night. If that’s all right,’ I said.

‘Of course. We’ve no spare beds but if you don’t mind the floor, I’m sure we can find a blanket or two for you.’

‘Thank you.’

She picked up a huge ball of dough and started kneading it on the floury counter. ‘What do you say to pizza for dinner?’ she asked. ‘With tomatoes straight off the vine, onions, home-made goat’s cheese and stacks of ham.’

I looked to Xena for help, but she just laughed at me.

‘I don’t know what ham is,’ I admitted. ‘But, yes. Please. Thank you.’

‘Ham’s a rare vegetable,’ said Xena. ‘You’ll love it.’ But she could hardly stop laughing. Nonna frowned and wagged a finger in her direction.

‘That is very wrong of you, Lauren, and you know it.’ She turned to me. ‘Ham is a cut of meat from a pig, Ashleigh.’

‘I don’t eat meat,’ I said. ‘I think it’s wrong … I mean, I was brought up to think it’s wrong. I don’t mean you …’

‘I’ll make you some pizza with just vegetables,’ said Nonna. ‘Take no notice of Lauren’s teasing. Are you okay with cheese, though?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Nonna. And thank you … Lauren.’

It wasn’t a friendly glare I got this time.

‘Okay, clear off, the pair of you. I’m cooking for nearly a hundred people tonight and I can’t afford to waste time chatting. Lauren, I’m using up all the ham – we need to set some more curing. Go on. Run along and give me space.’

‘Come on, Ashleigh,’ said Xena. ‘I’ll introduce you to our pigs. They’ve never met a rich kid before, but they’re not too fussy about who they hang with, so you’ll be right.’

It was all I could do not to puke. I couldn’t stop the gagging, though.

The pigs, about fifteen of them, were running around in a wooden enclosure with what appeared to be mud for a floor. On closer examination it seemed to be a combination of mud and manure. I gagged again. Xena didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. She leaned against a fence and looked over the squirming mass of pink flesh with what seemed like affection.

‘Eight piglets,’ she said. ‘And more on the way when that sow over there farrows.’ I had no idea what she was talking about – more confirmation, if it was needed, of my ignorance. ‘Any of those piglets take your fancy, Ashleigh?’

‘They’re all revolting.’

‘No. They’re not. Pigs are actually really smart. They’ve got an amazing sense of smell, too.’

‘They must be really suffering living next to each other, then.’

Xena laughed. ‘Let’s look at Babe here.’ She opened a gate and grabbed a piglet as it tried to squirm away. Despite myself, I was impressed. Xena’s reaction speed was incredible and the piglet was no slouch either, but in one smooth movement she had it firmly in her arms.

‘You give the pigs names?’ I said.

‘Nah. I call ’em all Babe. Simpler that way.’ She hugged the piglet close to her and latched the gate again. ‘Say hello to Ashleigh, Babe,’ she said, bringing the thing up towards my face. I backed away.

What happened next was so fast and so unexpected that it took me several seconds just to process it. Xena’s hand moved up and across and a fountain of red arced towards me, splashing the front of my T-shirt. I flinched and turned my face away but not before I felt droplets, warm and burning, against my cheeks. When I turned back, Xena was holding the piglet upside down by its trotters. Blood ran, a thick stream, from its neck, pooling into the dirt. The piglet spasmed a couple of times and stilled. Even then, I didn’t really understand what had just happened. I put a hand up to my face and it came away red.

It was then I screamed. I think it was then. But whenever it was, it was difficult to stop.

Xena slapped me across the face, at least once, but maybe twice. Hard.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ she yelled. I don’t know if it was the shouting or the slap, but I suddenly found my screams had jammed in my throat.

‘You killed that pig,’ I whispered. ‘You cut its throat.’

She glanced down at the body she still held. A knife, red and dripping, was clenched in her grip, its blade snug against the animal’s legs.

‘Course I did,’ she said. ‘How else was it gonna die? Of harsh words and a broken heart?’

‘You murdered it.’

She put her face even closer to mine. Instinctively I took a step back.

‘Are you crazy?’ she hissed. ‘Murder? Murder is what happens when your parents are stopped in the street and beaten to death for nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Murder is when one of your fancy hospitals turns away one of my people and leaves him to die in the road like a dog. Because the drugs that could’ve cured him are kept for the likes of you and your parents. Murder is when …’ She took a deep breath and turned away. She wiped her forehead with a blood-stained arm, dropped her head and stood still for a moment. When Xena turned back to me, her eyes had lost some of their fire.

‘Sorry,’ she said. She took another breath. ‘I should’ve guessed you’d react that way.’ She glanced down at the body in her hand. ‘I slaughtered this pig as quickly as I could. They’re not pets, they’re food. I made it as painless as possible. I …’ She shook her head. ‘Your brother is here,’ she continued. She gave a nod over my left shoulder. ‘Go talk to him. I have to gut and clean this animal and I don’t think you wanna be around for that. Go talk to your brother. And I am sorry, Ashleigh. I didn’t think and I should’ve done.’