Free Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan Page B

on the way. Or she might walk in at any minute, and think it’s funny that we’re worrying. Keep going, though.’ He set off through the house to the front. Marcus heard him on the porch, on the path, heard the gate. He heard, almost, Dad’s head turning as he checked up and down the street. Plait, plait. This would be an interesting wreath—a bit odd-looking, but it would hold together well, these good strong stalks with their regular sprouts of little leaves along them. In springtime they had yellow flowers, funny shaped, like some kind of pea-flower , Mum had described them once, but it was winter-time now, and they weren’t even beginning to bud up yet.
    Dad came back. ‘We taking the train in?’ said Marcus.
    ‘I thought we’d drive. Be quicker this time of night.’
    ‘That’s not the way she would’ve gone, though.’
    ‘I figure, we’ll go up the railway station, ask if there are any delays on the line, then drive into town and check Swathes.’
    ‘You reckon she’d stop the train?’
    ‘Someone’d press the emergency button, for sure. Don’t you reckon?’
    It was a shame to have to wake Lenny and put her in the capsule, but she settled back to sleep pretty quickly once they started driving. Marcus sat in the back with her; he didn’t want to take Mum’s seat in the front. He just put the gaudy wreath there, in its cloud of aftershave. The smell had got on his hands and stuck there, despite a quick scrubbing with soap-in-a-bottle (lavender, chamomile and orange). Now his hands carried two little clouds of powerful scents, and felt slippery-dry.
    It was a long drive; he could have slept, but he wanted to keep Dad company, so he made himself sit up straight and watch the suburbs tumble past, the freeway roll smoothly by. It was a fine clear night, and everything looked cleaner under only streetlights and neon, kinder, more mysterious. The lights went over Lenny’s sleeping face like cloths stroking her, her woolly hat, her fanning eyelashes, her mouth so small and perfect, like the bud of some strange flower, or maybe a faun’s hoofprint in snow. Marcus laid his perfumed hand on the blanket tucked over her stomach, and watched out the windscreen as the night and lights rushed on at them.

    The first time, only Dad had been there—well, Marcus had been, but he’d only been tiny, so he didn’t remember any of it. Scared the geewhillikers out of me , Dad said. It had been in the laundry, which in the old place—Marcus knew that house as another land, the land of his babyhood, entirely built of Mum and Dad’s stories—had been a separate little hut, in the back yard. Dad had gone looking for her, and at first he hadn’t checked in the laundry, because she always made a good racket out there, and once it started, of course, she was dead quiet. When he found her he’d called and called, panicking , he said, and hung onto her, and finally she’d softened, and floated down and landed beside him, and let out this big sigh , Dad said . She could have been glad to be back or sorry—I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know.
    Marcus had nodded when Dad told him this. That was his instinct, too, to stay closed-lipped about it. Not just to not-mention it to anyone except Dad— that went without saying—but to not bother Mum, either, with all those questions that bubbled up. They’d had their talk about it; they were taking action; there was no need to bring it up at all, with Mum or with Dad, no need to worry aloud. He’d taught himself to banish the thoughts from his mind if he ever felt too worried, at night or on bad days.
    The last time it happened—ages ago, more than a whole year—he’d been right there with her; she’d been pregnant with Lenny then. It was a rainy day, and she was showing him how to make a wreath, from her days in the florist shop. She’d stood up quietly, preoccupied, and he’d kept on poking the lavender-stems among the plaited circle of