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saving my shoes and socks,’ she said. ‘If I’m only around the cabin there’s really no need for me to wear them. And they’re all I’ve got. Apart from those I left at the farmhouse.’
    ‘Rohan was thinking about giving you some boots.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘What size are you?’
    ‘Eleven.’
    ‘Jeez.’
    ‘I know. Tell me about it.’
    ‘I was thinking the spares would be too big for you, but maybe not. I spose you played basketball.’
    She nodded.
    ‘Did you teach primary school or high school?’
    ‘My last job was primary, but I preferred the older kids. They’re good fun if you get off on the right foot.’
    ‘And you sing.’
    She laughed softly. ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’re a singing sports teacher.’
    She fell quiet, and when I glanced up I saw her gaze was on me.
    ‘You remind me of before,’ she said in a husky voice. ‘I thought it was because you got out so early and didn’t see how bad it got – but I don’t think so. It might be the cabin too; there are times here when I forget. Like just now – normal talk, not about food, not about the environment or the virus. It’s so different when there’s food in your stomach and a safe place to sleep.’ She paused and looked down. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘I’m a singing sports teacher. Or that was me. Now I’m not so sure.’
    ‘You look as though you could sing.’
    ‘You’d be surprised at how many people say that,’ she said. ‘I think it’s my big mouth, all teeth. You look like a muso – strumming around a campfire, on the beach. I was going to say in a Nimbin hippy scene, but I think we’re all starting to look pretty Nimbin.’
    ‘I can handle that.’
    ‘Mmm, me too in my day but now I think I’d only be happy about getting back to nature if it was on the way to a huge shopping centre, every supermarket and fast-food outlet known to man.’
    ‘Yeah, but what got us here in the first place?’
    She nodded. We fell silent. The crickets were loud. We listened a moment together.
    ‘It’s strange the way you’re so social and moral,’ she said, ‘and Rohan’s … old school … dogmatic, but the one who’s instinctive and close to nature.’
    ‘A couple of schizo bastards, you mean.’
    She laughed. ‘No.’
    ‘Rohan’s definitely dogmatic – it comes with religion; blinkered enough not to see your own faults or who you truly are.’
    She pulled the blanket tighter around her. ‘Is Rohan very religious, then?’
    ‘As part of a family feud,’ I answered. ‘Dad would quote from the Bible, mumbling about the serpent rising in the east, and storing the ammo like a redneck from way back. While Mum wore her atheism like a badge and devoured New Scientist like it was the New Testament. Some families are split down the middle by footy teams; ours was along the parting sea line.’
    ‘I’ll sit firmly on the fence then,’ Denny said. ‘Which is pretty much where I’d be anyway. I will say though, there was a hell of a lot of ‘finding God’ going on out there before I got out. Some survivors prattled on about being the chosen ones, how they’d been exposed and didn’t catch the virus, and that those who survived only did because we were hand-picked by God. Can you believe that? These people were more than a little deranged from hunger and stress though.’
    ‘They didn’t understand the naming of the virus then – the Red Queen hypothesis.’
    ‘Well no, but neither do I really.’
    ‘The arms race principle.’
    ‘Yes … but doesn’t that mean we started the war with the virus?’
    ‘That’s right. When we changed from treating the symptoms of illnesses and began fighting the causes of them, we in effect took up arms against biology and went into battle.’
    ‘Didn’t we have to? Wouldn’t we still be dying of the plague and consumption if we didn’t?’
    ‘It would have kept our numbers down. And it looks like we’ll be dying of them again anyway. Not only has fighting disease proved to be