‘Do you have any salads?’
‘Just what’s there.’
Lyn eyed the curling sandwiches in the service station fridge. They looked old enough for salmonella colonies to have set up their own websites. If Philip thought she was going to risk her digestive health just because he was peckish then boss or no boss, it was well past time he learned the benefits of fasting. She pulled her head out of the fridge, closing the door reluctantly on the cool air inside. Immediately, her sunglasses resumed their sweaty slide down her nose.
Through the grimy window, she saw that Philip was at the pump. She grabbed a few packets of nuts and a health bar. By the cash register, there was a stand advertising bottled water but it was empty.
‘Sold out yesterday.’ The man must have had eyes in the back of his head. He stared fixedly at the news coverage.
Lyn went back to the fridge. Three bottles of milk with a use-by date from over a week ago, a six-pack of carbonated sugar and a lone orange juice in a carton that looked soggy at the corners. She grabbed the juice and heaved the six-pack onto the counter. Damn, another nail broken. It was the second that day, what with clambering about Copeton Dam after Philip while he inspected whatever it was that engineers thought was important for dam safety. What she would have given to have waited in the car with the air-conditioning the whole time they were there.
It was only as she waited for her change that she paid attention to the television. The running banner along the bottom of the screen was the usual alarmist rubbish: floods, evacuations, riots. But Philip said everything would be all right and, since he was the Director of the Dam Safety Committee of the New South Wales’ Department of Water, she believed him. She’d been his assistant since the old days when the office of the Committee was a musty old cupboard in the back of Parramatta. Now, the Parramatta embankment stood as the flagship in their extensive levee building program and Philip headed a staff of over three thousand. Lyn smiled to think that she too had played her part. If only the left-wing media agitators going on about rising sea levels would give credit where it was due, then the world would know the Committee’s true worth.
She was still glowing with the thought as she stowed the snacks in the glove box.
Philip was still at the bowser. ‘Is that all you got?’ He frowned.
‘They didn’t have much. Anyway, we can stop on the way for something else to eat. Bundarra’s close, isn’t it?’
She could have given him the distance in kilometres. She’d planned the itinerary down to the last detail, as usual. It was her special skill. However, it was always better to let Philip think he knew more. Decision-making, that was his domain.
‘Well, I want to be over Barrington Tops before it gets dark.’
There was a loud clunk and the bowser sputtered into silence.
‘What the hell?’ Philip turned to look back to the service station.
The sign on the door had been switched to ‘Closed’.
Philip hooked the hose back into place with a shrug. ‘Friendly sorts, these locals.’
He slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. ‘Half a tank. We’ll need to get more at Bundarra.’
‘On the upside,’ Lyn said soothingly as Philip spun the wheels on the gravel exit to the roadway, ‘we didn’t have to pay for the petrol. That’s a saving.’
Philip was always looking for savings on the Committee’s budget these days. There’d been mutterings that he was being considered as the next Head of the Department of Water, he’d confided only last week.
Philip didn’t reply. He was driving fast.
Lyn tightened her seat-belt.
Neither spoke till Philip screeched to a stop outside the Bundarra general store. Its closed sign hung loosely from the doorknob on frayed piece of string. They got out, looking up and down the deserted street. Philip rapped at the store door.
‘What?’ The door opened a crack, and a suspicious eye peered at them.
‘I know it’s Friday,’ said Philip, ‘but don’t you want any business?’
Lyn feared that he was going to put his foot in the door. ‘We’re just after some food, that’s all,’ she began.
‘No food,’ said the man, slamming the door.
They heard him call out to someone else inside. ‘Just blow-ins. No, I didn’t give them anything. It’s got to be Tablelanders only, with what’s just happened.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Philip, fishing out his phone. Whoever he was calling didn’t answer. ‘Something’s up. My ex is a right piece of work, but she’s too addicted to her phone not to answer it.’ He banged on the door again. ‘Hey, you in there. What is it? The least you can do is tell us. We’re not leaving till you do.’ His face was purpling in the heat.
As he lifted his arm to pound the door again, Lyn saw the damp stain pooling under the armpit of his crisp business shirt.
‘It’s that levee at Parra-bloody-matta,’ came the man’s voice through the door. ‘Busted. That’s it for Sydney — wiped clean.’
