The bees, Alec thought. Where are they? He’d discovered them last spring. Never more than one or two at a time. Their abdomens shone glossily, green or blue, depending if they moved in light or shade. They laboured over dust and stones before burrowing into soil, legs caked in pollen.

        “Some sort of native species,” he’d said to Alison weeks ago. He even told her during the ad break, so there was a better chance she’d listen. “Smaller than European bees. They live underground.”     

Now he wondered if they’d survived as he pushed a broom through the house. The waters, almost treacle, swirled ahead. Bow waves formed, rippling out the front door and down the path. Drifts of mud heaped up. Some clotted with dust and hair. Inside the front door Alec saw how high waters had reached in the hallway, spindly lines like graphs down the length of walls. Veils of cobwebs hung in ceiling corners where spiders climbed as the flood peaked.

Alec heard Alison working in the kitchen. She’d questioned whether they’d ever cook another meal in there. Gas jets probably blocked. Now the pantry stood emptied, jars splintered in a box following a raging sweep of her arm, glass clinking together before smashing into shards inside the box. A few years ago he would have comforted her, talked her down, voice level and soothing. But now he left her alone, probably brooding in the spaces where gravies and hot caramel sauce once simmered.   

Alec watched the skies. Clouds scudded past, showers skittering, wisping across horizons like brush strokes. The rain’s warmth surprised him as he shovelled mud off the front path. He’d smelt it approaching, mangroves at low tide and river silt odours. Sun broke through between shoals of black clouds. Humidity thickened.

 “Knew this was a mistake,” Alison said. Alec had remained outside, wanting to breathe air that tasted cleaner than the hallway’s bloated heat. He’d paused to survey along the fence. A line of roses lay tilted, almost ripped out by currents. Clumps of roots trailed next to them like braided hair.

         “What do you mean?”       

         “That we came here.”       

Alec straightened, watching her. Quarter moons of sweat circled under breasts. Her breathing seemed changed, shallower maybe. She looked past him. Yet again she could be gazing at the muddied sides of houses, cars wedged together and the shimmering puddles of water he’d seen churning with mosquito wrigglers.

         “This was the change you said you wanted?” she said. “Somewhere warmer? Where you stopped to talk to people rather than wishing they’d get out of your way? Look where it got us.”   

Alec asked her to remember why they came here. That after all those years living in a rowdy suburb, they’d decided to find somewhere quiet. With more shades of green than they thought possible.

         “They say we take seven and a half million breaths a year,” Alison said. “I’m regretting every one of them.”

She threw out her clothes. Carried them sodden and dripping, dropping them at the gate. Alec could tell from the lurching in her shoulders she sobbed. He looked away, mechanically sweeping on, piling up leaves and garbage. He would’ve hugged her. Even knew what that would feel like. Her angles, the way hips cut into him, ribs pressing like knives needing sharpening. Once she’d been soft in his arms, hardening years later. Now, nothing. So much unspoken.

They slept in a school hall. Stood in exhausted lines waiting for food. They shuffled forward. Smiled grimly at the volunteers.

         “Was worse in 2019. Those fires. Like your lungs filled with ash.” The voice came further back in the queue. Alec couldn’t see who spoke but glimpsed the collective nods behind him. Alison and he would’ve eaten in silence but another couple joined them. 

         “The kids were scared,” a woman said. “Their little faces. I’ll never forget it.”

         “Rescued us in a tinnie,” a man with her added. “Out catching barramundi the week before. Then using it to save lives.”

        “Couldn’t afford insurance,” the woman added. “At least won’t have to sit around for six months before being told our claims denied.”    

         “Stoic,” Alec said later to Alison.  

         “I blame you,” she said. She spoke without eye contact. Loud enough for others nearby to glance up, then away. Her thin arms bunched.

         “Not here. Please.”

They trudged to the sinks. She washed, passing dripping plates to a man who thanked her each time. He dried three sinks along, his tea towel quickly wet, watery patterns smearing on plates.   

She slid into a sleeping bag, her body fluid, turning and bending to fit inside. He sat, watching the back of her head. It wasn’t his fault. Blame the bursting brown waters, the thick straight lines of rain, that bloody far away government out of touch with communities like this. 

Sunshine glowed against stained glass windows. They hurriedly ate cereal and waited to be shuttled to their home. While thudding through pot holes houses bounced by. Maybe the bees survived. Alec had read air pockets could form underground.

When they arrived someone living across the road approached them. Warned looters had gone through a couple of houses nearby. Promised to shoot the bastards if he spotted them. That he might need Alec’s help if it came to that. Could take two to throw a body into where the river still ran at a torrent, tumbling them to three towns away. He stepped back smirking.

“Don’t look so serious!” he said. “Only joking! I’d draw the line at a flesh wound.” 

Alison led Alec inside. Went to the bedroom, saying the carpet needed to be removed before it stunk. He breathed the humidity, moving through him like swallowing something half chewed. He walked from room to room. That table can be cleaned up. Those chairs with cushions are ruined. The books can’t be saved. Would the fridge work again?

Alec heard Alison crying. The sound muted, threading through curdled air. He followed it to where she knelt, her back twitching. He stood, his shadow faintly over her, wishing she was under his hands, reaching her with body warmth and slow breath, layering his chest down her spine, lying lightly across her skin.

         “What’s wrong?” he said quietly.  

         “Look,” Alison said. She held up an ear ring. “I had them hanging on a little stand. Some of them washed over to here. Except none of them match. Not one pair.”

Alec looked over the top of her shoulder. They lay in a dull mixture of jade, red, blue and pearls, as if their light had rinsed away.

         “Do you want me to look for them?”

         “I’ll wear them unmatched won’t I? Let’s see what else is missing. Maybe half my shoes are gone so I’ll have to wear odd ones of those too.”    

He left her. Carted furniture outside, lining it up in piercing sunshine to dry out the timber. Glasses in cupboards lay broken. Coffee cups tipped over but remained intact, sludge inside them. “Happy Birthday” written on one faced upwards.   

Alec dragged wads of paper from the front yard mud. Found three saucepans and shattered bottles of port he’d been ageing. Outside Alison drew a cloth across her forehead. Sometimes her short movements took him back years. Two decades ago twirling in that wedding dress, diamantes like dew drops across a shoulder, other shoulder bare so he noticed the machinery of her bones. They’d attended dancing lessons for the bridal waltz, giggling and clumsy together. At the wedding her father stole the show, whisking her through turns so the room must’ve blurred at the corners of eyes.

 “I wish we’d never come here,” Alison said. “Best we can hope for is we’ll be allocated a caravan where they’ll put people up. At least I’ll be able to shower. Even if I need to queue.”

         “Let’s see what we can salvage,” Alec said.

         “You mean our lives? Salvage those? Our lives aren’t like flat packs you know. You can’t lie them down and start assembling.”

         “We can do it. We moved here and settled in after all. It’s just that we’re going to have to do it again.”

         “What was it you said? No more desks. No more long days at the office. No more traffic. You sure got rid of all that. And everything else.”

         “You agreed to it.”

         “I did. Thought there might be something better than watching you come home miserable every day. Saying over and over you only worked to pay debts. That it was tedious, joyless, the job meant nothing. That’s when I made my mistake. I thought we had lives worth saving.”

He went to her this time. She’d turned back to salvaging a vase and as he approached, spun around as if intending to slap him. He even winced, the way he did when watching a medical procedure on television. For a second she glared, before returning to the vase, gouging it out with fingers, then shaking mud off before taking it inside.

He watched her go, half expecting her to return and ask to take back what she’d said. Lean into him so hard he’d feel the Morse code of her heart, hands gripping him. Sun baked the back of his neck. Near to his feet three small holes pocked the ground. They could be ant’s nests. Belong to spiders. Or, in a tiny miracle, the bees survived.

He could only hope.