Reborn Seven Days Before El Niño

l Veyr

skin off my knees befo

stood straight up in a white sky and the street had emptied out. No one on the balconies. No one at the windows. Shutt

ven minutes, Dacre liked to say. Door to door

an hour and I

cycle, I was the one who sat up in bed and said we should put water by. Cans, bottles, whatever we can get, even if nothing comes of it. He'd laughed and called me his

nothing in it. Not a cup. Because I had put all of it in his

he shade. I got up on my elbows an

running and the air conditioner running off i

member the tile. I remember thinking it was too

ood open a

ard

inst the cabinet, hair stuck to her forehead, and Dacre on one knee in front of her, hold

moving. The wat

, the way you talk to a child with

I tried. It came o

over his

allway floor with my arms out in front of me, and something crossed his face. Not horror. I've had

urned bac

more," he sa

pped feeling it. The last thing I remember clearly is the bottle. Empty, on its side, rol

lway went ou

-

heat kill

haking, and he was in the armchair with one ankle crossed o

rit. Just my own cotton trousers and the

mouth full. "Slept through

n't as

in a sack." He shook his bowl

he was saying the words sea surface temperature and ten-year cycle and something about h

id. "Our modelling s

t over. Seven days. T

off. Vesper sat on the floor with her back against the couch, near enough to Dacre's chair that the arm of it grazed her shoulder whenever she mo

he left one. I'd looked for those earrings for two months before I

g. "My cousin's got the shop on the corner of Fenner and she's had the distillery

sells spirits

wly on the floor. "She's got a buyer from the coast asking about bulk water. N

far o

"You'd want

spe

ling you what

round, "And what does she

move. "She wants her

of them had been talking about it already. Not the way I'd talked about it with him six months ag

e down. Sable reached

tening t

heard it

ago it wa

aw talked me into it. Wholesale out of Kessel Road, cost me more than the roof repairs. What came? Two warm weeks. Then that wedding par

tock anything n

dred and forty empty jerrycans in that ware

y," I

nt to say it out loud, but my voice

undred and forty of them, a

at, you want a she

ay

he first place." He said it lightly. He had no ide

he first time and ju

es when he decides a conversation isn't worth h

, after a broadcast like that. Marisel, love, don't start buying cans in a p

ow the mark

cked her glass back up. "I'm not the one who'

levision had said it. Or maybe she hadn't and I'd

Sable said. "Empty cans in a ware

witched the television off in th

floor and put the s

are you

om

half

sper, at the earrings, at the glass. "To

ris

I don't

and came with me. On the stairs she said,

buc

ul

a qua

hrough her nose. "You

w what

at night and the air still holding the d

row," she sai

mine at

-

got to Kessel Road. I put my hand flat on

litre je

hand, then my

y have y

ack. Eleven of

of the small ones.

board. I paid for it. He wrote my address on a scr

board notice on the board by

w Row, Mbeki Close. Five days, they say. Five days in this."

I tak

ake the board,

I paid her for forty copies, and then I walked back down Kessel Road and pinned one to the gate of m

head was still at the yard tap, th

said. "This street goes dry till

d then looked up at

rd by the gate. Go and

you tel

and on the fifth day you were in a queue with a plas

've got a ba

-

n of them. The boy wouldn't lo

r sh

at was on

and I'll pay the Sunday price for them. And tell him the taps on Kessel East go off Thursday at six - five days - and he's got eleven fifty-litre cans in the

he money, then at m

ll him

ow. Then I went back down with my phone torch and read the notice one

w Row. Mbeki Close

The one-shoe woman's. The

minutes away, with its generator and its cold

moment with the torc

s the thing. He would have his shed and his generator and his cold tiles, and Vesper would bring him a buyer from the coast, and the two of them would

ot crawl to

that was all I had, he'd still get his way, and Vesper would still be wearing my earr

got the first can under

he width of a

nine. Sixteen cans,

th my back to the cupboard