‘Aspen sounds like the place,’ said Lou, bending to pick up bags and boxes. ‘Cold. Snow. Phone reception. God, she lives the life.’
‘You know, since she’s been tagging me as her girlfriend, my Insta following’s up by five thousand.’ Gretchen was looking around for something else to wrap, so Lou threw her a mini-football.
‘What are you going to do with all those eyeballs?’
‘Feed my insatiable ego.’
‘I have no idea what either of you are talking about,’ said Annabelle. And then she took a look at the flames filling the TV screen. ‘Christ almighty,’ she said. ‘This country.’
Lou walked over to the television and snapped it off.
‘I can’t watch anymore,’ she said. ‘I’m going to check on the girls, get the stockings.’
She climbed up the stairs and went to Stella and Rita’s room.
Stockings hung at the end of their beds, covers kicked off in the heat. Lou took off her fancy slippers and climbed into bed next to Stella.
She stroked her daughter’s hair and watched her sleep. She could honestly say that, to her, there was nothing more beautiful in art or nature than her daughters’ faces. She felt breathless with it, the perfection in every dent and curve and freckle and mole.
‘I know, you know,’ said a soft voice behind her, and it was her mother.
Lou didn’t say anything, just rolled over on her side to face Annabelle, hands together under her head like she was sleeping.
‘I know you and Josh are living apart,’ she went on in a whisper, as the girls’ soft snores punctuated the silence. ‘And I’m hurt you didn’t tell me.’
‘How could I tell you, Mum?’ said Lou, her voice equally soft. ‘You’d only gloat. Please don’t gloat.’
‘I won’t gloat,’ she said. ‘But you will understand, as your girls get older.’
‘Understand what?’
‘How much you want to protect them. From struggle and heartbreak and sorrow. And themselves.’
‘But you can’t.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Annabelle nodded. ‘But you’ll die trying.’
Lou uncurled herself from Stella’s bed, picked up the stockings and walked to the door, to her mum. She gave her a hug and, after a long minute, they both stepped into the hall.
‘I think it might be over, Mum,’ said Lou.
‘Maybe,’ said Annabelle. ‘And if it is, you’ll survive. You and your brother have a very strong sense of self. You get it from me.’
Lou almost laughed.
‘But it might not be as over as you think,’ Annabelle said, as Lou followed her down the stairs.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mum. I’d think you were the last person who’d be looking for the Hail Mary save.’
‘I’m talking about men with honour, Lou. It’s an old-fashioned word, but it means someone who will always do the right thing by you, at the end of the day, whatever comes. Someone who loves their family and shows it, someone who respects you and what you’ve built together . . .’ Annabelle drifted off a little, her voice cracking, then came back. ‘I have my troubles with Joshua . . .’
‘You have been bloody awful to him!’ Lou couldn’t help herself. ‘And I’ve never really got it, Mum, not really. It’s not like Dad is the master of the universe.’
‘I know, Lou.’ And Annabelle almost looked embarrassed. ‘I have always worried he wasn’t enough for you. I have always known you wanted a life, just like I did. But even I have to admit Josh has honour. Look at where he is right now. He’s with his mother. And I have never for one moment doubted that he loved you more than life. Your dad, quiet achiever that he is, is also such a man. And watching him slip away is making me absolutely . . .’ Annabelle raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Absolutely fucking furious with the world and all of you who are still fully in it.’
Lou was stunned. The wisdom, the generosity . . . the swearing. ‘Mum, are you feeling alright?’
‘I’m just saying,’ she concluded, as they went back into the lounge room, where Gretchen was wrapping a giant cuddly taco for Rita, ‘that it might not be as over as you think.’
Gretchen looked up at Lou, smiled.
‘I need him to be safe,’ said Lou.
Josh
28 December, 2019
The evacuation centre was surprisingly calm, Josh thought.
For all the national talk of panic, no-one had really appeared to be panicking in the old golf club, the one with the pokies, the million-dollar view and the ring of exhausted firefighters protecting it. Rather, the people gathered there seemed to understand that there were things worth railing against. Patronising politicians, forgotten internet passwords, fourteen types of milk. And there was this. Nature. Catastrophe. Getting through the night.
Timing was everything, thought Josh. He had arrived at his mum’s door in time to load her things into the back of his ute and drive off with her in the passenger seat beside him, only to be told a few hundred metres down the road that no, you’re too late, the fire is coming in fast. You’re going nowhere. Turn around and stay put.
The man who’d delivered this news to Josh was young, wearing hi-vis yellow streaked with dust and mud and reeking of smoke, like everything else.
‘I just drove up from Sydney yesterday,’ Josh said. ‘I got through fine.’
There had been smoke and fire and devastation all around, he added silently, but he’d got through fine.
‘Mate, it’s too late to leave,’ the young man said, exhaustion audible in his voice, visible behind his eyes. ‘The highway is closed. You need to get to a safe place.’
It’s too late to leave were the words no-one wanted to hear in the summer of 2019, and people up and down the country were being told exactly that.
‘Joshy,’ Emma said beside him, unreasonably calm, ‘listen to the man. Let’s go where we’re told to go and hold on. We’ll be fine.’
‘This,’ said Josh, throwing the ute into reverse, ‘would not be happening if you’d stayed in your bloody high-rise. Nice and safe there with the inner-city gangs. Didn’t have to worry about you then, did I?’
Even as he joked to Emma, Josh’s head was pounding. I must tell Lou, he thought. I must stop with the silence and tell Lou to tell the girls not to worry.
As they turned around, Josh considered the sky – which was a pale grey – and judged they just had enough time to go back to Emma’s to fill the ute with as much food and water as they could; he could see others around them doing the same.
But by the time he was throwing blankets over the boxes and bags in the ute’s tray, the sky had darkened almost to black. It was 2 p.m. and Josh couldn’t see a metre ahead through a thick black-red haze. When he hurried around to slip into the driver’s seat, he saw the passenger side, where he had asked his mum to sit and wait, was empty.
‘Mum!’ he shouted, his lungs immediately filling with the acrid air. He spun around, peering through the dark. He could see no-one. ‘Mum!’
And then there she was, coming out of the house, holding something to her body with both hands.
‘Get in, Mum! What are you doing?’
‘I’m here, Josh,’ Emma said, her voice still remarkably calm. She didn’t comment on the gloom, or the smoke, or the fact that the horizon appeared to be glowing an orange-red. ‘I’ve got what I need now.’
Five minutes later, the ash-covered ute was one of hundreds of ash-covered vehicles trying to get into the golf club car park, being directed by more tired people in yellow vests. ‘There’s no time for this queue,’ Josh decided out loud, and he turned again, driving the ute up onto the median strip and pulling into the adjacent park. ‘Let’s walk, Mum. I’ll come back for everything when I can.’ And Josh picked up as many bags as he could manage in one hand, and took Emma’s free hand in the other.
‘What have you got, Mum? What was so important you had to give me a heart attack?’
And, in the dark, with the sound of siren
s and the roar of a deadly wind and the lights of the tired, old golf club up ahead, she showed him.
A photo, of course. It was faded, in an old frame, but it was a picture he’d never seen before. There was Emma, young, smiling, and Len, his dad, unsmiling, smoking. He, Josh, was there, just a toddler in shorts and no shirt, Maya a baby in his mum’s arms, Anika standing to one side in knee socks.
‘Why?’ he asked, as they walked past the queuing cars and joined the stream of people heading towards the golf club on foot, many pushing wheelchairs, prams and shopping trolleys full of supplies. ‘Why would you save that picture, of all the pictures?’
‘It’s a moment in time,’ she said. And she squeezed Josh’s hand. ‘No regrets.’
‘Jesus, Mum, even in a crisis you’re like bloody Yoda.’ He squeezed her hand back. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your dad had his flaws, but what he gave me was everything.’ Emma sounded like she was wheezing, ever so slightly. ‘And I know you worry that you’re like him, and you are – but only in the best ways.’
‘Save your breath, Mum, we’re nearly there.’
‘I can’t see you giving up on your family,’ Emma said, ignoring him. ‘You have his passion, but it’s in the right place.’
*
Now, four days later, Josh was standing outside his own house, in the garden, looking at his tree.
The power and communications had dropped out as soon as they got into the golf club. As soon as he’d got his message to Lou.
The fire had passed through, picking and choosing where to aim its most destructive powers seemingly at random, reducing some homes to dust and leaving others untouched.
He’d spent one terrible night in the eye of that storm, holding Emma while she slept, fitfully, on blankets heaped on the luridly patterned carpet, thinking that the future was entirely unknowable. He knew everyone there was thinking the same. And in the middle of that night, even with his mother in his arms, he’d had to physically stop himself from getting up and driving hundreds of burning kilometres through the smoke and flames and poisonous ash to get back to one place. This place.
It was the only thing that mattered. Everything else had seemed ridiculous, irrelevant and frivolous.
And now he was here.
Light had returned to the sky the next morning to expose the fire’s aftermath. Of course, it wasn’t really over – it had just moved on to another community, another golf club – but for the moment this place could breathe again. The losses had been slight. They were the lucky ones.
But the highway remained closed, the power remained out, there was no fuel to buy, no food on the shop shelves. The days called Christmas and Boxing by name were really just hours to get through with nothing to do, little to eat, and too much time to think. In those hours Josh had scribbled lines and words to songs to follow what he had already sent to Pearl Hass before the world ended. The email with the link to the songs was titled: I know you’ll never hear these – or not.
And now, standing outside his house, all the intensity of the last few days seemed so far away already, and he was desperately holding on to the clarity he’d felt in the middle of that night.
‘Daddy!’
Rita – glowing, messy, loud – came flying through the front door as it banged open. And suddenly, as she wrapped herself around his legs, there were people, so many people.
Stella, of course – beautiful, tall, strong girl – with her arms around his waist. But also Annabelle, with an unfamiliar grin on her face, holding Brian’s hand. And Rob, with a bear hug. And Gretchen, jumping up and down like a pogo stick and clapping, next to a teenage girl he assumed was JoJo, wearing the smirk of a kid too cool to grin.
And lastly Lou, hanging at the back of the crowd, but with a smile on her mouth and in her eyes.
‘Wow,’ said Josh, gasping for breath. ‘You know I didn’t fight any fires, right?’
‘We were just so worried about you and Nana, Daddy,’ Stella said. ‘Where is Nana?’
‘I dropped her with Anika and Maya,’ he said. ‘She’s tired, but she’s okay.’
‘She’s coming,’ Lou said from the back. ‘I called. They’re all coming. We’re going to do Christmas again.’
‘We are?’ Josh looked at her. ‘Great.’
‘Did you bring us our presents?’ asked Rita. ‘Daddy? Did our presents get burned in the fire?’
And Josh laughed and mouthed ‘shit’ at Lou, because the Christmas presents he’d bought them were at Anika’s, under her tree.
‘I might have to make a couple of calls to Santa about that,’ he said to Rita. ‘See if he’s dealing with bushfire delays.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Rita. ‘Come on, Daddy.’
And she took Josh’s hand and led him into the house.
*
It was evening and Josh and Lou were at the kitchen sink.
A Christmas dinner calamity had exploded across the counters. The dishwasher was overflowing. Josh was washing, she was drying.
Lou had told him about her new job and he had told her he was proud of her.
‘Lou, this is your time,’ he said, soaping the potato pan, scrubbing at the little welded-on crusty bits. ‘I don’t think anything can stop you now.’
‘It would be more hours,’ she said, looking sideways at him. ‘I’d need support.’
‘It’s time you got that,’ said Josh. He didn’t look up. ‘You more than deserve it.’
They wiped in silence for another minute.
‘Theo’s really gone, you know,’ Lou said.
Josh had been prepared to flinch when he heard that name, but its power had vanished. Theo, Theo, Theo.
‘That’s good,’ he said.
They could hear everyone – and really, it was everyone – in other parts of the house. Rob and Annabelle arguing about climate change out on the back deck, an open bottle between them, Brian nodding along, holding his wife’s hand. The girls shrieking as JoJo beat them on their new Nintendos upstairs in the guitar room. Maya reading tarot cards for Anika and Gretchen next door in the living room. Emma, Josh knew, was asleep on Stella’s bed, exhausted.
As was he.
‘I should take Mum home soon,’ he said, putting down the last dish.
‘Where’s home?’ asked Lou, wiping her hands on the tea towel.
‘Here,’ he said immediately. ‘But not tonight.’
‘Why not tonight?’ Lou asked.
Surprised, he looked across at her.
‘Because everything has changed, Lou,’ he said. ‘I know what’s important to me. I always have, but now it’s the loudest thing in my head. I can’t keep auditioning for the part of your husband.’
‘And I,’ Lou said, and she took a deep breath, ‘can’t put this off any longer.’
He kept looking at her. He pictured her when they’d first met, when he picked her up from the floor of the pub. Lou was smaller then, she was wilder, she was exactly the same. Now she pushed her hair back off her forehead, just as she had that night, and he dreaded what she was going to say next, but he knew he had to hear it.
‘I want to give my marriage another year,’ Lou said.
And Josh almost laughed, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do this, not again. He knew what he wanted, he’d felt it and seen it that night, in the tired old golf club with his indomitable mum sleeping next to him.
‘Lou, I just can’t,’ he said. ‘I really can’t.’
‘And another one,’ Lou said, as if he hadn’t spoken, and her smile turned into a big, broad grin. ‘And another, and another, and another, and another . . .’
And Josh dropped his dishcloth and took his wife into his arms, and kissed her.
Lou’s arms reached up around his neck and she pushed her hands into his hair as she pulled him into her.
‘I thought there were four more days,’ he said through the kiss.
‘Fuck the date, fuck the clock,’ Lou said, pulling back just enough to speak.
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‘So a year at a time?’ he asked, looking down at Lou’s face, his daughters’ face, his history’s face, his future’s face.
‘A year at a time,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking . . . fifty of them.’
Josh and Lou
New Year’s Eve, 2019
Lou and Josh were in bed. The blind was up, the sun was already casting rays across the sheets through the tree’s leaves. Lou’s head was resting in the crook of Josh’s neck. They’d thrown technology at the girls to buy an extra thirty minutes of peace.
Josh had his guitar across his body, he was playing Lou one of the songs he’d sent to Pearl Hass.
I chose some words to tell our story
And not one of them is big enough for you . . .
‘She told me it’s clearly not for her – it was for you,’ Josh said. ‘Which might be a pretty way of rejecting me, but she also said she liked a few of them.’
‘I can’t believe you did it,’ Lou said. ‘It’s like you needed to get rid of me to do it.’
‘Please,’ said Josh. ‘You got rid of me. Mostly to decide you’re going to run the world.’
‘Um . . . or a school someday?’
‘Same, same. You need a very supportive husband to do either.’
‘Which is why I had to get you back.’
‘That’s why.’
They lay there for a long moment, the guitar silent, grinning at each other like idiots. Insufferable idiots.
‘Lying here, looking at you, I’ve just realised something,’ Josh said.
Lou smiled encouragingly.
‘Something bad.’
‘Go on . . .’ Her smile froze, just a little.
‘I forgot to buy you a fucking Christmas present.’
‘Again?’
‘Again.’
Lou laughed and, with her head on his shoulder, stared at the window and the tree’s waving yellow leaves. ‘Play it again,’ she said.
And Josh started singing up the next part of their story.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to every woman I know who has ever talked to me about love. Which is to say, every woman I know.
I Give My Marriage a Year Page 36
