Facing the Flame

by Jackie French

  ‘Have another squished fly,’ said Mah.

  ‘What’s the special occasion?’ But he reached for one anyway.

  ‘Because I love you, you great galoot,’ said Mah.

  Chapter 22

  MERV

  ‘Sorry,’ said the girl at the Jumbuck Motel tonelessly. ‘We need your room. We’re booked up this week.’

  Merv stared at her. Stupid tart. Not even good looking. ‘You can’t just throw me out.’

  The girl shrugged, not meeting his eyes, as if to say, ‘We’re doing just that.’ She reached out her hand for his key.

  Merv slapped it on the counter. ‘Bitch,’ he muttered.

  The girl glared at him, big, with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. ‘Say that again, mate, and you’ll see what a brown belt in the Gibber’s Creek Girls Karate Club can do. Bruce!’ she yelled.

  A bloke peered out of the office, big too, with shoulders like a bullock. ‘What’s up, Maddie?’

  ‘Just saying goodbye to the nice gentleman here. Could you make sure he’s out by ten?’

  Bruce stared at Merv calmly. ‘No worries,’ he said flatly.

  Merv turned, slamming the door behind him, then went to pack.

  He should wait till the girl was off duty and . . .

  Nah. Not that any girl was a match for him, brown belt or not, he told himself, but she wasn’t worth the hassle.

  This bloody town! Bloody barman who ignored him, bloody woman who never got round to bringing his order at the café, and when he yelled at her, that policeman strolled in, just sitting at one of the tables, looking at him.

  ‘You might like to move on,’ the copper said quietly. ‘Canberra’s nice at this time of year.’

  Merv had looked at him incredulously. ‘Are you kicking me out of town?’ A young hick policeman in a bloody hick town talking to him like that.

  The copper ignored him. ‘Cuppa tea and a ginger slice, thanks, Leafsong.’

  What kind of town wouldn’t let a bloke have a drink or a sandwich?

  Janet Skellowski’s town, that’s what. The bitch had been talking.

  ‘Jed Kelly’ indeed. She was Janet Skellowski, and always would be. And everything about his present life was her fault.

  He’d been on a good thing with Debbie for a while. Oh, Deb had stood by him when that brat squealed rape — no magistrate was ever going to hear someone fancied a fifteen-year-old girl more than they fancied Debbie Skellowski. But she had kicked him out straight afterwards.

  Not that he’d minded too much at the time. There’d always been Debbies around, widows or divorcees with their own house so he needn’t pay rent, grateful to have a bloke in their lives and a few bob spent on them.

  He’d had a decent job too, after the car yard went bust. Cigarette salesman, a weekly run that gave him plenty of time for a long lunch in the pub and a break to watch the gee-gees in the afternoon.

  But then the police had come sniffing around, said they’d had a complaint from some toffee-nosed biddy in some nowhere town called Gibber’s Creek. The next fortnight the boss had handed him the white envelope, with a ‘Sorry, we’re laying off staff . . . sales haven’t been what they should have been . . .’ which was cobblers, because his figures were good, always had been.

  Janet had been whingeing to her newfound relatives down south. And those relatives had clout. Nothing had gone right since, not with no reference, and gossip had spread.

  He’d picked up a bit of work since then. Not much. Even had to resort to the pineapple cannery for a while, which was the job you took when no other job would have you: a million hot tins and all the canned fruit you could eat.

  But he hadn’t forgotten Janet. And it wasn’t that she’d lost him his job and Debbie. Janet’s crime was worse than that.

  Janet Skellowski had not been scared.

  Oh, for a second maybe, when he woke her up that night and she had tried to scream. He’d got his hand over her mouth, but then she’d bitten it, and when he’d finished, had unlocked her door and strolled out, Janet hadn’t cowered on the bed, crying, like any decent girl. No, she’d followed him into the kitchen, spat at him, then grabbed the telephone when he tried to give her what for and thrust it at him, breaking his nose, and a fine time he had explaining that to Debbie. ‘Some bloke threw a punch at me in the pub’ didn’t cut it with Janet yelling about rape.

  Even that last sight of her, as they took her to the centre for delinquents, Janet had looked back at him with contempt and loathing, not fear.

  You didn’t forgive something like that. What kind of a man were you, if a fifteen-year-old girl spat in your face and left you bleeding?

  And when he’d lost the cannery job after that bloke dobbed him in about the flask in his pocket, it had been time. It hadn’t been hard to track Janet down once he’d got to Gibber’s Creek. The old biddy’s name was Thompson, and every man and his dog around here was happy to gossip about the family: wealthy industrialist Tommy Thompson and his great-granddaughter, Jed, who’d inherited a million flaming dollars and who’d married some precious local McAlpine . . .

  A million dollars!

  Merv’s first thought had been money. Bleed the bitch dry. But, deep down, he’d known that was an excuse. Oh, yeah, he wanted money. But most of all he wanted Janet Skellowski scared of him.

  Chapter 23

  FRIDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 1978

  SCARLETT

  How could wind blow so relentlessly for two days? Except she had known wind to blow without stopping for weeks, or perhaps it had been months, because once a strong weather system took hold it was hard to shift.

  Scarlett looked up as another bunch of wattle seeds clattered briefly against the kitchen window and then back at her textbook. She wondered briefly if people on two legs had less wind resistance than she did, down in her more squat wheelchair.

  The world felt like it was . . . waiting. Waiting for Jed’s baby, which was officially due on Monday. Scarlett hoped the baby had a small in-womb diary and had marked the date accordingly. She glanced up at her adopted sister now spreading cheese sauce on a vast moussaka, grateful to her once again for timing her baby for the university holidays. Of course if the baby decided to be a fortnight late, which thoughtless babies had been known to be, then it would be running it close to term time . . .

  Waiting was not something Scarlett Kelly-O’Hara was good at.

  Waiting for Merv, who had vanished two days ago, according to the Gibber’s Creek grapevine. As this consisted of every employee of River View and the Gazette, the women of the CWA and the customers at the Blue Belle, supermarket and bookshop, it was an efficient way to know if a stranger was still hanging about.

  He wasn’t. Nor had his car been seen. Scarlett felt both relieved and disappointed. She’d like to at least get another look at the monster who had ruined Jed’s life. Or ruined a few years of it, for Jed’s life was good now. And would be even better if Jed would send off that manuscript in her bottom drawer she didn’t know Scarlett not only knew about but had read, twice . . .

  Scarlett grinned at the equation in front of her. She was no good at tactful either. If Jed didn’t send that book to Julieanne soon, she’d get it photocopied and send it herself, though maybe she should talk to Jed first about the bits that didn’t quite work and get a secretary to retype it properly, to get rid of Jed’s typos and spelling mistakes . . . after the baby was born.

  Wind meant another kind of waiting too. There was always an edge of fear in a wind, more, perhaps, if you were trapped in a wheelchair. Because when the temperature was in the high thirties and the dead grass blown against the fences was like bleached brown hair and the wind carried a soft filter of red dust as if it would blow until the whole land had turned to desert, anyone with sense — Scarlett knew that there were, actually, very few people with sense — knew how easy it would be to spark a fire that could destroy the entire district, then keep going.

  She missed uni, being able to spend each day focused
on the subjects she loved, being challenged; she missed Hannah and her other friends — Leafsong was her only real friend here and sometimes a friend who wouldn’t talk was comforting but not stimulating companionship.

  She missed the possibility that every day, any time of day, she might bump into Alex. Though now he had moved to Parramatta, maybe there would be less time spent sitting in the courtyard arguing about everything from ethics to orthopaedics. Unless, just maybe, he asked her out to Grandmère’s for that couscous . . .

  She watched as Jed shoved the moussaka into the oven, sighed, straightened, sighed again and rubbed her back. ‘No, I am not going into labour.’

  ‘I said nothing,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘You didn’t have to. You looked at me as I rubbed my back and thought of page forty-seven of your obstetrics textbook: Lower back pain can be an early sign of labour.’

  Actually Scarlett hadn’t officially learned anything about obstetrics yet, except from her years accompanying Dr McAlpine, discussing long-past — or carefully disguised — cases with him. But she’d read everything she could find on the subject and had wondered if that back rub was a sign that labour might finally begin.

  Maybe the wind would stop then too.

  ‘The cheese sauce smells good,’ she said instead.

  ‘Hope so. Should be able to freeze enough moussaka for another couple of dinners for when I come back from hospital.’ Jed washed and dried her hands, then waddled off to the sofa in the living room.

  Scarlett decided to say nothing. Tactfully. Because if Jed thought she would need to rely on meals she had herself cooked for the freezer, her brain really had turned to hormonal mush. Nancy, Blue, Matron, Carol, Leafsong and fifty others would be dropping in casseroles or quiches. Not to mention that Sam could cook too. And did. And that she, Scarlett, could make a most acceptable stuffed shoulder of mutton, taught to her by Nancy’s mum, and Matron’s elegant salmon mousse, plus the perfect mayonnaise Leafsong had shown her how to make and the chocolate croissants . . .

  Would Alex like chocolate croissants? Buttery flaky pastry with a slab of excellent dark chocolate in the middle, baked in a hot oven so the chocolate didn’t spread but was still there, a sharp rich shock to bite into . . .

  Definitely dinnertime, thought Scarlett, shutting her book and shoving it on the sideboard before getting out the knives and forks.

  ‘Hope you’ve got your feet up!’ she yelled to Jed in the next room.

  ‘They are up.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Maxi. Off, dog, it’s too hot for a furry footstool. Scarlett, darling, could you check the moussaka? And call Sam?’

  The phone rang several times while they were having dinner at the kitchen table. The first time Jed had lumbered back into the hallway, looking so unbalanced by The Bulge that Scarlett considered offering her the spare wheelchair. Someone needed to invent support for pregnant tummies, thought Scarlett, with wheels and a cushioned top.

  After that, Sam answered the phone: the first time it was his parents, ‘just checking in’ to see how Jed was feeling. (‘Big.’) Then Nancy to say she was making apricot chicken and would they like some? (There were many things Nancy of the Overflow did magnificently, but cooking was not one of them.) And Carol, who had just asked, ‘Any news yet?’ and when he’d said, ‘No,’ added, ‘Just make sure you’ve got me on the list to ring as soon as the baby is born. And I don’t mean next morning.’

  . . . and now there it was again.

  Scarlett heard Sam mutter for a few minutes, then the phone clicked down.

  ‘Jim,’ he announced as he sat back down, forking up a hunk of eggplant and cheese sauce, heavy on the garlic, basil and tomato.

  Jed looked resigned. ‘Does he want to know if the baby has been born and we forgot to tell him? Or another board meeting? Tell him the baby can’t be a director until it’s twelve months old.’ Jim Thompson, Michael’s brother and her great-uncle, was chair of the board of Thompson’s Industries.

  Sam looked surprised. ‘No. He’s heard the weather report and is coming down for the weekend. Bringing his boys too, though he’ll send them back on the train on Sunday night for school.’

  ‘Why on earth is Jim coming down now?’ Jed glanced out at the wilting passionfruit vine over the kitchen window, the trees along the fence protesting as the wind tore at their branches. The river had dropped half a metre during the afternoon.

  Sam regarded her patiently. ‘I know you’ve had your differences, but he’s a good bloke. If a fire breaks out again here, it’ll be good to have Jim at Drinkwater, and the boys.’

  ‘What does Jim know about bushfires?’

  ‘He grew up here. Was out with the tanker as young as any of us were. Andy saw to that. Andy —’ Sam carefully cut off what he had planned to say and substituted, ‘It’ll be good for Andy to have an extra hand at Drinkwater.’

  Andy McAlpine has early onset dementia, thought Scarlett. His brother, Dr McAlpine, must surely have recognised it long ago, with all his medical experience. His nephew Sam obviously knew about it too. Most of Gibber’s Creek must know. And even Jim. But no one mentioned it. A kind community . . .

  To their own.

  She took a mouthful of eggplant. It really was excellent. She missed fresh vegies in Sydney. They weren’t stale there exactly; they just didn’t bloom in the mouth the way food did at home.

  The phone rang again just as Sam finished his next mouthful. ‘We need a phone in the kitchen too,’ he said, pushing his chair back.

  Jed employed the Thompson eyebrow. ‘Conspicuous consumption from Sam McAlpine, former commune member of good standing?’

  He grinned. ‘I was just there for the alternative technology and love-ins.’

  ‘Did you really go to a love-in?’ demanded Scarlett as he headed out to the hall. Sam grinned and didn’t answer.

  Jed laughed. ‘I think love-ins are myths, like drop bears. People talk about them, but they never happen.’

  Sam came back and sat down again. ‘It’s for you,’ he said to Scarlett. ‘Try and keep them talking till I’ve finished my dinner.’

  ‘Me?’

  When your best friend didn’t speak, you didn’t get phone calls from her, and when you’d seen your uni friends only a week earlier, a phone call was unexpected. She wheeled into the relative coolness of the hall. They should really be eating in the living room, away from the stove’s heat.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi. It’s me.’

  Scarlett felt the smile begin at her toes and wriggle up into her hair, leaving a grin hanging on her face. ‘Hello, me.’

  ‘Just saw the news and wondered if you were okay,’ said Alex.

  ‘What news?’

  ‘The bushfires.’

  Her grin widened. ‘You idiot. Gibber’s Creek is further from Gosford than we are from Sydney.’

  ‘Not that fire. There’s a big one up around your national park. Haven’t you seen this evening’s news?’

  ‘No. Sam has forbidden Jed from watching the news in case she sees the governor-general and her blood pressure goes up.’

  ‘I think you need to turn it on.’ Alex’s voice was serious. ‘The fire’s heading for a place called Jeratgully. That’s not that far from you as the crow flies, is it? It looks bad from the TV helicopter.’

  Jeratgully wasn’t far from Rocky Valley. Nicholas. Felicity’s clinic. As Sam’s sister-in-law, Scarlett was Felicity’s cousin-in-law, if such a relationship existed. Even if it didn’t, she liked and approved of her, and Nicholas had been her companion in helplessness at River View — not quite a big brother, but a forever kind of link nonetheless. ‘Alex, I’d better put the phone down — it needs to be free. Sam’s in the fire brigade. If it’s as bad as that, they’ll be calling him out any moment.’

  ‘Not near you then?’

  Not yet, thought Scarlett, quickly estimating wind speed and fire direction from Rocky Valley. She needed a map . . . ‘No,’ she said, leaving out the nex
t thought — but maybe it could be by tomorrow afternoon. ‘Thanks for calling though. I . . .’ She gulped on the words ‘I love you’. ‘I appreciate the call.’

  ‘Look after yourself,’ said Alex softly. ‘You are precious.’ He hung up before she did.

  The phone rang again immediately. ‘Hello?’ said Scarlett, hoping it might be Alex again, to say, ‘I will luve thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry . . .’ or, even better, something by a Russian poet, not a Scottish one. He would ask her to the ball and —

  ‘Scarlett? It’s Tubby. Sam there? The second tanker’s needed near Rocky Valley. The fire’s broken out of the national park. They’ve finally called us in.’

  ‘Sam’s right here.’ Scarlett handed the receiver to Sam. ‘It’s for you.’

  The fire twirled across the landscape, racing over paddocks, sucking grass into smoke, tearing at strips of bark till they became ropes of flame, then breathing death into the trees as well. It had created its own winds now, its heat rising higher, higher, challenging the cloud and winning. Around its edges winds swirled like small tornadoes, heedless of direction, finding new fronts to feed on.

  A farmhouse exploded minutes before the fire reached it, destroyed by air pressure and heat. Birds dropped; wombats died deep in the earth as the air was sucked out of their burrows by the fire. The heat was so intense now that even soil burned. No firebreak could stop it now.

  Chapter 24

  JED

  Jed pulled Sam into the bedroom so they could argue away from Scarlett and shut the door, to the annoyance of Maxi, who hadn’t made it inside in time.

  Scarlett would be listening outside the door, of course, but at least this way she could not stick her oar in. Jed heard Maxi’s claws click on the hall floor as she passed back to the kitchen. She would not eat from the table — she had been well trained by Matilda — but drooling above a dish of moussaka to breathe in what was possibly the best ever aroma apart from a three-week-old dead sheep did not count.