Facing the Flame

by Jackie French

  ‘I reckon you are fighting fires, mate,’ said Bill. ‘I reckon there are lots of ways of fighting fires. And bringing a bloke an ice-cold ginger ale is one of them.’

  The man nodded. ‘Ginger ale is good.’ He lifted his Esky again as Tubby slid out of the tanker. ‘Orange, lemon squash, ginger ale or cola?’

  ‘Lemon squash,’ said Tubby. ‘Thanks.’

  The man nodded seriously, then walked over to another tanker, just pulling in.

  ‘Where to now?’ asked Bill.

  ‘They said Sydney,’ said Tubby expressionlessly. ‘Worried that the fire might spread into the northern suburbs.’

  ‘What? After all we’ve been through? They can’t expect us to drive all the way up there!’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Tubby tightly. ‘The fire tower’s seen smoke near Drinkwater. I got through to the fire shed at Gibber’s Creek on the radio. No one knows how big the fire is yet, not with the wind and ash. The phones are out at Gibber’s Creek too.’ He looked at each one of them. ‘Any one of you want to follow orders and head to Sydney? Or do we go back to Gibber’s Creek?’

  Bill muttered something unprintable involving the heads of Sydney bureaucrats and the nether parts of an emu.

  ‘What can they do to us?’ asked Sam with grim humour. ‘Dock our pay? Sack us?’ Everybody in the Gibber’s Creek brigade was a volunteer. Which was why they could be ordered to go anywhere, or stay on duty for thirty-six hours at a time with no supplies. You couldn’t do that to people you employed.

  Sam was already clambering into the tanker. ‘Fire trail will get us to Drinkwater faster than the highway.’

  Actually the two routes took pretty much the same time. The fire trail might even take them longer if they had to stop to chainsaw fallen trees and branches that blocked their way. There’d be a lot of those, in this wind. But if the tanker went via the highway, the fire would be between him and Dribble. This way they’d have to pass Dribble to get to Gibber’s Creek.

  Please, he thought, let Jed have left as soon as she saw smoke. Let her be safe at the Blue Belle with Scarlett and Mum and Leafsong, being plied with cups of tea and cold drinks. If the phones were out, she might even have gone into labour, and no one would have been able to call him. No, Mum or Dad would have made sure someone at the fire shed called it in . . .

  And where had the fire come from? Surely Gibber’s Creek was too far from the Jeratgully front for a spot fire, even in this wind . . .

  ‘Fire trail it is,’ said Tubby, as if it had never been in doubt. ‘Hey, mate?’ he yelled to the man with the Esky. ‘Got a few spares for the road?’

  Chapter 38

  MERV

  For the first time Merv saw terror on Janet Skellowski’s face. Only a glimpse, before she turned and ran from her wire-entangled car, awkward, clumsy with that giant belly in front of her.

  He wanted to follow her, to watch the flames lash her, grab her, melt her. Wanted to watch her scream. Needed to watch her see him too, see him laughing at her, triumphant. Wanted Janet Skellowski to know he had won, at last.

  But the path she had taken would be as deadly for him as for her.

  He turned back to his car. Time to get out of here. He’d have to imagine her agony.

  She knew who’d done this to her all right. Every time he was feeling low he could take this memory out, gloat over it, treasure it. Maybe he might even ring Debbie one day, anonymous of course, from a public phone box. Say, ‘You remember Janet? Well, she’s dead. Burned to death. Screaming in terror. That’s what happens when you cross a bloke like me.’

  Best be a long way from here tonight, he thought as he reached the car again, just in case anyone noticed the jerry cans in the boot. Not that he supposed there’d be any remnant of the diesel to find in the paddocks after this fire. He should have asked the old pyromaniac cellmate in prison about that.

  No reason to hang around Gibber’s Creek, especially not in this smoke and wind. He’d drive till the air was clear. Keep going till he found a decent truck stop, the sort that would sell a bloke a good steak and chips with slices of bread thick as a man’s finger. Tomato sauce always on the table. He’d douse his steak in sauce and think of Janet Skellowski. Think of her red as the sauce as the fire turned her into meat. Maybe he’d even come back for her inquest so he could hear the details . . .

  His car’s door handle was almost too hot to touch. He swore, reached for his handkerchief, opened it, thought of the jerry cans in the boot. He grabbed them and threw them as far away as possible. He was just about to slide inside when a noise stopped him.

  Was that a car engine? The scream of wind, the crash of trees, the ferocious crackling of fire made it almost impossible to hear. He turned and peered through the gloom.

  Nothing. Or nothing he could see in this smoke. He turned back to his car.

  Pain, on the back of his head. He straightened, feeling his hair. His fingers came away blood red. Tomato-sauce red. What had . . .?

  He felt the blow this time, but not the pain.

  The world vanished.

  Chapter 39

  JED

  Jed stumbled through darkness. She didn’t know if her eyes were shut, or open and the dark was the ash-filled air. She blinked and found a fallen tree in front of her, which meant her eyes must be open now, some visibility possible, however slight. But not enough to know in the wind and blackness which was the best route to take, if the way upstream to Dribble was even possible, or if she should head downstream towards Drinkwater, where just possibly someone might see her from the house paddock.

  But no one would, not in ash-drenched light like this. Why bother to keep pushing her pain-wracked body onwards if the result would be the same, no matter where she stumbled? She would burn. She would die. Her baby would burn and die too, before it had even drawn a breath . . .

  She wanted to cry. Could not spare the time to cry. Nor, perhaps, did her body have moisture for tears. She had thought she’d had all she’d ever longed for.

  The top of a casuarina burst into tiny sparklers, so for a few seconds the smoky dark was full of stars.

  She clutched her belly as another contraction rocked her. Her baby would die with Jed’s arms around it. This was all she could give her child now, love until the last.

  I’m sorry, Sam, she thought as the heat tried to bubble into her flesh. I am so, so sorry. I tried, I really did, to give you a marriage and a family. I did my best.

  Which had not been good enough. Normal did not seem to work near Jed Kelly.

  ‘Jed. Jed Kelly, stop this at once!’

  Matilda’s whisper. But there was no Matilda now. Matilda had died over two years earlier. She was hallucinating, in heat and pain and lack of oxygen. She was going to die . . .

  ‘Everyone dies. But I’m not going to let you die now, nor your baby. Get to the billabong, you stupid child.’ And this time Jed listened. Matilda was right. Was right even if Jed was hallucinating, putting her own common sense into Matilda’s voice. For if Matilda were here, she’d have said just that.

  It was possible . . . just vaguely possible . . . that the billabong might act as a temporary firebreak, letting her pass between the flames and the river. She might even need to wade out and swim . . .

  If she could have smiled, she would have. All those warnings about not swimming in the last month of pregnancy had not mentioned the inadvisability of swimming while in labour. But it might give her a chance. A slim chance, probably, as the flames ate air and breathed a pizza-oven heat, but just faintly possible.

  ‘Take my hand,’ said the whisper. A skinny hand pressed into hers.

  Another hallucination. It had to be. Maybe just a way to die with love and not alone.

  She had been alone almost all her life, until she met Matilda Thompson. She would not end her life alone too. Jed stumbled back towards the billabong, feeling the heat redden her skin, like the worst sunburn in the world. But at least the contraction had abated . . .

  The
billabong sat among its trees, the water flaming red. For a moment she thought it burned too, then realised it was a reflection. Its trees would burn soon too though. Already flames snaked through the tussocks, grabbed tree trunks and climbed them. The top of a tree shattered into sparks and burning debris, its eucalyptus oil evaporated and burning even before the leaves themselves were flame.

  What would Matilda have told her to do now? wondered Jed desperately.

  Look, she realised. Matilda would have told her to look.

  Jed looked. And saw it. Brown, bundled at the base of a tree and, when she pulled it out, half full of an ants’ nest. An old Driza-Bone coat, big enough to drape over her head and shoulders, an umbrella from debris, a way to trap air around her.

  No, it would not save her from the full force of the fire. But — maybe — it would give enough shelter to get to Dribble. Her body narrowed to the dull ache in her pelvis and lower back that was a lull between contractions, the sharper pain of nearby blazing flame, but her mind and resolve now burned even brighter than the fire.

  A branch crashed. The wind was both a roar and laughter, but the fire louder, hissing, cracking. The universe had been born in fire, and the earth too. She was small and human and in pain.

  Jed held the coat over her head, ignoring even the ants that dripped about her face. Her baby would survive.

  Chapter 40

  LU

  Lu tapped her way along the River View path to the office.

  This morning when she’d gone out to check on Mountain Lion, the air had smelled of hot leaves and horse and smoke. Now she could not only smell fire, she could feel it. Not fire far away, the one everyone was talking about on the radio, still searing its way across the mountains. This scent was burning grass and flaming trees, and it was coming nearer. It was unmistakable. Lu Borgino had lived in bushfire country all her life.

  She walked quickly, swinging her cane, opened the office door, felt her way to the desk. ‘Hello?’

  No answer. Of course: it was Saturday. No receptionist. Most of the residents went home to their families for the weekend. At the moment she and George and the Huntindon twins were the only ones who spent the weekends here, with Matron and her son Gavin, or out at Overflow with Nancy, though not with this weekend’s extreme fire danger.

  George’s parents lived down in Melbourne and had three other kids. They all came up once a month to spend the weekend with him, camping by the river. The twins’ parents had given their disabled kids up for adoption, which was stupid because even at six both girls knew more about dinosaurs and ancient Egypt than professors, even if they weren’t able to use prosthetic arms and legs yet. One day they’d probably both be professors of palaeontology . . .

  ‘Lu?’ A door opened across the hall from the office. Lu hadn’t realised there must be rooms where Matron lived with Gavin. ‘Did you want something?’

  ‘There’s a bushfire nearby,’ said Lu.

  ‘No, don’t worry.’ A hesitation. ‘The air is thick with ash, but the fire is passing far to the north of us. There’s no danger here.’

  ‘No. There’s a fire much closer!’

  ‘If there was a fire near Gibber’s Creek, Fire Control would have rung us,’ said Matron calmly. ‘You know the fire drill, don’t you?’

  ‘Ring the bell. Assemble out the front. Help people into wheelchairs, push them if they can’t go fast enough . . . Matron, I don’t know why Fire Control hasn’t phoned you. But, truly, believe me, there’s a fire nearby.’

  ‘If you’re worried by the smell of smoke, I’ve got a spare room. You could stay with me and Gavin tonight.’

  ‘I’m worried because there is a fire and you’re not listening!’ yelled Lu.

  A silence, as if Matron was taking a breath.

  ‘Come on,’ Matron said kindly. ‘I’ll get Gavin and we’ll go up to the kitchen and find ice cream. How about a banana split? I’ll even have one too and forget about the calories . . .’

  Lu clenched her fists. ‘I am not five years old and I don’t want an ice cream and stop bloody patronising me.’

  ‘Lu, we don’t use language like that here.’

  ‘There is a fire nearby! And you are too . . . too stuck up your own backside to see it!’

  She turned, wishing she could see Matron’s face — though the silence was expressive enough. She marched — or as close to it as her cane allowed — down the path to the fork that led up to her cottage one way, and to the dining hall then down to the ford across the river the other.

  There was fire coming, or coming close, at any rate. And Mountain Lion would be scared, even if the fire left River View and his paddock untouched.

  Mountain Lion was entirely too precious — and valuable — to be left alone to panic, stumble and hurt himself, or gallop blindly into a horror tangle of barbed wire and netting. Nor could she bear the thought of him frightened. A horse like Mountain Lion shouldn’t be alone, she thought angrily. Nicholas should have brought that other horse down to keep him company right from the start . . .

  She took the path to the left, hoping Nicholas had hung the halter as usual on the gate. Someone gave a Tarzan yell as she passed the dining hall. She almost grinned. George, making the most of the empty facilities over the weekend. He’d probably rigged himself a flying trapeze.

  ‘Lu? Where are you off to?’

  Ms Sampson-Lee. Lu turned politely. ‘I’m going to check on Mountain Lion.’

  Ms Sampson-Lee would almost certainly refuse permission if Lu informed her she planned to bring the horse back across the ford to River View because there was a fire nearby. Probably scared he’d eat the roses . . .

  This pause was not the same as Matron’s. ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Ms Sampson-Lee, too casually.

  ‘Why?’

  Another hesitation. This time Ms Sampson-Lee sounded as if she was smiling. ‘I was going to say because the smoke is so thick you might get lost. But the darkness doesn’t make any difference to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Lu shortly. She added impulsively, ‘Do you smell fire too? Not just the Jeratgully fire? A closer one?’

  ‘I . . . I thought I did. But I’m probably imagining it. I’ve never seen anything like today,’ Ms Sampson-Lee added frankly. ‘The air is so dark you can hardly see the dining hall, and the sky is pulsing red, like it’s on fire.’ Another hesitation. ‘Maybe it is. I’m just spooked.’

  ‘I’m not spooked by a burning sky because I can’t see it,’ said Lu flatly. ‘I’m planning to bring Mountain Lion up here.’

  She waited for Ms Sampson-Lee to protest. Instead she said, ‘I’ll get his halter.’

  ‘Nicholas usually hangs it on the gatepost.’

  ‘Not this time. It’s hanging up on the staffroom door. He wasn’t sure how long he’d need to be away.’ Lu felt a little of the tension seep from her. Here was someone who knew bushfires, at least. And maybe something about horses.

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ said Ms Sampson-Lee.

  Nor was she. Lu heard her steps, firm and fast, then Ms Sampson-Lee was back, expertly tucking Lu’s hand between her arm and body.

  It was faster walking with Ms Sampson-Lee than with Nicholas, possibly because she had been trained to work with the disabled, or because she too felt the urgency. The physio even gave a commentary on what was around them, which Nicholas had never thought to do. ‘We’re passing the path to the swimming hole now. The outlet to Gibber’s Creek is just up there. That’s the canoe tree . . . you can still see where the bark was cut from it for a canoe, more than two hundred years ago.’

  ‘By the Indigenous people?’

  ‘Yes, by my ancestors,’ said Ms Sampson-Lee.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

  ‘What colour my skin is? How could you? My husband’s a quite different shade of not-exactly-white — his ancestors were some of this area’s first invaders, or settlers, whatever you’d like to call them. They grew a market garden, which was useful, as otherwise the Europe
ans would have died of scurvy on a diet of sheep and kangaroo and damper with cocky’s joy.’

  ‘What’s cocky’s joy?’

  ‘Golden syrup. Most of my relatives were rounded up and taken to the reserve at Goobigree, but the Sampson boys were good stockmen. Old Drinkwater kept them on, even if he paid them only rations and tobacco.’ There was another smile in the voice now. ‘Then Matilda inherited Moura — she was only a teenager back then — and employed my great-great-grandfather as her manager. When she took over Drinkwater, she made him manager there too, till he retired and Andy McAlpine took over.’

  ‘So the Sampsons were the only Indigenous family left around here?’

  ‘We’re coming to the sand now.’ Ms Sampson-Lee left the question unanswered. Her voice had become higher pitched. She’s worried, thought Lu. And talking to try to calm herself. And maybe me too.

  ‘Two more steps and you’ll be on the sand,’ Ms Sampson-Lee continued, her voice still attempting calm. ‘The river’s low, only about thirty steps across the ford. I’m going to lead you to the left now around a log . . . No, there was Rose Clancy left as well. She married Clancy of the Overflow. She was Mrs Nancy Thompson’s grandmother.’

  ‘Mrs Thompson is Indigenous too?’

  ‘On her father’s side.’

  ‘I didn’t realise Clancy of the Overflow was a real person.’

  ‘Extremely real. As was Rose. We’re stepping into the water now. I’ve never felt it as warm . . .’

  ‘Me neither . . . Why did you decide to work with people like me?’

  ‘Partly because I knew I’d get a job at River View. It’s not always so easy to get jobs with a dark skin, even with a physiotherapy and occupational therapy degree. Oh, they don’t say that’s why they don’t hire you, not these days. But the job goes to someone else nonetheless. My Aunt Helen had to pretend she was Indian before she could get a job as an accountant in Sydney. The public service isn’t bad, though, these days, but who wants to live in a big city? But mostly,’ the grin in the voice was unmistakable now, even edging out the fear, ‘because my second-class teacher told me that blacks had no staying power and I’d never amount to anything.’