‘Look!’ says Bette, pointing across to the lagoon, and the women on the deck look over to where a dozen or more black swans have come out from the rushes to feed on the water. ‘We haven’t seen them since the fire. Oh, look, that will cheer Alan up. Their nesting grounds around the lagoon were burnt out and we wondered if they were dead, or flown away for good.’
‘Alan!’ She is on her feet at the edge of the deck and calling out to the men beside the barbecue stand. ‘Look!’ she says, ‘the swans are back.’
The men look up. Luke turns, and waves to Anna on the veranda, who waves back.
When they return home it is all that Luke can do to undress and fall into bed. He has accounted for more than two bottles of red and there was beer to begin with and later some hits of Rodney’s tequila. All the way down the road from the bluff he had floated in a haze, blind to the stricken trees and the burnt ground. And now he is in deep sleep, lost in a dream of birds; the swallows from under the eaves are making one of their wild raids on the garden, swooping and diving at dusk; the glossy black cockatoos screech from their perch in the she-oaks; a pair of sooty black oystercatchers glide along the tide line, their black wings and red beaks profiled against the white sand, while out to sea a flock of gulls feeds on the rippled surface of the ocean. And somewhere in there, lost to view, is the phantom of the bird on the banksia bough, and he sighs and groans in his sleep, for he’ll never see that bird again, and he still doesn’t know its name.
In the bathroom, Anna is taking her time, brushing her teeth in a slow rhythmic motion, her mind a blank. She wipes her mouth and stares at her face in the mirror, brushing her hair back with soft, hesitant strokes. Then she puts down the brush, picks up her pill packet and drops it into the white plastic bin beside the sink. From the bedroom comes the sound of Luke, his light snore travelling down the hallway. But Anna is wide awake, and hungry. She closes the door of the bedroom and goes into the kitchen to make toast, after which she will trawl through the cable news networks and wait for sleep to ambush her. The blinds are still up and she eats her toast beside the window, looking out to the red light of Mars, low over the horizon in the north-east. Miraculously, not all of the she-oaks in the garden burned. There is still a cluster of them in the south-east corner and she listens to the sound of the wind whistling through their canopy, that eerie siren song, and she remembers how it felt to sit in the canoe with the boy nestled against her chest while Luke paddled them across the lagoon; the long slow glide of the boat across the black water.
Turning, she takes her tea and returns to lie on the couch with her feet up, and thumbs the remote control so that the ghostly images of the television come instantly to life in the dark.
Author’s Note
Readers of Henry Lawson will recognize references in this work to his poem ‘The Fire at Ross’s Farm’ and the short story ‘Bushfire’.
AMANDA LOHREY was born in Tasmania, where she lives today. Her first novel was The Morality of Gentlemen, published in 1984. It was followed by The Reading Group and then Camille’s Bread, winner of the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal and a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 1996. Her most recent novel is The Philosopher’s Doll (2004). She is also the author of two Quarterly Essays, ‘Groundswell’ and ‘Voting for Jesus’.
LORRAINE BIGGS was born in Western Australia, where she worked on pearling boats, in the field with geologists and in aerial reconnaissance before completing three years of fine art studies. She moved to Tasmania to take up post-graduate studies in 1992. Her main focus is painting, and her work has been widely exhibited. In recent years, she has also worked collaboratively with composers, architects and writers.
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