Refuge

by Richard Rossiter

  In the lee of the easterly in the dry riverbed Marvyn sat cross-legged. He’d left the city, gone back to make a difference and because they needed him. But he was the one who’d changed. ‘It’s like I’m one of those prisoners, dragging an iron ball. I can see it—I know what’s holding me back, dragging me down. Anyone could. But I can’t free myself. Anyway, I’ve gotta stay—my grannie, you know. She’s done it all, she’s a good person. She doesn’t want to move, and she needs help. But later, I’ll leave.’

  They lay down in their swag and she held him in her arms. His body was strong. He wanted to be a footballer, or a dancer. He wanted to help, do something, do anything, and she believed him. She told him she loved him, and it was true, but she didn’t know where Marvyn began and the idea of Marvyn ended. Her idea. Could they be separated anyway? Did anything—person, event, place—exist wholly separate from our understanding of it, our appreciation? And she did appreciate Marvyn. His beauty. His troubled history. The things she thought he knew, or sensed. The things she wanted to know, or sense. Wasn’t that how it worked between people, lovers—a sharing, a mutual respect? A desire to access a part of their world that you glimpsed through a word, or a look, a way of moving, and you wanted to know more, to be with them, to open out that glimpse into something bigger? He was younger than she was, more than three birthdays—he always would be. Back then when she first met him, he seemed little more than a boy, not properly formed, and so, she thought, open to everything. She did not know that the child in him would remain, unchanged, and nor did she want to think of him as not spoilt, not ruined , not yet but she did. There was calculation in her choice, and risk.

  Up north, working on her research, she needed to speak to people, to interview the traditional owners, and he provided her with contacts and introductions. ‘You go between us,’ she said. He was her guide. Before him, long ago, were the Aboriginal men who had led her countryman, Leichhardt, into country that he knew nothing about. Only to be murdered, in all probability. Intruders. Going places where they were not welcome. And later, the figures she’d read about in Voss, the product of a white imagination and not entirely convincing. Never far away was the man who had introduced her to this reading, the pretender. She felt the irony—that her journey had been sparked by his lies and deception, by a force that she had brought into being (at least in part), by a desire to make real the abstraction of words on a page. She could smile, wanly, as she recalled the English expression a wolf in sheep’s clothing. What did that make her, she wondered, that she chose such a man?

  Greta respected Marvyn’s practical knowledge, his survival skills in remote and difficult country. He knew about vehicles, how to keep them going when they were about to expire; roads—or, at least, tracks—that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere, crisscrossed by tyre marks that contradicted all you thought you knew about which direction to go in; food supplies, how to live off the land and the ocean with a gun and a fishing line; the secrets of the cryptic speech of the local white and black fellas, giving directions about where to camp, passable and impassable roads. She envied his knowledge and was hungry for it. And then she loved him. She didn’t know there was a price to pay. It was more than knowledge and experience, more than the foreign woman, the academic, living vicariously. She knew those dangers—how easy it was to seduce and be seduced. She knew her own heart—that it could not be fooled, that her feelings were not shallow, dependent on the moment, a trick of the late sunlight shadowing the small bushes, the barely perceptible rise and fall of the desert country. She could look at the pair of them in the full midday light, without squinting, and know there was a bond of spirit and mind and body that was good. No matter how it was judged by others. But that didn’t mean she could remain there, in his country. And nor could he.

  In that dry land at the edge of the desert, Greta had dusted herself down and packed the hired four-wheel drive. She and Marvyn clung to each other, wordless, tears in their eyes. Then he asked her, haltingly, could she stay. He knew it was hard, that it would not be forever. Just for now.

  Seventeen

  Prue willed her way back into the dream. There was a little girl, she was in her pyjamas and there were noises coming from the kitchen. She’d got out of bed and stood in the doorway. The little girl’s mother was sitting at one end of the long couch, watching television. She didn’t turn her head and the little girl kept very still, very quiet. She crept further into the room and crouched behind one of the lounge chairs. She could see the TV better from here. She heard her mother make a noise—it sounded terrible, like crying. The little girl looked at the screen: there were lots of people, all lined up, women and children holding hands. It was dark and unfriendly. She knew it was not a nice place. Then she heard knocking at the door and thought it must be her father—he’d come home. But her mother didn’t move. She didn’t really look like her mother. No one answered the door. Then she heard it again and realised she had been dreaming—or was it remembering in that drugged state between being asleep and awake? She pushed the bedclothes off her. Why was someone knocking at her door at this hour? Prue grabbed a dressing-gown and walked down the passageway. ‘Okay, hold on, I’m coming,’ she called.

  It was Alex, in his tracksuit and runners. ‘Remember, you said you’d come for a run this morning? Obviously not.’

  Half an hour later she was jogging around the lake, trying to recall the dream that she thought might not have been a dream. She knew she had dreamed it before, but that was all.

  Weeks later, the dream came back. She still wasn’t sure whether she was dreaming a memory or remembering a dream. There were men digging, lifting bones out of a dark hole. She knew what they were. And something round. Somehow her doll was there too, but more as a feeling than an image. Then all the bones together and her mother was crying, louder, and her father wasn’t there. Then he came home, but this was in the time before, and shouted at her mother, who fell onto the couch and looked small and curled up. This wasn’t a dream. Prue thought he was going to hit her mother, Rose, but he picked her up, like a child, and carried her into the bedroom and closed the door. The television was still on and she stood there—she could see pictures of the yard next door. Her heart was beating very fast, like it would fall out of her body. Then she heard the bedroom door open and her father rushed into the room, looking red in the face. She thought he was coming for her, that he knew she was there. He was wearing only his underpants. She crouched behind the chair and he turned the television off with a bang of his fist. She heard his feet stomping down the passageway. For a long time she could not move.

  Prue sat in her bed with a cup of tea and a book she couldn’t read. The curtains were open and the winter sun was moving slowly up from the foot of her bed. As she tried to relive the feelings of the dream—and memory—she began to recall other details: her bedroom with its safe cot, like a meat safe, but who called it that? And old Mrs Frawley, next door. One day they found her dead, but not straightaway. What are those people doing? she’d asked her mother. Taking Mrs Frawley away. She won’t live there anymore. Where, where will she live? But her mother didn’t know. When she’d seen a television report of a recent massacre in Africa, the bones uncovered in their hundreds, it was as if she was looking at her own mother, her own children. Her body felt in total disarray, as if it were collapsing in on itself. For a moment she thought she might die. It made no sense to her, and she started to worry about Skel and Rock—what would happen to them, how they would grow up.

  Tomorrow there was another session with her therapist, recommended by her counsellor. She would have to think about her father, that vague, florid figure, Dick Browne. Things were starting to happen, most of it troubling.

  Eighteen

  On the day of the fire, Greta’s mind had not been right.

  She felt the panic rising in her and she didn’t know what to do. And then she rushed, clumsily, to her one-room cottage. The air was full of smoke and she could hear a roar from down in the v
alley. She had no idea how long the fire would take to reach the house.

  Moments before, Oliver had told her to go. ‘Get in your car and head into town. There’s a gathering point on the school oval.’

  ‘What? And leave you here?’

  ‘I can’t do what I have to do and think about you. Please …’

  He’d rung the local fire brigade, although he said it was pointless. There would be no time to back-burn or get bulldozers in before it was upon them. The Volunteer Fire Brigade already knew about it. Now they would be aware of the house nestled in the bush, in the line of fire. She grabbed her computer and a few clothes. On the verandah, ash was floating and falling around her, some of it glowing red.

  Oliver was on a ladder, hose in one hand, and putting a tennis ball in the downpipe before he flooded the gutters. ‘I’ve got to do this,’ he said. ‘At least try. But you must go, now.’

  And so she did. By the time she got to the bitumen, the fire had swung further inland. It was frighteningly close. She could see it jumping from treetop to treetop. The smoke and heat she could not believe, and the noise. Her knuckles were white, hands like claws gripping the steering wheel. It was like a child’s picture of hell. She felt an overwhelming heat arising from within her body. Maybe she would burst. But in a matter of minutes the fire front was behind her as she rushed towards the small township followed by other cars, all with their headlights on. Her eyes hurt and her body did not feel strong enough for the beat of her heart.

  In the previous week, each time she had driven by the fire-danger sign, the indicator had been pushed to the far right: Extreme, but not Catastrophic. Except it wasn’t the nor’-easter that was the problem. The day had cooled off by midafternoon and there was a stiff sou’-wester blowing—from the direction of the settlement at the bay—and this was where the fire had begun, at a site near the Cape to Cape Track. With the wind behind it, the National Park in front of it and themselves on the other side of the reserve, there was no chance.

  Oliver knew that. He had told her numerous times, ‘If there is a fire, grab what you can in five minutes, then get out. You don’t try to fight it. Not here.’

  But then he did. And what had she done? She’d turned around and driven back into the flames, not to help Oliver but to rescue some tapes she’d left behind.

  A fire truck tried to stop her, but she just kept going. She could not risk trying to get back the way she had come out, so she went down a neighbour’s track by the side of his dam and entered from what was now behind the fire front. Trees were burning and balgas were streaming smoke and flames, but nothing big had fallen over the track, so it was possible to keep driving. By the time she arrived, there were two fire trucks on the scene. Strangely, the fire had jumped the foundations of the new building and the firefighters were working to douse the flames in the nearby bush. Further up the hill, the cottage was safe, for now. She watched for a while, and thought she might be sick, or faint.

  She found Oliver heading towards his car, which was parked in a little clearing, away from the house. She called to him and he turned around.

  ‘What’s going on? I’m just about to leave—and you’re back?’ He sounded angry. She told him about the tapes she’d left behind. He looked at her with disbelief, and without speaking headed towards the cottage. She felt empty. She walked towards the fire; if she went any closer, her eyes would melt.

  ‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!’ yelled a helmeted figure, dragging another hose from the truck.

  She should leave; it was stupid of her to have come back, to have put Oliver in more danger. She couldn’t see where he was. When she reached her car she heard men screaming; they were pointing towards the cottage. From nowhere there were flames coming down the hill, from behind. There was a fierce swirl of wind, and within minutes the fire was headed back on itself. On the ground was Oliver. In slow motion, two men picked him up and brought him back down to his lean-to, where he was camping while the building was in progress. Oddly, it was still tied up to the trees that had lost their tops. There were holes in the stretched tarpaulin, but there it was, still flapping, in the scorching heat. She sat there, unable to move, captured by the unreality of what was in front of her. There was a man with a phone clutched to his ear.

  Trembling, she made her way towards him. Oliver, lying on the ground, with a wet blanket over him, unconscious. When she asked, one of them shook his head.

  ‘Dunno—there’s an ambo on its way. You shouldn’t be here … Nor should he.’

  ‘This is where I live.’

  ‘Makes no difference. We’ve got enough on our plate.’

  He turned away. In disgust, she thought.

  Later, when she had walked over much of the burned landscape, and followed the path of the fire all the way back to its origin, she could see precisely where it started, on one side of the walking trail. Even to her untrained eye, it was hard to understand how it could have begun unless someone wanted it to. The speed and ferocity of the fire were evident wherever she looked. It was a black and bare landscape with silhouetted trees stripped of their leaves. She had been told most of them would recover, but not the smaller bushes and plants. What returns after such a fire does not replicate what used to be there. Some species thrive, others disappear. What would not come back to life were the dead animals she came across: kangaroos—the old and the slow, and a couple of young ones that probably panicked; the scorched bodies of lizards and quendas, and even a diminutive brush-tailed phascogale. She loved the sound of its name. So grand. Many of the dead would be little more than a pile of ash.

  In hindsight, she could afford to be abstract. There was nothing benign about fire; there was no compromise. Like water, it was blindly itself. Impersonal. It was greedy; it consumed all that surrounded it, and died. While at the centre of those flames, she had been as excited as the fire itself. And fearful. But she did not die. Her few burns from falling ash were superficial. Her exhilaration—if that was what you could call it—was not due to her survival; she was not grateful to be alive. She thought it was the adrenaline rush of danger, of extremity, that she fed off. Unlike the fire, that fuel was always available, somewhere.

  For a long time she would wonder how she could possibly reconcile the experience of the bodily thrill—of fire and threat and fear—with her deep sense of shame about the damage to Oliver. What sort of person was she who could contain within her such contradictory emotions?

  Nineteen

  Prue, driving towards the next corner, glanced both ways at the cross-street, kept going, then braked and did a U-turn. She had a feeling about this street, and turned left. Something about it. She pulled in under the tall pine trees and looked at the house opposite. One back from the corner. She got out of the car and walked across the wide verge. It’s somewhere here, somewhere around here. She thought that if she walked along the footpath, then she would know when she came to the right house. She had been four, after all. Old enough, perhaps. There would have to be memories. The bitumen path was cracked and buckled with tree roots; it didn’t look as if it had been repaired since the day it was laid. She remembered there was a little plastic bike, pink. She would have ridden it on the path, sometimes. Her parents watching her. Or at least her mother, Rose. ‘Be careful, Prue. Don’t go on the road.’ Telling her things that she knew, even at that age. Her father would have been at work and didn’t come home until it was dark. She knew that. And she knew that her mother was worried. Her aunt, Jean, had told her, and lots more. Jean didn’t like her sister’s husband, Dick. Prue didn’t think she liked her mother much either. But when she had to, Jean behaved like a loving sister would.

  This driving around had started with a film she had seen last week. It was set in Perth, about a family: a mother and three daughters. And a father. But the mother—she was the one. And she was dying. She understood her daughters, how different they were from each other, and herself. She didn’t want to change them; she wanted them to become wha
t was made out to be, in the film, their true selves, even when they were faulty selves and likely to cause suffering—to others, and to the person they were encouraged to become. She was a wise mother and she thought of her daughters as Little Sparrow 1, 2 and 3. By the time the film got to Little Sparrow 3’s story, Prue thought that maybe this was one little sparrow too many and started to get impatient with the mother and her advice, even though she was a loving mother who was dying of cancer. You weren’t supposed to get impatient with such people, even when they were actors, in films. Prue wondered whether her mother would have been like the mother in the film, who seemed to understand her adult daughters, who loved them, even though they were difficult women in some ways. She attended carefully to the scenes in the film, thinking that here was some advice for her, some insight she could take away with her. Then she was struck by something she could see beyond the room where the filming was taking place. She could see outside. The father was sitting there, smoking. There was light flooding through the glass doors, and brick paving, and a jacaranda tree. It seemed so familiar that her body shivered for a moment. She knew the place, or something very like it, from a long time ago. From then on, whenever she caught a glimpse of the outside of the house in some scene, she peered at it, desperately trying to take in bits of the mise en scène that were on the periphery, something included in the shot by accident, something that would tell her where it was. Some parts of the film she recognised: a scene near the beach at night, the inside of a church, a car wash on the highway. And the backyard of this house. Something must have happened there, something that related to her. When she left the theatre, she was quiet, and did not want to talk to Alex, who had come with her. She was moved by the mother’s love for her daughters, and by the fact that she could think about them with such insight, and not about herself and the fact of her dying. But there was also this house, and its yard. It made her feel excited, and uncomfortable, at the same time.