Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  Lost, without a compass, it was impossible to tell whether Darwin, his objective, lay to the east or west. He decided to carry on and hope that he would find somewhere eventually. And did so, while the sun angled its way seawards behind him and the heavily-forested country below lay like a dark and brooding shadow extending southwards, it seemed, forever.

  At last a change, the coastline swinging in a great arc to port and continuing northwards — he checked the setting sun for bearings — until it disappeared below the horizon.

  The chart folded on his knee, he checked his position. No doubt about it: this had to be Cape York, far to the east of where he had meant to be. He thought briefly of retracing his flight into the setting sun, but did not. What remained of his life had ceased to be his own. He had become the instrument of a fate that alone would dictate what would and would not happen.

  He had selected Darwin because there would be warships there. Crashing into their midst would do more than destroy some of them; it would announce to the world his defiance-until-death of the enemy that had overwhelmed his nation, had even suborned — or so it seemed — his Emperor. It would be his final declaration of loyalty to the soil and rock of Japan, the land that owned them all.

  Now Darwin was beyond his reach. Examining the chart, he saw that ahead lay only mountains and forest, an emptiness to quench the ardour of death. His fingertip traced the chart’s contours. To the south-east there was another town on the coast. Perhaps this, instead of Darwin, could witness his immolation. His lips spelt out the barbaric-sounding name.

  Cairns. Very well. Cairns it would be.

  The sun had set. Its diminishing glow stained the sky behind him. He crossed the coast in a soft dying of daylight. The last day, the last night.

  Beyond the windscreen, the propeller ground out its steady song. The screech of wind through the cockpit’s shattered side panel blew cold. Now everything about him — the darkening land, the purple-shadowed sea, the dials devoid of meaning — had become blurred. Not because of the coming of night but because, deep within him, his body’s faltering mechanism was also beginning to turn towards the dark.

  He lifted his right hand from the controls and held it in front of him, watched as it seemed to swell and diminish before his eyes. The hollow drumming within his head drowned the engine beat.

  Now he was not alone. With him rode the countless faces of the boys who had died, the men who had sent them out to fight and perish, his own family, who would never know what it meant to be a samurai of the Emperor. Even he had called an end. Even he.

  I shall not end, he told Mariko now, her face not sad, but bright with love and understanding amid all the other faces. I shall go on, finish it in a manner that is worthy. In spring we shall indeed go to the Heian Shrine together, see the cherry blossoms of the Heian Shrine together. Because I shall go with you always. I shall be with you, as you are with me in this.

  He knew she understood, could hear his thoughts as he sought to bring order to his tumbling mind.

  He awoke from what might have been a daze. He had been flying blind, fearful of alerting watchers in the land beneath, a land of which he knew nothing, for which until now he had cared nothing. Now he cared. How could he not, knowing that he must die upon its breast?

  He flicked on the control panel lights and looked at the altimeter. Looked again. Five hundred feet. Somehow the plane had drifted down as he, at the controls, was drifting. He took the plane up again, the engine responding uncomplainingly. He looked out, hoping to see the distant lights of the town towards which, so painfully, he was flying, but could not. Only blackness.

  A pity about Darwin. There would have been ships there. Targets worthy of sacrifice.

  Sacrifice? he thought. Sacrifice?

  The aircraft swayed, settling. It was becoming hard to hold it in the air. He could make out the reflection of his face in the darkened windscreen. Behind it all the other faces watched. Their voices poured with the wind through the shattered panel.

  There is no sacrifice. There is glory, fulfilment, the coming together of past present future in one final triumphant gesture of …

  He no longer knew what he had been trying to think. Remembered only sacrifice, which he rejected. Let me not think of sacrifice.

  Out of the darkness loomed a shape. He watched the grey might of the vessel, the waves gnashing white about its bows, its massed armaments turning towards him. He saw the muzzle flashes of the guns, felt the concussion of the air as the Zero flew, buffeted by shell bursts. He was in a dive. Right hand on the control column, left on the throttle lever, he heard the rising scream of the engine above the flak that poured in a steel curtain from the battleship. Somehow, in his terminal dive, he managed to avoid it, the airframe shaking in a mounting frenzy as he drove himself …

  Blinking sweat from his eyes, he came out of it. The phantom warship faded. He eased back. The blackness was about him still. He had no idea where he was, how far from the ground. He could no longer tell whether he was climbing or falling, if the wing tips were level, even whether he was upside down or not. The blackness outside the cockpit soaked him.

  He must have torn something in his back during the dive. He could feel the blood pouring from him; could smell it, even above the cockpit smells of pain and sweat and fuel. Knew that he was not going to reach Cairns, either.

  Even that is denied, he thought, knowing that it was unimportant, that what mattered was the manner of going, not the place. The realisation brought peace. The ruptured bag of his body was almost empty. The blackness had entered within the cockpit and now sat in the pilot’s seat with him, its hands held the controls …

  He rested his own hands lightly on the wheel, no longer seeking to control the plane, entrusting both it and himself to the blackness. And sat. The plane settled. The tangled wire of branches rushed towards him out of the darkness. They reached up, enfolding.

  Beyond the branches, he saw the coastline, the cliffs, the perfect cone of Fujiyama, snow-capped, rising above the plain. The land reclaimed him.

  Engine roaring, the Zero flew into the trees.

  43

  DANIELLE

  1999

  Kath had a pretty shrewd idea of what went on in Danielle’s life. She also knew how Hedley, as conservative a man as you could find, would have been appalled by her behaviour, but had no plans to dob her granddaughter in.

  She had learned years ago to keep her beak out of things that were never going to affect her. Her life had become a sphere, delicately poised. It contained all the important things: her private thoughts, her dealings with her husband and the warring Warren clan, her memories of Jeth Douglas. And most of all the land itself, brooding, overriding and eternal, against which they all played out the roles that had been allotted them.

  Her equilibrium depended upon each component being in balance with the rest. It was Kath’s greatest skill that she had been able to do this and so achieve the tranquillity that had become her most precious possession. Once over the initial shock of Jeth’s death, she had settled back to life on the farm as though she had never left it. The richness of life was hers no longer, but she permitted herself neither bitterness nor regret. She had long since ceased to think in terms of fulfilment or joy; instead, passive acceptance had become her grail. Day followed day in stillness. To another person, the serenity that she had acquired at such cost might not have seemed much, but to Kath it was enough; she believed it would even protect her from calamity. Hedley might die or the family fall apart but Kath, armoured in her inner peace or at least acceptance, would survive. She and the land, that had seen them come would see them go, would remain eternally. Before its permanence even Hedley was of no account.

  Kath watched as day followed day, but even in the mid-north things happened. Julia had come back; Hedley had had his turn and got over it; now Danielle talked Hugo Welke into going with her to a rock concert in Adelaide, and the hippies, or what some local oldies called the hippies, took up residen
ce in the McCreedy Homestead, in the ranges outside town.

  With her previous lovers Danielle had been able to keep her day-to-day existence separate from the fantasy world of her sexual life but, with Hugo Welke, she couldn’t manage it. He was a real ocker, yet it made no difference; she was obsessed. She wanted him not only at night and in private, but every day, before the world.

  For the moment it was out of the question, not because Hugo was married — Danielle didn’t give a damn about that — but because Grandpa Hedley would be certain to hear about it if she did. Hedley Warren had not slaved his whole life in order to enrich the Welkes; if he knew about Hugo, he might cut Danielle out of his will altogether.

  She wasn’t prepared to risk that; now Michael had blown it and, with Craig based in Adelaide, she might be in with a chance after all. So for the moment, frustrating though it was, she would have to keep Hugo under wraps. This didn’t mean they could do nothing together; when she managed to get hold of tickets to a rock concert in Adelaide she had no hesitation in talking Hugo into going with her.

  Her plan was not simply to go to the concert but to stay in town overnight. She wanted to wake up and find Hugo in bed with her, to walk through the streets with Hugo beside her, to have coffee together in a caff, most of all to pretend that they were together in all the ways that mattered, not simply an item that began and ended with the bed.

  Hugo was game; he always was if it wasn’t costing him anything. His wife had written him off; they stayed married because that was the way she wanted it, but it was a long time since she’d cared what he did with his life. So long as bed featured on the menu and provided he wasn’t expected to pay, he was quite willing to go to the concert with Danielle, would even stay over in Adelaide with her, if that was what she wanted. Tolerant bloke, Hugo, when it suited him.

  Danielle phoned Craig and explained about the concert. ‘I want to stay at your place Saturday week.’

  ‘I’ve an outside broadcast that weekend. I’ll be away.’

  ‘Even better; I won’t be disturbing you.’

  ‘Well …’

  She heard his hesitation but had always known how to handle brother Craig. ‘You think I’m going to wreck the place?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  People always fell into line if you handled them right but, since Craig wouldn’t be there, she decided there was no need to mention that she would not be alone. On the Saturday she collected the key from the neighbour, as arranged, and she and Hugo moved in.

  ‘Hey, this is all right …’

  These days Craig could afford the best. He liked modern things: a plate glass dining table (cost a bloody fortune, said Hugo), a black lounge suite on a white woollen carpet, a kitchen with so many gadgets it looked like something out of Star Trek.

  ‘Have a look at this.’ Hugo was in the main bedroom, admiring what looked like a water bed, also in black and white, an ensuite bathroom with a full-length bath, a shower cubicle, a marble floor.

  Hugo was not bothered about the bathroom, had even been known to go without showering in the height of summer. Hugo was eyeing the bed.

  ‘Time for that later.’

  But Hugo had other ideas and, where Danielle was concerned, what Hugo wanted Hugo got. Later, they had a shower together, and damn near went through the same performance all over again. Afterwards they went out to explore the town.

  They weren’t away long. Hugo wasn’t much for coffee and cakes, for strolling arm in arm by the river, and was dead against mooching around the shops. What Hugo liked was Danielle with her clothes off, a beer or two with mates, a day at the races.

  ‘There’s the casino …’

  Somehow he didn’t fancy that, either. Instead, they went back to Craig’s unit, where Hugo flopped in front of the telly and watched the broadcast of a meeting at Flemington. Bored, Danielle investigated the rest of the apartment. Spare bedroom where Craig, more fool him, had no doubt assumed she would be sleeping; another room kitted out like a study: big desk, fax machine and photocopier, computer with all the bits and pieces. There was a pile of files on the desk; she sticky-beaked through them but found nothing of interest. Pulled open a drawer of the desk, came across some photographs in an envelope. They were of a girl. Danielle had seen her picture in TV Week, described as Craig Warren’s latest escort. These were more revealing than the ones in the mag. In those she’d been falling out of her dress; in these she wasn’t wearing a dress. She wasn’t wearing anything at all. Danielle examined her critically. Well, good on you, brother. She returned the photos to the envelope and took out a manila folder. In the folder she struck gold: a pile of emails from, and to, someone called Yukiko, in Singapore.

  Who the hell was Yukiko?

  She took the folder, sat down at the desk and began to read. When she’d finished, with Hugo now engrossed in the fourth race, she had a think. The emails didn’t say much in words, but their tone was unmistakable. Craig had a Jap sheila in Singapore.

  Beauty, Danielle thought. She made copies of the most revealing emails and put them in her case. Craig had made a life for himself in Adelaide but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still interested in the land. If he thought he was going to muscle in on Grandpa’s acres, she would nail him like a shot. Hedley hated Japs; what would he say if he knew about this?

  She put everything back where she’d found it and went back into the lounge. Hugo had found a tinny in the fridge and was tipping it in.

  ‘Bring one for me?’

  ‘More there if you want one.’ He made no effort to get it for her. Gotta be out of my mind, Danielle thought. Maybe I’ll grow out of him, but hopefully not yet.

  The hippies had appeared from nowhere; no-one knew where they’d been before or why they were in the mid-north at all, come to that.

  ‘Bunch of bodgies …’ Enid Hillier had been dead for years, but Madge Stacey had taken over her post as resident harpy and was doing a good job.

  The hippies kept to themselves; from time to time wandered barefoot into town, bought the odd thing from the deli — not enough to keep a blowie in shape, said Mark Todd, who’d taken over the deli when his old man died — but mostly no-one set eyes on them. Of course, even that didn’t please some people.

  ‘Wonder what they get up to in that place,’ said Freda Lomax, a sour old cow. ‘Smoking dope, what I heard.’

  Who she’d heard it from she didn’t say, but it was certainly possible; if they were, as anyone with kids at the High School knew, they wouldn’t be the only ones.

  44

  KATH

  1999–2000

  The McCreedy Homestead was six kilometres from the Warren farmhouse.

  ‘Watch out they don’t start a fire,’ Hedley said. ‘That sort, I wouldn’t put it past them.’

  In the mid-north, fire in summer was the stuff of nightmare; every year, when the mercury took off like a space shuttle, when the sky throbbed with heat and a gusting northerly sent dust devils swirling across the landscape, everyone kept an eye out for the first sign of smoke. Fires were banned; one spark, so the saying went, could destroy a park. Or a continent.

  ‘See any of them around, you’d best warn them,’ Hedley told Kath. Might even have done it himself, but at the moment reaping took every second of the day and most of the night as well.

  Kath warned him to take it easy; she might as well have talked to the wall. Twenty hours at a stretch in the header’s air-conditioned cab was chook feed, Hedley told her. In the old days, before anyone had heard of air conditioning, harvesting had been something gruesome, but nowadays …

  ‘Back then you weren’t seventy-seven years old,’ Kath pointed out.

  Nagging could irk a man. ‘Never mind how old I am. I can still see some of these youngsters off. You stick to looking after the house, okay? And if you see any of that hippie mob, tell them no fires.’ And off he went, to be seen no more that day.

  The dinosaur headers bellowed across
the valley. Wheat streamed like golden rain into the field bins; grain trucks formed long and cursing queues outside the silos; the days were a swirl of dust as farmers, grime and fire-red temper from battered hat to boots that walloped the earth that owned them, brought in the harvest.

  Kath saw no-one from the McCreedy place, so one day she stopped off on her way back from town to warn them about the fire danger. She had no idea what to expect, had a vague notion that they would be lying around, smoking grass and dreaming the sweet dream, or barbecuing a rabbit or two overlooked by the calicivirus. There would be kids running around starkers, maybe adults too, babies being breast-fed under the sun’s hot flail.

  She turned off the track into a yard bordered by a line of derelict sheds. The land had been sold years before, the house left empty — the reason the out-of-town owner had been willing to let it to this mob — and the place in general had a hang-dog air. Neither naked breasts nor babies, however, for which Kath was grateful. No-one at all, come to that.

  ‘Hullo?’

  Silence.

  ‘Anyone around?’

  There had to be someone; the beat-up bus they used was in one of the sheds.

  The door had one of those old-fashioned bell-pulls; Kath yanked on it and heard a dying jangle within the house. A woman came, soundlessly. She was in her early twenties, with high cheekbones and a gap between her front teeth. She was barefoot, wearing a dress of some flimsy material that barely cleared the floor. Her long blonde hair was captured by a cloth band that matched the dress. No make-up, but in other ways she looked no different from other girls of her age, and Kath was comforted.

  ‘My husband and I have the farm down the road. I thought I’d drop by, see how you’re settling in.’