Flame Tree Hill

by Mandy Magro

  ‘How are you feeling after having a break over there?’ Kirsty asked.

  ‘I feel really good. I truly believe I’ve beaten the cancer. I feel better now than I have at any time in the last year, and the doctors are saying there’s no sign that the cancer has spread anywhere else, which is great news.’

  Kirsty took Kulsoom’s hand and squeezed it softly, the toll the cancer had taken on Kulsoom evident in the frailness of her aunt’s fingers. ‘I’m glad to hear that. I’m so sorry you had to go though all this. Life just isn’t fair sometimes. You know I love you loads, don’t you?’

  Kulsoom squeezed Kirsty’s hand in response, smiling as she wiped the wetness from Kirsty’s cheeks. ‘How could I not? You’re forever telling me, my dear. I love you too.’ Kulsoom replaced her solemn gaze with a smile, her eyes twinkling playfully. ‘By the way, I saw the way Aden kept glancing at you across the table tonight, Kirsty. I could be wrong but I think that boy might have a bit of a soft spot for you. Although, who can blame him? You’re an attractive girl.’

  ‘Oh get out! He does not!’ Kirsty said, feeling her face flush the colour of beetroot. ‘Aden and I are like brother and sister. We’ve basically known each other all our lives.’

  Lynette leant forward on the chair and caught Kirsty’s gaze. ‘You know what, I thought I noticed it too. But then again, maybe us old hens haven’t got a clue and we’re reading into something that’s not there at all.’

  Kirsty shuffled uncomfortably in the swing chair, causing the rhythmic sway to falter. ‘I really reckon you two should lay off the wine over dinner. It’s messing with your heads.’

  ‘I must say, he is a hunk – if I was only twenty years younger!’ Kulsoom replied with a wink, sending Lynette into chortles beside her.

  Kirsty shook her head at the two giggling women. A relationship forming between her and Aden? Pfft. It wasn’t possible. Her mum and Kulsoom had no idea what she was hiding. No one did. And with each new day she spent with Aden under her roof, she was finding herself standing dangerously close to the edge. One little shove and she was going to tumble over.

  Chapter 7

  THE camp fire threw out a fine spray of glowing red embers as Robbie carefully placed another log across the fire. He stood back beside Aden and Kirsty, the three of them cradling cans of beer, mesmerised by the flickers of golden flames. Kirsty pulled her camera from around her neck and snapped a few images of the fire in all its blazing glory. The red, blue and orange flames against the blackness of the night were striking, the perfect elements for a spectacular photograph.

  ‘Ah, this is the life,’ Ron said, a satisfied smile on his face as he leant back in his fold-out chair with a pannikin of tea.

  ‘I agree,’ said Lynette. ‘Great suggestion to have a barbecue, Robbie. It’s an ideal night for it. Mind you, I ate way too much, as usual. I feel like a beached whale.’ Lynette leant further back into her chair and popped her feet up onto Ron’s lap, wriggling her toes to insinuate she wanted a foot rub. Ron obliged, rubbing her feet tenderly.

  ‘I’m full of great ideas,’ Robbie replied, his face flushed from the warmth of the fire. ‘I also take credit for the camping trip we’re going on. Can’t believe Dad gave me and Kirsty a few days off work for it. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Dad, but I’m gonna take the offer and run with it before you change your mind.’

  Ron smiled. ‘After a month straight of work I thought you both deserved some time off. I’m not going to change my mind. Glad you can go too, Aden.’

  ‘It’ll be great – I need a break from work. I can’t wait to get to Lake Tinaroo and have a ski. It’s been years since I’ve been there,’ said Aden.

  ‘I’m really looking forward to having a ski too,’ said Kirsty. ‘It feels like forever since I’ve been camping. They don’t really camp in England. You’d freeze to bloody death if you tried to sleep outside.’

  Lynette chuckled. ‘Just make sure you pack the food, love. Remember last time when all Robbie took was sausages, bread and tomato sauce? You couldn’t look at a sausage for months without feeling ill.’

  Kirsty laughed. ‘Oh yeah! I’d forgotten about that. We had to live on sausages for four days because Robbie didn’t catch any fish. Remember that, Aden?’

  Aden nodded, smiling.

  ‘Hey, fair go, you lot,’ said Robbie. ‘I’m a bloke. We go into nature for the fishing, not for gourmet food. And it wasn’t my fault that the fish were on holiday that weekend.’

  ‘Good point, Robbie,’ Kulsoom replied with a grin. ‘Ah, after a week of being waited on hand and foot by my wonderful family I could easily get used this.’ She gave Hank a good scratch behind the ears as she sat down. He stretched his front legs, walked around in a circle and then positioned himself right on top of her feet. ‘Oh, thanks, mate, I now have my own personal foot heater too,’ she said with a chuckle.

  ‘You know you’re welcome as long as you would like to stay,’ Lynette said.

  Kulsoom yawned contentedly and rubbed her belly. ‘Don’t tempt me, Lynny, or I might never leave. Then poor old Harry will have to fend for himself forever. Bless him. I miss having the old bugger around. Although he’s probably enjoying having a bachelor pad while I’m away. I can just imagine it, an unmade bed so he doesn’t need to pull all the decorative pillows off at night, the sports channel on constantly and his smelly socks strewn about the place. A man’s idea of heaven.’

  The group chuckled. The image Kulsoom had just painted sounded like Harry down to a T.

  A comfortable silence fell over them as the serenity of the country came to the foreground. The only sound to be heard was the chirping of crickets, the call of a curlew and the gentle night breeze blowing through the leaves of the trees.

  ‘So who’s up for some toasted marshmallows and sharing a few good ol’ camp-fire yarns? The stories don’t have to be true, but they do have to make us all laugh. That’s the only rule. It’s up to the rest of the group to decide whether the yarns being told are true and the storyteller isn’t obliged to reveal whether they are.’ Kirsty said, wiggling her eyebrows. She leant over and pulled a packet of marshmallows from the Esky.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Robbie said, his face lighting up. ‘I have some beauties!’

  Aden clapped his hands in delight. ‘That sounds like fun. I’ve got a few good ones too.’

  ‘My oath! I haven’t done this in years,’ Ron said as he leant forward in his chair.

  ‘Righto then, let me go hunt for a couple of twigs to put the marshmallows on and we’ll be in business,’ Aden said as he stood to begin the search.

  Kirsty stood too, brushing the dirt from the back of her jeans. ‘Wait up, I’ll come and help you.’

  Aden and Kirsty walked off into the shadows, scouring the ground for twigs that were big enough to hold over the fire without fingers getting burnt. Kirsty’s eyes took their sweet time to adjust to the darkness after sitting by the fire and she could barely see. She let out a small squeal as she lost her footing and tripped over.

  Aden knelt down beside her to help her up. ‘Shit, are you right? You seem to have a habit of falling over lately.’

  Kirsty began to laugh as Aden did too. ‘Yeah, I don’t think I bruised anything except my pride.’ She took Aden’s outstretched hand, a quiver travelling down her arm at his touch. She could just make out his broad silhouette in the dark. He stood, pulling her up with him, and then he gently wrapped his arms around her waist.

  Kirsty felt her knees go weak; this was more than a friendly gesture. She knew she shouldn’t let him be so close but she couldn’t move, her body refusing to do what her mind was asking it to. She’d fantasised about him doing this for years so how could she stop now? She held her breath, wishing she could see his face and wondering what was going to happen next. They stood there for what seemed an eternity, neither of them pulling away. Kirsty could feel Aden’s warm breath on her cheek and hear the thumping of her heart in her ears. She closed her eyes, letting her body
press closer into his, the moment intensifying as their breathing got heavier. There was a sudden crackling of dried leaves behind them, and then Robbie’s deep voice nearby. ‘Kirsty? Aden? Are you two okay out there?’

  Aden instantly dropped his arms from Kirsty’s waist, then Robbie was upon them. ‘There you are. It’s so bloody dark out here I thought you might have lost your way. How’s the twig hunting going?’

  Aden bent down and then abruptly stood again, holding a handful of sticks. ‘Yep, mission accomplished, got a few here, should be enough for all of us.’

  ‘Mission accomplished, all right,’ Kirsty muttered under her shaky breath.

  ‘Pardon?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just muttering to myself.’ Kirsty noticed her voice sounded a notch or two higher.

  ‘You’ve always had a bad habit of doing that,’ Robbie teased as all three headed back in the direction of the camp fire.

  What in the hell had just happened?

  ‘Do you want to know where the saying “raining cats and dogs” comes from?’ Ron asked. They were settled around the crackling fire, marshmallows melting into gooey heaven.

  ‘Sure do,’ said Kulsoom.

  Ron edged forward in his chair. ‘In the old days, English houses had thatched roofs with thick straw piled high and no wood underneath the straw to separate it from the inside of the house. Amongst this straw was the best spot to get warm, so all the dogs, cats, mice and bugs lived up there. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would fall from the straw roofing, hence the saying.’

  ‘And whoever said history was boring?’ Kirsty smiled. ‘Who’s got another one?’

  ‘I can explain where the expression “piss poor” came from,’ Aden said, licking his marshmallowy fingertips. ‘Urine used to be used to tan animal skins, so families who wanted to make an extra buck would pee in a communal pot and then sell it to the tannery. If you had to do this you were considered piss poor. But then again, there were the folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot, hence the saying, “don’t have a pot to piss in”.’

  Lynette clapped her hands delightedly. ‘What a classic! Not that I can figure out if it’s true or not. Who’s next? Robbie?’

  Robbie rubbed his chin. ‘Hmm, let me think. This isn’t about where a saying comes from but it’s a bloody funny story. I was reading in the paper the other day that a man in Croatia got a nasty surprise when he went to get out of his deckchair and found his testicles had become stuck between the slats of wood on the seat. He’d been sunbaking naked on the beach the whole day, and in the cool morning his shrunken testicles had slipped through the slats. Then, as it got hotter, they returned to normal size, leaving him embarrassingly stuck to the chair. He was freed after the beach maintenance guys found him and got someone to cut the chair in half.’

  Kirsty’s shoulders shuddered with laughter. ‘My goodness, Robbie, what newspapers do you read? You gotta be pulling our legs with that one!’

  Kulsoom clapped her hands. ‘My turn, my turn! I read that a patient in Denmark was having a mole removed from his bottom with an electric scalpel when he broke wind, igniting a spark from the scalpel and accidentally setting fire to his pubic hair. The hospital staff put it out with a fire extinguisher.’

  Lynette snorted with laughter. ‘You must read the same newspapers as Robbie!’ She rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. ‘Count me out of this storytelling. I can’t come up with anything that would beat those yarns.’

  ‘Looks like you’re lucky last, Kirsty.’ Ron said.

  Kirsty thought for a minute. ‘Okay . . . Well, I can explain where the saying “dead ringer” comes from.’

  ‘Great, do tell,’ Ron replied, slipping another marshmallow on the end of his twig.

  ‘In the old days in England, they began running out of places to bury people so they would dig up coffins, remove the bones and then take them to a bone house so they could reuse the grave and coffin again. Apparently, upon opening these coffins, some had deep scratch marks on the wood, and they realised people had been buried alive.’ A gasp from the group made Kirsty smile, stoked she had their undivided attention. ‘So to combat this, they would tie a string to the wrist of the corpse, lead the string up through a hole in the coffin then up through the soil, and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night after the funeral to listen for the bell just in case the poor bugger was buried alive. Hence the expression “dead ringer”.’

  ‘Holy shit! I haven’t heard that one before but I reckon it could be true. That’s probably where the saying “graveyard shift” comes from too,’ said Aden.

  Kirsty laughed and held her thumb up in the air. ‘I reckon it’s a pretty good explanation, but whether it’s true I’m not at liberty to discuss.’

  Aden grinned back at her as he admired her smile, the feeling of Kirsty’s body pressed up against his own only an hour before having roused dormant feelings inside him. He hadn’t meant to grab her like that. It had been totally spontaneous, his intimate gesture surprising him just as much as he was sure it had surprised her. And at that very moment, when he’d had her in his arms, all he’d wanted to do was kiss her. He wondered if she had felt the same. It had taken everything he had to stop himself. Fuck! What had gotten into him lately? This was his best mate’s little sister. He’d been warned by Robbie not to go near Kirsty when they were teenagers and he wondered if that still stood now they were all adults. Not that he was going to ask. Blokes just didn’t do that. And not that he needed to ask. He shouldn’t be making a move on her anyway. Aden knew he had to tread carefully. He didn’t want to upset Robbie; he’d been so good to put him up in the cottage. But Lord help him, with her athletic body and feisty spirit, Kirsty Mitchell was so damn desirable – she always had been.

  Mumbling in her sleep, Kirsty kicked off her doona and thrashed about her bed as she felt the Commodore tumbling once again, the cries of her friends so loud she thought her eardrums might split. She threw her hands over her ears, trying to drown out their blood-curdling screams, her own voice mute, no matter how hard she tried to call back to them. Then she was scrambling out of the car and trying to run away, but her legs weren’t moving, as though her feet were made from lead. Blood dripped from her battered torso, and her arm hung loose from the open flesh of her shoulder. She ran her hand over her face, only to see it covered in blood as she pulled it away. Primal sounds came from the confines of the bushes beside the road, an eerie sound that made her skin prickle. Had someone been thrown in there from the impact? Shouldn’t she go and help them? Once again she tried to lift her feet from the gravel of the road, her pulse hammering in her throat, finding herself completely frozen to the spot. In front of her, bodies began to emerge from the wreckage of the car, one after the other, skin dripping from their blackened flesh, bones protruding in places where the skin had been completely burnt away, their arms reaching out for her, begging her for help . . .

  Screaming silently, eyes flashing open, her consciousness now back in the safety of her bedroom, Kirsty panted for breath and scrambled up to sitting, her body covered in sweat. Hastily reaching across, she switched on her bedside lamp, needing the flood of light for comfort. She swallowed hard, her eyes wide, her mouth dry. Taking a few deep breaths, she slowly released them, trying to calm herself down. The nightmares had plagued her ever since the accident. At times they would come night after night and then she would have a few months with none. Her psychiatrist had told her it was part of the healing process and that eventually the nightmares would stop, once she had fully dealt with the accident. She hadn’t had a nightmare in over two months, since she’d returned home – what had brought this one on? Her brief encounter with Aden in the dark? Still shaking, she slid from her sheets and padded off towards the kitchen, in need of a glass of water or maybe something a little stronger.

  An hour and one glass of red wine later, Kirsty wearily climbed back into bed, switched her lamp off and pulled the she
et over her, kicked it off, then pulled it up again with a groan. Who was she kidding? There was no way in hell she was going to sleep tonight after that nightmare; and on top of that, thoughts of Aden with his arms wrapped around her waist were playing havoc with her mind. What was Aden doing? Why, after all these years of knowing her, was he showing signs of liking her? Was he lonely, suffering from the breakdown of his marriage? He didn’t appear to be, but who knew? It was only going to be worse on a camping trip with him. She was almost certain of it: Aden Maloney had feelings for her. And she couldn’t have him. How cruel life could be. How much heartache could it throw at her before she finally broke into a million little pieces?

  Chapter 8

  THE country road narrowed as Robbie drove the Land Cruiser along the well-worn track to Lake Tinaroo, the twangy country voice of Keith Urban on the radio. The tropical heat of Hidden Valley was gradually left behind as the lush rainforest closed in on both sides, creating a thick canopy overhead. Amazing to think they were only two hours from Flame Tree Hill and yet the landscape was so distinctly different.

  Sunlight refracted through the trees, sending speckled golden light across the substantial undergrowth. Bromeliads flourished in the damp conditions here, their blues, reds, oranges and purples striking against the dark green forest floor. Kirsty imagined the insects and green tree frogs making their homes in the overlapping leaves, the bromeliads’ centres resembling miniature lakes for the water-loving creatures.

  The earthy aroma of the moist soil and the lush green rainforest made Kirsty feel so alive. It helped that they were on the road to Tinaroo – it was her favourite place to camp out under the stars. Walter, her grandfather, had helped build the dam in the fifties and its holding capacity was large enough to create a lake the size of Sydney Harbour, very impressive indeed for the small community of the Atherton Tablelands. In 1959 when the dam was filled, the small township of Kulara, which had suffered greatly during the Depression, was submerged, forever to stay in its grave beneath the dam.