Ash Mountain

by Helen FitzGerald

  ‘Morning!’

  It was Henry Gallagher; he scared her to death. He and his wife Shirley were doing some gardening at the foot of the tower. This route was safe this time of day. They had no business being here at 8.45 in the morning. Henry had a shrub, which he was planting in front of the photo of Ollie.

  ‘So sad, this poor wee boy. Did you know him?’ Mrs Shirley Gallagher asked.

  ‘I did,’ Fran said.

  ‘You have to wonder what can lead to such despair,’ said Henry.

  Despair all right. Two months earlier, while Fran was escaping the toilet window, Ollie was on the lookout, taking forty paracetamol, drinking two bottles of whisky, then throwing himself off head first. He didn’t leave a note.

  ‘When are you due?’ said Mrs Gallagher.

  ‘Two months-ish.’

  ‘You want a lift into town?’

  ‘It’s quicker to walk; thanks, though.’

  ‘If there’s ever anything we can do,’ said Mrs Gallagher. ‘I’ve got an old buggy.’

  ‘Of course, great.’ Fran wished people would stop shoving help in her face all the time. She upped her pace. She had exams looming. She needed to get a move on.

  Fran studied alone in the living room of the convent. She’d pass fifth year, she would, then she’d never have to think about school again. The room was damp and dusty and cold, the open wood fire the only heating, and no-one ever lit it. Fran’s only escape from this room was if help was needed in the sick bay, or if she had an appointment there herself. Sister Mary Margaret, as well as being competent with music and dancing, was a nurse.

  Today, Fran was required to help in the ‘waiting room’ (the kitchen) at the end of the day. None of the children was seriously ill and they therefore had too much energy for Sister Mary Margaret to bear. She had paperwork to finish, final medicines to dispense.

  There were four of them today: a boarder who’d hurt his arm playing footy, a ten-year-old girl who had a bad headache, and Johnny, who was very particular with his cut-outs, perhaps because he didn’t have enough breath, or bugs, to do it over if he made a mistake. He looked impossibly sad for a seven-year-old.

  ‘Are you worried about something?’ Fran asked him.

  ‘I am,’ he whispered. He was very dramatic.

  ‘What? You can tell me.’

  ‘I don’t like getting my photograph taken,’ said Johnny.

  Tears were in his eyes and Fran was immediately sad herself. This poor wee boy. ‘That’s not something you need to worry about,’ she said, meaning it absolutely, and taking the spider he’d just cut out from a magazine. ‘Whereas this spider!’

  Johnny’s eyes lit up. ‘He’s going on the lid.’

  ‘He is not.’ She helped him stick it on.

  Sister Mary Margaret was calling for Johnny. The little boy gave Fran that sad look again and headed to the door.

  ‘Ten minutes on the nebuliser and you’ll be right as rain,’ said the nun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  One Day before the Fire

  The handle on the bathroom window was still broken. Not a coincidence: nothing parish-owned had been repaired for decades, also Fran always chose this cubicle, and had noticed the window at the Christmas fete.

  She used her credit card to lever it open and dived in, not worrying about her stomach. She didn’t mind that it was pitch-black, because she knew exactly where she was going: twelve steps to the door, right for seven, feel the wall on the left of the dance floor until reaching the door, and push.

  She was in the corridor linking the hall to the convent. She brushed her hand along the wall as she walked, and when her fingers fell she took a breath. The inner hall was just as imposing when you couldn’t see the Madonna and Ned Kelly eyeballing each other from opposite walls.

  Subway tiles led her to the kitchen until she saw that the light was on. She couldn’t hear anything, anyone. She pushed on the glass at the top of the kitchen door and entered the room.

  The light above the sink was on, and the adjoining door to the sick bay ajar. She headed into the sick room, a wave of nausea hitting her. The same bed, the same bare space, the same blinds covering the window to the office next door.

  She went into the office and opened the blinds above the desk, the same metal slats making the same clicking sound when separated, then boinging back into place.

  If she didn’t sit for a moment, she would faint. Perched on the orange tweed chair, she put her head between her legs and took two long breaths, returning upright when she was ready.

  A large cabinet had been moved into the centre of the room. The hatch to the wine cellar was visible and open, and there was a light on down there.

  The cellar was around ten by ten feet; three of its walls lined with at least ten shelves, on which there were dozens, and dozens, of treasure boxes. Most of the boxes on the right wall had been removed already, their varied shapes and sizes obvious from the dust that had once surrounded them.

  Fran reached for the first one, a hatbox on the top left. It was covered in Barbie pictures. On the top was written Adrienne, 3. It was stuffed with photos of little Adrienne, in the sick bay with a bruised arm, dressed only in her pants. Fran put the box back, and took the next: Allyn, 12, who barracked for the Bombers and had broken his finger. She slammed the box shut when she saw a photo of little Allyn naked.

  The boxes were in alphabetical order. She held her hand up as she looked at the photos, covering the things she did not want to see. There was Bernie, thirteen, a swimmer with shoulder issues, and there was diabetic Fiona and her big green eyes. She remembered Johnny, seven, whose ribs stuck out as he wheezed, his tongue between his teeth as he cut his precious insects. She lowered her hand. His ribs were sticking out in the photographs too, although she could not look at all of them. ‘I don’t like getting my photograph taken,’ he had whispered to her.

  K to Z had been moved already. Fran traced back from K slowly, from Kathy who liked chocolate, to Greg and his planes, to a shoebox that was too small to fit into its predecessor’s dusty outline and which had no pictures on it.

  Francesca, 15, was written on the top in green.

  She slid to the floor with the box in her hand. After seeing the first picture, she covered the photos with her hand again, and looked only at the face of Francesca, fifteen, features ripe and with fear in her eyes.

  The click of the blinds. She remembered the click of the blinds.

  She was holding the last photograph in the pile, her palm covering the body, her finger stroking the face that was Francesca, aged fifteen.

  ‘Francesca,’ Fran said, crying. ‘It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.’

  Her mobile rang: The Captain. She pressed End.

  A door opened somewhere in the convent. She could hear the television – women yelling at each other, American women, screaming, Housewives of New York.

  Footsteps. Fran put the photos back in the shoebox, and the box back on the shelf. She raced up the cellar stairs, into the kitchen, and out the back door, shutting it quietly behind her.

  As she made her way across the oval, she saw headlights and heard gravel crunching on the convent’s driveway. Father Frank was returning for the next load.

  She didn’t stop to recover at the top of the hill, and her legs were lead as she made her way down the monument track, the huge trees dark and deadly silent, her tears streaming, and her thoughts so loud as she sprinted along Ryan’s Lane that they may have been coming out of her mouth: Fuck you, fuck you,

  FUCK YOU.

  PART FOUR

  THE WATER TANK

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Day of the Fire

  Fran called the local police station at 7.00 am. Detective Jeffrey McDonald, who had recently moved from Adelaide, was concerned and outraged and would investigate her allegations as soon as possible. Could she come in to the station tomorrow? It was mayhem today, he told her, what with staff shortages, the public holiday, the weather.
/>   She could, she could. And it was good.

  She would not think about it again until the cool change, and more importantly, until Vonny was safely back in the city. Tomorrow.

  Today, she would survive.

  The forecast had changed again, it might get to forty-three, and there were severe fire threats further north. Fran went over the fire plan with Gramps again at breakfast, but he only listened when she bribed him with lamingtons. Their property was the safest in the area. They would stay. Most disabled people would, she thought to herself, they’d have no choice. Who else in Ash Mountain would stay and defend no matter? she wondered; perhaps people with something to hide.

  After breakfast, Fran was up a ladder clearing gutters and checking sprinklers. One of her Dad’s seventies rock albums was playing on the record player in the living room. The shutters on the outside of the windows were down, as were the canvas blinds she’d ordered and fitted around the edges of the veranda. She’d set up and filled two paddling pools, one by the swing chair under the blacked-out veranda, and one under the kitchen table. The inside windows and curtains were all closed. The house was full of fans, one in each corner, moving toast-crumb air every three seconds or so. The freezer was filled with ice and iced bottles and the fridge was filled with watermelon, bread, beetroot and beer. There were lemons and oranges in bowls on the table, as well as several empty bowls for ice. She’d fed and watered the elderly ostriches. She straightened the jackets and checked her emergency backpack – last used when Dante was bitten by a snake in South 1 in 1997, and regularly replenished since.

  She was only halfway through the morning’s jobs. Her energy was evaporating like the water she was hosing onto the tiled roof. 8.30 am. Thirty-two degrees. Fran had a large hat on, and white zinc cream on her nose (the only sun cream in the bathroom, and at least as old as the sherry and the Choo Choo bar). She was focused, fierce, and did not want to talk to The Captain.

  He’d parked on the gravel, was taking something out of the boot and heading towards her.

  She was on the top rung, gardening gloves on, a pile of gutter-tinder in one hand, streaming, water-wasting hose in the other. She should make her way down, but that would appear more welcoming than she wanted. Plus, the hose – he might tell on her. She was trying to hide it. It was not possible.

  The Captain was carrying a basket filled with delicious-looking fruit and pastries. ‘I’ve got a lot to apologise for. Got twenty minutes?’

  She was wearing a pair of Dante’s old footy shorts, and could not go down the ladder now.

  The Captain seemed to sense that she was having some type of dilemma. He was having one of his own and – instead of looking up at her legs – chose to look in his basket. ‘Make it ten and you can keep one of the jam jars.’

  She threw the tinder and the hose to the ground, the latter hissing at his feet as she made a dash down the ladder.

  ‘So sorry,’ she said. The hose was alive, and was spraying his legs.

  The Captain picked up the hose, pressed hard until the pressure was intense, and pointed it at her runners. ‘No worries.’

  She didn’t budge, even as the hose moved up her leg, upwards again, leaving a line all the way to her neck.

  ‘Did you say something?’ she said, not flinching. ‘I must be going deaf.’ He was now spraying the hardest thinnest hose stream at her nostrils, eyes, ears and mouth. She could hardly talk. ‘I see you’ve brought a selection of pastries,’ she said.

  Fran, dressed in Speedos and sarong, rocked on the swing-chair with an espresso cup in her hand. As she swung, she dipped her toes in and out of the paddling pool. The physio would be with Gramps a while yet. She was wondering about a second pastry.

  The Captain, on the wicker chair opposite, still had his shoes and socks on, and was making a real mess of peeling a satsuma. He’d been ranting about The Boarder and his wedding party for ages. They’d kept him busy all yesterday, hence his no-show at the pub, for which he had apologised at least ten times. After the forecast came in, he’d informed The Boarder that the wedding was cancelled. And now this wind, and they’re saying forty-three degrees! There’ll be casualties by the hour. He had intended to take the family to the beach, get the hell out of here. The Boarder had threatened to sue, The Captain had sought advice, and the wedding was going ahead.

  ‘He is such an arsehole.’ The Captain had finally managed to peel the satsuma. He flicked his shoes off, it took a few shots, and dumped his feet in the pool. ‘So our girls have fallen for each other, sweet,’ he said, holding on to his deconstructed fruit. ‘Fuck them,’ he said. ‘They’re sixteen, they’ll break up, they’ve known each other a week, they’re idiots. Fuck the kids.’

  Fran stopped her swing. She wasn’t expecting that.

  ‘I want to be around you,’ he said, ‘all the time.’ He put the peel and its insides on the ground beside his chair. ‘Can I come over tonight?’

  ‘You can,’ she said. ‘Can you come over tomorrow too?’

  ‘I can,’ he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Day of the Fire

  ROSIE

  Vonny is not gonna get these off me again. She tried at the pool Saturday, started lacing one up in the tent. She’s so annoying. I cannot wait to see her. ‘Back after the fete,’ I say, kissing Dad on the cheek.

  He’s stressed. This wedding malarkey is one huge pain in the arse at the best of times but it’s 205 degrees and all the guests are gonna end up in hospital, he reckons, not that he’d mind that happening to at least one of them. He’s been on the phone to the Country Fire Authority, who’ve reassured him, and to Stephen Oh, who doubles up as a paramedic during busy periods. Stephen says he’ll be on standby.

  ‘You’re catastrophising,’ I tell him, then give him a hug cos that’s what he needs when he feels like this. He’s a simple creature, Dad. He puts an enormous hat on my head, gives me fifty dollars, and tells me to bring home a box of the best chocolates I can find and that the rest of the change is for me.

  ‘They’ll melt,’ I tell him.

  ‘Buy frozen peas too? And get back before the afternoon heat, yeah? I want you all near me today.’

  I put my headphones on, choose the playlist Vonny sent me, and off I pedal into the fan oven.

  The Collins house is a fortress outside, and cool and welcoming inside. Some song about it being ‘time for a cool change’ is on. Vonny’s mother is whistling while she undertakes an OCD tea ritual. Old Mr Collins is watching The Love House in his bedroom with Nurse Jen, and Vonny is already eyeing my Doc Martens.

  ‘I’m not sure what to wear,’ she says.

  Don’t do it, don’t do it, Rosie, I say to myself.

  The pause works. She goes for runners and sticks with her dungarees.

  ‘This is good, Mum,’ she says, looking at an Invasion Day poster she made. ‘Is it for me? Can I take it to the fete?’

  ‘Sure,’ says her mother, resuming her whistling.

  I take my boots off and carry them with me to the top of the ladder. I am not going to take my eyes off them even for one second. We get totally baked in the dinghy, but I don’t forget my resolve, and have my Docs on again when we decide to head into town. Perhaps I’m being paranoid. Perhaps Vonny has stopped wanting to steal my shoes. I leave my bike at Dante’s and we walk along Ryan’s Lane, an earphone a piece so we can listen to Vonny’s favourite new song, which I’m not getting, but maybe that’s just because I’ve never heard it before. I can’t sing along like she is. She’s dawdling too, she’s such a city slicker.

  Poor Mrs O’Leary, her Australia Day fete is a disaster. Even Tricia Gallagher only popped in for twenty minutes, she tells us. And she didn’t even bother to muster decent spinning-wheel prizes – some second hand three-for-two books and a boogie board, for goodness sakes, here. There were supposed to be rides on the oval but they all cancelled yesterday.

  Mrs O’Leary has a tight shirt on and there are large sweat marks under her arms and on her stom
ach. I believe she might have fainted had she not sat down in time.

  Henry Gallagher has set up a cold-flannel area on his Lion’s Club table. He dips one of his raggedy face-washers in a bowl of getting-warm water and then leans his head back and puts it on his forehead. There are drips coming down his face, but not for long. He’s not sure this event is safe, he’s saying. Even his hair is hot. His mind is mush. He’s wondering if they should pack up.

  Henry won’t stop talking.

  ‘The country’s getting hotter and hotter. Have you seen the state of Lake Eildon? And what’s the bloody PM up to? At the MCG in an air-conditioned VIP booth, holding hands with a billionaire coal miner.’

  ‘I see you drank the Kool-Aid, mate,’ says Marti Ercolini. ‘Pack of death-cult hippies, what a load of … “I’m so scared, it’s Armageddon!” Have you forgotten that locust plague when we were nippers? Reckon I swallowed two hundred every time I went outside. But you were too scared to even come outside! What about the size of those hail stones at the swim meet in Castlemaine when we were in form four? Giant melons, they were. One of the buggers knocked Billy Fitzpatrick out just before he dived in for the four-hundred-metre backstroke.’

  I can see it in Henry’s eyes. He’s really sick of listening to stupid people. So am I.

  ‘And now all those wussies are finding new names for fires,’ Marti is saying. ‘Superfire, Megablaze, The Monster! – as if this weather is something new. You remember the dust storm in eighty-three? Hazel McNamara died of asthma! And Cyclone Fucking Tracy, seventy-five, need I go on? Have you forgotten the summer when we had to drive to Lance Road to get water from the bore or else our kids would die of thirst? The year Billy Munro’s eggs came out of his chooks ready boiled?’