Ash Mountain

by Helen FitzGerald

  Henry seems as keen as I am to move the conversation on. ‘These bloody fans aren’t making any difference.’

  Mr Ercolini is suggesting they close at 2.00 pm, before the heat sets in, and that they take turns going to the supermarket in the meantime. ‘It’s the only air-conditioned public place in town,’ he’s saying. ‘The freezer section will be mobbed with people pretending to need frozen peas.’ Mr Ercolini says he wants to man the CFA stall for a while at least, especially on a day like today, and here’s Pete Gallagher arriving with his Ash Mountain Football Club paraphernalia – ‘Pete!’

  The carnival isn’t over, not yet. The people are mustering.

  Mrs O’Leary will man the Ash Mountain Bottlers stand and is willing to give a fifty-percent discount for those who buy more than three bottles of any flavour including orange. She will also charge one dollar to hose people down for fifteen seconds under the awning out front, all proceeds going to a new town statue, as the one of Bert is a disgrace. Luckily, Pete Gallagher has not heard her say this.

  Stephen Oh’s arriving any minute, Mr Ercolini is saying. He’s bringing the freezer from the servo, stuffed full.

  Another prize could be getting a minute over the freezer, says Pete.

  Or a free Sunny Boy, says Henry Gallagher.

  Not likely, says Pete.

  They’ve been discontinued anyway, says Mr Ercolini, Glugs and Raz’s, can you believe it? What are we s’posed to do without our pyramids of ice?

  Vonny has nabbed a table and is busy setting up her Invasion Day stuff, which includes her mouth, one poster and Spotify.

  ‘Sharing information,’ she explains to the Lions and the Footballers and the leader of the County Women’s Association, all of whom are more than happy to help. Her stand, they all decide, should be between Pete’s footy stand and Henry’s Lion stand. That way, if anyone gives her hassle, they’ll have Pete and Henry to contend with.

  I’m not the only person who loves Vonny.

  Mrs O’Leary just gave her a bitter lemon on the house. I’m a little huffy, period might be coming, or it could be this heat. I would love a bitter lemon for free. A sip would be good, even.

  People start coming in, mostly because it’s so horribly hot where they came from and they are all disappointed that it’s even hotter here, that this is real.

  A lot of people are going for Mrs Verity O’Leary’s fifteen-second hosing, which is coming from the Gallagher dam, Mrs O’Leary explains, no need to tell. I reckon there may be need for antibiotics.

  There are now twenty-one people in the hall, most in one item of clothing only, their grooming out the window for the day. At least half are at Vonny’s stand because she is telling them stories that make it cooler. There’s a song coming out of her phone, has been since she set up the table, a kind of lullaby, she explains. Every now and again she makes a sneezing noise and people laugh and some of them start to do it too, like Sister Mary Margaret, who’s drunk, and Ned and Luca and Maz and Ciara, and even Pete Gallagher from the footy stand.

  Choo!

  I go outside for a reduced-price, fifteen-second hose and realise Mrs O’Leary has not considered the wet-T-shirt implications of her game. There are two dickhead boarders across the road. One has a Hugh Grant flop of hair and blubbering shoulders to match. The other is kicking random things, like the cigarette bin outside The Red Lion, which he has broken and does not care about because he is now looking at my nipples. ‘Mountain Tits!’

  ‘These are for women only,’ I yell, and they scramble. But it doesn’t feel good to have shocked Mrs O’Leary with two, or three, things at once.

  I’m not bleeding, so there’s no excuse for my mood.

  Vonny is talking to a kid from my school and she doesn’t look annoyed or even bored. I’m hungry, I eventually realise, so walk over and say, ‘You want something from Ryan’s?’

  She wants a vegan salad box.

  I tell her there are no vegan salad boxes at Ryan’s.

  She tells me she wants a roll and salad then, or a banana. This is Craig, she says.

  I know, I say, Craig is the class arsehole, then I leave, stopping outside to pay Mrs O’Leary full price for a thirty-second hosing.

  Ryan’s is closed, and the supermarket is mobbed. There has just been some kind of incident in the world-foods section. Mrs Ercolini is on the floor under the rigatoni. The manager, Mohammed, is telling everyone to choose another aisle, so I do.

  At the till, Giang tells me Mrs Ercolini isn’t dead, it’s just her ice cream melted and she slipped. I take my change and am about to open my backpack when I realise Vonny’s brother is next in line.

  ‘Hi Dante,’ I say, packing my chocolates and my peas and Vonny’s banana into my backpack.

  ‘Rosie! Hey, have you seen the big V?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s at the fete,’ I tell him.

  ‘Changing the world?’

  ‘The fete at least.’

  ‘Is my mum there too?’

  ‘No, she’s at home, I think.’

  Dante unties his ugly mutt and decides to walk back to the fete with me. I’m wanting so much from this encounter that I have gone silent. I want to know if I’m worthy. I want to know him – at least enough to be more comfortable than this. And I want to know all about Vonny, like, are there girls in the city who like her the way I do? I just bet there are lots.

  By the time I have had a lengthy conversation in my mind, there is no time left. We have reached the convent hall. In my absence, the prizes have happened, and everyone is leaving and Mrs O’Leary is suggesting the committee pack up tomorrow and Dante is whispering something to Vonny.

  He’s wanting her help with an errand, she says. She doesn’t say anything about me helping too, and neither does he.

  ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I say, giving Vonny a hard hug.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ she says, but I bet she doesn’t. I bet I spend the rest of the week checking. I should know better than to fall for a city girl.

  At the monument, I stop and put the frozen peas on my face, and on my chest, and on my arms and legs. They get warm and squidgy really fast. It’s better inside the monument, so I sit on the spiral stairs a while and check messages, Instagram, Facebook, Skype…

  It’s too hot to walk right now. I climb to the top and look around Ash Mountain. While the heat is eerie, like I am in another world, I recognise my town: the ostrich farm, McBean’s Hill, the main street in the valley, the Gallagher farm and the Gallagher dam and the water tank. It’s so beautiful here.

  The chocolates are dripping out of my backpack, shit.

  That’s right, I have change! I put one dollar in the telescope and scan the town for Vonny, eventually locating her granddad’s four-wheel-drive opposite the church. It costs me another dollar to see that she and Dante and Garibaldi are sitting in the front seat, watching a bride and groom getting their photos taken on the steps of St Michael’s. Must be someone they know.

  If only there wasn’t a scorching two-kilometre walk before I’m sitting at the kitchen table with Dad and the girls, skulling a big, icy orange juice.

  My money runs out when I’m looking at Ryan’s Lane and I remember my bike. I left it at Dante’s water tank. That’s halfway, one kilometre. I can make it to his place no bother, I tell myself, then I’ll be at the kitchen table in no time. I want lots of ice. I ring Dad to tell him.

  ‘That’s great honey, wedding party’s arriving after photos but I’ll be ducking in and out all night. Love you.’

  ‘You too,’ I say, promising to put on the hat he made me bring, and not lying.

  It’s a public holiday, so there are at least three cars out the front of each Shitbox, plus a boat every now and then. I’m starting to wonder about knocking on a random commuter’s door and asking for a glass of water, but I don’t know anyone in there, and they don’t know me. It’s another 200 metres to Dante’s. I’m reconsidering the glass of water decision when my phone goes off.

  It’s Vonny, on vid
eo. She’s in the four-wheel-drive. ‘Sorry about running off. Dante wanted to check out his dad, he’s the groom.’ She points her camera at St Michael’s. Women in hats and men in suits stand around confetti clumps, smiling at the sweaty bride and groom. A kilted bagpiper is squealing at everyone.

  ‘Have I got a neck?’ Dante is asking Vonny. He’s sitting beside her, looking at himself in the rear-view mirror, his dog on his lap.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Vonny says to him. ‘Where are you?’ Vonny asks me.

  ‘Almost at the water tank.’ I show her the ground ahead. ‘I’m imagining water. I’m starting to see things, mirages.’

  Vonny is pointing the camera at Dante, who is now out of the car.

  ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ he’s asking Vonny.

  Vonny gets out and I see the sky on her screen and hear her say: ‘Oh my God.’

  Instead of lifting the brim of my hat, I watch Vonny. She keeps filming as she runs to the doors of St Michael’s, yelling at people to get inside. But the doors are locked. She tells them to take cover, to find somewhere safe, and she tries to stop them but most of them head towards their cars.

  The groom with no neck is still at the gates, yelling at Dante to stop causing trouble. What the hell does he think he’s doing? There’s a struggle. Dante punches the groom in the nose.

  The town siren goes off and I stop looking at Vonny’s screen. I lift my hat and look at the sky ahead of me.

  ‘Rosie, take cover,’ I hear Vonny say. ‘Take cover, find somewhere safe. Gotta go, I need to ring Triple Zero.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —Hello, my name’s Veronica Collins, I’m just ringing because I can see a lot of smoke over Ash Mountain, like coming from behind the Ryan farm, on Ryan’s Lane, I can feel it from here, it looks really big. That’s the town siren, just gone off. I’m out the front of St Michael’s Catholic church in North Road and there’s like sparks, rolling in on the ground, and there’s a whole stack of people from a wedding here. The church is locked, we can’t get in there. The roads are chaos. Where should I tell people to go?

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —There’s been an assault. Some crazy bogan has just punched me in the nose; I’m gonna need the police and an ambulance and maybe some backup – there’s an Aboriginal girl here stirring up shit as well. They’re trying to get everyone to leave. I’m at St Michael’s, Ash Mountain, it’s my wedding. Please hurry.

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —It’s Tricia Gallagher, I’ve just heard the town siren. We’re heading to the oval – just wanting to check that’s still the right thing to do?

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —Maz Montgomery here. We’re about to get into our bunker, McBean House on Ryan’s Lane. So it’s me, Ciara my partner, and our boys, Ned and Luca. We’ll exit well before the hour runs out, sixty minutes, starting now. We’ve alerted our security but I want you to know too. Be good if someone’s here.

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —My name’s Sam, I’m in the bathroom.

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —We need help, we’re in the bathroom.

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —Thanks, it’s fire. I’m Marti Ercolini. My address is thirty-three Dry Creek, Ash Mountain and I’m heading off now: me, my wife and my son-in-law, getting out of here. It’s a big fire. It’s coming in from the north-west and heading straight for the town, that’s Ash Mountain. You need to let people know. Where were the warnings? Who the hell is in charge?

  —Triple Zero, what’s your emergency?

  —Brian Ryan, Ryan’s Lane. I may be needing some assistance. I’m in the farmhouse with the little ones, in the kitchen, under the table. Have you got any advice? Got it. I will … I will, thank you.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Bunker

  MAZ

  Maz is reading Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins to Ned and Luca, and the cousins are being quite naughty. Ned and Luca are transfixed, particularly by their mummy’s weird accents. It is eerily quiet outside. The timer on the wall says forty-five minutes and is ticking loudly. They will run out of air in three-quarters of an hour, and the fire hasn’t come yet. Perhaps it won’t, Maz is thinking, but as she turns the page they all hear an explosion.

  ‘What’s that?’ Luca is trying to look at the glass hatch above their square chamber, which was blackness a moment ago and is now a rainbow of reds and oranges. And a fist, knocking.

  Maz and Ciara turn their boys’ heads away and cover their ears. They almost screwed up back there with Chook and Tricia; they will not turn around.

  Maz is trying to read Katie Morag but she can’t help it and looks. There’s a boy knocking on the hatch. He has a plaster on his nose. There are two others with him, knocking:

  Help, help us. Please, it’s me. Let me in, let us in.

  It’s getting very hot, difficult to breathe, and the sky has changed colour and she can’t hear a thing: that’s right, she remembers, it’s time to shut the hatch. Maz reaches up and closes it so the boys’ faces disappear.

  ‘Let’s lie down, babies, let’s lie face down for a few minutes. If we put our ears to the ground maybe we’ll be able to hear someone talking in rainy old Leeds.’

  The knocking may well have stopped, but Maz can’t hear it now. Her face is pressed against concrete and the heat is unbearable and the noise is terrible and the clock is ticking and the boys are sobbing and so is Ciara because the bunker is shaking.

  ‘It’s the storm, honey bunches,’ says Maz, holding three heads down with her arms, ‘just the storm.’

  The Red Lion

  PETE

  ‘Time to get inside,’ Pete is yelling. A motley crew has been hosing and sprinkling, and stamping and filling buckets and wetting towels and sheets and blankets and cloths, but now it is time to retreat.

  Everyone is in the bar but Pete and Lion Henry, who’s hosing the roof. ‘Get down now!’ Pete yells, holding the ladder.

  Henry isn’t coming down fast enough. He’s halfway when something hits him and catches his shorts. He stamps the flames with his hand, and he gets it, phew, but then he’s hit in the socks and in the chest, again, and again.

  Pete isn’t sure if Henry explodes or if that’s what it looks like to be on fire.

  He is now inside the bar, and sliding the lock.

  Pete takes a moment, unlocks the door again, and turns around.

  There are fifteen people in the bar, and while they are all looking at him, it may be more to do with the fact that he is smoking, all of him, literally, and not because they all know he just tried to lock out a bushfire.

  No-one is asking about Henry Gallagher either, not even his wife Shirley, who hasn’t been spotted outside her house for decades, and yet is here on the floor and cradling a shaking lamb.

  Sami and Perla are dousing Pete then shoving wet towels in the cracks of the door.

  Mohammed and Craig are wetting the walls and windows with cloths.

  Verity O’Leary is wanting to drown out the noise by putting money in the jukebox but the power is off and Giang from the supermarket is giving #CommuterKid from Shitboxville a free pot of blackcurrant and lemonade with ice because his #CommuterMum and #CommuterDad are busy filling buckets.

  The Old Railtrack

  DANTE

  Dante didn’t regret punching his father. The guy was going to die if he didn’t get a move on. The church doors had been locked since the ceremony and, after many attempts to get in, everyone had fled. Against his advice, many had chosen their cars and turned south onto North Road, stopping soon after to remain there, some of them U-turning to head north and stopping soon after to remain there. There was no access in or out of the town and no-one could see a thing now, everything was smoke.

  A few of the guests had chosen to take ref
uge in the adjacent presbytery but Dante was not into that decision and neither was Von. It was one huge pile of dried-out weatherboard tinder, that place.

  The flames had reached the Ryan buildings; they were coming. He couldn’t see anything except The Boarder, who he pulled from the ground.

  ‘Get to the car,’ he said to Vonny, who was with Emily the Bride, and the four of them ran across the road to the car, which was still parked opposite the first oak. Poor Garibaldi, he was shaking as Dante revved the engine. He sped along the nature strip, swerving to break through the fence across from the church.

  ‘Where are we going?’ The Bride in the back said, as if she wanted hashtags for the selfies she’d been taking only five minutes ago.

  His mum had made him walk this route many times, so he knew it well. There were no buildings, hardly any trees. It was safe apart from the fire that was approaching from the north-west. The wheels hit the tracks, and Dante turned left, getting it wrong a few times before settling between the lines. They were now heading north-east, but not fast enough. He pressed the accelerator to the ground.

  ‘What the fuck?!’ The Bride said.

  ‘What the fuck?!’ The Boarder, his father, said.

  Vonny knew where they were going. They should go off the tracks soon. ‘There, we don’t need eyes, that’s it,’ she said, ‘slow down here and get off.’

  Dante headed off the tracks and up the bare hill.

  They were about to make it, so close, but the four-wheel-drive blew a tyre, swerved, and stopped halfway up the hill, the flames closer now, and coming straight for them.

  ‘Okay guys,’ Dante said, his dog tucked under his shirt and blanket, ‘so we have to get out and run through the flames to a burnt area – in that direction.’ He pointed at the oncoming fire. ‘It’ll feel wrong but if you cover yourself and bolt, it’s not. As fast as you can. It’s the end of the line, it’s thin, we can do it. There are blankets behind the chairs, got them?’