Then Ingrid almost threw her box of matches into the air. There was a sudden thumping sound against the fly screen door. But this was soon followed by a thin whine that made her give a grim little laugh. It was a sound she knew all too well.
‘Blackie, no!’ She moved through the kitchen and there he was panting, wagging his tail and thumping on the door to be let in. ‘How in the world, you funny old thing?’ But she saw the broken leash and opened the door and hugged him.
‘You knew! You’re so clever. You just knew I felt – but, Blackie, I’ve got a job to do. Now you have to stay out here. Stay!’ And she settled him on their stringy backdoor mat.
This was it, then. She’d begin in the kitchen. No. She’d start from the front room then, light the bowl of kero under the curtain real quick, and run to the kitchen to light this one, then out the back door and take Blackie across the yard to safety. She wouldn’t climb over the back fence, not with him as heavy as he was, but quick as quick up the back lane.
As she took the matches up the dark hallway, she felt glad of the dog’s presence. He was an unwitting accomplice, but a companion all the same, and at least some living company as she set about her terrible task. She set her chin the way that always made Mum mad, because she said it made her look so much like her dad, all strong and decided. Her jutting chin meant she’d do it. She’d do it, all right!
‘Goodbye, Emoh Ruo,’ she whispered as she went up the hall, feeling steely and sure. And then she saw Neville Frank’s leather overnight bag stuffed full of Emoh Ruo things, just where she’d left it this afternoon, when Dom had startled her.
‘Damn, damn!’ She’d have to take it outside. She dragged the heavy thing down the hall, through the kitchen, out the door and across the garden. Blackie danced round joyously, as if it were some mysterious new game. She stowed the bag behind a scraggy bush.
‘Stay by that bag,’ she told the dog. ‘Stay here now, Blackie! On guard.’ Eager to please her, the dog settled beside it. But her heart was beginning its uneasy thudding again, as she walked back to the house.
How could she do this? It was terrible.
She made herself go inside again and found the matchbox where she’d left it. Then, in the dull lamplight, as she looked up the dark hall, her nerve failed her. She’d been so strong, resolute – but the dog and the leather overnight bag. Maybe these things were there to stop her.
She thought of Mum’s face, so hard and strong this morning. And that steadied her. Mum was always as good as her word. If she didn’t hear the fire truck by 10, then she’d get herself down here, sure as eggs. That’s what she said, and that’s what she’d do.
Ingrid thought of Daddy, in Sydney somewhere, hiding out and scared maybe and needing their help. If she thought of him, for heaven’s sake, she could do it. She had to do this for him, as much as for Mum. She just had to. Tears began to stream down her face at the thought of her father. But her fear worked well, because eventually it controlled her crying. She knelt down and pulled out the dog bowl that Mum had stowed there with its disgusting wet rag, and she opened that box again.
Innocent little bits of wood with their black caps of hidden fire. They’d strike up a flame that would burn brightly, leap up the twisted rag and burst into a wall of fire above the reeking dish and then devour anything, everything it could feed on. Things here would burn quickly. There’d be an inferno like with McJanets’ house fire that would bring people out onto the street. She swallowed. She had to do it quickly! She opened the box of matches and took one out.
Still she hesitated. There was a burst of something like music in her head as she pictured the flames. Another fire song pulsating in her head and the word ‘evil’ dancing about.
She knew about fires, as everyone who lived in the mountains knew. There’d been bushfires in those extra dry hot summers and some had gone out of control and burnt down acres of bush and whole streets of houses further down the mountains. She knew about fires even closer than that. Only a street away. She and Mum had stood and watched the dreadful spectacle of a house fire not long after they’d arrived at Grandma Logan’s place. It was just before bedtime and Mum and Grandma were having a last cup of tea. Pippa was perched happily on Grandma’s lap. She herself was enjoying the rare peace of the kitchen, with the old fuel stove giving off its pleasant burnt-back warmth, the comforting tock of Grandpa’s clock, the clink of cup and saucer, the absence of any harsh words. Mum and Grandma were singing together the way they did sometimes. Just out of nowhere Grandma could start humming something one night, and Mum, in a good mood, would take it up. It was heaven for two sisters – Pippa clapped her hands in time, she herself smiled to hear them – even if this kind of harmonising was pretty shortlived.
Then they’d hear a series of explosions outside that had made Grandma race out to the verandah, with Pippa in her arms, and call over her shoulder, ‘Fire, Elizabeth! My God – fire! Someone’s place is going up!’ And they’d rushed out to look at the weird red glow, with the smoke thick and ominous against the usually pristine sky. Far off there was already the sound of a siren and the fire engine on its way.
‘Must go and see if I can help them,’ Grandma said at once.
‘No, you stay with the kids and I’ll go.’ Ingrid was surprised to hear Mum say it. ‘I’ll be quicker.’
Grandma couldn’t argue with that – not considering her knee trouble. ‘Very well. But stand back from the fire, then. Just watching can be dangerous. Very.’
Ingrid saw Mum pull a face and for once she didn’t answer back, but grabbed her coat. ‘I’m coming, too,’ she said bravely. You could never tell with Mum, but she nodded yes and let Ingrid take her hand as they sped around the corner and down the hill to the straggly group, where the fire engine was silhouetted against the blaze that had been McJanets’ old weatherboard house. The heat was so intense that the wall of flames had driven everyone back to the other side of the road.
‘They got ‘em all out,’ someone told Mum as soon as they arrived. ‘It was a candle in the kids’ room. That’s what they think.’
Even while the firemen sent streams of water into the flames, explosions kept sounding as the fire raged through the house and trails of sparks shot into the sky like it was Cracker Night. There was no feeling of celebration here. Ingrid clutched onto her mother, scared of the searing flames as if they might reach out and grab all of them, and swallow them as if they were planks of old wood, like in the McJanets’ home.
Even over the roar of the fire, she could hear the loud weeping and she saw the mother clutching her bewildered children as they watched their house burn down before them. Then Mrs McJanet turned to them and said over and over to anyone who’d listen that the fire had got a hold so fast she was unable to do anything, save anything, other than themselves.
‘And Baby! Baby was so hard to find in the thick smoke. Oh it was terrible, reaching out for Baby, thinking I wouldn’t find him in that thick smoke!’ Then she broke down again. Someone had taken Baby, who was crying lustily – a good sound to hear – and someone else had wrapped blankets round all of them. Soon their neighbours were leading the family away from the shocking scene, the fire that was still burning, but was at least now under control. Mum spoke to one of the neighbours about bringing some things for the McJanets tomorrow, then she talked to one of the firemen, who assured her there was no more to be done and encouraged everyone to go home.
‘Nothing we can do here,’ Mum told her and Ingrid was glad. Pippa was safe and sound with Grandma, and she was relieved that Mum was ready to turn for home. The sight of the ravaged house, the billowing smoke and foul smell were making her sick. Grandma Logan was waiting anxiously. ‘That poor woman, you know. Four kids, husband working far away, too, and now no home. We can find spare blankets and maybe some of the kids’ clothes, Elizabeth. It’s so unfair.’
‘Life’s not fair, that’s for sure,’ Mum had said darkly, already descending into a mood that made Ingrid want to go to bed at once
. There’d be no more singing that night. She went gladly to her room. But the smell in the air made it hard to sleep and it seemed to linger in their house for days.
‘You be extra careful with those lamps, now,’ Mum said the following day, and the next. ‘You know exactly what’ll happen!’
Extra careful. And now this old house would burn quickly, too! The wooden cupboards with their scraped paint, Grandma Logan’s old cedar table and mismatched kitchen chairs, the lino under her feet, the floorboards. Yes, the walls and the floors, the carpets, ornaments, books and photographs – rooms and rooms of things, of their life. Grandma Logan! Ingrid could picture the inferno so clearly she was shaking again and trying to control a wild outbreak of sobbing. Outside Blackie gave a short sharp bark.
‘I’ll be there in a minute, Blackie. In a minute!’ But somehow she just couldn’t strike the match, or fight the tears.
Then the whining of the fly screen door and not the familiar thumping at all.
‘Ingrid, that you?’
It was Dom standing in the doorway, looking at her, looking at the box of matches in her hand, the dish of kero on the floor, the twisted umbilical of a rag. Dom! She looked up at him.
‘What’s the matter, Ingrid? Why are you crying? And what’re you doing?’
Dom! No! She couldn’t speak.
She stared at him. Her heaving breath came and went, came and went and suddenly there was this terrible feeling in the air between them.
‘Good God, Ingrid! Your mum’s away in hospital, sick. And you came back here to burn the house down. Your own house! I don’t get it, Ingrid. It’s sick!’ He came and stood over her. ‘What’s going on? For pity’s sake, what the hell’s got into you?’
‘Go away, Dom. And just let me do what I’ve got to do!
‘Got to do!’ He was down on the floor beside her. So close she could feel the warmth of him, the puzzlement and anger.
‘I have to. Leave me alone! You don’t understand.’ She turned her tear-stained face to his.
‘I knew you were up to something this afternoon. I just knew it. But, Ingrid, not this! You can’t do it!’
‘You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything.’
‘Then tell me.’
She gulped the air as if it was smoke-filled and she was already having trouble breathing. Even Grandma Logan said you didn’t tell people your business, because they’d probably find a way sooner of later to turn it against you. And Mum was usually adamant about that too. But right now in the stench of the kero and with a box of matches in her hand, she had no choice. She would have to tell him! He wasn’t going away.
But her voice was strangely toneless in that explanation, as if it wasn’t Ingrid talking, but some heartless stranger. ‘We’re stony broke, that’s what. Mum has no more money and now she’s sick as well. And there’s this insurance on the house. Money, Dom, if anything happens to the house. If it blows down in a gale, if it burns down in a fire, there’s money. Money to do the things she needs to.’
His brow creased as if he was groping to understand her because she was talking in another language.
‘Mum asked me to do it. Don’t you get it? My own mother asked me and I’ve got to do it for her. So please, please go away and just let me –’
He took the hand holding the match. ‘You listen to me, Ingrid Crowe. You don’t have to do this at all. No matter what your mother or anyone else said, you don’t have to. You can’t burn the house down for money, or any other reason. It’s wrong to burn a house down and you know it! They’d find out and you wouldn’t get the money anyway.’
He was angry; his grip on her hand was hurting her and she pulled it away.
‘So you’d tell on me?’ Her voice was fierce now.
‘I’d never tell on you. You know that. Listen, there’s a wind still blowing out there. Hear it? And if you start this fire it could burn down Gracie’s house as well.’
‘The wind’s dropping,’ she flashed back at him, surprised that she’d even noticed such a thing, but willing him to go, just go.
‘You can’t do this, Ingrid. Not even if your mum begged you.’
‘It’s not just my mum.’ And her voice broke. ‘My dad’s in big trouble in the city and he needs money real bad. I know you can’t understand how terrible it is for my family, but you’ve got to believe me.’
He jumped up at this. ‘Understand?’ Now he was yelling. ‘Do you think yours is the only family in the world that has terrible things happen to it? Well, you’re wrong. Do you think I don’t know how it is to carry a pain right in here? In a big way?’ And he beat his chest with a fist and his face twisted in a way she’d never seen before.
‘I’ve seen stuff you wouldn’t dream about. People turning away from my father and my mother – some of them friends, too. Lies that were printed over and over in the newspapers, so that even friends made up reasons not to see us anymore. They said where there was smoke there was fire. That’s what they said.’
He was so riled up, she couldn’t interrupt him.
‘Then my mother took sick. My dad said she died of a broken heart and that’s probably the truth. That was worse than having no money. Worse.’ He seemed to run out of puff, then, because his voice had dropped. ‘Far worse.’
‘So you would tell, then?’ She couldn’t look up at him anymore.
‘I said I wouldn’t and my dad wouldn’t either. And I can’t really stop you, can I?’ He nodded at the box of matches. ‘I could take those away from you now, and you’d come back later with more if you have a mind to do it.
‘I’m just saying once you strike that match, there’s no going back and you’ll have to live with it. Not just tonight and the fire, which’ll be a beauty, you can bet on that. But forever. Think about after, Ingrid!’
He looked at her long and hard and then added, ‘You won’t do it!’
It was on the tip of her tongue to yell at him, ‘Oh yes I will!’ But, to her surprise, the boy turned on his heel and left her in the lamplight, leaning over the fatal dish, alone once again – although not quite alone, because Blackie barked a farewell after him. And not quite alone, because Dom’s disgust was thick as smoke in the air.
After? There’d been not much thought of that; just of Mum being satisfied, almost ruling out the fear of the lies. Money and train trips and maybe finding Dad. After? Grandma Logan’s house in ashes like the McJanets’ house had been. A charred smoking heap on the ground so quickly!
And would they come for her, anyway? Would Dom let it slip and would she be taken away like the Whittaker boy and called a pyromaniac, too? Would she be put somewhere further away than Freddy and Charlie? And would everyone blame Mum in the end and lock her up, regardless of her crooked face, in a tiny room where she’d go nuts? If they did that, what would be the use of money then?
She clutched the matches as she ran out to the yard. ‘Blackie!’ Where was he? She needed to hug him, to bury her face in his black coat. To find the courage all over again. She’d promised to do it, hadn’t she?
She heard his panting and could see his eyes and pink tongue even before she could make out the rest of his friendly face in the moonlight. He came bounding up from Neville Frank’s overnight bag, which he was guarding on her account, so pleased to see her.
‘Oh Blackie, darling.’ She sank down and allowed herself the luxury of brushing her hot cheek against the softness of his coat. ‘You wouldn’t be so glad to see me if you knew what I was about to do.’
He licked her arm, her face, as if he understood what was upsetting her. Exhausted, and with no more tears to cry, she lay on the grass. She breathed deeply and, lying there, felt her mad world slowing. Then accountably the words of old Mrs Roche from the hospital suddenly came back to her. What she had said to Mum about teenagers. ‘Your children are really adults in my book. That’s how I treated mine, you know, more or less as equals, and that’s how they treated me.’ She was kind of grown up at nearly thirteen. Grown up enough
to make up her own mind about things and not keep reaching out for people to save her. Mum or Daddy or the Kleins. Or Dom! She thought of his anger, but it wasn’t up to him and he’d said as much.
Blackie stretched out beside her – not like this was a game, but like he was a dog on the alert and protective, from time to time giving a low growl to show her he was still on guard. The wind was dropping away now and she glanced up and saw that the clouds had moved southward across the sky, and through the clean cold air she could see the stars, quite bright. One star stood out, and she fixed her gaze on it just as she used to fix on that morning star sometimes. It suddenly seemed to go so quiet here. And this was the moment she found the courage that she hadn’t known she could muster.
‘Blackie,’ she said, all at once sitting bolt upright. She needed to say something else, but had no more words, as she patted him so vigorously he jumped to his feet. Then she hugged him hard. ‘Blackie, Blackie, Blackie.’
She walked back into Emoh Ruo, and this time she let the dog walk by her side. He should be part of this. There’d be no joyous bounding; just the two of them, quiet as quiet and determined. She walked across the verandah, and glanced at the Williams’s house that still had a light on somewhere, and then stood in the doorway to her own kitchen.
Right now, that kitchen was the most beautiful room in the entire world. Grandma’s fuel stove, cold now, but its ample proportions glinting in the lamplight; the scrubbed wooden sink with its smart checked curtain; the old pine dresser with its line of neat hooks and blue and white cups hanging in a row; the curtains at each window, holding back the night; even the saucepan stand with its gleaming pots looked lovely to her at this moment. She looked up to the set of jugs on the mantel, Grandpa Logan’s collection, smallest to largest, still standing there as they always had, and best of all her gaze fell on the big friendly kitchen table. Right in the centre of the room. Beautiful!
Fire Song Page 11
