Burning Eddy

by Scot Gardner

‘No, I haven’t got a bike. Wouldn’t mind one though. I was running.’

  ‘Yeah . . . And?’

  ‘And someone jumped on my back.’

  ‘Jumped on your back?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘While you were running?’

  ‘Yeah, oh, from a motorbike. They jumped on my back from a motorbike.’

  ‘Fair dinkum? That’s a bit vicious. Who?’

  I shrugged. ‘I dunno. I was mucking around and they took it all a bit seriously.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and my throat squelched as I swallowed. ‘Michael and James Sheffield and a few of their mates.’

  Her mouth dropped open and she looked at me, wide-eyed, as I told her the rest of the story.

  ‘Too much testosterone. That’s what Mum reckons,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you tell your mum and dad?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Why not? They could have had a word with Mr Fisher.’

  I shrugged. The conversation fell into a hole. I wanted to explain why I didn’t tell Mum and Dad but the words wouldn’t come together. I gripped the seat between my legs. I almost stood up.

  Chantelle squinted at me. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘It’s like a light went out when you were in year six. When Chris . . .’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, before she could finish. ‘You’re probably right.’

  I stood and headed for my seat. Wayne was frowning at me in the rear-vision mirror, pointing for me to sit down. I waved an apology and thumped onto the vinyl. I stared out the window. The sun had started to bake the tall grass flowers on the roadside. The farmers on the flats were bailing the last of the silage. The rain earlier in the week had given them a sense of hope on the radio, but the sun had come out again and they’d gone back to talking about a long hot summer and the whole country burning. I remember them saying the same thing the year before. No matter what the weather is like, they’ve always got something to complain about. It was unusually hot. It was abnormally dry. A few more hot days and they’d be cutting rough hay before the end of November. That was early.

  I picked at a rip in the seat until it was time for Kat and me to get off. Chantelle waved from the back window. She said something to the glass that I couldn’t hear. I waved and started walking home. Kat shrugged her pack onto her back and walked to the bus shelter. She’d rather wait for Graham than walk.

  Antonio tooted and pulled up beside me, the tyres of the white Commodore hacking on the dirt and covering me in dust. He still looked out of place in a suit and tie. Whenever we worked together he wore the grungiest jeans and old paint-splattered T-shirts.

  ‘Hiya, Dan. How are you? Gawd, what happened to your face?’ he said, and stuck his hand out the window.

  I laughed and shook his hand. ‘Fell down went boom.’

  He tossed his head in a silent laugh. ‘You want some work? Got a bit of stuff to do at my place when you’ve got time.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Suppose.’

  ‘Have you got a minute? I could show you if you like.’

  He moved papers and a mobile phone off the passenger seat and I jogged around to get in. I shouted to Kat that I was going to Antonio’s place and she waved with the back of her hand.

  We cruised into his driveway and parked in front of the house. The gardens looked okay. Nothing much poking through the mulch. Beside the pond was a branch of cypress that had broken off a huge tree and smashed one of his garden statues. It was probably five cars long and as thick as my waist at the splintered end.

  ‘Yep, cut all that up and drag it down to the pile of dead blackberries and burn the lot for me. There’s gloves and fuel for the chainsaw in the shed. Jen and I won’t be home on Saturday but you don’t need us to be here, do you?’

  ‘That’ll be fine. Looks easy enough.’

  ‘Can you do it this weekend?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Good lad,’ he said, and slapped me on the arm.

  Graham’s old red Mazda pulled up at the end of the drive and tooted. I waved to Antonio and ran to the car.

  Graham is a wild driver. Fast and all over the road. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt. Kat and I always do. The driving is made worse by the fact that Kat and Graham get on better than Kat and anyone else I know — except maybe Mum. Graham taught Kat how to speak sign language when we shifted up to Bellan and they have long dangerous conversations when we’re heading home. I can finger-spell and mime a little but couldn’t get my head around signing. Graham and I write notes to each other. Graham and Kat are a blur of hands and over-the-top facial expressions. Graham steers with his knee a lot and there have been times on the winding Bellan road when I’ve wanted to bail out. Thank God his car is an auto. He’s never crashed into anything while we’ve been in the car, but the duco is spotted with panel beater’s undercoat — proof enough that it’s only luck it hasn’t happened.

  I remembered the phone number. I thought about the Mitsubishi Scorpion and remembered the number. I asked Kat to see if I could use the phone at Graham’s place before we went home and he wanted to know what for, then got all excited when I mimed that I wanted to buy a car.

  ‘What do you want a bloody car for? You can’t drive. I’m going to have my licence before you do,’ Kat growled.

  I shrugged. It was a bargain. I wasn’t going to be like Mum and never drive. I wasn’t going to be like Kat and wait until I’m twenty before I think about getting my learner’s permit.

  ‘Graham said he’d come and check it out for you if you want,’ she said flatly.

  I patted him on the shoulder and he shrugged and smiled.

  A husky-voiced lady answered the phone. She had the shadow of an accent in her words. The car had been her husband’s. He’d had a heart attack and died in hospital almost a year before. She said that it was in perfect condition and that I’d be welcome to take it for a test drive. I told her that I didn’t have my licence, and for a moment it all seemed like a silly idea. It would be more than a year before I could legally drive it on the road.

  ‘Graham said he wants to come with you and check it out,’ Kat shouted from the kitchen.

  The lady on the phone said to come over on Sunday. She said she’d be at church in the morning but home in the afternoon. Kat shouted that Sunday would be fine. I thanked the lady and hung up. I thanked Graham and he shrugged. I thought that there would still be time for me to pull out. I wrote him a note that said someone else might be able to take me on Sunday. He barked like an Alsatian and jabbed a finger at his chest. I shrugged and signed ‘Okay’.

  Dad was home on Saturday morning and as grumpy as hell. I told Mum about the car and asked her not to tell Dad. I forgot to tell Kat though, and later Dad thumped on the door of the cubby. Tobe and I had been hiding inside while he had his breakfast. The thump made Toby squeal. I stuffed my magazine away and unbolted the door.

  ‘Kat tells me you’re thinking about buying a car.’

  I shrugged and nodded.

  ‘That’s a bit bloody stupid; you can’t drive for another year. What are you going to do with it, watch it rust?’

  ‘I was going to work on it and that. Get it really nice. Kat can get her Ls now. You could teach her in it.’

  He grunted. ‘Won’t be really nice for long with your bloody sister driving it.’

  I opened my mouth to stick up for Kat and thought that it would have been useless. Dad had made up his mind that it was a stupid idea and I knew I couldn’t change that.

  ‘Your bloody money. Better than pissing it against the wall,’ he said, and his keys rattled as he walked to the door of his shed.

  ‘Dad?’ I yelled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Would you be able to drop me at Antonio’s place? I’ve got some work to do there.’

  ‘Not now. Maybe this afternoon,’ he said.

  I listened as he unlocked the door and clomped inside. He bolted the door closed behind him. The curtain screeched as he closed it. I heard the other
lock rasp-clink open and the drawer slide. The rustling of paper. I knew what was in there. I knew he had a collection of girlie magazines. I’d never seen them, but I knew. I knew that he’d rather read his stick books than be with us.

  Toby looked up at me from his table and I felt sick in the guts. The poor little bloke had tears in his big eyes. I knelt down and hugged him. He wiped his face on my shoulder.

  ‘What is it, Tobe?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he mumbled into my neck.

  My little brother is so beautiful. So perfect. I couldn’t understand why Dad would want to be anywhere but with him.

  Mum made hot dogs for lunch. I ate seven. Dad asked Toby if he wanted to come for a drive into town and Tobe’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  ‘Can I come?’ Kat asked, and Dad smiled.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ he said.

  Kat huffed and went to her room.

  Toby ran ahead and Dad told him to watch where he was going. ‘You coming?’ he said to the wall.

  ‘Me?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted a lift?’

  I jumped from my chair and slipped into my boots on the way to the car. Mum waved from the kitchen. Kat pulled her curtains closed.

  Dad dropped me at Antonio’s driveway and said he’d be back in a couple of hours. Toby grabbed me by the shirt and kissed my ear. ‘Have fun, Dan.’

  The key for the shed was under the pot plant beside the front door. The chainsaw barked into life second pull. I had half a smile on my face as my boot disappeared under white cypress sawdust. Chainsaws are sensible tools. Good tools. The right tool for the job. I’d cut the big bits up and sawn off all the branches in twenty minutes. Cypress cuts like cheese with a nice sharp saw. Sharpened it myself and it didn’t look like it had been used since.

  The hot afternoon turned sweaty as I dragged the sweet-smelling branches past the old poplars, straight as goalposts, to where I’d stacked the blackberries before winter. The stack had rotted a bit and all the leaves had fallen off, leaving a giant bird’s-nest of thorny stems. The cypress squashed the mess some more but by the time I was ready to light it, the pile was twice as tall as me. I looked at the bits of the broken statue. It was busted beyond being glued.

  Antonio is a pyro. He keeps kerosene for lighting little fires. He and Jennie rake up all the leaves from the poplars and oaks in autumn. He doesn’t believe in composting and feeding his garden with rotting leaves. He burns everything, and rather than set one big pile alight, he’ll set seventeen wheelbarrow-sized clumps ablaze so the creek and the little valley choke with thick smoke. I couldn’t find the kero so I used a bit of the two-stroke for the chainsaw. About a litre, splashed over the top of the pile so I could see it dripping onto the blackberries. I had played with petrol and matches at home. I knew what would happen. I stood a good distance away and lit matches and threw them at the rainbow-coloured wet on the edge of the pile. The first six matches must have been out by the time they got to the pile, me edging forward with each unsuccessful throw. Lucky number seven. Lucky number seven ignited the fuel and the explosion made me stumble. I felt my shirt flap with the force of it. I could smell burning hair, and there wasn’t much on my head to burn. I thought they would have heard it in Carmine. Maybe even felt it. I looked up at the road and around and cursed myself. How stupid was that? Crazy.

  The pile was well alight; chugging white smoke into the hot air, crackling and whistling as the branches gave in to the heat. I stared at the flames and thought that they must have been invented for staring into. Off in the distance I could hear the wail of a siren. It was getting louder. Sounded like an ambulance. Maybe a cow cocky had hurt himself. Happened all the time. Then the siren stopped and I could hear a big diesel engine revving hard. It swung into the Bellan road and skidded on the gravel. It was one of the Henning CFA tankers. Hulking red and flashing lights. Must have been a bushfire up our road. It came into Antonio’s driveway. Came down the drive and pulled across the neat lawn. Parked right next to me. I heard scuffling in the tall poplar behind me and turned to see a big brush-tailed possum clinging to the trunk, its eyes watering from the smoke. I’d smoked it out of the tree. It didn’t look happy.

  Men in bright orange overalls filed out of the truck, from the cabin and off the back.

  Michael Fisher. He didn’t look very sick.

  ‘It’s Fairy! Well, who would have guessed, hey?’ he said.

  My fingers tingled.

  A couple of men began unfurling a hose from the side of the truck. Inside the cabin a radio barked some static, then chimed. One of the men climbed back in and garbled something that I couldn’t hear into the microphone. A bloke in a yellow hard hat came up to me.

  ‘You lit this then?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘Just a bit of burning off.’

  ‘Is Calais here?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘We’re going to have to put it out. Bit dangerous on a day like today.’

  ‘Put it out? What for?’

  A motor started on the back of the truck.

  ‘It’s an illegal fire. We’re in a fire restriction period, mate. You didn’t get a permit. If this fire got away into that scrub up there . . .’ He shook his head and waved with the back of his hand to the foothills in the distance, blue-green with gum trees. ‘Half of Henning would go up.’

  Michael stood ready with the hose and opened the nozzle on the pile. It hissed and spluttered and the smoke turned to steam.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ said the bloke in the hard hat. ‘Five-thousand-dollar fine for lighting a fire in a fire restriction period. Or one year in jail.’

  ‘Look out, Dad,’ Michael shouted.

  ‘What?’ the bloke in the hard hat asked. Michael’s dad. I could see the same shapes in their faces. Same squinty dark-brown eyes. Same scruffy mud-coloured hair. Same gap between their front teeth. Michael’s dad moved back and dragged me with him by the sleeve. I expected to see an ember glowing on the poplar but saw only the possum. I stared in disbelief as Michael screwed the nozzle of the hose until it made a jet and blew the possum off the tree and into the grass.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Leave it alone.’

  I stepped forward and Michael turned the hose on me. My body went rigid as I was instantly soaked. The water splashed in my face and I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning. I gasped and frantically clawed at the water stinging my skin.

  The pump died. Michael and his dad were chuckling. The breath rasped in my throat.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Fairy. Slipped.’

  I panted. I watched them pack up and leave with my arms at my side, drips falling from the tips of my fingers. The siren whooped as they pulled onto the Carmine road and I jumped. The sound of the engine faded and I fell to my knees. I thought I was going to scream. The rage stuck in my throat like a chicken bone. I grabbed at the dirt and roared through clenched teeth. Roared and spat at the ground.

  I heard the sound of claws on bark and looked up to see the possum climbing up another poplar. The hosing had flattened its fur so it looked as scrawny as a feral cat. I was still watching it when a car pulled into the drive. Antonio and Jennie. I hurried to my feet and collected the chainsaw and fuel can. How would I explain what happened?

  ‘You fall in the creek, Dan? You’ve been working so hard that you’ve started to melt,’ Antonio said, as he walked down to me. I shrugged. Jennie waved and headed into the house with a bag she’d pulled from the boot.

  Antonio surveyed the steaming pile. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘The CFA put it out.’

  ‘The what?’ he said, and put his hand to his mouth. ‘Fire restrictions. They started yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’ I clenched my jaw and shivered.

  ‘So they came down to put it out?’

  ‘Yep. Threatened that I should be put in jail or fined five thousand dollars.’

  Antonio’s dark eyebrows climbed up his forehead
. ‘Sorry, Daniel. My fault. Slipped my mind,’ he said, and kicked at the blackened end of a branch. ‘Why didn’t they just stand by until it burnt out?’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘How did you get so wet anyway?’

  I told him the story of Michael and the possum. How Michael had turned the hose on me.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He shook his head. ‘John Fisher hates my guts. It’s political and it goes back to before you were born. He runs the Henning CFA like it’s his own private army.’

  He picked up a bit of cypress branch and chucked it onto the pile. ‘I think you handled yourself well, Dan. And thanks for doing the work. How much do I owe you?’

  He pulled his fat wallet from his back pocket.

  ‘Nah, don’t worry about it. I didn’t get the job done.’

  ‘Twenty enough?’

  ‘Nah . . . don’t . . . ten will be heaps.’

  He stuffed a twenty into my palm. ‘Some compo for getting squirted in the line of duty. Stay out of Fisher’s way.’

  ‘I try to, believe me.’

  I sat in the shade of the sycamore at the end of Antonio’s driveway and waved away the mosquitoes. Half an hour passed. I could hear hoof-falls crunching on the gravel of the Carmine road before I could see the horse. And the girl. A girl on a tall chestnut with two small dogs running alongside. The horse was walking with its head down. The girl had one hand resting on the saddle; the other lazily swung at flies under the peak of her silly helmet. One of those white horsey helmets with holes in them so the rider’s head can breathe. I moved to the roadside for a better look and one of the dogs spotted me and came bounding up, its tail flapping against the side of its body as it arched and licked at my hand.

  The dog made me smile. I wished people were that easygoing. I wished everyone would wag their tail whenever they met someone new.

  ‘Hello, Dan,’ said the rider.

  It was Chantelle. I stood and wiped the dog hair onto my shorts. The little dog jumped and licked at my knuckles.

  ‘Hiya,’ I said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just done a bit of work for Mr Calais. I’m waiting for my dad.’