A Constant Hum

by Alice Bishop

  The summer air is weighty in the room. A framed fading photo of twelve men by a fire truck looks down at you. You wonder where the women are—even the token one or two. You remember a day early on in primary school. The CFA or MFB, you can’t remember, had come to show your class the fire trucks. The woman in firefighting gear had looked so strong. She’d smiled at you when you showed her you could climb the truck-side ladder, all on your own.

  Daughter

  All these years later and pamphlets for CFA volunteers’ family businesses cover the old Kelvinator: ads for local yoga retreats and gutter-cleaning services and boot-camp packages—for mothers: snap into your pre-baby self—quick sticks! You look at the gold-red kangaroo paw and flick over the nursery label: full sun, minimum water, grows to up to two metres tall. Anigozanthos or Bush Inferno, the calm-looking plant is called.

  The sugary milk is all you can stomach on these new days—when you feel your daughter pull and kick. At home, in the backyard under the tea-tree and flowerless gums, you find relief in her rolling. There is hope in the pressing and kicking against the world. At the station, though—when you’re sitting in the weekly staff meeting—the movement scares you. You stay quiet and hope your daughter won’t have to learn how to sit back.

  Hellfire

  You do know it’s still going to be a rough season, this one? Paul says the next time you’ve signed in. He’s in matching sportswear today—the kind you don’t actually wear to the gym. You catch him looking up from your stomach to your face—too hard and too long. The worst could be yet to come, he says, winking. We’ve got to be prepared.

  Your vision blurs, but not enough to unsee the new pinned ribbon on his shirt, a white one, for some other cause.

  Yeah, it’s a worry, you reply.

  We’ve all got to keep really fit and strong, your supervisor, the leader of the local firefighting district, continues. Watch ourselves; exercise, he says, turning his back. Stay in our prime, Miss Chloe, he says, voice trailing as he walks away.

  Flare

  Catching the bus home you again feel the bushfire’s radiant heat on the side of your face. You think about the Bush Inferno and whoever bought it, not thinking—or maybe thinking it was somehow perfect: either one being a mistake.

  Flanked

  Looking back, yep: there’d always been something animal in her, even when she was small; something like a red-roan working dog who’d seen it all before: a heeler—worn joints picking up on atmospheric static; soft sides prickling, long before the storm.

  Sticks

  Big trucks have been coming down from the bush and past our school for a few days now. The drivers sometimes wave and honk if we yell at them enough from the school fence. Ms Papadopoulos says, Don’t watch, you lot, but we always do, especially when she’s not looking; we’re running a competition to see who gets the most honks. We’re putting our icy-pole money together for a big prize ’cause we all have extra pocket money since the fire. It was big enough to be on the news all around the world. Even in England. Since then lunchtime Frosty Fruits cost only one dollar. Not two. And my best friend Jason Nguyen has even started getting things for free—new shoes with lights in them, and T-shirts the big kids from high school sent over in garbage bags. Jason looks like a gangsta now. He looks like he’s from the TV.

  Ms Papa sighs at us a lot now but she never gets mad. Well, not as mad as she used to. She says it will take a while to carry the bits of people’s houses away—burnt-up fridges and car shells that look like the dried-up cicada cases I once found under the deck with Dad. I reckon the cicada skulls might make good props for a movie. You could zoom in really close to make them look like aliens. Big ones. Maybe use stick insects too. We have a pet stick insect in class. I named her Kate. Jason is the one who gets to feed wattle to Kate now. But sometimes he lets me help him too, ’cause we’re best friends. Forever. Just like Mum and Deirdre from the Eastland fingernail shop.

  My best friend Jason Nguyen’s house burned down in the big fire that was big enough to be on the news all around the world. Even in America. I went to Jason’s house lots but can’t remember what the walls were like. Jason says his house was made out of special forest trees and that it had a steel skeleton too. It was a strong house, he says, and I can tell he misses it. Maybe like I miss my old dog Honeycomb. But Mum says she’s happy on the farm with a big paddock to run in and sheep to look after like she was born for. It’s for the best, Lily, Mum says. And I know that when she says my name like that it’s kind of like a full stop. Sometimes I imagine Honeycomb’s on a strawberry farm, ’cause that’s where Jason’s dad Van worked before the fire. Van drove special tractors that water things a hundred times quicker than people.

  My gran works in a bakery and it’s in Healesville too. We visit her and eat bee stings. They’re like donuts but with a honey kind of icing and special custard from a tube. Gran gives them to me for free and says I can eat as many as I want as long as I don’t tell Mum. I love my gran but other people call her Joan.

  A rectangle roof and a big tall deck: Jason makes the icy-pole-stick version of his house really good in our special new class called Sculpture Play. Our art teacher’s from the city and her proper name is Sylvie but we call her Ms Burwood. Ms Burwood always wears dresses the colour of dam water and bracelets made from soupspoons. Perfect, she says when we do good work. On special days we get to spray paint gumleaves in class. We have to wear smocks when we do gumleaf prints and I’m in charge of the paint station. But my best friend Jason Nguyen doesn’t want to spray leaves. Ever since the big fires he just remakes his old house all the time. He sometimes even builds little windows out of Le Snak plastic. I don’t know if they look that good, though. I reckon Jason should start using cellophane instead. Perfect, Ms Burwood says. She smiles at Jason funny, just like the mums do in the car park.

  Jason reckons they buried his house way under the dirt. Well, just the burnt bricks from the walls that I don’t really remember and the other things that got left behind. Shells of things like cicada cases. Jason says the trucks couldn’t carry what was left of his house because it was all so heavy. That’s why they used special bulldozers from America. I don’t really believe him but I don’t say anything; Mum says I have to be extra careful around Jason at the moment.

  Sometimes I used to go to the city with Dad on school holidays and we’d go to the museum. They keep all kinds of things that have been dug up there: special jugs, spoons, and even clothes that are dusty and brown. Hundreds of years ago, Lil, Dad said—Who would’ve thought there were people back then, just like me and you? Dad always took me for a special Filet-o-Fish on those days. He always got sauce in his whiskers but I wouldn’t ever say anything ’cause it’s the right thing to do. Gran taught me my manners pretty good. Dad’s whiskers are the colour of fox fur and used to prickle my cheeks like pine needles. You can use pine needles to make a fire, actually. Jason says that’s why the fire that burned down his house was like a bomb: because of the pine-tree forest opposite his house that’s not there anymore either. People planted that forest once for wood.

  My best friend Jason’s dad Van has big muscles like Jason says he will have one day. Van has been in hospital since the fires because he tried to stay and save all the photos of Jason from when he was small. I wouldn’t care if the photos of me when I was small were gone but Mum says it’s something only adults understand. My hair is different from when I was small anyway. Instead of blond curly it’s a bit straighter now and Paddle Pop brown.

  Jason’s dad even got to ride in a helicopter after the fire. Jason says he jumped up really high to catch a big rope. He says Van held on really tight. All the way back to a hospital in the city. But I don’t know. I heard Mum telling her best friend Deirdre—from the Eastland fingernail shop—that Jason’s dad was having a bath when the helicopter found him. Fucking lucky, I remember Mum said. But she didn’t know I could hear her swearing like my gran called Joan does when we drive into the city on special shoppi
ng days. Mum says Jason’s dad will be okay, though, and that he gets to eat raspberry jelly in the hospital, like I’ve seen people eat on Emergency!—that’s Mum’s favourite TV show at the moment. It’s real-life and people come in with bones poking through, their hearts stopped and burnt bits of skin—sometimes even stuck to their clothes.

  Mum’s real name is Heather and she used to have long hair, but now—like Jason says—it’s short like a boy’s. Sometimes Mum pulls a funny face when she looks in the rear-view mirror: like she’s surprised and kissing herself, all at the same time. She always does it when she puts on lip gloss. Hers is the colour of mud: not a nice pink or red like some of the lucky older girls are allowed to wear at school. None of that rubbish till you’re twelve, Mum says. But that’s a long way away.

  I reckon Dad would let me wear lipstick if he was here. He has a new best friend who is allowed to wear pink lipstick all the time. I know this because me and Jason saw pictures on Mum’s computer. Facebook says Dad’s new best friend’s name is Jade. She has hair the colour of yoghurt and a nice smile. Dad looks much happier than Mum is, I reckon. I hope Dad and Jade come to visit ’cause me and Jason have gotten pretty good at making jaffles now, the baked-bean-cheese-slice kind. You have to use tomato sauce on the top.

  Sometimes I look in the bathroom mirror at home for ages. I imagine how it would feel to wear makeup like Internet Jade and be really pretty like the ladies on the news. But I don’t know. Once Mum caught me and looked really sad. She looked like she did when Dad came home with fancy flowers one night, way back, when I was even too little to watch Emergency! with her. Don’t do that, Lily, she said, and took me straight out of the house for a drive in the Toolangi State Forest. She hugged me as a bunch of black cockies flew over us and said she was sorry. I told her not to be, though. Black cockatoos are my favourite Australian bird after galahs. I love galahs ’cause they’re a pretty pink. I love them because they sound like breakfast when I used to sleep over at Jason’s.

  Jason and me are Blood Brothers now. Even though I’m a girl, of course. We picked some mozzie bites and mixed our blood together one lunchtime at school. It was my idea. I read about it on the internet on one of the nights when Dad came to visit with his eyes all funny and pink. Almost like the galah feathers I love. Anyway, when I told Mum later about Jason and me sharing blood her face went funny. Like the Clag we use in sculpture class. I remember she put down the magazine she was reading, the one with pictures of pretty ladies all over the cover. Not okay, Lil, was all she said, and then went and had one of her long baths. The kind she used to have with Dad. Mum read different magazines back then. National Geographic and boring ones—filled with photos in black and white. Your mother’s a dreamer, Dad used to say: nice in the start, but in a mean way that I didn’t like towards the end.

  Sometimes I reckon Jason’s a dreamer too; that’s why he hasn’t stopped drawing his house since it burned. He even draws it in Science, when we’ve been asked to paint our favourite planet in the solar system. I choose Mercury because it’s a pretty orange colour and closest to the sun. It’s the one I always draw for Ms Papadopoulos and her silky dresses. Jupiter is Jason’s favourite, he says—and when Ms Papa asks why, he says it’s because it is the biggest. It has sixty-seven moons, too, Jason says, but he still keeps on drawing his house anyway and no one stops him. Perfect, Ms Papa’s even started saying. Just like Ms Burwood when Jason does anything at all.

  People still like to talk with my mum about their backyards a lot. But not really about Jason and his burnt-down house. They don’t talk about Jason’s dad’s helicopter ride or the special jelly he’s allowed to eat in hospital either. Everybody nods a lot with their eyes closed when they talk about the fire. The other mums talk about how their green bins are melted. And how hard it is to get the smell out of their clothes. At least they still have clothes, Mum says to her friend Deidre—from the Eastland fingernail shop—on the phone sometimes. She even said Jason was gonna live with us for another whole month. That means I’ll still get to wear some of Jason’s gangsta T-shirts. And me and Jason can plan our alien movie some more. We even have fish and chips on Wednesdays as well as Fridays now. Mum says it’s a special time. And I think so too.

  The other kids’ dads drive them up to places like where Jason’s burnt-down house was and kick around in the dirt for treasure. Jason says he hasn’t been back to where they buried his house. He says there are special electric fences that stop anyone getting close except him and his dad. Jason says his dad’s muscles are getting even bigger in hospital because of all the vitamins. And I don’t know about the hospital stuff but I want to tease Jason about the electric fences. The American bulldozers too. But I remember what Mum said and make sure I am a good person.

  Lil’s a good egg, Mum says on the phone sometimes. She always adds her friend’s name in after, whoever she’s speaking to: maybe Pam, from the deli at IGA; Deidre, from the Eastland fingernail shop; or Rita, but I don’t know what Rita does. I always try to be good like Dad used to say I should. I even got five silver stars on my solar-system project last week. It was so hot when Mum took us to Healesville Sanctuary as a reward—even the emus were panting. I read on a sign that birds can’t sweat like humans do. I was pretty sweaty from walking that day. My T-shirt and shorts got all hot and gave me pins and needles all over. Heat rash, Mum said, so she bought me and Jason Calippos and they cooled me right down. Then the cardboard got all soggy at the bottom and my hands got sticky. Jason loves Calippos too.

  Apart from the walls I remember Jason’s house pretty well. It was made of mud bricks and smelt nicer than my house. We used to sit on the big tall deck and pretend to shoot down rosellas with Super Soakers as they flew by. Jason’s house had a good view. Like a postcard, my dad said when he dropped me off one time. You could see our school sometimes from Jason’s big deck. As long as it wasn’t in the winter and foggy. Then the valley looked like it had a doona over it. Fog is very different from smoke because smoke carries the colours of the burnt things in it.

  Jason’s drawing is getting better with heaps of practice. He even draws his burnt house with his second-best friend Sebastian Gray sitting on the front step. I saw Sebastian and his little sister smiling from the front page of the newspaper after the fire that was big enough to be on the news all around the world. Even in Japan. Another girl from my class says she reckons Sebastian was also on TV at teatime. Sometimes I wish I got to be famous like that too. But Mum says said I shouldn’t ask Jason about Sebastian and why he’s not back at school. Jason has the lady from the city come to talk about that with him. Mum says the lady will talk to everyone else soon.

  Weather Report

  The leftover Herefords are huddled, noses singed, staring towards the neighbours’ dam. It’s when you know it’s time to leave: his forehead veins bulging and unslept-in sheets—freshly clay-muddied, sections somehow still shop-fresh creased—strewn about his shoeless feet. He’s throwing it all in, all the donated things: the clothes are next. Slim-fit, non-iron business shirts he’d never have anywhere to wear. Soft-leather lace-ups, at least two sizes too big. Stop, you almost call across. Theo! But you take the handbrake off—driveway hill—just to feel the quiet certainty of machinery, rolling beneath.

  Kindling

  I write Kenneth Rawson’s date of birth in my client file as he sits in front of me: nodding and telling me to help myself—to mint slices, to containers of his daughter’s beef broth, from the old fridge. But I’m definitely not hungry. Kenneth’s feet are what I smell first, entering that huge old St Andrews house. It’s not an unwashed-socks smell, but one of flesh, burnt and slowly turning. Peripheral neuropathy, the med student I end up calling will tell him later that day, as he clips the longer nails of Kenneth’s toes, white and unresponsive. It’s a numbness different to my own dulling, gradual—caused by long council home-help hours and no love life, caused by not nearly enough nicotine.

  Someone named the day Black Saturday, and I often
wonder who gets to make that call so quick. I am glad that bushfires don’t get feminine names like cyclones—Debbie, or Tracy, or Janine—hinting at unruly women destroying lives and homes. Bushfire Farah, I think: nope, my name doesn’t have the right ring to it.

  You couldn’t even see a metre in front, Kenneth says, when I ask about the day. He adds the detail I’ve heard many times, that all the silvers had melted down that weekend: wedding rings and shiny foil insulation. I still smelled the chemicals of the ridge, lingering, as I drove the shire car—alone and glinting—up the mountain to Kenneth: expecting one of the ghostly faces I’d seen on the nightly news, somehow still covered in ash, in grit.

  But Kenneth’s face was washed clean, gently smiling a hello: his shoes, soles curled and laces singed, by his front door. Perhaps that’s why the home-help service had been called: nothing on Kenneth’s block had moved in three days. But if anyone had just tried knocking, as I’d been paid to do, Kenneth would have called out to reassure them. Door’s open, he yelled, when I tapped on his fire-licked screen door. Then, Out back. So I walk through his house with my breath held—sepia-stained photos of long-dead horses and bulls, ribbon-necked and bustling, lining the hall.

  Not entirely fit for visitors yet, Kenneth jokes, his red face dotted by two pool-blue eyes: milk-glassy but still sharp. I learn, pretty quickly, that as a younger man Kenneth had used these eyes to sort the good blood from the hot: horses. He’d divorced young and invested all his livestock profit (and there must’ve been a lot) in this thirty-acre block of Nillumbik land: once home to a few wallabies, the odd wombat and a forest of hundred-foot gums. He tells me all this as if he’s talking about the weather, as I peel the muck-marked tea towels from his feet—ulcered, their flesh ripened with heat. Have a daughter, Kenneth adds. About your age, he says. And I think of my own dad—the VB cans, and the missed calls on my phone.