Ash Road (8 page)

Lorna George failed to realize for a while that something was happening to her father. She was aware of his presence without consciously looking at him. She naturally thought that he was picking, doggedly and stubbornly, even though he must have known the fruit was useless; it was a ritual of defiance that meant nothing except that in some curious way it expressed his will to survive.

It was so hot that when she bent down her head swam. Perspiration ran into her eyes and beaded the backs of her hands. She could taste perspiration like tears; she could feel it tugging at her clothes. And oh, how she wished that John were around. Having John around was like having a strong arm about her shoulders. But John was on the road somewhere or other, what road she didn't know, driving the fire truck or perhaps even in the bush running out hoses. He mightn't be back for hours. If it was a bad fire he mightn't be back until the evening or the middle of the night. Once he had gone off to fight a fire somewhere and hadn't come home for two days. The thought was like a sigh. She even heard the sigh. It was a curious sensation, as if some unseen person, close by, had been listening to her thoughts. Then she realized that it was her father. He was a couple of rows away from her, three or four yards, staring at her. His eyes were glazed. She had never seen anybody look like that before. His mouth was open and he seemed unable to breathe. Then she saw him fall, just like a puppet without strings.

Lorna didn't cry out. She couldn't reach for him. Raspberries blocked the way. All she felt was a vast numbness, an inability to make a sound or a movement. She felt so small and the world about her seemed so large. The roaring, tossing trees seemed to reach to the sky. The world seemed to be a gigantic noise.

She was sure her father was dead. He seemed suddenly to have taken a long, long journey, leaving her alone and helpless in a violent world.

Pippa hurried up the hill to Grandpa Tanner's. She knew it was a waste of time. Grandpa wouldn't even be up. He was hardly ever up before eight o'clock or nine o'clock. Not that he slept. He merely lay there in his untidy old bedroom, with his eyes shut so that it would be easier to see things the way they had been when his farm was so beautiful that passers-by often stopped their cars to look at it, when strong and handsome children played in the garden, when Marjorie his wife kept a home so crisp and sparkling that people were heard to say, ‘You could eat your dinner off the floors.' Anyway, Pippa couldn't imagine him lying there with his eyes open, for there was nothing to see but faded wallpaper and heavy old furniture in need of a polish and a bare electric-light globe hanging from the ceiling.

Pippa thought how terrible it would be to be old and lonely and to have nothing to get up for, not even a nice breakfast. Pippa knew that Grandpa wasn't very interested in food. She was sorry that he wasn't her real Grandpa because she wanted to love him that little bit more; and this was difficult when he wasn't her real Grandpa, for it was a right that belonged to other people: to his real grandchildren who sometimes came to see him.

Pippa was jealous of these real grandchildren, in a way. They were older children (many of them were grown up) and she didn't know them very well and didn't like them over much. One day one of them had said to her, ‘You're only nice to him because he might leave you some money.' This had so upset Pippa that she hadn't visited Grandpa for weeks afterwards. She felt awful about it because she had always thought Grandpa was poor. She was only ten years of age when she said to him, ‘Please, Grandpa, don't leave me any money. It'd spoil everything.' Now she was thirteen and still she wasn't sure that Grandpa hadn't left her anything, or whether Grandpa had enough money to leave anything to anybody; but she was surer than ever that if he did leave her something she'd give it away. Every time she thought of what that sharp-faced girl had said to her, even years afterwards, a cold and dark feeling grew inside her. It was the only unhappy memory Pippa had.

She knocked on Grandpa's back door. It sounded a firm and confident knock, but it wasn't. Pippa
knew
that Julie wasn't there. She
knew
that Julie was lost or hiding somewhere in the bush. Her father's attitude had made her angry. She felt she wanted to hit him. Her father could be a very nice man, but Pippa believed she was beginning to see him as a person, as a stranger might see him, not just as a once rather wonderful Dad. Sometimes, particularly in the mornings, he was a very disappointing person.

She knocked again, convinced that Grandpa had not heard her and probably wouldn't hear her anyway because he had the wireless going. She knew she was wasting precious time, that she should have been in the bush searching, should have bullied her family into helping her, should have gone to get Peter, perhaps Lorna as well, to help to search systematically. All she had got from her father was a snarl, a roughly spoken order. Julie, for all they knew, might even have been down a mine hole or caught up in blackberries somewhere, crying, scared to try to free herself because the thorns were as sharp as knives. There were bush cats, too—domestic cats run wild—that would attack even a man. Dad had a scar from his elbow to his wrist to prove it. And snakes, venomous black snakes and poisonous copperheads. Then Grandpa opened the door.

‘Hullo, Pippa,' he said.

He was dressed!

‘Looking for Julie, I suppose?' he said.

‘Yes,' said Pippa blankly.

‘Come on in then. We're having our breakfast.'

‘Breakfast,' repeated Pippa, relieved; but somehow angrier than ever. It was unfair that her father had been right. It was all wrong that anyone who had cared so little should have been right.

‘Would you like an egg?' said Grandpa. ‘We're having boiled eggs in egg-cups with flowers on them and toast and marmalade and milk with chocolate flavouring. Come on in. Don't stand there. We'll have a real party breakfast, the three of us, a going-away party.'

‘No,' said Pippa. ‘
No!
'

Grandpa stared at her. ‘What is it, child? What's wrong?'

‘Julie's a bad girl. She's a wicked, bad girl. I've been half out of my mind. I thought she was lost in the bush, and she's here! What's she doing here?'

‘Goodness me, Pippa,' said Grandpa.

‘Julie's not going to have breakfast with you either. She's got to come home. You should have sent her home. She's been very naughty.' Pippa had got to the stage of not knowing what she was saying. ‘I've been screaming all over the place for her. I've got into a row about her. It's not fair and she's been here all the time.'

Suddenly Pippa ran away, crying, not because she was angry any more, but because she knew she was being rude and didn't know how to stop.

Peter and his grandparents sat down to breakfast. It was an enormous meal. It always was. Throughout their long lives the Fairhalls had lived well. Even in the bad years way back in the early thirties they had lived well, though everyone had thought they were hard up. The Fairhalls, years ago, had inherited from a distant relative an interest in a chain of shops. No one but the Income Tax Department knew of this inheritance.

Gramps was an enormous and florid man, completely bald, slow and ponderous. He hadn't always been that way; as soon as he had stopped working hard he had gone to fat. Beside him Peter looked so insignificant as scarcely to be real. A visitor arriving for the first time from another world might pardonably have mistaken them for members of two different species.

Gran was a big woman with shiny pink cheeks and a passion for getting up at five-thirty. This was something of a rite. Immediately the clock struck she was out of bed. Wild horses, she said, would not get her up a minute sooner, nor would they delay her a minute longer; and just before six, every day, in all seasons, the Fairhalls sat down to breakfast, ready for the sound of the six o'clock time signal on the radio, and the voice of the announcer reading the first news broadcast of the day.

In almost all things the Fairhalls were predictable, and any reasonably perceptive student of human nature could have foreseen their reactions to the vaguest threat of fire.

‘We have experience of these things, boy,' Gramps said. His voice, too, was enormous; even when he spoke quietly it had depth and breadth, like the ocean. ‘We have lived here for more than forty years. We know about fires, and if you have the least consideration for our feelings you will agree with the wisdom of our decision. It is our duty to send you home without delay. I am pained, boy, that you are allowing the thoughtless remarks of a stupid little thing like Stevie Buckingham to unsettle you.'

Gramps was so positive, so overpowering.

‘It's got nothing to do with Stevie,' said Peter miserably. He couldn't look at Gramps. If he looked at him he knew he wouldn't be able to say anything. And it was to do with Stevie, really. It certainly had nothing to do with anything else: at heart he didn't care whether he went home or stayed, for Pippa would be gone, and without Pippa Ash Road would be dull and deadly. ‘But Stevie did say he couldn't even see the fire. He did say it wasn't stopping them from going on their holidays.'

‘If Buckingham goes,' said Gramps, ‘he's an even bigger fool than I take him for.'

‘I'm thirteen,' said Peter. ‘I'm not a baby any more. I want to stay.'

‘As far as I am concerned,' said Gramps, ‘young persons of thirteen are more like babies than babies are. You're going home, boy. That's flat. Now be quiet or we'll miss the news. I will not have talk while I'm listening to the news.'

‘Yes,' said Gran, ‘do be quiet. If there's a serious fire in these hills we want to hear about it.'

‘...with the fire danger throughout the State near to an all-time high, disaster has struck overnight close to the city.

‘Fierce fires are raging this morning in sight of the outer suburbs. Some are out of control in deep gullies and on steep slopes where they cannot be fought directly without risk of life. Three teenage boys are missing, and numerous homes have been destroyed. The pall of smoke from the fires is visible from many parts of the metropolitan area. It has been observed from ships at sea.

‘The fires began in tinder-dry scrub country behind the town of Tinley shortly after one o'clock this morning. Whipped up by strong north-westerlies, flames spread rapidly, defeating the efforts of several rural and metropolitan brigades to contain them. Over three hundred firefighters are at present engaged in what the Country Fire Authority describes as “a desperate attempt to save the foothills”.

‘During a night of sudden terror in the Tinley district twenty-two homes were destroyed, and about thirty others are still in danger. No casualties have been reported, but concern is felt for the safety of three boys last seen in the Tinley area at about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. Mr K. Whitney, a Tinley shopkeeper, told police that three boys aged about fifteen bought supplies at his store yesterday afternoon and discussed the possibility of camping in the area known locally as McCullock's Gully. This area was ringed by fires soon after the main outbreak. A police search party entered the still-smouldering area at daybreak. The township of Tinley is considered to be safe at present, but a change of wind could suddenly and dramatically endanger it.

‘This morning hundreds of acres of forest and grassland between Tinley and Barkley are blackened, stock losses are feared to be heavy, and hundreds of homes on the western slopes of the ranges are expected to be threatened during the next few hours. Police have ordered the evacuation of about sixty families in the immediate path of the flames, and have warned others to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Inhabitants of townships farther up in the ranges are feverishly widening firebreaks around their homes and damping down. It is feared that strong winds and accompanying fierce updraughts above the inferno may carry burning twigs and ash and exploding gases far beyond the limits of immediate danger and produce fresh outbreaks. Townships miles from the front line of the fire are preparing to fight for their existence. Sirens have been wailing for half the night. Holiday-makers are leaving the area, caravan parks have emptied, and the sick, the elderly, and hundreds of children are already leaving the townships under police supervision. Public halls and churches clear of the danger zone are being used for emergency accommodation. Women's auxiliaries are caring for the evacuees, and army field kitchens have been set up to provide meals for the firefighters.

‘The Country Fire Authority describes the outlook as extremely grave. The weather forecast is for continuing strong north to north-west winds and above-century heat with no relief in sight. Heatwave conditions may well continue for several days.

‘At five-thirty this morning the Country Fire Authority called for two thousand able-bodied volunteers. Volunteers living in hill districts are advised to report to their nearest fire station. Volunteers approaching from the city are advised to travel by train to the Barkley or Miltondale Railway Stations where firefighting equipment will be issued. Groups will be transported to threatened areas where they will be placed under the command of experienced officers. Volunteers are requested not to drive private motor vehicles into bushfire areas. This could lead to the needless destruction of vehicles or to the congestion of roads required for the swift evacuation of residents. Road-blocks have been set up on all main roads into the threatened areas. Only bona fide residents and authorized personnel will be permitted to pass these points. Volunteers are requested to dress in stout clothing, strong boots, and some kind of head covering. The danger from snakes is high. Snakes fleeing from the flames have already been reported in significant numbers and several firefighters have received emergency treatment for bites.

‘A spokesman for the Country Fire Authority said this morning that there is every indication that the fires are man-made. “It is a tragedy,” he said, “that has struck with bewildering speed and no useful purpose can be served by minimizing the risks involved. Crass stupidity or criminal negligence has led to a situation that only the utmost of human courage and ingenuity will bring under control. Every effort will be made to trace the person or persons responsible. They will be prosecuted to the limit of the law”.'