Ash Road (9 page)

Peter knew it was useless trying to argue any longer.

Pippa, in a muddle of misery, sat at the roadside under the trees near Grandpa Tanner's gate. She half-thought that Julie would be sent after her; but Julie didn't come. She thought that perhaps Grandpa would have followed her, but he hadn't. She expected her mother or her father to be waiting in the middle of the road for news of Julie, but they weren't. She badly needed someone to make the move that would get life back on to an even keel. She couldn't go home and she couldn't go back to Grandpa. It was awful.

She looked up. Three boys were coming over the brow of the hill. They looked like fourth or fifth-formers—big fellows, two of them—and she had never seen any of them before. They were carrying heavy packs, and they were dragging their feet.

Pippa shrank from them; not because she was frightened of strangers, but because she knew her eyes were red. The scrub along the fence line was thick, and she slipped back into it. She knew the boys hadn't seen her, and she was sure they would pass by and never guess she was there. She knew it wasn't very ladylike, but anything was better than meeting strange boys, close up, the way she felt.

It wasn't long before she could hear their feet dragging in the gravel. They were not walking like boys at all, and they were not speaking to one another. It was odd: those dragging feet and no voices. As they went past she caught a glimpse of them. Three tired boys, haggard and very dirty. Two were limping. One had a soiled handkerchief tied round his arm like a bandage. The dirt on their clothes was mostly black—black streaks, black smudges, even scorch marks.

Pippa felt a quickening of interest and sympathy. She barely stopped herself from calling out to them. As soon as they were past, she found herself drawn irresistibly out of hiding, and she stood quite openly at the edge of the road, following them with her eyes.

They had come out of the fire; that was plain; but the fire was miles and miles away. What were they doing here in Ash Road? They trudged on past the Fairhalls' gate, then past her own gate, on down the hill, and never once looked back or apparently to either side.

She went after them, her own unhappy state of mind completely forgotten.

What an extraordinary thing it was. She should have spoken to them. She should have called after them. They may have been sick or something. It was queer.

‘Pippa.'

The sound of her name startled her.

It was Peter: Peter with a strained and hangdog look about him. But there was always something else about Peter, something extra, no matter how he looked: an intensity of feeling, an earnest desire to see into her mind and to please her no matter what her mood might be. She could see it in him now. Peter was so transparent. She found him rather tiresome at times. There were days when she would have loved him to have got good and mad with her, but Peter never lost his temper.

As for Peter, every time he saw Pippa it was a delight; just like meeting an exciting person for the very first time.

‘Did you know them?' Peter said.

‘The boys? Never seen them before.'

Peter was glad about that, and said, ‘Must be fire-fighters, I reckon.'

‘No fires to fight down here,' said Pippa, and remembered she had a message to deliver to Peter. ‘Mum says you can come with us if you like, when we go. About half-past ten. We've got to go through Miltondale, so we'll pass the station.'

Peter looked away, half-ashamed that Pippa knew he was being sent home, and even more miserable about it now that he had to go into details. ‘I don't think they'll let me stay that long. I think they're going to take me soon as Gramps gets the car going. The battery's flat or something. Reckons I've been playing in it and left the ignition on. I didn't either. I bet he left it on himself. Gran's going all the way with me because Gramps says it's too dangerous for her to stay here.'

‘She's going too?' exclaimed Pippa.

‘I'll bet he's always leaving it on. Serves him right for making me go home.'

‘But what's your Gran going for?' said Pippa.

‘Eh?' said Peter. ‘Well you've heard about it, haven't you? All the houses being burnt down and everything?'

‘No,' said Pippa, suddenly irritated again. ‘And neither have you. That's what people always say when there's a fire. You shouldn't say things like that, Peter. It's silly.'

‘But it's true. It was on the radio just now. I heard it. Fellas missing and everything. Thousands of chaps fighting it, they say. It's all along the other side of the mountains.'

Pippa stared at him in total unbelief. ‘How could it be?' she said. ‘They'd never let it get that big.'

‘But it is. They've got roadblocks up. They're evacuating townships. It's burning like mad and they can't put it out.'

‘You're making it all up. You're awful.'

‘Cross my heart, Pippa. I wouldn't tell a lie. Golly, I wouldn't tell a lie to you. Gramps says it's sure to come here. There's nothing to stop it, he says. He says if your Dad's got any sense he'll send you away, too, and Stevie and Julie, and that if he doesn't do it the police will anyway, any minute now. They'll be knocking on the door, he says. They'll just come and take you away.'

‘You're a big fibber,' shouted Pippa. ‘Even if it got to the dam it couldn't come any farther.'

‘It can go around it.'

‘You're terrible, Peter. You're real
sick.
I just know you're making it all up.'

She poked a stupid, tearful, frantic face at him, and suddenly ran away, down the road. Peter's heart almost broke; he felt the wrench inside him. ‘Pippa,' he cried after her. Oh, gosh, he wouldn't see her again, probably for weeks or months. He couldn't take that picture of her away with him; not a contorted, frightened face like that. ‘Pippa,' he shouted and started running after her, quite forgetting that he had promised not to set foot outside.

He caught her way past her own front gate; she had run straight past it. Peter was dismayed to find that she was really and truly sobbing. He didn't understand. She suddenly seemed like a stranger.

‘Pippa,' he said breathlessly, ‘please don't cry. Don't cry, Pippa. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you.'

‘You're horrid, Peter Fairhall. You
were
making it up, weren't you?'

‘I don't know,' he said, because he didn't know what to say. ‘In a way, I suppose...I don't know. Honest, I don't know, Pippa...No, of course I wasn't making it up.'

She gritted her teeth and roughly broke his grip on her arm. ‘Leave me alone. Go away. I hate you.'

‘Golly, Pippa.'

She ran away from him again, down the hill, and he sprinted after her. ‘Pippa,' he cried. ‘Come back. Don't be silly.'

5

They Who Run Away

Lorna sat on the ground between the raspberry rows, nursing her father's head in her lap, stroking his brow, fighting to keep the panic off her face so that she might reassure him.

He was looking at her, speechlessly. It was frightening, but there was something very precious about it, like a sacred bond between them. He hadn't spoken a word for minutes. His only communication with her was through his eyes. It was hard to read them because they were dull, but she knew they were asking her not to leave him. She wanted to run for help, to ring for the doctor or an ambulance, but his eyes asked her to stay. She wanted to get out of his sight and out of his hearing so that she could let herself go. The sacred moment was turning into an agony.

‘What is it, Dad?' she said. ‘Where does it hurt?'

He couldn't tell her.

‘Dad,' she said, ‘I must try to get John.'

But his eyes wouldn't let her go.

‘Please, Dad. Let me go for the doctor.'

‘In a little while,' his eyes seemed to say.

So she nursed his head and tried to shade him from the sun. When she went for the doctor she would have to leave him in the sun because she was afraid that if she tried to move him she might kill him. She mightn't be able to move him, anyway, even though she wasn't a frail girl; she chopped the wood sometimes, when there wasn't a man around. She thought of herself chopping wood, and, strangely, that made her feel wretched. How lonely it would be, splitting sticks for the stove with only John and herself to cook for. She thought of all the nice things her father had done, forgot his irritability, thought of his lifelong battle to make ends meet. She thought, too, of her black despair when she had believed him to be dead.

‘Dad, I must go. I couldn't bear to lose you. I'd never forgive myself if I could have saved you by trying. Please let me try to get some help.'

It was one of the rare times in her life when she had reached him wholly and completely with her heart. She knew he was ready to let her go, so she fled up the rows towards the house, crying a little, confused because she wasn't exactly sure what to do.

When she got to the telephone she couldn't remember the doctor's number, and when she tried to turn over the pages of the directory her hands seemed as big and as clumsy as the stumps of trees. She could scarcely see the pages, didn't even know what page she was looking at. She screwed her eyes up and squinted, but she couldn't read the print. She had been in the brilliant sunlight for so long that she could not see in the gloom of the house. She stumbled to the nearest window and pulled on the blind. It crashed upwards violently and the tassel slapped round and round. She dropped the directory into the sudden pool of sunlight on the floor. She found the number and with a painful effort of will dialled it slowly and precisely.

It rang and rang and there was no answer. She hung up because she knew there wasn't going to be an answer. She fumbled with the directory again, turning to Miltondale, for that was where the ambulance had to come from. Again she dialled deliberately, though she was shaking from head to foot.

‘Civil Ambulance Station,' said a woman's voice.

‘Oh,' cried Lorna. She could hardly get her thoughts straight. ‘Oh, thank goodness. I want an ambulance please. I'm all on my own. It's my father.'

‘I'm sorry.' The voice was firm, but not unkind. ‘You'll have to wait.'

‘Wait?'

‘I'm sorry. We're handling an emergency here. Where are you ringing from?'

‘From Prescott. I can't even raise the doctor.'

‘I'm very sorry, my dear, but it's the fires. You'll have to try to make other arrangements. We've really got troubles enough of our own.'

‘But my father—' Lorna felt overwhelmed.

‘Every doctor in the hills is there, my dear, and every ambulance. There have been an awful lot of injuries, snake bites and burns and broken legs and heart attacks. All sorts of things. The fire's got to come first this morning.'

‘But my father—'

‘Can you drive a car?'

‘I'm only
fourteen.
'

‘But can you drive?'

‘No, of course I can't.'

‘What's wrong with your father?'

‘I don't know. I don't know anything about these things. I think he's dying.'

‘Listen to me, dear. If you want to help your father you must be very brave and very calm and very sensible. I'll try hard to get a car for you, but it's not going to be easy. Everyone's gone to the fires. Just about everyone, because we're threatened here. We're evacuating the town. The fire's only a mile away. There's no guarantee that a car could even get through to you or that you could get through to the hospital. You really mustn't rely on me. It will be much better, much surer, if you call one of your neighbours. They're so much closer.'

‘But I live on a farm,' cried Lorna. ‘I'm way near the end of a road. I'm three miles from the township. It's a quarter of a mile to the nearest neighbours, and even they're on holidays. I'm all alone. There isn't anybody, anywhere.'

‘There must be someone, my dear. Even if they're half a mile away they're much closer to you than we are. Now you really must control yourself. Give me your name and address quickly and I'll do my best, but you must
not
rely upon me. Please, please don't —'

Suddenly that was all. The line died. ‘Hullo,' shouted Lorna. ‘Hullo, hullo. Don't go away...Hullo...'

The line was dead. Desperately, she dialled the number again. There was no ring. Something had happened to the line between Prescott and Miltondale and the ambulance didn't even have her address.

She dialled the Fire Station. The line was still open there, but no one answered, not even the base radio officer. She dialled the taxi service, but no one answered. She dialled the Buckinghams, but no one answered.

She put the phone down, and for a few moments covered her face with her hands. There was a fear in her, a foreboding, such as she had never known before. Now it was more than fear for her father lying down there in the raspberries, in the cruel sun. Now it reached out to the fire
threatening Miltondale.
What were they talking about? What sort of fire was that? And then the fear came right back to herself, to her aloneness.

She ran outside and looked into the sky in the west and the north. There was no smoke, nothing that really looked like smoke, only the smell of smoke and of dust, and the blistering heat.

Perhaps she could get help at the Fairhalls or from Grandpa Tanner. But Grandpa was so old and the Fairhalls were so slow and they didn't have telephones, anyway. She looked at her father's old car in the shed. How she wished she could drive it. But it was a one-man car; her father had always made that perfectly plain. It was ‘very hard' to drive, he said. Even John was forbidden to use it. Only one person could drive it properly and that was her father, her stubborn father who should have replaced it with a better one years ago. And even the tyres of her bicycle were flat. There was always something wrong with her bike. Everything was worn out. Nothing worked.