by Peter Carey
Mate, we've been fighting bushfires for twenty years and we never saw anything like that. We were down on Governor's Rest and we never seen flames like that, not ever.
Anyway, everything was calmer now. I showed them where my tanks of water were. I had a lot of water. And they brought a tanker very close. I showed them the tracks and dirt roads. I showed them the other buildings and we made decisions about what was to be sacrificed and what was to be fought for. The main house was most important, then that building, then that one, and so on. We turned the outside lights on.
At about one in the morning the winds slowed down a bit and I was informed that we were going to need to back-burn. And then these guys came out of the dark with these things like watering cans and I watched as they poured liquid fire on to the ground. They just wandered round, in big fucking circles, setting my garden alight. Holy shit. Now I had two rings of fire, a close one and a distant one. And, yes, it was a little scary. I was running around saying, no, not that tree, because I was trying to stop the oak trees being burnt - the Aussie trees will replenish after fire, but the English oaks will die.
Then, suddenly, the house lights went off.
I asked the National Parks guy, what happened with the power?
Oh we cut it off.
Why would you do that?
We're doing a back-burn.
Yes but if you turn the power off my water pumps won't work.
Agh, he said. Nothing ever goes simply, does it?
So now I had no bloody power. And I had these new fires close around my house. Naturally, I was feeling a lot more vulnerable.
There were a lot of experienced firefighters but also some who were in training. There were twenty or thirty guys, chainsaws singing right through the night, lots of rakes, shovels, containing this back-burn.
Then, suddenly, it's dawn, and they're packing up their chainsaws, drifting back towards their trucks.
And suddenly I'm left alone, with no power, no hoses, and all this smouldering bush, these flaming stumps surrounding me. Also our pine trees are big, fifty or sixty years old, and the fire has gone underground and is, without me knowing it, quietly burning along their roots.
And the winds, as they say, become 'variable'. The spot fires began to come up everywhere and all I had were buckets of water to put them out.
There was a roadblock in the street, so none of my friends could reach me, except for Willem who could always get through a roadblock.
So that was my life that week, and it didn't alter when the power came on. Hardly any sleep. Constantly putting out these fires. Not even answering the phone. Not being terrified, but staying very, very alert.
And then, said Marty, another fire was coming from the east, from Wombat Rock.
So I started chainsawing back the bush around the hut where Astrid has her pottery.
Then people did start to turn up, with food, helping to beat back the fire with wet sacks. Willem came and went often. Some others came and fled. You know the old days when people came to watch wars? It became a little like that.
There was a rooster in the house and a pet rabbit. And at this stage they suddenly became very domesticated and friendly. You can't have an Aussie story without a chook in it, can you? So here it is, accompanied by a rabbit. I went down to the tree house, they came with me.
The sky was scarlet. It was hard to breathe. Behind my back the fire was raging down Spy Hill. So there was only a road between me and Spy Hill. And the noise! You could hear it crackling, roaring. The sound was completely terrifying. Also the fire was shooting out flaming debris in advance, so all this burning ordnance is falling from the sky.
And that was when I thought, I could die. And here is the thing, the big thing for me. I felt that was all right. I didn't curl up in the foetal position.
I walked away from the house, down towards the escarpment, and began to deal with spot fires there. Somewhere about this point my sister Jodie and her boyfriend came to bring me some food.
And they looked at the fire on Spy Hill and they looked at this mad ash-black fellow whacking at the bush with a wet sack. And they said, Marty, it's time to get out of here.
But no way was I going to leave.
Marty.
You go if you have to. That's fine.
And they pissed off so fucking quick. For a while it was just me and the rabbit and the chook.
But soon enough my friend Leon arrived all kitted up with the proper overalls and boots. Next came old Sandy Blake. It was obvious he wasn't well. His hands were all puffed up, like rubber gloves full of water. He started picking up big logs and clearing them away.
Sandy, you shouldn't be doing that.
Bullshit, he said, I want to be useful.
And we were there, the three of us, beating the flames with our wet sacks. And suddenly I realised this was kind of nice.
At that moment we were true neighbours, fighting the fire side by side. And it felt very good to be alive.
Isn't he finished yet? cried Sheridan, bursting into the cave and collapsing on one of the overstuffed chairs where he promptly fell asleep.
Marty paused. What's that noise, Peter?
Sheridan. He's asleep now.
Agh, poor old Sheridan, said Marty. Did he tell you about the kid who broke both his wrists?
Yes.
And about Danae Canyon?
Yes.
One word of advice, Peter.
Yes?
Don't talk to him about firestick farming. It drives him nuts.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I WAS WOKEN BY the rush of coffee from an espresso and a loud grating noise like a rusty hinge.
Move your arse, called Sheridan, and I lifted myself up on my elbows, not too far, because this ledge at the back of the cave had a three-foot ceiling, and peered out through the grey feathery scrub. The rusty hinge grated again.
Red-tailed black cockatoos, explained Sheridan. He was standing at the table hacking into last night's lamb.
You already missed the kangaroos. They've been and gone. Come on, mate, we've got to get back to the city.
Looking around the cave I saw that almost everything we had carried from the car had been once more packed away. Beside the lamb was a cardboard box and a bulging garbage bag.
What's the rush?
Well, mate, you weren't coming to see me, let's face it.
Oh Jesus, Sherry. Don't talk like that.
I'm not hurt. It's true. I know you're a working writer. You're trying to get old Jack to tell you his story. That's OK, he said, but his eyes were dark and glistening and he turned to the espresso and filled two mugs.
Sheridan, how do you know that?
Sheridan placed the brimming coffee on the table. He's my friend too, he said reproachfully. I talked to him. You want some of this lamb before we leave?
I shook my head and Sheridan, having carved himself one final bloody slice, threw the remainder into a plastic bag.
Jack's going to tell you the story, he announced. You're meeting him at Bar Coluzzi for lunch. You better move your arse if you plan on getting back to town in time.
Ten minutes later we were carrying the bag and box through the wet grass to the car. Here I watched Sheridan take a long swallow of coffee, survey the gloomy sky belligerently, empty the remainder of his coffee on the ground, stand his mug upside down on a fence post.
That's that, he said, throwing the lamb on to the back seat.
Do you get lonely up here? I asked him.
No time to get lonely, mate. Too bloody busy.
Yet all this energy looked dangerous to me. I worried about Sheridan and remembered his book on homeless men, the winos, the derros of Darlinghurst. In half the biographies Sheridan had so lovingly collected, the hinge, the pivot of their lives, would be the moment when 'the missus died' or 'she kicked me out'. You would like to think that self-knowledge had led him to these men, but that was not his strong card, as Clara would soon be telling anyone who wished
to listen.
Sheridan had the engine going before I was in the car.
Listen to that, he said. He gave the accelerator a quick pump. Bloody beautiful.
Didn't you have something you wanted to do out here?
Nah, he said. No ties, mate, free as a bird.
He was sitting up high peering over the wheel, looking out for threatening rocks, but once we were on the road he relaxed.
I'll have you at Bar Coluzzi in an hour and a half. This is a fabulous cruising car.
The story would be neater if the explosion came just then, but it arrived no more than twenty minutes later, on the outskirts of Black-heath. The noise was enormous. I felt it in my gut and the Merc lurched, shuddered, and came to a violent stop.
Quick, said Sheridan as black smoke began to rise from beneath the hood. Get out of the car, quick.
Later I understood that he had imagined the engine was on fire, but at the time I took exception to being pulled out of the car so forcefully. Traffic was threading its way around the smoking Merc but still he would not release me, gripping my forearm as I tried to struggle free.
A minute or two later Sheridan announced that there was no longer any danger of explosion. He insisted I push the injured vehicle off the road and there, having first warned me to step well back, he slowly lifted the hood.
My own brother was trained as a motor mechanic and he tells me he never saw a thing like this in forty years: the wall of the engine block looked as if it had been hit by an armour-piercing shell - there was a jagged hole about three inches wide.
I'm fucked, said Sheridan.
He did not mean that the repair was beyond his means. His life was fucked. There would be no good luck any more, and when a tow truck pulled in behind us Sheridan looked at it mulishly for a moment before giving it the benefit of his broad back. The driver, a slender olive-skinned woman of perhaps thirty-five, came to join us, tucking in her plaid shirt as she walked.
Jesus, she said. That's ugly.
Thanks a fucking million, said Sheridan.
She shrugged and walked around the car.
You watch this, Sheridan muttered. She's going to offer me fifty bucks to take it off my hands. I hate these fucking vultures.
If she heard him she gave no sign of it. She jerked her head towards the mess of books amongst the climbing gear. You a teacher?
No.
You read books?
What do you think?
I read too, the tow-truck driver said, so focused on the books that she did not seem to notice any rudeness. Not much else to do up here, she said.
It took this long for Sheridan to begin to understand that he was, if not exactly being hit on, then at least having the ground prepared so he could hit on her. He brushed his hair back out of his eyes and squinted at her. I'm a writer, he declared.
In unconscious imitation she pulled her hair back off her own face then quickly turned to peer into the car. You would not say she was a beauty but she was young and she had such clear unprotected eyes.
That's not your book in there, is it? All those pages.
Parts of it, admitted Sheridan.
He's not shitting me? she frowned at me earnestly. He really is a writer?
He's not shitting you.
You can see what's happening here. Before ten more minutes had passed she had run to the cab of her truck and shown him her battered copy of Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and he had read her the opening paragraph from his manuscript. And then she offered to drive us to inspect a Merc engine in a wrecker's yard in Lithgow.
It's up to you, Pete, he said.
Why me?
You'll miss your meeting with Jack.
It took an hour to get to Lithgow and there was no sign of a Mercedes there. Neither of them seemed to give a damn. Vicki (that was her name) gunned the truck back down the highway to All-Star Wrecking outside Katoomba and all this time the pair of them shouted at each other over the roar of the engine. You never heard two people who had so many books in common and Sheridan was no longer belligerent and hurt but charming, curious, solicitous. I could not know if he was sincere or was just one more cattleman building a dance floor so he could get laid.
When he shook hands with me outside the Katoomba railway station I noticed his wedding ring had miraculously disappeared. He followed my glance.
I'm separated, he said. I told you.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AND NOT A PEEP to him about the firestick, said the all-too-familiar voice. You are far too obedient to be in this line of work.
You would prefer me to torment my friend, I said sarcastically, provoking a sharp glance from the carriage's only other inhabitant. This natty gent was tucked up in the corner with his Sporting Globe. He wore a shiny suit and a colourful tweed hat such as are favoured by the racing fraternity.
Has it ever occurred to you, my invisible companion continued, that for a timid person you have a high percentage of friends who are hanging off ropes or getting themselves killed in some dangerous hobby? There is something very psychological in this. You are far too timid.
You think me frightened of Sheridan? I enquired.
You would be wise to be afraid of him, but I know why you did not mention the old firestick.
Why?
You are scared to death of it, there is no question.
And why would that be, do you imagine?
If you confront the indigenous people's ways of using fire, you will have to stop promoting them as children of nature.
It is not up to me to promote anyone as anything.
In any case, the evidence is heavily against such a pretty thought. The day they arrive they are at it with their fires. Smoke, smoke, always burning. Thank Christ they didn't come with bulldozers.
Ah, you should read Flannery.
I have read far more of Flannery than you have of de Selby and I will prove it. Flannery says that they wiped out all the big slow friendly animals. They are like the Maoris in New Zealand who exterminated the moa in a hundred years. They killed them in their thousands, only eating their legs and haunches. That was not at all ecological, you'll agree. They killed so many moas that they quickly reduced themselves to starvation and cannibalism. Take some advice, you will do far better if you allow the Aboriginals are human just like us.
Shut up a moment, I cried, and the racing gent folded up his newspaper and, without so much as a look in my direction, walked into the connecting carriage.
He's off to report you to the authorities.
I will not say the Aboriginals did not affect the landscape.
Of course not. How could you? But once you allow that the Aboriginals might have caused actual damage to the soil, then that weakens you with the loggers and the mining companies. That's the heart of it. That's why you're frightened of firestick farming.
You could not be more wrong. If they farmed with fire, they farmed. They tended the land. This is what the British would never allow . . .
Here's the conductor.
. . . and if it is true then it makes the occupation of the land not only cruel but illegal.
The conductor gave me a piercing look, clipped my ticket very carefully, and returned it to me without a word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AS EVERY TAX ACCOUNTANT must concede, you cannot write about Water without eating fish and you cannot get better fish in Sydney than at Neil Perry's Rockpool Restaurant and that was where Kelvin and I were, eating the most perfectly tax-deductible pearl perch, when Clara phoned. I still have not figured out how she knew I was there.
She rang to say that she had just seen Sheridan, who had accused her of stealing his Vietnam service medals, and she was seriously worried about his mental balance. She thought he was with their youngest son in a squat down at the bottom of Sussex Street and she begged me to go and find him.
But Clara had to wait on the phone for five minutes because there was a third diner at the table and he would not let his story be interrupted
. Fix Neal was a big man, bigger, wider, heavier than Kelvin. He had a thick neck and powerful hands, and his eyes were small and blue and filled with a fast quizzical intelligence.
Not yet, he told the waiter.
He was telling a story about a conference in the mountain town of Tumut with characters who we will simply refer to by their public titles: the premier and the attorney general.
So we were all there, he said, and he named the famous names. And we took over the pub for the conference and when we had finished all the serious shit we took over the bar and at one in the morning the poor bloody publican comes out.
Time, gentlemen, please.
Everyone ignores him so he goes to the premier and tells him I'll lose my licence if I stay open.
So the premier looks him up and down. You wouldn't want him to look at you like that, Peter. He could be very charming, as you know, but he was a hard bastard.
Where's your licence? he asks the publican.
Over there, behind the bar.
The licence is all properly framed and 'clearly displayed' as the law demands.
Give it to me.
The publican hesitates but then he lifts the frame off its hook and gives it to the premier who smashes it down on the bar. Glass goes everywhere.
Hey, Bawbles, the premier calls to the attorney general. Hey, Bawbles, have you got a pen, mate?
Yes, mate.
Well endorse this gentleman's licence, will you.
So the attorney general removes the official paper from the shattered frame and he lays it carefully on a nice dry part of the bar. Then he writes: 'These premises are permitted to remain open from midnight until six am.' And he dates it and signs his name - so and so, attorney general.
And everyone stays up drinking half the night.
The next day as we're all leaving, the premier turns to me as I get in the car.
Did you get that licence back, Fix?
She's fixed, mate. She's sweet.
He laughed. He was the fixer. He had fixed it. We all laughed. And this is the thing that I perhaps should not confess - we liked this reckless behaviour. We liked the lawlessness and if we sometimes suspected our leaders were a little criminal then they were our criminals at least.