by Fiona Kidman
NOW THAT THE LAMBING WAS over, Frederick could take up his daily habit of writing again. Like the novelist Anthony Trollope, whose work he so deeply admired, he set himself the goal of beginning a new piece of work as soon as he had completed the one before, so that writing was one seamless occupation. His collection of poems had mounted day by day. But for some time he had been stuck in the same place.
He found himself gazing out of the window, watching his wife and Alice Scott walking in a fast, determined manner towards the hills. There was no keeping Annie and Alice apart, now that they had discovered the joy of burning tussock together. In the spring, the sheep farmers’ habit was to burn off the land in order to encourage fresh new grass growth. The earth was laid bare and desolate when it was burnt over but soon tender young shoots transformed it into pasture for ewes and their lambs. He and Annie had set many fires together, setting out with matches and a bundle of flax sticks to use as impromptu torches. They began their line of fire, setting one large tussock blazing, and then, starting from this head-centre, dragging the sticks one to the right and one to the left, and before long a whole hillside was ablaze with racing fire.
Frederick knew the danger, for if the lines of fire were incorrectly laid and a nor’wester sprang up too fiercely, the fire-lighter could be engulfed. But when Annie lit fires it appeared they took hold of her, causing her to discard all caution. One day they had been joined by Alice. She visited often now, and alone. Philip Hill would sit down to dinner with them more often than not. Frederick wished that this were not the case, even though he still enjoyed the company of his friend. They had endured so much together, snowstorms and floods and the loss of so many thousands of newborn lambs. It was simply that, from the line of figures in the accounts book he kept in a locked compartment of his writing desk, he knew how impossible it would be for the station to support another family. Soon one or other of them must leave.
‘I love lighting fires,’ Alice had declared after her expedition in their company. And Annie had agreed with her, describing it as ‘an exceeding joy’. ‘Oh, I wish the tussock was still as long as it used to be,’ she exclaimed. ‘Farmers have told me that in the early days it was six feet high. Imagine the fire that would have made.’
‘I’m not allowed to light fires at home,’ Alice had confided, and so they had taken to calling it their ‘mischief’, setting off to the hills on their own, coming back late at night looking like eccentric chimney sweeps, their dresses black and ragged, their eyebrows singed. They seemed to Frederick barbaric, even wicked, in their appearance. He remonstrated with Annie more than once, for enough fires had been laid for one year. But she laughed that off, almost as if he were childish. That hurt. Her thirty-fifth birthday had passed. In other circumstances, he reflected, she might have seen herself as looking a little ridiculous.
The truth was, he missed her in the house, finding it difficult to write in her absence. He had been working on a poem that seemed to go nowhere, toiling over images thrown up by the Greek legend of Perseus, as if he might find comfort for them both, remembering the way their child had been conceived in what seemed, back in England, like a bright flame out of control. Instead, he found himself in a familiar state of agitation, opening a cupboard door, the one where the baby’s clothes were kept in a container, wrapped in fine tissue, mothballs laid over the top. He paused, averting his eyes from the box. Back at his desk, he laid his head on his arms and wept.
SUCH FIERCE GAIETY NOW TOOK hold of us. As dusk fell, the fires raced up the surrounding hills. Every now and then they met with a puff of wind, striking a great surge of heat that sent flames rushing uphill to divide into two fiery horns like a crescent. That’s the trouble with fire, you never know which way it will turn. The breeze changed and the tips of fire met again, creating a solid wall. The air cracked as the fires collided with exploding green bushes. We try not to burn stands of ti-ti palms, but now and then one gets in our way.
Last evening, I stood and watched a sweet swell of fire, fire looping and curling, swirling higher and higher, sleek fire, orange and blue fire, cardinal fire. I shouted and ran, as a line snaked back down the hill and chased me, but I outran it.
‘Alice,’ called Annie, ‘you need to be careful. Are you not afraid?’
‘Not at all,’ I cried. But when I looked at her, I felt a sudden caution. From where I stood, I saw her transfixed as the wall of flames raced towards one of the palm trees. Even before they reached it, I could see its long delicate leaves trembling piteously before the wind of fire. Then the old dry leaves at the base of the palm caught the first spark, and the whole tree was ablaze, a pillar of fire. Streamers of fire erupted, curtains of fire raining down, torrents of flames. I heard Annie groan, the back of her hand held to her mouth. The palm tree bent and swayed, tossing its leaves for a few seconds like fiery plumes before all was consumed at the heart of the furnace. This, later, was how she would describe it to others. As for us, we’ve stopped the burning here at Broomielaw. But when I read her words, I see that tree awaiting the onslaught, the last soldier standing on a murderous battlefield.
Annie walked towards the tree as if she wasn’t going to stop, breathing deeply, as if she would march straight into the fire itself. I knew that if she inhaled another gasp of fire, the inside of her lungs would turn the colour of rust. As a whisper of flame caressed her neck, I raced after her, seizing her by the arms and throwing her to the ground. Her eyes were fixed and staring, her hands moving up and down in useless fluttering little motions by her side. I was truly afraid then, for her, not of the fire.
She shook herself and rolled over on her hands and knees before standing up. She dusted herself down, her expression seemingly normal again.
‘It was beautiful. Wasn’t it beautiful, Alice?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We should go home now, Annie.’ Darkness had fallen. We had walked for miles and miles, and I had no idea how far we had come.
‘Home.’ She sighed, and brushed her hair from her forehead. ‘We’ll be going home soon.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I answered, ‘of course we’re going home.’
‘Back home,’ she replied. ‘Back home to England.’
In the distance, I saw the figures of men outlined against the still-glowing firelight.
‘Frederick is coming to find me,’ she said, her eyes following mine.
‘They’re all looking for us,’ I said. I knew one of the men would be Philip. Perhaps it was the heat but something inside me had melted. I felt like a grown woman at last. At our feet lay a cauldron of embers where the palm tree once stood, thick fire reduced to a porridge of glowing dust. I took my stick and prodded it this way and that as we waited for the men.
In the morning, I saw a cloud of seagulls in the distance. They had moved inland to pick over morsels of roast lizards and grasshoppers among the ashes and last tendrils of smoke. I listened to the low murmur of Annie and Frederick’s voices in the next room. Some things had been resolved. I was happier than I had ever been and inescapably filled with sadness. Soon I would live here, and they would be gone.
Acknowledgements
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN DURING my tenure of the Creative New Zealand Michael King Fellowship, for which I extend my grateful thanks.
It is hard to imagine completing a book without the input of my editors Harriet Allan and Anna Rogers. Harriet offers unfailing encouragement, and Anna has provoked and challenged me to think more deeply about my work for many years, always with kindness and patience. I cannot thank either of them enough. Thanks, too, to Alexandra Bishop for her skilful input into the editing process.
For early reading of some of these stories, advice and comments, I thank Ian Kidman, Michael Harlow, Mary McCallum and Alison Kember. Special thanks to Alison for introducing me to the basics of Vietnamese, and for support when I needed it most. I am grateful to Dr Margaret Sparrow for her advice. Amelia Herrero-Kidman reminded me of Jack Kerouac’s novel Dharma Bums. And, I have never forgotten a lunc
htime reading, in 1990, when Richard Ford read from his novel Wild Life and talked about his fascination with fire, something I share.
Some of these stories have been previously published in The Best New Zealand Fiction 4 (ed. Fiona Farrell, Vintage, Auckland, 2007), The Best New Zealand Fiction 5 (ed. Owen Marshall, Vintage, Auckland, 2008), Second Violins: New Stories Inspired by Katherine Mansfield (ed. Marco Sonzogni, Vintage, Auckland, 2008) and Lost in Translation: New Zealand Stories (ed. Marco Sonzogni, Vintage, Auckland, 2010).
The first lines of ‘The History of It’ come from notes towards an unfinished story by Katherine Mansfield. A brief extract from ‘The Trouble with Fire’ (italicised) appears in Lady Barker’s Station Life in New Zealand. I acknowledge Dick Scott’s book Seven Lives on Salt River for information about Gordon Coates’s background.
Fiona Kidman
About the Author
FIONA KIDMAN HAS WRITTEN MORE than twenty books, mainly novels and collections of short stories. Her most recent novel, The Captive Wife, was a joint winner of the Readers’ Choice Award and a finalist for the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
She has been awarded a number of prizes, honours and fellowships, including the Mobil Short Story Award, the Victoria University Writers Fellowship, and the OBE for services to literature. In 2006 she was the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, France. In 2008 she was the Creative New Zealand Michael King Fellow.
Fiona Kidman is a Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. She lives in Wellington.
Copyright
The assistance of Creative New Zealand is gratefully acknowledged by the publisher
A VINTAGE BOOK published by Random House New Zealand, 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand
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First published 2011
© 2011 Fiona Kidman
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ISBN 978 1 86979 360 9
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