by JH Fletcher
‘Forgive my saying so, Doctor, but I think our listeners can imagine the courage it takes to drive through a bushfire burning right across the road …’
So it went on: encouraging, not confrontational; nevertheless, in total command. Like the old days, she thought, when at last it was over. Perhaps not quite; I was the one who walked away, after all.
Driving slowly home through the hills — what a pleasure to see scrub that had not been burnt out — the memory made her wonder if she’d done the right thing. Was at once furious with herself. Good or bad, it was a bit late to be wondering about it now.
The consequences of the interview astounded her. Several newspapers contacted her; two television channels wanted her on their programmes; everyone was talking about Doctor Julia Anderson, heroine.
She made the same protest to every interviewer. ‘Other people did much more than I did.’
It was true; it was irrelevant. She was young, she was good-looking, she was a woman. She was what the public wanted; or so one of the interviewers, something of a personality herself, told her.
‘Fame,’ she said. ‘Never mind if you deserve it or not. Enjoy it while you’ve got it. It won’t last.’
‘Thank heavens for that,’ Julia said.
Nor did it; within a day or two the world, or at least the media version of it, had moved on.
There was talk, after the fire. In the pub it got almost as hot and angry as the fire itself.
‘Where did it start, eh?’ Dennis Kelly demanded. ‘Behind the McCreedy place, that’s where. Hedley Warren warned them not to make fires this time of the year, but they took no darn notice.’
‘Mike Warren dead,’ Pete Spence agreed, in a gallows echo. ‘And Stevie’s wife. All because of them hippies.’
The fact that one of the hippies, a baby a few months old, had also died made no difference. All that mattered was the property destroyed, the locals who had died, the hippies who had caused it. And, as the beer went down, the fact that something ought to be done about it.
48
HEDLEY
2000
In the aftermath of the fire, there were other repercussions.
Hedley was alive, but barely. Having escaped the flames, he had been felled by a heart attack that had hit him within an hour of crossing the bridge to safety. This time his case had gone beyond Julia Anderson; beyond Don Carlyle, come to that. Now it was intensive care in the hospital and no argument. Even so, the specialist was grave.
‘You must understand, Mrs Warren, for a man of his age and general state of health —’
‘He’s as fit as a mallee bull.’
‘But his heart, Mrs Warren. To have undergone such stress … It’s a miracle he’s alive at all.’
‘When are you going to get him on his feet again?’ Kath asked impatiently; words could tie you up quicker than any spider.
The specialist sighed. ‘I have to tell you, Mrs Warren, the prognosis is not good.’
‘You mean he’s dying?’
‘We can always hope, of course.’ A wincy smile pincered the air, tentatively. ‘Prayer, perhaps? There are those who swear by it.’
Kath herself was as strong as ever.
‘You’re a miracle lady, if ever I saw one,’ Jane Ogle had told her. She had been right, because Kath had somehow survived not one fire but two.
Some of the sparks from the fire must have lodged somewhere in the structure of the old house. If, when Danielle pitched up and found her grandmother sleeping, she hadn’t decided to get the old lady down to the town, Kath might still have been snoring her socks off when, a couple of hours later, the house erupted in a fire that in no time had gutted it from one end to the other.
As it was, she was as good as gold. All her bits and pieces gone, of course, her only clothes the ones she stood up in, but who cared about that? She was alive.
It didn’t feel much like being alive.
‘I don’t even have a toothbrush …’ It was important; not to polish her teeth, but as a symbol of everything she had been and hoped she was still. There were moments when she doubted, pinching herself as she had on the veranda of the house, to make sure she was still there.
Now the nurse escorted her from the specialist’s room and down the corridor, where impatient heels beat a sharp and military tattoo.
‘Clack,’ Kath said. ‘Clack, clack.’ The nurse risked a sideways glance; age took them like that sometimes.
Kath intercepted the look. ‘I was in that fire,’ she said. ‘It seems to have made me much more aware of everything going on around me.’
The nurse hoped she could dump her on someone directly and escape.
In the waiting room Craig was flipping through a dog-eared magazine. He stood up. Her hopes realised, the nurse fled.
‘Want some coffee?’ Or whatever might pass for coffee.
He brought the cup, sat down again. ‘How is he?’
‘The specialist doesn’t think he’ll make it.’
‘Is he awake?’
‘Yes. Wants to speak to you, you got a minute.’
‘Now?’
‘Might as well get it over with. It’s still visiting time.’
‘You’ll wait?’
‘Of course I won’t wait. I’m going to pinch your car and drive to Sydney.’ She smiled. ‘I always fancied having a look at that Kings Cross.’
Hedley was frail, but less so than Craig had expected, the eyes as sharp as ever.
‘Made it at last, have you?’
‘Not for long,’ Craig cautioned. ‘The nurse says you need rest.’
Hedley cared nothing for the nurse or anything she might say. ‘Plenty of time for that.’ The eyes sharpened maliciously. ‘I hear you’re making out with a Jap girl?’
It was a shock to have it thrown at him, but he wasn’t going to back off. ‘I know one, yes. She lives in Singapore. She’s the granddaughter of that pilot Dad found in Queensland when he was a kid.’
Hedley didn’t care about that. ‘You know what I think about Japs.’
‘She wasn’t born until after the war.’
‘Maybe. Going to marry her, are you?’
‘We haven’t talked about it.’
‘If you do, where will you live? In Singapore?’
‘In South Australia.’ Decided to risk it. ‘Here, maybe. If there’s anything to come home for.’
‘I don’t see a Jap girl settling down in the mid-north.’
‘She might surprise you.’
‘Maybe. Know who told me about her?’
‘Danielle.’
‘Got a head on her, that one.’ Hedley laughed feebly, neck straining on the pillow. ‘Knows what she wants and goes for it. I like that. Got it wrong this time, though. I hate the Japs and don’t believe in mixed marriages, but that’s your business.’ His voice was weakening; an imperious finger beckoned Craig closer. ‘Truth is, it’s not important who you marry. Land is the only thing that matters to people like us. You can rely on it. More than you can say for a woman.’ Again the tinny laugh, the straining throat, the Adam’s apple like a jagged rock. ‘Long as she knows how to look after the house, cook the meals. Look after the land, it’ll always treat you right. No betrayal with land.’ The diamond-sharp eyes sought Craig’s face. ‘It brought me through the war. You know that?’
‘You told me.’ A hundred times.
Hedley, lost in memory, took no notice. ‘So many died. City boys, mostly. Didn’t have anything to keep them going.’
‘A lot of them would have had wives, girlfriends —’
‘Lose your wife, you can always get another one. Girlfriends? Dime a dozen. I did some terrible things. They come back to me sometimes, even now, but I’d do them again tomorrow, if I had to. For the sake of the land …’ He turned his head on the pillow. ‘Radio’s no job for a man. You planning to stay in it?’
Even at this point of his life, Hedley was not a man you trusted with confidences. ‘Depends what options I’ve got.’
>
‘I always saw you as a farmer. But those hands of yours …’
Craig smiled down at his soft white palms. ‘They’d soon toughen up.’
‘They’d have to. The question is, boy, would you?’
‘I was tough enough to walk away when I thought I was getting nothing,’ Craig said. ‘Tough enough to come back now. But there’s only one way to find out: try it.’
‘I haven’t got the time for that. Well, we’ll see.’ And closed his eyes. ‘You can go now,’ he said.
Back in the waiting room Kath said, ‘What did he want?’
‘He didn’t say.’
Again Rebecca made the trip north. It was inconvenient — there was a gymkhana at Mount Pleasant and she had wanted to be seen there — but that couldn’t be helped. Arrived at the hospital to be met by Kath and Danielle. They told her that this time Hedley probably was on the way out, after all.
‘So sad,’ she said, thinking, About time. ‘Is he able to talk?’
Kath looked her up and down. ‘Why?’
‘I’d like a word with him.’
‘What about?’ Danielle asked.
Rebecca had hoped to grab Kath while no-one else was around, but Danielle was doing her leech act, and time might be important. Dean had said, Get in to see him if you can. Make sure he understands that we’ll sue the estate if we don’t get our share. Amazing, how these oldies hate the thought of that.
‘A personal matter,’ she told her sister.
For a woman, Danielle was extraordinarily powerful. When she took her arm, Rebecca winced. ‘Maybe we’d better talk first.’ She half-led, half-dragged her into the study and closed the door. ‘Forget any smart ideas, okay?’
Indignantly Rebecca rubbed her arm. ‘I don’t know what you mean —’
‘I’m telling you. Don’t think you’re going to cut me out. You want a slice, fair enough. But if you and Dean have any ideas of grabbing the lot —’
‘We wouldn’t do that,’ Rebecca lied unconvincingly.
‘I’ll nail you, if you do.’ And slapped in front of her the copy of the letter that she had talked out of Cedric Culpepper. ‘What would Grandpa say, if he knew that two years ago you were planning to turn him off his own farm?’
Rebecca’s lips were white. ‘How did you get hold of that?’
‘It’s not important. What matters is that you wrote it. If I show him this, you won’t get a bean.’
Fury, as always, made Rebecca spiteful. ‘You needn’t think he’ll leave it to you, either. Not if he hears about you and Hugo Welke.’
‘Why not? I’m the only one who can look after the place, now Michael’s dead.’
That had been a nine-days’ wonder, indeed: Michael Warren in his burned-out cottage, dead in the bath with his uncle’s wife.
Everyone had known what was going on between them, but this was different. This was proof, irrefutable. Tongues had wagged most joyfully. Except one tongue, which sought refuge in the silence it had always favoured.
People can say what they like. They never understood her. Jo was a talker, she liked to be with people, to have a laugh. I couldn’t give her that. Who could blame her for making her own friends? That’s all they were. Friends. As for the rest … I won’t believe a word of it. The fire came; what more sensible place to be than in a bath of water? People can say what they like.
Using his thoughts to drown doubt and thereby reinforcing it.
Friends …
The word echoed mockingly in the indifferent air. Perhaps, in time, the covert looks that followed him whenever he went to town would die. People, he thought. They see you got something worthwhile, can’t wait to smash it. They leave you nothing.
And went out alone to his sheep, to tears and to silence.
49
JULIA
2000
With his grandfather in hospital and unlikely to come out again, Craig returned to the mid-north. Phoned Julia straight off.
‘Another business call?’ she wondered.
He laughed. ‘Not this time. I was just thinking, as we’re both in the area, whether you’d be free to have a drink with me?’ A week earlier, she would have turned him down flat; now, after the broadcast, it would have seemed churlish. They agreed they didn’t want anything fancy, arranged to meet for a meal and a couple of drinks in the pub.
When she arrived she was wondering what they would find to talk about; it was easier to hold a conversation with someone you saw every day than with someone you hadn’t seen for years. Particularly for those who had been so close.
‘I’m so sorry about Michael …’ At least that topic was safe, in what might so easily become a minefield of recriminatory memories.
Yet Craig had a different viewpoint. ‘It’s Steve I’m sorry for. That wife of his …’
‘I never met her.’
‘Finding her the way they did takes away dignity and value. Not from her — she’s dead — but from Steve. The poor bloke didn’t deserve that.’
The dining section was behind an archway; from their table they could see that there was a good crowd in the bar. ‘No women,’ Julia noticed. Which was unusual. There was anger, though, menacing and unmistakable.
‘What’s going on?’ she wondered.
‘I’ll find out.’
Craig went for refills; when he came back, his face was grave. ‘They’re talking of driving out to the McCreedy place.’
‘What for?’
‘They think the people out there caused the fire.’
Julia was outraged. ‘I treated one of them. A baby with asthma. Correction, I was supposed to treat him. They brought him in, but it was too late. He was dead. If you’d seen the parents … How can those fools say they caused the fire?’
Bev Lucey, the publican’s wife, came through to take their order. ‘Like old times, seeing you two here again.’
Julia said, ‘What’s going on out there, Bev?’
‘They’ll be taking a drive, just now. That’ll get them out of our hair, eh?’
‘A drive where?’
Bev heard something in Julia’s voice and the shutters came down at once. ‘Just a drive,’ she said.
In the bar the voices were growing louder, the anger more intense. ‘They’re certainly getting steamed up,’ Craig said.
‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t feel like eating anything at the moment.’ Julia put down the menu and stood up, ignoring Bev’s affronted expression. She looked at Craig. ‘Coming?’
‘Do I need to ask where we’re going?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
They went swiftly past the men clustered at the bar. Red faces, raised voices, fury lapping at the pub’s walls. ‘Whipping themselves up,’ Craig said.
They had driven here separately, but it made more sense to stick together now. Julia led the way to her car.
It was a ten-minute drive to the McCreedy place. Even with the windows closed, the acrid stench of the ash was choking.
‘What do we do when we get there?’
‘Warn them, I suppose.’
The house was in darkness. ‘Surely they’re not in bed?’ Craig said. ‘It’s only nine o’clock.’
‘Doesn’t matter if they are. We still need to warn them.’ She drove into the yard, parking with the bonnet facing the entrance. After she’d killed the motor, the silence was absolute.
‘Maybe they’ve done a runner?’
She shook her head. ‘The bus is still in the shed.’
There was a scraping of moon, enough to cast a grey glow across the breast of the hill behind the house. By contrast, the homestead was black.
‘We might be disturbing them for nothing …’
‘I’m willing to risk it.’
She had not opened the car door before the darkness around them was flooded by headlights as three cars, one behind the other, turned off the track into the yard.
‘Too late,’ Craig said.
The cars drew up in the entrance and switc
hed off their engines. The headlights went out. Now the darkness was as thick as felt. For a while nothing, then there came the thunk, thunk, thunk of car doors opening and closing. There were about a dozen men in all. They formed a group and began to move purposefully towards the door of the silent house. No more yelling or show of anger, but silence made their actions all the more menacing.
Julia switched on her headlights, high beam. The men stopped abruptly and turned towards the glare, hands raised to shield their eyes from the sudden deluge of light. The silence screamed danger. With the headlights still on, Julia opened the door. Craig moved to do the same; at once she turned and put her hand on his.
‘Stay here.’ She saw his expression: affronted, concerned. She smiled. ‘Trust me. Please?’
Without waiting for his reply, she got out, closing the car door deliberately behind her. And stood, while the huddle of angry men watched, trying to work out what was going on. It was a lonely place she found herself in, as lonely as anywhere she had been in her life. The silent house, the yard so empty and cold for all the people it contained, the sense that only seconds divided them from catastrophe and that she had no idea — now, when it was too late — what she was going to do to prevent it.
Tremors of terror ran down her legs as she walked towards the bunched men.
‘Who’s that?’
She did not know who had asked the question.
‘Doctor Anderson.’
It helped; everyone here knew how hard she had worked to patch people up during the fire.
‘What you doing here, Doctor?’ The same voice, but uncertain, with none of its earlier truculence.
Good, she thought. She managed to inject a note of laughter into her voice. ‘I might ask the same of you.’
‘Go home, Doctor,’ the man said. ‘You got no business here.’
‘Maybe I’m the best judge of that.’ Still speaking lightly, still with the touch of good humour, but showing her authority, none the less. I am in charge. She was used to being obeyed; these men, in their dealings with doctors, were used to doing what they were told. It gave her a huge advantage now.