Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  Both exhausted, we didn’t even speak to one another as we rode up in the lift with another family and found our room amongst the many on the first floor. In 103, there were two single beds, a window with a spectacular view of the ocean, and a bathroom. I took my schoolbag into the bathroom and took a shower, using a white hotel face washer and the hotel shampoo to try to wash the night’s dirt, smoke and memories of Brody from my skin and hair.

  I wasn’t going to walk naked through a room with my father in it, so when I was out of the shower, I got out a clean T-shirt and underpants from my hastily packed bag, and made a modest skirt out of a clean towel. My skin was shiny and pink all over by the time I walked out of the bathroom.

  Dad was sitting on the edge of a bed, speaking on the room telephone. I could tell that he was speaking to Mum by the low voice he switched to when he saw me.

  As I dumped my bag and dirty clothes next to the other bed, Dad handed me the phone with a heavy, ‘It’s your mother.’

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said tiredly into the receiver as Dad closed himself in the bathroom. ‘Pretty crazy night, I guess Dad told you.’

  ‘Sophie, this is very important,’ said Mum. ‘Did you have anything to do with the fire? Anything at all?’

  I had never heard her voice so shaky.

  5

  It must have been six or seven something in the morning. I was exhausted, but not to the point where I wasn’t going to defend myself. ‘How could you think I was responsible for a fire?’ I growled, sitting up on the bed and frowning. From the bathroom, some pipes groaned and I heard the shower turn on.

  My mother took a sharp breath. ‘Your dad said you were out of the house—’

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything!’ I fired. ‘I was at home, by myself, I got bored and I went for a walk. The fire was completely on the opposite side of the street. You want to know how it started, phone the fire brigade! I can’t believe you think I’d deliberately—’

  ‘Of course I don’t think you’d deliberately—’

  ‘Then what is this about?’

  Again, Mum gave a sharp intake of breath. ‘Where did you walk?’

  ‘Down the street!’ As my hand reached for my pendant, I realised I’d forgotten to take it off before my shower. It was damp, but the moisture against my hand was faintly reviving. I realised that my mother was only going to keep asking questions until I told her everything she wanted to know. ‘I walked down the street, and it was a clear night and I had my phone so I walked down to the beach.’

  ‘On the sand? By yourself?’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying to restrain sarcasm, ‘I walked alongside the main road, in the lights, and I looked at the water from there. I ran into a friend from school and we hung out in the rotunda for a while and then he walked me home.’ Retelling the story it was difficult to reconcile the charming, gentlemanly Brody from the rotunda with the Brody who’d slapped me flat in the ballroom. ‘We saw the fire, I ran and got Dad, my friend went in the opposite direction and then I was back in the house.’

  ‘Who is this friend – not that boy from the ice-creamery?’

  ‘NO!’ I roared. It was tiredness, it was because I didn’t want to get into an argument … it was because, even if he didn’t want me, I wasn’t going to give Brody up just because Mum didn’t like the way he looked.

  ‘Where is your friend now?’ Mum asked.

  ‘He was brought here and checked by a doctor and left. He was coming home from a party – he wasn’t drunk, Mum, he left because he was bored – and we randomly ran into one another. If he hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have known what to do in the fire.’

  ‘Your friend knows a lot about fires,’ Mum said.

  I sighed. ‘He probably grew up in the country or something.’ It struck me that it was interesting that Brody was so quick to action once we’d registered the fire. I thought of his battered snake-skin shoes and the length of his hair and knew instinctively that beating up local dairy farmers was the closest to country living he’d ever get.

  ‘He’d been down at the beach—’

  ‘No, in the park,’ I corrected.

  ‘But he might have been down at the beach. Did he have sand on him? Sand on his hands, or in his pockets?’

  I remembered, all too clearly, how soft and sand-less Brody’s hands had been on my face and my shoulders. ‘No sand,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Not that you could see,’ said Mum.

  ‘Why on earth does it matter if he was covered in sand, Mum? For crying out loud …’

  There was silence for a few seconds on the other end of the line. I slumped into the pillows behind me on the bed.

  Mum cleared her throat. ‘Your father’s worried about what you and I discussed in the car,’ she said.

  ‘If someone wanted to kill Dad, wouldn’t they just torch our house?’ I said, my blood rising.

  ‘This friend of yours – I don’t want you spending time with him until I get back to Yarrindi,’ she said.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ I snapped, and slammed the phone down.

  6

  I must have plummeted into a deep sleep almost immediately, because the next thing my brain registered was a hazy dream world. In the dream, I was in a pet store. Someone I couldn’t see walked me towards a glass tank and took out an octopus, its head about the size of a small rockmelon.

  The octopus was black, and its tentacles had fluorescent blue rings; its skin felt soft and moist as it slowly crawled up my arm, and not unpleasant. I was smiling at the little creature when it reached the top of my arm – but a stabbing pain suddenly burned a hole through my shoulder and the octopus tentacles were tight around my arm. I tried to cry out but venom from the sting had seeped into my blood and I was paralysed. Tentacles tightened around my throat and I felt myself choking. The octopus slid towards my face and covered one of my eyes with its heaving, slimy body. I felt the beak under its body tear at the flesh of my face—

  ‘Sophie! Sophie, wake up!’

  The octopus was ripping away my face – I was powerless to stop it.

  ‘Sophie – you’ll want to see this.’

  Some kind of electronic noise sounded in the space around me. In the coldness of hotel air conditioning I became aware of a shape to my right that radiated comforting warmth. My eyes fluttered open and, although my throat was still tight, I knew the dream was finished.

  Dad was dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed, watching TV.

  ‘What is it?’ I said weakly, sitting up, waiting for my brain to be awake enough to sync the pictures on the television screen to the sound that went with them. I perceived that the images were something to do with police before the recognition hit. We were watching the news; on screen was helicopter footage of our street. They were talking about the fire.

  ‘They’re going to talk about you in a second,’ Dad said. I glanced at him in alarm.

  A female reporter in a dark red suit was standing on some kind of promontory as she spoke. In the background was the ocean as well as a blue sky streaked with long, dark, smoky clouds. ‘… although several inhabitants of Boronia Road were treated for smoke inhalation. While most of the evacuated residents will return to their homes, or what remains of them, tomorrow, those who stayed to battle the fire through the night credit a brave pair of local teenagers with their survival.’

  The image cut to an interview with a man I didn’t recognise, whose face was filthy with smoke. Text in the bottom left corner of the screen read, Yarrindi Fire, Tom – Resident. Tom said, ‘We were just at home, y’know, and this girl comes running to the door saying, “It’s a fire! Get out the hose, get towels under your doors!” and that’s probably what saved the house.’

  The screen cut to another person, a woman. The text on this screen read, Yarrindi Fire, Nerida – Resident. Nerida said, ‘The boy was very calm and just told us what to do and if we knew who he was we would thank him to his face.’

  Now the image returned to the reporter. I was still
reeling from being talked about on television and didn’t catch what she was saying.

  What I did hear her say was, ‘When the teenagers are identified, the State Emergency Service will be nominating them for bravery medals. This is Jenny Kent, in Yarrindi.’

  My brain was fully awake now. Yarrindi wasn’t big enough for two female journalists with the surname Kent. This was Hazel Kent’s mother. The one who’d tried to do an article for the paper on a violent incident at a soccer match between Yarrindi High and Shoalhaven. The one who’d tried to find out more about Brody Meine, and failed.

  7

  ‘What about that then, eh?’ said Dad, slapping his knees.

  ‘What time is it?’ I said, wriggling under the bedsheets, looking for my towel.

  ‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ said Dad. ‘I know you probably need more sleep, but the kitchen has extended breakfast until midday, and I thought you’d want to eat.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, wiping my eyes and sliding out of the bed, improvising a skirt with the towel again. ‘How do you know about what’s happening?’

  Dad indicated a piece of A4 paper on the bedside table. ‘They slip these under the doors – it’s the easiest way of telling everyone what’s going on. Get dressed, your father’s hungry.’

  When we entered the breakfast room we saw straightaway that the fire had ruined Yarrindi’s spectacular vistas, at least for today. Through the enormous restaurant window the air was smoky and tinged yellow, and it hung over the ocean like a thick blanket. Specks of black floated in the slow breeze and I guessed they were spent embers or charred leaves. Many of the faces of the people seated at the dining tables reflected the grimness of the view. Everyone looked tired, and more than one baby was crying.

  My mood brightened when I clocked the serving tables heaving with breakfast. In shirts as white as the starched tablecloths, waiters added croissants to the pastry table with careful tongs, refilled cups of coffee and were the only people in the room with brushed hair or makeup. One of them, a tall woman with her hair in a perfect side part, showed Dad and I to a table. We wasted no time in heading over to the food.

  On our first trip we collected mini pork sausages, hash browns, bacon, fried eggs and thick toast. We returned for bowls of cereal, orange juice and plates of fresh fruit. I was suddenly starving, and while I ate, I was gently distracted from the crying babies, worried-looking women and sallow men. A third trip brought refilled glasses of juice, pots of vanilla yoghurt and an entire plate full of mini fruit Danishes.

  ‘You know, they still have a cheese and cold meat selection,’ said Dad.

  I popped a second blueberry pastry into my mouth. ‘I’ve never had a hotel breakfast before. I’m trying to savour the moment.’

  ‘I can’t even remember if you’ve stayed in a hotel before,’ Dad said.

  ‘On a weekend school trip to Canberra in Year 6,’ I said. ‘We just got those miniature cereal boxes and milk.’

  ‘I wish these circumstances were different,’ he said, looking sadly at the smoky view.

  I stopped chewing. ‘Dad, it’s going to be all right.’

  ‘I want you to apologise to your mother,’ he said.

  ‘She should apologise to me.’

  ‘Sophie, that woman would do anything for you. She’s giving you some grace because she knows you’re recovering from what happened last night—’

  ‘I went for one walk by myself so obviously if the street burns down that’s what’s caused it. What about this?’ I shook my pendant at him. ‘This is our agreement and I’ve kept it. I don’t go looking for trouble, Dad. I’m not that kind of person.’ A momentary recollection of drinking red wine fluttered into my mind. I pushed it away.

  ‘I know.’ Dad’s hands smoothed down the surface of the tablecloth. ‘Your mother’s concerned that … that with her attention focused on your nan, she’s not able to protect us the way she usually does.’

  ‘Dad, she can’t stop a bushfire by waving a stick of rosemary in front of it.’

  ‘Actually, she wants me to find a live rooster and some hazel twigs.’

  ‘And I’m the one who’s supposed to apologise!’ I said. ‘Yesterday I started the fire, today a chicken’s going to put it out. I realise we’re all a bit in shock from what’s happened, but come on.’

  Dad’s face didn’t move. He stared at the table.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Her protection is what? Being hysterical if I even look at boys, scaring away my friends, spending my childhood making me paranoid there were evil people in the street we had to run away from? When I was twelve and got measles she wanted to rub crystals over my face to cure it and you were the one with enough brains to drive me to the hospital. Where does she get this crazy stuff from? Why are you suddenly letting her go on with it?’

  ‘Your mother, like all of us, is not perfect. But she would kill people to keep you safe.’

  ‘That’s not protection, Dad,’ I said. ‘That’s control.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, in a voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it. His gaze rose towards mine. ‘Maybe you should talk about this with your mum.’

  He said it with such grave seriousness that two seconds later, when something heavy landed on my shoulder, I jolted so violently my cutlery went toppling to the floor.

  8

  ‘Oh, man, I’m sorry,’ said Joel Morland, dropping to his knees and reaching around the floor for the cutlery. ‘That was really embarrassing.’

  ‘You just gave me a fright, Joel,’ I said when I caught my breath again. ‘I guess everyone’s a bit—’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, standing up. I noticed he was wearing a long pair of loose denim shorts and a black T-shirt. ‘Just seeing the smoke was enough to, uh …’ He looked awkward, as if he didn’t know where to stand.

  I shot my dad a look, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. I turned back to Joel and said, ‘This is my dad, Dave Morgan. Do you want to join us?’

  ‘Is that okay?’ he asked sheepishly.

  ‘I’m going to go and get some tea,’ said Dad. After my outburst, I guess he was relieved by the interruption. ‘Do you drink tea, Joel?’

  ‘That’d be great,’ said Joel, tucking a loose strand of hair from his ponytail back behind his ear. He sat at the table as Dad stood up and walked away.

  ‘Your dad seems pretty relaxed after what’s happened,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t believe it. He’s been a bit crazy this morning.’

  ‘At least he’s not crying,’ said Joel. ‘My mum’s a wreck, hey. They reckon we’ve lost our rumpus room at least. Mum kept all our childhood toys and stuff in cupboards out there and she’s really devastated. I’ve been like, “Mum, it’s not like I’m hysterical about a teddy bear I haven’t seen since I was six,” but she’s not listening.’ He leaned closer. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I really had to get away from her.’

  ‘Were you at home when the fire started?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah, at Belinda Maitland’s party. They brought a bus out to get us and bring us here.’

  Again, resentment towards Belinda rumbled within me. I heard Nikki’s voice call Joel a ‘total loser’, as she had on my first day of school. The breakfast in my stomach soured at the thought that even a total loser got the invitation to Belinda’s that I didn’t.

  ‘I got told you were at something up in Sydney.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, counterfeiting an embarrassed smile. ‘I was supposed to go to a party with my best friend but I got the weekends mixed up.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m so dumb.’

  ‘You should’ve come anyway.’

  ‘I just felt bad that I’d already told Belinda I couldn’t make it. Was it good?’

  Joel sat back in his chair. ‘The girls were all dressed up and that was interesting. Would’ve been good to have someone new to talk to, though. Most people in our year have known one another since primary school.’

  He smiled. I suspected that Joel was trying to flirt with me. I couldn’t decide if I was
in the mood to play along or not. ‘I didn’t know you lived in Boronia,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you catch the bus?’

  ‘I’ve got my bike,’ said Joel, then seriously, ‘It’s a road bike.’ A panicky darkness flickered across his face. ‘That is, if it’s still there. I’ve just realised I left it at Belinda’s when I got on the bus. I locked it but … Do you have her number or something so I can …’ His voice trailed off. ‘Man, this is so weird,’ he said, looking around the room. ‘There are a hundred people wearing the same T-shirt and all I’m thinking about is my bike.’

  I followed his gaze. Slowly I realised that the majority of people in the room were wearing the same navy T-shirt with white writing – including my dad, who was standing over the tea urn having a conversation with a short man with silver hair.

  ‘They gave them out this morning,’ explained Joel, ‘with paper underpants and stuff, told people who needed emergency clothing that they could get it in the ballroom. The shirts are from the Yarrindi Show two years ago when the council got too many printed. At least they’ve come in handy.’

  I saw Dad walking back towards our table with a waitress helping him to carry fresh cups of tea and a little milk jug.

  Joel leaned towards me. ‘You see Meine in here before? In the ballroom?’

  ‘He must’ve got caught up in the fire somehow.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Joel, with a snort. ‘He’s got no friends up on Boronia. He and that weird guy he lives with are south side all the way. You know he was at Belinda’s and then just left for no reason?’

  Weird guy? I made my face blank. Joel leaned even closer.

  ‘Brody Meine’s up on Boronia and all of a sudden a fire breaks out?’ Joel hissed. ‘Doesn’t take much to connect the dots.’

  Dad and the waitress landed the teas and equipment on our table with a porcelain clatter.

  ‘Tea?’ said Dad.

  ‘Hey, later,’ Joel said to me, ‘if we’re still stuck in this hotel … do you want to hang out?’