Here, she said, holding it out, its rim pinched between her thumb and arched finger. The tap’s there.
The children just wanted to go: they knew the old woman wanted them gone, and their hate of her and her house was even greater than their fear of the fire. But something about the woman’s snobbery now made Ella determined to stay. Stewie was crying from his burns and Ella asked the older lady if she had some old children’s clothes she might borrow to protect her son from sparks and embers.
The woman opened a cupboard, and inside Ella saw shelf after shelf of neatly ironed and stored children’s clothes. Good clothes. Most of it boys’ stuff. She could smell the camphor, something she always associated with timelessness, a reassuring smell of place and things that never changed. The old woman turned around and passed to Ella a folded piece of clothing. Ella unfolded it with a flick of her wrists.
It was a girl’s old, worn red dress.
Thank you, said Ella.
Somehow she could not reconcile the idea of a safe refuge with such implacable humiliation. With her son in the tatty red dress, she took her family back out into the fire, believing it not only to be right but also wise.
When they got back out onto the road, the fire no longer made any sort of sense. There was wind behind them and wind coming at them, fire everywhere and wind whipping up willy-willies of swirling red embers, glowing magic cones that turned everything they touched into flame. They had been fleeing from the flames but now the flames were all around them.
We’re surrounded, Stewie said, and cried again.
That’s enough, Ella said, grabbing him. We’ve just got to get to Hobart. Get behind me, hold each other’s hands, and whatever you do, don’t let go.
So linked, this thin line of hope and terror continued into the wind and smoke and flame. Mary started to cry because her feet were blistering.
We’ll fix your feet when we get to Hobart, Ella said.
There were trees and houses burning around them and now in front of them and Ella kept urging them to hurry. She was carrying Stewie now, with Mary behind her holding the hem of her dress with one hand and Jess with the other, and all of them terrified of what would become of them if they did not keep holding on to each other. Through the noise of the flames and the wind there was a crash, and up ahead a tree fell onto the road in a ball of flame. Ella found a path skirting around the flames and they kept on, past it, past a burning car wreck and past a fallen, burning telegraph pole with electric cables running like knitting wool around them. But the fire grew worse in front of them than it was behind, Mary’s feet were blistering badly, the heat was incredible, and suddenly Ella halted and turned to face her children.
We’ve got to go back, kids. Quickly, she said. No buggering around now.
She never swore. They knew something had changed.
Quickly, she kept saying. Quickly!
But what about Hobart? asked Jess, who had said nothing. If we get to Hobart we’ll be safe. Her voice was panting. We’ve got to!
And Jess shoved around and starting heading past them into the flames. Ella grabbed her and slapped her hard across the face.
We’ll be the Sunday roast if we go any further that way. We’ve just got to find somewhere to shelter from the fire.
Jess started screaming and Ella slapped her hard a second time. Jess burst into tears and dropped her record player, which smashed to pieces on the road. Their throats burnt with the tar of smoke, it was hard to breathe, their eyes were streaming and snot was running from their noses. It was impossible to see much more than a few steps in front, and they only knew where they were by occasionally sighting the beginning of a drive, a bend in the road, a sign.
They came to a house that had no garden and just one old apple tree and a fibro garden shed that sat in the middle of a dead lawn. There was nothing to burn and the fire was roaring up behind them; little fires were appearing on the dead lawn where there was nothing to burn but they were burning anyway.
Here, said Ella, opening the door of the fibro shed, thinking, Here?—It’s here we all die?
They huddled inside, holding each other in spite of the ferocious heat, hardly able to breathe. It was as if the fire was eating all the air in the world. They heard a sound like a jet airliner bursting over the top of them. An obscene tongue of flame, a good yard long, licked in under the door like a hungry animal, and Jess leapt back screaming and bumped a shelf full of bottles.
Jess! Ella yelled.
She was holding the shelf. It was full of bottles of brushes in mineral turps and methylated spirits. She hung on to that shelf and told them not to move.
Whatever you do, she said, don’t bump this shelf or me. Look at Gene, Ella said.