Stillwater Creek (31 page)

It was burning wood she could smell, as if the bush was on fire. Then she heard the clanging of a bell from the direction of the town centre. Over the top of the hedge she caught a glimpse of a fire engine wheeling around the war memorial. At the sight of a spiral of smoke arising from the northern part of the square, her heart began to pound. A fire here, right in the heart of Jingera! The hotel perhaps, or the old hall opposite it. Both buildings flanked the road up to the school. Zidra might be caught there, all the children might be caught there. Ilona had to get up to the school somehow and the quickest way must surely be the back way, along the lane behind the houses opposite.

As she opened her front gate, she noticed Peter's Armstrong Siddeley parked outside the post office. Why he hadn't called in to see her she couldn't understand. Although she wanted to see him, she hesitated not even for a fraction of a second. After crossing the road, she walked rapidly up the narrow alleyway between the houses opposite. There was no time to lose. The column of smoke from the direction of the hotel was expanding and spreading out to form a dense cloud over the town. Once she had reached the lane leading up to the headland she broke into a run.

Peter had spent the last hour sitting in the shade at the edge of the lagoon with bare feet immersed in the water. It had been his intention to visit Ilona as soon as he'd arrived in Jingera but when he'd reached the front gate, he'd realised it was right on lunchtime. Not a good time to call unannounced. That's what he'd told himself anyway as he marched down the hill, and cut through the bush on the western side of the lagoon just before the footbridge. Here he'd found a comfortable place in which to sit out the lunch hour. At two o'clock he'd go back to Ilona's place, or maybe just before.

At precisely ten minutes to two he removed his feet from the water. The wind that had sprung up was so hot he barely needed to dry them; the water evaporated within seconds. While pulling on his socks, he heard the clanging of the fire engine bell from the centre of Jingera. Hurriedly pushing feet into shoes, he struggled back through the undergrowth to the road leading to the town. Black smoke billowed up from the vicinity of the pub. Smelling the acrid scent of wood burning as the westerly wind blew the smoke in his direction, he began to feel alarmed for the town. Many of the houses leading down to the lagoon were summer cottages but people were coming out of those that were occupied. This time he had no hesitation when he reached Ilona's house. The front gate was open although it had been closed when he passed by earlier. Its rusty hinges protested as it swung back and forth in the wind. Fastening it behind him, he knocked loudly on the front door. There was no response, but the door had not been properly shut and his knocking pushed it open. He called out Ilona's name but there was no reply. It occurred to him that she might be sleeping. She probably felt the heat terribly coming as she did from Northern Europe, even though that was years ago.

‘She left a few minutes ago, love,' a voice said. Turning, he saw Mrs Robinson, an elderly woman with a thick thatch of grey hair, peering at him over the side fence.

‘Where did she go?'

‘Don't know. Can't see over the hedge. Where's the fire?'

‘Looks like it's from the pub. I'm going to find out.' He shut Ilona's door without locking it, just in case she didn't have the key with her. Anxiety was nibbling at his gut.

After securing Ilona's front gate, he glanced westwards. There was smoke coming from outside the town now. It looked as if the forest between the town and the farmland was also on fire. He took a deep breath and ran straight up the road towards the square.

Sniffing, George stood in the yard behind Cadwallader's Quality Meats. Something was burning. Bushfires somewhere and not all that far away. There was a pall of reddish-brown smoke extending from the north-west right down to the south. Overhead the sky appeared almost misty, as if veiled in yellow gauze. As he watched the hazy yellow sky above turned a sullen grey and sparks began to drift through the air. Hurriedly he stumped into the shop, where The Boy was wrapping up a parcel for a customer. Trying to tune into the local station, he fiddled with the dial of the radio. Although the static was awful, he'd just about picked up a signal when the clanging of the fire bell drowned out the crackling of the radio. It sounded close, as if the fire engine was pulling into the square. He limped across the sawdust to open the shopfront door for the customer and would have followed had Mrs Blunkett not blocked the way. Her light blue eyes were popping and her usually neat hair was dishevelled. ‘The pub's on fire,' she shouted, as if George were yards away rather than inches. ‘The fire brigade's here! I've shut up the post office.' The shop door banged behind her as she fled.

‘Fewest words she's ever uttered,' George said, trying to quell his trepidation. The fire engine was parked in front of Bates'
hotel and firemen were directing their hoses on flames that were ripping through the building. Dense black smoke began to drift down towards him and the roaring of the flames was frightful.

The drill in a bushfire was to stay inside with the doors and windows shut and rolled-up wet towels across the bottoms of the doors to stop any sparks getting in. Yet this wasn't a bushfire and he had to get the boys out of school fast. He had to find Eileen too and The Boy had to get home.

He locked up the shop behind them. No time to worry about rolled-up wet towels now. People were running everywhere, coughing and spluttering and shouting. Davies, the Jingera policeman, and a couple of his cronies were guiding people towards the road to the lagoon. The smoke was so dense George couldn't see the way up to the headland. Fear flowered inside him and he broke into a sweat. Somehow he had to get past the hotel and up the hill to the school to find Jim and Andy. Sidling by people running down the hill to the lagoon, he headed for the vicinity of the road leading up to the headland. At this point the way was blocked by a volunteer fireman with a blackened face, whom George recognised as Taffy Hughes. ‘Can't go up there, George. The road's been cut. The pub could collapse on that side any moment.'

‘Got to get to my boys. They're in school.' George was joined by a few other anxious-looking parents.

‘The school's already been evacuated. The teacher's taking all the kids down to the beach through the back lanes. Don't worry, they're all right.'

Davies now came running up, stuttering in his excitement. ‘You've got to get onto the beach. Get over to the lagoon as fast as you can. The Bournda Forest fires are pretty well out of control, they reckon, and they've shut all the roads out of here.'

Back past the shop, George limped around to his house a few hundred yards beyond. Eileen already had the hose connected to the rainwater tank that supplied the kitchen sink and was hosing down the roof. ‘Thank God you're here, George,' she said, voice rising. ‘The kids are already on the beach, Mrs Burton told me, and I didn't know whether to stay or to go. I've had the radio on and they say we've all got to get out. Jingera is ringed by fire.'

‘It's not ringed by fire,' George said calmly, although this wasn't how he felt. ‘It's only Bournda Forest that's burning. The hotel's caught on fire as well, God knows how. It looks pretty much under control, though it could spread.'

Together George and Eileen stumbled along the path and out the gate. As they crossed the square, he glanced at his shop and the bakery next door. Both were intact but he wondered for how much longer. The hotel was still burning fiercely, flames leaping into the sky and debris blowing towards them. The street was full of people, all running in the same direction, and forming a stream that flowed down towards the lagoon and across the footbridge onto the beach. George and Eileen hastened past the post office. Although Peter Vincent's distinctive car, the grey Armstrong Siddeley, was parked outside there was no sign of him.

Halfway down the hill George thought he saw two rows of schoolchildren lined up on the beach close to the surf, and felt a flicker of relief. Then a cloud of dense black smoke swirled down from the hotel or the bush, and obliterated the view. Spluttering, and with eyes watering so much he could hardly see the way, he pulled out a handkerchief. He gave it to Eileen to tie over her face, before removing his apron, which, until now, he'd forgotten he was still wearing. Even with this held over his mouth and nostrils, the acrid smoke still tore into his lungs at each
breath and he began to cough. Please God, may my boys be safe, he pleaded to the celestial being in whom he didn't quite believe.

‘Pull yourself together, George,' Eileen said, and only then did he realise he'd been voicing his pleas aloud. Despite this lapse, she took his hand and semi-dragged him along. His gammy leg, aching in the spot where it had broken years ago, hurt with each step.

At last they were over the bridge and stumping along the short track to the beach. Still hand in hand, they staggered across the sand, and there were the children in two rows by the water's edge, just as he'd seen them in his vision on the hill. They were sitting cross-legged, as if they were in a school assembly. Catching sight of his parents, Andy waved, and George's heart turned over. But Jim was nowhere to be seen. Miss Neville and Ilona Talivaldis were roaming around the children as if they were herding sheep or cattle. George went straight up to the school mistress.

‘Where's Jim?'

‘Can't find him anywhere. He didn't return after the lunch break. I thought he might have been with you.'

‘He's not.' George now began to feel deeply alarmed. After collecting Andy, he hurried back to Eileen.

‘That bally boy!' Eileen shouted. ‘I'll skin him alive when he comes back.'

‘I'll find him,' said George. ‘Keep Andy with you.'

George could feel sweat pouring down his back and soaking the waistband of his trousers. Jim had no idea of how dangerous a fire could be and for an instant George hated his son for destroying his peace of mind. And for putting at risk his own bright future: the brilliant scholarship, the science degree, the radio telescope. Jim's stupidity could hardly be credited. To play truant today of all days.

Stumbling from group to group, George asked if anyone knew where Jim was. No one had seen him, not since lunchtime at school. The heat was searing and the air so dry it was hard to breathe. Gusts of wind shifted sparks, and soon there were so many specks of debris whirling about that it was almost as if a swarm of locusts had descended on the beach. Then the wind metamorphosed into a westerly gale and there was an abrupt thundering sound, as if planes were flying low overhead. Turning, George was just in time to witness a great ball of fire jump the lagoon, leaping from the treetops on the Jingera side of the river to the treetops on the beach side. An instant later the crowns of all the trees in the strip of bushland between the river and the beach exploded into flames. The sky turned red as the flames burned higher and higher.

Panic rising inside him, George found it increasingly hard to see through the clouds of black smoke billowing across the beach. People who had been spread across the sand now ran towards the surf and formed an uneven line along the breakers' edge. George's heart was hammering as he edged his way past, searching for his beloved son.

Peter Vincent had been reluctant to leave the town. He'd searched every street and every lane looking for Ilona. Only when he'd learnt that all the children had been evacuated onto the beach did it occur to him that Ilona would also be there. Then he'd sprinted straight down the hill and over the footbridge.

It was when he was running over the sand dunes that he heard what sounded like a squadron of bombers flying low overhead. Immediately he fell flat on his face. There was no raid, though. There would be no shelling from the ocean, no bombing from overhead. He was lying on Jingera Beach hemmed in like all the other refugees between the burning bush and the sea. Brushing the sand from his face, he looked at the bush between the beach and the lagoon. The treetops were blazing like a torched city after the planes had dropped their bombs. The roaring he'd heard was from the fire jumping across the lagoon. Black smoke belched across the beach and the sky was almost as dark as a moonless night. The only illumination was provided by the burning trees that were, as he watched, transformed into an orange wall of flame.

Ilona had to be here somewhere. Please God, she was here somewhere. He couldn't bear to lose her but he had to avoid thinking of that. He had to keep his nerve and move methodically from one group to the next until he found her.

It was then that he heard someone call his name. Someone who couldn't pronounce it quite correctly, someone who put equal emphasis on each syllable. He felt a lurching in his chest and a prickling behind his eyes. She was here. She was safe.

Changing course, he ran towards the line of breakers. There she was, standing not far from the edge of the surf. Just before reaching her, he stumbled and might have fallen had Ilona not stood up and taken his arm.

‘Thank God you're here,' he said. ‘Where's Zidra?'

‘With one of the O'Rourke girls.' She pointed, and Peter saw the two children standing next to a partially constructed sandcastle and staring at the burning bush.

‘Thank God you're both safe.'

She put her arms around him and held him close. So close that he was able to bury his face in her hair that reeked of eucalyptus smoke and tickled his nostrils. For a few moments they remained like that. He could hardly believe this miracle: that he had found her, that he was able to hold her, and that she had reached out for him first. When she looked up at last, he saw in her fine brown eyes something that was unmistakably affection, something that might even be love. For weeks he'd hoped for this although never had he admitted it to himself, never until now. And the amazing thing was that for years he'd thought of himself as unlovable and, on his worst days, as incapable of love. How wrong he'd been though, he could see that in her eyes and feel it in his heart. How tired he was of being alone, tired of having only himself and his dogs and Ferndale to watch over. He cared for Ilona Talivaldis
and wanted to protect her, and he began to murmur this into her ear.

When he eventually paused for breath, she whispered that she had become fond of him too. The moment she'd first realised this was when she'd heard about the trouble he'd taken to check with the Welfare Board about poor Lorna. That's when she'd recognised that he was a good man, a kind man, one whom she could trust. That's when she'd decided that he wasn't just a handsome face with
nice
hair that was in desperate need of a good haircut in a style that she herself could easily administer.

He laughed at this. ‘Samson and Delilah. I'm not sure I should let you cut my hair.'

‘Your strength is not in your hair. It's in your heart and your head.'

‘My arms are quite strong too.'

‘All the better to hold me with, and now it is time for your
embrocation.
'

‘My embrocation?'

‘Yes. When you tell me when you began to care for me.'

‘Ah, the embrocation.' Not for an instant was he tempted to suggest that reciprocation might be more appropriate, nor to laugh. ‘Let me see. I began to fall for you ages ago. I can even tell you exactly where.' Down the beach he pointed, although the spot where she'd been about to venture into the rip all those weeks ago was not visible through the dense smoke haze.

‘But I was impossible then.'

‘You were but it was your lovely face that hooked me.'

Never would he tell her that it was that metamorphosis of vulnerability into antagonism that had awakened his interest, nor would he reveal how delightful was her use and misuse of long words. Let her think it was her beauty and charm that had won his heart. At this moment he noticed on her left cheek a
dark smudge that he tried to brush away, but his fingers were also covered with dust, and the smudge became larger. This gave her a clownish appearance that once he might have found amusing but now found added greatly to her loveliness.

She put a finger on his mouth and traced its outline and he had just placed his lips on hers when he heard someone calling his name. It was George Cadwallader, staggering towards them and shouting.

It was hard to distinguish his words, what with the surf thundering onto the sand and the fire crackling in the bush beyond the dunes. When George reached them, he took hold of Peter's arm. Normally unflappable, he was in a terrible state. His eyes were staring and he was so breathless he could hardly fashion the words. ‘It's Jim. He wasn't in school when the kids were evacuated. He's gone AWOL.'

‘What's AWOL?' asked Zidra, who had abandoned watching the fire and was now plucking anxiously at Peter's sleeve.

‘Absent without official leave,' said Peter. ‘Where have you looked, George?'

‘All over the place. Can't see him anywhere.'

‘I'll help you find him. You do the beach and I'll see if I can get back into Jingera.'

‘I'll help,' said Zidra.

‘No you won't,' said Ilona, grabbing hold of her hand.

‘Yes, stay with your mother,' Peter said. ‘She needs looking after too. I'll find Jim and you make sure your mother doesn't go missing again. I've been searching for her since lunchtime.'

Zidra didn't smile.

‘Promise me you'll keep an eye on her,' Peter added.

‘I promise.' Zidra didn't look at him though. She gazed behind him, at the burning bush that illuminated her worried face.