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.
And Jess, still wearing her record player cum hair dryer plastic cap, speckled with black holes from sparks and cinders, held up in the gloom the forty-five Gene Pitney record she had carried all that way. In the heat it had drooped into the shape of a pudding bowl.
Look at Gene, kids, Ella said. Just look at Gene.
After a few minutes it was hotter than ever but the noise had died down and the flames had stopped licking under the door. They heard a strange noise. Very slowly, Ella opened the door. No one moved. They looked out.
Nothing made sense. The house was gone. Next to where its remains were smoking, the apple tree was still there, a little singed but otherwise okay, while the forest on the other side of the road was burning ferociously.
They heard the strange noise again and realised it was a car horn growing weaker as the car continued on, away from them. Ella hauled Stewie into her arms, and her daughters ran out with her, all of them yelling through the flames, but the car had already gone past and was disappearing into the smoke up the road. They yelled harder.
And then the car stopped. It was a green 1948 Ford Mercury with white-walled tyres. None of the children would ever forget it. The driver’s door opened and a man got out. And when he turned around, they saw that it was their father, come to find them.
They started running to him and he to them, through the smoke and heat and flames. When they met, Dorrigo grabbed Stewie, swinging him with one arm onto his hip. His free hand he opened out wide, cupped Ella’s head and clutched her face hard against his. He held her against him and the girls against them both, as if they were entwined roots holding up a decayed tree. It was only a moment before he let her go and they all fled to the car. But it was more affection than his three children had seen their father show their mother in a lifetime.