was sitting in the driveway in her little red coupé, staring at the front door. Searching for the courage to go inside.
It was three years, eleven months, ten days since she’d been here.
Rob had brought her home from hospital. She’d wandered into the empty house; she’d looked around and it was almost as if the walls were taunting her.
You’re here and they’re not. What sort of parents are you? What sort of parents were you?
She hadn’t even stayed the night. She couldn’t. She’d thrown what she most needed into a suitcase and told Rob to take her to a hotel.
‘Julie, we can do this.’ She still heard Rob’s voice; she still saw his face. ‘We can face this together.’
‘It wasn’t you who slept while they died.’ She’d thrown that at him, he hadn’t answered and she’d known right then that the final link had snapped.
She hadn’t been back since.
Go in, she told herself now. Get this over.
She opened the car door and the heat hit her with such force that she gasped.
It was dusk. It shouldn’t be this hot, this late.
The tiny hamlet of Mount Bundoon had looked almost deserted as she’d driven through. Low-lying smoke and the lack of wind was giving it a weird, eerie feeling. She’d stopped at the general store and bought milk and bread and butter, and the lady had been surprised to see her.
‘We’re about to close, love,’ she said. ‘Most people are packing to get out or have already left. You’re not evacuating?’
‘The latest warning is watch and wait.’
‘They’ve upgraded it. Unless you plan on defending your home, they’re advising you get out, if not now, then at least by nine in the morning. That’s when the wind’s due to rise, but most residents have chosen to leave straight away.’
Julie had hesitated at that. The road up here had been packed with laden cars, trailers, horse floats, all the accoutrements people treasured. That was why she was here. To take things she treasured.
But now she thought: it wasn’t. She sat in the driveway and stared at the house where she’d once lived, and she thought, even though the house was full of the boys’ belongings, it wasn’t possessions she wanted.
Was it just to be here? One last time?
It wasn’t going to burn, she told herself. It’d still be here...for ever. But that was a dumb thought. They’d have to sell eventually.
That’d mean contacting Rob.
Don’t go there.
Go in, she told herself. Hunker down. This house is fire-safe. In the morning you can walk away but just for tonight... Just for tonight you can let yourself remember.
Even if it hurt so much it nearly killed her.
* * *
Eleven o’clock. The plane had been delayed, because of smoke haze surrounding Sydney. ‘There’s quite a fire down there, ladies and gentlemen,’ the pilot had said as they skirted the Blue Mountains. ‘Just be thankful you’re up here and not down there.’
But he’d wanted to be down there. By the time he’d landed the fire warnings for Mount Bundoon had been upgraded. Leave if safe to do so. Still, the weather forecast was saying the winds weren’t likely to pick up until early morning. Right now there was little wind. The house would be safe.
So he’d hired a car and driven into the mountains, along roads where most of the traffic was going in the other direction. When he’d reached the outskirts of Mount Bundoon he’d hit a road block.
‘Your business, sir?’ he was asked.
‘I live here.’ How true was that? He didn’t live anywhere, he conceded, but maybe here was still...home. ‘I just need to check all my fire prevention measures are in place and operational.’
‘You’re aware of the warnings?’
‘I am, but my house is pretty much fire-safe and I’ll be out first thing in the morning.’
‘You’re not planning on defending?’
‘Not my style.’
‘Not mine either,’ the cop said. ‘They’re saying the wind’ll be up by nine, turning to the north-west, bringing the fire straight down here. The smoke’s already making the road hazardous. We’re about to close it now, allowing no one else in. I shouldn’t let you pass.’
‘I’ll be safe. I’m on my own and I’ll be in and out in no time.’
‘Be out by the time the wind changes, if not before,’ he said grudgingly.
‘I will be.’
‘Goodnight, then, sir,’ the cop said. ‘Stay safe.’
‘Same to you, in spades.’
He drove on. The smoke wasn’t thick, just a haze like a winter fog. The house was on the other side of town, tucked into a valley overlooking the Bundoon Creek. The ridges would be the most dangerous places, Rob thought, not the valley. He and Julie had thought about bush fire when they’d built. If you were planning to build in the Australian bush, you were stupid if you didn’t.
Maybe they’d been stupid anyway. Building so far out of town. Maybe that was why...
No. Don’t think why. That was the way of madness.
Nearly home. That was a dumb thing to think, too, but he turned the last bend and thought of all the times he’d come home, with kids, noise, chaos, all the stuff associated with twins. Sometimes he and Julie would manage the trip back together and that was the best. ‘Mummy, Daddy—you’re both here...’
Cut it out, he told himself fiercely. You were dumb to come. Don’t make it any worse by thinking of the past.
But the past was all around him, even if it was shrouded in smoke.
‘I’ll take their toys and get out of here,’ he told himself, and then he pulled into the driveway... and the lights were on.
* * *
She’d turned on all the lights to scare the ghosts.
No. If there were any ghosts here she’d welcome them with open arms—it wasn’t ghosts she was scared of. It was the dark. It was trying to sleep in this house, and remembering.
She lay on the king-sized bed she and Rob had bought the week before their wedding and she knew sleep was out of the question. She should leave.
But leaving seemed wrong, too. Not when the kids were here.
The kids weren’t here.
