Christmas Where They Belong

‘You know the road collapsed,’ he said. ‘You know the lawyers told us we could sue. You know it was the storm the week before that eroded the bitumen.’

‘But that I was asleep...’

‘We should have stayed in the city that night. We shouldn’t have tried to bring the boys home. That’s the source of our greatest regret, but it shouldn’t be guilt. It put us in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve been back to the site. It was a blind curve. I rounded it and the road just wasn’t there.’

‘If we’d come up in broad daylight, when we were both alert...’

How often had he thought about this? How often had he screamed it to himself in the middle of troubled sleep?

He had to say it. He had to believe it.

‘Jules, I manoeuvred a blind bend first. A tight curve. I wasn’t speeding. I hit the brakes the moment I rounded the bend but the road was gone. If you’d been awake it wouldn’t have made one whit of difference. Julie, it’s not only me who’s saying this. It was the police, the paramedics, the guys from the accident assessment scene.’

‘But I can’t remember.’ It was a wail, and he tugged her back into his arms and thought it nearly killed him.

He was reassuring her but regardless of reason, the guilt was still there. What if...? What if, what if, what if?

Guilt had killed them both. Was killing them still.

He held her but her body had stiffened. The events of four years ago were right there. One night of passion couldn’t wash them away.

He couldn’t fix it. How could it be fixed, when two small beds lay empty in the room next door?

He kissed her on the lips, searching for an echo of the night before. She kissed him back but he could feel that she’d withdrawn.

Same dead Julie...

He turned again and went back to searching the radio channels. Finally he found the station he was looking for—the emergency channel.

‘...evacuation orders are in place now for Rowbethon, Carnarvon, Dewey’s Creek... Leave now. Forecast is for forty-six degrees, with winds up to seventy kilometres an hour, gusting to over a hundred. The fire fronts are merging...’

And all his attention was suddenly on the fire. It had to be. Rowbethon, Carnarvon, Dewey’s Creek... They were all south of Mount Bundoon.

The wind was coming from the north.

‘Fire is expected to impact on the Mount Bundoon area within the hour,’ the voice went on. ‘Bundoon Creek Bridge is closed. Anyone not evacuated, do not attempt it now. Repeat, do not attempt to evacuate. Roads are cut to the south. Fire is already impacting to the east. Implement your fire plans but, repeat, evacuation is no longer an option.’

‘We need to get to a refuge centre.’ Julie was sitting bolt upright, wide-eyed with horror.

‘There isn’t one this side of the creek.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘We’re not driving in this smoke. Besides, we have the bunker.’ Thank God, they had the bunker.

‘But...’

‘We can do this, Jules.’

And she settled, just like that. Same old Jules. In a crisis, there was no one he’d rather have by his side.

‘The fire plan,’ she said. ‘I have it.’

Of course she did. Julie was one of the most controlled people he knew. Efficient. Organised. A list-maker extraordinaire.

The moment they’d moved into this place she’d downloaded a Fire Authority Emergency Plan and made him go through it, step by step, making dot-points for every eventuality.

They were better off than most. Bush fire was always a risk in Australian summers and he’d thought about it carefully when he’d designed this place. The house had been built to withstand a furnace—though not an inferno. There’d been fires in Australia where even the most fireproof buildings had burned. But he’d designed the house with every precaution. The house was made of stone, with no garden close to the house. They had solar power, backup generators, underground water tanks, pumps and sprinkler systems. The tool shed doubled as a bunker and could be cleared in minutes, double-doored and built into earth. But still there was risk. He imagined everyone else in the gully would be well away by now and for good reason. Safe house or not, they were crazy to still be here.

But Julie wasn’t remonstrating. She was simply moving on.

‘I’ll close the shutters and tape the windows while you clear the yard,’ she said. Taping the windows was important. Heat could blast them inwards. Tape gave them an extra degree of strength and they wouldn’t shatter if they broke.

‘Wool clothes first, though,’ she said, hauling a pile out of her bottom bedroom drawer, along with torches, wool caps and water bottles. Also a small fire extinguisher. The drawer had been set up years ago for the contingency of waking to fire. Efficiency plus.

Was it possible to still love a woman for her plan-making?

‘I hope these extinguishers haven’t perished,’ she said, pulling a wool cap on her head and shoving her hair up into it. It was made of thick wool, way too big. ‘Ugh. What do you think?’

‘Cute.’

‘Oi, we’re not thinking cute.’ But her eyes smiled at him.

‘Hard not to. Woolly caps have always been a turn-on.’

‘And I love a man in flannels.’ She tossed him a shirt. ‘You’ve been working out.’

‘You noticed?’

‘I noticed all night.’ She even managed a grin. ‘But it’s time to stop noticing. Cover that six-pack, boy.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ But he’d fielded the shirt while he was checking the fire map app on his phone, and what he saw made any thought of smiling back impossible.

She saw his face, grabbed the phone and her eyes widened. ‘Rob...’ And, for the first time, he saw fear. ‘Oh, my...Rob, it’s all around us. With this wind...’

‘We can do this,’ he said. ‘We have the bunker.’ His hands gripped her shoulders. Steadied her. ‘Julie, you came up here for the teddies and the wall-hanging. Anything else?’

‘Their...clothes. At least...at least some. And...’

She faltered, but he knew what she wanted to say. Their smell. Their presence. The last place they’d been.

He might not be able to save that for her, but he’d sure as hell try.

‘And their fire engines,’ he added, reverting, with difficulty, to the practical. ‘Let’s make that priority one. Hopefully, the pits are still clear.’

The pits were a fallback position, as well as the bunker. They’d built this house with love, but with clear acceptance that the Australian bush was designed to burn. Many native trees didn’t regenerate without fire to crack their seeds. Fire was natural, and over generations even inevitable, so if you lived in the bush you hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. Accordingly, they’d built with care, insured the house to the hilt and didn’t keep precious things here.

Except the memories of their boys. How did you keep something like that safe? How did you keep memories in fire pits?

They’d do their best. The pits were a series of holes behind the house, fenced off but easily accessed. Dirt dug from them was still heaped beside them, a method used by those who’d lived in the bush for generations. If you wanted to keep something safe, you buried it: put belongings inside watertight cases; put the cases in the pit; piled the dirt on top.

‘Get that shirt on,’ Julie growled, moving on with the efficiency she’d been born with. She cast a long regretful look at Rob’s six-pack and then sighed and hauled on her sensible pants. ‘Moving on... We knew we’d have to, Rob, and now’s the time. Clearing the yard’s the biggie. Let’s go.’