Fire Song (2 page)

‘It won’t be for long, boys,’ Mum had lied that blustery day at Central railway station – when they went away with her. Two little heads out the window, Ingrid running the length of the station, despite Mum trying to stop her, and waving and waving until the train was far out of sight.

‘I think the three of us could do with an ice-cream sundae,’ Mum had said, coming to fetch her as she stood, frozen like a statue, staring up the tracks. ‘An ice-cream sundae, girls, with nuts sprinkled all over and chocolate topping. We could go into the Railway Tearooms for one, the three of us right now.’ Just as if they were celebrating something. Chocolate topping or not, Ingrid couldn’t eat hers, not even a mouthful, just thinking of Charlie’s forlorn little face, the way Freddy had squeezed her hand at the last, like he didn’t want to let go, the woman’s fake smile, and Mum’s relief when the platform farewells were over. How could she? Resentment welled up so strong in Ingrid’s heart, she couldn’t bring herself to walk near Mum, let alone sit by her as she nursed Pippa on the tram ride home. How could she send her own sons off like that? But she had!

‘Burn the house down.'That’s what Mum said this morning and she meant it. Ingrid was good and frightened now, but she dragged the large tin down the hallway just as she’d
been directed. She placed it on a bundle of rags first, so its sharp edges wouldn’t mark the wide polished boards. Like Grandma before her, Mum always left a nest of rags at either end of the hall so that if Ingrid went from the front door to the back, or, more likely, the back door to the front, she’d put one foot on the polishing rag (but never, ever on the Persian runner) and drag it the way Mum had taught her, so that her twelve-year-old body would press heavily enough to keep up the beeswax polish the way Mum liked.

‘Should be able to see your face in it,’ Mum used to glory down on all fours, her strong arms with that fine white skin, accosting those old dark timbers. And her guests, when there were any – and specially that Neville Franks – would make a point of admiring all Mum’s housekeeping. She herself pointed out the shiny edges. It made Ingrid sick when she went on like that, just as it made her sick to hear Neville Franks’ admiring responses. He’d been the last of the guests to leave
Emoh Ruo
at the beginning of winter, and now it was spring again! There hadn’t been a single guest in months, money was short once more and Mum would have been impossible, except for the advent of the
dago.
That’s what some of the townsfolk had called him, because he came from somewhere foreign. ‘The dago fella who runs the fruit shop.’

Dom Fratelli was the dago’s only son, and he became a good friend of Ingrid’s at school, even though he was two years older. Tall, with curly dark brown hair, he reminded her of her brother Freddy, and she told him so. Ingrid loved Dom’s dad, even though they called him a dago, which meant he was different from everyone else, because she knew straightaway that he had a warm heart.

‘You have two sons at Wallerawang, Mrs Crowe. Well, you really should fetch them home at once. Two big boys’d be such a help to you, here.’ He’d said that straight off, when he heard about Freddy and Charlie on the farm. He was standing in the warmth of Mum’s apple pie kitchen late one afternoon, having just brought in a wooden crate of fruit and vegies for them, and Ingrid’s heart had lifted for a moment. Maybe she’d listened to the d – to Dom’s dad.

‘I’ll be fetching them home soon,’ Ingrid had heard her mother say, ‘though being boys, Sergio, they’re just so happy to be out on that farm. Pretty soon,’ she lied.

But Freddy and Charlie did not come home soon. Ingrid couldn’t ask outright anymore, because one afternoon, when Mum was unusually quiet, she had asked once too often. Mum must have been out of sorts with one of her headaches, because she had boxed her so hard Ingrid staggered back across the kitchen and almost into the fuel stove. She would’ve burnt her backside badly, if she hadn’t fallen over. Only the back of her head had hit the hot oven door.

Mum had helped her up at once, and offered her a fresh-baked scone and cream, which was her way of saying sorry. Tears welling in her eyes. Ingrid had shaken her head. She’d waited until she got out onto the sunny side verandah to nurse her ear, bright red and still ringing with the force of Mum’s blow.

‘Well, don’t keep pestering me!’ Mum had called after her guiltily.

Ingrid would just have to get Pippa to ask, then – little Pippa, who, in their mother’s eyes, could do no wrong. Only thing was, Pippa had stopped talking.

‘Want big Freddy,’ she used to say lots of times, when
they’d first gone to that farm in Wallerawang. ‘And Chacha.’

‘Soon, bubba, real soon,’ Mum would tell her, making Ingrid’s heart all jumpy with hope.

But then at age three years nine months, after having had plenty to tell and lots to ask of the world, Pippa just stopped talking. Wouldn’t say a word.

‘What a mystery this little one is,’ Mum had remarked, tying one of the fancy ribbons she liked to put in Pippa’s crinkly hair. It made her seem even more fragile and dolllike. ‘I guess you’re just like me, little miss.’ She stooped to kiss Pippa’s head. ‘Determined like your mum. You’ll talk again, won’t you, sweetheart? When you’re good and ready.’

Naturally Pippa hadn’t said a thing, just let herself be kissed, but Ingrid would like to have said plenty on the subject of Pippa’s new silence.

‘She’s not talking, because you won’t let Freddy and Charlie come home, for one thing. She’s not talking, because she gets scared when you go off your head and yell and curse the way you do, for another. She’s not talking, because her favourite person in the world, and the one who never changed from being sweet and kind to her – and it’s not you, Mum, not
you,
but Grandma Logan – has gone and died! That’s why she’s not talking and I don’t blame her.’

But Ingrid didn’t say any of this. She just repeated, ‘Yeah, I’m sure she’ll talk, when she’s good and ready.’

She thought about it that afternoon on the side verandah. Maybe she’d just have to pinch Pippa really hard and make her call out for Freddy, the way she used to. And that’d force Mum to make up her mind when exactly she was going to bring both the boys home to
Emoh Ruo.
Soon – like next
week or even next month. Well, she’d wait another whole month to see her brothers if she had to. Four weeks would fly by.

But even the thought of her darling brothers couldn’t make her pinch Pippa hard, when she ran in bright-eyed from the garden, her hair and her pink cheeks sprinkled with sand, ready to jump into Ingrid’s welcoming arms, the way she always did.

‘W
hat should I do with the drum?’ Ingrid called out, arriving at the front door and trying to keep the fear from her voice. As if it were the most normal question in the world.

‘Put it on the verandah, ready for pickup like always. But don’t let anyone see you go out there. There’s enough in it anyway to keep the fire going up that end, if it catches.’

Ingrid peered through the coloured panes that made a stained glass sun with huge powerful rays radiating from it on the upper half of the door. She could see no figure passing by – just an empty road both ways. As she rolled the drum out the door, the kerosene sloshed about inside. It happened to find its resting place right under Grandma Logan’s sign, the one that read
Emoh Ruo,
and she couldn’t bear the thought of that. So she used all her strength to roll it a bit further away down the verandah.

Mum had followed her along the hall – ‘I want to talk to you for a moment, Ingrid’ – and directed her into the lounge room, something they never did till night time. And then she was told to sit on one of the lounges, as if she were a paying guest and Mum was going to serve tea and fruit cake
any minute – only she sat opposite Ingrid, all tense like a cat ready to spring, and spoke in short, excited bursts.

‘I’ve had this idea for ages. This something up my sleeve, see, to help all of us when it came to it! And it
has
come to it. We’re broke and there’s this insurance thing Grandma Logan took out on the house. I’ve thought and thought about it and it’s the only way out of this mess. It’s the only thing to do.’

Why? Why couldn’t she say it was a bad thing to do, to burn down a house – let alone Grandma Logan’s beautiful house? Stand up to her mother for once. A wrong thing. Ingrid knew in her heart that it was, but she could only bite her lip and stare straight ahead at that framed photo on the mantelpiece, which Mum had turned to the wall.

‘Now here’s the plan,’ said Mum. ‘We can put a heap of clothes in the washing basket and leave it out under the line, like it was forgotten there. Not too much in it – though we’ll get enough money to buy new clothes for all of us, you’ll see. I’ve already put my best shoes out in the shed and Pippa’s favourite toys. We can’t take much else.’

‘But all Grandma’s things, Mum?’

Her mother ignored this and went on. ‘You kids will be safe in the shed, well away from the house, when it gets dark. Tell Pippa something about why you’re taking her there at night. You’ll think of something, not to frighten her or anything. And then settle her with the dog. I’ll set the fire out the front and you set it at the back, both at the same time. Spontaneous – nup, that’s not the word.
Simultaneous.
That’s it! Simultaneous fires.’

How could she talk about the right word and setting fire to their house in the same breath? It was crazy!

‘Yes, Pippa needs to be settled real good.’ Something funny must have occurred to Mum then, because she suddenly gave a short little laugh. ‘A funny darned thing if this fire is what makes our Pippa start blabbing again.’

Her voice was bright and she didn’t seem to notice that Ingrid’s eyes were brimming with tears. Or maybe she did.

‘We’ve got nothing. A couple of shillings, maybe a ten bob note in the drawer, at best. You don’t seem to understand that. Nothing at all – not even a gun to go and shoot a rabbit for tea tonight. So if this house burns down – and it’s going to, an accident see, a lamp falling over, a fire, everything up in smoke – then we get the insurance. A fresh start, back in Sydney.’

She looked so pleased, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to go and burn a house down. They’d do this thing and then they’d have to lie their hearts out about it. To the police! To friends. Lie to everyone.

‘You’re just sitting there like a log, Ingrid. You know what that is? Insurance?’ Her voice was getting angry.

‘Yes, it’s money, Mum. I know that.’

‘Empty house goes up in smoke. No one in it, so no one hurt. A godsend for us.’

‘But –’

Her voice was little and weak and Mum rode over it. ‘No wind today. There’s a few storm clouds way out there over the valley maybe, but it should stay steady. Weatherman says, anyway. I’ve waited for this perfect weather, days and days I’ve waited and I’ve planned how it’s going to be. And this is just right. The wind’s dropped right down, these past few days. Tonight’s going to be perfect. I’ve got a plan and I need your help for it to go smooth.’

‘But, Mum –’ Ingrid’s voice was a bit stronger.

‘But, Mum,
what?”
Her mother was testy.

Ingrid took a deep breath. ‘It’s not right, Mum, what you’re going to do! Burn Grandma’s house down.’

There. She’d said it and begun a fire in Mum for sure.

Her mother jumped up and Ingrid raised an arm to ward off the blow. But Mum yanked her to her feet and began shaking her, the way Blackie had shaken a rat one time when he found it hiding in the dark oily part of the old shed.

‘You stupid little fool! It’s not right that people go hungry. It’s not right that there are still tramps knocking on my door and now I’ve got nothing to give them but a mouldy old apple –
if
they’re lucky. It’s not right that there are people getting rich in this country off the backs of others who are kept poor. That’s not right!’

And then she stopped shaking her, though Ingrid’s head seemed to go on knocking. But she didn’t step away from Ingrid.

Then Mum’s face began to turn red.

‘And it’s not right that Freddy and Charlie are farmed out, is it? You want to see them again –
dont
you?’ Poor Pippa would be sure to hear, the screeching so loud now, and she’d start wringing her hands in that pathetic way of hers. ‘Don’t you?’

Mum was looming over Ingrid, eyes bloodshot and angry, her strong arms threatening, but her words were blows enough.

‘Yes,’ said Ingrid.

‘Say it, then.’ Mum grabbed her arm. ‘Say it nice and loud, so’s I’m sure!’ And Ingrid knew she had to make her
tongue move, and her lips frame the words without sobbing them, the way she wanted to. But she couldn’t stop the tears sliding down her face.

‘Yes, Mum, I do. I do! I want to see Freddy and Charlie again! Real bad!’

That seemed to pacify her mother, because she took a step back and let go of Ingrid’s arm at last.

‘Good. Long as I know that. Then you’ll help me tonight, just like I asked. And without another word of this tommyrot you’re going on with. Not right, indeed! I’ll give the world “not right"!’

‘Yes, Mum! I’ll help you, for sure,’ Ingrid said promptly, so Mum wouldn’t work herself up again.

‘You’ll help me burn this wreck of a place to the ground, miss, and then you’ll see.’

Mum sounded triumphant. Ingrid nodded once again.

‘That’s settled, then. Now go and look after your little sister.’

Ingrid needed no second bidding to leave the room. Heart knocking, head knocking, she ran right down the middle of Grandma Logan’s Persian runner, which she’d never done before. All the way down the hall. What did it matter now, if everything – all of it – was going to go up in smoke?

I
ngrid stayed in the garden all morning. She even let Pippa play with her precious
Snakes and Ladders
board game, while Blackie looked on. The old dog always sat as near to them as he could, but today he ended up right on the board. Usually that would have made Ingrid laugh. She would have pushed him playfully, tickled his tummy and then Pippa’s. But not this morning. She pushed Blackie away angrily.

She stayed out of the house and out of her mother’s way, because she had to gather her thoughts – and fast. Things were tumbling over in her head since their talk earlier. But although she tried hard, she could think of nothing she could do about it. And a refrain about fire kept repeating in her head no matter how she tried to push it away.

Mum would do this thing, just as she said, something thumped deep inside her. And she, Ingrid Elizabeth Margaret Crowe was the only one in the whole wide world who could do anything about it. If she didn’t, their house
Emoh Ruo
would go up in smoke. It would be horrible! Just horrible!

When she heard her mother call her name, she ran indoors, hoping like mad that Mum was going to say she’d
changed her mind, that it was all a stupid mistake. But she didn’t say any such thing.

‘What are you and Pip up to, love?’ Mum asked quite normally, as she delved into her dressing table drawer for the precious money she kept hidden there.

‘Nothing much, Mum. Just playing,’ she muttered, realising that nothing had changed at all.

Fire! Liar! Fire
!

Gone up in smoke,

Burned down

To the ground.

Fire! Liar! Fire!

The horrible words went over and over, sneaky little flames crackling a sinister background noise in her head.

So the whole of Grandma Logan’s wonderful old house
would
go up in flames tonight. The house Mum had described so often as their ‘ramshackle wreck on the edge of nowhere'. Mum used to say things like this to annoy Grandma, because the house was in Blackheath and not Sydney, which was where Mum wanted to be. And she also said it because a few of the outside boards needed fixing and the place creaked terribly in the wind.

‘This ramshackle old joint!’ she’d say then. ‘Could come falling down on us, you know!’

Once Grandma Logan had answered sharply, ‘Take the hammer yourself then, Liz, and see to it. I’ve fixed all the boards I can reach, you know.’

‘Mmm, maybe when the wind drops,’ Mum had agreed, but she never actually tried to fix them.

It might be true that walls needed painting, that the kitchen lino was worn and the cabbage rose carpet in the
lounge room threadbare. But Ingrid had thought it was a pretty house inside and outside, from the first moment she’d set eyes on it, whatever Mum said.

‘A really good home,’ Uncle Ken had confirmed, ‘and good for you kids with the capacious back garden and the orchard. I’m glad you’re safe and sound there for the time being, kiddo.’ She liked the way he called her ‘kiddo’ whenever he called on the telephone and she was allowed to talk to him; and that he used big words like ‘capacious’ that she’d have to go and look up in Grandma Logan’s huge Webster’s dictionary kept in the mouldy bookcase in the lounge room, along with the atlas and some of Grandma’s favourite novels, especially a much-prized one called
Pippa.
There was none called
Ingrid,
but Grandma’s name was Ingrid, so she couldn’t be too put out.

The old house had been called
Emoh Ruo
by some wag, years before Grandma Logan owned it. ‘See? It’s
Our Home
spelt backwards,’ she’d pointed out with a laugh to the two girls when they first arrived in the Blue Mountains. But she was proud of it, too, because as long ago as when Grandpa Frederick was still alive, she’d made
Emoh Ruo
a real home. It had that all-over homey feeling still, even though it was shabby.

She kept the gold lettering of the mirrored sign beside the front door, sparkling clean, whatever the mountain weather. And she liked to say, ‘Welcome to
Emoh Ruo
,’ whenever a visitor called by way of the front door, which was not often. This was despite Mum making the remark often enough that it’d be better called
Nowhere.

‘Spelt forwards or backwards, Mum, it’s a dump either way!’

But by anyone’s standards,
Emoh Ruo
was a pretty house – a ‘capacious’ weatherboard, with its high gables, its bay windows glinting their leadlights at any passerby; its sunny bedrooms and generous sleepout, all with views of the valley when there were no mists rising; and with its generous wrap-around verandahs.

‘Fit to put up the whole fire brigade, this place, if need be.’ Grandma Logan boasted about those wide verandahs, because they had been needed once, when a huge bushfire raged in the valley. The men had slept on the cane lounges and camp beds, ten of the volunteer firefighters, ‘in their clothes that smelt of fire in the worst way.’ And each one kept warm at night, she told the girls, covered with spare grey army blankets she’d managed to find in various bedroom cupboards. And she’d fed them generously, too, from her big kitchen – every last tired man – for the three days it took to get the fire under control.

It was full of stories, this house – Grandma’s stories and some of their own. And Ingrid knew it would be a sin to burn it down on purpose. But it would happen if Mum had her way. The whole of Grandma Logan’s old house that she and Pippa, not to mention Blackie the dog, loved to bits, every wood-lined wall of it, every pressed metal ceiling, every board that made up the verandahs, front, back and side. Every square inch – every crooked inch, come to that, because in some places the floor rose and fell and corners didn’t quite meet.

Just thinking of the loss made her want to be sick. Everything gone! The thought was worse than Mum yelling at her this morning the way she had. All the old photos of the valley and Uncle Ken’s watercolour paintings, each one
dear and familiar, all gone. Grandma’s old Persian runner that Ingrid was standing on right now, spilling so gloriously down the shiny hallway, and the comfy old rug in the lounge room, where Blackie had his exact spot on one faded cabbage rose. The lounge room itself, come to that, with its generous brick fireplace, its lounges and chests and the small chipped porcelain ballerina, all that was left in the china cabinet now; the old tasselled silk cushions Grandma Logan had crocheted herself and prized so much, especially the one where she’d managed the lettering
Home Sweet Home.

And the family photographs in their fake gold frames: one of Grandma Logan’s wedding day with Grandpa looking uncannily like her big brother Freddy; several of Mum and Auntie Ivy and Auntie Marj. And one of Mum’s brothers, Uncle Ken her favourite, with Uncle Maurice, who might have been a favourite too, but whom she’d never know, because he was dead.

Mum had turned the one of Uncle Maurice in army uniform to the wall as soon as Grandma Logan passed away, that terrible time last year. It had been left there on the mantelpiece, month after month, as if to tease them about Maurice’s death, or maybe punish Mum herself. He had died, not yet twenty – such a young man, far away in Europe somewhere.

She would ask Uncle Ken all about it one day when they were together again, because Mum would scarcely talk about the war at all or even mention Maurice’s name, let alone look at his photograph.

Secretly Ingrid turned it round to show Pippa his young face from time to time, just so they could see his handsome eyes and his smart soldier’s uniform. All their things, every
room, all of it gone up in smoke. No! No fire! Somehow part of Grandma Logan herself would be lost forever with the house and she couldn’t bear that. Mum mustn’t do it! She had to do something, find someone to stop her. Mum always said that she thought praying was a waste of time, but she would pray too, ask for a miracle, just in case it helped – even if it took all day.

Mum was seated at the blond wood dressing table with its big oval mirror, with all the drawers hanging open. She looked up to see Ingrid’s reflection – her serious face – and turned at once.

‘Don’t just stand there staring, child.’ There was that queer smile on Mum’s lips.

‘Like I told you, Ingrid, there’s not too many of these fellas left.’ She was holding out the one precious ten-shilling banknote, pressed extra smooth where it’d been kept under the drawer liner for who knew how long. ‘But soon there’ll be heaps of them if you do as I say!’ She couldn’t help glancing up at the mirror as she spoke. ‘What a hag!’ she said almost gaily, as Ingrid crossed the room – the smell of kero mixing with the smell of lavender in the air.

Mum had caught sight of her own untidy hair, and was running Grandma Logan’s old brush through it now, the gold coloured one with the tapestry back that Ingrid loved so much.
Up in smoke, up in smoke.
Something banged out that refrain in her head and made her stomach feel strange.

‘Smokes, love,’ Mum said and Ingrid flinched. ‘Hey – you needn’t look at me like that, either. I’ve got to have some
now.
Get me a pouch of Drum tobacco and more papers. And some milk. Take the billycan. And tell Mr Spicer I’m
putting this money towards the bill.’ Mum had ticked up pounds and pounds worth of stuff at the grocer’s, till even Mr Spicer had been forced to say no. But now, today, with her plan in mind, she was brandishing what had to be the last precious note. ‘Don’t take Pippa. She’ll slow you down.’

‘No, Mum. But I’ll take Blackie for his walk.’ Why did her voice go shaky meek? Like it always did, when she got anywhere near her mother. Pathetic.

‘Don’t be too long, lovey.’

Lovey! This was what Mum could be like: terrifying one minute and your best friend the next.

‘Lots to do today.’ And then she tried to hug her daughter. For the first time in her life, Ingrid pulled away.

‘Hoity-toity today, are we?’ Mum turned back to the mirror, unfazed. ‘But you’ll understand one day. You’ll realise your old mother was right!’

Ingrid hated going into Mr Spicer’s, having to ask for sugar or flour on tick, feeling Mrs Spicer’s angry eyes on her, even as Mr Spicer pressed a broken biscuit into her hand. Apart from anything, the man always smelled of treacle or something sickeningly sweet and his manner was treacly, too. But this morning, she set off bravely on her errand. She had to get right away from the house for a while, find some time to think about this calamity away from Mum. Free of Mum’s voice and her mad intentions. She had to plan something to save them.

But who should she ask? Whose help could she rely on, to stop this terrible, frightening thing? Not Uncle Ken’s, who could sweet-talk Mum a treat. He was far away in Queensland and there was no new telephone number. Daddy wouldn’t be any help, either, because who knew where he was
to be found – though he’d come here quick as he could, if he knew what was going on. And not her big brother, darling Freddy, of course, because he was far away, too. She had to fetch his precious letter from its hiding place. This was the only one that had come from Wallerawang in two years. It was all she had of him. But, letter or no, Freddy was too far away to help right now.

She was passing by the police station. She knew someone in there. The police, then? The neat brick building, a house at the front, it had two new holding cells at the back. She knew that, because her schoolmate Natalie Brooks had described it in detail, promising her, ‘You can come and look at the new cells, my brother Terry said so, whenever you want, Ingrid. When they’re empty, that is. But not you, Gracie. I didn’t say you.’ Natalie liked her friends, Ingrid thought, but she also liked to play them one against the other. Still and all, she told Natalie she’d like to go one day after school.

Natalie’s older brother was a policeman stationed there. He was a big, freckle-faced bloke, with goldeny red hair. He’d come back from the Police Training School in Sydney, the Brooks family’s pride and joy, to a job with the local police.

She’d probably
find him on duty today. He was nice, friendly. Maybe she could talk to him privately, ask his advice. Ask him to speak to Mum. Talk her out of it.

Her hand was on the front gate. But, then again, maybe if she said anything at all about Mum’s crazy plans, things would happen all too quickly, and they might be out of nice, friendly Terry Brooks’s hands. To set a fire on purpose like this was a crime, wasn’t it?

They’d taken the oldest Whittaker boy, who was only fourteen, far away on account of fire. The police had come to find him when Medley’s farmhouse burnt to the ground, and it was lucky old Medley got out, or it would’ve been worse still for Warren Whittaker, everyone said. He had burnt his own hands in setting the Medley shed on fire and then the grass fire that had gone out of control – and it was his hands that finally put him in. Warren Whittaker had gone to court and now he was in a boys’ home so far away from the Blue Mountains, no one in his family could go to see him. Not that anyone but his mother felt any real sympathy for him.

Even Mum had called him crazy, and there was that awful official word the whole town branded him with. ‘Yeah, the lad’s a pyromaniac – sick in the head.’ It wasn’t the first time Warren had set fire to things. Once it was an old car in the back lot of the picture theatre; another time a pile of logs in a paddock out along the Megalong Road. And then the dry grass fire that had sped all the way to the Medley house! But Mum didn’t spit at Mrs Whittaker, the way some of Medley’s relatives and others had, when she walked in the street.

‘Poor woman with her pyromaniac son!’ she’d said, when she heard about it. The use of the official word embarrassed Ingrid, but she was glad Mum felt something for Mrs Whittaker, because she certainly did herself.
Pyromaniac!
Ingrid had run the word round in her mouth, as she almost did now. It sounded appalling. A pyromaniac would need putting away, for sure.

‘Hiya, little Ingrid Crowe. And what can we do for you?’

Terry Brooks had come right out to the square of clipped lawn in front of the police station just to talk to her. Maybe he guessed something was up!