Jim pulled up outside Sal Marsh’s place as proper dark descended. He shook Alison to rouse her and they walked up the short path to the front door. Sal’s home was a weatherboard, with a wide veranda that wrapped around the front, and a sprawling deck off the back. The road-facing front of the house was flush to the ground, but it dropped off quickly at the back, with the decking high off the slope of the mountain. The boards were painted a faded cream, and the iron lacework on the railings was Sal’s pride and joy.
Alison had known Sal her whole life. Sal had babysat her as a child, overseen endless games of Marco Polo in the pool on a stinkin’-hot day, patched up her rollerblading scrapes, her bike mishaps. When Alison had returned home after her parents’ death, Sal had helped her with the funeral, the will, the obligations. If she didn’t have any family around, Alison at least had Sal. The heavy front door absorbed the thud of Jim’s fist until he pounded hard enough to rattle the mottled bottle-green glass. A figure, distorted in the pane, hurried down the hall. Sal cracked the door and beamed, relieved.
“Jim, Alison, so good to see you both all right. It’s a mess out there—I heard it ripped through right down to the bend on Cook Creek Road.” As she spoke, Sal ushered them into the hall, linking her arm through Alison’s and pulling her in from the doormat. The bend was beyond Alison’s house, just before Jim’s. It was the marker that vaguely separated their property, and if the fire had gotten all the way there, Alison wouldn’t have survived.
“Not quite, Sal,” Jim replied. “But Alison had a real close call, from what I can gather. Power’s out at her place and she needs somewhere to bunk tonight. I didn’t think you’d mind.” They walked down the hall toward the kitchen, Alison aware of just how tightly she was gripping Sal’s arm.
“Not at all, come on, I’ll make some tea.” Sal pulled a chair out at the Formica-topped table and deposited Alison in it, gently prying her arm from Alison’s hand.
“Is your landline working?” Jim asked.
“Should be, had a tone about half an hour ago; it’s on the stand in the hall.”
Jim nodded and headed back the way they’d come. Sal was filling the kettle at the sink and got caught up looking at Alison, so distracted by her blank, dirty face, she didn’t notice it bubble over. “Shit, all right, that’s full, then,” she said as cheerily as she could. Alison didn’t respond. “Are you all right, love?” Sal opened her mouth to say something else and then closed it again.
Alison nodded at her. “Sorry to be a pain, Sal, but have you got anything to eat? I’m starving.” She attempted to smile.
“Of course. I’ve got some bread and there’s a roast chook in the fridge. I can make you a sandwich?”
“Nah, I’ll get it—do you mind?” She stood up, wanting all of a sudden to be busy.
“What’s mine is yours.” Sal reached under the counter and pulled out a chopping board. Jim came back into the kitchen as Alison was slicing the bread.
“Make me one while you’re at it, would you?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Coppers on their way, although they’re running around like chooks with no heads by the sounds of it; might take a while.” Alison hoped it would be Billy Meaker who turned up, if he was still alive. It felt weird even to throw the word around in her head—bounce it around like whether someone was alive was the sort of thing a normal person, in normal circumstances, would have to consider. Where were the people who mattered to her now?
“What do you need the police for?”
Jim ran his hand through his hair and locked eyes with Sal. “Alison’s got a strange car in the drive. There’s a dead girl in it; she got caught in the fire.”
“Oh dear. Oh, Ally, love, I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know her. I don’t know why she was there. A tree fell on her car; she got trapped, I think.” Alison carefully sliced into the breast of the bird, slim sheets of meat falling onto the board as she spoke.
“How do you know you don’t know her if she’s . . .” Sal paused, and Alison could tell she didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Not burned, not a mark on her. Her name’s Simone; I saw her driver’s license.”
“It’ll be the radiant heat. When the fireys came through for that back burn a few months back, I was chatting with one who said it’s the radiant heat nine times out of ten. You just cook—it’s so damn hot.” As he talked Jim was scratching at the red skin on his arm, inspecting the casualties, one hair by one.
“Awful. It wasn’t Simone McDonald, was it? She’s been coming up here some weekends ’cause she’s seeing Ted Alton’s boy.” Sal’s house, on the fringe of the town, on the main road in and out, was the perfect place to sit on the veranda all afternoon and collect the secrets of the people coming and going. Sal attempted to collect them all.
“Nope, I went to school with Simmy. Not her.” Alison slathered mayonnaise on the thick slabs of bread she’d cut, and piled chicken on top. She tore some lettuce from its perfectly round shell and topped the meat off with slices of sharp cheddar.
“No salt on mine, thanks,” Jim interjected, tapping his palm to his heart as she held the grinder over the sandwiches.
Alison capped each sandwich off with a second slice of bread and brought the board over to the table. They sat eating in silence. Halfway through her sandwich Alison began to feel exhaustion wash over her uncontrollably. Every bone in her body ached, every muscle slowly unfurling the tension it had been holding. She winced as she shifted in her chair and suddenly felt like even eating was painful. Like her jaw was too damn tired to chew. She pushed the sandwich away.
“I need to go to sleep.” She stood up, aware she was a little unsteady on her feet, and waited for Sal to show her which room she could use. Sal gave her a worried look but quickly led Alison down the hall to the front room that was once June’s, Sal’s mother’s, before she’d gone into the home, and before Sal’s daughter, Suze, had made it her own. Sal fussed about in the wardrobe locating sheets, and while Alison stood leaning on the doorframe, she made the bed. Alison felt bad that she wasn’t helping, but she was using every ounce of energy she had just to stand. When Sal was done, she kicked off her shoes, wiggled out of her jeans, unhooked her bra, and slipped it out from under her shirt through an armhole.
“Do you want a nightie, or maybe a shower?” Sal watched her closely.
“No, it’s OK, but if I could borrow a shirt tomorrow, that’d be good,” Alison replied, forgetting the things she’d packed. She slid into the bed and felt at once the relief of the cold, crisp sheets on her legs, the pillow soft against her cheek. Sal picked up her jeans and bra from the floor and, standing in the doorway, switched off the light.
“I’m going to wash these, Ally, get the soot off. They’ll be good to go in the morning.”
“Thanks, Sal, night.”
“Good night.”
The door shut, and Sal’s footsteps faintly echoed in the room as she retreated up the hall. Alone, Alison checked her phone to see if she had any signal. None.
The last thing Alison heard as she settled in was whispered speculation about Simone, or as she heard Jim tell it, “The woman in her driveway.” She has a name. But Alison wasn’t sure why it mattered so much that she knew what it was.