In Sal’s backyard, Alison spent too long staring out at the ridge thinking too hard about too many people she would never get to talk to again. She heard Sal call to her again, and she turned and slowly covered the distance back to the house. On the top step she stopped again, feeling eyes at her back, and turned, scrutinizing the dense, dry, empty bush off to the left. Was someone in there? Watching her? Who would do that? And why? Alison tried to listen, as though she might hear them watching her. Be able to pinpoint their breath as it left their body. She tried to shake it off, but the feeling stuck. She turned her back on the bush, heart pumping hard, and went inside.
The floor was sticky with booze and Alison didn’t want to think about all the spit accumulated on the microphone, all those women singing “I Will Survive” or the men bleating out “Livin’ on a Prayer,” or everyone screaming together to “Bohemian Rhapsody”; better to follow the music and forget about it. She was half-cut already, and there was a vodka soda in her left hand, the microphone gripped in her right. She could feel him watching her as she slowly articulated the words, found her groove in the melody.
Alison leaned into the song, forced all her energy out through the lyrics, and got caught up in it, as she always did. Forgot for a minute where she was, and then she caught his eye. The blue shimmering in the half-light of the club’s back room. He smiled at her. Mouthed the words as she sang, raised a lighter in his hand over his head, lit it and waved it back and forth placidly as “Total Eclipse of the Heart” reached its crescendo.
She was blushing; despite the booze and the enthusiastic crowd and the confidence that she was good at this particular performance, she felt a little off-kilter. She finished the song, sculled the remainder of her drink, and pushed back into the crowd, soaking up the applause.
“Well, how am I supposed to follow that?” Gil asked, smiling, already moving toward the microphone. The MC was cuing up the next track.
“All right, all right, that was Alison with ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ and next we have . . . Gil, singing ‘Alison.’ ” She groaned, but the smile couldn’t be contained; she wasn’t cool enough to pretend she didn’t like it. He started to croon like Elvis Costello, a straight and faithful impersonation. It surprised her. He threw his whole body into it, leaned into the microphone, tensed his thighs and his calves and his shoulders and every vein in his neck as he worked through the verses. It was almost comical in its faithfulness, and she tried to suppress the giggles she felt bubbling up. He was taking it seriously. She should take it seriously.
Tried to forget that her dad used to sing it to her when she wanted a song before bed, rewrote the cues in her heart and her mind from a familial appreciation and love to something more carnal. The lyrics, she’d never really paid attention to before. They were dark. Possessive. She watched the screen as they turned from white to yellow, watched Gil’s face as he sang at her. There was violence in the premise, but it was the kind of violence that was expected of women and men and love and possession.
“My aim is true,” Gil crooned, and she imagined the arrow, Cupid pulling back the bow and tightening the string and squaring his plump little cherubic shoulders and slinging a spike of metal and wood into the core of her body. Penetrating her. The imagery didn’t escape her. When he was done, he raised his hands high above his head and basked in the applause that came from every corner of the dank and sticky lounge. He hopped off the stage and pulled her up into his arms, pressed her against him. He was sweaty and smiling and stank of booze. They laughed together and fell in a heap on the couch, watched as someone else stepped up to the mic.
“ ‘Alison,’ huh?”
“You like it?”
“Very impressive. You’ve got quite the Elvis Costello in your back pocket.” He made her the kind of flirt she hated. So eager to please. But he was the same. He kissed her and she enjoyed it. Felt safe and happy and confident when he was around. She thought that maybe it would be nice to introduce him to her parents. To let him stay forever in her bed. To take his name or at least wear his ring. When she looked forward into the years that hadn’t unfolded yet, Alison saw only Gil and the way he made her feel and the way he held her and spoke to her and kissed her and felt inside her. Saw no other future. She couldn’t think past him or imagine a time when she ever would. It was still early days, but she wanted everything from him.
The MC came over to them on his way to take a smoke break. She felt Gil’s arm tighten around her.
“Hey, you guys were great, you gonna sing another one?” He smiled at them, made eye contact with Alison.
“Yeah.” She laughed. “Maybe a duet.”
“You askin’?” the MC shot back, winking.
“Sure, I’m game.” Alison laughed again.
“She’s taken,” Gil interjected, more seriously than the moment required.
“Uh, I decide that, thanks.” Alison forced a laugh, trying to lighten the moment.
“No intentions, buddy, just being friendly,” the MC said, hands up in surrender. He nodded at them and headed out for a smoke.
There was a hummingbird in her heart. She couldn’t placate it.
On the deck Alison shook herself loose from the memory. Forced herself to go back into the house. She heard Sal and Patrick arguing as she approached.
“There’s plenty of room, Ma, we’ve got a spare with an en suite now the reno’s done, and you’d be a lot closer to Suzie and Chris and the kids, get in some proper grandmother time.”
“It’s not that simple, Patty.” Sal looked up and saw Alison standing in the doorway. “Pat’s saying he thinks I should sell up, move outta here.”
“I think you should consider it. Or at least spend your summers with us.”
“Away from these conditions, you mean?”
“Is that so terrible an idea? This area is thick with dry bush, houses up against eucalypt up against scrub up against more bloody trees, not a drop of water at the moment. Sun looks at it wrong, it starts smoking.”
“So dramatic; it was a bad fire, but it didn’t get me. If this one didn’t get me, I’ll probably be all right.”
Patrick shook his head and looked at Alison, exasperated. “Come on, Ma, you know that’s not how it works.”
“I don’t want to live in Melbourne. I don’t want to leave. End of discussion. Drink your tea.”
Alison thought it was more likely to be the start of a much longer one. “How’s South Yarra anyway, Patty? That a Toorak tractor I saw parked out front?”
“Got the Range Rover last month. Andy’s found a new campsite he’s mad for in East Gippsland, four-wheel-drive access only. Plus it’s better for driving around Sooty and Sweep.” He bit a chunk out of a Monte Carlo, dragged the uneaten half through his tea, and sucked the creamy center out of it.
“Bloody hell those dogs are spoiled.” Alison laughed as she said it.
“Want a cuppa, Ally?” Sal had the pot poised to pour.
“Nah, Sal, I’m gonna leave you to it, wanna get back to work. Come stick your head in before you go, Patty.”
She walked down the hall and into the study Sal had allowed her to transform into a makeshift studio. The trunks of the trees she’d been working on that morning stared back at her, mottled grays mixing together, a wall of death and destruction. Now, thinking too much about the fire made her skin crawl. Alison picked up the large flat brush and painted over the ghostly hues, first with the palest gray, and then with pink tones, like filthy frangipani muddied up on the street after a storm. The flatness of it depressed her. She added some red, cherry red, and then blended more white, more ash-colored gray. When she looked at it she realized the red was the red of Simone’s car.
Alison closed her eyes for a minute and thought about Simone’s face, the contours of her cheek, the shade of her hair, the blue of her eyes. She traced the outline of the jaw in palest peach and then began with tiny strokes in deeper tones to articulate the curves and rises of her bones and flesh. The paint and the canvas and the light and the brush all seemed to be working together, calling her to paint Simone.
She didn’t notice Patrick standing behind her, in the doorway, until she interrupted herself to reposition the canvas to make the most of the sinking sun. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been working, or how long he’d been standing there. She felt like she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t. Alison felt the flush creep up her cheeks and forced a smile.
“You painting a self-portrait?” Patrick pointed at the canvas and Alison looked at it with fresh eyes, saw the small resemblances, the way the nose curved up, the fullness of the cheeks, the shade of brown she’d painted the hair, intending to go back later and add in the dirty blond. But the eyes, the eyes were unmistakably the same iridescent blue as the ones Alison had stared into on her driveway. She’d spent time mixing it, getting the exact hue on the brush, the right level of blue, the right creep of gray on the rims of the irises. It mattered to her that the eyes were just right.
“I don’t have blue eyes, Patty.”
“Who’s this, then?” He asked the question with the tone of someone who thought they already knew the answer. “Looks a hell of a lot like you, just a little bit . . . off.”
“It’s not.” Alison left his question unanswered and they stared at each other. Patrick squirmed a little, shifted about on his feet, rubbed his neck until it left a red mark.
“Mum seems glad to have you here. It’s good for her to have some company right now, I reckon.”
“Happy to help.”
“Not sure if you’re helping her or she’s helping you, but either way seems like it’s working out for the minute.”
“I appreciate her letting me stay here, that’s for sure.”
“Can you do me a favor, Al?”
“Sure, what do ya need?”
“Can you talk to her about selling this place, moving down to Melbourne? She’s too old for this stuff. Bushfires and drought and all that.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and stepped in close. “But she doesn’t want to leave the bloody rose garden.”
“Why not? Just roses, can’t she take cuttings or something?”
“Dad gave ’em to her, every single one, and when he died she mixed his ashes in with the blood and bone and fertilized the whole damn garden with him.”
“Christ.”
“She’s pretty lonely up here. Only person she really enjoys seeing these days is you. Your mum’s death hit her real hard. She’s isolated, and we’ve been trying to budge her for years. I thought this fire might finally change her mind, but all she could talk about today was you, and that woman who died in your driveway.”
“Simone.”
“Yeah, sure. Look, it’s sad. I’m sorry that you had to go through that, Al, and it does sound like your place came pretty close, but I’m worried about her. Next fire turns the other way, both my parents gonna be ashes on the hill I grew up on.”
“Jesus, Pat.”
“This is the reality of living up here, and when they were younger it was OK, but Dad’s gone and Mum’s no spring chicken. Fires aren’t going to get better; climate change is gonna make ’em worse.”
Alison knew Pat was right. Every fire season was worse than the last, unless the low-lying countryside was flooded. More and more “catastrophic” danger days every goddamn year.
“OK, OK, I get it. I’ll talk to her. No point letting that reno go to waste, now, is there?”
“Thanks, mate.” He paused, like he was trying to decide to push his luck. “Mum told me ’bout you and Billy.”
“Shit.”
“Always wondered what it’d be like. Those dimples.” Patrick smiled slyly, leaned in as close as he could, whispered, “Used to sneak a peak in the change rooms after footy sometimes. A mighty fine arse on that one.”
“No comment.” Alison laughed in spite of herself.
“He’s been into you since school, you know.”
“What? Don’t be daft.”
“While I was staring at that fine backside, he was telling anyone who’d listen, he was gonna take you to formal.”
“Ugh, I wish you hadn’t told me that. Anyway, he never even asked me to formal.”
“Nah, in the end Nicole Easterbrook asked him first and all the guys knew she was easy so he decided getting laid was better than facing possible rejection from you.” Patrick spoke with a tone that dripped with conspiratorial sarcasm. He was having fun with it. Alison wanted to know more, in spite of her determination not to let Billy get to her.
“You telling me he ditched me for Nicole?”
“You can’t ditch someone you’re not seeing in the first place. Besides, you ever even notice Billy before this week? I know who you were crushing on in senior, and it wasn’t him.”
Patrick and Alison had stuck close at school. He was the only one who wanted to get the hell out like she did. And she was the only one who knew he lusted after the boys on his footy team, not the girls who threw themselves at him at backyard parties, sloshed on goon—too far gone to remember they’d never even made out when Pat said they did the day after. They kept each other’s confidences then, but after they’d moved to Melbourne for uni, they’d grown apart. Monash was too far away, and the art crowd and the law crowd weren’t so naturally aligned.
“Well, nothing’s changed, then. Still not crushing on him.”
“You’ve always been a stone-cold bitch. Hard not to admire that.”
“I don’t think that’s fair, Patty.”
“You don’t give a shit how many hearts you stand on and that’s admirable, in its own way.”
“It’s also not true.”
“Come on, Al, you ever even had your heart broken? It’s like you’ve got a wall up between your feelings and your cunt.” They used to talk like this, but it had been too long.
“OK, that’s enough. You don’t know anything about my heart. About what I’ve been through, about what happened with me and Billy. Don’t pretend you do.”
“I used to. You’re the one who stopped calling. You’re the one who wouldn’t even see me when I came to Cairns for that conference.”
Alison knew he was right. She’d wanted to be cool at university, so she had ditched everything that she thought was uncool, including Patrick, whom her art school friends thought was uptight and boring. Years later, when he’d called her from the airport and said he was in town that week, she’d panicked for other reasons. She was learning how jealous Gil was. She didn’t want to complicate things. Didn’t want to upset him. Didn’t want Patrick to see that her life wasn’t as wonderful as she pretended it was in emails home to her mother—emails she knew were shared with Sal over gin and tonics on the back deck. Told him she was pulling doubles at the hotel and couldn’t get the time for a drink. No way.
“I can’t take back the past, but I can tell you that it’s not that fucking simple. I don’t like Billy like that. It seemed like a good idea when I was six beers deep. But it wasn’t. It was a terrible, terrible mistake and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Some things can’t be fixed.”
“Thanks for the moral support.”
“Hey, I’m Team Billy. That man is fine, and sweet, and he’s really into you. You can’t walk away from that; that’s stupid.”
“I can, and I am. End of discussion.”
Patrick raised his hands in surrender. “So, who’s the woman?” He nodded toward the painting.
“No one. Just . . . a face I liked.”
“She really does look like you.” He paused a second. “Looks a bit like that picture of the dead woman that’s been in the papers this week too, come to think about it.” He stared at her long enough to make it clear he knew what she was really doing, and then Patrick cupped his hand and hit Alison on the shoulder affectionately. “I gotta get back; Andrew’s making dinner.” He nodded good-bye, raised his voice and yelled farewell to Sal, and then let himself out the front door.
Alison stared at Simone’s face. The eyes stared back at her. She closed her own eyes. Tried to remember if Simone really did look like that, or if she was already replacing her with her own face, her own memories, her own experiences. However irrationally, she felt a connection between them, like a rope tightening around her arms, crushing her chest, pushing her lungs and heart and ribs and diaphragm into one another. She was having trouble breathing. She was having trouble not feeling the heat on her face.
She was having trouble leaving the fire behind.