It was dark, silent, when Alison woke up, no murmuring children or first birdsong of the day. She sat up straight and gasped, unsure what had startled her. The kitchen, which had been softly illuminated by the neon glow of the microwave display when Alison fell asleep, was pitch-black. In these unfamiliar surrounds, she couldn’t define her location with ease. The couch creaked beneath her as she turned to swing her legs to the floor. The early-morning chill took her by surprise—hands and feet like ice, Alison headed for the window, reached up and grabbed the wooden frame and began to slide it down, the rope moving easily in the sash, and when it stopped, it took her a second to fix her eyes on the obstruction. A hand, the fingers curled so the top knuckle twisted onto the inside of the frame—Alison’s breath caught in her throat; she raised her eyes to look for the face of the person who owned the hand and it stared back.
Gil, a smirk visible on his lips in the dark—he didn’t speak, just raised his other hand to his lips, his fingers gesturing for Alison to stay quiet while his hand released the window frame and reached inside the house, where it clamped down hard on the flesh of her forearm; she heard a burst of surprise leap from her lips but couldn’t make sense of how she had made it. Every millimeter of Alison’s body burned with cold fear; it didn’t seem possible to move, to speak, even to blink. Gil was still holding on to her, pressing his fingertips into the flesh of her arm, but he had begun to gesture toward the back door, in the kitchen, just around the corner from that window, and when Alison tried to pull away from Gil’s grasp she found that she was stuck and she couldn’t get him to loose his fingers. She couldn’t make him free her from his grip, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to open the door without his letting her go, but she also didn’t plan on opening the door if he did. It seemed to Alison that Gil knew this, so they stood in silent resolution, neither willing to give the other an inch to run with until Alison opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
She had no words to use to extricate herself from this moment, and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t stop moving her mouth up and down, up and down, like a fish. She tried again to pull away; Gil grasped her even more tightly. She began to heat up with the effort of trying to wrest her arm free, and suddenly when she looked into the kitchen, where there had been nothing but darkness before, silent flames licked at the walls.
She felt the heat of the flames but could not hear them. Silent like the inky night that had stolen her voice and rooted her to the floor, they slithered on silken tongues into the lounge room, where Gil smiled as he watched her, eyes wide with panic, whole body trying to wrench itself loose, no voice to set her free. Alison grabbed at the window frame with her free arm and pushed down with all her might, her weight dislodging it and bearing the wooden sash right down in one slick motion; the pain of it made Gil release her arm and she was suddenly able to jump back, away from his grip. She was suddenly able to hear the rush of the fire as it suffocated the room. She was suddenly able to scream.
The water hit her full in the face, pooling in her open mouth, rushing up her nose and settling on the closed lids of her eyes. Alison sputtered, unable to breathe for a second, and then raised her sodden eyelids. Christine was standing over her, a glass, now empty, in her hand, and a frightened small person peeking out from behind her left leg. Christine, already dressed for work in a black pencil skirt and a gray silk tank, looked equal parts bemused and concerned.
“All right?”
Alison took a minute to work it out. Guessed Christine wasn’t fully over the fact that Alison had woken the girls up in the night and was now screaming gibberish from the couch while Christine was trying to get them ready for school. “All right. Sorry, I’ve had some bad dreams since the fire.”
“When I have a bad dream, Mummy says I shouldn’t worry because dreams can’t hurt you.” The little girl was brown eyed, brown haired, brown skinned. She looked like a miniature of her father.
“Your mum is pretty clever, isn’t she?” Alison replied, trying to smile, to forget the sickness in her stomach, not to rise to the bait Christine had thrown at her. A rivulet of water rushed toward her chest, found the gap between her breasts, and slicked onto her stomach. She writhed a little, trying to mop it up with her shirt without visibly showing her discomfort. Christine watched her; the look on her face made clear she’d chosen to throw a full glass of water at Alison not because she thought it was the best option, but because it was the most satisfying one. Christine turned into the kitchen, began cutting up sandwiches.
“Mummy says I’m just as clever as she is and one day I can be a lawyer like her.”
From upstairs, Luca’s voice came drifting into the lounge. “Hannah, have you brushed your teeth yet?”
The girl looked at Alison with a wry smile on her bright face. “Yes, silly Daddy!” She raised her finger to her lips and mimed a Shhhh at Alison. The gesture made her skin crawl.
“That’s a lie, Daddy! Daddy, she’s not telling the truth,” another little voice piped in from somewhere upstairs. Alison tried to push down the discomfort she felt. Tried not to remember the cling of Gil’s hand on her arm, the silent lick of the flames that seemed so very real.
“Your toothbrush feels as dry as a bone. Come do your teeth.”
The little girl rolled her eyes in Alison’s direction. She set her mouth in a grim line and let out a perfunctory wail. And then, as though she already knew resistance wouldn’t save her, she began to trudge toward the stairs, stomping emphatically.
“Little Miss Sunshine this morning, that one,” Christine said, bringing Alison a cup of coffee. She sat on the edge of the foldout couch and examined Alison with a level of intensity that made her uncomfortable. “Sorry about the water, it’s just, my brother used to sleepwalk and it was the best way to bring him out of it. You were scaring the girls.”
“Sorry, and sorry about waking them up last night. I really appreciate you letting me stay.” Christine made Alison feel off-balance all the time. Never smart enough, or beautiful enough, and now she was caught out in the middle of a nightmare. Screaming like a child. A drip of water slid down her cheek. She darted her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and caught it. Salty. She was somehow sweating.
“It always feels like you spend half your time apologizing to me.”
“Sorry.” They both laughed. Christine handed her a newspaper.
“There’s a big list in there today of the people who they’ve determined died in the fire.”
“Yeah. Shit.” Alison had tried in the past week or so to distance herself from the fire as much as possible. Wrapped up in Simone, trying to forget about what had happened with Billy, she’d pushed it out as much as she could. After the first couple of days, waiting to hear from Meg and never getting a response, she’d just shut it down. All the thoughts and feelings about her friend, her neighbors, the people she knew probably didn’t exist anymore. Not just didn’t exist, but their homes, their lives, their physical presences completely erased.
She fingered the rough, flimsy newsprint, flipped it over, and unfolded it on the pillow. On page seven, a long story about the fire, the aftermath, the current death toll. It was now at one hundred sixty-four. On the page there were a lot of names Alison recognized. More than she expected. People she had been at school with, people she saw at her yoga class or knew from parties or the pub. Her old doctor, the man who had made her bring her mother in with her before he’d prescribed her the pill when she was sixteen. Who’d pierced her ears with a needle on her tenth birthday, numbing each spot first with ice, and gently pressing the point into each pudgy lobe while holding a cork to the back of it. Who’d stitched her leg when she’d gashed it open on a barbed-wire fence chasing rabbits with Ellie Craig in year one.
“Shit.” Meg’s name was on the list. Alison knew it would be—it had been for a few days now—but that didn’t make it less shocking. There were many more that knocked the wind out of her lungs, tightened a grip on her chest, pushed the tears from her eyes as she read. Sal had told her a few of these names before. The bush telegraph had been working overtime in the days after the fire. But somewhere in Alison’s mind she’d drawn a line between hearing the names and acknowledging what they meant. Now they were here, printed in the paper. Not the local paper either. The Sydney Morning Herald. A whole state away. They were really dead. Newsprint-on-your-fingers dead.
“People you know?” Christine’s voice was soft, and as she spoke she reached out and closed her hand around Alison’s.
“Plenty.” She wanted to go home. She wanted to be with her people. To go to the memorials and cry with the survivors and drink with Billy and play cards with Sal and paint, paint the landscape before it could recover. She didn’t want to get back in her car and keep going to Cairns. She didn’t want to chase Gil. She didn’t care about Simone. That wasn’t true. She became aware of Christine’s hand, still gripping tight to hers. The room seemed too big and too small all at once.
“Alison, did Gil hurt you too?”
“I don’t want to talk about him right now.”
“OK, I get it. But I’m here if you ever do. And please be careful, he’s violent. Men like him only get more unhinged if they feel threatened, not less.”
Luca came cascading down the stairs, ushering the girls in front of him.
“We gotta go, Chris, girls’ll be late.”
“I’ll be late,” Christine replied.
“Mummy, I want to go with you!” Hannah declared.
“Come on, baby, you know you’ve got to go with Daddy. He’ll walk you to school like always.” She then turned to Alison. “I take Edie with me; we’ve got a day care in the building. Luca walks Hannah on his way to the train.”
Alison got up from the couch, moved across the room, and held on to Luca with both arms. He leaned into her and tried to give her a hug.
“Why are you wet?”
“Long story. Thanks for having me.”
“Sorry we have to run. Take your time; I’ve put a towel in the bathroom for you—it’s the Princess Jasmine one.”
“I don’t want Daddy. I want you.” Hannah stomped her feet and crossed her arms in fierce opposition to the morning routine.
“Pull the door shut behind you. It’ll lock itself.” Luca looked like he wanted to stay with Alison. “Christ, Al, you’re white as a sheet. You OK?”
“I’m fine. Go to work.”
Christine was pulling a still-protesting Hannah out the door; Edie dutifully, quietly followed. Luca squeezed Alison’s arm and grinned at her.
“Stay with us on your way back, would you? And keep me in the loop.” He followed his family out the door, pausing to stick his head back into the hall. “And be careful, you’re not invincible.”
The door closed with a thud behind him, and Alison could hear Luca arguing with his daughter on the other side. The quarrel faded out of earshot as they headed up the street. Alone in the house with the page of names staring back at her, Alison looked over the list again. And then she cried, uncontrollably, violently, loudly, hideously. It felt like it would never pass.