LARUNDA | Water Nymph
Larunda spread gossip about Juturna and Jupiter – so Jupiter cut out her tongue. Associated with other mute goddesses who could be invoked to destroy hated people, Larunda could be symbolised by the image of a hand over a mouth.
Later that evening, while on TV, politicians began to argue about whose fault the fire was, residents of the Retirement Home (the stronger ones, the weaker had been transferred to Melbourne) walked around the refuge handing out salad rolls steamed in cling wrap, and heat-softened chocolate bars. Caleb wolfed down his then mine, like he’d never been difficult to feed.
Harmony Beckwith found us. ‘Ms Wharton?’
Someone had tried to wipe her ash-smeared face, but hadn’t done a good job. ‘Yes, Harmony?’
‘I saved this.’ From the shopping bag she’d carried from my house she withdrew a large leather pencil case. Mine. She passed it to me, dirty little face filled with hope.
I unzipped the case to discover my whiteboard markers, the stamps with smiley faces and cheery messages. Well done! and Excellent work! All the things Harmony associated with the side of me that she was used to, in school. Also, the case contained a well-used notebook. The one where I recorded new thoughts about art, alongside my lyrics. Harmony must have seen me with it, hundreds of times. Harmony. Bully, child smoker, trouble-maker. She, of that ironic name, had remembered what was important to me, and kept it safe.
I met her smile. We’re not really allowed to touch students, but I pulled Harmony into a rough hug. My tears made splashes of clean in her sooty hair.
Harmony was exhausted, but proud of herself. She let me hold her for a moment, a miniature example of the way fire had pulled the community together. Then she pulled away. ‘Mum says once you have this, I’ve gotta bloody go to sleep.’
I smiled. ‘Mum’s right. Thanks so much for this, Harmony. What a lovely thought.’
Eyes stinging, I returned to my stretcher. Caleb had collapsed into the next one. I watched his eyes close then wrote in the rescued notebook. Quick word sketches. Lots of them. All impressions from that day. The roar of fire like war cries of an approaching army. The demon hands of flames reaching skywards. Letters on paper, the quick word images, made the memories firmer, somehow. One day, these impressions might be at the heart of new songs I’d write.
After a while I noticed Caleb sitting up again and staring across the hall. Sweat in his hair had dried and beneath the bandana his hair had resumed its natural waves. ‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I heard her voice. Penelope. She’s over there.’
He was right. Penelope, sooty-faced, with ashes in her long, stringy hair, shifted from foot to foot while Nancy Bailey spoke to her. Beneath a blanket draped over her narrow shoulders I saw expanses of thin, grimy thighs and long socks that would have been white and knee-height before they became ripped and grey and saggy. Nancy finished speaking and Penelope burst into tears, throwing herself into the elderly woman’s arms. Tears weren’t unusual that day, but Penelope won people’s attention. She brought Caleb to his feet. He took one step towards her. Further words reached us. The couple I’d seen on my street earlier had also escaped and were perched on a nearby stretcher, sharing a flask of coffee. Kylie Hart, who worked as a counsellor, sipped, and said, ‘Poor girl. I heard her parents died. She’s going to need therapy.’ Kylie clearly didn’t care who she upset. She’d once faced legal trouble for calling herself a psychologist although she had never actually studied psychology.
Caleb raised a hand once again to the side of his head. Then he swayed… and collapsed.
I fell onto the floor beside him. His skin was clammy and actually a little cool to touch. Finally, I could remove the bandana. Beneath it, his forehead was bruised. Above his ear, his scalp and hair were dark and matted with blood.
‘Caleb! You’re injured!’
His eyes opened.
‘We need a doctor.’
His gaze managed to look unfocussed and desperate at the same time. He clutched my hand, the tightness nearly painful. ‘I want to talk to Penelope.’
‘Not right now.’
‘I need to talk to her,’ Caleb repeated. He shook, and his eyes drifted shut.
I begged the coffee-sippers, ‘Please. Find a doctor.’
Kylie was already shuffling to her feet. She nodded wordlessly, then went off in search. A doctor came over very quickly. He pushed the bandana aside to check Caleb’s bloody scalp then shone a torch into his eyes. ‘How’d this happen?’
Caleb shrugged. The doctor turned to me. ‘Before, I saw he was walking strangely.’
‘That’s not from today. He was injured… about a year ago.’
‘All the same, head injuries can be serious. Even minor ones. He could have a skull fracture. Not remembering how it happened is a worrying sign. He needs to go on the next hospital transport for proper observation.’
‘Hospital transport?’
‘Buses are taking injured people into Melbourne. His hands could also deal with more attention.’
Caleb shook his head and moaned. ‘I need to see Penelope.’
‘This could be a skull fracture. If it’s not treated, you might not see anyone.’
My fingers nearly crushed his. If Penelope wasn’t so clearly distressed about her parents, I could have asked her to come over and insist. ‘Penelope would want you to get help.’
Caleb’s gesture was part way to a nod. ‘Don’t forget my sketchbook.’
I packed it with our few belongings and guided Caleb to the exit. He didn’t fight me. Nancy Bailey, with her cords and camera, was signing people in with ruthless efficiency. Once in BuyCheap she’d said she pitied me for having a son like Caleb. She saw us in the queue for hospital transfer and said, ‘I’m gunna pray for you.’
‘If it makes you feel important,’ I replied.
A small minibus was the organised transport. The outer-suburban hospital was a collection of architecturally disconnected buildings clustered on a hillside, surrounded by undamaged houses. An uninterested guard waved us through a boom gate.
I helped Caleb from the bus and held his arm, scared he might collapse again. Giant sliding doors to the emergency ward yawned open. I guided Caleb into a cool waiting room full of people with soot-smeared clothes and red-stained eyes. He clutched his sketchbook like an evangelist with a bible. Had Brian and his followers survived? Were they here? In a miasma of disinfectant and vomit, parents and children clutched at or ignored each other in two long rows of seats. It looked like a war-zone.
A woman in pink surgical scrubs sat behind a window, beneath a sign reading, Please check in for triage upon first arrival.
‘Over there,’ I said to Caleb.
People arrived, screaming, with skin coming off, especially from their feet. Some were silenced by masks delivering oxygen. I heard a nurse explain that one man’s lungs were so damaged he was in danger of suffocating, even here. Others had the hue of aliens, their skin hypoxia-blue. Immediately in front of us were a middle-aged man and a boy with a packet of frozen peas pressed against his eye. Beneath his mantle of ashes, the boy wore a sleeveless football uniform. Caleb had once had a uniform just like it.
Through his good eye, the younger boy gave me a suspicious look. Perhaps he’d once come to Brunton Primary. Perhaps he knew Caleb from his own playing days.
‘Nasty game, footy,’ the nurse said to the boy.
‘It wasn’t footy,’ the father said. ‘The game was this morning. He’s hurt because our house collapsed.’
It all felt unreal – I was there, but not there. My day might have been images on a cinema screen. Emotions and feelings existed, but for other people. Me, I was exhausted.
The boy pulled the frozen peas from his face for long enough for the nurse to have a fleeting look at his swollen, purple eye. ‘That’ll go black for sure,’ she said. ‘Sit over there and a doctor will come out to have a look.’
She wrote a few lines on a medical form and slid it into a plastic pocket on the wall behind her. Then she turned to Caleb with a blank form. ‘What seems to be the matter with you?’
I pointed at Caleb’s head. His bandana was darkened with ashes and heat, as if he bled black.
‘I see. Good thing you came. You need to be careful with concussion.’
She sent Caleb for a long wait and an X-ray. We traversed a white hallway punctuated with grey doors. Arrows on the floor and brightly lit signs overhead provided the only colour. Caleb collapsed again, this time into a set of hard plastic chairs beneath the X-ray sign.
I watched him close his eyes but didn’t dare close my own. I never slept well and only nightmares waited. What if I hadn’t found him? What if he’d still been out there, dazed and wandering alone, with this terrible injury? Instead, I checked the news on my phone, reading that hospitals all over Melbourne were receiving victims of burns and smoke. Politicians said it wasn’t the right time to talk about climate change. Police were suspicious that some fires resulted from arson. It was the second time I’d heard the word that day, a day of disastrous words. Fire. Missing people, PAN, burnover, concussion. Skull fracture. Arson meant nothing in particular to me. I put my phone away.
A television set, suspended from the ceiling, gave nonstop fire coverage to the small gathering of viewers awaiting X-rays. On TV I saw police officers and fireys, office-workers in their shirtsleeves milling around before a bank of other screens. Behind them all was a large weather map, informing them of what they still had to deal with: the wind direction and speed, the temperature and humidity levels.
The CFA chief appeared, his sweaty, shiny, stressed forehead noticeably at odds with his blue many-medalled uniform. Nearby, an on-screen expert, his expertise proven by the towers of books behind him, was identified as Professor Oscar Lynch.
Oscar’s opinions seemed more serious because he was himself a survivor of fire. Half his face was middle-aged and ordinary, the other half a pale landscape of scars. The reporter mentioned how quickly investigations now got underway, after the state’s experience with Black Saturday and the long Royal Commission, and asked him to imagine what would happen now.
‘Well, the team will do the obvious things,’ Oscar said. ‘They’ll look into CCTV footage from around the area. They’ll ask doctors to report burn injuries that could come from starting a fire rather than trying to put one out.’
‘And what can you tell us about arsonists you’ve worked with before? Are there particular characteristics they have in common? Attributes that could help investigators narrow down a list of potential suspects?’
‘Yes, there are.’ Oscar nodded emphatically. ‘Most firebugs are male. They are often loners. They’ll be in their twenties, maybe their early thirties, with a history of psychiatric disturbance. And yes, the cliché is true. Many will have a history of having joined a fire brigade. They might want to be heroes.’
A door behind the television set opened for a young female doctor, pale and tired. Ashes had been transferred from her patients to her once-white coat. A lanyard tag read Dr Selena Branham. She called us through to a small treatment cubicle, and, looking at Caleb’s head, sighed.
‘How did you hurt yourself, Caleb?’
Caleb didn’t reply.
‘He’s a CFA volunteer,’ I said. ‘Dr Branham.’
‘Call me Selena. Been a long day?’ Selena asked Caleb. ‘This happened on duty?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’ve had a bump on the head. What do you remember?’
He frowned. ‘I saw smoke and went to help.’
Selena transferred her attention to his hands, noting the redness and blisters. ‘Do you know how this happened?’ she asked him.
‘I think a branch fell on me.’
‘That wasn’t when your hands were burned?’
‘No.’
Unbidden, an image came to mind. His baby hands: plump, soft, with one perfect dimple at each knuckle. Hands I first held in this very hospital. They were ghosts. They’d vanished into Caleb’s growing hands, large and reddened, blackened, coarse. Now, blistered and weeping.
‘Firefighting?’ Selena asked.
Caleb locked eyes with me and nodded. Selena applied cream to his burns and wrapped his head in a bandage as white as the sheets. ‘You don’t want to talk about it yet?’
‘Not ever.’
‘The X-ray shows no sign of a fracture,’ Selena said, ‘but, based on your behaviour, Caleb, we’d like to keep you under observation.’
‘Everything’s going to be okay?’ I asked.
‘I think so.’
‘His hands too? He’s an artist.’
‘The damage is minor. Keep cream on the injured skin and watch how it heals.’
As she guided us from the room, Selena continued, ‘Everyone reacts to trauma in different ways. He’ll need to talk. Eventually.’
‘I’ll look after that,’ I said. ‘I’ll look after him. I’m his mum.’
Finally, in a hospital room, Caleb slept. In a green vinyl chair beside him, I didn’t. I switched on the TV, and watched rolling coverage of the fire well into the night.
My throat was sore from inhaled smoke, my feet swollen in their battered boots, my neck stiff from spending too long with my head tipped to one side. It must have been nearly morning, coverage moved to the emergency response team’s press conference. A fire chief, identified in TV subtitles as Brendan Hurd, spoke to a throng of reporters rustling like seagulls at a chip shop. They trained cameras on Brendan’s corrugated iron hair and on the movements of his thin smoker’s lips. Jack Laskin approached the podium. Of course: the fire began in Brunton, where Jack was CFA captain. Instinctively, I moved closer to the TV.
‘A temporary morgue has been instituted to accommodate victims,’ Brendan said.
Accommodate? How could that word – reminiscent as it was of rolled towels and folded toilet paper – be fitting for the dead?
Jack checked his notes, a smear of soot on his left cheek. ‘So far, thirty casualties have been reported in Brunton. Right now, we don’t know the nature of the injuries. I don’t know about other locations,’ he said, in a professional, calm voice. Like an actor. ‘We won’t have final numbers for a while. Reports of missing people are still coming in.’
‘Can you tell us a bit about Brunton?’
‘It’s a Yarra Valley town. There are wine makers. There’s a brewery, a shop selling valley produce, that sort of thing.’
‘What was the fire like?’
Jack coughed at his colleagues, who nodded. He gripped the lectern. ‘I thought I’d worked in bad places before. But this is hell. This is climate change in action. It’s the hottest year we’ve ever had and it isn’t over. It’s still burning up there.’
Cameras whirred and flashed, a wall of light. Jack blinked red-rimmed eyes.
‘And you have grave fears for the residents’ safety?’ a reporter asked.
Brendan stepped forwards once again. ‘Emergency shelters are full and helicopters have located various groups who found shelter but became isolated.’
‘Brendan Hurd, can you confirm to us that you warned the Prime Minister that this would be a devastating season, nearly eight months ago?’ asked a reporter from the evening news.
Brendan coughed awkwardly. ‘Ministerial briefings are confidential conversations... Perhaps you should check with the Prime Minister once he returns from his family holiday.’
People sniggered. A woman’s voice sounded next. I stiffened and glanced quickly at Caleb. Sadie Riley. Always getting in everywhere. ‘Sadie Riley. The Melbourne Herald,’ she said. ‘The Premier says any arsonist is a mass murderer. So, we can assume it’s arson?’
Jack’s boss stared at her. A challenge. ‘We’re investigating possibilities including lightning strikes and downed power lines. There’s no certainty at this stage…’
‘Do you know who lit it yet?’
‘…but we’re asking people who have suspicions to contact us rather than make rash statements.’
‘Facebook is full of arson rumours,’ Sadie persisted. ‘Will you release a Photo-Fit?’
‘If and when we have one.’
Another uniformed man appeared beside the two fireys. I’d seen him on TV before. Police Commissioner Roderick Brady, resplendent in his uniform and medals, took the microphone. ‘I do have an update I’m authorising you to release.’
There was an excited buzz.
‘Brunton is of interest because we’ve identified a likely suspect very early in our investigations there.’
Excitement broke out among the reporters. A number spoke at once.
‘Who?’
‘Have you made an arrest?’
The commissioner cleared his throat again. ‘We suspect a young male adult. His age and gender fit the profile of your typical arson offender. We won’t be releasing his identity at the moment.’
‘What is a typical offender profile?’
‘Well, as I said, we mean young and male.’ The commissioner counted on his fingers. ‘He’s disconnected from society, he had a grudge against members of one family that unfortunately perished. Sadly, another factor we’ve come to expect is he has previously volunteered for the CFA.’
Mutterings and mumbles. Newspapers were full of firefighters who lit their own fires in order to become heroes. In this crazy, backwards world, everyone knew how suspicious joining the CFA could be, even those who had, themselves, joined the CFA.
‘How sure are you?’
‘As sure as we can be at this stage. His name’s come up several times. As far as we know, the suspect has no alibi for the time the fire was set.’
‘As far as you know?’
‘The suspect is currently receiving medical treatment. We plan to interview him as soon as possible. This is all I’m prepared to announce at this stage. The other news I’m releasing is the immediate establishment of Taskforce Phosphorus. This taskforce will be charged with overseeing the investigation into all the fires in Victoria. There will be dozens of CFA members and the police, including the current Victim Identification Teams. That’s all for now.’
I turned the television off. Somehow, in this place of all places, I managed to sleep.
In my dreams, twenty years vanished. I was a uni postgrad using Ancient Roman art as a primary source for my thesis. I was with Marco Ossani. He was as I’d known him then, dressed in black, chin ending in a little pointed beard. We’d been digging for the secret workings of the Imperial era’s Domus Aurea revolving dining table.
Then, as time changes in dreams, more centuries collapsed. The ancient historian Pliny was with Marco and me, in a boat returning to Pompeii as Vesuvius erupted. Returning! Our dream selves had already successfully fled, but we had to go back to rescue a friend and his family. A hail of fire and ash covered us. Our mission had a deadly futility. In the night sky above us, the goddess Venus, married to Vulcan, was discovered in bed with the god Mars. I knew the terrible violence, the burning that would result from Vulcan’s fiery rage, and clutched Marco’s hand in mine.
Marco often appeared in my dreams. We’d always kept in touch. I liked the reminder of other choices I could have made, other lives that could have been mine, even though – especially once Caleb was born – I’d never been disappointed with this one. It was something I’d never been able to explain to Stephen. Of course, Stephen was a cheater, so that didn’t matter. With a cynicism it took me a failed marriage to equal, Marco always loved archaeology more than people. The great passion of his life was pottery – his father had owned a homewares store. ‘History is never really over,’ Marco said. ‘The people who know moments best have simply left it behind.’ More than once on a dig, I saw him magically transform an artefact into a plate, simply by resting a sandwich on it. Every age co-existed for Marco. For him, Mussolini, Nero and Julius Caesar were all contemporaries. Our Rome was all Romes. And every plate, dish and tray, whether gold or fine china or cardboard, was interesting for what it revealed about the people who made and used and disposed of it. Possibly the disposal more than anything else – it was once objects were discarded that they joined the archaeological record.
On that long-ago dig, Marco had been ordered to stop work (carefully brushing a pile of broken ceramic dishes, wondering if they belonged to a commercial kitchen or a private home), because, nearby, I’d uncovered the desiccated skeleton of a very young child. How horrifying that felt, the discovery of bones beneath the skin of the earth. I’d disturbed an ancient secret not intended for my eyes. Brushing dust from the skull, I had self-consciously touched my own face, my eye sockets firm beneath my warm, living skin. Digging into the earth was digging into my own past, my own future, where I myself would be only bones. Every skull was a memento mori, a reminder we too would die. Not even every plate is always just a plate. Claire’s collection of Franklin Mint royal occasion collectors’ plates, for example, would make Marco laugh. What would future archaeologists make of those? What of all the royal wedding memorabilia that burned, with ordinary crockery, in the fires? What would eventually happen to my own collection?
Burned land was a reminder that what we called history still remained just beneath the surface of things, at one with the land, a living, breathing thing. As Marco said, the past travels with us.
Neighbours have always been rivals, even among the gods, I thought, waking. Insomnia was a frequent visitor in my life but exhaustion had won out. I needed the toilet. There’d be one in the hall.
The hall?
Rome vanished. I was in Australia. In a hospital.
My eyelids flew open. Sunrays spilled through venetian blinds. I was in a vinyl chair at Caleb’s bedside. Caleb was asleep, his head tipped to one side, a pillow holding it there. Beneath a white bandage, his black hair hung over one of his closed eyes. In the twilight world of sleep, he was haunted. He frowned.
A doctor should come around soon to tell me he was okay.
The drawer beside Caleb’s bed was open, revealing the sketchbook he’d clutched, walking the streets. One corner was torn. I touched it, lightly. I didn’t flick through the pages – not then. I respected Caleb’s privacy, as I needed him to respect mine. His revolting pewter eyeball ring was there, too. I wouldn’t let myself think about throwing it out.
My stomach growled. How long since I last ate? How long since I had a glass of water, tea or coffee? I couldn’t remember bringing my handbag but there it was, on the floor beside my chair. I stooped to pick it up and checked my wallet. Nearby, I’d find a drinks machine. At the very least, a bar of chocolate.
Standing, I noticed Caleb’s right arm was firmly bandaged. What was it like underneath? A cut I hadn’t noticed? Had he needed stitches? I touched the bandage, appalled by a vision of scarred skin.
Something – my intake of breath? – made him stir. His eyelids twitching, his fingers rose and fell, as if he were trying to move his arm. I watched him as closely as I had as a baby, waiting until he was perfectly still before I let myself breathe out and tiptoe to the door.
A police officer waited on a stiff metal chair out in the cool tiled corridor.
A police officer.
My imagination flashed through all the crime dramas I’d seen over the years. The police officer in blue uniform waiting, gun drawn, outside the hospital ward of an injured man who was either a potential flight risk or a target.
Did Caleb need protecting? Was someone trying to hurt him?
The police officer looked up. ‘No change, Ms Wharton?’
How did he know my name? I shook my head. ‘No change.’
The police officer nodded enigmatically. I noticed a nurses’ station a few doors away. A group of police officers were clustered there. I recognised a couple of them, including Sergeant Michael Gillan. A tall man with sparse hair parted slightly too far to the right, he attended the car accident Caleb was involved with that year. Now he looked up at me and frowned. Was he thinking of last time we met? No, this was something new. Something wasn’t right.
Watching them carefully, I inserted coins into a nearby coffee machine. My fingers shook over the buttons as I selected a flat white and waited for it to begin brewing. The police officers glanced at me then moved into a tighter huddle. My presence had unsettled them. This meant something. I carried the dispensed coffee into the women’s toilet, resting it on a shelf before the mirror. After relieving myself, I gulped, staring at my dirty reflected face, as if that alternative me might explain.
I stepped back into the hall. The number of police officers had shrunk and Caleb’s door was closed. Sergeant Gillan coughed meaningfully.
‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.
Michael didn’t want to meet my eye. He must be thinking about last time we met. He spoke to a plain-clothed man beside him who then approached me.
‘Come through here, Ms Wharton.’ He indicated a nearby door. ‘Let me explain.’
We stepped into another waiting room. ‘I’m Hong Feng. Detective.’ He indicated I should sit. My muscles twitched in a way that made sitting seem painful. I forced myself down, and stared at the officer.
‘Your husband isn’t here?’
‘We’re divorced. My friend…’ I tried to say Jack’s name, that he’d be there soon, but the sentence was a broken necklace – I couldn’t string my words together.
‘I see. Sit down, Ms Wharton…’
I realised I was standing again.
‘Sit down. Please.’
I shook my head, forcefully. ‘My son. I need to speak to a doctor… He was in the fire…’
‘I know that, Ms Wharton,’ Detective Feng said. His voice sounded at once gentle and efficient. Practised, whispered an evil little voice I didn’t want to hear.
‘He hit his head,’ I continued. ‘I’m worried about him.’
‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, Ms Wharton.’
‘Tell me what?’
He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Yesterday’s fires are under investigation. A number of witnesses have already come forward. A suspected arsonist was spotted.’
What could this possibly have to do with Caleb?
‘And I’m sorry to say more than one description we’ve received of this alleged arsonist matches your son.’
My world shifted. My ears weren’t working. ‘What?’
‘Witnesses saw the arsonist, Ms Wharton. The man they describe sounds like Caleb.’
This couldn’t be right. ‘Are your officers questioning him?’
Detective Feng pulled at his moustache with narrow fingers.
‘While I’m out here?’
‘Ms Wharton, your son is eighteen.’
Mentally, I flailed, searching my mind for things that, later, I’d wish I’d said.
‘Without a lawyer? While he’s in hospital? Concussed? You shouldn’t be doing this. It can’t be legal.’
Finally, Detective Feng looked uncomfortable. He glanced at his phone. ‘It’s my understanding he hasn’t requested…’
I strode down the hallway to Caleb’s room, passing the police officers. Michael Gillan was on the phone. He looked white. ‘You go home,’ I heard one of his colleagues say. ‘Look after Shelly and Violet. We’ve got it sorted here.’
No one tried to keep me away from Caleb. Through the door, I heard him talking to someone. He didn’t sound alarmed.
‘Caleb?’ I tried the doorknob. Locked.
An unfamiliar voice answered, ‘You can come in.’
The door rattled, then opened. I crossed to Caleb’s side. The head of his bed was raised. His hands were crossed over his chest. Two police officers sat beside him, one male, one female. And behind them, looking distressed, stood Jack. Hopefully he’d be thinking of how much Caleb needed him.
Caleb always had something in his hands. Now it was his phone. Lying in the hospital bed, he managed to give the impression of a sixth grader sending an illicit text message.
He looked guilty when he saw me. His face flushed right up to the line of bandage. He slid the phone under his pillow. In my pocket, my own phone rumbled silently.
He’d been sending me a text. He needed me.
I gazed around the ward. Caleb’s sketchbook was open on his bed, as though the police officers had come to discuss his graphic art. I rested my hand on the book. ‘What are you doing here?’
I heard footsteps. Detective Feng entered, followed by Dr Selena Branham. She frowned. ‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘Is Caleb well enough for questioning?’ I demanded.
‘Police interview, ma’am,’ an officer said. ‘We’re here investigating yesterday’s fire.’
‘This can’t happen,’ I insisted.
Caleb ran his hand over his eyes. ‘Mum, I’m just talking.’
‘I suppose it’s okay,’ Selena said. ‘If he doesn’t get upset.’
The police officers turned their attention back to Caleb.
‘There was something you said to Penelope,’ the older of them said. ‘Her friend reported it to us. Do you remember what it was?’
Caleb shook his head.
‘I’ll take over from here,’ Detective Feng said. ‘Let me help you, Caleb. You said you would, and I quote, do something about her parents?’
I stepped in, horrified. Caleb had said that? What could he have meant?
‘You can’t ask him any questions,’ I insisted. ‘This is a hospital. Caleb is injured. He has concussion.’ I stared at Jack. Why didn’t he do something? He lifted his hands – which previously seemed so capable – and shrugged. As out of depth and bewildered as me.
‘Ah yes.’ Detective Feng nodded at Caleb’s hands. ‘Injuries sustained yesterday. Though there’s no report of how they were sustained in his CFA records.’
There was no denying the bandages. ‘What records?’ I demanded.
Detective Feng ignored me. His gaze didn’t flicker from Caleb. ‘The Gordons weren’t very keen on you being involved with their daughter. You said you’d look after them,’ he repeated. ‘What did you mean by that?’
I recognised the expression on Caleb’s face. He’d hated that the Gordons called him a bad influence on Penelope. Selena stepped forwards, her own hands clenched. Detective Feng picked up Caleb’s sketchbook, flicking through the pages.
‘He meant look after them, as in make sure they’re okay,’ I insisted, because of course that was what he must have meant. Feng looked sceptical. If they’d already decided on arson, Caleb seeking vengeance must have real appeal to him as a motive.
Caleb’s eyes were fierce and protective, watching his sketchbook. His hands clenched and unclenched; it took all his willpower to not seize the book back. Detective Feng reached a page showing Penelope, her hair yellow and pink and obvious, soaring from a nest of flame. ‘Tell me about this picture.’
‘It’s Penelope Gordon.’
‘And the fire?’
‘I was drawing her as a phoenix.’
‘A phoenix?’
‘I’ve also drawn her as a mermaid. She’s never been in a flood.’ Caleb looked at me. ‘Do you like my phoenix? Gold neck, purple body, blue and pink tail. I took the description from Pliny.’
‘What?’ demanded Detective Feng. Caleb was silent. I’d have to explain.
‘I study Ancient Roman art…’ I began.
‘What?’
‘Pliny.’ I knew it didn’t matter.
‘Right,’ Detective Feng said. ‘Let’s talk about what you said to Penelope.’
‘I said a lot of things to Penelope.’
‘We mean yesterday.’
‘So do I.’ Caleb put his hand on his head. He was getting even paler.
I cast Selena a desperate look. Every legal program I ever watched on television came crashing into my mind. This questioning couldn’t be okay. There had to be a way to make sure what he said was inadmissible.
‘You have to get out of here,’ I said.
The male police officer opened his mouth to speak.
But Selena stepped closer, silencing him. ‘My patient needs rest.’
Finally, the police officers left. ‘We’ll have to come back, you know,’ Detective Feng said, from the door.
Only Selena and Jack remained. Caleb fiddled with his bed controls and the pillow end sank.
‘Is it all right for me to examine you now?’ Selena asked him.
I pulled Jack into the hall. The police officers hadn’t gone far – just back to the nurses’ station, where they clustered, beasts regrouping and renewing their attack, staring. I kept my voice low. ‘Did you know about this?’
Jack held my eye. ‘Phoebe, Caleb has told the officers he was with Penelope all afternoon. She has verified his story. Mostly; there’s a half-hour period he can’t account for.’
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from him. ‘Can’t you make this stop? You know us. Caleb thinks the world of you.’
Selena stepped through the door, left the room, giving me a sad smile. ‘We’ll want to keep him for a while longer. He certainly isn’t well enough to be taken to a police station.’
‘Thank you.’
Jack followed me back into the room. Caleb’s eyes soon found him.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Jack promised me. He rested a hand on Caleb’s arm. ‘You doing all right, lad?’
Caleb touched his bandaged head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You’re doing all right,’ Jack reassured him. ‘Sometimes it’s best to say nothing. You’ll see things more clearly once you’re out of here. Plenty of time to talk then.’ I remembered what Jack had told me about his wartime experience. He’d been forced to talk when he wasn’t ready because his information suited operational needs. The trauma that followed. His jumpiness and his fear of sleeping because dreams returned him to Iraq.
‘All right.’
‘It was natural causes.’ Jack sounded insistent. ‘You do believe that, Caleb?’
‘But—’
‘Natural causes, Caleb. It’s hot and dry out there. A tinderbox. We’ve been talking about it. Politicians are desperate for a scapegoat. They want to deflect attention from what they aren’t doing. When they realise you weren’t there, they’ll give up. It won’t take long. I’ll tell them everything I can to support your story.’
Later, I read Jack’s notes, handed over in the prosecution brief. I learned how he had discovered that Caleb was a suspect. They wanted a suspect caught before he could offend again, and things moved very quickly. The investigation team met in the conference room I’d glimpsed on television, so I could picture the scene clearly: the incident board – map, coloured pins, photographs, timelines. At the centre of everything, an oval table surrounded by uniformed police and CFA officers. Jack had been horrified when the commissioner spoke. The amount of damage, the number of casualties, the level of community anger against the government inaction, all were shocking. Once Caleb’s name was mentioned, knowledge of his year-ago car accident, his unconventional appearance, apparently was enough kindling for accusations to catch and spread.
‘I need to warn you. This will be sensitive,’ the commissioner had said. ‘Wharton’s mother is a notable community member, principal of Brunton Primary School. The one that burned down. This could, of course, be additional motivation for the offence.’
‘Additional motivation?’ Jack found it difficult to breathe. ‘How so?’
‘The suspect may have a grudge against his mother.’
‘What makes you suggest that?’
‘Doesn’t every eighteen-year-old hate his mum?’
Jack had never hated his mother. Fury boiled within him. ‘We’re not naming every eighteen-year-old as a suspect.’
‘I’m saying his mother’s position requires consideration. She’ll have support.’
Detective Feng checked forms in a ring binder. ‘What do we know about the suspect?’
The facts that would hang over Caleb emerged. ‘We’ve heard his name repeatedly today,’ the commissioner said. ‘No prior convictions. But he’s the boy who crippled Sean Henderson. You remember that case, Jack? You were first responder.’
The accident again – its consequences would never end, and not just for Sean and Rosie. ‘I know him,’ Jack agreed. ‘I don’t think you’ve got it right.’
‘You keep that to yourself, Jack,’ the commissioner said. ‘Stick to the facts. People need answers as quickly as possible. Your job is to find evidence. Help us make a case.’
‘What about considering other suspects?’ Jack asked.
‘I think that’s enough,’ the commissioner said. ‘We need people to feel safe again. We have a likely ignition point. We’re looking for evidence linking Caleb Wharton to that place. Concentrate on that.’