PAMPHILA | Historian during Nero’s reign
Author of thirty-three volumes of history, many being the biographies of famous men and women. Many of her books were falsely attributed to her husband, before they were lost.
There was too much I didn’t know, that Jack did. The next morning, I washed and blow-dried my hair, I put on a dress Jack had once complimented. I went to see him at the CFA station.
Amanda looked drained, talking on the phone. She hung up soon after I entered and, almost immediately, the phone rang again. She stared at it. I decided to speak first.
‘Amanda, I’ve come to see Jack…?’
‘I know what you want.’ Her fatigue was washed away by unmistakable malice. ‘There’s something I want to say to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘Jack deserves better.’
I could come back later. I could visit Jack at home. I could call him on the phone.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Amanda demanded.
‘Why would I listen to this?’
‘If you care for him, you’ll leave him alone. You have to know what he’s going through with his mother.’
Amanda continued as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘She nearly burned his house down last year. Put oil on the stove, forgot it. He doesn’t need you in his life. You and the boy who did burn his house.’ She barked a sudden, unexpected laugh. ‘I want you to promise me.’
‘I won’t do that, Amanda.’
Amanda was too incensed to listen. ‘He’s lucky the two of you never went further…’
Jack stepped through the door behind her. His lips were white. It was obvious he’d heard at least some of our exchange. ‘Amanda.’
‘Jack—’ she began.
He raised a hand. ‘Phoebe.’
Her phone rang again. Amanda glared like it was a funnel web.
‘I’ve come to ask you over for dinner,’ I said to Jack.
He looked embarrassed. ‘Come through to my office.’
Jack stood back while I passed through the door. Did he want to tell me off for being rude to Amanda?
But his expression was only sympathetic. ‘I’d like to have dinner,’ he said. ‘But don’t cook. I know how busy you are. Come to my place instead.’
Jack was living in a minimally-converted garage that, ironically, had survived when his fire-proofed house had not. He’d been there for long enough now to install some cooking facilities but still showered either outdoors or at work. He pushed the window open, then fumbled through his pocket for a crumpled packet of cigarettes. ‘I really have to stop.’
I sat on the couch. Jack sat beside me. Very close. Not annoyed with me at all. ‘You’re scared?’ he asked.
‘You’re a witness. I need you to support Caleb.’
‘I’ll do everything I can,’ he promised.
One art history article I’d published analysed a mosaic of Pandora’s box, created to punish humans for possessing fire, stolen from the gods. Like Marco, I’d wanted to find things and understand them. But life was full of things I didn’t understand.
Nearly two months had passed since the fire. One Saturday morning, I got up early to deliver Jeannie’s photo booklets to survivors at the relief centre. Outside, I discovered strips of toilet paper clinging to our house. Toilet paper. Like obscene strips of lichen, like burial winding clothes. Someone had thrown it there overnight. Caleb, who had come outside for a cigarette, stared, arms folded over his chest like a dead boy pharaoh. He promised he’d remove it by the time I got home. Shaking and uncertain of the reaction I’d get, I continued on to the relief centre at St Monica’s hall.
A new social hierarchy had been established at St Monica’s. The most important people were those who had lost the most. I was at the bottom of the heap. I had lost no one. Worse, they thought I had raised the arsonist.
They wouldn’t talk while I was there, even though they valued the photos. My heart sank. I’d hoped to find answers to my own questions. I had so many! Someone knew something. Who? Someone’s house had not yet been searched. Someone was getting away with this. Someone was protecting someone and doing a better job than me. But how? What legal recourse did I have?
Home, late afternoon, I dialled the Hawthorn house. Stephen answered but faint, and far from the receiver, I heard Ivy’s voice. ‘Who is it?’
‘Phoebe…’
Footsteps. Ivy again. Her voice in the background. Perfectly, intentionally audible. ‘I’m sick of this. The fire is a perfect excuse for her to—’
‘Phoebe, maybe talking over the phone isn’t the best idea,’ Stephen said. ‘Shall we meet at the Brunton Hotel? I can be there tomorrow.’
He kept talking while ringing off. ‘I have to do this,’ he told Ivy. ‘We share a son.’
So after school the next day I drove into town. The streets were deserted so it was easy to park near the Hotel. Scaffolding had been erected over its historic façade. Painters were doing their best to return the soot-stained tower to its usual pristine white while wind crackled, still hot, through charcoal and rising gusts of soot. New posters, encouraging locals to attend a climate change rally in town, provided the only colour.
Stephen was already seated near the bar’s broad front window, tapping on his phone and sipping from a large cup of coffee. He caught my eye and slid the phone into his grey suit pocket. We hadn’t met like this since I learned about Ivy. To be honest, we hadn’t had a serious conversion for a long while before then.
I sat opposite him and ordered a bottle of local shiraz with two glasses.
‘One glass. It’s still my working hours,’ Stephen said.
‘You want me to look like an alcoholic?’
He assumed an expression of faux sympathy, a sad smiling mask he kept in his lawyer’s kit, with his pony-hair wig. ‘Are you hungry?’
The pub served burgers on wooden pallets with little flags denoting the flavour of their sauce. I shook my head. Stephen pretended to look at me more closely. ‘Phoebe, you’re like a wounded animal.’
The wine arrived. I poured a glass, right to the top. ‘I am wounded. Are you here to rescue me or to finish me off?’
‘I’m here to talk.’
‘You need to help Caleb. He’s making bad choices.’
Stephen tapped the table for emphasis. ‘He won’t listen to me.’
‘There must be things you can do. Other than talking. You’re a lawyer.’
Stephen stared at a young couple walking past with a pram.
‘You have to try,’ I said. ‘Maybe if you tried apologising…’
‘Apologising?’ Stephen looked mystified. ‘For what? I’ve just been living my life.’
‘Do you ever think – I don’t believe this, but do you ever wonder – he could have lit fires because he hates us? I think that’s why he did stupid things to his face.’
He touched his own lip, speculatively. ‘The reason boys do strange things is to impress girls.’
I slammed my glass down. Wine splashed over my hand. ‘Not all boys.’
Stephen’s thing was to stay very calm when I was upset. He drew a measured breath. ‘You’re asking me if I think he’s guilty.’
I hoped that wasn’t what I was asking. I’d hate myself if it was.
‘Is that what you think?’ Stephen demanded.
‘Don’t ask that. You should be on his side.’
Stephen rubbed the back of his neck. ‘The truth is, I don’t know.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – and didn’t want to admit to similar doubts. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t believe you know either. Could it have been us? The broken home…’
The nerve. Taking another mouthful of wine I reminded myself to be calm. ‘You and Ivy. You need to know you look stupid. Your custom-made suit and gold watch and pony-hair wig over your bald spot, your skin buckling over those ridiculous abs… married to a girl Caleb’s age. Nearly. I wanted to show you that you’re ridiculous. But not this. Not like this.’
Stephen stared through the deep, serious eyes I fell in love with long ago, knowing no better.
‘You should feel guilty,’ I said.
He cradled his face in his hands.
‘Caleb has done nothing wrong,’ I insisted. ‘If this was arson someone else did it. Maybe we should hire our own investigators…’ I let that thought fade – no one could investigate more thoroughly than me. ‘I want to talk about his sketchbook… Stephen, you aren’t listening.’
For a long moment, he was silent. I refilled my glass. ‘The police took his sketchbook,’ I reminded him.
‘Why? What do you think it shows?’
‘It must have something to do with the case. Caleb came back for it. He won’t tell me why.’
‘If the police took it, it helps them. I thought most of his sketches were still about Sean and that accident.’
Every time I thought we’d put the accident behind us, it flared up again.
My old insomnia was returning. A couple of hours past midnight, I stood in the kitchen, staring through the open window at night that concealed the burned valley, the destroyed miner’s hut, Caleb’s yard. I’d loved him since before birth, loved the hiccups, pointy elbows, kicking feet. I recalled the feel of his long-ago little-boy hand, warm as a promise, safe in my own. How could I know so little about his motivations, his thoughts, desires? Surely, eventually he’d talk?
The wind changed. I felt the shift as a tickle along my jaw that I might not have noticed except, a moment later, a wisp of smoke appeared, corkscrewing its way upwards from the old manna gum at the end of my yard.
Smoke was such a familiar part of the landscape that at first I didn’t realise what it meant. The wisp grew heavier, unfurling and folding into the sky. Drifting upwards, it took the shape of a finger, pointing and then… I shook myself back into reality.
That finger of smoke meant the manna gum was on fire. The largest tree in my yard: it was burning from the inside. I raced outside, dialling Jack’s number.
Jack and his team arrived in a CFA tanker, sirens blaring, while I waited in the backyard. Flames had now joined the smoke, pointing skywards. Eucalyptus oil burned and popped. By the time the fireys finished, they’d pumped thousands of litres of water into the smouldering tree. Jack removed his helmet and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘I think we’ve got it licked. I can’t be sure. She could start up again.’
My mind raced through Facebook threats. ‘Who did it?’
Jack looked confused.
‘Who set fire to the tree? Was it an attack on Caleb? On my house? Do you know?’
Jack shook his head. ‘The tree’s been on fire for weeks. Deep inside. You wouldn’t have seen. The wind changed and flames found a knothole.’
I couldn’t understand him. ‘Weeks? I haven’t seen anything.’
‘You wouldn’t. It would have died right down. Just a tiny flame. Fires need oxygen. It was waiting for the right wind.’
Bushfire was indefatigable. ‘Will it start again?’ I asked.
‘Unlikely. There’s nowhere left for it to go. Are you all right?’
‘Caleb’s in his room,’ I said, irrelevantly. ‘He hasn’t been out here.’
The other fireys departed in the tanker after handing Jack the bag and laptop he’d left inside. He followed me up the back stairs and made coffee while I checked on Caleb. The fire had been noisy, close to his window. But he was sound asleep, earbuds pushed firmly in place.
In the sitting room, I sank into my sofa. Jack made comforting, rattling noises in the kitchen. He’d been involved in disasters with Caleb since the first day we exchanged words. His kindness was incredible.
Jack carried the coffees in on a tray, laptop bag dangling from his spare hand, and sat beside me. My eyelids were heavy. Perhaps physical exertion would keep my insomnia at bay. ‘Thanks. I’ve kept you up all night.’
‘And not in a good way.’ He laughed, tiredly suggestive. A streak of ashes shaded his nose. The coffee was good and strong. A couple of sips, and my head cleared.
‘Are you working in the morning?’ I asked.
‘One of the others’ll get me on his way in.’ He’d be staying overnight. That should have been thrilling. If only I wasn’t so tired. If only his laptop didn’t glow with hidden knowledge about the arson investigation, knowledge I knew Jack wasn’t allowed to share.
Early in our relationship, evenings had blossomed. Jack enjoyed listening to my guitar playing and would arrive at the Brunton Hotel, face stubbled after a day’s work, fingers keeping my rhythm, sipping on a pint of beer. I remembered his enthusiasm for my new song ‘A New Home’, one that was often requested. I’d been so proud of that song, at once nostalgic and hopeful. Back then, our lives had a shared rhythm – Jack had returned to Brunton shortly after I arrived. He was single and interesting. Like me, he had a family connection to the town. After a few dates, I’d invited him over for a barbecue that neither of us ate. Staring at fat drizzling from my sausages, hardening on my chops, I’d been aware of Caleb acting like the judge at an audition for his new dad. In those days, a judge who didn’t want a winner. It seemed bad enough he had his old one.
Eventually, Jack had won Caleb over. It was hard to believe there’d been a time before they were close. ‘A New Home’ was a reminder of those first days, but I’d never really found a home here, and now, I’d write different lyrics. I’d connect the fire’s damage to the damage accusations caused. Some wounds caused ulcers, ate fissures through everything in your life. Everything you thought you knew or understood. Did people write lyrics about ulcers and fissures?
Jack had to fill in a quick report to let people know about tonight’s call-out. All I had to do now was lean close enough to watch while he typed his password in. There was something wrong with me. Shouldn’t I feel guilty? Perhaps Caleb felt enough of that for both of us. I was simply doing what needed to be done. I had to save Caleb and Jack had to help me, even if it was only by paying hardly any attention at all. He finished his message quickly.
‘I’m glad your rekindling manna gum called me out here,’ he said. ‘Bit like us, hey, Phoebe? Rekindling?’
Awful as it was, whatever distracted him would help me. Eventually, I’d have to learn what was on his laptop.
I was starting to dress for school on Monday when Caleb, who routinely stepped outside to smoke cigarettes I was supposed to ignore, banged back in through the front door and down the hall, morning cigarette dangling unlit from his lips. ‘Don’t come out!’ His face was white.
‘What is it?’ I couldn’t imagine anything worse than Saturday’s toilet-papering.
But Caleb looked alarmed. ‘Someone’s been here, Mum. There’s graffiti.’
I wondered about his horror. ‘Graffiti?’ How could that be such a big deal? We’d learned about Roman daily life from graffiti in Pompeii. And some Melbourne train stations were so crowded with neon tags they could be art installations.
‘Do we have metho?’ he demanded.
I couldn’t remember. ‘Maybe Claire kept it in the laundry.’
‘Don’t go outside.’ He was trying to protect me.
I couldn’t help myself, and quickly understood his horror. An amateur Banksy had used stabbing slashes to spray-paint bright-pink letters a metre high across the front of my house.
MURDERER
It was outlined in yellow with enthusiastic skill, the artist insisting the word was an important creative gift to the universe. On top of the layers of ash and soot, rubble visible not far away, that word made my neighbourhood look even more like a war-zone.
‘Do you know who did this?’ I asked.
‘Do I know who hates me? Who’d attack me? How about nearly everyone?’ Then Caleb relented. ‘I’ll clean it, Mum.’
I found Claire’s metho, and passed it to him along with some old cloths. ‘Will you be all right with this?’
‘We’ve got neighbours cleaning up worse messes.’
‘Not messes that were so deliberate.’
Caleb stared at me, as if reading another meaning in my words. ‘Not as deliberate. Look, Mum, you were getting ready for school. You should go.’
He got to work cleaning. I did what I did every morning and checked the news on my phone. The first headline about the case had me clutching the device to my chest. Caleb couldn’t see this. But how could I stop him?
LEAVE ME ALONE: GIRLFRIEND OF BRUNTON ACCUSED ARSONIST SPEAKS OUT
by Sadie Riley
The grandmother of Penelope Gordon, former girlfriend of the suspected Brunton arsonist Caleb Wharton, yesterday made an appeal for people to understand Penelope’s position.
‘Penelope has been harassed by community members who know about her relationship. People need to remember that her parents also died,’ she said in a statement distributed by Victoria Police.
The grandmother, who does not want to be named, said Penelope has been involved with Wharton since they were in high school together. ‘But Penelope is also a valued community member with plans to begin university next month,’ she said.
‘We fear her mental wellbeing could be jeopardised by the current publicity.’
A photograph of Penelope holding hands with Wharton appeared onscreen during In Australia Tonight. Although she was not named, Penelope was clearly identifiable. Her grandmother said Penelope has been threatened and bullied online as a result.
‘Penelope is an innocent young woman who has already lost too much,’ her grandmother said. ‘We understand the community is looking for answers but Penelope is suffering too. She deserves to get on with her life in peace.’
Wharton, an unemployed eighteen-year-old from Brunton, has identified himself as a suspect in the Brunton fire. Penelope insists he was innocent; however, she also admits she was not with him during the time in question. Caleb recently failed a televised lie detector test.
The media ambush continued, the radio murmuring beside me in the kitchen while I finished reading. ‘The suspect is within his rights to demand to know why the investigation is taking so long,’ a woman’s voice said.
I froze, shocked. Someone was taking Caleb’s side?
‘We always have to question fire investigations,’ the woman continued.
Brock Shepherd’s voice broke in. ‘We’re talking to University of Melbourne arson expert Millicent Marbury. And Dr Marbury, in relation to this case, you’re saying the evidence can’t be trusted?’
‘I’m saying there may not be any evidence. We’ve had investigations by the fire brigade, the police and insurance companies.’
‘And you say no one has really found anything?’
She sounded older, and very professional. ‘The sheer number of investigators is a problem. There’s no chance of finding footprints. And it’s always difficult to know if fires were caused by lightning strikes or downed powerlines.’
I pulled out my own notebook, now stuffed with newspaper articles and transcripts. To my own notes, I added another line. Contact Millicent Marbury. Outside, Caleb was still scrubbing the wall. A television cameraman was actually filming him at it. I had to leave for work. I ignored the camera, the temptation to scream abuse, and brushed a kiss on Caleb’s surprised, metho-scented cheek.
‘Don’t speak to them,’ I murmured.
He kept his voice very quiet too. ‘I’ve learned my lesson.’