Lisa was in bed with Mr Rochester when Beverley showed up wielding a flaming torch. ‘I was lying when I said I liked your book,’ Beverley said before setting fire to the sheets. ‘It’s bloody rubbish.’ Lisa woke yelling at Mr Rochester to find a chamber pot to douse the flames.
A miniature lion came into focus on the pillow next to hers. Mojo seemed curious rather than frightened by her shouting. Human behaviour was clearly crazier than anything he’d seen in the bush. She stroked his spine. His fur was beginning to grow back in the form of handsome ginger fuzz. ‘Honestly, Mojo. The sooner I finish this trilogy, the better. These women are driving me crazy.’
As the dream faded, the smell of smoke refused to dissipate. She rolled out of bed, stood at the top of the stairs and sniffed. Maybe she’d left the oven on. To her relief, the smoke didn’t seem to be coming from downstairs. Yet it hung heavy in the air. Her eyes prickled. She’d closed the balcony shutters the previous night because of the wind. Mojo jumped off the bed and trotted after her. She opened the latch and stepped onto another planet.
A red blister of sun glowered in a charcoal haze that engulfed the valley. Lisa could see no further than the silhouettes of gum trees at the end of the paddock. Flocks of birds squealed overhead. A mob of kangaroos bolted across the grass. The animals were all headed in one direction—away from the Wrights’ property and past hers. She worried for the cockatoo. How would he escape without wings?
She coughed. The smoke was laced with eucalyptus and getting thicker. She stood on tiptoe and peered over the trees along her driveway. Tongues of fire rose from the pine trees behind the Wrights’ house. They crackled brilliant reds and yellows into a shroud of dense black smoke. Cinders surfed the wind towards her house.
Running inside, she grabbed her phone from the bedside table. The recharger was hanging half out of the wall socket. It was out of juice. She fought the urge to scream and curl up in a ball. A cool logic settled over her and she tried to remember everything she’d heard or read about bush fires. She was in no position to defend her property alone, she realised. Her best bet was to flee.
She threw on a coat and the purple beanie. Somewhere she’d read that for all the high-tech fabrics around, wool was still one of the safest in a fire. She slid into her elastic-sided boots. Swooping Mojo into her arms, she ran downstairs. The pet container was still on the kitchen table. She slid him into it and whisked her keys off the window ledge.
As she opened the back door the hot wind blasted her face, roasting her cheeks and searing the back of her mouth. She squinted, scanning the garden for the cockatoo. There was no sign of him.
She closed the door and filled a water bottle. While the tap was on, she doused a tea towel in cold water and tied it under her eyes. The bank-robber look could be the next big thing in Milan, for all she knew.
Her hand rested on the tap. If she was about to lose her worldly possessions, the choices weren’t difficult. On the laptop, she summoned the manuscript for Three Sisters: Emily and saved it onto a memory stick. Then, with two-thirds of her next book dangling around her neck, she hurried to Alexander’s room and lifted his photo from the mantelpiece. Grabbing Mojo’s carry case, she rushed from the house and clambered into Dino.
The car grumbled to life. She spun out onto the main road. To her horror, the fire had already crossed the road. Several trees at the entrance to her driveway were flaring like candles. The Wrights’ drive was an avenue of flames. Though their house seemed intact, clouds of smoke were wafting from the guttering. Surely the old couple had left for a safe haven? She pressed the accelerator to roar into town. Then she saw the Holden in their driveway. She peered at the cottage. Something moved in one of the windows. It was almost certainly a hand.
Crouching over Dino’s steering wheel, she stamped the accelerator and roared towards the cottage.
The car skidded to a halt outside the Wrights’ back door. Lisa leapt out and ran up the steps. The door was locked. She ran into the garden and seized a gnome from under the birdbath. Immune to the drama of the situation, the statue grinned back at her. Wielding the concrete ornament, she ran up to the back door and hurled it through the glass. It shattered with a satisfying clash. Lisa slithered her forearm through the remaining glass daggers and turned the lock.
The air inside the house was heavy with smoke. ‘Mrs Wright?’ she called.
No response. A siren wailed in the distance.
Lisa strode down the hallway to the living room. A photo of a dark-haired child smiled from the wall. An unfinished crochet rug sprawled over a chair.
‘Help! Please! Help me!’ It was a woman’s voice.
Lisa sprinted across the hall to the bedroom.
Mr Wright lay unconscious on the floor. Lisa assumed he’d succumbed to smoke inhalation. A frail old woman was kneeling at his side, holding his hand. They were surrounded by piles of old newspapers, boxes and broken furniture—perfect fuel for an inferno. It appeared the Wrights were hoarders. A single spark would barbecue them all.
‘We were trying to get out, but he fell,’ the old woman wailed. ‘It’s his hip.’
‘Come with me!’
‘I’m not going without him!’ the old woman shouted, clinging to her husband.
Lisa’s forehead drowned in sweat. The house seemed on the brink of explosion. Lisa assessed the old man’s body weight. He wasn’t heavily built, and much of his muscle had shrivelled with age. She bent down and raised his torso off the floor. It felt do-able, as Ted would say. But as she heaved Mr Wright over her shoulder and tried to stand up, his dead weight was too much. She wobbled, then flopped him onto the bed.
‘Leave us here!’ the old woman sobbed. ‘Just go!’
Desperate, Lisa cast about the room. An old-fashioned stroller with fat rubber wheels groaned under a pile of newspapers in the corner. She jettisoned the newspapers and dragged Mr Wright off the bed before draping his limp frame over the stroller. Then she threw a blanket over him.
‘Come with us now!’ she urged, wrapping the old woman in another blanket and bundling her down the hallway.
Once she’d helped Mrs Wright down the steps and into Dino’s front seat, Lisa sprinted back inside for the stroller. As she negotiated it down the first step, Mr Wright’s limp form slid forwards. He was in danger of toppling off the pram and straight into the concrete path below. Summoning all her strength, she heaved the front wheels up and eased the stroller down step by step. When they reached the path, she turned and looked back at the cottage. Flames were shooting through the roof.
She opened Dino’s rear door, seized Mr Wright under his armpits and dragged him into the back of the car. Uncertain if he was alive, she curled him on his side like a foetus and placed the blanket over him.
She stamped on the accelerator and they roared back up the driveway to the main road.
When two fire engines whined to a halt in front of them, she almost collapsed with relief. The first engine swerved and zoomed down the Wrights’ drive. Yellow-clad firemen leapt out of the second fire engine and started dousing the trees on the manor’s side of the road.
A sturdy fireman swaggered towards Lisa and rested his elbow on Dino’s roof. She wound her window down and tore the tea towel off her face. It was no longer damp.
‘Bit early in the fire season for this sort of thing,’ he said, grinning.