[CLICK] IT’S Saturday the seventh of December 1991.

Where was I? Umm. Christos had gone home and was coming back to pick me up after work. Vito stacked the last stool on the bar, and poured me a second knock-off drink. Frangelico. He told me what a good bloke Christos was. He was tipsy — he’d always disliked the bloody big firey sniffing around.

I hadn’t touched alcohol since Sandro D’Angelo’s party, and, after the Frangelicos, on top of the champagne at dinner, I felt light-headed and went to wait for Christos outside in the fresh air.

The rain had stopped, but I remembered I’d left my umbrella behind the bar. I was turning back for it when I saw the tip of a cigarette in the shadows. Like a movie scene. You stepped out. Your beanie was pulled down to your eyebrows and your coat collar was up. I glanced at the door, thought about running inside. The smoke you blew into the freezing air smelled burnt-green. Not a cigarette. You held it out to me. I hesitated and glanced across the car park, towards High Street. No sign of Christos’s Mazda. I took the joint.

You called me Sizzle and asked how I’d been. I can’t remember if I answered, said something sarcastic, or just glared. After two small puffs, I passed the joint back.

You swung your keys around a finger and asked if I wanted to come for a drive. I scoffed, and shook my head, but in my left pocket I slipped off Christos’s engagement ring.

You finished the joint, crushed it out on the tyre-stained bitumen. And told me you’d come back to explain things. About what had happened that night.

I said I knew what happened. I was there. [A sniff] Stupid tears. [A long pause] You held up your hands, turned, and walked away towards the row of cars parked along the fence. [A pause] A moth head-butted the streetlight. I told you to wait. You stopped. I caught up. A pack of drunk young guys [a pause] blustered past, exaggerating, swearing, kicking things. Boredom and violence. I felt scared and moved closer to you. The guys kept walking. I could feel your warmth, smell your Fruit Tingle scent. What was it? Aftershave, deodorant, soap? I’ll never know. I’m not sure if a semitrailer rumbled the ground as it geared down, or if that’s just the feeling, the memory I hold of that time, that place. I checked the street again for Christos.

I was ashamed of still wanting you. After the things you and your mates had done to me, how could I? Looking back, I can’t understand why I followed you to your car. [A pause] Yes, I can.

Your car was a new-looking Nissan. SKYLINE embossed across the back, which seemed meaningful at the time. Your white horse. Perhaps I’d gone mad again, but I don’t think I had — not yet anyway.

I said I’d go with you, but only if I could drive. You whistled and asked if I knew how to. I nodded, and you walked around to the passenger’s side, threw the keys to me across the roof.

I climbed into the driver’s seat, put on the seatbelt, and stuck the key in the ignition. I didn’t really know how to drive. Well, I did, sort of, but I’d only ever been with Pop, in the paddock. Oh, and the driver-training program with school — I forgot about that. I was worried about Christos catching us, so I pulled out of the car park in a hurry while you were still struggling to take off your coat. A tall man in a small space. I saw the green light of the motel in the rear-view mirror. You turned on the heater and fastened your seatbelt.

After the showgrounds, I headed south, past the lake, the chicken shop, the caravan park, over the railway line. Christos had said driving would be too stressful for me. But he was wrong. I liked the feeling of it and went faster towards the outskirts of town.

A car going in the opposite direction flicked high beam at us — we’d been driving without headlights. You reached across me to switch them on. You’d changed your grey shirt for flannelette. The fabric against my hand was soft, like Catsby’s fur when he was a kitten. [A sniff]

While we were waiting at the last set of lights, I wriggled out of my coat without unclipping my seatbelt and tossed it onto the backseat.

After the new housing estate and the airport, it occurred to me that you might be directing me to drive home, but we passed the Broken River Road turn off. Crossed the bridge.

I asked where you’d been the last couple of years. Uni. Science, with a major in plant science. We talked around the elephant until we passed the first sign for Melbourne. You started to tell me about that night. Your side of the story. Christos had told you that he and I were together. Getting engaged soon. And you should fuck off and stop cutting his lunch. You punched on for a bit, but your mates pulled you away, took you to the Exchange to cool off. You didn’t want to get in more trouble with your dad for fighting again.

I gripped the wheel tightly as I realised you weren’t there when … [a sigh]

I was a dickhead, you said. Shouldn’t have left you there. You apologised.

I was trying to reconcile what you’d told me when you tapped something against my arm. I took it without looking away from the road. A flask. I think it was whisky.

You said you’d left town straight after that weekend, and it had taken you a long time to man up and come back. Tonight was the first time.

[A pause] The car gobbled up white lines. You told me to turn off the highway onto a back road. Nobody goes this way anymore, you said.

I could see ahead only as far as the headlight beams stretched. The road was narrow and rough, but I felt confident driving. Probably the whisky. And the joint. Maybe you.

You told me to be careful, and pointed at something that looked like a pond of velvet. A pothole. I swerved around it, caught the edge with the tyres, and accidentally knocked the windscreen wipers on. You flicked them off for me. I felt the heat from your hand hovering above my thigh, unsure, and then pulled away.

The moon came out from behind the clouds, illuminating orchards of what I’ve always thought of as winter-bone trees. That’s what they look like, cold skeletons. And the first blossom reminds me of fuzzy caterpillars crawling here and there on the bony branches. Apples. Spring was on its way. The smell of hope in the air. I thought you were falling asleep, but you must have been gathering the confidence to ask if I really did what Christos said I did with those guys that night.

My knuckles turned white on the wheel. I chewed my lip, too hard, tasted blood.

You rubbed your face and told me what Sandro D’Angelo had told you. A story very different to the one Christos had told me. Sandro said Christos had set the whole thing up. Got you out of the way, organised for those dickheads to scare me, and then Christos was supposed to come in, be the big hero, and save me. But he was too late.

I couldn’t believe Christos would do that. I reached for the whisky and took a big gulp. You apologised again, and we drove in silence for a while.

You cleared your throat, and told me that New Year’s Eve, when we met at Jay Jays, neither you nor Christos knew me — I was just another pretty girl (your words). But Christos said to you I looked like a princess from a fairy tale, or an angel, something like that. And he had to save me. Very fucking weird. You bet him you’d kiss me first. Just a joke, but he got really pissed off. Never spoke to you again after that, except to threaten or swear at you. Fucking psychopath.

I wondered if you were making it up. And you were wrong about nobody going that way anymore. In the rear-view mirror, I saw a Red Wolf freight truck. Bobtail. I’d learned a lot of trucking terms from my mum — she knew them all. The truck was catching up to us. Fast. Too fast. The air horn blasted as it overtook, shaking the Skyline. Shaking me.

Fucking cowboy, you said as the truck sped away. They’re all on speed or something. Duromine — Mum knew what pills the truckies took.

Wanting to explain about the party wasn’t the only reason you’d come back home, so you said. You asked if I still wanted to come to Tasmania with you. We could line up for the ferry crossing at the port, sleep in the car. You were slurring your words.

What about uni? I asked. I must have been slurring too. You said your dad was pissed off with you, wasn’t helping with money anymore.

I told you Christos would find us. You said he wouldn’t, not in Tasmania. And not tonight.

You flicked on the radio. Groffy’s show. Still around, doing his retro schtick. You took a cassette from the glove box and fed it into the player. Leonard Cohen. Our song. You unbuckled your seatbelt and leaned across, no longer unsure, draping your arm around my shoulders. Cohen crooned about half-crazy Suzanne taking him to the river. You glanced at the speedo and told me to slow down. Perhaps this is where I started to go crazy too — as I decelerated, I felt time slipping away, and nothing that had gone before mattered anymore. Only that you had come back for me. I believed you. I forgave you.

Catherine and Heathcliff? Juliet and Romeo? I tried to think of a love story that didn’t end in tragedy. All I had was Pretty Woman, which Christos had taken me to see at the cinema. Perhaps Daisy and Gatsby lived happily ever after? One day I’ll finish that book.

You asked what I wanted to do when we got to Tasmania. Maybe you were for real. I went along with it and said I would write novels and maybe start a bonsai nursery. Your plan was to continue Obel Cola’s work in the nature park.

‘Suzanne’ finished and you rewound the cassette to the start of the song. Played it again.

In the rear-view mirror, I saw the distant headlights of another vehicle. You kissed my neck and said we should get married in Hobart. Two marriage proposals in one night!

It was hard to concentrate on driving with you nuzzling me like that. The vehicle behind was still a long way away — too far to tell if it was a car or truck. I was looking at it instead of the road, sure that it was Christos, but praying that it wasn’t. I don’t know if I accelerated or braked as I lost control of the Skyline. You yelled Fuck! and took your hands off me. Whisky splashed. Grass. Earth. Screaming. Broken glass. Your arm flung against my face. The car must have rolled, because for a moment I was looking down at the stars.

I mustn’t have been unconscious for long — when I woke, ‘Suzanne’ was still playing. It was dark. I couldn’t hear rain, but I felt it on my face. I wanted to wipe the rain away, but my hands were wedged inside the crumpled steering wheel, trapped. The rain stung my eyes. It tasted like rust in my mouth, and I knew there was no rain. I must have hit my chest, because it hurt to breathe. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Fragments of windscreen glass glittered on my jeans. It was everywhere. [A pause] Surreally, a gum tree looked as though it was growing out of the bonnet. You were slumped where the passenger door met the dashboard, diamonds of windscreen in your hair. Blood was coming from your nose, or your mouth, or somewhere else.

I whispered, and then yelled at you to wake up. You moved and mumbled. You cried for your mother. I wanted to hold your hand.

At first, more smoke than flames rose from around the buckled driver’s side of the bonnet. Then the flames brightened and danced towards the hole where the windscreen had been. So many colours in fire: red, orange, white, green, even pink. I’d learned a lot about fire from Christos. Blue was the hottest. I struggled but couldn’t free my hands from the steering wheel. The fire blazed two ways: climbing up the tree and licking my fingertips. I pulled, panicked, sheared skin off my hands, but I was still stuck. Christos had described fire as elegant, and it was true — it reminded me of the way I saw the colours of smells. The black smoke was not elegant; it smelled of oil and grease, and it choked me as I screamed to the deserted road for help. The fire held my hands. Red. It melted them like my mum’s grilled cheese. White. Black.

I remember the vision I had. If I close my eyes, I can still see it now. Our house in Hobart — a little bluestone or sandstone cottage. Spring snow on the mountain. Us lying in bed, me curled up to your back, our legs stacked like chairs. The cold tops of my feet against the warm bottoms of yours.

What happened next comes in flashes, like one of those toys that spins with a sequence of pictures on the inside and holes to look through on the outside. [A pause] A zoetrope, that’s it. Spinning slowly. I’ll do my best to describe the flashes. Hissing. Crunching. Metal scraping. Jimmying. My hands? Banging on the window. A male voice — authoritative — saying everything was going to be all right. Christos? Carrying me? My hands?

Cold car seat. Movement. Car boot closing. Water poured over my hands. More water, and something else. Soft drink? Orange? Some kind of plastic wrapped around my hands. A blanket. A sweet, pink-and-orange smell like roast pork and Fanta. Christos’s silhouette dragging yours into the driver’s seat of the Skyline. I thought he’d pulled you out, but it was my coat he was holding.

You were fine, Christos said, breathless as he swung back into the Mazda. Ambos and fireys were on the way. Was the fire out, I wanted to know. Getting me to hospital was of utmost importance, he said. How did he know an ambulance and the CFA were coming? It would be quicker if he drove me to the hospital himself. There was no pain in my hands. I thought they must have been fine too. The dermis and some of the underlying tissue had been destroyed, that’s why there was no feeling.

I blacked out. I woke. I thought I was still with you in the Skyline, but we’d swapped seats and you were driving. I asked why we were going back. But it was Christos, taking me to hospital. He was heading in the wrong direction.

Then we were at Broken River Road? Christos said he had to get something from inside the house. I must have blacked out again, and then I was awake. I asked if Catsby had food in his bowl. I worried that he might drown in the toilet when nobody was there, so I always locked him in the kitchen before I went out. But I couldn’t remember if I’d fed him. Christos swore. I asked if he was sure you were fine, but he didn’t know what I was talking about. He said I was having a psychotic episode — after he had dropped me home after work, I’d called him saying Mum, Nan, and Pop were at the pokies, I was alone, and I was going to burn down the house. Christos had hurried back but hadn’t been fast enough. The house was on fire, and I’d hurt my hands very badly, but everything was going to be all right. He’d just pulled me from the blaze, saved me. Lucky. He forced a tablet into my mouth, saying it would help me calm down.

In the side mirror of the Mazda, I saw flames climb the front-window curtains. It must have been true.

I screamed for Catsby. [A sniff] Christos told me he would be fine too.

[A pause] None of what happened that night between you and me was real. You were the one who’d hurt me at Sandro D’Angelo’s party. You hadn’t come back to the pub. My involvement in the car accident had been a hallucination. And Christos and I hadn’t really left you there to die. (This is what the doctors and Christos told me.)

It started to rain.

And that’s all that I remember about you, Dean Cola.

[Click]