Growing up in flames, p.4
Growing Up in Flames, page 4
Ava picks at the food and chatters about school and dancing as the sky darkens. I ask questions so she knows I’m paying attention, and she unfolds in front of me. I memorise what she tells me.
Her father has never seen her dance but goes to all her brother’s football games.
She doesn’t have a lot of close female friends, but she trusts Alex with everything; they’ve known each other since they were little.
She feels guilty every time she sees the scars on her brother’s leg.
‘Sounds like it’s pretty rough at home,’ I comment. ‘I know something about that.’ Then I say, ‘What was the family night you were going to have tonight?’
She shakes her head. ‘Nothing really.’
‘It didn’t sound like nothing.’
‘It’s just…it’s my mum’s birthday.’ She tosses a stone into the water below. ‘She died.’
I nod, but I don’t apologise. I’ve learnt it’s best not to give any ground. ‘Were you close?’
She nods and shrugs in one movement. ‘She was sick for a long time. So we had a lot of time to talk. She gave really good advice.’
‘Like what?’
Ava goes quiet for a minute, and I worry that I’ve upset her. I really don’t want to be a shoulder for her to cry on. ‘She told me your problems always make more sense when you tell them as a story, like they happened to someone else.’ She stands up and tosses another stone. It skitters impressively across the water, leaving ripples before it disappears.
‘I bet you can’t do that again.’ I nod to the path of her last stone.
She puts her hands on her hips. ‘You’re on.’ Her next throw is just as perfect, the flat pebble curving off, making it almost the whole way across the river. She turns to me, chin out. ‘Bet you won’t jump in the river.’
I stand next to her and tug off my shirt. She looks over my chest and arms. She must be impressed. My muscles aren’t for show. I’ve earnt every fibre, climbing to catch birds, waiting hours to suddenly spring forward and pin them, fighting them until they submit.
I keep my pants on. The backs of my knees are still red with welts from Dad’s belt.
I take a couple of steps back, then run past her. Ava shrieks as I launch into the air, leaping as far out from the rocks as I can, and the sound of it is worth the sudden shock of cold. I plunge deep but can’t touch the bottom. I spit water as I emerge.
‘Woooo!’ Ava cheers from the bank. There’s no one around to hear our yelling. No cars have crossed the bridge since we got here.
‘Jump in!’ I call.
She shakes her head.
‘Coward! I dare you.’
She watches me for a moment as I tread water, then turns and walks away.
What, she’s offended by that? I brought her out here, made a nice dinner, listened to her spill her guts. She owes me more than that.
Call her back. Tell her you want her to stay. Tell her you didn’t mean it.
I’m about to yell something when I see her step onto the road and walk back to the bridge. She crosses to halfway, then climbs up so she’s sitting on the railing above me, legs swinging. It’s hard to make her out in silhouette, but then something flutters down and lands in the water next to me.
I reach out and grab it. It’s a little white top with pearl buttons. Next to fall is her bra. Then the faded jeans and her underwear. All I can see above me, hard as I look, is a pair of swinging legs. I tread water, holding her soaked outfit.
‘Watch out!’ she yells. The legs I’ve been watching launch themselves off the bridge and she splashes into the river a couple of metres away. When she surfaces, her teeth are chattering. ‘I’m n-not a c-c-coward.’
I take her hand to lead her to the bank.
She hesitates before she rises from the water, but I don’t look away, and she doesn’t ask me to. The desire to get out of the water wins, and she joins me and her wet clothes on the rock, the remains of our picnic forgotten.
I kiss her. Her tongue darts into my mouth and sends a current zapping through my body. I wonder if she can taste the cigarette I smoked earlier. I run my hand over her back, squeezing the water from her hair. She nestles in close, planting small kisses on my collarbone. I slide my hand along her thigh, feeling the slipperiness of her wet skin, the heat under her goosebumps.
‘Easy.’ She pushes me back, turning to see where her clothes ended up. They’re behind me. ‘Take it slow.’
I’m breathing heavily. My whole body is vibrating. Every muscle is tensed, poised, ready to explode. ‘I can’t help myself,’ I say. ‘You’re so beautiful.’
The hardness melts in her expression. ‘I don’t think I’m ready.’
But I can see how much she wants me.
I smile at her like I would to a kid. ‘Of course you are. You jumped naked off a bridge for me.’
She starts to say something but I kiss her mouth again and pull her under me After a few moments, she stops resisting. She’s ready.
This diary belongs to Ava Olsen
James Faulkner asked me out today.
He saw me dance at the Easter Show and he talked to me afterwards. He has a motorbike and he’s leaving school to be a butcher. Lauren is so jealous.
James Faulkner. My first boyfriend. Not technically, I guess, but does Tom even count? All we did was sit next to each other in class. He didn’t even kiss me. I think James will. He really cares about me. He said I need someone to look after me because Dad doesn’t.
Maybe I’ll get to ride on his bike. That would make Lauren even more jealous.
Kenna
Present Day
The cane stalks are heavy on my shoulders. The waxy leaves stroke my arms and legs, prying into the creases of knees and elbows. I flick them away with a turn of my hips, pressing through. The long stalks bend around me like bamboo and slide back into place when I’ve passed.
I don’t walk through so much as swim. I’m in a green ocean, under the surface where the light is dim. A series of crashing thumps tell me a wallaby is moving somewhere to my right. I can feel the movement in the cane around me.
I smell smoke.
The funk of the smouldering store hasn’t gone away, and for an instant that’s what I think I’m smelling. Smoke is like coffee, though. It smells different when it’s cold.
Then I hear the pop and crackle like microwaved popcorn. A feline growl builds somewhere behind me. Either I’m being hunted by a jungle cat or—
The cane is on fire.
I spin towards the sound but I can’t see any flames through the cane. The smoke is gushing into the air now.
I cough and feel hot fingers on my throat.
Spinning was a mistake. The air is cloudy now and all of the cane looks the same. I pick a direction and stumble forward, pulling myself through the stalks in a panic. I can feel the heat of the blaze on my back.
I pause. The smoke’s getting thicker—am I even heading in the right direction? There is a wind, but it’s not blowing, it’s sucking. I feel pulled, like hands have grabbed my backpack. I dig my legs in hard and push in the opposite direction.
The cane is vicious now. It lashes my face and arms. My chest is a vice and my bag is an anchor. I wriggle free from the straps and drop it.
Is this how Mum felt?
Did she look for the front door?
Did she die in a room that she couldn’t find her way out of?
Was she thinking about me as she suffocated?
The smoke presses into my mouth. It fills me and leaves me empty of breath. There is no space for both. I try to cough, but I can’t get the air in. I stumble. I can’t see the edge of the field. I don’t even know what direction it’s in. I could be a mile from anywhere, or I could be two steps from the road. I can’t tell.
I don’t care.
I fall to the ground. It’s a choice.
I hear the fire coming. I’m alone in my school uniform, somewhere in a field of sugarcane.
I’m alone in a bedroom. Fire eats through the walls.
I’m ready. I suck in smoke.
I close my eyes and think of her.
Some kind of words bounce around me, miles in the distance. Ashen fingers grab hold of me. A smoky face whispers into my ear. It wants me to go with it. I taste charcoal.
I close my eyes.
Some time later—no idea how long.
I’m not dead. I’m lying on something soft, and I get the sense I’m indoors. My tongue feels like, tastes like burnt wood. My eyes sting when I try to open them. There are voices close to me.
‘…half-dead, poor girl. Too early for a harvest. Still, she shouldn’t have been in a field. Dangerous places. Snakes, lots of snakes. No snakes in Ireland, though—that was St Patrick—all green. Green river, green beer, green like the fields, all green. The snakes didn’t do this, did they? This is fire—no doubt about it. Incredible thing fire, fixes—’
‘Mum.’ A male voice. Quiet but firm. The sound drifts away like a dream as I sink back into the black.
Awake now. My clothes are wet. My eyes water when I open them and my throat feels raw and swollen. God, I’m thirsty.
Someone presses a glass of water into my hand. I sip, and the cold is blissful.
I go to sit up; a hand pushes me back down.
‘Easy. You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke.’
I ignore the hand and sit up. My head spins, but I close my eyes until the feeling stops. When I open them again, I’m sitting in a cluttered lounge room. I’m on a leather sofa under an open window. Bookshelves cover one wall, with books shoved in on top and in front of each other where space has run out. Books have spilled like liquid over the TV, jumbled up with VHS tapes.
A boy is sitting on the edge of the coffee table in front of me, holding my empty glass. He’s tall, probably over six feet, with a hunger-pang frame and a sideshow of gangly limbs. His messy, dark hair does nothing to hide the scratches on his cheek.
Noah Hudson’s polar-blue eyes are narrowed. He doesn’t look angry. Just…focused, or something.
‘You—’ I try to speak, but I break into a fit of hacking coughs.
He leans forward to pat me on the back, but I turn away.
‘You tried to kill me.’ My voice is an alien language of rasps. It hurts to speak.
He shrugs. ‘Tried to scare you. Didn’t expect you to just lie down in there.’
His gaze burrows into me like he’s looking for something. I cover my chest, suddenly aware of my damp white school blouse.
‘I had to pull you into the trench to drag you out. You were closer to the edge of the next field than the road. I can get you some clothes—’
‘No.’ I don’t want anything from him. I try to stand, but the head-spinning feeling comes back in force. I sit down with a thump.
‘You’ll be okay. Just take it slow.’
I want to yell at him. I don’t.
‘Oh, she’s awake!’ The woman who floats into the room is wearing most of the colours of the rainbow, several of which are woven in a plaited headband that, on her, is a crown. Hair falls, thick and golden, around her shoulders, and she is impossibly beautiful.
‘I’m sorry about the plants.’ She points somewhere outside of the room. ‘Although you probably didn’t notice. Hard to see them when you’re unconscious, I guess. Still, sorry.’ She looks at me, waiting.
I nod, confused.
‘People move them.’ She glides into a chair next to the lounge, brightening the room. ‘They do it to unsettle me, to make me uneasy. I know why they do it. I’m a very perceptive person, see? My antenna goes way up, and I can tell what they’re trying to do. Doesn’t bother me. Doesn’t work. I don’t really mind where the plants are. Noah doesn’t like it, though—that’s why he’s always moving them back. I think people talk about it. That’s what bothers me, when Noah gets affected by it. It’s how they work, you see. They isolate you—they make people think you’re weird or crazy. Because people need relationships, they need community—people around them—it’s built into us. It’s chemical. So, to deprive someone of that, to take it away from them, that’s a form of torture really. If you were going to replicate shock therapy in a psychological way, that’s how you’d do it. Have you heard of gaslighting? It’s where—’
‘Mum.’ Noah’s quiet voice stops her again.
She clears her throat. ‘What’s your name?’ This time there is actually a pause after.
‘Kenna,’ I croak. ‘Olsen.’
‘Kenna. Kenna? Interesting name. Do you know what it means? I’m a firm believer in the meaning of names—I think they make a person who they are. Noah means ‘comfort’, which I think suits him. Erica suits me—it means ‘eternal ruler’, and I’m a natural leader. People have a tendency to follow me.’
Noah hangs his head. ‘Mum, your name is Jeannie.’
‘I know.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I was just saying that Erica suits me.’
She looks at me for support and I have no idea why, but I nod.
‘Kenna.’ She rolls the name around her mouth like unfamiliar food. ‘This whole place was a church, you know.’ Jeannie gestures around the room. ‘I used to go here, actually, back in the day, with my husband, when I was married, before he left me for the woman who worked at the chemist. Drugs—terrible things.
‘The minister here was a woman, very controversial at the time. They didn’t like that, the people at the top. She was great though, very nice lady. I was an elder here, right up until they closed. Used to read the Bible on Sundays, counsel people when they were struggling with life—everyone needs that from time to time. They started to push me out after my husband left. Not a lot of sympathy for that. They do it with little things, you know—people started to sit where I usually sat so that I’d have to move. They would hand out an order of service to everyone but me—just little things like that. I would still read the Bible every week—I was on the roster. But I didn’t really feel welcome. Still, I kept going every Sunday right up until the church closed. I was an important member of that community.’
‘Drink, Mum?’
She nods. ‘I’ll have it in here.’
I can tell that wasn’t what he was hoping, but he leaves the room to fetch it anyway.
‘Did you say Olsen? Like Rob and Abbey Olsen?’
I don’t know how to disagree with part of the sentence without speaking. Before I can figure out how to respond, she’s moved on.
‘Nice people. I used to see them around a lot. Wonderful rugby player, Rob used to be. I used to watch him at the school games, all the girls did. I’ve never particularly liked football—just not my thing—but he was very popular. I don’t think he plays anymore though. Probably too busy now, and too old. Aren’t we all? Well, not you, I suppose. I went to school with Rob’s sister. Actually, we grew up together. Of course, that was back when everyone had to catch a bus forty-five minutes down to—’
‘Ava?’ I croak out.
Jeannie nods. ‘That’s her name! Good memory! She was in the year above me at school. Beautiful. Always beautiful. Used to go out with James Faulkner. She used to turn up places on the back of his motorbike, hair blowing in the wind. Wild thing.’ She held a handful of her hair out to the side to show what she meant.
‘She’s my mum.’
‘Really? How funny! How is she going? Well, I expect. She was always very popular, like Rob. She used to dance at the Easter Show every year—won the competition every time. She was an amazing dancer, Mrs Taylor’s best student by far. The old bat still talks about her—lives out on Yamba Road now—still says Ava was the best dancer she ever saw. Of course, that was until the last year of school—she kind of fell off the radar then. She didn’t dance that year. Lauren Claire won at the show. Didn’t deserve it. Fat legs. And you can never trust a person with two first names.’
‘She’s dead.’ I cough.
Jeannie’s eyes lock on to mine. ‘Lauren?’
‘My mum.’
‘Here you go, Mum.’ Noah hands her a glass with a layer of golden-brown liquid in it, and I wonder how late it is. He’s refilled my water too, and I take the cup. I feel a little dazed, and I can’t tell if it’s the smoke I’ve inhaled or Jeannie’s intense eye contact.
‘How did it happen?’ She takes my hand and gives it a small squeeze.
I open and close my mouth like a fish. It’s the first time I’ve been asked that. Everyone else just looks at me with pity. Or embarrassment.
I don’t know how it happened.
‘A bushfire. She was trying to save our house.’
It feels like a pathetic sort of explanation. I don’t have the words to package up everything I feel and send it to someone else. Dr Kahn comes the closest to guessing what’s going on under the surface. Even he doesn’t know everything.
‘A fire? My God! And now this?’ Jeannie indicates my damp, ash-stained clothes. ‘Noah, get her something to change into.’
‘Mum, she—’
‘Now, Noah!’
He throws his hands in the air and leaves again, muttering.
Jeannie takes another sip of her drink and pats my hand. I don’t know what else to say.
‘You remind me of her, you know,’ she says.
I know—I look like her, I think.
‘She was troubled, too.’
I shoot her a sideways glance and she continues, looking into her glass.
‘She got a lot of grief from her dad. Everyone knew. Sometimes she’d come to school with a bruise on her face, or a cut lip. She never talked about it though.’
I gulp water too fast and my throat hurts. I haven’t heard these stories. I never met Grandpa. Did he hit Mum?
‘I think that’s why she was with James Faulkner. Her dad wouldn’t have liked that. Not at all—’
‘Why?’ My voice is slowly improving.
She waves a hand. ‘He wasn’t the kind of boy that parents approved of. He rode a motorbike. Dropped out of school. He was that type. I remember, at school, he used to hypnotise pigeons. He could catch them in his hands—just sneak up behind them and grab them. Very gently.’
