He got a message via radio that their old home in the hills had escaped the flames, while others around it had been razed, and, for that, he gave silent thanks, but still his phone was useless to him, and it was only the map of the fire ground at the sports ground that gave him comfort. The bushfire had cut a great swathe through the hills, but there, on the western fringe, the fire had passed it by. The gorge was safe and Caleb could breathe again.
Now he just had to find Ava.
It wasn’t until the next morning that he finally got his chance. He drove up into the hills, still smoking in some places, seeing the devastation the bushfire had wreaked in this part of the hills first hand. Either side of the roads with nothing left but the blackened trunks of trees, gnarled fingers poking into the sky. And all around was the smell of ash and death. A roadblock stopped him in one place – only residents allowed in, and even his day job didn’t give him a free pass, there were serious fears of looters, so he didn’t push it– and he had to backtrack down to the city and find another way around. But this route was better, the burned footprint of the fire a narrower band and soon that was behind him. He drove higher up the escarpment, the vegetation eerily unscathed here, like some miracle had protected it from the monster the fire had become.
He began to breathe easier then, finally accepting that the maps hadn’t lied and that the gorge and the houses that dotted its upper reaches had survived. Most of all that Ava was okay.
He pulled into her driveway, giving thanks for whatever miracle had saved the gorge, his footsteps crunching on the gravel Overhead in a cloudless blue sky, the sun shone, the volume dialled back to autumn while the bush looked refreshed after its drenching. A perfect day to live in the Adelaide Hills, if you still had your home.
He found her tending the small herb garden filled with the coriander and Thai basil and mint she used in her cooking that she kept outside the kitchen. Dressed in a singlet over cute bobble fringed shorts that showed off the long satin length of her legs, she’d heard his footsteps and was poised waiting, watering can in one hand, to see who was coming, and after days and nights of not knowing, the urge to run to her and sweep her into his arms and hold her to satisfy himself she was real and he wasn’t just imagining her was almost overwhelming.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, turning back to her herbs, her cold greeting like a bucket of water to his face.
He crossed the paved patio to her, his heart leaden, but he wasn’t going away and he wasn’t giving up. He’d never for one moment imagined this was going to be easy.
“Ava,” he said, drawing alongside, talking to her downturned profile as she tended her plants.
He ached to reach out a hand to her back, where the thick knot of her hair rested against her back, ached to run his fingers down the sweet curve of her spine, but there was an aura around her, a force field that repelled him and told him not to touch.
“I tried to call.”
“I had my phone off.”
“I’ve been worried sick.”
This time she turned, the lights in her brandy coloured eyes all but snuffed out, her lips tightly drawn. Did he only imagine their quiver or the tiny tic in the corner of her mouth?
“Why?”
“Why do you think? There were bushfires raging all through the hills and I didn’t have a clue what was happening around here or where you were or how you were managing. I was scared witless when I couldn’t contact you. I’ve never been more scared in my life.”
She shrugged and turned back to her plants, shifting sideways away from him along the small raised bed, putting down her watering can and picking up some snips, trimming bits here and there. “As you can see, I’m fine. I had my bushfire plan ready, in case things got hairy.”
In case things got hairy? “Who are you trying to kid, Ava? This was a major bushfire. If it had got into the gorge, there would have been no stopping it.”
“It didn’t get into the gorge.”
“And that was all kinds of miracle. All it needed was one live ember to land and the whole lot would have gone up, and taken you with it.” He raked one hand through his short hair, thinking of the dead livestock in the burnt paddocks and the kangaroos blundering in panic through the burning bush. The horses they found when they could go back... “The things I saw – things you never want to see.”
Her eyes snapped up to his, a glimmer of light illuminating their cognac depths. “You were there?”
“Every available firefighter available was there.”
She dropped her gaze, turned her face away again.
“Don’t you understand? All the time I was seeing what the fire could do, the way it was eating up the bush, I couldn’t call you. I didn’t know where you were or how you were. I was beyond terrified– I was shit scared.”
She put down her snips and brushed her hands. “I can’t help that. I’m not responsible for how you feel.”
“Maybe not. But you’re the reason I feel. I told you I’d give you time to think. I told you I’d be back and here I am.”
She shook her head and started back toward the house. “Look, if you’re planning on replaying the conversation from that night, I’m afraid going to have to pass. I’m not interested.”
He caught one of her hands and spun
