I’ll never sleep. I wrap myself in my dressing gown and pace the hall to your bedroom. I stand at your window. Lights from the nearby Retirement Home and the further away town blink across the night-dark dry creek bed, site of your alleged crimes.
Other fires have lapped at Brunton’s outskirts, singeing its fabric, burning off its loose threads. But this one caught the entire community, destroying its warp and weft, leaving nothing but ashes, as surely as it destroyed the people who died. Every local family has regrets. Beneath every rooftop and buried in every building site is the story of some small decision that could have been made differently and saved a life – or cost one. Few people truly survived: police are increasingly called to deal with domestic violence and alcohol. The house right next door to ours pulses with poisonous emotions. Its owner, Rosie Henderson, hates you. I still believe there’s some truth I can find to free you, but it seems I’m alone.
I know all your movements on the day of the bushfire; from the window I stare into unrevealing darkness, all but seeing your ghost stride through our backyard, clutching your sketchbook to your chest. In my mind’s eye, I see you push your bicycle along Damper Creek Road to our house, heading for the dry creek bed and the old fossicker’s hut beyond.
This is the closest I’ve come to despair. Questions peck my consciousness, throwing me into a fluttering panic of denial. How can I learn about you? I should know everything. Could I be wrong? Could you be responsible? – I can’t let myself wonder. I can’t stop wondering. When did this impossible distance erupt between us? Did you look out on the sunburned paddocks whose dryness frightened everyone and decide to…
If you won’t defend yourself, then I have no choice but to defend for you. Beyond my lifetime of mother’s griefs – the losses of your forceful baby mouth suckling, your skinny arms clinging to my neck, your little hands waving as your bus slid off to school, the moments when kisses better stopped working and Santa slipped quietly away – I have lost my idea of your infinite, magical future. We imagine we can control time like we imagine we control fire but both flames and time consume everything they touch. Time leaves a fine layer of ash over what it leaves behind, a fine cloud of the past haunting the present, a reminder of our current global state of flux and change. I’m haunted by all those losses felt, the sting once eased by equally precious gains. The sight of you in your school uniform, the wisdom revealed when you whispered, Mum, can I have two dollars now instead of waiting for you to play tooth fairy?, your muddy-faced pride at kicking a goal, your first shave and first whiskery kiss. (God, I love you.) But now all is loss, nothing gained. Out on remand, you hang around the house, surly, unemployed and unemployable. You play computer games and eat too much pizza. My own life has become lost in the need to clear you. As Brunton Primary principal, once I had a standing in the community, but that’s gone. Parents who once asked for advice don’t speak to me anymore. Once, I spent evenings planning classes with colleagues, attending parent meetings. I performed some of my own songs in the front bar of the Brunton Hotel. I filled in many meaningless Education Department forms. Sometimes I mulled over the meaning of life and the vastness of the universe. I dated a couple of men between my divorce and meeting my current partner, those memories are fuzzy now. The empty universe isn’t a problem anymore, no more than the forms or dates. At least, they aren’t my problem. My drive now focuses on my overwhelming need to clear your name, to understand you, to prove everyone wrong. You are not a firebug.
CALEB
He lay, bare, in sheets Mum kept changing like that might make a difference. She worried too much. His soft fingers, charcoal-stained, picked at each other over his bloated stomach. Sometimes all he wanted in the world was to escape the metronome sound of her footsteps in the hall. His new suit hung, a headless man, over the open wardrobe door. In the morning, he’d put it on, prepare for his own hanging. In a few days, it would be over. He’d made Mum a promise that he would not confess, at least not this week. Once this farce was over, she would have to see how ridiculous it was to fight and to understand the guilty plea he needed one day to make. The teeth of his guilt monster gnawed mostly on his gut but caused pain everywhere – from his hands to his feet. He raised one scarred arm, so much fatter than when he used to come here to visit Gran. His increased size still surprised him. He was taller, fatter, generally bigger than he felt. From year to year his relationship with the world changed, the ground receded from his eyes, the distance between things
