Boxing Day, 4 AM
"What's happened?" Kylie asked, holding the phone to her ear and hearing Amy's very alert, awake voice tell her that she had just gotten off the phone with their mum, who said there was a fire in the pines at Corrabo; and that it looked to be a bad one, suggesting they might need to think about organising food and drinks to be brought to the pub.
Kylie's eyes snapped open and she was wide awake – but knew she was no good to anyone right now. She had about five or six drinks in her and her best friends certainly weren't in a fit state to help anyone either.
She told Amy this who said, "well, I'll come and get you, so Shaun can stay home with the kids."
"But where are we getting the stuff from? It's Boxing Day and four AM! Nothing's open!"
"Rosella Coles is open twenty–four seven. Georgia works there, she's working tonight and said they'll donate stuff to us if we want, so that's where I'm going."
"Alright then. I'll jump in the shower real quick and meet you outside." Kylie left a note for the girls, explaining where she had gone and to help themselves to breakfast when they got up and lock the door when they leave. She jumped in the shower quickly, pulled on her black RFS Catering Corp polo shirt and grey activewear three quarter pants and her joggers. She tied her towel dried hair into a bun, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and made herself a Vegemite sandwich.
Grabbing her phone, shoving it in her pocket and scooping up her charger, sunnies, hat, lip balm and keys, she headed outside, just as Amy pulled up.
It was a cruel side effect of growing up in a place as idyllic as Murruma, that they were used to this. Maybe not drunk at four in the morning on Boxing Day, but certainly being commanded into action by a force of nature without notice.
"How's your head?" Amy asked Kylie, watching her climb into the car and buckle her seatbelt.
"Not as bad as I thought, actually. So, I take it Dad and Mike have gone out?"
"Dad has, I dunno about Mike. Mum probably told him to stay at home because of Lizzie." Amy replied, driving them through the deserted streets of George's Park and towards the top end of town, to Rosella's shopping centre.
"Yeah, true I guess ... but you know what he's like."
"Yeah, I do." Amy conceded mildly.
"I dunno about you, but I'm in no fit state to be watching Liz when we get out there –"
"Well, you're not exactly in a fit state to be doing much else, are you?" Amy replied, grinning slightly when Kylie looked at her. They passed the rest of the short drive to Rosella Coles discussing the very little information they had on the fire.
When Amy pulled up, reversing into a parking space right in front of the main entrance, they marched into Coles and found Amy's friend, Georgia, who was waiting for them at the front service desk.
"Hey! How are you?" Georgia asked politely when Amy and Kylie stopped in front of her.
"Good, considering I wish I was asleep right now!" Amy said in what she called her 'customer service voice'.
"So what do you think you'll need? How much room do you have?" Georgia asked, getting to work.
"Oh, I think if we just start with like, bread, butter, like sandwich stuff, some drinks, you know," Amy said, half turning to Kylie who said, "I was thinking maybe get some snags, maybe bacon and eggs, anything to cook on the barbie that's quick and easy. They'll be wanting breakfast and lunch first up if they're all heading out now."
Amy and Georgia both nodded in agreement. Georgia turned on her heel and began marching towards the bakery, where there was a staff member in a high – viz jacket, unloading orange plastic pallets of bread. Kylie got her phone out and rang her parents' home phone again, getting Mike after the fifth ring.
"Hey, me and Amy are at Rosella Coles now, getting some food and stuff organised. Is there anything in particular that Mum wants us to get? We're getting a few pallets of bread, maybe some barbeque packs of meat, drinks, luncheon meat. We're in Amy's car too, so there's plenty of room ... ah ok, yeah ... ok. Alright, I'll tell her. Yep, see you!"
Kylie pocketed her phone and relayed Mike's message to Amy about how many loaves of bread, kilos of snags, steaks and rissoles to get. Amy's friend, Georgia whizzed from one end of the shop to another, flitting through the aisles, roping her colleagues in to help her cart everything out to Amy's car.
It was ten past five when they were finally on the road again.
5:42 AM
Bright moonlight bathed the still countryside, accentuating the gentle plume of smoke that was curling upwards against the starless night sky.
Amy and Kylie kept their eyes firmly set on the road. They had turned off the highway and were turning onto the same dirt road that Kylie and Jack had driven along the night of the Presentation Night.
It was called the Eight Mile Road, despite distances being generally measured by kilometres and was notorious for kangaroos and rather mindless farmers who lived along this road, tending to forget others used it too.
It was a road that was used mainly by locals and rarely by anyone else unless necessary.
Kylie watched the smoke through Amy's windscreen until the tops of the gum trees obscured her view. It would only be another ten or fifteen minutes until they would be back in the Murruma village and thrown in the action.
Luckily, there wasn't a kangaroo in sight and Amy hit the bitumen at the bottom of the hill, by Willmott's place. Shooting down the road in front of them, coming off the Corrabo Road and across the old timber framed bridge into the village, was Janelle's Suzuki S–Cross.
"There goes Ma," Kylie said nodding to the white car. Amy nodded, following their mother over the first bridge – its ancient timber frame rattling under the wheels.
"God, that bridge doesn't sound too good," Amy remarked as she slowed down to pass over the second, Murruma Creek bridge before entering the village.
"Yeah, it sounds like it's one more car away from collapsing altogether, doesn't it?" Kylie replied mildly.
About a decade ago, there had been a series of major floods across the state that had all but washed that first bridge away. Thanks to the ineptitude of the Wangarra City Council, of which Murruma was part of, the bridge had been one of many that was subjected to a "half–arsed dodgy botch up job", as their parents often said.
"Bloody Dodgy Brothers did a good job of it," Amy joked, turning into the near full, grassy car park of the Murruma pub. Kylie laughed as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She loved that whenever someone attempted to fix something – and invariably making it worse – was automatically likened to the Dodgy Brothers, characters from a nineties comedy sketch show, Fast Forward.
"Good morning!" Janelle beckoned sarcastically to her daughters as she climbed out of her car.
"G'day," Kylie and Amy chimed back together, opening up the back seat and boot of Amy's car.
"So, how's this barbie goin'?" Kylie asked Janelle, nodding to the smoky tendrils floating high above the pine covered hills that overlooked this side of the village.
Most firies referred to bushfires as 'barbeques' and well, the joke wasn't lost on anyone.
"Oh, bloody lightning strike. We've got the big tanker out there, keeping the other one here just in case. Dad's out there with Brad and Dave; Jimmy, Snowy and Hilly are out there in Snowy's old captain's vehicle, I think. Then Mark is in his captain's vehicle and he has Charlie and Steve with him. I was just up at Blackman's – god you get a good view up there!"
"Yeah?"
"Ooh shit yeah. You can see the flames from their living room. Julie said they saw the lightning strike the ground from there."
"Bloody hell!"
"Yeah!" Janelle hummed agreement, as all three women began to unload the donated goods from Coles. Kylie saw the docket wedged between two loaves of bread and quickly swiped it, handing it to her mum.
"Here you go," she said handing it over relatively blindly, hoisting a twenty–four can pack of Coke off the backseat just as the publican, Brenda, ambled out of the back door to the cool room, looking half–asleep.
"Heya!" Brenda mumbled, stopping in front of Janelle, to ask her something until Kylie interrupted her.
"Right, are we storing this in the cool room or are we getting straight into brekky?"
Brenda looked to Janelle, clueless. Kylie had to refrain from rolling her eyes. Beside her, Amy bowed her head, gathering up a pallet of bread and smirked.
In a town like this, with its history for bushfires, people were amazingly slow on the uptake, always turning to Janelle for what to do. Kylie and Amy shared a brief look, both appreciating their mother's patience.
"Well, I reckon if we start making some lunch packs up, we can fire up the barbie and get something hot for breakfast going for when the first lot of blokes come back off the fireground." Janelle offered in an organised manner.
Kylie and Amy didn't even wait for Brenda to agree or not, hoisting whatever they had in their hands and heading for the backdoor towards the kitchen to get started.
"So, who else is attending? Taratatta? Urambo? ... Corrabo?" Kylie added with a sly grin. Janelle barked, opening up the backdoor for her daughters to shuffle inside.
"Bloody Corrabo ..."
There was a division between Corrabo and most of the surrounding areas, because Corrabo's captain, Brett Francis, was a complete gronk – and not in a good way. The man carried on like there was a dotted line on the road and his trucks never crossed that line. He had almost come to blows with John once, when he refused to work with him on a fallen powerline once. John Foley was a patient man and rarely swore, which only made it all the more memorable for Janelle, when he stormed inside after that incident, swearing like a trooper.
"Surely – surely – Francis has got a truck out there? The pines are right on his back door!" Kylie said, while her mother cackled.
"That bloody idiot ... I dunno. I'm just glad that we've got Paul and Terry out there. Brett can go do this own thing for all I care. We've got more important things to worry about, frankly." Janelle said, watching Kylie smirk as she turned left into the bar to hand over the cans of drink to Brenda. Janelle, meanwhile, followed Amy into the tiny kitchen to the right at the back of the function room.
The Murruma pub was a small rectangular building and split into six rooms: the bar, with the store and cool rooms attached; the pool room, which opened up to the bar; the kids room, which was at the very front of the building and taking up the bulk of the right hand side of the building, was the function room. At the back of the function room, was a small square kitchen. A long Bain Marie planted in front of the kitchen door, with a small window beside the door, to provide quick access for dishes and cutlery to be passed without jamming the doorway. The pub also had two large wood heaters at either end of the bar, making the place extremely cosy during the winter.
Despite the air conditioning unit, it was unfortunately, an utter sweat box in the summer, like most places. Right now, it was quite cool, while the summer sun began to rise. Once the smoke covered sun reached its peak in the sky, it wouldn't be cool inside anymore until eight or nine that evening when the sun would finally set.
7:28 AM
Three fire trucks were parked outside the pub and a dozen blokes ambled through inside, their fire gear was smeared with dirt and smoke, their faces black and brown; their eyes almost bloodshot from the extended exposure to the smoke. Among them, was a childhood friend of Kylie's, Grant Eden. He was a few years older than Kylie; easily six foot tall, with short black hair, dark brown eyes and a naturally grinning face. They had gone to primary school together and Kylie had been in the same year as Grant's brother, Adam. The two Eden boys and Kylie used to take the same bus to and from school too, meaning plenty of opportunities to develop their already established friendship.
Kylie had been making sandwiches and filling zip lock bags with packets of chips, lollies and fruit boxes, throwing them into an esky, ready to be taken to the fireground later that day when Grant trudged through the function room and leaning his weary figure against the kitchen door.
"G'day," Grant yawned, resting his head against the beam and grinning meekly at her. She was alone in the kitchen and had been listening to Spotify on her phone when he arrived. She looked up and smiled warmly back at him.
"G'day mate, how're ya goin'?" she asked him with a smirk, knowing exactly how crap he would be feeling. Grant replied with another loud yawn, rubbing his face with blackened hands.
"Aw yeah ..." he managed to say between yawns.
"We've got a hot brekky going on out on the barbie if you're after a big feed." Kylie said with a backwards jerk of her head to the large double window over the sink, where Grant could just see a few people moving about around the old gas powered barbeque.
He nodded, running his fingers now through his dark hair.
"How many of you are here?" Kylie asked, zipping up the last lunch bag, dropping it into the large blue esky and closing the heavy lid with an unintentional thud.
"Ah ... Urambo Alpha was me, Adam and Joe Evans ... think I saw Charlie Pyke in Murruma Two with two others ... and – ah – the third truck is from Corrabo ..." Grant stopped, seeing the dark look on Kylie's face and grinned knowingly.
"Corrabo, eh?" Kylie said with a wry smirk. Grant raised his eyebrows playfully at her, standing up straight and stepping aside to let Kylie brush past him, exiting the kitchen and head out the back to the barbeque.
"Hey, Ma!" Kylie yelled out to Janelle, seeing her chatting with Bev Jennings and Carol Pyke. Janelle looked up to see Kylie and Grant coming towards her.
"G'day Grant –" Janelle began, Kylie cutting her off.
"– Grant's just told me that one of the trucks out there is from Corrabo –" Kylie said wryly, her grey – blue eyes twinkling as she watched for her mother's reaction.
"I hope they don't think they're getting a feed here." Janelle said stiffly.
"Oh come now, Jan – what if the situation was reversed?" Carol said, trying (and failing) to act as a mediator. Janelle, Grant, Bev and Kylie barked loudly.
"Carol, this is Brett Francis we're talking about. The man's an idiot." Janelle retorted. She had dealt with the Francis' plenty of times in the past and knew from experience that they were the sort of people to expect to have everything handed to them – a donated breakfast from another brigade included – and without ever saying thanks or offering to return the favour.
"Oh come on, Ma, that's an insult to idiots!" Kylie laughed. Behind her, Grant snorted loudly and Bev clenched her jaw to stop from smirking, her eyes becoming focused on the sizzling bacon.
Janelle laughed, shrugging and saying, "well that's true, I suppose," making Carol gape at her and Kylie.
"If it's Brett, he can go to buggery. His trophy wife can cook his breakfast for him." Janelle declared as Charlie Pyke and Adam, Grant's younger brother, drifted through, wearing their bright orange, heavy trousers and boots, the reflective stripes across their knees were splattered with dirt; and faded thin polo shirts under their equally heavy, orange jackets.
"Come on down, fellas! Come and get some grub!" Kylie yelled out to Charlie and Adam, beckoning them over.
Brenda appeared in the doorway, calling out to Kylie, "oi, Kylie! Phone!"
Kylie followed Brenda back inside and behind the bar to take the call.
"Hello?" Kylie said, instantly hearing Amy's voice on the other end.
"Hey, I've just a call from Shaun, he's been called in to work, some gronk decided to chuck a sickie and nobody else could cover their shift, so Shaun's been lumped with it. Rita said she can't come over so I've gotta head home for the kids."
"Righto. Are you going now or stopping here to get me?"
"Well I can if you want," Amy offered – saying more, but Kylie couldn't make head or tail of it as Amy lost service, the line cutting out altogether seconds later. Kylie shrugged and returned the phone to the hook, turning to leave the bar when two firies wandered inside, looking like lost sheep.
"Where's this feed?" one of them asked. He had brown hair flecked with grey, matching the patchy growth over his flabby, arrogant face.
"Francis, right?" Kylie said sternly.
"Yeah, Brett Francis. So, this feed we were told about? Where is it?"
Kylie pulled the door to the bar closed behind her and marched right passed them both, heading back outside. Francis and his mate followed her outside. Janelle looked up, seeing Kylie followed outside by Francis.
Kylie marched resolutely up to her mother, muttering, "he turned up demanding to know where the food was. I didn't tell him anything – figured you'd want the honour of telling him where to go."
Janelle grinned darkly and stepped forward. Kylie took several paces closer to Bev and Grant at the barbeque and grabbed a bottle of Powerade from a nearby esky. It was moments like this that made Kylie proud to be Janelle's daughter. Grant was watching Janelle and Brett curiously, his mouth twitching as he tried not to smirk. Nobody heard what Janelle said, but Francis blew up, waving his hands about his head and turned his potty mouth on Janelle –
"– Hey! Back off! Don't come strutting in here after the way you carry on like a frigging pork chop and expect to be waited on hand and foot!" Kylie yelled out angrily.
Not many people ever saw Kylie get angry, because she held the belief that rising above was the far more mature thing to do. But having been up since four AM, overcoming a bad hangover and feeling her lungs filling up with smoke every time she went outside, she was in no mood to be patient or rise above.
Brett turned his arrogant face to Kylie, glaring.
"Don't even try to look at me like that mate. You can get in your truck and piss right off and take your attitude with you! This fire doesn't give a fucking rat's arse about you and your precious dotted line on the road. You ought to be frigging grateful that if your property goes up next, that there're a dozen crews out there that will attend to it – without bitching about being out of their area like a fucking princess! And you have the nerve to swan in here, call my mother a bitch – who, may I remind you, has done more for this area in the last hour than you've done in your entire miserable life – and you waltz in here demanding a feed. No, buggar off. Go on. Hop to it." Kylie yelled, her voice getting louder and louder until finally she waved him away.
He opened his mouth to argue with her, annoyed that a woman a good twenty–five years younger than him was giving him a talking to – and in front of people.
Kylie stepped forward, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
"Open your mouth, mate. I dare you." Kylie snapped, eyeing him with dark, fierce eyes. She waited, holding her position and glare. When he didn't reply, Kylie confidently rested her hands on her hips and gave him her angriest teacher glare.
"That's what I thought."
Francis shrugged, swore and marched out of the pub, grumbling with his mate in tow. Kylie rubbed her eyes with her right hand and sighed heavily. She knew that plenty of people here would not understand the blow up, much less appreciate it, but she didn't care. Some people needed to be spoon fed instructions on pulling their head out of their own arse.
In a way, she hated that country politics had forced them to turn someone away, but at the same time, she was just glad to see the back of him.