‘No, you won’t!’ Mary’s outburst was angry and insistent. ‘You’ve spent so little time with me and the kids because of your bloody devotion to work. The kids are on holidays and I’ve hired this beach shack, so you’ll damn-well stay with us.’ That was it, Mary’s outburst was compelling and there was no way I’d argue with it.
It was 11 January 2005.
After wrapping up matters in the office so I could take a break with the family I had travelled down to the Middleton beach shack, arriving late the night before.
On the first morning, we were all walking on the beach. It was a stinking hot day and the morning freshness had burnt away early. A withering northerly wind had ramped up, stinging our faces with its intensity. The wind was so strong it made the rolling crests of the incoming waves curl back over themselves and out to sea.
‘You know this is a classic bushfire day,’ I said to Mary, ‘I think I’d better go back to Mount Osmond and make sure everything’s OK with the house.’
This brought on Mary’s outburst. Despite this, my point still made sense to me. Sure, it was important I spend time with the family. But if the house burnt down—no-one would be happy.
We retired to the shack and as the heat persisted, my anxiety grew. I paced the lounge impatiently. Unable to bear it anymore I said to Mary, ‘I’m going down the street to get some fish and chips. Do you want some too?’
Mary said, ‘No, but you go ahead. It’s good to see you relaxing a bit.’
My escape plan worked—I jumped into the car and started the hour’s journey home. With any luck, there would be time to see that things were OK at home and get back without any great concerns raised—at least, that’s what I told myself.
I drove home by the shortest route through Meadows. Still in a holiday mood, and with no-one else in the car, I sang along to an Eric Burdon CD at the top of my voice.
“Baby, do you understand me now…well I’m just a soul whose intentions are gooood.”
The soulful melancholy of the song suited my mood and seemed to justify my deceptive behaviour.
Well into the journey, I thought there was a faint smell of smoke but with no other sign of it, the thought was dismissed. Driving on, the smell became stronger and concern creeped into my mind. The holiday mood evaporated completely when I switched from the CD to local ABC to hear the fire alerts for the Adelaide Hills.
Sure enough, a grass fire was reported to be burning from the Tollgate on the Mt Barker Freeway and up the hill towards Mount Osmond. I knew the first houses in its path would be on Gleneagles Road—where our house was.
I drove on towards Adelaide in grim, determined silence.
From the Freeway, I turned onto the Mount Osmond overpass, just short of the Portrush Road intersection, taking me up to Gleneagles Road. As I entered Gleneagles Road, I was confronted by enveloping smoke and two CFS trucks. The crews were preparing firebreaks to try and halt the grass fire coming up the slope.
A surprised CFS officer swung around when he heard my car above the clamour of feverish fire-fighting. As I stuck my head out of the car window, he bellowed, ‘How the hell did you get up here? We blocked the Freeway off at the Portrush Road intersection!’
I could only explain in a loud voice that I’d come from the other direction and nothing indicated I couldn’t come up the hill. I added, ‘I need to get to my house at the end of the street.’
At that point, excited voices at the fire break suggested a change for the worse with the fire. The distracted fireman in front of me said, ‘Yeah, yeah—at your own risk mate,’ as he moved away quickly to assist his colleagues.
I didn’t wait around in case he changed his mind and headed down the street.
At home, there was an eerie sense the street had been abandoned. Undeterred, I retrieved a ladder, unravelled the hose at the back of the house, and clambered up onto the roof—dragging the hose with me.
At this point, it was apparent that the fire near the CFS crew had reached a dangerous stage. The smell of smoke intensified and a water-bombing helicopter had been called in. It circled over my head as it collected loads of water from the dam on the Mount Osmond golf course which backed onto our property. The enormity of the situation hit me. The periodic, deafening reverberations from the helicopter engines as they passed overhead and the shrill whir of the CFS water pumps down the road, contrasted starkly with my puny efforts to protect the house. There I was, a vulnerable speck in this raging tornado of activity. Pathetically perched on my roof, holding a mere garden hose supplying low-pressure, gravity-fed water from a storage tank on the hill.
I thought to myself, ‘Who am I kidding?’
Suppressing the rising panic—a loosening of my bowels and a thumping heart—I drew comfort from the absence of visible flames. My mind chose to ignore the crackling and exploding sounds of burning trees down the street.
Suddenly, a dense wall of smoke reared up about 300 metres away and started rolling towards me. Choking from the heat and dust, my lungs resisted gulping the toxic air, depriving me of more oxygen.
The fire front was now only minutes away. My mind raced. A downward spiral into fear, and thoughts of suffocating, lead to further tightening in my chest.
At this point, my phone rang. It was Mary. Mary! I had completely forgotten about the events earlier in the day. What do I say to her? This new problem wrenched me out of my panic.
I answered the phone to Mary angrily asking, ‘Where are you?’ Oh-oh, I thought, she’s not happy. She quickly followed with, ‘There’s a fire in Mount Osmond—did you know that?’
In a measured reply, I said, ‘Yes, I’m here now, on our roof with a hose, monitoring the situation.’ Thundering back down the phone I heard, ‘You are what!’ and then silence. I sensed Mary struggling to grasp what was going on and I continued explaining, ‘I couldn’t bear thinking about our house burning and kept driving when I went for the fish and chips. But I’ve got things sorted here. The fire plan is in place and I’m in a position to defend. Don’t worry, there’s a helicopter water-bombing the fire and the CFS is on the street fighting it. I think it’ll be OK.’
Amazingly, as if willing it made it happen, the wall of smoke stopped rolling and appeared to be thinning. Maybe it would be alright after all!
Back on the phone, Mary sighed, ‘Well, I don’t know what to think.’ Then resolutely, ‘I’m heading home. I’ll drop the kids at Audrey’s first. Ring if anything changes. I need to know how you are.’
Happily, the situation did improve. As I kept watch on the roof, the smoke dissipated, the helicopter completed its work and retreated, and the CFS units monitored the street for spot fires.
By the time Mary arrived, I was off the roof and the neighbours had returned. We all met in the middle of the road and excitedly exchanged stories about the day’s events.
That night, with concerns about flare-ups, Mary and I prepared to flee if necessary. We threw a mattress in the front foyer and assembled valuables around us.
As we drifted into an exhausted sleep, Mary put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Well, I guess you were right about the fire danger today.’ Then mockingly, ‘And you are my hero’.
As I drifted into sleep, my fading thought was, you can put this one down as the day I got away with it…
Burnside Writers Group 