Читать книгу The One Winter Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 34

CHAPTER SIX

DANNY AND ROB chatted. It was their saving grace; otherwise their odd little dinner would have been eaten in miserable silence. Too much had happened for Julie to attempt to be social.

Amina was caught up in a pool of misery. Julie’s heart went out to her but there was little she could do to help.

She pressed her into eating, with limited success, and worried more.

‘When’s your baby due?’ she asked.

‘The twentieth of January.’ Amina motioned to Danny. ‘We were still in the refugee camp when we had Danny. This was supposed to be so different.’

‘It is different.’

‘Refugees again,’ Amina whispered. ‘But not even together.’

‘You will be soon,’ Julie said stoutly, sending a fervent prayer upward. ‘Meanwhile we have ice cream.’

‘Ice cream!’

‘It’s an unopened container, not a hint of ice on it,’ she said proudly. ‘How’s that for forethought? I must have pre-prepared, four years ago.’

There was an offer too good to refuse. They all ate ice cream and Julie was relieved to see Amina reach for seconds.

There was another carton at the base of the freezer. Maybe they could even eat ice cream for breakfast.

Breakfast... How long would they be trapped here?

‘Now can I go next door?’ Amina asked as the last of the ice cream disappeared.

Rob grimaced. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to check and report back?’

‘I need to see.’

‘Me too,’ Danny said and his mother looked at him and nodded.

‘Danny’s seen a lot the world has thrown at us. And his father would expect him to be a man.’

Danny’s chest visibly swelled.

Kids. They were all the same. Wanting to be grown-up.

Wanting to protect their mum?

It should be the other way round. She should have been able to protect...

‘Stop it, Jules,’ Rob said in his boss-of-the-world voice, and she flinched. Stop it? How could she stop? It was as if the voices in her head were on permanent replay.

‘We need to focus on Santa,’ he told her, and his eyes sent her a message that belied his smile. ‘Moving on.’

Move on. How could she ever? But here there was no choice. Amina was looking at her and so was Danny. Even Luka... No, actually, Luka was looking at the almost empty ice cream container in her hand.

Move on.

‘Right,’ she said and lowered the ice cream to possibly its most appreciative consumer. ‘Danny, you’re going to have to wash your dog’s face. Spaghetti followed by chocolate ice cream is not a good look. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find you some sturdy shoes, Amina, and I have a jogging suit that might fit over your bump. It’s not the most gorgeous outfit you might like but it’s sensible, and Sensible R Us. Let’s get the end of this meal cleared up and then go see if the fire’s left anything of your house.’

* * *

It hadn’t left a thing.

A twisted, gnarled washing line. The skeleton of a washing machine. A mass of smouldering timbers and smashed tiles.

Amina stood weeping. Julie held her and Danny’s hands as Rob, in his big boots, stomped over the ruins searching for... Anything.

Nothing.

He came back to them at last, his face bleak. ‘Amina, I’m sorry.’

‘We didn’t have much,’ Amina said, faltering. ‘My sister...she was killed in the bombing. I had her photographs. That was what I most...’ She swallowed. ‘But we’ve lost so much before. I know we can face this too. As long as my Henry is safe.’

‘That’s a hell of a name for a Sri Lankan engineer,’ Rob said and Amina managed a smile.

‘My mother-in-law dreamed of her son being an Englishman.’

‘Will Australian do instead?’

‘It doesn’t matter where we are—what we have. It’s a long time since we dreamed of anything but our family being safe.’

And then she paused.

The silence after the roar of the fire had been almost eerie. The wind had dropped after the front had passed. There was still the crackle of fire, and occasionally there’d be a crash as fire-weakened timber fell, but there’d been little sound for hours.

Now they heard an engine, faint at first but growing closer.

Rob ushered his little group around Amina’s burned car, around the still burning log that lay over their joint driveways and out onto the road. Rob was carrying Danny—much to Danny’s disgust, but he had no sensible shoes. And if anyone was to carry him, it seemed okay that his hero should. Thus they stood, waiting, seeing what would emerge out of the smoky haze.

And when it came, inevitably, magically but far too late, it was a fire engine. Big, red, gorgeous.

Julie hadn’t realised how tense she’d been until she saw the red of the engine, until she saw the smoke-blackened firefighters in their stained yellow suits. Here was contact with the outside world.

She had a sudden mad urge to climb on the back and hitch a ride, all the way back to Sydney, all the way back to the safety of her office, her ordered financial world.

Ha. As if this apparition was offering any such transport.

‘Are you guys okay?’ It was the driver, a grim-faced woman in her fifties, swinging out of the cab and facing them with apprehension.

‘No casualties,’ Rob told her. ‘Apart from minor burns on our dog’s feet. But we have burn cream. And ice cream. And one intact house.’

‘Good for you.’ The guys with her were surveying Amina’s house and then looking towards their intact house with surprise. ‘You managed to save it?’

‘It saved itself. We hid in a bunker.’

‘Bloody lucky. Can you stay here?’

‘Amina’s pregnant,’ Rob said. ‘And her husband will be going out of his mind not knowing if she’s safe.’

The woman looked at Amina, noting Danny, noting everything, Julie thought. She had the feeling that this woman was used to making hard decisions.

‘We’ll put her on the list for evacuation,’ she said. ‘How pregnant are you?’

‘Thirty-six weeks,’ Amina whispered.

‘No sign of labour?’

‘N...no.’

‘Then sorry, love, but that puts you down the list. We’re radioing in casualties and using the chopper for evacuation, but the chopper has a list a mile long of people with burns, accidents from trying to outrun the fire or breathing problems. And it’s a huge risk trying to take anyone out via the road. There’s so much falling timber I’m risking my own team being here. Do you have water? Food?’

‘We’re okay,’ Rob told her. ‘We have solar power, generators, water tanks, freezers and a stocked pantry. We have plenty of uncontaminated water and more canned food than we know what to do with.’

‘Amazing,’ the woman told him. ‘It sounds like you’re luckier than some of the towns that have been in the fire line. We managed to save houses but they’re left with no services. Meanwhile, there are houses further up the mountain that haven’t been checked. Our job’s to get through to them, give emergency assistance and detail evacuation needs for the choppers, but by emergency we’re talking life-threatening. That’s all we can do—we’re stretched past our limits. But we will take your name and get it put up on the lists at the refuge centres to say you’re safe,’ she told Amina. ‘That should reassure your husband. Meanwhile, stay as cool as you can and keep that baby on board.’

‘But we have no way of contacting you if anything...happens,’ Rob said urgently and the woman grimaced.

‘I know and I’m sorry, but I’m making a call here. We’ll get the road clear as soon as we can but that’ll be late tomorrow at the earliest, and possibly longer. There’s timber still actively burning on the roadside. It’s no use driving anyone out if a tree’s to fall on them, and that’s a real risk. You have a house. Your job is to protect it a while longer and thank your lucky stars you’re safe. Have as good a Christmas as you can under the circumstances—and make sure that baby stays where it is.’

* * *

They watched the fire truck make its cautious way to the next bend and disappear. All of them knew what they were likely to find. It was a subdued little party that picked its way through the rubble and back to the house.

Luka greeted them with dulled pleasure. His paws obviously hurt. Rob had put on burn cream and dressings. They were superficial burns, he reported, but they were obviously painful enough for the big dog to not want to bother his bandages.

Danny lay down on the floor with him, wrapped his arms around his pet’s neck and burst into tears.

‘My husband wanted a dog to protect us when he was away,’ Amina volunteered, and she sounded close to tears herself. ‘But Luka’s turned into Danny’s best friend. Today Luka almost killed him—and yet here I am, thanking everything that Danny still has him. I hope...I hope...’

And Julie knew what she was hoping. This woman had gone through war and refugee camps. She’d be thinking she was homeless once again. With a dog.

Once upon a time as a baby lawyer, Julie had visited a refugee camp. She couldn’t remember seeing a single dog.

‘It’s okay, Amina,’ she told her. ‘If you’ve been renting next door, then you can just rent here instead. This place is empty.’

‘But...’ Rob said.

‘We never use it.’ Julie cast him an uncertain glance. ‘We live...in other places. I know you have a lot to think about and this will be something you and your husband need to discuss together, but, right now, don’t worry about accommodation. You can stay here for as long as you want.’

‘But don’t...don’t you need to discuss it with your husband?’ Amina asked, casting an uncertain glance at Rob.

Her husband. Rob. She glanced down at the wedding ring, still bright on her left hand. She still had a husband—and yet she hadn’t made one decision with him for four years.

‘Rob and I don’t live together,’ she said, and she couldn’t stop the note of bleakness she could hear in her own words. ‘We have separate lives, separate...homes. So I’m sure you agree, don’t you, Rob. This place may as well be used.’

There was a moment’s pause. Silence hung, and for a moment she didn’t know how it could end. But then... ‘It should be a home again,’ Rob said. ‘Julie and I can’t make it one. It’d be great if you and Henry and your children could make it happy again.’

‘No decisions yet,’ Amina urged. ‘Don’t promise anything. But if we could... If Henry’s safe—’ She broke off again and choked on tears. ‘But it’s too soon for anything.’

* * *

Rob went off to check the perimeter with his mop and bucket again. They had a wide area of burned grass between them and any smouldering timber. The risk was pretty much over but still he checked.

Amina and Danny went to bed. There was a made-up guest room with a lovely big bed, but Danny had spotted the racing-car beds. That was where he wanted to sleep—so Amina tugged one racing car closer to the other and announced that she was sleeping there, with her son.

She was asleep almost as her head hit the pillow. Had she slept at all last night? Julie wondered. She thought again of past fighting and refugee camps and all this woman had gone through.

Danny was fast asleep too. He was sharing his car-bed with Luka. Julie stood in the doorway and looked at them, this little family who’d been so close to disaster.

Disaster was always so close...

Get over it, she told herself harshly. Move on. She needed work to distract herself. She needed legal problems to solve, paperwork to do—stuff that had to be done yesterday.

Rob was out playing fireman but there was no need for the two of them to be there. So what was she supposed to do? Go to bed? She wasn’t tired or if she was her body wasn’t admitting it. She felt weird, exposed, trapped. Standing in her children’s bedroom watching others sleep in their beds... Knowing a man who was no longer her husband was out protecting the property...

What to do? What to do?

Christmas.

The answer came as she headed back down the hall. There in the sitting room was her Christmas tree. Was it only last night that she’d decorated it? Why?

And the answer came clear, obvious now as it hadn’t been last night. Because Danny needed it. Because they all needed it?

‘Will Santa know to come here?’ Danny had asked and Rob had reassured him.

‘Santa knows where everyone is.’

That had been a promise and it had to be kept. She wouldn’t mind betting Danny would be the first awake in the morning. Right now there was a Christmas tree and nothing else.

Santa had no doubt kept a stash of gifts over at Amina’s house, but there was nothing left there now except cinders. Amina had been too exhausted to think past tonight.

‘So I’m Santa.’ She said it out loud.

‘Can I share?’

And Rob was in the doorway, looking at the tree. ‘I thought of it while I mopped,’ he told her. ‘We need to play Father Christmas.’

They could. There was a stash from long ago...

If she could bear it.

Of course she could bear it. Did she make her decision based on emotional back story or the real, tomorrow needs of one small boy? What was the choice? There wasn’t one. She glanced at Rob and saw he’d come to the same conclusion she had.

Without a word she headed into their bedroom. Rob followed.

She tugged the bottom drawer out from under the wardrobe, ready to climb—even as toddlers the twins had been expert in finding stuff they didn’t want them to find. She put a foot on the first drawer and Rob took her by the waist, lifted her and set her aside.

‘Climbing’s men’s work,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’ Unbidden, came another memory. Their town house in the city. Their elderly neighbour knocking on the door one night.

‘Please, my kitten’s climbed up the elm outside. He can’t get down. Will you help?’

The elm was vast, reaching out over the pavement to the street beyond. The kitten was maybe halfway up, mewing pitifully.

‘Right,’ Rob had said manfully, though Julie had known him well and heard the qualms behind the bravado.

‘Let me call the fire brigade,’ she’d said and he’d cast her a look of manly scorn.

‘Stand aside, woman.’

Which meant twenty minutes later the kitten was safely back in her owner’s arms—having decided she didn’t like Rob reaching for her, so she’d headed down under her own steam. And Julie had finally called the fire department to help her husband down.

So now she choked, and Rob glowered, but he was laughing under his glower. ‘You’re supposed to have forgotten that,’ he told her. ‘Stupid cat.’

‘It’s worth remembering.’

‘Isn’t everything?’ he asked obliquely and headed up his drawer-cum-staircase.

And then they really had to remember.

The Christmas-that-never-was was up there. Silently, Rob handed it down. There were glove puppets, a wooden railway set, Batman pyjamas. Colouring books and a blow-up paddling pool. A pile of Christmas wrapping and ties they’d been too busy to use until the last moment. The detritus of a family Christmas that had never made it.

Rob put one of the puppets on his too-big hand. It was a wombat. Its two front paws were his thumb and little finger. Its head had the other fingers stuffed into its insides.

The little head wobbled. ‘What do you say, Mrs McDowell?’ the little wombat demanded in a voice that sounded like a strangled Rob. ‘You reckon we can give me to a little guy who needs me?’

‘Yes.’ But her voice was strained.

‘I’m not real,’ the little wombat said—via Rob. ‘I’m just a bit of fake fur and some neat stitchery.’

‘Of course.’

‘But I represent the past.’

‘Don’t push it, Rob.’ Why was the past threatening to rise up and choke her?

‘I’m not pushing. I’m facing stuff myself. I’ve been facing stuff alone for so long...’ Rob put down his wombat and picked up the Batman pyjamas. ‘It hurts. Would it hurt more together than it does separately? That’s a decision we need to make. Meanwhile, we bought these too big for the twins and Danny’s tiny. These’ll make him happy.’

She could hardly breathe. What was he suggesting? That he wanted to try again? ‘I...I know that,’ she managed but she was suddenly feeling as if she was in the bunker again, cowering, the outside threats closing in.

Dumb. Rob wasn’t threatening. He was holding Batman pyjamas—and smiling at her as if he understood exactly how she felt.

I’ve been facing stuff alone for so long... She hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. She hadn’t been able to face his hurt as well as hers.

Guilty...and did she need to add coward to her list of failings as well?

‘Would it have been easier if it all burned?’ Rob asked gently and she flinched.

‘Maybe. Maybe it would.’

‘So why did you come?’

‘You know why.’

‘Because it’s not over? Because they’re still with us?’ His voice was kind. ‘Because we can’t escape it; we’re still a family?’

‘We’re not.’

‘They’re still with me,’ he said, just as gently. ‘Every waking moment, and often in my sleep as well, they’re with me.’

‘Yeah.’

‘They’re not in this stuff. They’re in our hearts.’

‘Rob, no.’ The pain... She hadn’t let herself think it. She hadn’t let herself feel it. She’d worked and she’d worked and she’d pushed emotion away because it did her head in.

‘Jules, it’s been four years. The way I feel...’

‘Don’t!’

He looked at her for a long, steady moment and then he looked down at the wombat. And nodded. Moving on? ‘But we can pack stuff up for Danny?’

‘I...yes.’

‘We need things for Amina as well.’

‘I have...too many things.’ She thought of her dressing table, stuffed with girly things collected through a lifetime. She thought of the house next door, a heap of smouldering ash. Sharing was a no-brainer; in fact Amina could have it all.

‘Wrapping paper?’ Rob demanded. The emotion was dissipating. Maybe he’d realised he’d taken her to an edge that terrified her.

‘I have a desk full of it,’ she told him, grateful to be back on firm ground.

‘Always the organised one.’ He hesitated. ‘Stockings?’

She took a deep breath at that and the edge was suddenly close again. Yes, they had stockings. Four. Julie, Rob, Aiden, Christopher. Her mother had embroidered names on each.

But she could be practical. She could do this. ‘I’ll unpick the names,’ she said.

‘We can use pillowcases instead.’

‘N...no. I’ll unpick them.’

‘I can help.’ He hesitated. ‘I need to head out and put a few pans of water around for the wildlife, and then I’m all yours. But, Jules...’

‘Mmm?’

‘When we’re done playing Santa Claus...will you come to bed with me tonight?’

This was tearing her in two. If she could walk away now she would, she thought. She’d walk straight out of the door, onto the road down to the highway and out of here. But that wasn’t possible and this man, the man with the eyes that saw everything there was to know, was looking at her. And he was smiling, but his smile had all her pain behind it, and all his too. They had shared ghosts. Somehow, Rob was moving past them. But for her... The ghosts held her in thrall and she was trapped.

But for this night, within the trap there was wriggle room. She’d remove names from Christmas stockings. She’d wrap her children’s toys and address them to Danny. She’d even find the snorkel and flippers she had hidden up on the top of her wardrobe. She’d bought them for Rob because she loved the beach, she’d loved taking the boys there and she was...she had been...slowly persuading Rob of its delights.

Did he go to the beach now? What was he doing with his life?

Who knew, and after this night she’d stop wondering again. But on Christmas morning the ghosts would see her stuffing the snorkel and flippers in his stocking. He’d head out into the burned bush with his pails of water so animals wouldn’t die and, while he did, she’d prepare him a Christmas.

And the ghosts would see her lie in his arms this night.

‘Yes,’ she whispered because the word seemed all she could manage. And then, because it was important, she tried for more. ‘Yes, please, Rob. Tonight...tonight I’d like to sleep with you once more.’

* * *

Christmas morning. The first slivers of light were making their way through the shutters Rob had left closed because there was still fire danger. The air was thick with the smell of a charred landscape.

She was lying cocooned in Rob’s arms and for this moment she wanted nothing else. The world could disappear. For this moment the pain had gone, she’d found her island and she was clinging for all she was worth.

He was some island. She stirred just a little, savouring the exquisite sensation of skin against skin—her skin against Rob’s—and she felt him tense a little in response.

‘Good, huh?’

He sounded smug. She’d forgotten that smugness.

She loved that smugness.

‘Bit rusty,’ she managed and he choked on laughter.

‘Rusty? I’ll show you rusty.’ He swung up over the top of her, his dark eyes gleaming with delicious laughter. ‘I’ve been saving myself for you for all this time...’

‘There’s been no one else?’

She shouldn’t have asked. She saw the laughter fade, but the tenderness was there still.

‘I did try,’ he said. ‘I thought I should move on. It was a disaster. You?’

‘I didn’t even try,’ she whispered. ‘I knew it wouldn’t work.’

‘So you were saving yourself for me too.’

‘I was saving myself for nobody.’

‘Well, that sounds a bit bleak. You know, Jules, maybe we should cut ourselves a little slack. Put bleakness behind us for a bit.’

‘For today at least,’ she conceded, and tried to smile back. ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas to you, too,’ he said, and the wickedness was back. ‘You want me to give you your first present?’

‘I...’

‘Because I’m about to,’ he said and his gorgeous muscular body, the body she’d loved with all her heart, lowered to hers.

She rose to meet him. Skin against skin. She took his body into her arms and tugged him to her, around her, merging into the warmth and depth of him.

Merry Christmas.

The ghosts had backed off. For now there was only Rob, there was only this moment, there was only now.

* * *

They surfaced—who could say how much later? They were entwined in each other’s bodies, sleepily content, loosely covered by a light cotton sheet. Which was just as well as they emerged to the sound of quiet but desperate sniffs.

Danny.

They rolled as one to look at the door, as they’d done so many times with the twins.

Danny was in the doorway, clutching Luka’s collar. He was wearing a singlet and knickers. His hair was tousled, his eyes were still dazed with sleep but he was sniffing desperately, trying not to cry.

‘Hey,’ Rob said, hauling the sheet a little higher. ‘Danny! What’s up, mate?’

‘Mama’s crying,’ Danny said. ‘She’s crying and crying and she won’t stop.’

‘That’ll be because your house is burned and your dad’s stuck down the mountain,’ Rob said prosaically, as if this was the sort of thing that happened every day. ‘I guess your dad won’t be able to make it here for a while yet, so maybe it’s up to us to cheer her up. What do you think might help?’

‘I don’t know,’ Danny whispered. ‘Me and Luka tried to hug her.’

‘Hugs are good.’ Rob sat up and Julie lay still and watched, trying not to be too conscious of Rob’s naked chest, plus the fact that he was still naked under the sheet, and his body was still touching hers and every sense...

No. That was hardly fair because she was tuned to Danny.

She’d been able to juggle...everything when they were a family. She glanced at her watch. Eight o’clock. Four years ago she’d have been up by six, trying to fit in an hour of work before the twins woke. Even at weekends, the times they’d lain here together, they’d always been conscious of pressure.

Yeah, well, both of them had busy professional lives. Both of them thought...had thought...getting on was important.

‘You know, hugs are great,’ Rob was saying and he lay down again and hugged Julie, just to demonstrate. ‘But there might be something better today. Did you remember today is Christmas?’

‘Yes, but Mama said Santa won’t be able to get through the burn,’ Danny quavered. ‘She says...Santa will have to wait.’

‘I don’t think Santa ever waits,’ Rob said gravely. ‘Why don’t you go look under the Christmas tree while Julie and I get dressed? Then we’ll go hug your mama and bring her to the tree too.’

‘There might be presents?’ Danny breathed.

‘Santa’s a clever old feller,’ Rob told him. ‘I don’t think he’d let a little thing like a bush fire stop him, do you?’

‘But Mama said...’

‘Your mama was acting on incorrect information,’ Rob told him. ‘She doesn’t know Australia like Julie and I do. Bush fires happen over Australian Christmases all the time. Santa’s used to it. So go check, but no opening anything until we’re all dressed and out there with you. Promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘Does Luka promise, too?’

And Danny giggled and Julie thought she did have senses for something—for someone—other than Rob.

To make a child smile at Christmas... It wasn’t a bad feeling.

Actually, it was a great feeling. It drove the pain away as nothing else could.

And then she thought...it was like coming out of bleak fog into sunlight.

It was a sliver, the faintest streak of brilliance, but it was something that hadn’t touched her for so long. She’d been grey for years, or sepia-toned, everything made two-dimensional, flat and dull.

Right now she was lying in Rob’s arms and she was hearing Danny giggle. And it wasn’t an echo of the twins. She wasn’t thinking of the twins.

She was thinking this little boy had been born in a refugee camp. His mother had coped with coming from a war-torn country.

She’d wrapped the most beautiful alpaca shawl for Amina, in the softest rose and cream. She knew Amina would love it; she just knew.

And there was a wombat glove puppet just waiting to be opened.

‘Go,’ she ordered Danny, sitting up too, but hastily remembering to keep her sheet tucked around her. ‘Check out the Christmas tree and see if Rob’s right and Santa’s been. I hope he’s been for all of us. We’ll be there in five minutes, and then we need to get your mama up and tell her things will be okay. And they will be okay, Danny. It’s Christmas and Rob and I are here to make sure that you and your mama and Luka have a very good time.’

* * *

They did have a good time. Amina was teary but, washed and dressed in a frivolous bath robe Rob had once given Julie, ensconced in the most comfortable armchair in the living room, tears gave way to bemusement.

Julie had wrapped the sensible gifts, two or three each, nice things carefully chosen. Rob, however, had taken wrapping to extremes, deciding there was too much wrapping paper and it couldn’t be wasted. So he’d hunted the house and wrapped silly things. As well as the scarf and a bracelet from Africa, Amina’s stocking also contained a gift-wrapped hammer, nails, a grease gun—‘because you never know what’ll need greasing’, Rob told her—and a bottle of cleaning bleach. They made Amina gasp and then giggle.

‘Santa thinks I might be a handyman?’

‘Every house needs one,’ Rob said gravely. ‘In our house I wear the tool belt but Santa’s not sexist.’

‘My Henry’s an engineer.’

‘Then you get to share. Sharing a grease gun—that’s real domestic harmony.’

Amina chuckled and held her grease gun like it was gold and they moved on.

Julie’s stocking contained the nightdress she’d lusted after four years before and a voucher for a day spa, now long expired. Whoops.

‘The girls at the spa gift-wrapped it for me four years ago,’Rob explained. ‘How was I to know it had expired?’ Then, ‘No matter,’ he said expansively. ‘Santa will buy you another.’

He was like a bountiful genie, Julie thought, determined to make each of them happy.

He’d made her happy last night. Was it possible...? Did she have the courage...?

‘You have another gift,’ Rob reminded her and she hauled her thoughts back to now.

Her final gift was a wad of paper, fresh from their printer. Bemused, she flicked through it.

It was Freezing—the Modern Woman’s Survival Guide, plus a how-to manual extolling the virtues of ash in compost. He’d clearly got their printer to work while she’d gift-wrapped. He’d practically printed out a book.

She showed Amina and both women dissolved into laughter while Rob beamed benevolently.

‘Never say I don’t put thought into my gifts,’ he told them and Julie held up the spa voucher.

‘An out-of-date day spa?’

‘They cancel each other out. I still rock.’

They chuckled again and then turned their attention to Danny.

Danny was simply entranced. He loved the pyjamas and his fire engine but most of all he loved the wombat puppet. Rob demonstrated. Danny watched and was smitten.

And so was Julie. She watched the two of them together and she thought: I know why I fell in love with this man.

I know why I love this man?

Was she brave enough to go there?

As well as snorkel and flippers—which Rob had received with open enjoyment before promising Danny that they could try them out in the bath later—Julie had given Rob a coat—a cord jacket. She remembered buying it for him all those years ago. She’d tried it on herself, rushing in her lunch hour, last-minute shopping. It had cost far more than she’d budgeted for but she’d imagined it on Rob, imagined holding him when he was wearing it, imagined how it’d look, faded and worn, years hence.

She should have given it to him four years ago. Now he shrugged himself into it and smiled across the room at her and she realised why she hadn’t given it to him. Why she’d refused to have contact with him.

She was afraid of that smile.

Was she still? Tomorrow, would she...?

No. Tomorrow was for tomorrow. For now she needed to watch Danny help Luka open a multi-wrapped gift that finally revealed a packet of biscuits scarily past their use-by date. Oatmeal gingernuts. ‘They’ll be the closest thing Santa could find to dog biscuits,’ Rob told Danny.

‘Doesn’t Santa have dog biscuits at the North Pole?’

‘I reckon he does,’ Rob said gravely. ‘But I think he’ll have also seen all this burned bush and thought of all the animals out here who don’t have much to eat. So he might have dropped his supply of dog biscuits out of his sleigh to help.’

‘He’s clever,’ Danny said and Rob nodded.

‘And kind.’

He’s not the only one, Julie thought, and her heart twisted. Once upon a time this man had been her husband. If she could go back...

Turn back time? As if that was going to happen.

‘Is it time to put the turkey on?’ Rob asked and Julie glanced at him and thought he’s as tense as I am. Making love didn’t count, she thought, or it did, but all it showed was the same attraction was there that had always been there. And with it came the same propensity for heartbreak.

He was still wearing his jacket. He liked it. You could always tell with Rob. If he loved something, he loved it for ever. And she realised that might just count for her too.

Whether she wanted that love or not.

Switch to practical. ‘We still need to use the barbecue,’ she said. ‘We don’t have enough electricity to use the oven.’

‘That’s us then,’ Rob said, puffing his chest. ‘Me and Danny. Barbecuing’s men’s work, hey, Dan?’

‘Can my wombat help?’

‘Sure he can.’

‘I’m not sure what we can have with it,’ Julie said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a lot of salad in the fridge.’

‘Let me look at what you have,’ Amina said. ‘I can cook.’

‘Don’t you need to rest?’

‘I’ve had enough rest,’ Amina declared. ‘And I can’t sleep. I need to know my husband’s safe. I can’t rest until we’re all together.’

That’s us shot then, Julie thought bleakly. For her family, together was never going to happen.

* * *

They ate a surprisingly delicious dinner—turkey with the burned-from-the-freezer bits chopped off, gravy made from a packet mix and couscous with nuts and dried fruit and dried herbs.

They had pudding, slices fried in the butter she’d bought with the bread, served with custard made from evaporated milk.

They pulled bon-bons. They wore silly hats. They told jokes.

But even Danny kept glancing out of the window. He was waiting for his father to appear.

So much could have happened. If he’d tried to reach them last night... All sorts of scenarios were flitting through Julie’s mind and she didn’t like any of them.

Once catastrophe struck, did you spend the rest of your life expecting it to happen again? Of course you did.

‘He’ll be fine.’ Astonishingly, the reassurance came from Amina. Had she sensed how tense Julie was? ‘What you said made sense. He’ll be at the road block. And, as for the house... We’ve seen worse than this before. We’ll survive.’

‘Of course you will.’

‘No, you have to believe it,’ Amina said. ‘Don’t just say it. Believe it or you go mad.’

What had this woman gone through? She had no idea. She didn’t want to even imagine.

‘I’d like to do something for you,’ Amina said shyly. ‘If you permit... In the bathroom I noticed a hair colour kit. Crimson. Is it yours?’

‘Julie doesn’t colour her hair,’ Rob said, but Julie was remembering a day long ago, a momentary impulse.

She’d be a redhead for Christmas, she’d thought. Her boys would love it, or she thought they might. But of course she hadn’t had time to go to a salon. On impulse she’d bought a do-it-yourself kit, then chickened out at the last minute—of course—and the kit had sat in the second bathroom since.

‘I’m a hairdresser,’ Amina said, even more shyly. ‘In my country, that’s what I do. Or did. My husband has to retrain here for engineering but there are no such requirements for hairdressing, and I know this product.’ She gazed at Julie’s hair with professional interest. ‘Colour would look good, but I don’t think all over. If you permit, I could give you highlights.’

‘I don’t think...’

‘Jules,’ Rob said, and she heard an undercurrent of steel, ‘you’d look great with red highlights.’

She’d hardly touched her ash-blonde curls for four years. She tugged them into a knot for work; when they became too unruly to control she’d gone to the cheap walk-in hairdresser near work and she’d thought no more about it.

Even before the boys died... When had she last had time to think about what her hair looked like?

When she’d met Rob she’d had auburn highlights. He’d loved them. He’d played with her curls, running his long, strong fingers through them, massaging her scalp, kissing her as the touch of his fingers through her hair sent her wild...

Even then she hadn’t arranged it herself. Her mother had organised it as a gift.

‘I bought this voucher for you, pet. I know you don’t have time for the salon but you need to make a little time for yourself.’

Her parents were overseas now, having the holiday of a lifetime. They wouldn’t be worried about her. They knew she’d be buried in her work.

They’d never imagine she’d be here. With time...

‘I don’t think...’

‘Do it, Jules,’ Rob said and she caught a note of steel in his voice. She looked at him uncertainly, and then at Amina, and she understood.

This wasn’t about her. Rob wasn’t pushing her because he wanted a wife...an ex-wife...with crimson highlights. He was pushing her because Amina needed to do something to keep her mind off her burned house and her missing husband. And she also needed to give something back.

She thought suddenly of the sympathy and kindness she’d received during the months after the boys’ deaths and she remembered thinking, more than once: I want to be the one giving sympathy. I want to give rather than take.

Amina was a refugee. She would have been needing help for years. Now, this one thing...

‘I’d love highlights,’ she confessed and Amina smiled, really smiled, for the first time since she’d met her. It was a lovely smile, and it made Danny smile too.

She glanced at Rob and his stern face had relaxed.

Better to give than receive? Sometimes not. Her eyes caught Rob’s and she knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.

He’d have been on the receiving end of sympathy too. And then she thought of all the things he’d tried to make her feel better—every way he could during those awful weeks in hospital, trying and trying, but every time she’d pushed him away.

‘Don’t get soppy on us,’ Rob said, and she blinked and he chuckled and put his arm around her and gave her a fast, hard hug. ‘Right, Amina, we need a hair salon. Danny, I need your help. A chair in the bathroom, right? One that doesn’t matter if it gets the odd red splash on it.’

He set them up, and then he disappeared. She caught a glimpse of him through the window, heading down to the creek, shovel over his shoulder.

She guessed what he’d be doing. He’d left water for wildlife, but there’d be animals too badly burned...

‘He’s a good man,’ Amina said and she turned and Amina was watching her. ‘You have a good husband.’

‘We’re not...together.’

‘Because of your babies?’

‘I...yes.’

‘It happens,’ Amina said softly. ‘Dreadful things...they tear you apart or they pull you together. The choice is yours.’

‘There’s no choice,’ she said, more harshly than she intended, but Danny was waiting in the bathroom eyeing the colouring kit with anticipation, and she could turn away and bite her lip and hope Amina didn’t sense the surge of anger and resentment that her words engendered.

Get over it... It was never said, not in so many words, but, four years on, she knew she was pretty much regarded as cool and aloof. The adjectives were no longer seen as a symptom of loss—they simply described who she was.

And who she intended to be for the rest of her life?

Thinking ahead was too hard. But Rob was gone, off to do what he could for injured wildlife, and Danny was waiting in the bathroom and Amina was watching her with a gaze that said she saw almost too much.

Do something.

Back in the office, she’d be neck-deep in contracts.

It was Christmas Day.

Okay, back home, she’d have left her brother’s place after managing to stay polite all through Christmas dinner and now she’d be back in her apartment. Neck-deep in contracts.

But now...neck-deep in hair dye?

‘Let’s get this over with,’ she muttered and Amina took a step back.

‘You don’t have to. If you don’t want...’

She caught herself. If Rob came back and found her wallowing in self-pity, with her hair the same colour and Amina left alone...

See, there was the problem. With Rob around she couldn’t wallow.

Maybe that was why she’d left him.

Maybe that was selfish. Maybe grief was selfish.

It was all too hard. She caught herself and forced a smile and then tried even harder. This time the smile was almost natural.

‘Rob is a good man,’ she conceded. ‘But he needs a nicer woman than me. A happier one.’

‘You can be happier if you try,’ Amina told her.

‘You can be happy if you have red hair,’ Danny volunteered and she grinned at his little-boy answer to the problems of the world.

‘Then give me red hair,’ she said. ‘Red hair is your mum’s gift to me for Christmas, and if there’s one thing Christmas needs it’s gifts. Are you and Luka going to watch or are you going to play with your Christmas presents?’

‘Me and Luka are going to watch,’ Danny said, and he wiggled his glove puppet. ‘And Wombat. Me and Luka and Wombat are going to watch you get happy.’

* * *

Almost as soon as they started, Julie realised that agreeing to this had been a mistake.

Putting a colour through her hair would have been a relatively easy task—simply applying the colour, leaving it to take and then washing it out again.

Amina, though, had different ideas. ‘Not flat colour,’ she said, just as flatly. ‘You want highlights, gold and crimson. You’ll look beautiful.’

Yeah, well, she might, but each highlight meant the application of colour to just a few strands of hair, then those strands wrapped in foil before Amina moved to the next strands.

It wasn’t a job Amina could do sitting down. She also didn’t intend to do a half-hearted job.

‘If I put too much hair in each foil, then you’ll have flat clumps of colour,’ she told Julie as she protested. ‘It won’t look half as good. And I want some of them strong and some diluted.’

‘But you shouldn’t be on your feet.’ She hadn’t thought this through. Amina was eight months pregnant, she’d had one hell of a time and now she was struggling.

She looked exhausted. But...

‘I need to do this,’ Amina told her. ‘Please...I want to. I need to do something.’

She did. Julie knew the worry about her husband was still hanging over her, plus the overwhelming grief of the devastation next door. But still...

‘I don’t want you to risk this baby,’ she told her. ‘Amina, this is madness.’

‘It’s not madness,’ Amina said stubbornly. ‘It’s what I want to do. Sit still.’

So she sat, but she worried, and when Rob appeared as the last foil was done she felt a huge wash of relief. Not that there was anything Rob could do to help the situation but at least...at least he was here.

She’d missed him...

‘Wow,’ Rob said, stopping at the entrance to the bathroom and raising his brows in his grimy face. ‘You look like a sputnik.’

‘What’s a sputnik?’ Danny demanded.

‘A spiky thing that floats round in space,’ Rob told him. ‘You think we should put Julie in a rocket launcher and send her to the moon?’

Danny giggled and Amina smiled and once again there was that lovely release of tension that only Rob seemed capable of producing. He was the best man to have in a crisis.

‘Amina’s exhausted, though,’ Julie told him. ‘She needs to sleep.’

‘You need to keep those foils in for forty minutes,’ Amina retorted. ‘Then you need a full scalp massage to get the colour even and then a wash and condition. Then I’ll rest.’

‘Ah, but I’m back now,’ Rob said, and Julie knew he could see the exhaustion on Amina’s face. He’d have taken in her worry at a glance. ‘And if anyone’s going to massage my wife it’s me. Forty minutes?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Amina, I came to ask if there was anything precious, any jewellery, anything that might have survived the fire that you’d like us to search for. The radio’s saying it may rain tonight, in which case the ash will turn to concrete. Sputnik and I could have a look now.’

Julie choked. Sputnik? She glanced in the mirror. She was wearing one of Rob’s shirts, faded jeans, and her head was covered in silver spikes. Okay, yep. Sputnik.

‘I could be a Christmas decoration instead,’ she volunteered. ‘One of those shiny spiky balls you put on top of the tree.’

‘You’ll be more help sifting through ash. I assume you can put a towel around the spikes—the wildlife has had enough scares for the time being without adding aliens to the mix. Amina, is that okay with you?’

‘I will look,’ Amina said but Rob caught her hands. He had great hands, Julie thought inconsequentially. He was holding Amina and Julie knew he was imparting strength, reassurance, determination. All those things...

He was a good man. Her husband?

‘The ground’s treacherous,’ he told her. ‘Your house is a pile of ash and rubble and parts of it are still very hot. Julie and I have the heavy boots we used to garden in, we have strong protective clothing and we’re not carrying a baby. You need to take care of your little one, and of Danny. We won’t stay over there for long—it’s too hot—but we can do a superficial search. If you tell us where to look...’

‘Our bedroom,’ Amina told him, meeting his stern gaze, giving in to sense. ‘The front bay window...you should see the outline. Our bed started two feet back from the window and was centred on it. The bed was six foot long. On either side of the bed was a bedside table. We each had a box...’

‘Wood?’ Rob asked without much hope.

‘Tin.’

‘Well, that’s possible. Though don’t get your hopes up too much; that fire was searing and tin melts. We’ll have a look—but only if you try and get some rest. Danny, will you stand guard while your mum sleeps?’

‘I want to help with the burn.’

‘There’ll be lots of time to help with the burn,’ Rob said grimly. ‘But, for now, you need to be in charge of your mother. Go lie down beside her, play with your toys while she sleeps, but if she tries to get up, then growl at her. Can you do that?’

Danny considered. ‘Because of the baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘Papa says I have to look after her because of the baby.’

‘Then you’ll do what your papa asked?’

‘Yes,’ Danny said and then his voice faltered. ‘I wish he’d come.’

‘He will come,’ Rob said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘He will come. I promise.’