Read Online Ash Road by Ivan Southall - Free Book Online Page B

the small of his back. ‘Has anyone ever been able to find Julie when she’s in trouble? What’s
that
to get excited about?’
    Pippa opened the door and immediately knew she had walked in on an argument. How could people argue at a time like this? She was so breathless and so upset that the sob that welled up inside her couldn’t be stopped. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she cried. ‘I can’t find her. I can’t find her, and there’s a fire. She’s lost, and there’s a fire.’
    Mr Buckingham ran his fingers like claws through his hair. His patience had run its course. ‘Am I to be plagued all day by a bunch of hysterical females?’ he shouted. ‘What’s wrong with everybody? Now listen; the fire’s not burning at the boundary fence; it’s not burning at the end of the road; it’s burning, if it’s not already out, so many miles away that as far as we’re concerned there may as well not be a fire. Now will everybody get a grip on themselves? Will you pull yourselves together? I dread to think what this house would be like in a real emergency. Julie’s probably gone up to Grandpa Tanner’s for a bit of sympathy. Did you think of that, Pippa? No, of course you didn’t. So get yourself up there and bring her home. And you’—he turned on Stevie—‘I thought you said that Pippa had found her? What do you mean by telling a lie like that?’
    â€˜Eh?’ Stevie was astonished. He had believed with smug satisfaction that his father had been counting him as a man.
    â€˜I didn’t say that. Did I, Mum? I didn’t.’
    Mrs Buckingham was very pale and very much on her dignity. ‘I don’t know what you said, and I’m sure your father doesn’t know either. Pippa, Peter’s going home. On your way back from Grandpa Tanner’s will you call in and tell the Fairhalls that if Peter’s ready by ten-thirty he can drive with us to the station. Come hail, come storm, come conflagration, your father is determined to go, so go we shall. I only hope, for his sake, that the house is still here when we get back.’

4
    State of Emergency
    Lorna George failed to realize for a while that something was happening to her father. She was aware of his presence without consciously looking at him. She naturally thought that he was picking, doggedly and stubbornly, even though he must have known the fruit was useless; it was a ritual of defiance that meant nothing except that in some curious way it expressed his will to survive.
    It was so hot that when she bent down her head swam. Perspiration ran into her eyes and beaded the backs of her hands. She could taste perspiration like tears; she could feel it tugging at her clothes. And oh, how she wished that John were around. Having John around was like having a strong arm about her shoulders. But John was on the road somewhere or other, what road she didn’t know, driving the fire truck or perhaps even in the bush running out hoses. He mightn’t be back for hours. If it was a bad fire he mightn’t be back until the evening or the middle of the night. Once he had gone off to fight a fire somewhere and hadn’t come home for two days. The thought was like a sigh. She even heard the sigh. It was a curious sensation, as if some unseen person, close by, had been listening to her thoughts. Then she realized that it was her father. He was a couple of rows away from her, three or four yards, staring at her. His eyes were glazed. She had never seen anybody look like that before. His mouth was open and he seemed unable to breathe. Then she saw him fall, just like a puppet without strings.
    Lorna didn’t cry out. She couldn’t reach for him. Raspberries blocked the way. All she felt was a vast numbness, an inability to make a sound or a movement. She felt so small and the world about her seemed so large. The roaring, tossing trees seemed