the mists were starting to clear.
Together your grief will make you self-destruct. It might be true, he conceded, but Julie chose that moment to thump a spark with a wet mop. ‘Take that, you—’ she grunted and swiped it again for good measure and he found himself smiling.
She was still under there—his Julie.
Together they’d self-destruct? Maybe they would, he conceded as he worked, but was it possible—was there even a chance?—that together they could find a way to heal?
* * *
It was time to get Amina and Danny and Luka out of the bunker.
It was dark, not because it was night—it was still mid-afternoon—but because the smoke was still all-enveloping. They’d need to keep watch, take it in turns to check for spot fires, but, for now, they entered the house together.
Rob was holding Amina’s hand. He’d been worried she’d trip over the mass of litter blasted across the yard. Danny was clinging to his mother’s other side. Luka was pressing hard against his small master. The dog was limping a little but he wasn’t about to leave the little boy.
Which left Julie bringing up the rear. She stood aside as Rob led them indoors and for some crazy reason she thought of the day Rob had brought her here to show her his plans. He’d laid out a tentative floor plan with string and markers on the soil. He’d shown her where the front door would be and then he’d swung her into his arms and lifted her across.
‘Welcome to your home, my bride,’ he’d told her and he’d set her down into the future hall and he’d kissed her with a passion that had left her breathless. ‘Welcome to your Happy Ever After.’
Past history. Moving on. She followed them in and felt bleakness envelop her. The house was grey, dingy, appalling. There were no lights. She flicked the switch without hope and, of course, there was none.
‘The cabling from the solar system must have melted,’ Rob said, and then he gave a little-boy grin that was, in the circumstances, totally unexpected and totally endearing. ‘But I have that covered. I knew the conduit was a weak spot when we built so the electrician’s left me backup. I just need to unplug one lot and plug in another. The spare’s in the garage, right next to my tool belt.’
And in the face of that grin it was impossible not to smile back. The grey lifted, just a little. Man with tool belt, practically chest-thumping...
He’d designed this house to withstand fire. Skilled with a tool belt or not, he had saved them.
‘It might take a bit of fiddling,’ Rob conceded, trying—unsuccessfully—to sound modest. ‘And the smoke will be messing with it now. But even if it fails completely we have the generator for important things, like pumping water. We have the barbecue. We can manage.’
‘If you’re thinking of getting up on the roof, Superman...’
‘When it cools a little. And I’ll let you hold the ladder.’ He offered it like he was offering diamonds and, weirdly, she wanted to laugh. Her world was somehow righting.
‘Do you mind...if we stay?’ Amina faltered and Julie hauled herself together even more. Amina had lost her home. She didn’t know where her husband was and Julie knew she was fearful that he’d have been on the road trying to reach her. What was Julie fearful about? Nothing. Rob was safe, and even that shouldn’t matter.
But it did. She looked at his smoke-stained face, his bloodshot eyes, his grin that she knew was assumed—she knew this man and she knew he was feeling as bleak as she was, but he was trying his best to cheer them up—and she thought: no matter what we’ve been through, we have been through it.
I know this man. The feeling was solid, a rock in a shifting world. Even if being together hurt so much she couldn’t bear it, he still felt part of her.
‘Of course you can stay.’ She struggled to sound normal, struggled to sound like a friendly neighbour welcoming a friend. ‘For as long as you like.’
‘For as long as we must,’ Rob amended. ‘Amina, the roads will be blocked. There’s no phone reception. I checked and the transmission towers are down.’ He hesitated and looked suddenly nervous. ‘When...when’s your baby due?’
‘Not for another four weeks. Henry works in the mines, two weeks on, two weeks off, but he’s done six weeks in a row so he can get a long leave for the baby. He was flying in last night. He’ll be frantic. I have to get a message to him.’
‘I don’t think we can do that,’ Rob told her. ‘The phones are out and the road is cut by fallen timber. It’s over an hour’s walk at the best of times down to the highway and frankly it’s not safe to try. Burned trees will still be falling. I don’t think I can walk in this heat and smoke.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to, but Henry...’
‘He’ll have stopped at the road blocks. He’ll be forced to wait until the roads are cleared, but the worst of the fire’s over. You’ll see him soon.’
‘But if the fire comes back...’
‘It won’t,’ Rob told her. ‘Even if there’s a wind change, there’s nothing left to burn.’
‘But this house...’
‘Is a fortress,’ Julie told her. ‘It’s the house that Rob built. No fire dare challenge it.’
‘He’s amazing,’ Amina managed as Rob headed out to do another mop and bucket round—they’d need to keep checking for hours, if not days. ‘He’s just...a hero.’
‘He is.’
‘You’re so lucky...’ And then Amina faltered, remembering. ‘I mean... I can’t...’
‘I am lucky,’ Julie told her. ‘And yes, Rob’s a hero.’ And he was. Not her hero but a hero. ‘But for now...for now, let’s investigate the basics. We need to make this house liveable. It’s Christmas tomorrow. Surely we can do something to celebrate.’
‘But my Henry...’
‘He’ll come,’ Julie said stoutly. ‘And when he does, we need to have Christmas waiting for him.’
* * *
Rob made his way slowly round the house, inspecting everything. Every spark, every smouldering leaf or twig copped a mopful of water, but the threat was easing.
The smoke was easing a little. He could almost breathe.
He could almost think.
He’d saved Danny.
It should feel good and it did. He should feel lucky and he did. Strangely, though, he felt more than that. It was like a huge grey weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Somehow he’d saved Danny. Danny would grow into a man because of what he’d achieved.
It didn’t make the twins’ death any easier to comprehend but somehow the knot of rage and desolation inside him had loosened a little.
Was it also because he’d held Julie last night? Lost himself in her body?
Julie.
‘I wish she’d been able to save him, too,’ he said out loud. Nothing and no one answered. It was like he was on Mars.
But Julie was here, right inside the door. And Amina and the kid he’d saved.
If he hadn’t come, Julie might not have even made it to the bunker. Her eyes said maybe that wouldn’t matter. Sometimes her eyes looked dead already.
How to fix that? How to break through?
He hadn’t been able to four years ago. What was different now?
For the last four years he’d missed her with an ache in his gut that had never subsided. He’d learned to live with