Aftermath

Our neighbour Hanno finds the walk to school arduous. So when he goes to pick up his big sister Eve in the afternoon, Jens takes him in the wheelbarrow. And sometimes after a big day at kindy, Eve hops in too for a lift home.

Jens and Tash used to have one of those Dutch bicycles with a child capsule on the front of it. Both kids fitted, side by side. But they lost it in the fire when their house burned down.

The fire happened six days after Christmas and four days after Eve’s birthday. Tash tells me that sometimes they remember presents that were in the house. ‘Burnt?’ says Eve. ‘Yes,’ says Tash, sad face. ‘Burnt.’

 

Judy dropped round the other day. Judy and Rob’s house – burnt. On 2 January the Mechanic had bumped into Rob at Coles in Bega; he, the Mechanic, had been encouraging me to come home, but we’d found a comfortable, dog-friendly holiday unit down at Millingandi after evacuating, untouched by fire, and I felt safe there. The Mechanic brought Rob out to the car, where I was waiting. ‘Come home,’ said Rob. ‘We’re there in our campervan, Diana and John are there, Jim and Cathy, plenty of us. You’ll feel so much better. Just come home.’ So we did, and he was right.

At the dining table, Judy, the Mechanic and I shared our New Year’s Eve stories again. Nearly half a year on, we’re still sharing them. As I’m compelled to write them again here. All it takes is a small boy and a wheelbarrow to bring it all back.

 

Jim next door saved his house and ours, and the houses on either side, with his underground tank, fire pump and fire hose. But he wouldn’t do it again, he says. Jim and the Mechanic had become firm friends over the years, in that neighbourly way—chatting over the fence, sometimes at length. But Jim would always keep a very Australian distance—about a metre and a half … After the fire he’d changed—he started standing much closer. Now, of course, they’re at a distance again. About a metre and a half.

 

You might have seen the ruins of Tash, Jens, Eve and Hanno’s house. There was a photo doing the rounds of the regular and social media at the time, and it still pops up. From behind, a man in high-vis jacket, ‘MEDIA’ on his back, surveying a pile of smouldering debris. One hand dangling a camera, the other holding his head.

It was Matt Roberts, ABC cameraman, on assignment from Canberra on New Year’s Eve. But in that moment he was just Tash’s brother, and soon he’d be sending her photos, confirming the loss.

 

Outside the Hall, which is still the Recovery Centre, I pulled over to talk to Caroline (house – burnt). ‘I got my BAL score!’ she said, with a broad smile. ‘Twenty-nine!’

It was only when Letitia arrived (yes, house – burnt) that I realised there’s a whole new language that I, the resident of an unburnt house, am not privy to, and Caroline hadn’t been scanned for bowel cancer but assessed by Council for her site’s Bushfire Attack Level, which dictates the extra precautions she has to take when she rebuilds. Twenty-nine means she saves a bundle.

I spoke with Letitia while Caroline fossicked in the Recovery Centre. Soon she emerged, smiling again, with a plastic tub holding a set of cups and saucers of the loveliest teal blue.

 

The contractors have been busy in Quaama and most blocks are cleared. Mounds of twisted roofing metal, ash and rubble surrounding scorched brick chimneys are transformed into scraped-clean dirt rectangles—sites of possibility.

There was a tiny cottage near the top of our street, always a cheap rental with a high turnover of hard-scrabble tenants. Seems it’s going to be the last pile to be cleared, probably because there’s no owner advocating for it, hassling the state-funded contractors.

I don’t know where the last tenants went. They hadn’t been there long. There was a young boy called Quill, and a dad who was really making a go of it—always a pile of topsoil or a roll of wire or a few lengths of timber in the back of his ute; always a DIY job in evidence on the small block. I’d thought, someone’s really making a home here, at last. So much for that.

 

In the last few days, work has started on Bill and Cheryl’s block. Across the back paddock, through the regrowth, we can faintly see flashing lights, hear the grumble of heavy machinery, the groan, crash and tinkle of refuse landing in dump truck trays.

Bill and Cheryl haven’t even asked for a BAL assessment. They know they’d score badly and rebuilding would be unfeasible. It’s the trees. They’ve bought a house in the middle of Bega, double-brick, and who’d blame them.

But never say never. In the last few weeks Bill has converted their shed, which wasn’t burnt, into liveable accommodation—lined and insulated…

 

Something that didn’t burn that night was Eve’s school uniform. It was in the go-bag. Eve was about to start kindergarten and the uniform was deemed essential.

The family had to find temporary accommodation after the fire and ended up in Brogo, ten minutes’ drive down the highway. But they were determined to return to Quaama, and as soon as a house became available they were back.

In the Quaama Store one afternoon in March. ‘So, I’ve just come from school?’ declares Eve. Two syllables, ‘schoo-wol’ – with an inflection on the second. Hand on hip, one eyebrow raised minimally.

We’re back, or we’re getting there.