A city red with fire. The distant ring of hills surrounding us, alight. A northerly pushing flames up hills and down valleys, consuming homes, halls, whole towns, cars full of mums and kids attempting to escape. Even from this distance we could see how fires were growing, joining and consuming the ranges no one had back-burned for decades. We were told there were people dying. Someone had a tranny and we listened to the reports and learned that half the state was on fire. Every metropolitan and country unit was fighting the inferno. They’d run out of men and trucks and some of these sat burned-out, too, black bodies smouldering through the afternoon. By two pm (they let us out early), as I walked home, the streets of Gleneagles were full of smoke.

I turned into Lanark Avenue to see people in their yards, arms crossed, talking, looking to the hills. Peter Donnellan, clutching his rusty scythe, cutting arse-high grass. Mum had said something to Val, and she must’ve got him onto it. Mum often said her bit. Listen, Val, we’ll come and give you a hand with that rubbish out the back. You call the council and they’ll come and collect it. What d’you reckon? And Val would never disagree. I guess she knew things needed doing, but didn’t know how. One in a wheelchair, and the other in his room (aged forty) reading Proust. What could you do?

‘Hi, Peter.’

He stopped and looked up, surprised. He was always in his own world. ‘How are you, Clem?’

I studied the hills. ‘You reckon there are many dead?’

‘They say there’s eighteen already, but when they search the houses …’ He continued working.

‘You should borrow our Victa,’ I said.

No reply. Why would you bother when cold steel could do the job?

‘Do you want me to go get it?’

And without stopping: ‘No, thanks.’

It seemed a funny time to be scything. Shouldn’t we all be gathered, muttering consolations, watching the fronts surge and recede? Plus, he was red-faced, the veins in his temple pulsing to the day’s irregular rhythms. ‘I could do it for you,’ I said. ‘Have it done in ten minutes.’

Again, no reply. As though he was doing it because of the day, not despite it. As some sort of mea culpa on behalf of Lanark Avenue, or all of Gleneagles. Perhaps, if he worked hard enough, the wind would drop, the flames die, clouds gather, rain fall. A scything Jesus, complete with beard full of biscuit crumbs, yellow-tipped fingers, like his mum, long fingernails, because who did he have to impress?

‘Is it heavy?’ I asked.