‘I don’t want to hide my face. I’m not ashamed.’ And I wouldn’t be ashamed.

‘Carry it with you. Just in case.’

Police officers were still stationed in the corridor. I felt their hot gaze as we walked to the lift, and changed my mind about the hoodie. I wouldn’t be ashamed, but I also didn’t want to be slowed down by reporters asking questions.

Outside Jack paused beside a utility van with a full tray covered in a tarpaulin. ‘It’s been loaned to the CFA. Carries more than mine. I’ll be taking supplies to survivors. I can leave you at your house for a while and come back later?’

He unlocked the passenger door. A thin old paperback, edges yellow with age, rested on the seat. Sugarcane Poems, I read, by Shirley Blakely. Jack slid into the driver’s seat.

‘Shirley Blakely! I studied her poems at uni,’ I said.

He turned his key in the ignition. ‘She recited them to me all the time.’

‘Recited them?’ I asked, confused. Shirley Blakely’s take on female experience was an important influence on my own lyrics. Two songs I often performed were about motherhood. ‘To you?’

‘She’s my mum. She wrote about our life up north. I’ve been rereading it. You know her?’

Shirley Laskin had been Shirley Blakely? I let that new fact float around my mind for a moment. Perhaps I wasn’t so surprised. Jack did have a real way with words, the kind of talent that ran in families. Perhaps such a talent could be hereditary. ‘I did a literature minor at university. She’s amazing. I’m glad you had the book with you.’

‘She’d be happy to know she still meant something to someone. It was hard for her to get her poems published after she got older.’

This book must mean a lot to him. Jack hadn’t saved much from his house. I flicked through the foxed and dusty pages while he put the car into gear. Reluctant to introduce him to Genevieve, I hadn’t pressed to meet Jack’s mother, either, even though she lived just across the creek from me in the Retirement Home. He’d told me she was ageing and suffering from it. ‘Does she know you have it?’

‘She doesn’t know much.’

We left the car park. In the comfortable Melbourne suburbs, life continued as usual. Lawns were green with recycled water. How could Caleb, who belonged here, be accused of arson?

I let the book fall open at the most natural place, the page where it must most often be opened, and read.

DROUGHT

Burn the witch! The outcry came.

So end the drought her sins inflame!

Tickle her with tongues of fire,

sear her flesh like hot desire.

Burn the witch.

Upon her head we heap the blame.

Burning her, we burn our shame.

End fear upon the funeral pyre!

Burn the witch.

In childhood dreams, the sugarcane

burns. Craving sweetness, there we maim

the wildlife, which is set afire

and dies, for sugar and a buyer.