Elianne (57 page)

He pushed past them on his way to the study and another bottle of Scotch.

‘Get your handbag, Maude,’ Max muttered.

The Fiorellis were having lunch when the Durhams arrived, Maria and Paola busily dishing out huge bowls of ravioli to three hungry men. Young Georgio and his cousin Gio had just returned from Saturday-morning footie practice in South Kolan and Luigi had come home from the mill for his midday meal break, as he always did during the slack season.

Places were immediately set for Alan and his mother and sister, who were welcomed to the table, although none of the three felt in the least like food.

Hilda shook her head apologetically as Maria tried to ply her with a bowl of ravioli. ‘I’m so sorry, Maria, but really I couldn’t.’

‘Is no matter,’ Maria said in her broken English, ‘you is no hungry, I understand.’ Maria could see Hilda Durham was upset. She wondered what had happened, but tactfully did not enquire and would have signalled the men to do likewise, except the men had not noticed anything amiss. The men were too busy shovelling down their food. ‘I make you tea, yes?’

‘That would be lovely, thank you.’ Hilda nodded gratefully.

Paola had known the instant she’d seen them that Alan’s meeting with his father had been disastrous. They had discussed the possibility that it well might.

‘Things didn’t go as you and Kate had hoped,’ she murmured, serving up his bowl of ravioli and edging in beside him on the communal wooden bench.

‘Understatement of the year,’ he muttered. ‘Dad went berserk.’

‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’ Paola cast a sympathetic glance across the table to Kate, who nodded and gave a helpless shrug. She squeezed her husband’s hand reassuringly. ‘You did all you could, Alan,’ she said, ‘at least you tried.’

Paola knew the whole story. Alan had told her about the diaries’ revelations before their marriage, feeling it only fair she should be warned of his ancestry. ‘Just in case you want to call the whole thing off,’ he’d said, only half-jokingly. She hadn’t.

Alan gazed vacantly down at his ravioli. Paola’s right, he thought. I really have done all I can. I’ve given it my best shot. There’s no point in agonising any further. It’s over. All of a sudden he realised he was extraordinarily hungry.

‘God, I can’t tell you how good this looks,’ he said, much to Maria’s delight.

After lunch, Luigi returned to the mill and the women cleared away the dishes and washed up, Hilda insisting upon drying. The young men went outside into the back garden, where Giorgio and Gio rehearsed the Rolling Stones bracket they planned to perform at Alfonso’s fifty-fifth birthday in two weeks’ time. Gio’s father loathed rock and roll, but that didn’t matter, the younger members of the family all adored the Stones.

Alan sat on the little bench at the end of the garden, looking out at the cane fields, listening to ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and feeling the whole situation was somehow surreal. What should he do next? Would it be safe to return his mother and sister to The Big House or would his father still be rampaging about the place like a maddened bull? Should he drive them into town so they could stay at the flat? The world seemed to have gone insane and he was unsure about the course of action he should take.

With the kitchen chores out of the way the women too gravitated to the music and Alan lifted chairs out onto the little back verandah. The question of what to do was by now fading somewhat; the afternoon had a happily balmy feel.

It was four o’clock before they knew anything was wrong. Gio was setting off for home when he saw it. He left via the backyard and the side gate as the family always did, the Fiorellis’ front door being rarely put to use, but in walking down the path to the street where his battered old ute was parked, he saw the smoke. It was coming from The Big House, barely half a mile away.

He raced back to alert the others. ‘Fire,’ he yelled, ‘fire! It’s your dad’s place, Alan. The Big House is on fire!’

They all ran out into the street to where they could clearly see the smoke billowing into the air.

Alan took command. ‘Go to the mill, Gio,’ he ordered, ‘tell Luigi to bring the fire truck and a team; Georgio, you come with me.’ He caught sight of his mother’s panic-stricken face and knew she feared for her husband. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he said, ‘we’ll get him out safely,’ then in an aside to his wife, ‘look after her for me, Paola.’

Kate joined her brother as he raced for the utility. ‘I’m coming too,’ she said and she piled in beside Georgio. Alan raised no protest. He hadn’t presumed for one minute that Kate would stay behind with the women.

Having decided to burn down The Big House, Stan had set about his task with methodical precision. The use of the diaries as a prime source of ignition had seemed to him not only apt, but intensely satisfying.

After the others had gone he’d sat drinking morosely in his study for some time, his son’s hard-hitting home truths still ringing in his ears. Then he’d roamed the house, whisky bottle in hand, swigging from its neck, swinging it about with drunken abandon, sending crystal and fine china flying from shelves, smashing Hilda’s favourite objets d’art from the sideboards and mantelpieces of the main lounge and front drawing room and causing whatever general wreckage he could, his mind all the while raging. So this is all I own, is it! This house is all that belongs to me? Well to hell with them!
Crash
. To hell with the lot of them!
Crash
. To hell with Ivan Krantz and his prick of a son!
Crash
. To hell with my son and my father!
Crash
. To hell with Big Jim! Yes, most of all, to hell with Big Jim!

But as the image of Big Jim had come into his mind, something had changed. The need to destroy had taken on a greater significance than the mere release of pent-up hostility. Everywhere he looked Stan could see his grandfather’s influence. He was surrounded by the man. This very house had been built in order to impress Big Jim. At the time he’d pretended it had been for Hilda, but it hadn’t been at all. He’d wanted to show off to his hero. He’d wanted to build a home that was bigger and grander than Elianne House, a home even more opulent than Big Jim’s. And oh the pride he’d felt upon receiving his hero’s stamp of approval!

‘Well, well, isn’t this grand.’ He could hear Big Jim’s voice still, he could see him filling the house with his giant presence. ‘A new mansion for a new generation of Durhams: you’ve done well, Stan my boy. You’ve done this family proud.’ How he’d basked in his idol’s praise!

The memory, still crystal-clear, had aroused in Stan a potent mix of hatred and shame. This house was a monument to his worship of Big Jim. It stood mocking him, a permanent reminder that in emulating a man whose cruelty had destroyed his family, he’d destroyed his own. This house was a symbol of his humiliation. He’d decided in that moment that he needed to do far more than vent his anger at the world. He needed to burn down this house. He needed to raze it to the ground and obliterate all it stood for.

That was when he’d seen the folders. An armload of the things, piled high, each thick with the pages of Kate’s translations, sitting right there on the front drawing-room desk where Hilda had left them. Grandmother Ellie’s diaries . . . How fitting, he’d thought. Indeed how perfect.

He’d felt a great deal calmer having come to his decision and after gathering the necessary equipment together, everything had gone very much to plan. He’d scattered the folders and their contents in strategic positions around the house, beneath curtains and on rattan and wicker chairs, anything that was likely to prove flammable. Areas that would be more difficult to ignite, he’d doused with petrol. Then he’d gone from room to room systematically setting everything alight with a trickle burner, just as he would the cane.

Now, standing on the verandah watching the blaze grow steadily stronger, Stan’s anger returned with a vengeance. He wished this could be Big Jim he was burning . . . Big Jim the man himself . . . he wished he could see his grandfather among the flames . . .

He looked through the window to the front drawing room, now ablaze, trying to imagine Big Jim, there inside this house that was his monument. He tried to see him screaming in agony, begging forgiveness. But Big Jim wasn’t there. Big Jim was still mocking him.

‘Dad! Dad!’

Stan didn’t hear the utility pull up. He didn’t hear his son calling out to him. The more intense the flames grew, the more so did his rage. If he couldn’t burn Big Jim the man then he’d burn all Big Jim stood for. He’d burn Elianne! He’d burn it all to the ground – the plantation, the mill, the entire estate. He’d destroy everything Big Jim had created. This house was just the start.

‘Go around the back, Georgio,’ Alan ordered, ‘there’s a hose by the laundry.’ He didn’t need to issue orders to his sister. Kate was already unfurling the hose that serviced the front garden. There would be an adequate water supply, Alan knew, to have both hoses running at full strength for some time. The household tanks were always kept well stocked from the dam. The overall effectiveness of hosing, however, was doubtful, for the fire had considerable hold. Our only hope, he thought, is to keep the blaze under control as much as possible until the arrival of Luigi’s team and the fire truck. In the meantime, what the hell was his father doing on the front verandah?

‘Dad,’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Dad, get down from there!’

But his father took no notice. He didn’t even appear to hear. His father seemed to be revelling in the spectacle of the blaze.

The hoses were now on at full force, Giorgio manning the rear of the house while Kate concentrated on the front.

Alan raced up the stairs to his father, copping a blast from the hose as he went. He grabbed Stan by the arm.

‘Dad, what the hell are you doing?’ he yelled trying to haul him away. ‘Get off the verandah!’

The arrival of his son meant nothing to Stan, who shook himself free of Alan’s grasp, staggering drunkenly as he did so, but managing to stay upright. The jet of water that hit him, however, was a different matter altogether.

‘No, no,’ he roared angrily, ‘let it burn! Let it burn! Let the whole place burn!’

Despite the smoke, which was reaching suffocating proportions, Alan could make out the trickle burner lying on the verandah and realised with a sense of horror that his father had deliberately lit the fire. Through the window of the front drawing room he could see the blaze raging inside and even in that split second the window itself shattered, to be quickly followed by several others as the heat intensified. The place was becoming an inferno. The hoses were having no effect. The fire was out of control.

‘She’s going to go up, Dad,’ he yelled as the flames licked hungrily through the open windows at the verandah’s timber. He made another desperate grab at his father. ‘Get down the stairs while you can! For God’s sake get down the stairs.’

Clasped in each other’s embrace, they struggled like clumsy dance partners, Alan managing to catch Stan off balance enough to haul him to the top of the stairs. But upon regaining his footing, Stan once again flung him aside with ease. Even in his drunkenness, Stan the Man’s size and strength far outmatched that of his son. Alan found himself skidding along the verandah on his back, shards of glass cutting through his shirt and into his skin, while his father kept screaming like a madman.

‘Let it burn! Let it burn! Let the whole place burn!’

He’s insane, Alan thought, struggling to his feet. He’s demented with the drink. What the hell does he think he’s doing? Does he mean to incinerate himself along with the house?

‘You’re drunk, man,’ he yelled, ‘get down the bloody stairs,’ and he hurled himself at his father in a rugby tackle, grabbing him around the knees and holding on for dear life.

Stan fell as if in slow motion and Alan went with him, all the way down the stairs, father and son locked together.

They landed in a heap at the bottom and Kate dropped the hose, leaving it to snake about like a live thing as she ran to help.

‘Are you all right?’ she said squatting beside her brother who, winded, was fighting to regain his breath as he shakily sat up. ‘Oh hell, look at your back.’ She saw the blood seeping through his tattered shirt.

‘I’m fine, Kate, I’m fine,’ Alan replied, his voice husky, the smoke catching in his lungs. ‘Check out Dad – how is he?’ Stan was not moving.

Kate made a quick professional examination of her father. ‘Nasty cut to the forehead, but he’s breathing and there doesn’t appear to be anything broken.’

‘He’s probably passed out – he’s as drunk as a skunk.’ Alan hauled himself painfully to his feet. ‘Let’s get him out of the danger zone.’

They took an arm each and as they started to drag Stan away from the house other willing hands were suddenly there lending assistance. Luigi and his team had arrived in the fire truck, Gio in his utility close behind them.

With the fire now raging out of control, Luigi instantly assessed the situation and took command. ‘We must let her burn,’ he said to Alan. As the Boss was unconscious he sought permission of the next Durham in line. ‘Better we contain the blaze so it do no more damage,
si
? The house she must go. Cinders in the cane, Alan, no good: we could lose all of Elianne.’

‘Yes, Luigi, I agree.’

‘You stay, look after your father, I have men enough.’ He stopped Kate who was about to return to the hose she’d been manning. ‘You stay also, Kate,’ he said with a meaningful nod at Alan’s bloodied back, ‘you stay, look after your brother.’

Luigi left them and upon Kate’s instruction Alan removed his shirt, which was in tatters. As she crossed to the garden hose now being manned by Gio, Alan sat naked-chested on the ground beside his father’s inert form. He watched Luigi’s team set about their work. A half a dozen men armed with shovels and cane knives were busily creating a fire break, while Luigi and his co-worker had started circling the perimeter in the fire truck, saturating all in their path. Alan was thankful for the fire truck, which was a recent innovation. A Bedford fitted with a water tank and powerful hose, it proved useful enough in the control of burnings, but was invaluable in a situation such as this.