Nobody Owns a Fire
Angelo from next-door had arrived first, letting himself in through the gate in the side fence, grinning and rubbing his hands. ‘Mate,’ he said. ‘She’s a beauty.’ He stood with feet apart, hands in pockets. He and Phil regarded the pile of logs and autumn prunings, the flames curling.
‘Yep, she’s taken nice, real nice,’ said Phil. He tore the card on a six-pack, handed a bottle to Angelo and took one for himself, popped the lid. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers, mate.’
Next Stan from across the road, walking down the driveway and planting himself at the fire. ‘Burnin’ good, then.’
‘Yep, she’s a good one.’ Phil leaned over and handed Stan a beer.
Phil was surprised but pleased when Colin appeared. He wasn’t a local, as such—he and his wife had moved down from Batemans Bay about a decade previously. Colin had driven milk tankers for the cheese factory for a few years, so he and Phil had crossed paths at the depot, lifted a couple of fingers from the steering wheel when passing on the highway. Colin wasn’t one to lean against the bar at the Bayleston Arms on a Friday evening, or drop round to borrow an angle grinder. But Phil had enjoyed his wry manner in the factory tearoom, and he was always willing to lend a hand hosing out the receiving bay after the milk was pumped in. And there was more. Phil had often wondered…but then, and now, he tamped it down. No, too close to home.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Colin. He accepted a bottle from Phil, nodded, took his position and settled silently.
They stood on the windward side to avoid the smoke. The evening was fading, vestiges of lurid pink and orange streaks above the western horizon. The kookaburras had started up—a tentative enquiry from across the paddock; from somewhere in the gum on the back fence a sudden raucous response. Startled, they all looked up, then caught each other’s eyes, smiling sheepishly.
Cheese factory ex-workers, all of them, Phil thought as he looked around. Hardly surprising—the factory was the biggest employer around here. Angelo and Stan had been upstairs in admin; Stan was an accountant and Angelo in HR. But both had preferred the downstairs tea room.
Phil shifted his weight and nudged a log into the heart of the fire. A host of sparks crackled into the air, faded and died. He gave his stubby a suck. Yeah, nobody owns a fire, and you never knew who would turn up, drawn by some primeval force—warmth and light, sure, but something more, something timeworn and holy. He caught himself, getting all philosophical again. He scuffed the toe of his boot in the charcoal-flecked dirt.
Colin’s attention was on the flames. Phil noticed that he’d put on a bit of weight since his back went. But he was tall, so he could carry it to some degree. There was some jowliness around his face, and more belly. Quite a bit, Phil thought, lowering his eyes—Colin’s belly spilled over his belt now. He looked up; Colin had fixed his gaze on him, smiling faintly. Phil looked down again, unsettled, quelled a remnant but still familiar urge.
The kitchen tube lights stuttered on up at the house. ‘I’ve defrosted some chops, love,’ Anne had told him; he could see her through the lace curtain at the window and he knew from her movements, her vague form appearing at the sink, disappearing, reappearing, that dinner was well under way.
Stan belched, wiped his sleeve across his mouth and put his empty down on the upended milk crate. ‘Well, I’d better be off then, get some tea together. Thanks, mate,’—looking at Phil—’be seeing ya.’ He turned away into the darkness and was gone.
Stan’s wife, Eva, had died a few years ago. Phil tried to imagine a life lived solo like that. He glanced back up at the house, settled darkly against the indigo sky. In his mind’s eye, his plate on his lap tray, chops potatoes carrots peas gravy, Anne on the other La-Z-Boy, Neighbours on the TV. He sighed, realised it, cleared his throat. He was only, what, fifty-nine? Could this be it?
‘Yeah, Tracey’ll be bailin’ me up soon. See youse,’ said Angelo, and let himself back through the side gate.
It was just the two of them now.
For a few moments Colin looked into the fire. ‘Yeah,’ he said, rocking on his feet. Phil waited for him to signal his departure, but Colin just set his bottle down and put his hands in his pockets. The wind changed and he shuffled around to Phil’s side, out of the smoke. Rocked a bit, widened his stance. He’d only had the one beer, thought Phil. Or maybe he’d had a few at home before he came over.
Phil felt the closeness. Say something. Yeah, the campervan. It had appeared in Colin’s driveway a couple of weeks before, a curvy, shiny beast with its hatches and decals and aerials. ‘You got y’self a campervan.’ He leaned over for the remaining stubbies, gave Colin one—what the hell, he wasn’t driving—and twisted the other open.
Colin gave him a wry grin. ‘Brenda wants to do a bit of travelling, now we’ve retired.’ He dropped his head, looked up again, his brow wrinkled. ‘Round the country. Take a year, maybe…do some birdwatching…’
Phil laughed softly. Anne’d had similar ideas when he’d taken his redundancy. ‘Not my idea of a good time, gotta say. Not enough to do. You drive past those caravan parks, the women all inside cookin’, or gasbaggin’ with each other, the blokes all standin’ round their cars or their campers, bonnets up, lookin’ for somethin’ to tinker with.’
Colin nodded. ‘And what would you talk about? I mean, driving, just you and the wife, all those hours…’ He fumbled with the hem of his jacket then pulled the zip to his chin and hugged himself. ‘I mean, it’s one thing being at home. You do your own thing to some extent. But, away like that, you’d be together all the time. And there’s only so much birdwatching to do.’ He looked up at the darkening sky, gave a low laugh. ‘Geez!’
Phil could see Anne’s head again at the window, bent over the sink. Draining the peas, probably. Chops potatoes carrots peas gravy. Tinned peaches and custard for sweets. Neighbours, then Blue Heelers. The fire popped and he shivered, looked down and balled his hands into fists in his pockets. ‘Sometimes I wonder…’ He faltered, recovered. ‘Mate, do you ever wonder if, you know, if you did the right thing?’
‘What do you mean?’
Yeah, Colin was slurring his words a bit. Phil stared into the fire. What did he mean? He meant that you’re young and everyone’s getting married, and there’s a girl you’ve been friendly with, since school, and it just seems to be the way things go. You just get carried along… You get married, then there’s kids, and driving tankers till your back gives in. Then—he glanced up at Colin—you’re buying a campervan with your compo, and setting out for a trip around bloody Australia.
‘Oh, I dunno. Forget it.’
There’d always been the other option. But it didn’t feel like an option, not a live one. Phil remembered Simon Halliday, that boy at Bayleston High. A soft, quiet kid, he’d appeared halfway through high school; his family had moved here from Sydney for Simon’s dad to manage the cheese factory. Simon was a city kid so he was different, but there was more. The girls liked him, the boys looked sideways at him, avoided him. Some of them took it further. One day they’d ambushed him coming out of the toilets, dragged him round the back and laid into him. ‘Fucken poofta!’ they’d yelled.
Phil had waited for the boys to leave. Simon was on the ground, propped against the bricks of the toilet block wall, his nose bleeding and one eye already closing to a slit. He cringed as Phil approached, but then looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘How do you get away with it?’
Phil remembers freezing, then backing away. How had the boy known?
‘I’ll just pop down the back,’ said Colin, turning and gesturing at the long-drop dunny on Phil’s fence. ‘Can’t hold it as long as I could.’
‘Sure, mate. I know what you mean.’ Phil picked up the metal rake and circled the fire, scraping the coals in. It would smoulder all night. He would come out and check it before he went to bed, but the patch of ground here was hard dirt; there was no danger of it spreading.
Bayleston High again. He’d gone back to class that day, sat down and opened his books, but his world was rocking. He was fifteen. The thoughts he’d had in the change rooms after footy, his classmates stripping down and showering. They’d prance around, flicking towels at each other. Those broadening shoulders, taut buttocks, flaccid cocks flopping around. He’d tried to join in, tried to keep his eyes above their slender waists. Yes, how did he get away with it?
Well, he’d got away with it by marrying Anne, fathering two kids, burying those urges under the demands of work, of family. Except when they’d resurfaced. When he’d swapped the milk tankers for interstate routes for months at a time—Anne had to agree that the better pay more than compensated for the nights away—and discovered the freedom, the thrill, the satisfaction to be found in frenzied couplings in foetid truck-stop toilet cubicles miles from home. Until the guilt, the shame—and yes, the fear of exposure—had driven him back, each time, to the cheese factory, the local runs. To Anne and the kids. He loved them, for god’s sake! Oh, he loved them.
But it was ten years since he’d retired and the acrid perfume of urinal cakes still gave him a charge, a stirring in his groin.
He picked up the four empties and took them to the recycling bin in the shed. Came back, picked up his bottle, poked at the fire again, looked up at the sky. The moon was yet to rise and the cobalt vastness was studded with early stars.
The long-drop door clicked open then closed, and he heard the soft trudge of Colin’s steps coming up behind him. He half turned and smiled, turned back to the fire, then gasped to feel Colin’s arms slide around him, one of his hands over his belly.
He’d been right. For a moment Phil held his breath, feeling a warmth seep across whatever layers were between them. And the surge in his groin. The fire glowed and shimmered. He exhaled slowly, lifted one hand and laid it on Colin’s.
Up at the house, the kitchen window slid open. ‘Phil? Dinner’s ready!’ And slid closed again, clicked.
Anne, chops, peas, Neighbours. Phil shuddered. ‘Jesus, mate!’ he spat. He turned and spread his elbows, felt one connect with Colin’s ribcage.
Colin grunted, flung his arms apart and staggered back. ‘Oh, god,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry, mate.’
‘What the fuck?’ Phil was whispering now, hoarsely. But Colin was already lurching up the driveway, head low.
Phil took a few steps towards the house, stopped and returned to the fire. He lowered himself onto the milk crate, staring at Colin’s back as he turned at the gatepost and moved up the road. And feeling still the softness of the tall man’s warm body against him, he dropped his face into his hands and groaned.
This is the opening scene of “Nobody Owns a Fire,” the full version of which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2024 and published in their digital magazine, adda.
Read more Fiction by Jen Severn in this issue of Wordgathering.
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About the Author
Jennifer Severn lives on the far south coast of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and their ratbag rescue terrier, where she writes while alternating between practical management of, outright denial of, and gratitude for her physical limitations. You can read her blog at www.jennifersevern.com.au, or follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DryRiverWritings.