Ash Road by Ivan Southall Page A

‘Somewhere in the north, I think. Doesn’t matter where it is. Anywhere’s bad.’
    Bad? Stevie didn’t know what was bad about it. He thought of fires as things the fire brigades lit, usually in the cool of the evening, and everyone stood and watched the sparks and the flaring foliage and said, ‘What a sight!’
    â€˜Can we go to it, Dad?’ Stevie said. ‘Come on, Dad. Be a sport. Let’s go.’
    His father didn’t seem to be listening. Then they heard the motorcycle coming up the road. They heard it howl past with a blare of sound, and Stevie spun away to the side of the house to gasp in admiration at the dust cloud. ‘Gee whiz,’ he said, ‘that’s really moving...John’s going,’ he yelled. ‘Can’t we go, too?’
    His father was frowning; he seemed agitated. ‘It’s certainly on,’ he said. ‘That’s John, all right. Of course, it
had
to be today.’
    â€˜The boy’ll kill himself if he goes at that pace,’ said Mrs Buckingham.
    â€˜Can we go too, Dad?’ shrilled Stevie.
    â€˜Be quiet,’ his mother snapped. ‘You’re not going anywhere. No one’s going anywhere.’
    Mr Buckingham firmly disengaged his wife’s clinging hand. ‘Perhaps I’d better get the car out, at that,’ he said, ‘and take a look. Probably only have to drive to the top of the hill. I think we need to know what’s going on.’
    â€˜I don’t agree. If you want to find out what’s going on, use the telephone. Ring the brigade. Or ring the Collinses if you don’t want to worry the brigade.’
    â€˜The Collinses have been away for a week,’ he said patiently. ‘You know that as well as I do.’
    â€˜Ring Bill Robertson then. You’re always saying he’s a friend of yours. He’ll be able to see from there.’
    â€˜For heaven’s sake,’ said Mr Buckingham, ‘simmer down, will you...’
    Stevie looked at his mother in surprise. She sounded like a different person from the mother he knew. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘we’re going, aren’t we? Come on, Dad.’
    The man seemed to become aware of the boy as the answer to a problem. ‘You go yourself, lad. Run to the top of the hill, and if the smoke looks close get back here at the double. You’ll be back before I’ll have time to raise anyone on the phone, anyway. Go on, off with you.’
    Stevie glanced at his mother and immediately wished he hadn’t, because she said in a tight and strained voice, ‘I don’t think he should go. I think it’s most unwise.’
    â€˜Oh, for pity’s sake,’ said Mr Buckingham. ‘Do you think I’d send the lad if I thought there was any danger? The sky would be
black
if there was any danger. You’re a real panic-merchant, you are. Go on, Stevie; off you run.’
    Stevie ran. He wanted no more arguments. But his mother’s voice, shrill and strident, pursued him. ‘What about Julie? Where’s Julie?’
    â€˜Julie’s all right,’ he yelled. He didn’t mean to speak an untruth; Julie seemed to belong to another situation, of no present importance. ‘Pippa’s there.’
    â€˜What did he say?’ the woman said.
    Mr Buckingham, still annoyed, hadn’t heard Stevie any better than his wife had. ‘Oh, she’s with Pippa,’ he grumbled, and tramped into the house to the telephone. He had forgotten about the water, of course. It squelched under his feet. ‘Confound it!’ he shouted. ‘What a way to start a holiday! What a perfect beginning to a hard-earned rest.’
    Stevie hobbled up the road towards the brow of the long hill. He couldn’t run any more because he had a stitch in his side and it hurt. He hadn’t had a stitch for ages, not since he had tried to run a quarter of a mile round the Prescott Oval at the