Flames

The wild debut novel you need to read this year

Robbie Arnott

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781786496294
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786496270
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

"A strange and joyous marvel" Richard Flanagan For readers of Jennifer Egan, Evie Wyld, Sara Baume and David Szalay. Robbie Arnott's mad, wild debut novel is rough-hewn from the Tasmanian landscape and imbued with the folkloric magic of the oldest fireside storytellers. A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte-who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire. The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle. Flames sings out with joy and sadness. Utterly original in conception, spellbinding in its descriptions of nature and its celebration of the power of language, it announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction. SHORTLISTED FOR THE READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION

ICE

You shouldn’t drink gin before you drive a sedan. But you also shouldn’t talk back to your mother, wear black with blue or sleep with loose men, and I’d done all those things plenty of times, so I didn’t hesitate when I soaked my throat with a thick finger of Tanqueray before I hit the road.

New client. Weird kid—or at least he’d seemed weird on the phone. Tweaky voice, even though his words were smooth. Like his private-school manners were paved over something that had cracked. Even before I met him I didn’t trust him. But I needed the cash, and I needed the work—too much time between cases let a muddy fog waft into my thoughts. It was better to stay busy.

He lived on a farm on the coast between Beauty Point and Hawley Beach, about an hour’s drive from my flat in north Launceston. I burned up the East Tamar Highway, tyres sliding across the black ice that filmed over the road on every shadowed corner. I shouldn’t drive so fast. The Lancer can’t handle it. It’s handled a lot of things, but black ice: it’s never been able to come to terms with that. The third time I spun out I grudgingly slowed down, crawling all the way to the Batman Bridge, where the light sprayed over the broad blue river, forcing me to blink and grunt and yank down the visor. It sure was pretty, all that light on all that water. I’m not interested in pretty things.

I made it to the farm twenty minutes later, although it wasn’t really a farm, or not what I thought a farm should be. There were no sheep. No cows. No pigs or geese or goats. No barking dogs, shearing sheds or irrigation machines. There was just a lonely dirt road, a sandstone cottage and a few thistle-filled fields that sloped down to the grey ocean. How this kid made money had me beat. But as long as he had it, I didn’t care.

I parked next to the cottage and knocked on the door, which he opened a few moments later. In the dim light I couldn’t make him out that well, but when he invited me inside I got a proper look. Skinny face. Skinny arms. Skinny everything. He offered me tea. I declined, but he boiled the jug anyway, said he needed a pick-me-up, sounding nervous and shaky. As the water heated he had a go at a bit of chitchat—how he’d seen my ad in the paper, how he’d assumed I was a man, whether the drive was all right; all the usual small talk that I don’t go in for.

Eventually the jug clicked off, and then we were sitting at the table in his little kitchen, me picking at my cuticles, him sipping and telling me what I could do for him. The story wasn’t as unusual as he thought it was. Mother dies, daughter goes bonkers, son acts like nothing’s wrong, daughter runs away. He could’ve told me this in an email. Sure, the whole reincarnation thing was a bit off-script, but I’d seen stranger things happen to stranger people—blackmailers who’d stolen souls with high-powered cameras; thieves who’d sold their shadows to puppeteers; adulterers who’d swapped faces with gargoyles. You name it, I’d seen it. And I’d investigated it, solved it, and been home by nine with a glass of gin and a thick sandwich. Skinny boy’s mother and all her twice-dead relatives didn’t make me blink.

He handed me a photo of the sister as he spoke. Normal-looking girl in her early twenties. Dark hair, like his. Pale skin. A bit of mongrel in her face, I’d guess, but you never really know about that until you see someone fired up. I slipped it into my pocket. When he stopped talking I took out my notebook. Did the cops find anything?

He rubbed his face. Not really. She was travelling south. The last place she was spotted was on a bus headed to Franklin. I went down there myself, but nobody had seen her. He was trying to sound calm, but there was that nervous shake again, wobbling about beneath his tongue.

Who was the lead on the case?

Pardon?

The lead. The detective.

Oh. He frowned and got up to fetch his wallet from the kitchen bench, pulled out a blue card. Senior Detective Graham Malik. He looked back at me. You know him?

I tugged on a stubborn piece of skin. Somewhat. Graham Malik. The Last Graham. At least I’d be dealing with a face I knew. I stood up and smoothed back my hair.

That’s it? He swung forward from the bench. You don’t need anything else?

Nah. I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and made for the door, where I paused. I’m a master of the doorway pause. Except one thing. Now I turned to see what his face would do when I asked: Where’s your old man’s place?

The cracks I’d heard in his voice swam up to his face, snapping over those pointy little cheekbones. Why?

A girl goes missing, you generally check her dad’s place first.

She’s not there.

Probably not. But I’m still going to check.

His voice rushed out, high and jittery. That isn’t necessary.

I crossed my arms. You want me to find her?

Of course.

Then let me do my job.

He had a go at staring me down and lost, badly. With wet eyes he grabbed a letter from the bench and marched over, handing it to me. Here. It was addressed to a Jack McAllister at a property down the highway, closer to Launceston. I slipped the envelope into my pocket and made to leave, but the kid wasn’t done talking. When will I hear from you? I’d appreciate updates.

I’d appreciate a long weekend with some Olympic gymnasts, I thought. But I didn’t bother telling him. I just opened the door and felt the wind slap my face. I’ll be in touch.

Δ

Half an hour later I arrived at the old man’s house. It was a big timber pile just south of Exeter, perched on a bend overlooking the Tamar. The sun was falling fast, dropping behind the western hills, dragging shadows over the valley.

The house was something else. I don’t go much for ostentatious architecture, but I could appreciate what was going on here. Three storeys, two chimneys, at least five bedrooms. Built out of some kind of rich red timber that almost glowed, but that might’ve been the dusky light. Myrtle, I guessed, although I don’t know anything about wood. The mansion was surrounded by a sprawling, overgrown garden, flowers and bushes and all sorts of scrub pushing firmly against each other in what must have once, years ago, been a vast garden. Trees thrust up through the foliage, towering over the house, competing for the light. Some part of me realised that, like the view from the bridge, it was all rather pretty. I stopped looking at it.

No lights were shining from any of the windows, no smoke was pumping from either of the chimneys and no sound was coming from under any of the doors. No cars in the driveway, either. I knocked anyway, expecting nothing and getting it. No father to be found. I’d check with Malik in the morning. I jumped back in the Lancer, swung the wheel and headed back out onto the highway, but not before I’d seen something I’d missed on the way in: a broad, blackened patch of burnt grass in the lawn, right in front of the house. The grass around it had grown high and lush, but this ring of charcoal had not recovered. I thought of the mother, the one who’d burned twice, and felt a brief twinge.

By the time I’d followed the river home it was completely dark. I parked in the alley, let myself into the flat, and made a ham and mustard sandwich. A glass of gin happened too, and another few, until I was lying on the couch watching someone shout at me from the television. At some point the neighbour’s cat came in, a huge black tom that had taken a liking to me. I couldn’t tell how it kept getting in. It sat on my stomach as I fed it strips of ham. More gin. The room turned swimmy. I’d find the girl in the morning. As long as she hadn’t become a ring of burnt grass.

Δ

In the morning my brain was having a fight with my skull and I hated pretty much everything, but that was normal. I shoved the tom off me and began my breakfast routine: toast, black coffee, push-ups, sit-ups, hot shower, toothbrush, Panadol, clothes. By the time I was pushing buttons through my shirt I was as good as I was going to get. In the mirror I saw that my hair was reaching past my ears. I smoothed it back, wiped on some cherry lipstick, sorted my eyes out with a bit of liner, grabbed my coat and got out of the flat before I had to look at it for any longer.

It wasn’t far to the cop shop. All the nature strips I walked past were covered in a brittle layer of frost; the local footy oval was a glistening white pan. I remembered my playing days, and the feeling of my body crunching into the ice after an early start in the under-fourteens, my skin first going sharp, then numb, then stinging for hours until the match was over. I didn’t miss it.

I kept walking, over the bridge and into town, my hangover coming too but having the decency to stay more or less quiet. On my way past a bakery I stepped in to buy a couple of croissants. The sugar in the air put a perk in my stride, and by the time I reached the station I was feeling almost fine. At the front desk a junior cop wanted to know if I had a complaint. I drew on a smile. I’m here to see Senior Detective Malik.

What case would you like to speak to the senior detective about? He’s very busy. The boy-cop smiled back, and behind his too-white teeth I could see his fragile little thoughts tracing lines, making assumptions, bouncing off words like Duty and Career and Citizen and Safety.

I’m his ex-wife. Tell him I’m on the way up. I started moving towards a door in the rear left corner of the room, the one that led up to the detectives’ desks. It didn’t open for me, so I turned back to the officer. Or I could just call my lawyer. I pulled out my phone. The number’s on speed-dial. Graham would love that.

He blinked, and his neon smile flickered away into the stale cop-shop air. My thumb hovered over the keypad. He blinked again and pressed a button underneath the desk. The door began slowly opening. I gave him a mock salute and started climbing the stairs.

Three flights up and I was banging on a glass door emblazoned with Malik’s name and rank. Come in—Jesus, he barked, so I yanked on the handle and strode into the office of the Last Graham. A squat, lumpy boulder of a man was leaning over a chipped desk, shuffling through a stack of finely printed paper. His sleeves were rolled up past his hairy forearms, and even though the morning was freezing and the station had shithouse heating there were little circles of sweat rolling down his bare, coffee-brown scalp. Look, Patricia, you’ve already got my balls. What the hell else do you…

He looked up as I planted myself in the stiff guest chair. Morning, Graham.

You son of a bitch. He collapsed into his own seat and kicked ineffectively at the pile of paper. I thought you were Patricia. She’s taking me to the cleaners, you know.

I heard. I tore open the bag of croissants and placed it on the desk between us.

Fucking bitch. Kids, house, kayak, everything.

I raised an eyebrow. You kayak?

He snatched up one of the croissants. I did. When I had a fucking kayak. The whole pastry disappeared into his mouth, golden crumbs spraying over the papers. Anyway. What do you want?

They called him the Last Graham for two reasons: first, because the name Graham had been so unpopular for newborn babies for the last few decades it was highly likely that once a few old codgers kicked the bucket he, Graham Malik, would be the last Graham on the island. Second, because he was perceived to be so slow—physically and mentally—that he was always the last d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Ash
• Salt
• Sky
• Iron
• Fur
• Ice
• Feather
• Cake
• Grass
• Snow
• Wood
• Coal
• Grove
• Cloud
• Sea
• Note
• Acknowledgments