Kelly leaned into the cockpit, checked the brake, then closed the door. ‘Yeah, it should be fine.’
As they set off, the leaves of the vines started to rustle around them like a whispering crowd. The branches, tied in orderly rows, waved and rippled.
Kelly stopped and slipped her orange baseball cap off. Her blonde hair billowed out behind her and she tilted her head back. ‘Mmm, that is nice.’
Then the wind changed direction. Suddenly it was a lot stronger. The vines flapped the other way, straining against their tethers. Big leaves plunged down on Kelly’s face like fingers trying to gather her up. She jumped backwards. The wind pushed her back even further and she staggered into Ben. Ben would have fallen over, but the wind changed again and for a moment they were stuck together, unable to move forwards. The wind had to be over sixty miles an hour — it was impossible to take even a step. Then, as quickly as it had sprung up, the wind dropped to a dead calm.
Kelly bundled her hair up and put her hat back on. ‘Man, this weather is freaky today. It’s a good thing we’re down here and not trying to fly in it.’
Matt and Jenny Forrest, and their army of helpers, stood around the picnic tables. All the guests had arrived and Matt was pouring glasses of last year’s vintage while Jenny handed them out.
Suddenly the checked rug on the table billowed up like a sail. Matt tried to grab the wine glasses but they crashed over, sending Chardonnay and broken glass all over his bare legs. The chairs set out in a row next to the decking folded up by themselves and keeled over. Sun hats were snatched off the visitors’ heads and whirled into the air.
There was a sound of screeching, like fingernails down a blackboard. Moments later a tangle of metal landed on the parched earth. The wind had torn the TV aerial off the roof.
‘Inside!’ Jenny yelled. Her voice was a tiny thing against the wind roaring in her ears. She waved her arms towards the house.
Her guests, half blinded by dust blowing in off the vineyards, struggled after her.
Once they were all inside, Matt pulled the door shut with difficulty. They looked out at the hillside. The vines were shaking violently. Dark clouds were drifting across the sapphire-blue sky.
Jenny’s father shook dust out of his grey hair. ‘Of all days to get rain …’
‘Maybe it isn’t rain,’ said Matt. ‘It wasn’t earlier.’
‘Dust or rain …’ Jenny sighed. ‘Someone up there must have it in for us …’
The clouds massed up from behind the hill, hugging the ground. There was another vineyard there, belonging to the Forrests’ neighbour.
‘I’ve never seen rain looking like that,’ said Jenny’s father.
In the distance, the cloud began to creep over the hill. The landscape looked like someone had smudged its edges with charcoal.
Jenny grabbed the binoculars they kept on the windowsill. As she turned the focus wheel she saw flickering tongues of orange flame.
It wasn’t rain approaching …
The binoculars fell from her hand as she gasped: ‘Fire!’
Alex Porter and his wife Jacquetta were on holiday, over from New Zealand. They’d hired a Toyota Corolla in Adelaide and had headed out into the hills to tour the wine-growing region.
The air conditioning was on full blast in the car, but it was barely coping with the heat. Jacquetta fanned herself with the map on her knee. Outside, the rows of vines looked like they were wilting. The grapes hung in tight clusters, a blue bloom on the skins, ready for picking.
‘Those grapes must be tough,’ she said. ‘I can’t understand why they’re not shrivelled to raisins by now.’
Suddenly Alex found he couldn’t see the dials on the dashboard. The sky outside had gone dark. He flicked the lights on. ‘Hey, looks like we’re in for a storm.’
‘We certainly could use it.’ Jacquetta turned the dial on the air conditioning but it was already at maximum. ‘Look at the temperature,’ she said, pointing to the dashboard display. ‘It’s fifty degrees outside. I thought it was supposed to get colder before a storm, not hotter.’
‘Fifty degrees?’ Alex tapped the display. ‘That can’t be right. There must be something wrong with it.’ He swung the car round the corner.
Then they saw why it was getting so hot and so dark. In front of them, the vineyard was a wall of flame the height of a two-storey building. It rolled towards them, roaring and crackling.
Jacquetta screamed.
Alex slammed on the brakes, jammed the car into reverse, screeched through a turn, then when they were facing back the way they came, he gunned the accelerator.
Jacquetta twisted in her seat, staring back through the rear windscreen. The fire was an orange ball, boiling towards them.
‘Faster, Alex! It’s going to catch us!’
Alex kept his foot flat on the floor. They reached 80 kph, then 90. A bend came up. He was going too fast. The back end of the car swung like an opening gate and crunched into some vines. The impact knocked Jacquetta’s head hard against the window. She slumped down, unconscious.
They had come to a standstill. Alex revved the engine. The wheels spun on the dusty track. In his rear-view mirror he caught a glimpse of the flames drawing nearer. Smoke started to seep into the car.
Then the tyres bit and the Toyota moved off again.
But the fire was gaining. Flames began to light up the darkened interior of the car, flickering over Jacquetta’s face. She was moving her head groggily and muttering. There was blood coming out of one of her ears. That shocked him for a moment and he stopped concentrating on driving.
His hesitation cost them vital seconds. The flames in the rear-view mirror were now much closer. Alex pushed the pedal to the floor. Another corner was coming up. He threw the steering wheel to the side — and saw the headlights of the pick-up truck coming towards him. He didn’t have time to stop or swerve. There was nowhere to go anyway. Alex glimpsed the horrified face of the driver in the cab, then the two vehicles crunched together. Jacquetta and Alex were thrown against the windscreen.
Their seat belts stopped them going all the way through, but the impact knocked them out cold. The truck driver looked up and saw the wall of flames boiling over the car towards him.
As the heat ignited their petrol tank, Alex and Jacquetta were mercifully no longer aware.
Chapter Nine
Kelly only just managed to grab her hat in time. The wind was gusting one way and then another like it was playing with them.
‘You see,’ she said, ‘you can’t possibly fly a microlight in these conditions.’
Even a half-wit would know that, thought Ben. She was obviously thinking, He’s thirteen, he must be a moron. Well, he knew how to deal with that. Putting on an innocent face, he said: ‘What if we can’t take off again?’
‘Of course we can take off,’ said Kelly. ‘We have to wait till the weather changes, though.’
‘I know that,’ said Ben, still acting innocent. ‘But George’s shift ends at three. And we’ve still got to get back.’
‘If I miss him today there’s always tomorrow. Then I’ll be footloose and fancy free.’
Ben played his trump card. ‘George is going on holiday tomorrow.’
Kelly looked at him sceptically.
‘It said so in his records,’ said Ben.
He couldn’t help laughing. But as he did so, he got a lungful of smoke that kicked off a coughing fit. All of a sudden his eyes were watering. Through the tears he saw thick black smoke and smelled burning. Where was that coming from? Had somebody lit a bonfire in the middle of the vineyard?
Kelly grabbed him and shrieked, ‘Fire!’