Extract Post: Ash Mountain, by Helen Fitzgerald

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer.

As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants…

Extract

The centre of the thriving metropolis of Ash Mountain was three blocks away. Fran and Vonny headed into Gallagher’s Bakery, leaving the window of the four-wheel drive open so her dad could talk to passers-by. He was really getting into the stick thing, and began immediately: ‘Boo!’

Henry Gallagher, dressed in his standard shorts/long socks/hat combo, dropped his shopping bag.

‘Jesus Christ! Is that you Collins, you bastard? What’s your head doing on a pole! Haha!’

His wife Shirley had gone nuts apparently, hadn’t left the house in years. The shopping was his job.

Since selling the pharmacy five years back, Gramps greeted everyone the same way: ‘How’s that nasty rash?’

‘Itchy,’ Henry Gallagher was saying. ‘Haha, have you lost weight, mate? No really, how you going?’

Vonny ordered three snot blocks from Tricia, the third Thomas Gallagher girl and the meanest.

‘What are you doing for the fete?’ Tricia asked. Fran’s blank look encouraged her to explain: ‘Australia Day, next Monday on the oval. There’ll be games and cakes and rides and stuff. Vonny, you should come.’

Fran always intervened on behalf of her daughter, and was always in trouble for it afterwards. ‘You mean Invasion Day?’ she said.

Vonny rolled her eyes and tried to make herself smaller, which meant Fran was a bad mother yet again, and that Tricia could add another point to their imaginary scoreboard. Thirty years, and they were still neck and neck.

‘It’s gonna be respectful and inclusive,’ said Tricia.

Fran was surprised she knew the word inclusive. As for respect, what did she ever know about that?

‘We’ve got a competition going among the ethnic minorities in town for the best knitted cat,’ Tricia said. ‘Vonny, maybe you could try one, y’know, seeing as how you’re…’ –Tricia whispered the next word as if it was a made up thing– ‘indigenous … One I made earlier!’ she said, pulling a gnarly woollen cat from under the counter. It was life-sized; striped blue, white and red, and scattered with southern stars. Tricia’s ethnic minority was obviously ‘Australian’.

‘Cats are certainly appropriate for Invasion Day,’ Fran said, attempting to stand the feral beast on the bench, but its legs were wonky and it fell into the curried egg.

‘I’ll knit a mixed-up bastard!’ Dante had just walked into the bakery and joined the growing line for sandwiches. He kissed his mum, tickled his huffy half-sister, and set about making everyone laugh.

Dante was the best thing about Ash Mountain, and everyone knew it bar Tricia, whose withering look indicated that she did not approve of foul-mouthed bastards with snobby-slut mothers and allegedly aboriginal daughters. Tricia had a couple of mixed-up bastards of her own from her cousin Chook, so she could stop with that superior look right now.

‘I’m not sure mixed-up bastard is a minority community here,’ said Fran, giving Tricia twenty dollars and herself a point.

‘Biggest in town!’ said Stephen Oh, who was behind her in the queue. ‘Only one that really took hold.’

‘Come to think of it, why has there been no chain migration since the Celts?’ This was from Verity O’Leary, president of the Country Women’s Association and next in the line adjacent, which was for hot food. ‘That’s how it worked: word of mouth, O’Donaghue to O’Donaghue, Gallagher to Gallagher. Stephen, did you not tell your family and friends about Ash Mountain?’

Stephen reddened because the busy shop had gone silent. ‘I told them. But they mostly settled in Leopold. It’s … it’s near, um, the beach.’

Verity and most of the room recoiled, as the in-lander locals did not like to hear mention of the beach. Stephen was fully aware of the error he had made.

‘They’ll be filling the town pool soon, God willing,’ said Verity, who was wanting three curry pies with sauce.

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AUTHOR BIO

The relentless new novel from the bestselling author of The Cry
and Worst Case Scenario, Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Her 2019 dark comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in both The Guardian and Daily Telegraph.

Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She
grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband