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“Yes, I’m looking at the photos now.” I pressed speaker. “Sam is here, too. Yes, I’m okay with it and I don’t care what others think. So, what can I help you with?”
“Yes, well,” Uncle Bruce spluttered. “Bloody hell Stace! That photo is …” His voice trailed off into throat-clearing.
“I know, they’re a bit full on,” I cringed.
“Racy Stacey indeed. But not inthatway though,” Uncle Bruce coughed, and cleared his throat some more.
Couldn’t blame the man for feeling awkward when discussing how your niece’s light porn photo shoot had gone viral.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask about using the brigade uniform. It was just for the calendar but it went further than that without us knowing.”
“What? No. I don’t care about that, ” Uncle Bruce said.
“You don’t?” I blinked.
“Stace, it’s been a media shitstorm! In a good way.”
“Huh?”
“There’s been huge interest from some racing magazines and media about the calendar and, well, you actually. And local media too. People are trying to track you down for comments.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” I said.
“This is the best publicity we could have hoped for. Our fundraising could go through the roof.”
“That’s great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. I still felt numb. My uncle talked on about media opportunities and how they could get sponsors.
“And then there’s the ABC story about your family,” he said.
“Yes, but we haven’t all decided if we will or not.”
“Well, you bloody well should because this could be the best publicity for the Backburners Ball later in the year. We could have new truck and a new shed out of this!” Uncle Bruce paused with a sharp intake of breath. “I don’t mean we should exploit your father. Not at all. I didn’t mean …”
“I know. But do you really think these photos would make a difference to our fundraising?”
“Definitely. Exposure on some of the racing groups, interviews in a couple of magazines and your ABC story in a few months. Huge. Enough for a new truck.”
It had never occurred to me that good could come out of my story, and my Dad’s. I think Rod Turner would love to know his memory earned the fire brigade a new truck.
“Okay, then. I’ll do it. If anyone wants an interview, I’ll make myself available.”
I ended the call and Sam swiped her phone’s screen.
“There’s more,” she said. “The paper is including two other photos of you with their story.”
She handed me her phone again. I knew this old photo so well: my bare back, my scars very obvious just after my compression bandages had come off. The brutal line where the surgeons had removed a rib because it had been so badly burnt through the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis layers of my skin. This had been taken before the multiple skin grafts and cosmetic surgery, and then later, the medical trials.
“This photo has been shared in lecture theatres and medical conferences around the world.” A humourless laugh escaped my lips. “My photo was used for teaching medical students about burns patients. Doc Larcombe was the first person to show me this photo two years after the fire; the same day I agreed to medical trials to reconstruct the skin on my back with grafts and artificially-made tissue.”
“Swipe across for the other one,” Sam whispered.
My hand shook as I swiped. My breath caught. I was face down on the ambulance stretcher, my back, red and raw, bloody, blackened and blistered. My face was twisted in a scream as a paramedic tried to put an oxygen mask over my mouth. Blurred in the background was Ryan. Another paramedic and a firefighter were holding him back, with the glow of the house on fire and the surrounding blackened, twisted landscape. Two blurred fire trucks were blasting the house with water.
Memory is a fickle thing. I had no memory of being stretchered out and taken to hospital. I only remembered ‘patches’—Dad saying he loved me before he pushed me out and ultimately saving my life, and the boom of the gas cylinder exploding as the fire trucks arrived, their sirens blaring.
“Ryan kept a copy of this photo from the newspaper. I found it in the office once. He has a file of newspaper clippings about the fire.”
I handed Sam her phone back and ignored mine which constantly pinged with messages and group chat notifications.
