CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I had seen movies and read newspaper accounts of fires on public premises but nothing could have prepared me for the horror of being caught up in one. It struck me that the smoke was getting thicker, flames spreading more rapidly. At the same time, in spite of the terrified yells and screams of shadowy figures dashing in all directions, it was as if time stood still.
Everything that happened next seemed to take place in ghastly slow motion.
As I ran into the main dining area, the lights flickered into life. It was a great comfort. Although still difficult to see through dense, swirling patches of smoke, that generator undoubtedly saved many lives.
Gradually, a sense of ordered chaos prevailed over blind hysteria. There was still panic, but the lights coming on had a tangibly calming effect. Even so, the smell of fear was, if anything, stronger than the stench of burning furniture and fabrics.
Smoke was everywhere and into everything. I could hear people choking on it that I could not even see. Now and again it would clear fractionally, revealing nightmare scenes that would haunt me all my life. I could just make out Bax Pearce grappling with a fire extinguisher, saw him almost topple backwards as a blast of foam drenched a young couple whose hair and clothes were alight.
I spotted Ed. He was trying to clear a path to one of the exits with another extinguisher.
Everywhere, people were pushing, shoving, screaming. The stage was ablaze. I saw frantic shadows running from and across it, gesticulating wildly, mouths opening and shutting like cartoon characters. It was farcical, grotesque, and desperately unfunny.
At last, I managed to grab a fire extinguisher.
A blazing figure collided with me and sent us both sprawling. For an instant, I let the foamy substance soak me then regained control and turned it on the burning shape beside me. It had gone quite still. Man or woman, I could not tell, partly for the smoke and partly for the extent of his or her burns. My head was spinning. I caught a glimpse of something pink. A top perhaps or razed flesh, I could not be sure.
Instinctively, I knew I was wasting precious time. The person was dead. Yet, I let precious seconds tick away before I could bring myself to move on, galvanized into action by the shrill, persistent shrieking of emergency sirens. Help was on its way.
I tried to get my bearings and thought I was close to one of the Fire Exits nearest the L-shaped bar. My lungs were filled to bursting and I could scarcely draw breath. I tripped over an ice bucket. A sheet of flame flared where I stumbled, singeing my hair. I heard a swish of water, tore the shirt from my back, and then plunged it into the near empty bucket.
As I tied the wet shirt around my nose and mouth I heard someone coughing and spluttering nearby. I headed towards the sound, fearfully aware that I should be going in the opposite direction, and tripped headlong over a crouching body.
“Ben!” It was my old friend Ben Hallas, whom I had been intending to call for months but had never got around to it.
“Hi Rob!” he spluttered and managed a grin. “I thought I’d come and see how you were making out.”
“Not so good!” I exclaimed grimly while helping him to his feet. “Get your top off and wrap it round your face. Good. Now, lean on me. We need to go this way…” We stumbled through the ever-thickening smoke.
Then the lights went out again. The darkness was terrifying. I became completely disoriented. My stomach was churning over.
I was lost.
“Can you believe I’m lost in my own damn club?” I shouted crossly into the cloth around my mouth, but neither the weird sounds I made nor my feeble attempt at humour did much if anything to help restore what precious little self-confidence I still possessed.
“Rob!” I recognized Ed’s voice, albeit muffled, and followed the sound. Ben was heavy and kept dragging his feet. I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a grip on him. My relief knew no bounds as Ed’s familiar bulk loomed immediately ahead.
“You’re going the wrong way!” Ed yelled, grabbed my arm and proceeded to steer me in another direction.
I actually saw an EXIT sign before part of the ceiling collapsed. A mad surge of unbearable heat almost swept us off our feet, a shower of white-hot sparks scorching our clothes and flesh.
Our path was completely blocked.
Seized by terror and panic, I let my hold on Ben slip and sensed rather than heard him stagger several steps.
Ed had a violent coughing fit, swayed and would have lost his balance had I not steadied him with my free hand, the other clutching at the bar rail. My fingers touched glass, recognizing the feel of a soda siphon split seconds before my throbbing head acknowledged the fact.
Simultaneously, I sensed Ben was no longer at my side. Frantically I looked around. There was no sign. I tore the shirt from my mouth and tried to yell but a mouthful of smoke sent me into a paroxysm of coughing. I hastily replaced the shirt and turned my attention to Ed.
After propping Ed against the bar, I hastily sprayed my face then the rest of my body then did the same for him. Wrenching the siphon cap free, I lifted it to my lips and took a brief but welcome swig before holding it to Ed’s mouth so he, too, could ease a parched mouth and throat. As soon as I had his attention again, I indicated my shirt. He understood at once. Even so, I counted anguished seconds while he tugged at the tie at his neck, tore the smart dress shirt free and drenched it with the remaining soda before securing its sleeves behind his head.
Suddenly, I felt exhausted. The awful screaming had stopped. Only the sound of bottles exploding rose above the fierce crackle of the flames.
Which way to go? It was the Devil’s own choice. A tug on my wrist nearly caused me to lose my balance. Ed led the way as, trusting to instinct alone to guide us, we hared through a corridor of fire barely wide enough to accommodate a circus Thin Man, let alone the pair of us. I thought I heard raised voices. But these were not calls for help. I listened again. This time only the menacing roar of flames attacked my ears.
Ed paused, and I sensed he was listening too.
We should turn left, I was certain of it. But Ed was already dragging me to the right. My mind resisted, panic-stricken. My feet, though, had other ideas. Choice abandoned me. I was aware of an almighty crash followed by waves of pain and a mad rush of intolerable heat in my face. Then I was falling, falling, falling…into a yawning Black Hole.
It’s all over, I thought. In my mind’s eye, I saw my body in its coffin being carried on a conveyor belt to the incinerator. Absurdly, the body began protesting. I don’t want to be cremated, damn it! I want to be buried! I want a stone where people can come and remember me…
All at once, everything became a blur, like a patch of fog letting rip horrible, terrifying echoes.
I am a small boy making a belly flop landing in my dad’s lap. He lifts me high above his head. We are both laughing. Gently, he lowers me and holds me close, my face pressed tightly against his shirt. T’s a blue shirt, a brilliant sky blue. I am finding it hard to breathe and hammer on his chest with tiny fists. He flings me in the air. Up, up and away! Falling now but he catches me. We are in fits of laughter. He hugs me again. I can’t breathe. He gives me some space. I start to relax. Over his shoulder, I can see my mother. Her face is full of concern. I sense that she is looking for me. I call out to her that everything is ok. I am safe, with my dad. She makes no sign that she has heard but continues searching, with an urgency so intense it is suffocating. “Mum, I’m here. We’re here!” I try to shout but the words stick in my throat. “Dad, let me go, let me go!” I scream and try to wriggle free. But he won’t let go of me.
A new awareness hits me. I hear my dad’s voice, caressing my frayed nerves like a summer breeze smelling of rain and roses.
My body is wracked with pain.
Despite the pain, I find myself struggling with a curious familiarity and striving to identify its source. The pain gets worse, much worse. All I want now is for it to stop. I feel my dad’s cheek, wet against mine, his fingers running through my hair. I start to relax again. But I am tired, so very tired. I want to sleep. But sleep won’t come. I look for my mother, afraid for her, sensing something of her fear for my safety. How to let her know that I am with my dad, snug and…safe? Yes and no. I feel less snug now, less safe. I cannot bear the cloying grip. Again, I try to break free.
Over the shoulder that supports my child chin, I spot a new face. Someone I dimly recognize but cannot place moves almost into focus then out of sight. Again, it appears on the very edge of my vision but only to float of sight once more. And so it continues to tease me, this shadowy shapelessness of a child’s unconscious thought. Suddenly, it darts forward, looms larger than life, features plainly identifiable.
It is Matthew.
My dad relaxes his grip and swings me high above his head again. Our eyes lock. Gently, he lowers me down, our faces now so close that the heat of his rapid breath fills my lungs to bursting. His expression is saintly, his face glowing with love and reassurance. My child eyes sting with tears but shed none.
I hear sounds that might be voices but none make any sense. I look around to find myself in a sea of bobbing heads that seem only loosely attached to their bodies, so much so that I half expect them to pull loose at any time and float into the air like balloons.
I quickly spot Bo, Gabby, too. Both wave. I want to wave back but my limbs feel like lead. Ed is there and Shaun. Maggie and Lou are mouthing words at me I cannot for the life of me make out.
I see Paul. My brother looks away, starts to elbow a path in the opposite direction then appears to change his mind but the crowd refuses to give his twisting, writhing torso sufficient space to make a full about-turn. My dry lips shape Paul’s name. My father too, turns to look. Together, we are willing Paul to succeed.
Suddenly, all the faces blur into one and Billy Mack’s boyish grin is tugging at my every nerve, filling my senses to overflowing.
I feel a letting go of hands and a sense of release washes over me. Yet when I look for my dad, it is Billy’s face confronting me with a rapt expression. Nor does it, I realize, include me. The blue eyes do not even see me. The full lips have not spread into that sweet grin for my sake. Billy, I feel infinitely close to understanding, has a vision of his own. Moreover, I am glad. Our love belongs no more to his vision than to mine. It has passed through us, left us behind.
I hear my name called over and over. The voice could belong to anyone and everyone. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the sound of it. Someone cares. People care. The least I can do is respond…
Starting at the erratic sound of my own breathing, I opened my eyes. My smarting nostrils took in that unmistakeable hospital smell and the taste on my tongue was one of sheer relief. I’m alive. I must have repeated those words to myself at least a dozen times before I became convinced it was true.
I was tucked up in a bed screened by curtains in what various smells and noises told me was a hospital ward, so dimly lit that I had to assume it was night time. A stab of pain in my right arm led to the startling discovery that the whole limb dangled from a pulley affair mounted beside the bed. In spite of a splitting headache I gave my fumbling senses leave to investigate why I should be in hospital in the first place, let alone with an arm in traction.
Then I remembered.
My memory was very patchy. In my mind’s eye, I saw smoke and flames in all directions. The Connie was on fire. I saw Maggie Dillon rallying frantic punters to her side at the bottom of some stairs. A cameo of Ed Mack and me stumbling through a thick pall of smoke came into poor focus. Suddenly, starkly, the image of a blackened body, still burning, and a flash of something pink occupied my entire vision. I heard a terrible screaming that would not stop.
Later, they told me I was the one who screamed.
I became vaguely aware of voices, icy fingers grasping my free arm, a pricking at my flesh. Then, thankfully, I plunged into oblivion, undisturbed by dreams good or bad.
I awoke to daylight streaming across my near naked body from a window just above my head. There seemed to be a lot of noise. At the same time, a curious hush enfolded me in a light, airy embrace. Comings and goings reached me from a distance at first but quickly homed in on me. The curtains were pulled open and my mother came and sank into a chair beside my bed. She looked terrible, as if she hadn’t slept a wink all night. She was plainly unaware that I was awake although I did not leave her in ignorance for long. Stung into action by an attack of appalled self-consciousness, I shook off my dozy state and covered myself with a sheet.
My mother cried and fussed in turn. I hardly minded at all. On the contrary, I was only too happy to let her plump my pillows and dab some of the eau de cologne she always carried on my forehead. “You had an incredibly lucky escape,” she fretted, “The ward sister says you can come home soon. Apart from some second-degree burns, a nasty cut on the back of your head and a broken arm, there’s not a lot wrong with you. You’ll have to be treated as an outpatient for a while of course but…” She started crying softly. “Oh, Robert, it could have been so much worse. I nearly lost you.”
Something about the way my mother contrived to avoid looking directly at me made my blood run cold. This, in spite of the ward’s cloying heat. “How bad was it, Mum?” I finally managed to say.
She hesitated before ducking the question altogether. “You’ll be fine dear. There are no complications with the arm. It’s a clean break. You fell awkwardly when a beam came crashing down on you. Ed Mack pulled you clear…” She rambled on for a bit and then fell ominously silent.
I waited until she had settled in the chair. Hands clenched in her lap, she directed a tearful gaze at a particularly nasty blister on the side of my neck rather than look me in the eye.
“How many…died?” I swallowed hard. “It was arson, you know,” I blurted before she had time to answer, “Those damn Crolleys…”
“So people are saying,” agreed my mother unhappily.
I took several deep breaths. “How’s Ed? He saved my life, you said?”
“Apparently, although that’s not how he sees it.” She raised a wry smile, “He’s fine, just a few cuts and bruises and minor burns that’s all. You were both very, very lucky. He’s still in shock, according to the Dillon girl, but that’s only to be expected. It seems they wanted to keep him in for observation but he was having none of it. His poor mother got into such a state that he discharged himself and took her home. That poor woman, what she must have gone through, and so soon after losing young Billy too!” My mother looked away and lapsed into a reflective silence.
“You’ve seen Maggie?” I expressed surprise.
My mother nodded. “She and Louise Devlin have been here all night. A good many of us have,” she added.
“Lou is okay?” I thought of the baby and my stomach gave a sickening lurch. My mother nodded and patted my hand reassuringly. “And Shaun, mum, is Shaun okay?” Her expression grew instantly more serious. “He’s in Intensive Care.” Her hold on my hand tightened, “but you mustn’t worry. The doctors say he has every chance of making a complete recovery. Apparently, he became trapped when a pillar fell on him while he was trying to rescue people. Fire fighters had to cut him free.”
“They took their time!” I muttered angrily.
“They were on the scene in minutes, dear. I dare say it must have seemed longer. But for them, you and Ed Mack would never have got out of that inferno alive.” Her voice shook with emotion as she fumbled in a bag for a handkerchief. I lay back on my pillows, pensively, while she sobbed.
“How many people died?” I forced myself to ask the question again that was ticking away like a time bomb where my heart should have been.
“It could have been so much worse,” my mother chose, nervously, to prevaricate a second time.
“How many, mum?” I insisted.
“I only know they brought out three bodies,” she began sobbing into the handkerchief again.
“Whose?” I demanded flatly.
“The police say it’s a miracle more people weren’t badly hurt or killed.”
“Whose?” I repeated.
She gave a long sigh then, “Shelia Pearce’s boy, Barry, was one of them. His girlfriend, Linda somebody I think they said, was another.”
“Liz,” I murmured dully, “her name was Liz Daniels.”
“Yes, Liz, that was it.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw Baz Pearce in the doorway of the penthouse flat. “He came to warn us,” I told my mother, “and now…” Now poor Baz was dead, Liz too. I tried to digest this news and found it almost impossible. Yes, they had been a couple of oddballs, but so full of life. If Baz hadn’t come to warn us…and now he was dead. As for Liz, she of the weird hairdos, soppy smile and big breasts…Why her, poor cow?
My mother began to fidget.
“Three. You said they brought out three bodies…” But my voice gave way to a plaintive croak as my lips formed the question, “Who else?” My whole body went rigid. Whatever further tragedy my mother was about to throw at me, I would take it on the chin.
“Ben Hallas,” she whispered, “It was poor Ben, dear.”
I had to look away. As I did so, I snatched my hand from hers and made a tight fist, deliberately digging my fingernails into my palm. As a pathetic attempt to fight pain with pain, it failed miserably. I noticed, inconsequentially, that my knuckles had turned white. “That’s impossible!” I decided it must all be some ghastly mistake. “I saw Ben, spoke to him. He was as close to me as you are now.” Already, though, I was being tormented by a memory, vague at first but clearing fast, homing in on me like an express train. Now I'm holding on to Ben and now, in the thick of all that sickening horror and confusion...I'm letting go. How could I have done that? But my throbbing head was providing no answers, only more questions, each one banging away like a frantic drumbeat, one especially.
Why?
