Fire (24 page)

They were all in the cafeteria now, many standing at the windows looking down at Queen Street, where the people and the fire engines looked tiny.

‘Do they know we’re still up here?’ someone asked.

‘Someone would have taken note of everyone who’s already got out, surely?’ There was a hint of panic in the question.

‘But what if they haven’t?’ asked a girl from women’s shoes, sounding very close to tears.

‘They will. Ted Horrocks will have seen to that.’

‘Well, I’m going to wave something to make sure they
do
know,’ the girl said, hysteria creeping into her voice now. Her eyes were very bright and there were two spots of red high on her cheeks.

She darted behind the cafeteria counter, opened a few cupboards and came back with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Gripping one corner of it, she opened the window and flapped the cloth madly. Below, a sea of small white faces turned up towards her, then the waving started.

‘They’ve seen us!’ she said excitedly.

‘Yes, and now what?’ Irene muttered. She had tried to talk to Vince a moment ago but he’d ignored her again, leaving her hurt and uncomprehending.

The girl hung precariously out of the window for a moment, then turned back to face everyone in the caf.

‘It’s really not that far down, you know,’ she said. ‘There’s a ledge just under the window, quite a wide one, and a sort of a ridge above the window straight under that. If we could get onto that ledge, we could keep going and climb all the way down! And the verandah’s there as well, we could drop onto that.’ She seemed to think that this was an absolutely
marvellous idea. ‘I’m going to have a go.’

‘No,’ Max said, walking towards her.

‘Go away! You’re not the boss any more!’ the girl shouted, starting to cry. ‘I’m not going to sit here and just wait! I’m
not!
’

‘Christ, what the hell is she doing?’ Irene said, alarmed.

The girl had pushed the window all the way open, and was now kneeling on the ledge, facing inwards, her bum sticking out into the air. Taking a good grip on the sill, she pushed herself out and let herself drop until all that could be seen of her were her white knuckles. Max lunged but then even the knuckles disappeared, and several people gasped in shock and fright.

Reluctantly, Max peered out of the window.

‘God, she’s on the ledge!’

A handful of people rushed to the other windows to see, but nearly everyone else stayed where they were, not wanting to watch what they believed would be inevitable.

Max exclaimed, ‘She’s letting herself down onto the top of the next window. She’s nearly got it!’

Then the onlookers at the window screamed and reeled back in horror. Max stood there for a while, still looking down, then eventually turned away.

Daisy started to cry and Terry put his arm around her, looking as though he’d like to weep too.

‘Did she fall?’ she blurted through her tears. ‘She fell, didn’t she? We aren’t going to get out, are we?’ A bubble of snot formed at her nostril and Terry wiped it away with his sleeve. ‘We’ll die and I won’t get to wear my wedding dress.’

‘Daisy?’ Irene said calmly. ‘Listen to me. We bloody well
will get out, you know. There’s probably about two dozen firemen coming up the stairs right now, bashing away with those axes they have. And anyway, we can’t die.’

‘Why not?’ Daisy said, huge tears trembling on her eyelashes.

‘Because it’ll annoy the crap out of the queen, that’s why. She’ll come driving up the street in that big car of hers on Wednesday looking all over the place for Daisy Farr and Irene Baxter, and if we’re not here she’ll say, “Bugger, what a waste of a bloody trip that was”, and go home again!’

Daisy giggled, and even Louise smiled.

‘
And
,’ Irene went on, ‘you won’t get to see whether she’s wearing her fairy dress, will you? So we have to be there for that, don’t we?’

Daisy nodded, and wiped her eyes. ‘Do you really think the firemen are coming right now?’

‘Well, if they’re not, they’ll be down there on that street working out how to do it.’

A little later, when Daisy had gone to get a drink of water from the sink behind the counter, Louise asked Irene, ‘
Do
you think that?’

‘Do I think what?’

‘That the firemen are coming?’

Irene looked at her. ‘How the hell should I know? But what’s the point in letting her wind herself into a tizz? It’ll only make her feel worse. And us.’

Louise was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘Irene, I’m sorry about what I said to you this morning. What you do is your business. You’re right, I did judge you, and I’m sorry.’

Irene only nodded, but Louise could see in her eyes that the apology had been accepted.

On the other side of the cafeteria, Norm stood up and clapped his hands. ‘I still think we should try the stairs, smoke or not. We could cover our faces with damp cloths and make a run for it.’ There was murmured agreement from some around him. ‘And if the flames…well, if it turns out we really can’t get out that way, we can always come back.’

‘Hear, hear,’ someone said.

‘I don’t think you realize what that smoke’s like,’ Max said anxiously. ‘It’s virtually impossible to breathe when you’re in it.’

‘I’ll take my chances.’ Norm glanced around. ‘Is anyone with me?’

Almost everyone raised their hands, although a small group gathered around Colin Crowley did nothing. But Crowley himself stepped forward.

‘You’ll regret it,’ he warned. ‘Stay here, all of you. Think about it. They’ll be here for us soon, they’re bound to be. Please, don’t risk it.’

Norm waited a few seconds. Then, as though Colin Crowley hadn’t spoken at all, he said, ‘Right, then. If some of you could get busy tearing up some tablecloths and if someone else could fill the sinks, we’ll soak the cloths and tie them around our faces.’

It took only ten minutes to do as he’d suggested, and soon the majority who had decided to go were crowded into the hallway again, dripping cloths secured over mouths and noses, awaiting their turn to descend into the stairwell.

Keith had made it down the staff stairs to the second-floor landing. The smoke here was dense, but he couldn’t tell if
the fire was in the stairwell yet.

He pushed open the door into the back of the flooring department, and stepped through. In here the smoke was almost solid, and there was a hell of a noise—crackling and a dull roaring, though he couldn’t see any flames in here, either. And there was a wind, a searing hot wind that lifted his hair and flapped the tails of his suit jacket. How strange. He hadn’t expected there to be wind in the middle of a burning building.

But it didn’t matter; none of it mattered. Because he was going down to the White Room to get his money. And when he’d done that, when he had it all safely in his pockets, he would break one of the windows and jump. He wouldn’t die—he probably wouldn’t even be hurt. It wasn’t that far up. And, anyway, he was blessed. He was blessed because he had gambled away thousands and thousands of pounds over his adult lifetime and got away with it, he’d stolen from Dunbar & Jones and got away with it, and now he was going to collect his money, and get away with that, too. And when he had, he would go straight down to the railway station, board the next train out of Auckland, and just keep on going to somewhere he could start again. Hell, he might even go to Australia!

Because, now that he thought about it, his had been a terrible job. People were always peering over his shoulder, or looking at him sideways. He knew it, he’d seen them—Max bloody Jones and all those other twits on the management committee—always watching him and talking about him behind his back and waiting for him to make a mistake. But he’d show them. He’d take his money, put it only on dead certs, then use just enough of his winnings for the next bet, until one day he could afford to throw money away on
outsiders, the horses you heard about in your local, the tips that people passed on with a nudge and a wink. Because you had to act on tips like that, didn’t you, or you might miss out on the really big one, and how would you live with yourself if that happened?

And where the hell was the doorway that opened onto the public stairs? He’d gone through appliances: he knew that, because he’d seen the smooth, ghostly shapes of the new Whiteway automatic washing machines. Was he going in the wrong direction? Was he lost?

No, he was all right because there was the doorway over there; he could tell because it wasn’t quite so dark. Something beneath his feet made a huge, drawn-out groaning noise, like some gargantuan, ancient creature on the verge of waking up, but he kept going, feeling his way, the sweat pouring down his face and soaking his shirt and his underpants as though he’d accidentally pissed himself.

When he reached the doorway he stopped for a second, trying to draw a decent breath. Had he shut the door onto the staff stairwell? He couldn’t remember.

He pulled out his handkerchief and held it over his nose and mouth. Not much further to go now—just down one more flight of stairs and he’d be on the first-floor landing, and then it would just be a matter of feeling his way around to the right and into the White Room.

God, his lungs were really burning. He coughed, then coughed again, and suddenly he couldn’t stop. Bending over, he vomited, tasting blood and feeling horribly dizzy as stars danced across the insides of his eyelids. And he was so tired now, too. But he was so close, so close to his beautiful money. Saying this out loud to himself over and over, he stepped into the public stairwell and reached out
until he felt the wooden banister rail, smooth and very warm beneath his grip.

There was only a very hazy outline where he presumed the stairwell window was. But he kept on, his leather-soled shoes sliding over the smooth marble of the steps, until he felt the raised strip of metal on each edge. Carefully, but eagerly, he continued his shuffling descent for a few more steps, then he stepped down.

‘If I don’t burn to death I’ll bloody drown,’ Louise said, water spluttering from the cloth over her mouth.

She was trying to make jokes, but what she really wanted to do was lie down and bawl her eyes out—for herself, and for Rob, but most of all for Susan, whom she was beginning to fear she might never see again.

Allie laughed, then spluttered and coughed into her own cloth. Up ahead she could see Vince standing with his back to them. Typical, she thought—as close to the head of the queue as he could get without looking like a coward. As she watched, she noticed Irene edging her way up through the line until she reached his side.

He glanced down at her, then away again.

‘Vince, I’m frightened.’ Irene was absolutely petrified, though she hadn’t been about to show that to the girls.

‘We all are,’ Vince said shortly, still looking straight ahead.

‘Will you hold my hand?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘No.’ Just the one, short syllable.

Perhaps he was so frightened himself that he didn’t trust his voice. As Irene lifted her cloth to her face and tied it behind her head, the moisture ran down her cleavage and
soaked into her bra. It felt cool, nice.

Up ahead, the queue started to move as the people at the front began to descend the stairs. Max Jones went first. He hadn’t wanted to, insisting that it was his place to stay behind and see that everyone got out. But someone—some very kind person who could see that Mr Max was as terrified and panic-stricken as everyone else—pointed out that someone had to take the lead to make sure that the way down actually was safe. So he’d moved into the stairwell, then paused and asked if anyone had seen Keith Beaumont. When it was clear that no one had, he’d finally stepped down onto the stairs and been swallowed up by the swirling darkness.

Progress was slow, with people yelling back that it was pitch-black and much smokier than the first time they’d tried. The messages were passed back and filtered through to the ones still nervously waiting. Hardly anyone spoke.

When about a third of the group had gone down, a girl still on the upper landing started babbling that she couldn’t do it, that she was terrified of the dark and had asthma and wouldn’t be able to breathe. Then she fainted, landing heavily on the wooden floor.

Vince darted up the line and crouched down beside her. ‘Move back, give her some air!’ he commanded.

A few people shuffled back slightly, but not far enough to lose their places.

The girl moaned and Vince helped her to half sit up, cradling her in his arms and fanning his hand in front of her face.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry, did I faint?’

As Irene watched incredulously, Vince said, ‘Yes, but you’re all right now, I’ve got you.’ He hoisted her to her feet,
settled one of her arms over his broad shoulders and slid a hand around her waist. ‘I’ll help you down. If you think you’re going to faint again, tell me and I’ll carry you.’

The girl nodded gratefully up at him, then lifted her cloth to her face.

Incensed, Irene ripped off her own cloth and elbowed her way up the queue. ‘What about me!’ she demanded in a hoarse whisper. ‘Why can’t you help me down? Why won’t you even talk to me? Help me, Vince, I’m terrified!’

‘We all are, Mrs Baxter,’ Vince said.

Mrs Baxter?
Irene stepped up to him. ‘Vince, it’s me you’re talking to, the woman you said you loved? You’re leaving your wife for me,
remember?
’

When Vince finally met her gaze, she saw that there was nothing at all in his eyes. Nothing for her, anyway. And then he blinked and she saw it: a tiny flash of irritated contempt. And that was all.

She understood then, and what she understood was so enormous, so sharp and painful that it struck at her very core. She stepped back. Vince turned away and started down the stairs, the girl leaning against him.

The queue moved on, but Irene didn’t.

‘Are you all right?’ Allie asked when she came abreast of her.

Irene turned her head slowly towards her. ‘He looked at me as though I wasn’t there, Allie. He looked at me as though I was dead already.’

‘Oh, don’t say that, Irene, please.’ Bloody,
bloody
Vince! What a bastard! Allie linked her arm though Irene’s. ‘Come on, we’ll sort him out when we get down, eh? Don’t worry about it now.’