There Was A Fire

The first time it happened, he was at university, living in a shared house with four friends. It was warm, a non moving summer that crawled up the back of his neck and he regretted coming here. Coming to this university in this town miles inland. Miles from the sea, with it’s wind and sunsets. Here inland, it was still and stuck, the car fumes from all the dual carriageways seemed to rise and hang and linger above, sticking to the roof and the trees.

It was Easter, and most of his friends and housemates had gone home to see their families and friends, gone back for company or to steal supplies and borrow money from parents and relatives. But his coursework was due in two weeks after Easter, and, already way behind as it was, he had decided to stay in the house on his own, and try to get some work done.

He had, through trial and error, developed a routine to make sure that he, with no other safeguards or means to keep him working, didn’t waste this time, didn’t screw up this year all over again. He would wake at nine, make himself a coffee first, as he was still in the stage of skipping breakfast, read emails, check the online version of The Guardian, open curtains and windows and have a bath.

At ten, he would sit in front of his computer, unplug the Internet and switch off his phone, and then begin to write. If he was lucky, and having a good day, he’d muddle through until one or two, when his stomach would begin to suck and clasp the walls inside him, and he’d go to get lunch. Lunch was a very big thing for him at the time, not fuel, not socialising, it was… civilised, something to be savoured. A refuge, an oasis, a little parcel of time given to him from outer space. He would walk to the café nearby, buy a newspaper, and get a baguette with brie and something inside, and sit there for an hour with a black coffee, reading the sports section first, and working his way back to the front page. It was good, he thought, to ensure he was out of the house at least once during the day, walking down the long wide streets near where he lived then, full of strange vintage cars and magnolia trees. He would pass the pensioners gathering in the church hall for their line dancing class, and past the students who’s living room was in their garage, playing playstation on old sofas, the big swing door open onto the street. After an hour, eating his sandwich and doing the quick crossword, he’d be ready to work for a few more hours until five, five thirty, when he could imagine all the people in all the offices break up work and head home, and knew he was safe to do no more. He would not be judged, thought any less of, or shunned.

The first time it happened, he was on his way, down the streets, to lunch, but in a rare break of routine, he was meeting someone for lunch this time. Liz, a friend from university, someone on his course who, like him, had chosen exile over homecoming, who had fifteen thousand words of essay to write. Liz was fantastic and down to earth, from Yorkshire with blonde hair and a collection Laurel and Hardy films. He was halfway down the road already, thinking, that maybe he was in love with Liz. Maybe, he thought, she was in love also, and meeting him to confess her undying affections, her unrequited passions, when he realised he’d left the front door open.

What an idiot, he thought. He didn’t remember leaving it open, per se, because then he would’ve closed it, but he couldn’t remember shutting it. And it wasn’t too far, he thought, worth checking back on, after all. What If he came back later and someone had broken into the house, stolen all the valuable things in the house. Alex’s electric guitar, Phil’s DVD player and Mary’s light box and film gear. They wouldn’t be able even to claim on the insurance, because he, the idiot, had left the door open. He had to go back and check. Turning around on himself, he tried not to look someone who had forgotten to close the front door, something completely impossible when you’ve just made a one hundred and eighty degree turn in public view.

He scratched his head and pretended he’d received an important text. A text that had meant him to change direction. A change of plans, an about face, decided not by him but someone else.

When he reached the house, of course, the door was closed. He tried to push it open, but where a forgetfully unlocked door would yawn open and divulge it’s secrets, this one held fast. It was a good door.

He was hurrying now, he didn’t want to be late to meet Liz, in case she was waiting to profess her love to him, any delay, any tardiness leaving her waiting could put her off for good, disturb the fragile peace.

He turned down a different road, going a different route to not make himself feel like he was repeating himself when, like a flash cut in a movie, something stuck to his brain. Before he had gone out, the first time, when he made a cup of tea for himself whilst arranging this lunch, had he closed the fridge? He hadn’t. He knew it. He couldn’t remember doing it, and he was always forgetful about stupid trivial shit like that. Ask me the capital of the Ukraine, he thought, ask me to recite Gloucester’s suicidal speech from King Lear, he thought. But don’t ask me if I closed the fridge, because there’s this horrible poison, and it’s eating me and it says I didn’t. He thinks of the milk and cheese, in this hot summer weather, being cooked slowly by the sunlight coming in through the windows. The thought of cleaning a fridge full of softly decomposed food is too much. Having to trek into town to Tesco’s, buying the new shopping, and struggling it on the bus is too much. So he headed back, striding as fast as it’s possible for anyone walk without actually running.

Hastily unlocking the door, he went into the kitchen, and instead of the biological disaster in waiting he expected, the fridge door was closed. He knew it. He knew from the moment before he saw it, that he hadn’t left it open. Why didn’t he realise that before? At least nothing bad happened, he thought to himself. What a strange day. He poured himself a glass of water, and gave himself a minute to calm down. Leaning against the cooker and closing his eyes.

Now he was definitely going to be late, and had to run, damn the pretense of calm purpose he wanted to project. If he rushed, he reasoned, he’d be no more than fifteen minutes late, he’d be hot, sweaty and disgusting, but at least he’d be there. He hoped he could somehow stop his body from sweating too much, in case it was, like some women, his excess sweat would be one of those giant turn offs for her. Would cause her to change her mind.

So he was running to see her. It could still be ok, he thought, it could be. Maybe she would let him down gently, laughing that deep laugh of hers, looking at him over her glasses in that way she did during boring lectures, that look that meant, ‘lets get a pint during the break’.

But, when he leant on the cooker before. Had he turned the gas on? One of the gas hobs, the little switches that let you regulate the gas flow, had he knocked one? Twisted it from nothing to a tiny little trickle of natural gas? Did he check them when he left? Idiot! Fool! He hadn’t checked. He was too preoccupied by the fridge, there were no worries about the gas before, but now it was everything, it was all he could think about. No. Don’t be stupid, he thought, he couldn’t go back to the house for a third time. Not three times. Liz was waiting by now, already there, one more time and he’d be so late there’d be little point left.

They had met when he was standing outside a lecture theatre, trying to work out of it was the one printed on the handout he was given, the one where he was supposed to go and get registered. Yet for the life of him he couldn’t seem to find the name of the room anywhere, thought it was, on the map, in the right place. He was weighing up the pros and cons of asking someone when she had slapped his arse. It was possibly the first time anyone had ever done that, let alone someone he’d never met and he turned around, unsure of what to expect, when this blonde girl with glasses, smiling a smile half mooned and graceful, stood with an expectant look.

“Hello” she said
“Hi” he said
“I remember you from the interview.”
“Ah yes” he said
“Mark?” she said
“Yes” he said
She smiled. Her smiles were like bullets, she used them as punctuation, as little tiny darting weapons. “You wore a suit”
“Yes. Yes I did.” He said. Remembering.
“You looked like a prat then. I hate to say. Much better now” she said, as if she just came to that conclusion at that precise moment. Looking at him over her glasses.
Then he thought of his house, the kitchen with the gas knocked and leaking, that tiny inaudible hiss as it filled, slowly, throughout the room, then spreading further and further, reaching and touching all the corners and gaps and walls.
“You don’t remember me do you” she said
He paused, thought of a lie, then better of it.
“No.” he shrugged, “ha-ha”.
“That’s ok” she said.
How had he not noticed her!

The gas would nest behind the wallpaper, inflammable, waiting, smelling like burnt almonds and taking over the entire house. Then it would just be a little spark, his clock radio coming on, the fridge compressor would click on, or a build up of static on the washer-dryer. Then, he imagined it going up. It probably wouldn’t be a big movie explosion, but there’d be this huge rush of air, and all the windows would break, then there’d be the licking passionate fire. Real fires, unlike big red orange citrus movie fires, were black and dark, dirtier, hazier, more violent. Huge and unconcerned, it would turn hotter and hotter, and inside all his things, and all his housemates things would turn white hot and incandescent, they would catch and melt and become little piles of ash. People’s possessions, photographs, entire hard drives would collapse in on themselves, melted in the plastic of circuit boards. People’s degrees and university careers.

The fire brigade would, as they always seem to do, find out quickly it was a gas leak, and everyone would ask him, ‘how could you be so forgetful? How could you be so stupid?’ he’d be upset, and then they would feel bad and pretend that it didn’t matter, pretend that they didn’t mind, that it was an ‘honest mistake’ arid platitudes like ‘accidents happen’. But he’d catch looks at him from the corner of his eye, and he’d know from then on what they’d think of him, it would be tainted and he’d taste it.

He turned back towards the house, unable to risk it.

For a long time after that first meeting, he had wondered about Liz’s intentions. They had become friends, he and Liz, and fell quite comfortably into their own roles, she had given him DVD’s from Hong Kong and books by Graham Greene. She was so unfazed, took things on the run in a way that it calmed down his own nervous tendencies. But she cared, he thought, she cared and was passionate about things, similar things, to him.

He wondered if she remembered their first meeting. Probably not. There was probably nothing more than a friendly greeting in that slap, but to him, it stood out like a mountain, marking all the cartography around it. It was intimate, and inclusive, it showed faith and trust in him.

He reached the front door of his house, a shaking arm opened the door and he tried to see if he could smell gas, smell those burnt almonds. He almost wanted to smell it, he wanted there to be a fire, wanted his fear, the vision knifed into the back of his head to be true. He wanted burning, bloody and bruised flames to leap out and wrap around him when he opened the door, hotter and hotter and more and more out of control, he didn’t want to be wrong again, he would be vindicated in blame.

But inside there was nothing, and he sat down on the kitchen floor, and thought that if he called her, what he would say to her. He was wrong about the fire, how could he explain it, how could he explain what was happening, what he now knew was happening to him.