Chapter 31: Chapter 31

James Michael, pallid and sweating, won’t meet my eye. I could punch him and smile about it, and he knows it, but this isn’t the time.

With Charlotte on the penthouse floor of the building, flames taking hold somewhere below, and Michael’s instruction to her to remain where she is, it is only a matter of time before she is trapped beyond rescue.

Fucking idiot….

And because in our headlong rush from the apartment we both left without our phones, we have no way to contact her.

As my imagination cries havoc, I battle the terror for her that rises in me, unbidden, unwelcome….

Flames…

Heat….

Burning….

…. Smoke, choking fumes….

Trapped….

Jade….

Don’t panic….

…. You’re no good to her if you panic….

We sprint up a flight of stairs, the sound of heated, rushing air growing louder around us, a hot wind rising….

But as we climb only the second flight, firefighters, masked and uniformed are descending. Arms outstretched, blocking our path, “Get moving downward. The floor above here’s on fire. The whole building’s coming apart. You can’t go that way.”

I grab him by the arm. “There’s a woman trapped in the Penthouse.” I have to shout over the wailing of the baking wind as it begins to chimney upwards, feeding on its own heat. “We’re not sure she even knows yet that she’s trapped…”

He flashes eyes up the stairwell. All around and above are the sounds of crashing and collapse and the strained wheezing of metal and concrete under stress. “Talk while we move,” he yells, still descending and sweeping me and Michael with him.

As he runs he pulls out a radio, talking into it, pressing it against his ear to hear the reply over the chaos around us. His eyes flash to mine. “There’s helicopters coming in to help on the top floors. Can she get onto the roof?”

“Got a phone on you?”

Still running, the firefighter hands me a mobile, watching closely as I tap in Charlotte’s number….

It rings….

Come on…. Come on….

Pick up your fucking phone, Charlotte….

Then as I realise I have been speaking out loud, she answers. “Charlotte! Where are you?”

“Yes…. Master, we’re trapped…. We can’t get out.”

We?

But I don’t waste words wondering. “Get the hell out of there. Get out to the roof terrace. There’s helicopters being flown in….

“Right? Wonderful! Yes, I will. Beth’s with me. Richard sent her up here….

Richard sent her to you?

But I don’t have time to think about that. “Beth’s with her….” I say to Michael. “Richard sent her up there for safety.…” Then back to Charlotte, “Yes, we’ll catch up with you. If you see mine or Michael’s phones, bring them with you.”

We’re descending the open heart of the building now, the stairs separated from wide lobbies and public areas only by glass screens. Beyond the glass a black fume swirls and rises, the acrid scent of it seeping through cracks and corners, ready to choke and burn, snatching at our lungs as we sprint ever downward.

And as we finally spill outside, my first thought as I draw in huge lungfuls of clean sweet air is to look up, where I see helicopters sweeping in from across the City, swinging down to the rooftop.

*****

Seven Years Ago Mr Kalkowski puffs on his pipe. “So, Jenny. Are you looking forward to your wedding? To being a married woman?”

Her smile is shy. She sucks at her lips. “Yes, I am. I wasn’t sure at first, but…. well, this will be the first time I’ve had someone. Someone to call my own I mean. A family….”

Her eyes are misty and the old man’s lids droop….

Who can blame her for putting that over anything else?

And now her voice grows excited. “…. We’re even going to have our own place to live. I thought I was going to have to live with Chad’s parents until we could save up for a place of our own. But Mrs Collier’s having one of the old sheds converted to a holiday cottage and she says we can live in there for a while and pay rent with some extra work on the farm until we find our feet.”

She is so clearly happy. So much anticipating the future with her husband-to-be. He wonders how to ask the question which haunts his thoughts. But his reflections are interrupted.

“Are you all alone, Mr Kalkowski? Like me? Don't you have any family?”

He inhales, then releases a smoke-ring before replying. “In the old country, yes, I had family.” His words are slow. “But I have not seen any of them for a very long time.”

Her voice quieter, “Are they still alive?”

He glances sidelong at her. “I left my old home in bad times, bringing my Rachel with me. But there were those who chose to stay behind. Some of them, I found again in later years. Others….” He stares into space, sucking at the pipe…. “Others no, I never heard from again. Who can say what was their fate?”

“Do you have any children?”

For a moment his face falls, but he quickly recovers. “Life has given me many blessings Jenny, but children were not among them.” He shifts his gaze to hers for a moment then, soft-eyed he strokes her cheek. “Had life given different gifts to me and Rachel….”

But as he touches the girl, something inside her thrums. She slants into the caress, her eyes wide. Her lips part, tilting up to his.

Alarmed, the old man withdraws. Hurt ripples across her face as, with the tiniest of head shakes and a wriggle of the fingers he leans away.

Disturbed, he fiddles with his pipe, relighting it unnecessarily. “You told me you are happy with Chad, did you not?”

“I am, but….” Her eyes are wide and green, her emotion naked.

Deliberately, he looks away, tamping out the bowl of the pipe, then refilling it. “Of course, I have the school. The school has given me many children. And the people here are good people, even if their view of the world can be a little narrow.” He watches her sidelong as he puffs the tobacco alight. “Are you lonely, Jenny? It has seemed to me that you are happy here.”

She sucks at her now dry mouth, trying to sound normal. “I am happy here, yes, and most of the time it's great. I just sometimes think that I don't fit in very well.”

His head tilts. “What times for example?”

“…. Like when I was boxing. People said I'm not a proper girl.”

“People like Jack?”

“He's one, yes, but not the only one.”

Her throat tightens. “When I said I wanted to go to university, they said my job is to be Chad's wife….”

He puffs on his pipe. “Who are ‘they’? Who did not like it?”

“The farmhands. Mrs Collier…” He raises brows, surprised. “And when she saw I was reading the prospectus, she got really cross with me.”

“And this is why you agreed to marry Chad?”

“It’s part of it, but…. I just think we’re going to be so happy together….”

He nods. “I hope so Jenny. I truly hope so.”

*****