‘What’s happening, Maud?’ she whispered, her eyes red-rimmed.
‘It’s all right,’ I said to her, hoping it was.
The minutes leading up to two o’clock were agonizing. It took all our patience to wait as if nothing unusual were about to happen. Maureen arrived at twenty to, and settled into her office for a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Lorraine joined her; I could see them through the glass door, talking and laughing like old cronies. Once they looked out, both together, and I was sure they were talking about Hope and me; but I pretended not to notice and they looked away again.
For twenty minutes we played chess (Hope always wins) and then we just waited in the common room, declining Chris’s offer of tea (I’d have loved to accept, but when you get to my age an unscheduled toilet stop at a crucial moment can sometimes lead to disaster). Instead I listened to the wireless and tried hard not to worry. I already knew that a great deal would depend upon Chris’s co-operation, and I’d gambled that it might be better not to tell him too much beforehand – he really needs this job, and he’s wary enough of the management as it is.
Then it came – just as the theme tune for The Archers was coming on – and I felt a sting of excitement so powerful that it almost overrode my fear. A braying, whooping siren that set my teeth on edge. ‘Time, Hope,’ I whispered, and she stood up and felt carefully for the handles of my wheelchair.
I kept an eye on the office door. It was still closed. Maureen and Lorraine were taking their time, it seemed, which suited me just down to the ground. In any case, Maureen was here to supervise – I doubted whether she would take an active part in the proceedings – and Lorraine was too fond of her dignity to bother with the evacuation process. She left that to the orderlies – three per shift, in this case Chris, Denise and Sad Harry.
Ten minutes, she had said. I guessed twenty. Time enough, in any case, for Lorraine to have a good look round.
Chris was overseeing the mêlée. If he was nervous, there was no sign of it. His voice was pleasant, strong, not too shrill and without that hectoring note that Lorraine and some of the girls always seem to adopt. ‘You know the drill, folks. Everyone out on the lawn. Ten minutes – it’s a lovely day – Mrs Banerjee, do you really need that third overcoat? Come on, Mrs Swathen, if you think that’s loud, you should hear Metallica play at Wembley. This way, everybody – ten minutes – no, not you, sweetheart, you get carried over the threshold, how sexy is that?’ It was nonsense, and most of us knew it. But comforting nonsense nevertheless; and even the oldest, most baffled ones reacted to it, moving gradually – the ones who could – towards the double doors and Chris’s voice.
I was supposed to stay put. Hope was supposed to wait too, until the rest of them had gone, and someone was free to guide her out. Neither of us obeyed orders, however. As soon as Chris wasn’t looking, Hope guided the wheelchair, swiftly and confidently, back up the corridor.
On the left, two doors before mine, there is an airing cupboard. It’s a large cupboard, lined with shelves on which stacks of sheets, blankets and pillows are stored. Now, instead of going to my room, Hope stopped at the airing cupboard and opened the door.
I looked left and right. No one was watching. Chris was at the exit now, surrounded by residents. Denise was outside, forming a queue. Sad Harry was trying to explain to Polish John why the drill couldn’t wait until The Archers was finished and Mrs McAllister was wandering vaguely about the common room, wailing – Is there a fire? – until one of the others (it was Mr Braun) took her arm and led her to the door.
‘Coast’s clear,’ I said, and Hope pushed me into the airing cupboard, chair and all. Then she moved me out of my chair (I can help, when I want to, using my arms) and on to a pile of blankets, then she turned – manoeuvring the chair with difficulty between the stacks of shelves.
‘Two doors on the right, remember,’ I whispered.
Hope gave me her Cambridge look. ‘You think I’m senile?’ she said. ‘I know my way about this place better than you do.’ And at that she wheeled the chair – tapestry cushion and all – smartly out of the cupboard, closing the door behind her. The whole process had taken five minutes thus far – we’re not fast, you know, but we do get there in the end – and I guessed that the lobby would be more or less clear.
By now only the residents who needed help in getting out – myself and Hope among them – should still be in the building, waiting patiently for someone to guide or carry us to the assembly point. Lorraine was on duty; Maureen would be observing, and the rest of them would be racing round to check the rooms, to ensure that no one had forgotten, or failed to hear, or decided to go for an unscheduled toilet break.
The siren – a kind of whoop-whoop-whoop electronic noise, not what you’d call a fire bell at all – had fallen silent. In the corridor I heard the clopping of footsteps on the carpet and recognized the sound of high heels. I held my breath – by rights Lorraine ought to check the cupboards as well as the rooms, but I was counting on Hope to divert her.
‘Lorraine?’ Good. Right on time. Hope’s voice, muffled and uncharacteristically querulous, reached me through the thickness of the door.
‘Good God, what are you doing here?’ Lorraine’s voice was needle-sharp.
‘Lorraine? Is that you? Is there a fire?’ said Hope, in a voice so like Mrs McAllister’s that I had to bite the inside of my mouth to stop myself from laughing.
‘No, you silly thing – where’s the orderly? – oh, come with me,’ said Lorraine impatiently, and I heard the sound of her high heels receding towards the lobby, with Hope’s softer footfalls in pursuit.
I smiled. So far, so good. It would take Lorraine a few minutes at least to get Hope outside. Longer, perhaps; Hope was under instructions to delay Lorraine for as long as possible, and I was counting on her to be as imaginative as she could. That left Chris to check the rooms – and if only I could get to him before Lorraine came back, I was pretty sure I could make him listen.
If. I used the shelving to move myself towards the door, and, balancing on a pile of sheets, I managed to get it open without falling over. I looked out into the corridor. It was deserted.
I called softly. ‘Chris? Are you there?’
No one came. I wondered how long Hope could hold Lorraine before my absence was noticed. I called again. This time I heard the sound of footsteps from the locker room across the hall; no clip of heels this time, but the soft, fast steps of someone wearing sneakers.
‘Chris!’ I waved my hand at him from inside the cupboard, and a moment later he was running down the passageway towards me.
‘Hey, Butch?’ He looked concerned. ‘You OK?’
‘In here. Quick. Before she gets back.’
For a moment he hesitated.
‘Please, Chris!’
He cast a rapid glance up and down the passage. Then he sighed – OK – and stepped into the airing cupboard. ‘You know, Butch, there are easier ways to get me to yourself. What is it?’
As quickly as I could, I told him.
When I got to his contribution, he shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘If I do that I’m toast.’
‘You’re toast anyway,’ I said, and told him about Lorraine and the tapestry cushion.
‘You and me both,’ said Chris, when I finished. ‘Except you’re too damn old to be dragged off to gaol, and nowadays all I have to do is sneeze—’ He paused, pricking up his ears, then lowered his voice still further. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s not too late. I’ll just carry you out – tell Lorraine you needed the loo – and there’ll be no trouble for either of us. She wouldn’t dare go through your stuff anyway—’
‘She would,’ I said. ‘She’s done it before.’
‘Really, Butch—’
‘You know she has. She’s been pinching stuff since she first arrived. Hasn’t she?’
Chris turned away and said nothing.
‘Hasn’t she?’ Pause. ‘You know she has. And you know where she keeps it, don’t y
ou, Chris?’
Chris sighed. ‘What is this?’ he said. ‘Some kind of inquisition?’
‘Vee heff vays,’ I said, sounding (I thought) rather a lot like Mr Braun.
Chris shook his head. Reluctantly, he grinned, though I noticed he still wouldn’t look me in the eye.
‘You’ve got to stand up to bullies,’ I told him. ‘You can’t go around just hoping they’ll tire of it and leave you alone. They never do. It makes them worse. You should never have let her get away with it the first time, Chris. We’d have stood up for you. Now she thinks she owns you. Thinks you’ll do whatever she wants. But you’re not like her, are you, Chris? I know you. And you’re not a thief.’
He turned round at that, rather abruptly, and his usually open expression was bleak and complicated. ‘But I am a thief,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘You know it, she knows it—’
‘Rubbish,’ I said. ‘You don’t judge a man on the mistakes he’s made.’
‘Then how the hell do you judge him?’ said Chris, not caring who heard him now and furious, furious as I’d never seen him before. Oh, not with me – I could tell that from the look in his eyes. With himself, maybe; or with the world that reduces people to pages in a file, names on a list—
‘Chris,’ I said. ‘I don’t judge.’ And in the silence that followed – rather a long silence – he put his face in his hands and just sat there on a pile of towels, breathing heavily, not talking, until I started to feel anxious about him and touched his shoulder to make sure he was all right.
‘All right?’ he said, looking up at last. ‘Yeah, sure. I’m just fine.’ He told me then what I’d suspected before. ‘You were right, though, about my knowing where she keeps the stuff. She hides it right under my nose. It’s her way of getting back at me for that complaint I made, you know, that time with Mrs McAllister.’
‘But if you just help me,’ I protested, ‘then we can catch her red-handed. None of us will ever have any trouble from her again.’
He looked rueful. ‘I haven’t told you where she hides it.’
‘Where?’ I said.
‘In my locker.’
Ah. Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Lorraine, of course, has the master keys, and with them, access to all the lockers in the staffroom. Easy for her to stash whatever she has stolen; easier still for her to plant something in Chris’s locker to incriminate him.
‘And she would, too,’ Chris said when I told him. ‘She’s just dying for me to step out of line. She’s got me snookered, Butch; I can’t keep my eye on that locker all the time, and she knows it. All it would take is one spot check—’
There was another silence, punctuated only by the clacking sound of Lorraine’s high heels in the corridor outside.
‘There she is,’ said Chris bleakly. ‘Time’s up.’
As I said, I don’t have many things of my own any more. Possessions – even such trivial things as a book, a cup, a box of photographs – are doubly precious for being in short supply. And the things inside the tapestry cushion – my anniversary pearls (not real, of course, just cultured, but I love them so), my mother’s little gold brooch, the engagement ring that has grown too small for my swollen fingers – are not just precious in the ordinary way. They are what’s left of my life; proof, if you like, that I lived at all. And all this time I’ve kept them safe; for Tom; for the children; but most of all to keep some part of myself secret, private, in this place of routine intrusion and casual indifference.
But things, after all, are only things. If we confronted Lorraine with the truth, I’d keep my things, but I’d lose my friend. And if there’s anything I’ve learnt in this place, it’s this: that a good friend rates higher than pearls.
I smiled at Chris. ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Our ten minutes must be nearly up.’
He looked surprised. ‘You’re letting her get away with it, then?’
‘Don’t worry.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s mostly junk.’
He almost smiled. ‘Butch,’ he said. ‘I never knew such a respectable old lady could tell such barefaced lies.’
I gave him a look. ‘Quit soft-soaping me and take me outside.’
He picked me up then – not cheerily, but with ease – and carried me out into the corridor. Lorraine was there, checking bedroom doors. I saw that she was just two doors away from my own bedroom, and the expression on her face as she saw me was pure poison.
‘What’s this?’ she said.
Chris shot her a nervous glance. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Wrong door. I think Faith just got a little confused. I’m taking her outside now, OK?’
Lorraine gave him a look of contempt. ‘Hurry up,’ she said in an icy voice. ‘I need you here.’
It took Chris thirty seconds to get me out into the open. The others were already outside, sitting or standing on the grass; Mrs Swathen was complaining loudly about the disruption; Maureen was looking at her watch; Hope was reassuring Mrs McAllister.
‘Gotta go, Butch,’ was all Chris said before running back into the building, his passkeys rattling at his belt.
I saw Hope’s face turn towards me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘It didn’t work.’
Later, I would explain to her. I knew she’d understand. After all, the things we had lost – and they were, after all, only things – were of such little importance when set against our friend’s dilemma. Things can usually be replaced. People, on the other hand—
Suddenly, the alarm went off again. Louder, this time; the whoop-whoop-whoop of the siren now joined by an urgent and unfamiliar wailing sound. It was the new smoke alarm.
We looked at each other in surprise (all except for grumpy Mr Bannerman, who just turned off his hearing aid and sat down on the grass).
Poor, dried-up Mrs McAllister, who had calmed down a little under Hope’s influence, gave a squeal.
‘Fire!’ she shrieked, and I was about to point out (I’d lost count of how many times I’d already done so) that it was only a drill, and nothing to be worried about, when I saw the dim yellow flicker at one of the windows and knew that, somehow, Mrs McAllister had got it right.
‘Good God,’ said Mrs Swathen. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a drill!’
A murmur of anxiety went through the assembled residents as Maureen, Sad Harry and Denise went around trying to reassure them. Mrs Swathen began to complain about all the things she had left in her room; Polish John said it was just like the war; Mr Braun observed that he always liked a nice fire; Mrs McAllister began to cry again and Hope and I held hands very tightly and whispered – Chris!
The flames were quite visible now through the passageway window, heating the frosted glass and turning it black. My room was on the other side, opposite the staffroom; difficult to tell from outside where the fire had started. There was still no sign of either Lorraine or Chris.
Sad Harry, ignoring procedure, ran for the main doors, but they wouldn’t open. ‘Must be jammed!’ he yelled, punching at the entrance pad with no success.
‘An electrical fault,’ suggested Hope in her calm voice.
‘Sabotage,’ said Polish John with dour glee.
‘Lorraine!’ yelled Maureen in her most Wagnerian tone. ‘Lorraine, can you hear me?’
From the far side of the building came a faint tinkle of breaking glass.
‘Lorraine!’
‘In here!’
Maureen moved with as much speed as her bulk would permit towards the source of the cry. For obvious reasons, Hope and I stayed put. A minute or two later, Chris came running out by a fire exit, looking sooty and dishevelled, but laughing silently, one of the Meadowbank fire extinguishers in his hand.
‘Where’s Lorraine?’ I hissed at him.
Chris said nothing, but only grinned.
Later we pieced together the sequence of events; but for the present we could only speculate and listen.
Of course, you can’t always trust an eyewitness account. If you’d believed some of the stories that went
around afterwards, then you might have been forgiven in thinking that we had survived something in the nature of a Towering Inferno. In fact, by the time the fire brigade arrived, some five minutes later, the blaze, such as it was, had already been put out, leaving nothing but a few cracked windowpanes and some scorch marks up the walls to show that it had ever been.
It seems to have begun in the staffroom. A cigarette, said the fire chief, left to smoulder near a pile of newspapers, seemed to have been the source of the fire, which had spread quite rapidly to curtains and cushions on the sofa by the window. A small fire, certainly not large enough to account for the degree of panic shown by certain members of the Meadowbank staff, not least a Miss Lorraine Hutchens, care administrator, who was discovered hiding inside a wardrobe in the bedroom of one of the residents, having tried the door (or so she said) and found it jammed. Good thing the handyman had been around; his quick thinking (and judicious use of a nearby fire extinguisher) had ensured that the fire failed to spread to other parts of the home.
‘Anyway, love,’ said the fire chief reassuringly, as Lorraine was escorted out of the building, ‘that door’s made of solid wood. There’d have had to be a real blaze to do any harm to it, and it’s hardly even scorched the paint. I reckon you must have smelt the smoke and panicked. Happens all the time.’
Lorraine, still shaken but gaining resilience with every step, gave him a killer look. ‘I never said the door was jammed. I said it was locked. There’s a difference.’
Maureen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Locked?’ she said.
Lorraine’s cold gaze came to rest on Chris. He’d been standing quietly next to Hope and me, eyes on the ground. Now he glanced up, briefly, at Lorraine. The grin was gone from his face, to be replaced by an unmistakable expression of guilt.
Next to him, I saw Hope reach for his hand. There was a small sound of metal against metal that went unnoticed by all except Hope and me. Then Hope put her hands back into her lap. Again, that sound; and then she put her hand over one of mine, and I felt something cold and toothy press into my palm.