FIRE
BREAK GLASS
→●←
PRESS HERE
Without hesitation, I pressed my thumb through the Perspex, and as commanded, the alarm sounded with a kind of intermittent chime. I hid inside a shower cubicle, spreading my body as I stood with my back against the door. Footsteps seemed to scurry in time to the alarm, I could hear voices, the repetition of ‘stay where you are’ and ‘don’t worry’.
‘Mr Jones?’
Who’s there?
‘Mr Jones?’
The policeman’s voice reverberated, the cold tiles of the washroom seeming to taint his tone with harshness. ‘Mr Jones!’
I was quiet to the extent of holding my breath. The policeman’s heels hit the tiles with exaggerated force, easily distinguishable over the background of running water and restrained panic. A mist had expanded from the cubicle next door, the old man evidently enjoying a very hot shower, oblivious to the world outside.
The footsteps stopped. ‘Mr Jones? Do you hear the alarm?’
I’m not deaf mate.
‘Can you hear me?’
Like I said…
‘Answer me Mr Jones. Before I force the door… Mr Jones?’
You’re in serious danger of wearing out my name, mate.
‘Stand back from the door, Mr Jones.’
There was a clatter.
Bang.
Wallop.
The noise brought little change to my surroundings, a nonplussed retake confirming my position – locked inside a shower cubicle, alone.
‘Someone get in here!’ The policeman’s voice cracked and rose an octave, complementing the air of urgency provoked by the fire alarm. ‘Nurse!’
I emerged from my cubicle with staged, suspicious advances, the washroom hazy under much steam. The cubicle beside showed a forced lock, a speckled blood trail enticing my eyes to follow. Slumped into a corner, the old man spilled blood via his mouth, an accompanying gargle sounded like the final dregs escaping from a bathtub. The policeman knelt beside him, attempting to shift the man’s considerable girth into the recovery position. I winced, averted my eyes, and then legged it.
Out on the ward, patients and clinicians mulled around, seemingly unprepared for a fire drill – despite my geriatric chic, I felt strangely inconspicuous. I looked downwards and walked on, a pair of Hush Puppies and a pair of plastic sandals passing without so much as a twitch toward the supposed felon. Glancing up, double doors stood not ten feet away – an escape so close.
‘Ginger?’ said a voice.
Fuck. Who? Me?
Brian stood opposed, sporting a silk dressing gown. ‘Ginger, they wouldn’t let me see you,’ he said, hands on hips.
Not now, damn it! I fidgeted. ‘You OK?’ I said.
Brian sounded slightly choked. ‘Are you OK, chuck?’
I nodded. Nods don’t count as lies, right? ‘Listen, I’m sorry for…’ It was a relief to see him looking so alive and not-dead, but time was becoming precious. ‘Well, I’m just sorry.’
Brian smiled.
‘I need to go now. It’s complicated, but I’ll explain when I can. Please don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.’
A twitch to Brian’s top lip suggested an urge to be nosy, though in the end he just nodded. ‘Careful you don’t run into the fashion police,’ he said, looking me up and down.
I glanced over my loafers and shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s complicated.’
‘Well… see you then.’
‘Yeh.’
A moment later I walked from the ward – it was simple.
Thirty-One
You’ve got it good, you
should thank up above.
Thinking logically, the police knew nothing of my intentions, and I was sure a particular girl’s identity had remained elusive to them – at least for the time being. To find Ms Fish – and so the ring – I began in the most obvious place.
Approaching, the house was quiet. The exterior reminded me of a Lego manor house I’d built in the doctors’ reception as a child – pristine, almost shiny, but just too faux. Ms Fish emerged from the front entrance, oblivious to me, dragging a large trunk across the drive. She appeared smartly dressed, more so than usual, as though she had a meeting with her bank manager and she rather fancied him. I was suspicious, and moved in.
‘Something looks fishy,’ I said. Ha ha.
Ms Fish looked up, seemingly unconcerned by my arrival, proceeding to wrestle the trunk into the boot of her Lexus. She straightened her appearance in the rear window and then clopped her heels to greet me.
‘They let you out?’ she said, her eyes surveying me.
I fidgeted. ‘Sort of.’
‘You look…’ She abandoned the sentence and pulled a face.
I grunted and nodded towards her car. ‘What’s with that trunk thing? Off on a jolly?’
‘Spain, actually.’
‘What?’
Her expression appeared no more involved than informing me she was going to buy a pint of milk. ‘My flight’s this evening.’
‘You’re doing a runner?’
‘I’m taking a sabbatical, Ginger.’
But what about the ring? What about the police? What about – ‘What about me?’ I blurted.
‘I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.’
‘Well I mean…’ I felt my face flush and resolved to nudge the conversation forwards. ‘Why the hell did you take that ring?’
She glanced away. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Fuck. Really?’
Such an open exchange seemed to make her uneasy of prying ears – she scanned the street and tugged on my arm. ‘Come inside.’
Ms Fish pulled me into the house, and from behind a tight blouse, our brisk pace made her chest jiggle. I tried to dispel the weakness of finding her so damn attractive. She settled me in the lounge, my bottom sinking so deeply in a soft leather armchair. The whole room was illuminated by a panoramic window which looked out over the garden – being as extensive and immaculate as I remembered. The chairs and sofa were a brilliant white that seemed to glow, the rest of the room littered with over-polished antique furniture and garish porcelain; for which Mr Fish must have quite handsomely funded the knock off Chinese reproduction trade. Ms Fish pulled open a drinks cabinet and poured herself a large measure of something.
‘Drink?’ she said, offering me a tumbler.
I pulled a face. ‘Hardly the time.’
‘Well, don’t mind if I do.’ She took a sip, her face creasing as though she were sucking a lemon. She observed the bottle and sniffed. ‘Daddy’s favourite – twenty years old. It costs a fortune. Tastes like shit.’
It was quiet for a moment.
‘Why are you leaving?’ I said.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘I’m not running.’
‘So did the police drop you here?’
‘That’s not what I meant. I’m trying to sort things out.’
‘Someone’s dead Ginger. You can’t just “sort” that out.’
Don’t say his name, just don’t.
‘That noise, the blood…’ She took a gulp. ‘A hefty prison sentence looming over.’
‘Maybe not.’
She looked away. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m going away to clear my head.’
‘Stay,’ I said.
‘No. I’d simply be dangling you a carrot.’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘Yes Ginger, it is.’
‘But we’ve been through…’ Who am I kidding? She’s a stupid weakness, a cock tease – it’s not like she even gives shit. ‘Well, I’m glad you were with me,’ I mumbled. ‘At least, I am now.’
She stopped me with a hard glare. ‘Just remember – no blabbing until
I’m mile high, mister.’
‘What?’
‘I had the wit to give a false name in A&E – it should have bought me enough time.’
‘Jesus, you’re so fucking selfish. I will talk to the police eventually.’
‘Yes I’m sure,’ she said, then sipping her drink. ‘And I’ll be several hundred miles away drinking sangria in the sun.’
‘But—’
‘So then you can tell them what you want – maybe that’s truth. I don’t care.’
‘They’ll still find you, a couple of hours on a plane is all it takes. In fact, maybe they’re waiting outside, right now – all they have to do is check CCTV and—’
Ms Fish slammed her tumbler upon the cabinet. ‘Fuck off, Ginger.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, my voice deeper, more manly. ‘Not until you give me that fucking ring.’
Opposed to me stood a coffee table, upon which a handbag had been discarded. Ms Fish nodded in that general direction. Tentatively, my hand delved inside and rummaged – the bag seemingly made from the skin of some kind of lizard – and amongst a miscellany of unknown objects, I clasped my hand around a small cuboid. The exterior felt like velvet and pleasured my fingers. I pulled back my hand, retrieving a small red box, and without hesitation I flipped it open. Inside, presenting to me like an autonomous marriage proposal, was a gold ring, my source of peril. The red stone caught the sunlight and twinkled – it was rather pretty, considering. I closed the box, slipped it into my pocket and was quiet. Ms Fish was staring into her glass, gently spinning it upon the cabinet.
‘So this whole ring business,’ she said, a while later. ‘What’s it about?’
‘You heard the yarn, what it’s worth,’ I mumbled. ‘The owner wants it back. Pretty badly.’
‘Will you? Give it back?’
‘Yeh, I think.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The bloke thinks he runs the Yorkshire Mafia from his chip shop, makes things a bit awkward.’ I took a deep breath, stood up and shook away my thoughts. ‘Anyway…’
Ms Fish offered me a glass, and as I nodded, she promptly depleted the bottle by two generous measures. ‘It sounds rather seedy,’ she said.
‘Seedy, undesirable, never-ending-torment – take your pick.’ I agitated my drink with a circular motion and took a long sniff, alcoholic fumes tingled my nasal hair and made me sneeze. Still, the prospect of what lay ahead prompted me to down it in one – the drink projected across the room by a mixture of cough and splutter. ‘Bloody hell!’
Ms Fish twitched, I think almost smiling. ‘Like I said, tastes like shit.’ Her eyelids appeared to be hanging lower, probably under one too many glasses of ‘Daddy’s favourite’. ‘Want a smoke?’ She flicked the lid of a gold cigarette packet, and as she leaned into the drinks cabinet, her stiletto heel caressed the stocking of the opposite leg.
‘Not really,’ I said, trying to dispel the taste.
She shrugged, raising her glass. ‘To Spain,’ she said, before taking a gulp and clasping a cigarette between her scarlet lips. ‘Have you been to Spain, Ginger?’
‘No,’ I said, through a splutter.
‘I love it – Daddy has a villa in the south.’
‘Nice,’ I mumbled.
She lit her cigarette via a matchbook that appeared to promote some exclusive hotel, and after puffing away the smoke, her tone was then dourer. ‘I just have to tolerate Daddy’s little slut.’
‘Sounds cosy.’
‘No. Not cosy at all.’ She took a long drag, savouring and exhaling through the nose. ‘Still…’ Then, she let the cigarette drop, igniting the drink I’d spat out moments before, a trail of blue flame spreading across the cabinet. ‘Fuck them.’
The fire followed the alcohol, spilling onto the carpet, and as my eyes caught up, I saw my loafers were aflame. ‘Shit! Help me!’ I blurted, stamping my feet about like Riverdance.
Ms Fish appeared weary, stepping back from the cabinet and glancing downwards. Lacking any shred of urgency, she doused my feet with tonic water, a strange combination of fizz and sizzle as the flames petered out. The shoes were scorched to a deeper shade of brown – had they not been on my feet, I would have applauded the incineration of such monstrous footwear.
Meanwhile, the drinks cabinet was ablaze.
‘The bloody house is on fire!’ I blurted, grabbing a cushion from the sofa and wafting at the flames.
She shrugged. ‘Daddy won’t need it.’
‘What?’
‘Fuck them.’ She glanced away and finished her drink, a flicker of blue flame reflecting in the glass.
As the curtains caught alight, I realised my attempts as a firefighter were futile. ‘Er, you need to call 999. Now.’
Ms Fish simply shrugged and made for the door, at which point her nonchalance caused my standard level of mistrust to increase, and I feared playing a pawn in yet another escapade.
‘What’s going on?’ I shouted after her.
‘Pardon?’
I manoeuvred quickly, standing over the door and holding it shut. ‘I know you’re up to something.’
‘Excuse me,’ Ms Fish attempted to shove me aside, but I remained steadfast, shrugging her off with a force that seemed to surprise her – and indeed myself. You shall not pass!
‘Tell me,’ I said. The smoke was thickening, rising, close enough to make us both cough. ‘If you think I’m bluffing, think what I’ve got to lose. I’ve got nothing, fuck all but a date with a gangster who wants to rip out my throat. So if we go up in flames, I don’t give a shit.’
I wasn’t convinced that Ms Fish really believed I wanted to die, but her pupils had dilated enough to suggest she’d realised I was going to be awkward.
‘We’re going to cut and run,’ she snapped. ‘Daddy’s business is fucked, he’s practically broke. We’re not coming back, the house isn’t ours anymore.’
‘What? Then why steal all that money?’
‘Daddy knows, he always knew. We planned the robbery. We’ve just been biding our time, otherwise it would have appeared too obvious.’
‘My job?’
‘Gone.’
‘When was you going to say?’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Fuck.’
Across the room, a bottle shattered and I looked over Ms Fish to see fire spreading across the ceiling and the drinks cabinet a display of blue-flamed pyrotechnics – the heat was intense.
‘Ginger!’
We fled into the hall, almost galloping together as we made our escape, out through the front door onto the drive. Looking back, smoke followed our trail, flames inside the front window looking like Satan’s snow globe – such swift ferocity was really quite something. I propped myself against the Lexus, catching my breath. Ms Fish stood beside, watching the house burn, but betraying no emotion.
Then, a while later she said: ‘Maybe things will work out for you in the end.’
I smiled, careful to project sarcasm, and raised an imaginary glass to her. ‘To not being killed, at least for the time being.’
She sniffed.
Never seeing her again seemed logically preferable, though emotionally questionable. I took a moment to steady my knees. ‘I’ll see you then,’ I said.
‘Probably not.’
I took a deep breath and walked away – newly jobless.
Thirty-Two
I’ll tell you straight
and you listen hard.
I tried to clear my head by walking briskly, taking in long back-streets away from the hustle of shops and busy roads – though the lack of distraction amplified my feeling of hopelessness. The University of Hull stood not half a mile away – a splash of opportunity amongst post-industrial gloom. Consequently, the far-reaching terraces I wandered had been usurped of 2.4 children and divided into student dwellings. On
e house spilled its innards from an open first floor sash, a mash-up of indie music, a trombone, bottle clinks and giggling. The sound of such whimsy angered me, that kids could dip in and out of the city, steal an education and head back to Middle England before the shit stains had chance to settle. Why should my life be stained by an accident of birth? I looked down and walked more quickly, the simple greyness of the pavement made me want to scream, punch something. I pondered a change to the boundary sign – Welcome to Hull. If you value your future, you’d better fuck off pretty sharpish.
My eyes picked out a telephone box. Slightly skew-whiff upon the pavement, I imagined it had transported Doctor Who from a parallel dimension. Inside, I retrieved a scrap of paper from my pocket and recited the number as I dialled. The dialling tone sounded twice.
‘Who is it?’ said a man’s voice, gruff.
I paused. ‘Ginger,’ I said.
‘Good.’ His tone was calm, restrained. ‘Have you got it?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘A phone box… Who is this?’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Right… Well… I’m not about to volunteer for a kicking.’
‘Chas ain’t in the mood for games.’
I drew in a heavy breath. ‘Let’s get it straight,’ I said, ‘I hand over the ring and then walk away. Right? I just walk away.’
‘I can’t see a problem with that.’
‘No funny business.’
‘Dunno what you mean.’
‘I want your word.’
‘Can I get you on this number?’
‘Like I said, it’s a phone box.’
‘Stay where you are, just for a bit. I’ll call you back.’
‘Hang on—’
He hung up.
A moment later, an old-school ring tone sounded – I answered immediately:
‘Hello, it’s Ginger.’
The voice was low, and hit me like a punch in the stomach: ‘I had impetigo as a kid – that was about as difficult to get rid of as you.’
Strange Affairs, Ginger Hairs Page 16
