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flash of joy which faded like a snowflake on a barbecue. Slowey
nodded and made his lips crinkle with appreciation, using the gesture to stifle
a yawn triggered by a glance at the clock.
    “Anyway,
I don’t know which I noticed first or whether I noticed them all at the same
time. I don’t think the smell of smoke by itself would have disturbed me. They
both smoke like chimneys and they seem to have barbeques every other night in
the summer and it gets through the windows and sometimes through the cavities
in the walls.
    “But
there was a glow outside, like the sun was overhead, and a sound like the sea
on a stony beach and smoke everywhere. We have good walls but I could hear them
too, next door I mean, steps thumping up and down the landing, shouting and
wailing.”
    She
paused, eyes reddening, failing to find the handkerchief in either sleeve.
Slowey found a substitute on the back seat, tissues bearing the golden arches
but clean enough. She touched both sides to her nose, failed to find a surface
that didn’t smell of cooked meat, took the plunge and blew.  
    “The
yelling wasn’t as loud as sometimes. Didn’t hear a man. Anyway, what is it the
fire brigade say? Get out, call out, stay out or something. I’m afraid I did
things in the wrong order. I have a phone next to the bed you see, and I didn’t
think it would work outside. It’s cordless but it’s very temperamental.
    “My
daughter bought it for me when we got burgled, oh, nearly five years ago now.
And something might happen to Anthony. But you can’t walk too far away without
it going all crackly. Not that you need to know all that.” She failed to find a
smile to match the puzzled one worn by Slowey, and drew a deep breath.
    “So
I dialled 999 and they asked me which service so I said fire, of course, which
was rude of me but I was a bit worried by then. I told the lady and she heard
me coughing and wheezing because I’d walked into Jeremy’s bedroom and was
trying to talk to him and tell him to calm down and help his mummy like a good
boy but there were great thick ribbons of smoke coming through the brickwork
and he wouldn’t listen at first but I had to answer the lady’s questions and
she wanted the postcode of all things.
    “So
I told her while Jeremy helped me get his dad down the stairs – when I say
helping, I mean leading, keeping out of the way, which is the same thing with
him. We were making such a racket so I don’t know what the lady thought, but
she said someone was coming and I should get everyone out and stay out.”
    “There
doesn’t appear to be too much damage to your lungs, Mrs Jennings.”
    A
frown flashed across her forehead and she allowed herself a smile that didn’t
touch her eyes. Then she squinted as if searching for a thread she’d dropped.
    “So
there we were, the three of us, standing in the street half-dressed, Jeremy
still happy and sad at the same time like he is when he’s overexcited, me
fretting about Anthony with his breathing. We’d had to leave his oxygen inside,
you see. Oh, my God! Perhaps I should have told the firemen. It could have
exploded!”
    She
held her mouth open, her cheeks dappling.
    “Well,
the houses are still there so we shouldn’t worry about it now. I’ll mention it
to the firemen in a little while. You were saying?”
    “Well,
next door was just covered in flames and then the man in the football shirt
came running from nowhere, saying he’d seen someone still inside and kept
pointing at the upstairs window and shouting but I couldn’t see because it was
just a curtain of fire. But he went so close and I couldn’t decide if he was
screaming because he’d seen someone or he was on fire himself. Then the fire
engines turned up and I suppose you know the rest.”
    Slowey
finished writing his sentence and allowed a silence to fill the car,
momentarily thinking about breakfast, sleep and Dale Murphy, in that order.
“Thanks for that account, Mrs Jennings. Couldn’t have