Past Praying For (33 page)

But
it didn’t matter what Dumbo did, because Missy was clever enough to have made another plan. She liked this plan. It was a funny plan, and a sort of – what was the phrase? – poetic justice, that was it.

‘
Poetic justice.’ She declaimed it aloud a couple of times, giving it due weight and pomp, because they were nice words, and it was a neat idea.

She
crossed the kitchen to the cupboard by the back door, opened it, and switched on the light inside. It was what he called his cellar, well-stocked, tidy and meticulously maintained with a record book that lay open with a pen beside it on the middle shelf. There were a lot of recent entries after Christmas, and she looked with mild curiosity at the list of vintages and dates.

Then
she surveyed the ranks of bottles marshalled with military precision on the shelves: the vintage wines, red and white; the depleted stock of champagne; the gin, the vermouth, the liqueurs; the shelf of single malt whiskies. And on the top shelf the three bottles of the very special, the very old brandy. He had paid more than a hundred pounds for each of these bottles.

She
started to laugh again, softly and secretly, as she took up the pen and neatly marked them off, with the date, just as he would have done himself. She gathered them up, then went through to the cupboard where they stored the waste paper. There was a sack of discarded Christmas wrappings; that would be a nice festive touch! She rolled some into balls and filled a carrier bag.

She
only needed to lay these along the window ledges, and soak the curtains with the brandy. It would all blaze up as merrily as the Christmas pudding.

She
set them on the kitchen table while she put on the hooded coat with the matches in the pocket, and inserted her bare feet into the gumboots that stood waiting beside the kitchen door. Then with the bag over her arm, and clutching the bottles to her, she slipped silently out and was immediately swallowed up in the clammy darkness outside.

***

‘Paula! Paula!’

The
child tugged at the edge of the duvet which was snuggled into a tight cocoon round the sleeping form of her sister. She coughed, sneezed, then dismally rubbed her nose. Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. It was cold in the house now, in the middle of the night with the central heating switched off, and she shivered in her tartan cotton nightgown. There was a funny smell drifting up from downstairs, too, and she was afraid.

‘
Paula!’ she wailed.

Dragged
reluctantly from sleep, Paula uncurled from her foetal position and rolled over to peer with disfavour at her small sibling.

‘
Oh – Milla,’ she groaned. ‘Do shut up! Go away and leave me alone.’

She
tried to turn over once more, but the child grabbed desperately at her arm.

‘
Don’t go to sleep again, Paula, don’t!’ She was seized by another bout of coughing, and started to cry in earnest.

‘
Oh – for heavens’ sake!’ Paula sat up, knuckling her eyes. ‘Why on earth don’t you go to Mum? Why pick on me?’

‘ ’
Cos Mummy isn’t
there!
’ The wail rose higher. ‘I’m coughing, and she didn’t come, and I went to find her, and she isn’t there, and Daddy isn’t, and there’s a funny smell and it’s making me cough and I’m
frightened!
’

‘
Don’t be silly,’ Paula started to say, when at the same moment she caught a whiff of the offending smell and the smoke alarm in the hall began to emit its ear-piercing warning.

Paula
’s stomach lurched. ‘It’s a fire! We’re on fire!’ she exclaimed.

Milla,
catching the note of panic in her voice, opened her mouth to scream, and Paula realized, abruptly, that she must take charge.

‘
Look, don’t scream, OK? Honestly, it’s going to be all right, Milla. Don’t scream. You’re a big girl, and you’re going to help me. Just wake Peter, make him get up even if you have to shake him, right? Then grab your dressing gown and slippers and meet me at the top of the stairs.’

Milla
hesitated. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded suspiciously. ‘I don’t want you to go away.’

Her
lip started to quiver again.

‘
I’m just going to see if I can find Mummy,’ her sister told her with a calmness she did not feel. ‘I really need you to get Peter, then we’ll all go downstairs together. That will be really clever. Off you go.’

Diverted
by this notion of her own importance, Milla trotted off to carry out her orders. Paula, sticking her feet in shoes and grabbing a jacket from the back of her door, shrugged it on as she hurried along the landing to her parents’ bedroom, hoping against hope that there was some mistake, that her mother would be there, sound asleep, perhaps, but ready to spring reassuringly to their protection.

In
her heart of hearts she knew that no one could sleep through the din which was making her ears ring, and the bedroom was, just as Milla had said, empty. Her mother’s side of the bed had been slept in; the other pillow was undented, and she remembered that her father had gone off to the Golf Club.

‘
Mummy!’ she yelled at the top of her voice, above the shrieking alarm, but there was no response. She checked her parents’ bathroom but then gave up the search. She had other duties that she must perform.

Peter,
bemused by his rough awakening into noise and confusion, was shuffling along from the bedroom he and Milla shared, his teddy in one hand and his dressing gown on awry, the belt trailing on the ground behind him. Milla, with her own dressing gown neatly belted, picked it up and tied it officiously round him. With Paula in control, she was almost beginning to enjoy the excitement.

Paula
peered over the banisters into the well of the hall below. The light from the staircase allowed her to see that though there were no flames visible, smoke was beginning to seep furiously through the cracks around the games room and drawing-room doors. Her eyes were smarting, and in a moment the hall would be filled with the choking stuff. Milla had started coughing again; there was not a second to lose.

‘
Downstairs, both of you, quick as you can,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Straight to the front door. I’m right behind you.’

In
fact, she reached the door as they scampered across the hall and was ready to turn the security locks which would have been too stiff for baby fingers. Then they were safe outside, in the wet, smoke-thickened air.

The
fog was a lurid, livid orange with the glow of the fire, and now Paula could hear its terrifying roar. The drawing-room windows, to the left of the front door, were broken and blackened, and beyond there was a sea of flame, raging to escape the confines of the surrounding walls. As she watched, a window fell in, the glass jangling on to the floor below, and a flame shot out, like the tongue of a savage monster seeking out fresh prey. She pulled the children back with a jolt of terror.

From
round the side of the house, clouds of smoke, held low by the fog, were pouring from the window of the games room. Paula knew she should fetch help, do something, but the sheer magnitude of the disaster held her mesmerized. There was a huge lump gathering in her throat.

Then
she heard Milla’s shout.

‘
Mummy! Mummy! Where were you? We were in the house, and it’s on fire!’

Paula
spun round. There on the lawn, some fifteen feet from the blaze and apparently oblivious to the sparks and floating sooty particles stood her mother, with a hooded coat over her night-gown and gumboots on her feet. She was standing rigid as a statue, staring into the leaping, swirling flames in their beautiful, unholy ballet. There was a strange half-smile on her face, and she did not turn at the sound of Milla’s voice.

The
sight of her mother should have been a relief, but despite the heat from the blaze Paula felt an icy shiver crawl up her back as she looked at her, and an ill-defined sick fear churn her stomach.

But
Milla rushed to her mother, casting herself upon her with arms wide, grabbing her frantically round the waist. ‘Mummy, Mummy,’ she whimpered. ‘I wanted you!’ Elizabeth turned her head slowly and surveyed them: Milla clinging to her, Peter hanging back with fear and bewilderment, Paula behind them, pale-faced and wary. The three livid scratches on her left cheek showed up as dark shadows in the fitful light.

Very
deliberately she reached around her waist and coldly detached the small, scrabbling fingers. With unnecessary force, she pushed away the discomfited child.

‘
Oh, stop grabbing at me and snivelling, will you, you dismal little brat!’

Too
shocked for tears, Milla stared, her hands dropping to her side. Peter, under the fierce glittering gaze that was turned upon them, shrank back in fright against Paula.

Steeled
by the needs of the little ones, Paula managed to find her voice, staggering slightly as Milla, sobbing now, threw herself at her sister for comfort.

‘
Mum, are you – are you all right? Your face...’ she said, then trailed into silence. With the ghastly light from the fire flickering on her shadowed features her mother looked – looked possessed, like the pantomime demon they had hissed last week.

She
saw that Elizabeth was eying her with distaste – no, worse, indifference.

‘
Oh, I’m just dandy,’ she said, in a strange, high, childish voice. ‘I’m having a great time.’

This
was beyond Paula’s scope. She was only twelve; her own voice broke as she said, ‘Mummy, we were
inside
.’ She gestured to the flames as she tried to hold back her tears. ‘We could have been killed, and you didn’t even try to get us out.’

Slowly,
terribly, her mother smiled.

‘
So?’ she said.

For
a second the shock overwhelmed Paula. But the urgent little bodies squirming against her in panic were a stronger imperative; she swallowed hard, then bent to clutch them to her so tightly that it was painful, though neither complained.

‘
Mummy’s ill,’ she whispered to them. ‘Mummy’s really sick. We have to deal with this ourselves. I’ve got to get the fire brigade –’

But
as she spoke she heard running footsteps and a young policeman appeared. It was Tom Compton; he was seriously out of breath, and he had lost his cap.

‘
Oh my God,’ he gasped. ‘I thought I smelled smoke.’

He
snatched his radio from his belt and bellowed into it, ‘Fire! Everything you’ve got to the Lodge – the McEvoy house in the main street.’

Still
with the receiver in his hands, chattering out staccato radio commands, he demanded urgently, ‘Anyone still inside?’

Elizabeth
did not speak or move, but Paula shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Dad’s bed hadn’t been slept in. He’ll still be at the Club.’

Within
seconds there were half a dozen police officers at the scene, and the children were being escorted away, out of the garden. Elizabeth suffered herself to be pulled back but she said nothing at all in response to the barrage of anxious questions, only turning her head so that she could still watch the fire.

Paula
tugged at Compton’s sleeve. ‘She’s – she’s ill. My mother’s ill. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I had to get the kids out of the house myself, and she was just standing there, watching the flames, and we were inside.’

The
two little ones had been safely removed; she found now that tears were pouring in a torrent down her face.

The
young man put his arm round her shoulders awkwardly. ‘Don’t cry. You’ve been a real star – done a terrific job. And don’t worry about your mum. It’ll be shock. Everyone’s funny with shock; we see a lot of it. Now look, here’s Annie coming to take you next door. You go with her and leave the rest to us. The fire engines will be here any minute.’

Paula
had turned obediently to go with the policewoman when Compton called after her, ‘You said your Dad was at the Club. Would that be the Golf Club?’

She
nodded, shivering and unable to speak now as the tears mastered her, and Annie took off her jacket to hug it round the youngster’s shoulders as she led her away.

Compton
exchanged a meaningful look with the sergeant who had now appeared.

‘
At three in the morning?’ the older man said. ‘Hardly likely the Golf Club’s still open at this hour.’

‘
Won’t be the first time Mr McEvoy’s gone AWOL in the middle of the night, sarge, not by what they say in the village,’ said Compton, parading his local knowledge. ‘It’ll be a nasty surprise for him when he comes home this time.’

Then
the fire engines began arriving, five of them, and police from every quarter of the village. The spectators were starting to gather too, and Compton went off to help bring order to the crowd while the garden filled with lights, hoses and the purposeful professionals who controlled them.