By nine o’clock, my little flat was heaving. Dan had arrived, bringing the rest of the band with him. Some old school friends had come, some of them making a rather long trip from Newquay. My work friends were there, and my choir friends as well as the downstairs neighbors, whom I had invited on the premise that they couldn’t complain about the noise if they helped make it. It wasn’t a massive party by Dan’s standards, but with thirty-odd people crowding into the lounge and spilling over onto the landing and right into the kitchen, it certainly felt as packed as a nightclub.
The music was pumping and people were dancing. The kitchen was a riot of random bottles of wine and spirits, food was going in and out of the oven, and Dan had donned an apron and was taking great delight in playing butler. At ten o’clock, the doorbell rang and two men wearing chef’s hats and white tunics struggled up my stairs with an enormous pink cardboard box. Dan intercepted them before I could take a look-see and steered them toward the lounge.
As the delivery chefs left, the music stopped and the lounge lights went out. Excited whispering and muffled voices emanating from the lounge suggested that something was afoot. Suddenly, Rachel pressed a glass of champagne in my hand and propelled me toward my dark sitting room.
“Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday, lovely Sophie… Happy birthday to you!”
Everyone had crammed in the lounge to sing my birthday song, and while my eyes were struggling to take it all in, the cake exploded on the table. Dozens and dozens of sparklers ignited, and an indoor Catherine wheel fizzed away colorfully.
And the cake.
Wow
.
It was a three-tier pink and silver affair with sugary stars and pearls distributed artfully but liberally over each tier. The base was decorated with dozens of tiny little pictures of me, from birth to thirty. I was speechless.
“Sophie,” Dan piped up, clearing his throat somewhat nervously. “I know you didn’t want a big posh bash in a fancy place, and that’s all fine. We’re all having a terrific time. But…” he looked a bit sheepish. “Well, I know you, and I know you wouldn’t have bothered with a birthday cake for yourself.”
I had bothered, actually, on this occasion, but the outcome was nothing compared to this amazing creation. I decided to keep quiet on the matter of the mess that was my own brown squidgy chocolate cake, I could always have it for breakfast.
“Anyway,” Dan continued, “I thought it would be okay if we treated you to the best birthday cake ever…so here it is. Happy birthday, Sophie!” he shouted once more.
I felt oddly moved, but before I could get tearful, a chant erupted all around me.
“Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut-cut-cut-cut-cut!”
I turned to get a knife from the kitchen, but Joe had thought ahead and stood behind me, wielding my best bread knife and nearly stabbing me in the chest.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t seem to find a cake knife.”
“You can’t find a cake knife,” I giggled, “because I don’t have one. But this’ll do.” I turned to attack the cake.
“Hold it
,” came a shout from the depths of the lounge. Rachel emerged, brandishing a camera. “Photo opportunity! This moment ought to be preserved for eternity.”
“Okay,” I grumbled. I hated having my photo taken, especially doing something where I would show off how clumsy I was by, for instance, toppling the cake over while cutting into it. But Dan had read my mind.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “I’ll hold the cake while you cut.”
Bless him. So I cut, and with Dan standing behind me holding the cake stand with both hands reaching around me either side, the resulting photo looked strangely like the “happy couple” shot at a wedding. Strangely, that is. Not necessarily attractively.
The party carried on with people dancing, disco lights in the lounge, and lots of laughter and raucous singing. I was feeling mellow and happy and a little drunk, flitting back and forth with more food and drink for my guests.
Unexpectedly, I heard shouts of, “Ooh, a smoke machine, how cool!” from the lounge. This was slightly odd because I didn’t have a smoke machine, hadn't hired one, and also couldn’t remember anyone bringing one.
Before I could investigate, I heard mutterings of, “Eugh, but the stink.”
Abruptly, the music stopped and the lights went off again. This time, the lights went off everywhere in the flat.
People had opened the windows in the lounge to let out excess smoke, and as I stood pondering, a large whitish flame emanated from one of the sockets by the fireplace. Everyone stood and stared, transfixed in the twilight created by the orange glow of the outside lamp post. A thin black line appeared above the skirting board, spreading rapidly along the room accompanied by a horrendous stink and an ominous sizzling sound.
What appeared like minutes could only have been seconds, before Mick shouted at the top of his voice, “Everybody out,
now
! Fire!” He was at the back of the room, and he was the first to comprehend the situation.
“Sophie, dial 999” he commanded, and I duly sprinted to the telephone. “Dan, go and open the front door. Everybody move, move, move!” Mick shouted, now with a tinge of panic in his voice as people weren’t leaving fast enough.
And that did it.
Within two minutes, we were all outside, listening to the sirens of fire engines neeh-nahing their way to my flat, and contemplating our lucky escape. By now, flames were evident through the still wide-open windows, and my flat was lit up from within with a flickering orange glow like a Halloween pumpkin.
My flat. My lovely flat. All my lovely things.
I started back to the front door. I had to get my much-loved teddy, and my insurance papers, and books and CDs, and photos, and degree certificates, and my passport.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Mick and Dan caught me before I could go back in. Dan shook me roughly. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“I need to get my stuff,” I gabbled. “It’s all going up in flames. My stuff. My life.” I let out a long wail and tried for the front door again.
Dan slapped my face. “Listen to me,” he screamed, trying to make eye contact while I was frantically twisting my head to look past him toward my burning flat.
“Listen to me,” he screamed again and turned me bodily around so I was no longer facing the house.
“You’ve got your life.”
When I still didn’t seem to get it, he repeated, louder still, “You’ve got your
life
. Nothing else matters. You are alive, and so is everybody else. Nobody is hurt. We were very lucky. You may not have any of your stuff tomorrow, but you’ve got your life.”
“Sophie?” Rachel cut in gently from behind me. “Look!”
She proffered something. I was so startled, I couldn’t see properly at first.
“Oh, Rach!”
Rachel had rescued my childhood teddy. She had also grabbed my handbag containing credit cards and mobile phone from the hook by the door, and my cherished photo cube from my bedroom.
“How…? Why…? I thought…?” I couldn’t quite get my sentence out.
“It was easy,” Rachel explained. “I was right by your bedroom when Mick started shouting. I knew this was going to be bad”—I winced—“so I grabbed the first things I could reach without really stopping.”
She pressed Teddy in my arms and hung the purse round my neck. “At least that should cover the basics…you know, money, and that stuff,” she added gruffly. I hugged her tightly. Dan shook his head. “That was very risky, Rachel,” he admonished. “Thoughtful, but risky.”
“I know,” Rachel said. She gave a watery smile.
Meanwhile, the fire brigade had arrived. Two engines parked up, and there were at least ten fire fighters busily rolling out hoses. One of them was talking earnestly to Mick, but I could only hear snippets of conversation. He seemed to be trying to find out whether anybody was still inside. “No,” Mick said confidently, “I was the last one out. I was furthest back and there was nobody left when I got out.”
The water started shooting out of the hoses through the windows and right into my flat. The flames had consumed the curtains and the first floor was properly ablaze, like something you saw on the news. Two of the fire fighters were pointing their hoses high, so that the water shot up in the air and arched over the roof. Two others were dousing the neighboring roofs and houses with water. What a mess.
Thirty bedraggled partygoers looked on silently as the fire fighters put out the blaze that ended my birthday party in a flash. When the fire was under control, gradually, one by one, people left with offers of help and asylum.
Soon, it was only Rachel, Dan and the band, and me left outside the ruins of my flat. And the downstairs neighbors, of course, who looked utterly shell-shocked. I didn’t blame them. In fact, I was surprised that they weren’t ranting and raving at me for setting our house on fire. Then again, I hadn’t actually done anything. I had no clue what had happened.
Right at that moment, the chief fire officer came to talk to me.
“I gather you own the flat?” he started without much of an introduction. I guessed this wasn’t the time for social niceties.
“I do, yes. I was having a birthday party.”
“Any idea what happened?” he wanted to know.
I gulped. Dan spoke on my behalf.
He explained about the flash and the smoke. “We couldn’t see any evidence of fire to start with.” The fire officer wrote something on a pad.
“How long before there were actual flames?” he inquired.
I spoke up now. “A few minutes…maybe five? We were all out here by then.”
He nodded again. He was very calm, but I couldn’t make out whether he was judging us.
“Why are you nodding?” I challenged him. I couldn’t help myself, I was all muddled up and I wanted someone to say that this wasn’t my fault.
He ignored me, and asked another question instead. “Anybody smoke anything at your party?”
“No,” I declared firmly. “I’m a strictly no-smoking girl.”
“Good. How many appliances were you running at the time?”
Appliances? What, like a washing machine? Or a kettle?
“Um, I don’t know. The lights were on…” I tried to reconstruct what had been happening when it all went wrong. “The stereo was on and a couple of lamps, probably… The oven was on in the kitchen, and maybe somebody boiled a kettle. I can’t think of anything else. Can you?” I sent Dan and the others an imploring look. Lots of shaking of heads.
“I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary,” one of my neighbors piped up. I could have kissed her.
“Hm…” mused the fireman, scratching his chin. “Sounds like a cable fire to me. Maybe there was a short somewhere. We’ll have to investigate.” He turned to go. The group of us remained standing on the same spot, feeling bereft.
Eventually, Dan pulled himself together. “Wow, what a night,” he pondered. “Not quite what we had in mind, perhaps, but certainly unforgettable.”
That comment broke the ice, and I giggled. I chortled. Then I burst into hysterical laughter.
Pretty soon, Rachel was in hysterics as well, and we were clinging on to each other for dear life.
“I’m going to wee my pants,” Rachel snorted, doubling over with laughter. I noticed the firemen shooting us sympathetic looks. “Shock,” one appeared to be mouthing to the other but they left us to it.
The four band members regarded us hysterical girls with bemusement, unable to comprehend our sudden mirth.
Eventually I calmed down again.
“Where am I going to stay?” I wondered out loud.
“You can stay with me,” Rachel declared eagerly.
“You could stay with me,” Dan offered simultaneously.
I looked from one to the other.
So did Mick, Darren and Joe.
Everybody looked at me.
“I…” I started, not knowing what to say. “I don’t know what to say.”
That night, I moved in with Dan. On a strictly temporary basis, of course.
Rachel backed down gracefully once she was certain that Dan’s offer was both genuine and innocent. Her flat, while lovely, would have felt very crowded, and there was the gorgeous Jordan to consider.
Incidentally, it occurred to me, where had Jordan been? The two of them, Rachel-and-Jordan, were practically inseparable these days. I felt a pang of guilt at not having noticed his absence or asked Rachel about it.
Anyway, Dan packed me and my meager rescued belongings into a taxi as soon as the fire brigade had given us the all clear to go. I was to come back the following morning to hear the verdict on the state of disrepair of my flat.
It was almost four a.m. by the time we arrived at Dan’s house, damp, overtired and reeking of smoke. Dan installed me in one of his guest rooms and ordered me to have a shower. He grabbed all my discarded clothes and stuck them straight in the washer. And no, I had no idea that he even knew how to work a washing machine. I kind of imagined that a housekeeper would take care of all of that.