There is no smoke without fire. And there is always more smoke than fire. I know that now, having burned down most of my flat.
It was long ago but I lived then very much as I do now: talking on the phone, washing my hair, writing an article about whether feminists should shave or some such, cooking fish fingers under the grill. The modern word for this is “multitasking” and there are less polite words, I am sure.
My children were at school. My friend on the phone was talking, of all things, about the stupid fire drills she was having to do at work, when I smelled something. The fish fingers were on fire. Then the whole grill was on fire. I tried to smother it. I knew not to put water on fat. Flames were leaping up; then, in a millisecond, that thing happened. Fire goes from being something you think you can control to something you know you can’t. The smoke becomes almost solid.
Still in a dressing gown, with a towel on my head, I started choking but rushed out and banged on Ray’s door. Ray was the caretaker who lived next door, who was undisturbed by the explosions I could now hear.
“Get the fire extinguishers,” I screamed. We did.
It was a council flat. The extinguishers were all empty.
“Don’t worry,” said Ray, rushing into my bedroom and picking up my duvet. He then manfully ran into the heat and threw it in, making a bad situation worse.
By now, a crowd had gathered outside. “Well, that one’s gone, hasn’t it?” said an old lady gleefully.
“Who lived there?” asked a bystander.
“Me,” I said sobbing.
I was thinking, for some reason, about the hand-painted duvet cover my friend had made.
When the firemen came, they crawled in under the smoke to smash out any windows that hadn’t blown.
“Have you got any vodka, love?” said one of them. “Go have one.”
Ray gave me a drink. The smoke was in my hair. “No one is hurt,” he kept saying.
Everything was black. Everything was gone. The fridge and washing machine had melted into shapes from a Dalí painting.
“Was it my fault?” I kept asking.
“Second-hand cooker, Miss?”
Well, of course it was. Everything I owned was.
“Electrics.”
Did he say that to me to make me feel better?
All I took was some lipstick to put on my face, which was now a smear of ash and tears.
My children and I were now homeless. I was given a leaflet about fire risks in the home.
Even now in restaurants when candles are too close, I feel the dread and move them away. Waiters ask, “Is everything all right?”
Once you know about fire, it never is.
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