the fire raging beyond the wall.
‘Try to pull yourself up,’ he yelled.
He didn’t know if she could hear or, if she could, whether she’d have the strength or the will to obey.
But she was brave, braver than he guessed he’d have been in like circumstances. And she had the resilience of youth. He felt her body move, and he stepped up on to the stool and grabbed her thighs in his hands and thrust upwards with all his might.
There was a moment when he thought she was stuck, and all his strength was gone, and there was nothing to do but subside into the cubicle and pray they suffocated before the flames got to them.
Then suddenly she was through, and the weight was off Joe’s shoulders.
‘Don’t come off the beams!’ he yelled, easing her legs through the hole.
Now it was his turn. He reached up, took a strong grip on the beams on either side of the hole, and hoisted himself through with the fluency of an Olympic gymnast on the parallel bars.
Gold medal? he thought. Piece of cake. All you need’s a fire under your bum.
But there was no time for the National Anthem. With a series of cracks like an old sailing ship taking a broadside, the attic floor burst open at half a dozen points and tongues of flame came shooting through to lick greedily at the ancient beams.
Suddenly Joe was back in his childhood schoolroom. If a nine-inch beam burns at one cubic inch every five seconds, how long will it be before the house collapses in on itself? Answer: doesn’t matter ‘cos you’ll have suffocated long before that.
OK, another problem. (Shoot! I must be dying. My life flashing before me, like they say in the books.) If a middle-aged, out-of-condition, overweight PI picks up an eight-stone woman and tries to run along a narrow burning beam in dense smoke which reduces visibility to nil and breathing to less, how does someone explain to his pet cat, Whitey, why he never came home again?
Answer: not applicable. Man would have to be mad to try it. Man would have to be very stupid indeed not to work out that one life was preferable to two deaths and abandon the woman to her fate.
Such was the verdict of rational thought. But Joe was a slow thinker and he’d been up and running before good old rational thought had even got out of its blocks. The woman was in his arms. He hit the slope of the roof at the point where he’d already removed the slates to make a breathing hole, erupted into the cold Welsh night like a comet, went straight over the edge, crash-landed on the lean-to roof, bounced twice, caught the edge of the water butt with his heels, twisted in the air to give the woman the soft landing, and found himself lying on the blessed ground, looking up at a sky so packed with stars, he felt he was trembling on the brink of eternity.
Earth beneath him, water pouring over him, fire behind him, and the bright clear air above. The four first things. It was right they should be the four last things also. He felt his whole being drawn up towards that starry infinity.
Then this peace was disturbed by the arrival of moving shapes and chattering voices, growing ever louder and calling his name, all trying to get him back to the world of here and now. But his wise old body knew that this world was full of pain and tribulation, so it gave commands.
Joe closed his eyes, and light and noise and thought and feeling all died together.
When he awoke he was still on his back and he still had a naked female body in his arms.
Only now it was Beryl Boddington’s and it smelled of wild strawberries and honey and she was sighing with pleasure, like a cello accompanying a Brahms love song. And, amazingly, he could see this marvellous body, every bit of it, even as his other four senses took their perfect pleasure.
Even their minds seemed twined. He yearned towards her, eager for consummation, and in his head he heard her laugh as she pulled away a little.
‘No need to rush, Joe, boy. Not here, this is for ever, this is the place where you can pick all the flowers along the way, and see them grow again even while you’re drinking in their scent.’
This was beyond anything Rev. Pot had ever promised in his most optimistic sermons. If Joe had known heaven was going to be like this he’d have paid a lot more heed to Aunt Mirabelle and never turned over and gone back to sleep on a Sunday morning. Let word of this get around, and there’d be queues forming at first light outside chapels and churches and mosques and temples and tabernacles and synagogues …
He looked at Beryl’s smiling loving face above his, felt her warm scented breath on his lips. He strained up to press his hungry mouth to hers, got so close that her beloved features blurred. He relaxed and blinked once, twice, and smiled as that lovely, loving, beloved visage slowly came back into focus, till once more he saw clearly those big brown eyes, so full of compassion and concern …
‘Oh shoot!’ said Joe. At least that’s what he tried to say, only his throat was so rough it came out halfway between a cough and a groan.
‘Joe, you’re awake,’ said Merv Golightly.
Joe blinked again, but it was no use. Merv remained. He let his gaze drift slowly round the room. There were half a dozen other beds in it, though no one in them moved. It was either a hospital ward or a mortuary.
He pushed himself up in the bed and groaned again as the movement set off a small symphony of aches and pains. When Merv tried to help him, he shook his head and pointed to a jug of water on the bedside locker. The big man poured him a glassful and he drank it greedily.
Then he tried his voice again and this time got a result, though it sounded like something coming out of an old-fashioned gramophone that needed winding up.
‘Where am I?’ he said,
‘Some place called Caerlindys, think that’s how you say it, but I couldn’t swear. Joe, my friend, it’s really great to have you back. But how come, all these years, and you never told me your big secret?’
‘Eh?’ croaked Joe.
‘Last night, we’d just got you definitely down for dead and long gone, then you come bursting through the roof of that burning building and fly through the air with this rescued lady in your arms, and even twist round so it’s you who hits hard and her who lands soft. Joe, your secret is out. Everyone knows now you’re really Superman!’
‘You’re a real joker, Merv,’ croaked Joe. ‘No wonder folk throw themselves out of your taxi while it’s still moving.’
Merv laughed loud enough to raise a couple of heads off pillows, which was a relief. Then he leaned close and murmured, ‘Seriously, man, though I ain’t putting this in writing, I’m truly proud to know you.’
Embarrassed, Joe downed another half-pint of water and asked, ‘So where’s the others? Where’d you all end up last night?’
Merv put his head on one side and gave a modest shrug.
‘That burning house, just another half-mile on, and there it was. Branddreth College, place where we’re staying. Didn’t I say I had the instinct?’
‘And where’s this place we’re at now, Caerlindys, is it?’
‘Sound like a native, Joe. Twenty miles going on seventy from the college, depending whether you know the lingo. Bad news is the town’s not much bigger than the Hypermart back home, good news is the hospital’s almost as big as the town.’
‘You bring me here, Merv?’
‘No. That cop, never caught his name, conjured up the whole circus, cop cars, ambulance and fire engine turned up. Too late to do any good, mind. House is ashes, which you’d have been too if you hadn’t pulled your Y-fronts over your trousers and done the switch. You’re