grappling frantically with the clothing rail, which not long ago had come through that same gap without any problem, I start to cough. In the end I give up and unhook my most expensive pieces then hurry into the hall just as an axe splinters a panel of my front door.
‘Oi!’ I open it, coughing, full of indignation because I’m going to have to pay for that. ‘What did you do that for? I was just about to open it!’
‘You could get yourself killed,’ he says. ‘Get out, now!’
So I do.
I find Lucy sitting in the back of an ambulance having her oxygen levels tested. I look at her bitterly. She’s clutching her black towel around her and sobbing beautifully; it’s heartfelt but not overdone. The paramedic tests my oxygen levels too, and we’re both declared fine with the slight disapproval that the medical profession reserves for malingerers. We get out of the ambulance again and I nurse and juggle my dresses like heavy babies.
It’s weird – when you’re wearing them the clothes are so light you never notice the weight. But carry a few of them in your arms or in a suitcase and they take on a surprising mass density.
A car pulls up and a Camden New Journal photographer gets out with a reporter. And of course when they see Lucy, their jaded expressions totally disappear, because this is a story that writes itself: Lucy in her towel and me in my Lauren Bacall trench coat, scarlet lipstick freshly applied, trying to save my livelihood.
Lucy tells them breathlessly how I dashed into the burning building to save my frocks and in return, appalled by my own recklessness, I tell them how grateful I am that Lucy came to alert me. Then we pose against the backdrop of the fire engine and then against the railings. The photographer vapes so as to get the full smoke effect in the shot and then they reluctantly drive away again in a hurry as a traffic warden approaches.
The paramedics leave and after a while the fire officers take Lucy to one side to talk to her. I can’t hear the conversation, but the end result is that Lucy and I can go back into our flats, so I head back down the steps, breathing in the damp and smoky air.
Lucy comes after me and taps my shoulder. ‘Fern, it’s all my fault, you know,’ she says in a small voice.
I look up at her over my armful of clothes. ‘Is it? What do you mean?’
She says miserably, ‘You know I’ve got this cold?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘I was just trying to ease my nasal congestion,’ she says as if that explains everything.
I mull it over. ‘And?’
‘And – the thing is, when I poured eucalyptus oil on the coals of the sauna it ignited in a ball of flame. Apparently, that’s what happens.’ She shrugs in amazement. ‘Who knew?’
‘Who knew?’ I stare up at her in disbelief. ‘Oil’s a fuel, isn’t it?’ I fleetingly marvel at the fact she has a sauna in her flat.
Back inside, my lounge is ruined, dark with soot, the floor is wet, and it smells of damp and wood smoke.
I rush my rescued clothes through to my bedroom, because that room is still mercifully fresh, then I go back into the lounge, open the windows. With my heart breaking, I inspect the clothing rails for damage. It’s not good.
Tears fill my eyes.
The gorgeous clothes that I’ve so carefully collected are ruined.
The gelatine sequins on my 1920s flapper dresses have dissolved. The colours on my tea dresses have run; my silk dresses are watermarked. Hundreds of pounds worth of stock, ruined. Even worse, I haven’t got around to renewing the contents insurance. I come to the sickening realisation that my parents are right. I can’t be trusted.
Ironically, my rejects on the rails under the pavement are untouched by smoke and water; these are the clothes with perspiration stains under the arms, torn hems, missing beadwork. The wear and tear that makes the difference between vintage and jumble.
I go back into the lounge and stare around me, devastated.
Wood smoke is a smell you can’t get enough of in the autumn. It’s the smell of freedom. It’s so romantic that you feel you should bottle it.
When it’s your home, the novelty quickly wears off. It’s so acrid that it clogs my throat. I get out the Febreze and spray it liberally, then I light a Jo Malone candle and call Mick for sympathy.
Mick is concerned and also intensely practical, and that’s one of the things I like about him. He listens to my tale of woe and then he asks, in his warm, deep voice, ‘Is the electricity still on?’
I switch on the light cautiously with my elbow. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. You want to hire a dehumidifier to dry the place out,’ he suggests. ‘Make sure you wipe down the walls to get rid of the soot and take the clothes to the dry cleaners so that you can decide afterwards what’s salvageable.’
I hold the phone tight against my face and look around at the ruined room, which has become a travesty of itself. ‘Okay,’ I say with a wobble in my voice.
‘Fern,’ he says gently, ‘you’re all right. That’s the main thing.’
I nod, even though he can’t see me.
‘Do you want to stay at my place? My neighbour has a key.’
For a moment, escaping to his house in Harpenden seems a wonderful option. But I need to be here to get things sorted. ‘When are you coming home?’ I ask.
His voice moves away from the mouthpiece. ‘When are we back, mate? The tenth?’ He says in my ear, ‘The tenth. Not long.’
‘It’s two weeks too long for me. I miss you,’ I say, desperately hoping he’ll tell me he’ll come back earlier.
He hasn’t seen this needy side of me before. ‘Yeah,’ is his hesitant reply.
After the call I go into the bathroom and lock myself away to cry in private, devastated about my ruined dresses. I’m feeling lost and totally alone.
As I sit on the loo, absorbing my tears with tissues, I hear an apologetic cough above my head and glance up. Argh! I pat my heart.
‘Fern?’ Lucy’s looking down at me through the hole that has burnt through her floor and my ceiling.
‘What?’ I say tearfully.
‘About this hole,’ she says. ‘Look, I’m going to put a sheepskin rug over it, okay?’
That’s the problem with actors. It’s all about the illusion. ‘Okay. Now, could you just please leave me be,’ I plead bleakly.
‘Sorry,’ she says and drags the rug into place. The dust captures the light as it floats lazily down.
Meeting Fern Banks on our secret assignation in Carluccio’s was the riskiest, most exciting thing that I’ve done in years. Life was thrilling again! The secrecy! The lies I had to tell Enid!
And the shame of telling them!
My married life is comfortable and to a lot of people that would be an enviable state of affairs, because who doesn’t long for comfort, the comfort of the familiar? The older I get, the more the sharp edges rub off my emotions. I’ve got used to love and a kiss before bedtime, a shorthand for intimacy, a desultory declaration of attachment. I know how to deal with the embarrassment of slicing a shot in a round of golf, of believing the World Wide Web traps people like flies, of watching crime dramas that show people having sex.
Enid used to spare us that by turning the TV off at that sort of thing. She held the remote at the ready, like a gunslinger in the Wild West, permanently prepared to shoot, but I’m