Singing the Sadness

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Merv, don’t you think it’s time to look at a map?’

  ‘Been looking at a sodding map for the past half-hour,’ said Merv, like an atheist admitting to prayer. ‘Trouble is, none of the funny names on the sodding map match any of the funny names on these sodding signposts!’

  ‘What you going to do then?’

  ‘Take the middle one till we reach the place mentioned then consult the natives,’ he said. Then, his irrepressible optimism returning, he added, ‘Maybe there’ll be a pub!’

  He climbed back in the coach and called, ‘Not long now, folks.’

  ‘So he knows where we are?’ said Beryl as Joe returned to his seat.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Joe.

  ‘Don’t think so? Joe, isn’t it time you got on that phone of yours and rang someone to ask for directions?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Only you can’t ask for directions less’n you know where you are. Soon as we reach this village we’re heading for, I’ll give it a go.’

  But no village appeared. The coach was now full of anxious and mutinous muttering. Rev. Pot went up the aisle and started talking to Merv. Joe knew it was strictly none of his business, but an accusatory glance from Aunt Mirabelle sent him to join the debate, which was getting so heated that Merv brought the bus to a halt in order to bring both arms to the discussion.

  ‘Well, whose fault is it, then?’ Rev. Pot was demanding. ‘You’re the driver.’

  ‘That’s right, I’m the driver. I just follow directions. You know so much, why don’t you tell me where to go, Reverend?’

  ‘If I wasn’t a man of the cloth, I might just do that, brother,’ thundered Rev. Pot.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joe thought he glimpsed a light moving way to his left. He blinked. Yes, there it was. Looked like a single headlight. On a tractor maybe. Some farmer out working late. Maybe some crops were best gathered at night. Joe was a little vague on matters agricultural.

  Joe turned to the disputants and said, ‘Why don’t we ask that guy?’

  ‘What guy?’

  ‘That guy … where’s he gone?’

  The light had vanished.

  ‘You seeing things now, Joe?’ said Merv sceptically.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’ll go talk to him.’

  He grabbed the flashlight Merv carried under the dash and got out of the coach. It was so dark and alien out there, he felt like he’d just been beamed down from the Enterprise. Hastily he switched on his light. That was better. Still alien but not so dark. There was a gate into the field where he’d seen the light. He unlatched it and stepped into what felt like a bog. Did the Welsh grow rice? He shone the torch down and saw it was a pungent mixture of mud and cow dung.

  ‘Oh shoot,’ he said. But he wasn’t going to retreat. He reasoned all the farmer had done was switch off his light and engine till the coach went on its way. Reason? Maybe he was shy.

  He aimed the beam forward and squinted along it. Nothing but its light reflected from the drifting mist wraiths. Then his straining eyes glimpsed something more solid. A shape. A sort of vehicle shape. He’d been right.

  He began to move forward. As he got nearer he saw that it wasn’t a tractor after all, but one of those farm buggies with the big tyres. But before he could take in any detail, the headlight blossomed again, full in his face, dazzling.

  ‘Hi there,’ he called, shielding his eyes. ‘Sorry to trouble you but we’re a bit lost. Wondered if you could give us some directions.’

  Silence. Then a muffled voice said, ‘Where to?’

  ‘Place called Llanffugiol,’ said Joe. ‘Where the Choir Festival is.’

  More silence.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said the voice.

  The buggy’s engine burst into life and it started moving forward. For a second, Joe thought it was going to go straight over him, then it swung away in a semicircle and bounced off into the mist.

  He raised his flashlight and for a second caught the driver’s back full in its beam. Long narrow body in a black fleecy jacket. Matching narrow head, bald or close-shaven, could have passed for that guy who played the King of Siam in the old musical. Maybe I should’ve tried singing ‘Getting to Know You’, thought Joe.

  Then the mist closed behind him.

  Joe returned to the coach. He tried to clean his shoes on the grass verge, but the smell of the countryside came in with him and he didn’t have any good news to compensate.

  Merv rolled his eyes heavenwards as if the farmer’s response was Joe’s fault, engaged gear noisily and set the coach rolling forward along the narrow road once more.

  Even Rev. Pot seemed to have forgotten his duty of Christian charity.

  ‘Now that’s real helpful, Joe,’ he said sarcastically. ‘So what’s your guess? I mean, just how many miles away do you think we are if folk round here haven’t even heard of the place?’

  ‘Half a mile’s a long way in the country,’ said Joe, his anti-rural prejudices now in full cry. ‘These natives probably never been out of their own village.’

  Rev. Pot gave him a glance which had he been in the exorcism business would have cast Joe back into the outer darkness, no problem.

  Then Merv said, ‘Hang about. Look, that has to be civilization.’

  He was looking ahead. The mist was of the ground-clinging variety which occasionally permitted glimpses of treetops while their bases were hidden at ten paces. Joe saw what had caught Merv’s eye. There was a distinct glow in the sky, the kind of light which could only come from a substantial settlement.

  The road ahead rose steeply and as the coach laboured up it, the mist began to fall away behind and the glow increased. Then they reached the crest and saw its source was much closer than they’d imagined.

  Far from being a substantial settlement, it was a solitary house. And the reason it was casting such light was it was on fire.

  Merv ran the coach through an open gate and came to a halt some thirty yards from the building. Joe got out. Even from this distance he could feel the heat.

  The others crowded round him.

  It wasn’t his charisma that attracted them, it was his phone.

  ‘Better ring for help,’ said Beryl.

  He pulled out the mobile. Someone said, ‘You see that?’ and pointed.

  On the side of a small outbuilding someone had sprayed the words, ENGLISH GO HOME!

  ‘This the welcome they keep in the hillside?’ said Merv.

  Joe stabbed 999.

  ‘Shoot,’ he said. ‘Not getting anything.’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that,’ said Merv. ‘Best service I’ve ever seen.’

  A car had come up behind the bus at speed and a uniformed police sergeant got out and came running to join them. Had a look of that Welsh movie actor who kept on getting married to Liz Taylor, thought Joe. The voice too.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he demanded.

  Merv, never one to miss the chance of sending up a copper, said, ‘Could be a millennium bonfire, got the dates wrong.’

  The cop ignored him. His face expressed a strange mixture of anger and bafflement. Might look like Richard Burton but he was far from word perfect in his role, which was to take charge of the situation, thought Joe. He punched 999 once more.

  Beryl said, ‘Joe, have you forgotten to switch on again?’

  Now the cop found his lines.

  ‘Leave this to me,’ he snapped. ‘And move back, will you? Now!’

  He ran back to his car, presumably to call up help.

  Joe examined his phone. Beryl was right. Again. He smiled sheepishly at her. He didn’t mind being wrong. You got used to it. And it was nice that now he could relax and enjoy the fire without feeling he had to do anything about it.

  Then Beryl screamed, ‘Joe, there’s someone in there!’

  And looking up along the line indicated by her pointing finger, Joe saw the black outline of a human figure against the dark-red glow in one of the upstairs windows.

  Chapter
2

  If Beryl hadn’t prefaced her cry with Joe! he might not have done it.

  And if he’d taken thought, he certainly wouldn’t have done it, not because thought would have brought self-interest into play and there was a presumably fully paid-up public servant in calling distance, but simply because for Joe problem-solving by the cerebral route usually involved a paper and pencil and two pints of Guinness.

  But pausing only to thrust the phone into Beryl’s hand, he’d set off running around the back of the house before he’d had time to work out by reason alone that just because the front of the house was an inferno didn’t mean the back was burning fiercely too.

  It wasn’t. Not yet. At least not upstairs, though the flicker of the flames was clearly visible through the ground-floor windows. Meaning it was pointless going in at that level.

  Against the rear wall stood a lean-to wash house with a sloping roof angling up to a first-floor window. There was a large aluminium water butt under the wash house downspout. With difficulty Joe clambered on it and used it as a step up on to the roof.

  Here he paused. Through the chill night air he could feel draughts of heat drifting from the house. Must be hot as hell in there. He looked down into the water butt. From the black mirror of the water’s surface, cold-eyed stars stared back at him.

  Again, no thought. Just a deep breath, then he crouched down and slid off the roof.

  Spring might be bursting out all over but winter was still lurking here. He shot out like a missile from a nuclear sub and found himself back on top of the lean-to with no recollection of how he’d got there.

  Dripping water from every orifice, he knelt on the slates, looking up at the first-floor window. A taller man could easily have reached the sill by stretching out his arm, but Joe wasn’t a taller man. In fact, he was a good inch shorter than Beryl Boddington, and when she wore her nurse’s cap, he felt a good foot shorter. But uniforms generally had that effect on him.

  He tried to scramble up the roof. It was like being a squirrel in a wheel. The slates started sliding under his knees so that he had to scramble even faster just to stay on the spot. Much more of this and he was going to be back in the water butt. He flung himself forward, caught at the lip of the sill with the tips of his fingers, and got just enough purchase to draw himself up.

  The window was open, which was good. It was also very small, which was bad. For while no man by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature, any man by taking the Great British Breakfast and lunching regularly on cheeseburgers with double chips can add a couple to his girth.

  There was a moment when he thought he was stuck and he tried to reconcile himself to the prospect of having his head toasted crisp while his legs kicked wildly in the chilly air. Far from composing himself, the notion made him struggle so violently, he erupted through the window like a cork from a bottle and found himself lying on a rug in a small but nicely furnished bedroom.

  He felt beneath the rug. The floorboards felt warm but still well this side of combustion. The closed door was not so promising. It felt definitely hot to the touch and he’d seen enough disaster movies to know that opening it could be like throwing a canful of paraffin on to a bonfire.

  But having got so far, he couldn’t just retreat. Could he?

  He looked up for inspiration.

  And found himself looking at a small trap door in the ceiling.

  Fortunately, like most old farmhouses this one had been built for sixteenth-century dwarves, and standing on a chest of drawers elevated him right to the low ceiling.

  The trap was a tight fit. As he pushed up with all his strength, it occurred to him that if the flames had got into the attic via the front bedrooms, this too could produce the can of paraffin effect.

  Then all at once it gave way and he was standing with his head in the roof space, and it wasn’t being burnt off.

  But there was smoke up here. It caught at his throat and made him cough in a manner which would have had Rev. Pot glaring. In the Rev.’s eyes, all ailments which affected the larynx were self-induced and totally undeserving of sympathy.

  He ducked his head back into the bedroom, pulled off his sodden jacket and draped it over his head. Then he took a deep breath of air and dragged himself through the narrow gap into the attic.

  It was unboarded so he had to lie flat across a couple of beams till his eyesight adjusted. Something scuttled over his outstretched arm. Mouse, or maybe a rat, getting the message there was trouble on the way and looking for an exit. He hoped it made it.

  He rose to his feet and tore a couple of slates out of the roof. Air might feed fire but it also fed humans and anyway it was good to take a last look at the starry sky. He edited out last, took a deep breath and started moving forward.

  Lack of height was now an advantage. If he’d been built like Arnie Schwarzenegger he’d have been bent double. On the other hand, he guessed the poor devil trapped in the fire would probably have preferred even a contorted Arnie.

  Where he was moving to he didn’t know. What he needed was a plan. Break through the ceiling below him was an option. He considered it. Probably go up like a Roman Candle as the fire funnelled through the hole, and in any case it only made sense if he had some idea where the trapped man was situated.

  Which, he realized, he might have.

  There was a water tank up ahead. Not very big, looked like the header tank for a shower, and the water in it was bubbling like the shower was switched on. Meaning maybe the trapped man had sought refuge here from the flames.

  He checked the fall of the pipes. Chances were they went straight down into the shower room. He touched the plasterboard around them. Still cool.

  He raised his right foot and stamped. The plasterboard cracked. He stamped again, harder. His left foot slipped off the narrow beam, his whole body hit the floor and he went through the ceiling in an avalanche of dust and plaster. And water.

  He landed soft and noisy. The softness was a human body. The noise was the human whose body it was, shrieking.

  He’d have felt pleased with himself if there’d been time. It was a shower room and the trapped man had sought refuge here. Only it wasn’t a man. It was a young woman. He knew that because she was naked.

  She was in a bad way. She’d probably breathed in too much of the smoke which was gradually filling the cubicle for anything but incoherent shrieks to come out. Her arms were gashed like she’d pushed them through a windowpane, and her face and body were heat-blistered, but worst of all was her left leg which was both burnt and torn. Went through a burning floorboard, he guessed. If she’d headed for the back of the house she might have made it the way he’d come in. Instead she’d headed into the shower, back into the shower most likely, which would explain both why she had no clothes on and why she hadn’t heard any noise as the fire took a hold below.

  Shoot, here he was thinking like a detective when what he should be doing was thinking like big Arnie. The heat in here was growing by the second and it couldn’t be long before the flames came licking through and all that the rapidly diminishing flow of water would do was let them boil before they burnt.

  He said, ‘We’ve got to get out. Can you move at all?’

  Her eyes struggled to focus. They were grey and he could see that her face, even though blistered, was the face of a pretty girl, late teens maybe.

  The eyes had got him now. They registered puzzlement for a moment. Couldn’t blame her. Even if he had been Arnie, she’d still have wondered where the shoot he came from.

  He said, ‘I’ve come down from the attic. We’ve got to get back up there. Are you ready?’

  Stupid question. Her gaze went up to the hole in the ceiling then back to his face. She nodded. He could see that even that movement caused pain. He knew there was worse to come and he guessed she knew it too.

  He stood up and pulled her upright with him. She let out what was a shriek in any language but she wasn’t a deadweight, not quite. She was giving what help she coul
d. He looked up at the hole into the attic. Even with munchkin-level ceilings, this was going to be the impossible side of difficult. What he needed was a ladder. He looked down. Best he could find was a low plastic stool, presumably for Arnie-sized showerers to sit on so they didn’t bang their heads. He propped the woman up against the wall, which was getting hotter by the second. Then he squatted down, positioned the stool, thrust his head between her legs from behind, took her weight on his shoulders and stood upright like a weightlifter doing a lift-and-press.

  He presumed she shrieked some more but he couldn’t hear for the sound of the blood drumming in his ears, or maybe it was 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.