As Far as You Can Go

by Julian Mitchell

  “Washburn?” he said. “Is that right at the top?”

  “Yes,” said Harold. “They called me a quarter of an hour ago and asked me to come and help them take away their things. They don’t have a car of their own.”

  “Listen, buddy,” said the lieutenant, “there’s a major fire coming over these hills. You want to risk your neck?”

  “Yes,” said Harold.

  “O.K.,” said the lieutenant. He scribbled something on a piece of yellow paper. “Give this to anyone who stops you. Be down here again in twenty minutes. Otherwise you’ll fry. Unless the wind changes.”

  “Thanks,” said Harold.

  The block was moved aside and he went through. He drove as fast as possible up the sharp curves. Twice he was stopped by firemen, but allowed to go on when he showed the yellow paper. As he came out of the trees that surrounded a large estate at the bottom of the canyon, he could see an ugly pall of smoke hanging over the hills. It was drifting quite fast towards the city, and seemed to be getting thicker every time he glanced up at it. A fire-truck with siren wailing passed him on its way down. He drove even faster.

  A hundred yards from the Washburns’ he was stopped again, this time by a phalanx of fire-trucks, press cars and police wagons. He parked the car as close to the edge of the road as possible, jumped out and ran up to the house. There were a large number of men about, wearing fire-fighting equipment and what looked like gas-masks. Above the house, at the turning-circle, he could see more trucks and men.

  He saw Diane standing at the door of the house, and when she recognized him she waved and shouted “Thank God” and disappeared back into the house.

  He ran after her. There was a pile of stuff in the hall, suitcases, pieces of portable furniture, coats, clothes. Mrs Wash burn was sitting on a sofa in the drawing-room, gazing out of the long window. Heavy clouds of smoke obscured the view. He could hardly see across the canyon.

  Mrs Washburn looked up as he came down the stairs.

  “Good morning, Mr Barlow,” she said. “Now you can see one of our famous Los Angeles brush-fires.” She seemed to be enjoying herself. Her hand was busy twisting the rope of pearls at her neck, and she seemed flushed and excited.

  “Don’t just sit there, Grandma,” said Diane. “We’ve got to get out of here. Where did you put the car, Harold?”

  “It’s a hundred yards down the road. I couldn’t get any farther. Too many fire-trucks.”

  “Now don’t you children start getting all panicky,” said Mrs Washburn. “This here fire isn’t going to harm us.”

  “Grandma, you come with us,” said Diane. “Get up off there. You can carry something, can’t you?”

  “All this fuss,” said Mrs Washburn. But she got up and began to climb the stairs up to the hall.

  Harold and Diane loaded themselves with as much as they could carry, and staggered down the road towards the car. As they reached it, a fire-officer, his face black with smuts, his eyebrows gone, came up to them and shouted, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We’re getting the hell out,” said Diane.

  “You’d better hurry,” said the officer, more calmly. “We can’t stop the fire the other side of the crest. We’re going to try and hold it along this road. Hope the wind’ll blow over it, not under it. It’s going about twenty miles an hour now.”

  “Jesus,” said Diane. “How long does that give us?”

  “About minus ten minutes,” said the man. Then he turned away and began to shout at a fireman.

  He was right. The fire-trucks were leaving the turning-circle and beginning to come down the road.

  As they went back for more luggage, Harold and Diane met Mrs Washburn in the road, carrying nothing but a small valise and a sunshade.

  “It won’t reach us,” she said as they passed her. “What do you think we pay taxes for?”

  While they were loading themselves for the second time, a fireman ran into the house and said, “All out of here! You’ve got three minutes!” Then he ran out again.

  “You should have been here five minutes sooner,” said Diane between her teeth and began to run down the road. Harold followed as fast as he could. He wasn’t used to running, and the steepness of the hill was beginning to make his legs ache. The smoke was getting thicker every moment, too, and his eyes were beginning to stream, and he coughed as he stumbled and ran.

  “That’s it for you folks,” said the fire-officer.

  Mrs Washburn was sitting in the back of the car as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

  “Git,” said the fire-officer.

  “Come on, children,” said Mrs Washburn. “Didn’t you hear what the man said?”

  Harold turned to look once more up at the house. There was a loud roaring noise, and he saw a sudden flare of flames, terrifyingly tall, beyond the turning-circle.

  “The miniature!” he shouted, turning back to the car. “Did you bring the miniature?”

  “No,” said Mrs Washburn. “It’s on the wall where I left it. If you hadn’t made me mad it would be in my jewel-case now, where it belongs.”

  Diane turned white. “No, Harold,” she said.

  But he had begun to run again, each step more painful, the noise now deafening, the flames sweeping down the slope to the turning-circle, moving faster than he was running. A fireman running down the hill away from the fire tried to stop him, but Harold threw him aside and went on.

  “You’ll be killed,” yelled the fireman.

  I won’t, thought Harold, panting, blind with smoke, I won’t be killed, I’ll get that bloody miniature if it’s the last thing I do, I’ve got to get it, I’ve got to get the miniature.

  It was becoming almost intolerably hot. He reached the house and ran in. It was surprisingly cool inside. The air-conditioning must still have been functioning.

  He ran down the stairs and to the miniature, tearing it off the nail, turning, all in one motion, and was up the stairs and running down the hill again, the miniature clasped in his hand, running easier now, the heat pressing against his back like a helping hand, the roar in his ears urging him on. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder. He could hardly see, anyway, tears streaming down his face, the smoke rolling down beside him, like a large dog whose friendliness was suspect, jumping and growling.

  When he reached the car he saw Diane and her grandmother standing in the road, watching him.

  “Get in the car!” he shouted as he stumbled towards them. “Get in! We haven’t a moment to lose.”

  Mrs Washburn did not move. She stretched out her hand and said, “You give that to me, young man.”

  For a moment Harold couldn’t think what she was talking about. Then he knew, and knew, too, that he wasn’t going to give it to her. He had surrendered it once, meekly enough. Now it was his, he had rescued it, it was his.

  “No, Mrs Washburn,” he said, standing out of her reach. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

  A fireman was waving furiously at them from a hundred yards farther down the road. A last fire-truck swept past, a man shouting at them from the cab. They were alone at the head of the canyon.

  “Give it to her, Harold,” said Diane. She was white-faced, but seemed unable to move, frozen.

  There was a strange stillness about them, a pocket of silence surrounded by violence and furious sound. Behind him, Harold could feel the fire, could hear it advancing.

  “Get in the car,” he said.

  “Give that to me,” said Mrs Washburn.

  “Give it to her!” screamed Diane, suddenly, colour flooding her face. “Give it to her, Harold! It’s hers!”

  “No,” he said. He felt he had all the time in the world, with the fire breathing against his back, all the time he needed, and would ever need. He smiled and said, “Let’s go, shall we, everyone?”

  He moved towards the car, and at once the immobility of the others was broken. Diane rushed towards him, her hands seeming to beat through the smoke to reach him. Mrs Washburn to
ok a single step forward and made a grab at him. She slipped as she grabbed, and he watched her fall as though he was seeing it in slow motion, the hands flailing for balance, the legs buckling, the body hitting the concrete of the road.

  Diane stopped in mid-stride.

  Mrs Washburn sat up and tried to get to her feet.

  “I can’t move,” she said.

  Suddenly there was no time left at all, not a moment of the vast stretches of time he had possessed a moment earlier.

  Harold slipped the miniature into his pocket and bent down to her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said between closed teeth. She was in obvious pain, but scorn and rage burned in her eyes.

  “Open the door of the car,” he said to Diane. “Quickly. Now help me lift her.”

  The fire was deafeningly loud now, and he glanced up the road, seeing flames reaching up and up, smoke boiling, orange and red and yellow and black. And the heat struck him in the face.

  They struggled with the old woman, carrying her the few yards to the car, sweating and slipping under her weight. The fire roared nearer. Mrs Washburn had turned very white, but her eyes were open, and she tried to bite Harold’s arm.

  She was bigger than he had imagined, and after pushing and shoving for several intolerable seconds he looked at Diane and said, “We’ll never do it.”

  “We’ve got to.”

  “I’ll carry her down,” said Harold. “I can make it. You take the car. But hurry.”

  “You’ll kill her,” she said.

  They stared at each other across the face of the old woman.

  “You tried to kill her,” said Diane.

  “Do what I say,” said Harold. Diane was obviously hysterical. He felt nothing for her at all now. She must do what he said, that was all.

  “Take the car,” he said. “I’ll manage her.”

  He tried to hoist the old woman on to his shoulder, but she was dead weight, and suddenly he found his strength had gone. He took a different grip on her, feeling fat and gristle beneath the dress, his fingers slipping. Then, carrying her like a baby, he began to run. The fire was tapping at his shoulder-blades, it seemed, but that was not where he felt the pain. It was like someone trying to arrest him, but he could not turn. There was an ache like a lump of molten steel in his chest, steel that was bubbling and spilling out of his lungs and into his throat so that he could hardly breathe.

  He was aware of something passing him, and he scarcely looked at it, fearing it was the fire, lapping him, but it was the car and Diane, and as the blood began to dim his sight, he felt only an irrelevant satisfaction that she would be safe, that had nothing to do with loving her, that was the satisfaction merely of having an order obeyed. But he had no time to examine his feelings, stumbling and staggering down the hill. The old woman’s face was against his shoulder. Her eyes were open, hate blazing from their blackness, her mouth clamped shut. He could not look at her eyes. Trying to run, he could only manage an agonizingly slow trot, the slope of the hill carrying him faster than the strength of his legs. She was unbearably heavy, and he slipped and nearly dropped her, but staggered upright again, feeling the fire suddenly hotter on his spine. He could see nothing, hear nothing now, just feel the fire, feel the pain on his back that had vanished a few moments before. He didn’t know where he was running, how far he had to run, he just ran, staggered, slipped, down the hill, keeping on the road by some instinct, the fire pressing against his back, his breath wrenched from him at each step, his lungs choking with smoke, feeling the hot steel dribbling from his mouth, not caring or thinking about anything in the world, the top of his head lighter than air, trying to break through his skull, aware only that he had to run, that he had to carry the old woman out of the fire and smoke and white heat that lay behind.

  Then, as his eyes began to see nothing but a blazing whiteness of stars, as his legs began to sink and he felt he was running on his knee-caps, a voice said “You made it” and he fell, slipping one more time, stumbling one more time, trying to wrench his body upright, failing, falling on the road, the old woman tumbling out of his arms like a bundle of washing, his head hitting the concrete, grateful for it, as though it was a pillow, a soft white pillow, and now he could stop running, could sleep, sleep, sleep for ever.

  Someone hauled him to his feet, but he could still see only the blazing whiteness, a hot mist of stars. Voices were shouting. Someone pushed something into his face. He came to, thrusting off the oxygen mask, seeing again, but not quite right, everything bleared and difficult, his head aching as though someone had hit him with an iron bar.

  He was among fire-trucks. Hoses were soaking one side of the road. Men were bending over Mrs Washburn. She was trying to push them away. There was no sign of Diane and the car.

  “You’re lucky you’re alive,” said the fire-officer.

  “Lucky?” said Harold. “I think I’m going to die.”

  “I told you to come back down here, didn’t I? What in Christ did you think you were doing?”

  “There was something I had to fetch.”

  “You were risking men’s lives beside your own,” said the officer. “I could book you for that.”

  “Do what you like,” said Harold. He felt the miniature in his pocket, took it out, looked at it. It was undamaged.

  “Well, your house has had it,” said the officer.

  Harold looked up the road. The flames had not yet set the house alight, but they were all round it, on the roof, in the trees. It didn’t seem anything to worry about.

  “What happened to the girl in the car?” he said.

  “She went on down to the bottom.”

  “Is the old woman all right?”

  “I don’t know,” said the officer. “That’s your problem, not mine. Now will you get out of here?”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” said Harold. “Do you think you can stop it now?”

  “It looks kind of interesting,” said the officer. “If the wind keeps blowing over the edge and not down the canyon, then we’ll be able to hold it, I guess. It looks O.K. now. So long as the wind doesn’t change we should be able to hold it.”

  “Well, good luck,” said Harold.

  “Thanks a lot,” said the officer. “Now git, will you?”

  Harold went over to Mrs Washburn. There was an ambulance standing by the edge of the road, and they were putting her on a stretcher.

  “Will she be all right?” he asked.

  “Should be,” said the driver. “She’s kind of old, though. It’s a broken hip, I reckon, but at her age you can get complications. How old is she?”

  “Eighty-one,” said Harold.

  “Christ. I put her at about seventy. She’s not bad for her age, is she?”

  “She’s bad for any age,” said Harold. “Is she conscious?”

  “She’s conscious all right,” said the driver. “She scratched that stretcher guy right across the face. She’s like a wildcat. I guess they’ve given her some sedation.”

  “What hospital will you take her to?”

  “Do you want to come along?”

  “Would you take me to the end of the canyon? There’s her granddaughter around here somewhere.”

  “O.K. You want to get in the back? You don’t look too good yourself.”

  “I’ll come in front, if I may. It might start the old lady off again if she sees me.”

  “O.K. Are you feeling all right?”

  “No. But I’m O.K. for now.”

  “Is she some relation of yours?”

  “No, no relation,” said Harold. “Do you think she’ll die?”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said the driver. “Don’t you talk like that. You’re a kind of hero, I guess, you saved her life. You’re all excited. Let me get you a shot of something.”

  “I could do with a Scotch,” said Harold.

  The driver rummaged in a small box beside his seat. The doors of the ambulance were shut, and one of the stretcher men came to the front and said,
“Let’s go, Charlie.”

  “Right,” said the driver. “Here, you, what’s your name? Come here a minute.”

  Harold went over to him. The driver produced a hypodermic and said “Roll up your sleeve.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “C’mon, this won’t hurt you. Just calm you down a little. Roll up your sleeve.”

  Harold rolled up his sleeve and accepted the shot. It didn’t seem to make any difference to his headache or to his general feelings: his body felt as though it had been through a cement-mixer.

  “What are you guys waiting for?” said the fire-officer coming over to the ambulance. “Why don’t you get out of here and let us fight this fire, huh?”

  “We’re going,” said the driver. “Get in, you.”

  Harold got in. The ambulance drove slowly down the hill. When they reached the police-block at the bottom, Harold said, “I’ll get out here, please.”

  “No, you won’t,” said the driver.

  “But I’ve got to find the old lady’s granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, so you do. I’ll wait for you.”

  Diane was standing by the car. When she saw Harold she ran towards him, and said, “Is she all right?”

  “Yes. A broken hip, they suspect. What are you going to do? The house is going to be a total loss, I’m afraid.”

  “The house?” she said. She looked at him as though he was a lunatic. “Grandma,” she said, explaining as though he was a child. “Is she all right? Where are they taking her?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go and find out.”

  The ambulance driver asked Diane if she was next-of-kin.

  “That’s right,” said Diane. “Is she O.K.?”

  “Sure, she’s O.K.” He told her the name of the hospital.

  “Thanks,” said Harold. “Thanks for everything. Diane, would you like to go with her, in the ambulance? I’ll take the stuff over to your uncle’s in the car.”

  “No, you won’t,” said the driver, “not after what I gave you. You’ll come to the hospital, too. You’re suffering from shock.”

  “Rubbish,” said Harold. His headache was getting worse, but he felt very light-headed, as though the ache was reverberating in a hollow space. “She must have shock, too,” he said, indicating Diane. She didn’t look at all well.