"Jack of all trades, that's me. If I can't be of assistance you'll excuse me if I carry on."
Jack was aiming the nozzle at the door when the old man limped into the shop. He stared at the comedy shelves, and Jack assumed he'd recognised an old favourite until he spoke. "This isn't right."
"We've only been open a couple of years. It wasn't anything for a while."
The old man scowled at the top of the door, where the faintest trace of the house number could be distinguished when the sunlight caught it, which wasn't now. He rubbed his eyes and turned back to the shelves as though he expected them to have vanished, then he confronted Jack. "You shouldn't be here."
It would be wisest to turn off the blow lamp and usher him out of the shop, and in a moment Jack would, but first he tried a pleasantry: "If you're offering to change my life..."
The old man staggered to face the door. The skin beneath his eyes was twitching, and Jack had the disconcerting impression that he was trying to perform an inverted blink. His fascination with the spectacle was one reason why he didn't react at once when his unwanted visitor lurched towards him; in any case, he couldn't imagine that the old man intended anything other than to leave the shop.
He saw the old man grab the edge of the door and heave at it. He meant to look for a number on the inside, Jack thought in a paralysis of disbelief. It didn't matter, the door was wedged open. Then the old man's weight dragged it free of the pound coin, and the door swung towards Jack, who overbalanced backwards, taking the nozzle and its flame with him.
He managed not to sprawl on his back. His buttocks struck the floorboards. For an agonising moment his legs stayed folded in a kneeling position while his heels tried to gain some purchase on the floor, then his left foot shot out, propelled by a cramp. He could feel the heat of the bubbling paint through his sock.
Either the old man thought Jack intended to kick the door at him or he was trying to push himself away from the jet of flame, which Jack was holding vertical in front of his face, by using the door as a support. The blistered wood slammed against the side of Jack's foot, scattering hot flakes over his sock. It felt as though a needle had been driven through his ankle into the bone, and he lost his grip on the nozzle of the blow lamp
In a moment he regained it almost. More than an inch of it had slipped through his grasp. As he grabbed the metal just short of the flame, pain blazed through his fingers. He was certain that his skin was about to adhere to the tube. "Mind out!" he shouted, his voice leaping more than an octave higher on the second word as though preparing to scream.
The old man seemed not to hear him. He was still leaning the door against Jack's foot, which was twisted too awkwardly to move. All Jack could do was shove his other foot against the door and kick. The old man reeled backwards, the door crashed into the wall beside the shelves, and Jack's impetus flung him forwards. The roaring nozzle flew out of his hand and fell beside the door, pointing straight at the old man's toes.
Their owner appeared to be determined not to notice. He was glaring in outrage at Jack, who saw the heavy toecap of the old man's left shoe begin to smoulder. He had a sense of being forced to participate in a slapstick comedy which was advancing frame by excruciating frame. He seized the edge of the door with his smarting fingers and heaving himself to his feet, put his free hand on the old man's chest and pushed him backwards as gently as seemed safe. He was trying to produce a reassuring smile, but it felt as though he was baring his teeth at him. All this was no quicker than turning off the blow lamp would have been, he realised as he noticed what he'd done inadvertently. In levering himself to his feet he'd trapped the nozzle of the blow lamp under the corner of the door, directing the flame at the plastic cases he'd taken off the shelves.
He saw Alfred Hitchcock's face stir on the front of the foremost box as if the photograph was coming to life as if the tiny figure was struggling to squirm out of the path of the heat. He stooped to the control of the blow lamp reminding himself that he was only seeing a distortion caused by the movement of air. Then Hitchcock's face turned black and the case burst into flames.
Jack lunged at the control and twisted it so hard he felt as if he was scraping skin off his fingers. The middle of the blazing case swelled, and the top half bowed backwards to share its fire with the next box. Silence plugged Jack's ears as the flame of the blow lamp died. He saw a third box lean forwards to offer itself as fuel, then a fourth. He had only to use some of the boxes which hadn't caught fire to push those which had into the street. But as Jack made for the cases the old man stepped in front of him and trampled on the Hitchcock box.
He was trying to put out the fire, but the half-melted box adhered to the sole of his shoe. As flames surrounded the shoe he stamped harder, then he clutched at the nearest support and tried to shake off the burning plastic. He clutched at a shelf above the rest of the fire, and the shelf gave way. Several dozen cassette boxes clattered to the floor, some sprawling open like hollow books. One, with an accuracy that seemed positively vindictive, landed upside down over the flames and caught fire at once.
The old man had stumbled to the counter and was shaking his foot as if he was trying to dislodge the shoe. His trouser cuff had begun to smoke. Jack felt threatened by a fit of wild mirth. He dashed to the old man, who let go of the counter and brandished his fists. "Get it off," Jack shouted. "Untie the laces."
Perhaps the old man had been deafened by the blow lamp He waved his fists at Jack and continued to waggle his foot until Jack made a grab at it, and then he aimed a kick at him with it. The sole dripped flaming plastic. Jack seized the scrawny ankle to hold the foot still while he fumbled with the smouldering laces. He tugged at them and thought he had succeeded only in pulling the knot tighter. Then the bow vanished, and he dug the fingers of both hands inside the shoe. Twisting it off the old man's foot, he shied it out of the door.
"My shoe," the old man wailed, "the shoes my wife bought me," and brought the side of his fist down on Jack's head.
Jack wouldn't have believed someone of that age and physique could have retained such strength. An ache which felt wider than his scalp spread through his cranium in seconds. The room slewed around him, the smell of burning plastic flooded into his sinuses. Then the glow which flickered at the edge of his vision grew brighter, and he heard crackling. The flames had reached the lowest shelf.
He staggered upright, grabbing the old man's wrists to protect himself and to lead him out of the shop, but the old man backed against the counter. "Come out," Jack yelled in his ear. "The place is on fire."
"Whose fault is that? Where's my anniversary present, you thief?"
"In the road. Come and get it before a car does," Jack shouted, just as he saw two small boys kicking the shoe downhill.
The flames had raced along the underside of the shelf and were sprouting upwards, snatching at the contents of the shelf. A video case sprang open and was immediately ablaze. "That was the last present my wife gave me," the old man cried. "You threw it, you bring it back before I move an inch."
Jack seized him by the shoulders, dragged him away from the counter, got behind him and shoved him, hopping on his one shoe, towards the door. The next shelf up began to smoke as they came abreast of it, and the old man screamed "He's trying to burn me alive." The idea seemed to make him perversely determined not to be moved, but a final push sent him hopping out of the shop.
He caught hold of a lamppost and stared about. "You said I'd see my shoe. Where's my shoe?"
The boys had kicked it as far as the traffic lights. Apparently the crossroads were the goal, because the boy in possession of the shoe sent it past his friend into the middle of the junction. Seconds later a double-decker bus ran over it, and at the same moment the lowest shelf in Fine Films collapsed, feeding itself and its contents to the pile of flames. "Damn your wretched shoe," Jack cried. "My business is on fire."
"With my shoe in it," the old man said, and launched himself at the shop.
Jack bloc
ked the doorway and gave him a shove towards the lamppost. He wasn't going to be able to do anything about the fire, he thought in a fever of disbelief, because he would be fully occupied in keeping the old man safe while he hopped back and forth like a demented actor auditioning for the role of a one-legged pirate. "Fire," he shouted, praying there was someone within earshot.
"Thief," the old man responded at once, even louder.
"Fire." Repeating it once used up all Jack's breath, and the old man yelled "Thief while Jack drew another. At first he seemed content to respond antiphonally, then he gauged Jack's rhythm and set about shouting him down no great task, since Jack's voice was succumbing to the effects of his cold. Jack shoved him towards the lamppost again and raised a fist to ward him off, at which moment the front door of the house opposite Fine Films opened and a woman in a quilted housecoat hurried across the road. "What's the trouble?" she called in a teacher's schoolyard voice.
Jack saw-her before the old man did. "My shop's on fire. This gentleman's confused. Would you mind looking after him while I call the fire brigade?" he managed to say, and dashed into the shop.
The flames inside the doorway were leaping for the ceiling. The lowest remaining shelf was a mass of flames and writhing plastic, and smoke was boiling from behind almost the entire length of the shelf above. The floorboards around the heart of the fire had turned black, and the video boxes scattered around it were starting to buckle; he had the momentary impression that they were about to gather themselves caterpillar-like and go hunching into the flames. He kicked them towards the opposite wall and ran to the counter, almost falling over the shelf which the old man had pulled down. He tried to wave away the stench of burning plastic as he dialled 999. His eyes were streaming, his head throbbed with the stink and with the thump the old man had given him, his sinuses felt as though they were filling with smoke. He might have asked to use the woman's phone if she had one, but at least he was in a better position to keep the old man out of the shop. The phone at the other end rang twice, then twice, then twice again, and then an operator said "Fire&mdash"
"Yes," Jack said, and felt a sneeze growing imminent as a bomb at the end of a lit fuse. "Fire."
The operator had been saying police or ambulance?" and Jack wasn't sure if she had understood him. "Fire," he repeated, trying not to breathe for fear of sneezing.
"Connecting you now," she said in a tone which sounded to him exactly like a nurse reassuring a patient who hadn't been told the worst. The lowest remaining shelf had started to warp above the heart of the fire, while several cases on the next shelf up were popping and sputtering. He felt as if both his sneeze and the shop were about to explode. Then a man's voice said "What is the address of the fire?"
"Where it lives, you mean?" Jack heard himself say, but said "Here. My shop. Fine Films in Rowson Street."
"What is the name of the nearest main road?"
"I've just told you, Rowson Street," Jack said, and sneezed enormously. The sneeze seemed to let more of the harsh stink of plastic into his head. "Udless you bean Vigdoria Road," he spluttered. "Id's off Vigdoria Road."
"What district?"
The questions were a ritual, Jack told himself, designed to obtain all the necessary information in the shortest possible time. "Dew Bridod," he pronounced as distinctly as he could.
"What is on fire?"
"Videos. Fide Filbs," Jack said, and tried to clarify. "By shob."
"Thank you. We're on our way," the fireman assured him, and left him with a click.
Smoke as well as flame was pouring up from the shelves to mass beneath the ceiling. Was it poisonous? Surely Jack's unsteadiness was only an after-effect of his having been thumped on the head, and he would still be able to rescue at least some of the videocassettes except that he could see the old man and the woman from across the road talking animatedly outside the shop, and he was afraid she mightn't be capable of dissuading the old man from attempting another incursion. He dialled again and spat towards the fire to clear his diction. "Julia. You're home, thank God. Can you come over quick as you can? Emergency."
"I'm on my way," she said, and he slammed the receiver into place and lunged behind the counter to take hold of an armful of cassettes.
He'd become expert at this manoeuvre during his years of working at the public library. He would pick up several dozen books by pressing his hands against the covers at either end and lifting a rank of books nearly as wide as his arms could stretch, turn them from horizontal to vertical and support them with one hand while his chin rested on the top volume; that way he could use his free hand to file the books as he went from shelf to shelf. Now he stretched his arms wide and gripping the cassettes at either end of the shelf of comedies with his fingers, lifted the contents of the shelf towards him, turned them vertical, piled them against his chest, swung towards the door.
He was carrying more than forty cassettes. He could do it if he had to, he'd only to remember not to press too hard with his chin and with the hand beneath the stack in case that caused the middle of the stack to bulge. He would have used his free hand to hold it against his chest, except that the shop door appeared to be creeping shut as a wind from the bay fanned the fire. Then flames raced upwards behind the topmost shelf and spilled over the ceiling above Jack's head, and he was sure they were about to fall on him. He flung himself at the door, his free hand reaching to grab it before it could close, and six or more cassettes sprang sideways out of the pile he was carrying and smashed into the wall.
The rest of the stack began to topple forwards, and Jack felt himself following them. The fugitive cassettes fell on the already warped shelf, which instantly gave way. There was a roar of burning wood and celluloid and plastic, and a mass of flames which dwarfed Jack sprang at him. But he was past the door with most of the pile of cassettes. He stumbled across the pavement and stacked them against the lamppost, then he used the concrete pole to haul himself upright and peered indistinctly at the shop.
The poster beside the door was peeling away from the window, and he saw Stan's and Ollie's faces shrivel. The nozzle of the blow lamp was still trapped of course he had only seen the air wavering, not the door and what would happen if the flames reached the tank of gas? "Get away from the entrance," he shouted, and dashing more or less accurately at the door, bruised his shoulder against it. The door faltered backwards, releasing the nozzle. He dragged the blow lamp out of the shop, seized the door by its letter-slot and banged it shut in the hope of suffocating the fire somewhat, staggered to the back of the van and unlocked the doors, heaved the blow lamp inside and loaded one of the empty cartons with the cassettes he'd rescued, sat on the edge of the floor of the van and held onto it with both hands to keep himself upright. He felt exhausted and slightly delirious, but he'd achieved all he could. At least, he thought he could rest, until he noticed where the woman and the old man were now. "Stay away from the window," he almost screamed.
"Anything else you'd like us to do?" the woman said. Neither of them seemed in a hurry to move.
"It might shatter," Jack told her and stood up unsteadily to urge them both away. He'd taken a step and was having to support himself against the lamppost when a not altogether new voice said "What don't you want them to see through your window?"
The man with the duffel cowl on his head had returned. The old man turned to him, sensing someone else with doubts about Jack. "He's a maniac," he cried. "He tried to set fire to me to get me out of his shop."
"Destroying evidence," the cowled man said triumphantly, and addressed the woman. "Is that your house with the open door? If you've seen any goings-on at this shop it's your duty to speak out."
"What sort of goings-on?"
"People coming out who looked as if they didn't want anyone to see what they had."
"Well, now you mention it the woman mused aloud, but the old man interrupted. "And he stole my shoe," he said.
Jack shoved himself away from the lamppost so furiously that the three of them re
treated uphill. "I'll fetch your wretched shoe," he said through his teeth, "and then we'll see where it fits best."
He sneezed several times before he reached the crossroads. The traffic lights seemed to grow more lurid each time they turned red, as though they were embers the wind was fanning. He staggered into the centre of the junction while there was no traffic and unstuck the shoe, which had been flattened to almost twice its original size, from the tarmac. By the time he climbed onto the pavement the old man was hopping downhill to meet him, his arms around the shoulders of his companions. As Jack held up the shoe, which flapped as if it was greeting its owner, the old man gave a cry of anguish.
The task of finding something appropriate to say to him felt potentially even more disastrous than the rest of the day had been. Jack was dawdling, and wishing he could plead sneezes as an excuse not to speak, when Julia came up behind him. "Is that Mr. Pether?" she said.
For a moment the day made sense. The old man was indeed Mr. Pether, the father of the policeman who lived at the opposite end of the street from the Orchards. "Hasn't he aged since they put him in the home?" Julia said. "I'd hardly have recognised him."
If only Jack had! He saw himself turning off the blow lamp saying "I know where you live now, Mr. Pether' and ushering him across the road to the side street full of retirement homes. "What's happened to his shoe?" said Julia. "Was that the emergency?"
Two fire engines appeared on the brow of the hill as the window of Fine Films exploded, strewing the pavement with blackened glass and releasing a wave of flames which rushed up the facade. Mr. Pether and his supporters hunched their shoulders simultaneously and came downhill faster without missing a step, as if performing a routine they had rehearsed. Jack leaned on Julia and slapped himself across the forehead with the flattened shoe. "Got to laugh, haven't you?" he said, and did.
FOUR
Sometimes Laura thought cycling was her favourite thing in the world. Cycling to school made her feel important and responsible and trusted by her parents, but cycling by the river on a Sunday morning was best of all; though a few people were walking large dogs, for hundreds of yards at a time she had the promenade to herself. The wind hummed in her ears and brushed her hair back over her shoulders as her long legs pumped almost effortlessly. She remembered thinking she would never get her balance, all one weekend which she'd spent trying not to fall off as her mother ran beside her, but Laura had been little then, only three years old.
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