Part Fifteen:THE HIGH PRICE OF CHIPS

At 6p.m. sharp Miss Laird kicked off her shoes and sat down to enjoy "Your Hundred Best Tunes" on the wireless, as she still insisted on calling it.

"The Autumn Leaves" and "Moon River" worked their magic as they soothed Miss Laird's qualms about seeing Lachlan face to face at the start of the working week but, halfway through "The Very Thought Of You", her reverie was interrupted by a wild yell from the kitchenette next door which was followed by what sounded like a baby elephant running back and forth along the landing outside her door and a shrill hysterical voice shouting "Danger", "Help" and "SOS" in strict rotation.

Miss Laird, who had been hovering on the verge of sleep, shook herself awake and tried to make sense of the din but, before she could do so, there was a mighty hammering on the door of her room.

Buster was babbling away at her before she had a chance to open the door. Reading between the lines, she learned that he had decided to treat himself to a plate of chips and forgotten to dry off the excess moisture on them before he had thrown them in to a pan of fat so hot that there was blue smoke rising from it. Still in something of a daze, she let him lead her to the door of the kitchen.

Miss Laird had endured a lifelong terror of fire. She had seen all the safety adverts that she ever wanted to about chip pan fires and knew exactly what they could do. She had been appalled to learn that nearly half of all domestic conflagrations started because some greedy beggar wanted chips with it.

At the kitchen door Miss Laird froze. What had, a few minutes before been a kitchen implement was now the base of a blazing inferno. "Oh, sweet heaven", she said to no-one in particular.

She was aware of Buster, the greedy beggar in question, squeezing her hand. She looked down at him. His shocked, remorseful eyes were big enough to drown in. They pleaded with her silently, but eloquently, to pleeeeeeeese find a way of delivering the house and its occupants from the danger he had placed them in.

Miss Laird fancied she could hear a thundering heartbeat but was not sure whether it was his or her own but, either way, a wave of pity washed over her.

She put her hand on his shoulder and said gently, but with some urgency, "Go and tell MR. Straczynski that there is a fire in the upstairs kitchen. Hurry, now!"

Buster looked doubtful.

"You don't have to tell him you started it, just at the moment" she added, reassuringly.

Buster took off down the stairs like a scalded cat. He was no longer an arsonist. He was a fireman now.

At the moment he was banging on Josef's door, Elizabeth was gingerly attempting to move the chip pan away from one curtain, at whose hem the fire was already licking, and on to another hob. It was as much as she dared do, for, even with her head held back as far as physically, possible she could still feel the heat clawing at her face and a brief, but terrifying, vision of her with her hair on fire passed before her eyes.

Remembering that damp towels were the thing required by this sort of situation, she looked around for one but, after locating it, she forgot, in her state of panic" to wet it.

The fire devoured the towel in a couple of seconds and turned its attention to the other curtain. Before long the smoke that was building up in the small room was beginning to catch at Elizabeth's throat and she feared that the thing was beyond her already and that she could no longer keep her terror of this voracious element in check and so she beat a thankful retreat, closing the kitchen door behind her.

She felt a momentary spasm of shame at her own perceived cowardice but now it was as if some trigger had been pulled inside her catapulting her into muscular and decisive action. She raced along to Driscoll's door and thumped on it with the heel of her hand shouting "Fire. Fire. Get out now." and felt very foolish when it was obvious that he wasn't in.

Then she raced down the half lit stairway at break neck speed awed by the new strange state she was in. Nothing seemed to matter any more: not the job, not Lachlan, not even her recent humiliation. Nothing mattered except making sure that every living soul got out of the house in one piece

She barged into the old man's room and found him sitting in his leather armchair, phone in hand, trying to tell the emergency services operator what she needed to know but it was obvious from Josef's facial contortions that he was having difficulty making himself understood. All the time Buster stood at his side covering his eyes and shifting from one foot to another in his agitation.

"Heaven help me", said Miss Laird out loud, "I've got a couple of infants on my hands".

She held out her hand and Josef obediently handed her the receiver. She was surprised at how cool and authoritave she managed to sound.

"Yes I'd like to report a chip pan fire at No. 17 Stockwell Street. I really did try to put it out but I'm afraid that its beyond me now. Yes, I understand. No, I won't, thank you".

Only then was there a hint of panic in her voice, "But hurry please."

The old man allowed himself a thin smile. Miss Laird, the efficient business lady who he had always admired and respected, was in charge. Everything would be fine. No need for worry. He had seen worse things than this, after all. And Buster stood still now and took his hands away from his eyes and beamed at them both.

The mad lady would lead them all out of their current predicament - he had already half forgotten that he was the cause of it - and all would be well. He took a step forward and patted her gingerly on the shoulder.

Miss Laird, however, was oblivious to this sign of new born trust. Her mind was on her next move. She had just remembered the old black Daimler parked on the other side of the road. All the time that she had been living at No 17 she had never seen it move from that spot but, now and then, when she had been either coming or going, she had seen the old fellow sitting at the wheel and staring out through the windscreen as if he was looking down some long road to a happier past.

Well, at least, he will feel safe enough there for the time being she reasoned and, grabbing his heavy black coat from the hangar on the back of the door, she bustled the old man and Buster out of the house, across the road and into the back of the car and then settled herself in the front behind the wheel.

Nothing to do now until the Fire Brigade arrived, she mused out loud, running her hand admiringly over the wall nut fascia.

"This IS a lovely car Mr. Straczynski". She could sense him beaming with pride behind her. She looked at her watch, squinting to read the face in the orange glow of the street lamp. Probably about five minutes since she had phoned, she reckoned, not much more. Time was a funny thing. In the house it had flown and now.........

Suddenly aware of the pressure of silence, she looked around to check on her two "charges" and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In the half light, sitting side by side, they looked, for all the world, like a pair of comic puppets left on a shelf long ago by some child grown too old to appreciate their strangeness.

Josef studied Elizabeth's face for a long moment before leaning forward to whisper his concerns for his collection of photographs.

She feared that he might be in shock so, laying her hand on his, she said as gently as she could, "No, darling, safer to stay here. The fire isn't in your room. I'm sure that they'll put it out before it gets to your room."

It was no good though. She could see his eyes moisten at the thought of the second destruction of the old world, whose memory had kept the very breath in his body all these long years. His hand trembled and she knew that her logic was not going to satisfy him.

Buster who had been silent up till now chose this moment to add his "fourpence worth". He sucked in his breath and poked at Miss Laird's arm with a grubby forefinger and gabbled something about a lady in a wedding dress with black curls. Miss Laird shushed him impatiently but Josef, who had heard all, spoke the bride's name and Buster repeated it reverently.

The silence and the sadness and the thought of the old man losing his memories was too much for Elizabeth. She turned to Buster with a determined glint in her eye.

"Look after Mr. Straczynski and stay in the car or.....or......heaven help you". Buster, who had read the look in her eye as a sign of her returning madness, nodded vigorously.


The blaze still being confined to the floor above, there was time to gather up all the old photographs and put them into an old suitcase which she had found in a cupboard.

Mission accomplished, she closed the door behind her and was just about to leave the house when that very thing that killed the cat tugged at her sleeve.

She could not see much evidence of the fire from where she stood and, because of badly blocked sinuses, she could not smell anything. Terrified as she was of fire, she felt herself drawn closer and closer like a child steeling itself to see whether or not there really is a monster in the cupboard.

How far had the fire advanced? What else had it consumed by now? Would the rest of the house be saved?

As if under some malign hypnosis she kept climbing the stairs, step by step, stopping once, in a moment of sanity before daring herself to carry on, wanting to know all the answers to the questions she had just asked herself but terrified of finding out.

She could now see the kitchenette door still firmly shut and remembered reading somewhere that if you shut the door on a fire it could buy you a little time.
Then Buster's voice came crashing into her trance.

She was about to give him a telling off for disobeying her but, turning too quickly, she caught her heel in the ratty old stair carpet and, clawing uselessly at the air, she tumbled down the full length of the stairs.



If she made a bit of an effort she could just see the tree outside her window It was a fine sturdy oak. She thought idly, that it would look wonderful in Summer and more so in Autumn.

She was surprised that she no longer felt any fear for her future. Some of that was undoubtedly due to the painkillers but she was sure it was more than that. Something had happened. Something was different. A door had been opened and she had been let out of that horrible, sad little room and into broad daylight. She could breathe again. Strange how one accident could lead to so many good things.

Another wave of dopeyness passed through her. Oooh those painkillers were strong. The warm glow they gave was delicious but then she started to feel as if she was floating and she did not think this quite proper so she tried to fight the feeling by gripping the sides of the mattress as tightly as she could.

This, unfortunately, had the effect of bringing back all her doubts. Lachlan hadn't been in to see her after all, had he? She had imagined the whole blessed thing. He hadn't offered to put her up rent free and indefinetely as a belated token of his gratitude for the money she was making him. He wasn't going to look after her at all.He didn't care about her.

Her eyes moistened and prickled. She felt the warmth and security and the first vulnerable shoots of contentment draining away like Spring rain into the soil. She felt an overwhelming tiredness. She closed her eyes and relaxed her grip on the mattress. She surrendered. Floating away was not to be feared anymore. She wanted to float away.

The funny little man in the tatty raincoat and hobnailed boots too big for him handed her the balloons. They were all different colours and they were wonderful as they bobbed aabout in the bright air. She looked up at them, open mouthed and spellbound but soon the balloons began to tug at her hand. She gripped them more tightly but the balloons tugged harder and harder as if they wanted to be free of her.

She looked over to the Balloon Man for reassurance that all that colour and light would always belong to her but she could tell by his expression that she was meant to let go. She tried to hold on a little longer but it was useless. As her hand unfurled and the balloons drifted upward the little man smiled and nodded at the obedient child and she knew she had done the right thing, even if the choice was not hers alone.

And he was right too. The shabby little man was right. He must have been for clearly he was happy too and the face that shone at her in the half dream was one that could only belong to a simple, happy soul.

She drifted upwards now as free as those precious balloons and a peace, as gentle as it was great, came to claim her.


In a ward at the other end of the hospital the old man lay, a small creature adrift in a sea of white, dreaming with eyes wide open. Now the future was no longer a threat to the past and as he dreamed the afternoon away, the ghost of a smile was just visible above the covers.

The sound of laughter and music on the other side of the door confused him at first but then a slow, sure understanding flowed through him. Unafraid, his heart singing, he opened the door and entered.