‘It’s all smoke,’ the firefighters told her. ‘The seat of the fire is a store chest. The fire took hold in a pile of acrylic fleece blankets. It’s spread from there but the bed’s iron, the rug’s wool, the bed had woollen blankets on and it’s mostly the fumes from acrylic we’ve been dealing with.’
‘Then there’s no harm…’
‘There nearly was a hell of a lot of harm,’ the chief said. ‘The fire went up the curtains into the ceiling and there’s insulation there that’s melted. The house is choked with poisonous fumes. I’ve sent my men to clear the seat of the fire but they’re all using breathing gear. Thank God for smoke alarms.’
And for Dom, Erin thought, stunned.
‘How the hell did it start?’ he asked. ‘Do you know?’
There was no point in lying. No one was going to charge a six-year-old with criminal damage. She still had one of the firefighter’s blanket draped around her but she was shivering. The last thing she wanted to do was stand and answer questions, but if this man didn’t get the information he wanted from her he’d have to ask Dom, and all Dom’s attention was needed now.
‘Hell, those kids…’ the firefighter said when she’d told him. ‘They’ll be the death of him.’
‘You’ve met them?’
‘A couple of their predecessors,’ the man said grimly. ‘Doc takes on the kids no one else will touch. He and Tansy…’ He paused. ‘That’s right, she’s away at her sister’s. She’ll have Doc’s guts for garters when she comes back. A right little mother she makes. She and Doc are a great pair.’
That didn’t sound good.
Um…what was she thinking? Fire, life-threatening peril, and here she was wondering about the unknown Tansy.
Around them the firefighters were moving in what seemed organised chaos. There were firefighters everywhere. A team was concentrating on the bedroom on the upper left of the house, but others were uncoiling what looked like a vast vacuum hose.
‘What’s that?’
‘A suction tube,’ the man told her. ‘We’ll get the burned stuff out of the house. We’ll check the roof, put any last embers out, then start sucking out smoke.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Straight away. The smoke causes the most damage. And if I know Doc he’ll want to stay here. He always does. He hates farming his kids out.’
‘You mean this has happened before?’
‘One of his kids stabbed him once,’ the man said, watching the vacuum hose disappear inside the front door. ‘Doc needed fifteen stitches but he wouldn’t go to hospital. Nor would he let the cops take the kid away. The lad was only eight. The cops called us ’cos he’d locked himself in his room and was threatening to set the place on fire, but by the time we got here Doc had talked him out and was hugging him. Blood and all. Can you believe that? The kid’s been reunited with his mother now and last I heard was doing okay. He and his mum still visit. Lots of Doc’s kids still do.’
‘How many?’ Erin said faintly.
‘God knows,’ the man said. ‘All I know is that he and Tansy are heroes. I wish to hell we could get another doctor for the town so he had more time to spare. Now, if you’ll excuse me, miss, I need to suck smoke.’
This was not the time to be thinking career moves. But the tiny idea had seeded itself already. The firefighter’s words made it grow.
Her shoes were fine. As was Nathan’s egg and Martin’s pogo stick. Two hours later the house still stank of smoke but it was deemed no longer dangerous. The bedroom where Martin had lit the fire-Tansy’s room-would need major work, but with its door not only closed but sealed so no smell could escape, the house started seeming like home again.
Dom had fielded twenty offers of accommodation that she’d heard, but she’d given up counting.
He’d knocked them all back.
‘Once the smoke is clear we’ll get back inside,’ he explained. ‘It’ll be better for the kids not to move.’
Dom must be feeling weak at the knees himself, Erin thought as she watched him deflect offers, but he wasn’t putting Martin down. The little boy was slumped on his shoulder. Erin wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or not, but every time the voices round them rose, she saw Dom’s arm round him tighten.
With his other hand he held Nathan. He didn’t let them go, once.
‘We’re home here,’ he said, over and over, trying to make his voice normal. ‘The smoke makes everything seem worse than it is. But we’re fine.’
And gradually the chaos became order. The onlookers melted into the night. Two of the fire engines left. One would stay.
‘I know you wish us to the devil,’ the fire-chief told Dom as they carried the kids back into the almost-normal living room. ‘But the fire spread to part of the ceiling and there’s no guarantee we haven’t miss spots. There’ll be two men staying upstairs all night, and there’ll be more outside. Yes, you can stay in the house but you’ll do so with our presence. Like it or leave it.’
Dom could see the sense. He smiled, rueful. ‘Fine by me, Graham. We’ll sleep round you.’ He looked across at Erin. ‘How about you? Can I accept any of these offers of help on your behalf?’
The locals were leaving, but he only had to call one back, say, ‘Do you mind looking after Erin?’ and she’d be away.
‘No,’ she said fiercely, involuntarily.
‘No?’
She coloured. ‘I…If it’s okay with you. I might be able to help…with Marilyn.’
‘That’s right, we still have Marilyn,’ he said, and he smiled, and she was reminded of that chuckle all over again.
‘She’s having the world’s worst birth experience in dog history,’ she said, and tried to make her voice not wobble. ‘I’ll settle her back by the fire.’
‘If the very word doesn’t make us all blench.’
‘Fires are good,’ she said, stoutly, aware that Martin’s eyes had widened in alarm. ‘Fires are lovely. This was an aberration.’
‘What’s an aberration?’ Nathan said. He sounded exhausted. It was time he was tucked up into bed, wherever they could find a bed. But Erin knew that farming the kids out to strange beds tonight would be asking for trouble. Dom knew it and she knew it.
‘An aberration’s a mistake,’ she said, meeting Dom’s gaze full on. ‘This was a little, smoky fire lit by mistake that made us all feel a bit sick. But there’s a lovely fire in the kitchen stove and another in the living room. That’s what we all want now. A lovely warm fire so I can get my cold toes warm.’
It was the right thing to say. They were wearing their nightwear plus blankets. Even though Erin had shoved on Dom’s wellingtons over the dressings on her foot, her toes were freezing. So, it seemed, were everyone else’s.
‘Brilliant,’ Dom, said and his eyes were giving her a message that said her approach had been right on all sorts of levels. ‘It’s what we all want. An ordinary fire to warm our toes. Let’s get ourselves organised.’
It would take days before the stink cleared from the upstairs rooms, but downstairs the smoke had been sucked out before it had permeated enough to cause any damage. The windows were open, fresh air had blown through and it felt almost normal.
‘So we’re all sleeping downstairs,’ Dom decided, and before they knew it burly firefighters had hefted mattresses and bedding downstairs and set up a row of beds in front of the sitting-room fire.
What had seemed a big room when Erin had had it to herself was now cramped. Three mattresses. Erin’s divan.
Marilyn’s mat.
‘For she’s not going to be the only one in the kitchen,’ Erin decreed. ‘One in, all in.’
‘Fine by me,’ Dom said.
The fire was still a pile of glowing embers in the grate. Dom added wood, building it up so it crackled and flared.
