FIRE ESCAPE

Stifled groans and pursed lips greeted manager Maeve Warren’s announcement of the annual Fire Drill.  Such a waste of energy, with all that shuffling and scuffing down stairs, all that muttering, puffing and faffing. 

When the siren started wailing, the startled inmates flinched and struggled to their feet to plant a pillow outside their front door, a marker indicating to acting firewardens that all occupants had vacated.

Quickly scanning written instructions, Maxwell, in his mid-seventies, one of the youngest residents, scampered beyond those neighbours nearest and back, thumping on all doors.  With theatrical energy surging, he shouted to the bewildered, the begrudging, those hard-of-hearing sceptics as well as the cheery wisecrackers:  ‘Okay, folks, this way to the nearest fire door.  May I remind you to hold onto the handrail very cautiously while going down the stone steps.’  At every turn of nine steps, Maxwell paused to look back at the straggling followers, heads bowed, breathing heavily, even sterterously, clutching at handrails and walking sticks rather than the spindly arms of spouses.

‘Now where do we go?’ said Martina, heaving and blowing on one gammy hip and walking stick.  ‘Straight on to the lounge, I s’pose.’

‘No, no,’ Maxwell protested.  ‘Our group continue down to the door exiting on Glenferrie, street level.  Between the shops.’

‘Hang on!’ called Gordon, who was audacious enough most mornings to steer his motorised scooter through the array of smart new furniture uplifting the lounge.  ‘Surely we go through the lounge.  Then on through the front door.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Martina.  ‘Let’s go back.’

‘No, wait!’ cried Maxwell, who had already gallivanted down half a dozen steps into subterranean territory.  ‘No, our route is to file out onto the next landing, Glenferrie.  The last thing we want is to approach the heart of the fire.’

‘But there isn’t any fire!’ insisted Gordon, showing signs of doubt.  ‘You coming with us, Mart?’

From below, Maxwell could make out Gordon’s tinny voice, as their short-lived leader scrambled back up the steps, bent forwards.

Too late!  Martina let the heavy door slam with a clunch and echoing reverberation.  Maxwell snatched at the door handle.  Locked, he found.  And himself locked out.

What a bummer!  He’d enjoyed his all-too-brief role leading out the fourth floor contingent, the experienced resident who knew the ropes, the catacombs of secret passages.  The fire drill had once again been a waste of time, residents intending just to report back to manager Maeve Warren, sign off as soon as possible and be done with the emergency instructions for another year, their duty done and dusted..

Maxwell stumbled out into sunlight on Glenferrie Road bustling with traffic as usual mid-morning.  He felt embarrassed, excluded, in fact rather foolish walking alone back round to the Village driveway on High Street, instead of leading his troupe through the open front gates, successfully saved from potential disaster.  The fire engine had parked close by the main entrance, adjacent to the circular fish pond.  No sign of the firies, but clusters of residents and visiting carers were sharing jokes and chirping merrily, as if miraculously saved in a genuine rescue.  Maxwell recognised familiar faces from the fourth floor and sheepishly approached.

‘Where did you get to?’ screeched Martina, whose distinctively loud, rasping voice awash with sibilants had once made a name on British TV ads.  At times Maxwell heard something of her la-de-dah accent for Oscar Wilde’s deep-throated Lady Bracknell: ‘We thought you were lost!’

‘We were supposed to exit from the building itself,’ lamented Maxwell, not hiding his exasperation in a shrug of the shoulders.

‘Ah, look, it doesn’t matter,’ cut in Gordon.  ‘We made it all right.’  And grinned with a show of front teeth, small but distinctly white still.  ‘I’ve done my exercise for the day.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Martina.  ‘Bloody waste of time, though.  I was just watching a replay of last night’s trots.  Had a few hot tips running yesterday.  Yeah, think I’ve done all right too.’

Maxwell rolled his eyes, then caught sight of the seriously frail Penelope in splendid isolation behind the battlements of her exclusive sixth floor balcony garden.  Though waving feebly, the centenarian's weak eyes were clearly missing the festive throng below.

Jeez, this procedure is a total fiasco, Maxwell thought.  A right dummy run.  He noticed the bulbous figure of Maeve Warren in central position who’d stopped ticking off names of late arrivals. How sinister those black goggle eyes in sunglasses!

Intending to be noticed doing his duty, but not daring to look into those stark black eyes, Maxwell strode round the pond, thus steering away from her vacuous glaring presence to reach the main entrance.  In the lounge, adjacent to reception, bumbling returnees were already queuing up for the two central lifts.  To circumvent the air of jollity, the adventure of breaking out of a senior’s routine, Maxwell veered right, aiming to mount the same firewall steps next to the west lift, his regular escape route.

Once inside the Firewall, he sensed both steps and walls evoked 1940s bunker grey.  A few months back, the lip of each step, formerly edged with shallow corrugations as a steadier for dodderers, was stuck with grip, zigzag stripes of yellow and black, so as you wouldn’t miss the treacherous edge through cloudy eyesight or dodgy pins or a lapse of concentration - or so Health and Safety argued.  Therefore Maxwell had to remind himself to concentrate; otherwise he’d stub toe or clip heel and be gone for a Burton, for he had too long a foot to fit securely on each step.  There were nine steps to a flight; four flights running right angles to each floor.

When next he lifted his gaze, Maxwell saw staring down through a watery grey eye enlarged by gold-rimmed specs, grasping the handrail with one hand of tremulous white knuckles, her walking stick in the other, a very angry and haggard face, hardly softened by the tingling of a silver bracelet on the hollow, tubular handrail.

Berenice, who in her career of Leading Wren must have overshot the six-foot mark, a former madam chair of the social committee, whose fierce glare was usually levelled at her henpecked husband, the stuttering, but awfully decent but awfully stick-thin Gareth Williams, bowed over with his own stick.

                         

‘Hello, you two,’ said Maxwell too cheerily.  ‘The show’s all over now.  The fire’s been extinguished.  You can go back to your apartment.’  And smiled.

Instead of showing relief, Berenice’s jaw dropped aghast.  ‘Do you mean to say,’ she took a deep breath, ‘we’ve spent all this time trying to do the right thing?’ she heaved another breath. ‘And now we’re being advised to go back up without signing our names.’ She gulped more air still. ‘What a waste of a morning!  I told you, Gareth dear, we should’ve stayed in bed!  This is an utter farce!’

Gareth - never Gaz or Gazza, which so infuriated the missus -  grabbing the handrail, looked blankly at his feet.  Said nothing, eloquently.

‘Well, what are we supposed to do now?’ snapped Berenice.  ‘My legs won’t take much more.’

Maxwell was clueless.  Obviously, those oldies pushing ninety couldn’t decently lower themselves on cold, hard stone while he dashed off to seek assistance.  Yes, he should’ve bought a mobile phone years back, but rejected the invasiveness.  Where would he find help now among a scarcely used maze of uninhabited passages?  And they couldn’t risk going back up again all that way.

Maxwell was biting his lip:  Well, we just can't stand here. ‘How do you feel if I helped you down?’ he suddenly blurted.

‘I couldn’t possibly!’ retorted Berenice, as if disgusted.  ‘You must be out of your mind!’

‘Mm.  What if . . .?  What if I held you under the armpits and walked down backwards in front of you?  You put your arms round my shoulders.’

‘Good grief!  Is this man stark staring mental or what?’

‘Look, I do apologise,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Just a crazy notion, I know.’  He was peering down over the handrail at the canyon of stone that funnelled inwards, falling six floors or twenty-four flights, forming a latticework of handrails in his vision.

‘I guess I’ll have to leave you and try to find a staff member,’ he admitted with reluctance.

‘Gareth, can you manage yourself, darl?’

‘Eh?

‘Walking down, I mean!  All that way!  Down there!’

‘Huh?’ expired the old commander, practically mute.  ‘I can try,’ he croaked, with an air of bewilderment.

Berenice dared not look round.  She’d feel dizzy, lose her balance and topple forward., but she sensed her husband’s presence, if only by the tap of his walking stick in her wake.  Who could imagine some forty years ago he was a distinguished lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy?  And upright. Whereas now he shambles along, practically bent double!  If Gareth had a flaw, he could be too placid, too agreeable; then again, he seldom complained these days.  Did he ever?  If only he had.  If our residents could have seen him decked out in naval uniform, a veritable ramrod.

Regretfully, she had to remind him of the basics with a loud whisper heard by all and sundry.  ‘Stand up!’ when he raised his hand to make a suggestion at the residents meeting.  Or ‘Speak up!’ when the mike went dead.  Did her helpful prompting make him more hesitant?  Yes, he was a good trusty soul, too trusting, too courteous, too placid, too gentle, a gentleman of the old school, self-effacing to a fault. ‘Ah well, let’s give it a go then,’ she sighed. One step at a time.  Fingers crossed.’

‘Right you are.  Let’s go, best foot forward!’  said Maxwell, dropping down firmly on his right foot.

‘Gently!’ Berenice barked, teetering nervously about to take her first step.  Maxwell’s body had already backed down several inches.  Her knobbly, gnarled fingers all of a sudden dug deep into his upper shoulders as she leaned forward. ‘Not so fast!’

‘No, no,’ reassured Maxwell, looking up at the lady’s glinting grey eye. ‘Steady as she goes!’

Slowly, tentatively groping one step at a time.  Every few steps Berenice would scream, ‘I’m falling!’ And Maxwell would brace and tighten his hold, alarmed at her anxiety.  If she falls, I’ll fall head first beneath her.  And I’ve had it.  She’s overweight, a big unit and something of a bossy boots, while I’m underweight, pigeon-chested and a scaredy cat.

Three times on that painfully slow descent, Berenice’s head slid down to Maxwell’s stomach.  Whereupon he’d summon every ounce of strength.  The first time he lifted her back to near upright, he realised that weightlifting in the gym, however modest the weights, had taught him to tense up and somehow increase his strength in short-term bursts.

Throughout the ordeal Gareth stayed tight-lipped, dumb but dogged, though no doubt terrified that Maxwell would not sustain his exertion and lose hold of his wife of nigh on sixty years.

All of a sudden, Maxwell shuddered.  Flashing through his brain alongside a hot flush came a replay of Maeve’s announcement to the residents at the last monthly meeting:  ‘You don’t have to go down the steps.  Just stay on the landing inside the Fire Door.  We’ll come and save you, don’t worry!’

So what the hell was he playing at?  If he did let go of this over-bearing amazon that towered over him, he’d surely be summoned for disobeying orders, for risking someone’s life, two lives, not to mention his own safety.  How could he be so forgetful, careless, downright irresponsible?  He didn't dare look down over the handrail again.

Nonetheless he plodded on, winding down towards the ground floor, slowly, ever cautiously, interminably it seemed, turning at right angles every nine steps.  Maxwell had lost count of how much further, but step by step, he realised he was no longer uncomfortable, but travelling okay.  Occasionally the picture of an interview with Maeve broke his concentration.  She was castigating him for being so reckless, acting the hero.  There was absolutely no need to leave that first landing inside the Fire Door!

Why do I act so contrary?  I do tend to rush into things when they don’t concern me.  Is it just my short-term memory loss?  A frown of concentration squeezed his forehead, winced his eyes.

But when finally he squizzed the fire door to level one, he couldn’t help but smile inwardly.  ‘We’ve nearly made it, Berenice.  Almost there, Gareth!’

‘Thank God!’ thundered Berenice with an edge of disgust, so forceful that Maxwell, in slipping back down, clipped his foot.  The old woman was almost wrenched from his grasp; made him uncertain of his own fate in an instant.
  

‘Aagh, I’m falling!’ she squawked, practically into Maxwell’s ear.  But wincing with alarm at her piercing voice, he tightened his grip, almost too fiercely. Through her thick buff coat she couldn’t feel the extra tension of his long, arthritic, fingers. 'It's okay, I've got you!' he gasped.

Godfathers, The old biddy certainly scares the shit out of me!   Maxwell clenched his hands even tighter and stiffened his balance.  Yes, his retread was solid.  ‘You’re okay, Berenice?’

By this final stage of the journey, having recovered from that last shock, Maxwell found himself sure-footed as a goat.  Until both seniors were safely grounded near the lift, Berenice again pleading to sit down.  'My poor old legs will be the death of me!'

Quite by chance an armchair nestled against the far wall.  Though it was a desperate gamble, Maxwell walked Berenice to a side wall and propped her back against it.  ‘Hold on, Berenice!  Gareth, don’t let her fall!’

The ex-commander bleated something, but Maxwell scurried over to the chair and dragged it across, grabbed hold of Berenice’s waist just as she was about to keel forward and in a whirl of scuffing awkwardness turned her body round to back her into the chair.

O god! She doesn’t fit.  Too bulky round the rear.  ‘Gareth, can you push the chair round to your right?’

What a fruitless question that was!  Of course, the old man couldn’t.  Maxwell was becoming doddery himself, finding it very difficult to keep Berenice upright, while at the same time desperately kicking the heavy armchair round.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could sense in the frame of the lift door sliding open some tall, lean figure decked out in a white front.  Refusing to be distracted or flustered, Maxwell with scrupulous care lowered the frazzled Berenice into the armchair.

‘There you are, Berenice, safely delivered.’  At what cost? he thought, scarcely believing his own words.  Instead, whooshing out a deep sigh.

‘O thank god!’ she exclaimed.  ‘What a terrible, terrible ordeal!  Where’s Gareth?  Oh there you are, darling!  Are you alright, darl?  You look so terribly pale.’

At that moment, the white shroud ghosted discreetly forward.

‘Good job, Max!’  It was Andre, the chef, acting as fire warden.  ‘I’ll see to it now.  Don’t you worry.’

Belatedly, thought Maxwell. ‘Thanks, Andre.  Phew, that was tough going.’

‘I can imagine, mate.  Good on yer!  Go an’ have a drink.’

‘Will do.’

On climbing back up the stairwell – he never thought of the lift - he discovered a spring in his step, a swagger even, feeling a glowing contentment that he had seldom experienced at Chiltern Towers.  And was delighted when at the last he realised Andre had not rushed across to assist, but allowed him to complete the task himself.  In fact, he would have been irked had he been deprived of steering the rescue through to the end.

Suddenly he was brought up short:  how stony-faced Maeve could haul him over the coals.  However, to his surprise, he would wait forever in vain.  Not one word was uttered by the manager, neither condemning nor grateful.

Not long after that memorable experience, Maxwell had read in a wellness column that a good heart exercise consisted of walking up and down steps for ten minutes.  But my word, on one descent, he clipped his heel and only just seized the handrail, twisting round in the process.  Supposing he had stumbled and struck his head, fallen unconscious or suffered a stroke?  Would anyone find him in time?  The firewalls were hardly ever used, save in an emergency.  To maintain balance, he couldn't afford to lose concentration.

Yet the neon-lit concrete canyon would always fascinate him:  walls of massed concrete smeared with various shades of grey-to-black, rendered in streaks, blobs with splotched edges, flaky white orifices gouged for brackets of lights now missing and what resembled bullet holes in flaky orifices of white.

Other times he imagined he was acting in a French farce, bursting forth from the fire door opposite a lift, blindsiding a huddle of residents waiting with gasps of alarm, as the rarely used door whined behind them. Once he seized the handle of the fire door from inside, just as an emergency relief staffer did likewise from the main corridor - her shriek caused consternation in the lounge fifteen metres away.

A few months later, watchfully coming down these steps bow-legged, feet splayed, he stopped on the spur of the moment, turned round and pushed his toes up against the step preceding.  A strange sensation whelmed over him.  All of a sudden, he felt unsteady on his pins, light-headed, faint, then the warmth of flush and panic suffused.  He darted out a hand for the rail.  God, now I’m really tempting fate!  How come I was relatively calm and confident during the fire emergency?

Slowly, a glimmering:  all this while he had assumed he had saved Berenice from an extremely heavy fall.  Perhaps it was the other way round?  Who knows?  Berenice’s solidity and vice-like grip round his shoulders might well have saved him from a fractured skull – or worse.

                                                                                                                                Michael Small
March 7-April 15, 2019