midwife's muse

Tomorrow is another day

I suppose I am the same as most people, 'It will never happen to me'. Well, on Saturday morning at 6.30 it did. I was awoken by Jack's Mummy's mobile phone, they were staying as SIL is in Les Mans. I lay there for a minute and then got out of bed to seek and destroy the electronic nuisance. As I came out of our bedroom I looked out of a window, and saw smoke. Hmm, not a phone, the smoke detector. Going downstairs I realised that there was black smoke in the hall, I looked along and saw that it was spiralling from around the closed kitchen door, there was an acrid smell. Super calm, I unlocked and opened the front door, slipped my sandals on, went back upstairs, lifted Jack out of his cot, marched into the bedroom where a daughter was sleeping soundly (the knockout effects of a few drinks the night before), shook her and said 'Fire, out now. Front door'. Pushing open our bedroom door I repeated my mantra to Hubby, I expected questions and slow response, but I think the shrill sound of the smoke detector and the fact I was holding Jack convinced him to move swiftly. As we went through the hall I grabbed Hubby's mobile and thrust it to him, I don't know his PIN. There we stood on the drive watching the smoke start to billow out of the windows upstairs, daughter shouted 'The cats. The cats are shut in the kitchen'. I said we couldn't go back in, it would be too dangerous, (the smoke was so thick and caught in your throat). Hubby had rushed round to the back door and looked in the kitchen, it was full of smoke, he couldn't see a thing, but he could hear flames crackling and the door was very hot. Then I heard the Fire Service, I ran into the middle of the road and waved madly to them. As they jumped out one of the firemen asked where it was, as I ran along infront of him I told him that the cats were in there, 'I know they are only animals, but I love them. Please look for them'. Immediately, a couple of the firemen put on breathing apparatus, another fire tender arrived and then Daughter, Jack and I were taken in by friendly neighbours who gave us dressing-gowns and coffee. Another neighbour appeared and cried when she saw us, she had seen the smoke pouring out of the bedroom windows and had thought we were dead. Hubby came over and reported that they had found the cats, one was dead and they were giving the other one oxygen. I ran back over the road and round the back of the house. On the patio table lay my little black and white cat, covered in a thick layer of soot, and obviously dead. On a bench a fire man was giving Elmo oxygen. As I crouched down and spoke to him he lifted head slightly, I stroked him slowly, clinically noting his bluish tongue, the coating of soot in his mouth, his laboured breathing. Someone asked me for the vet's number. I know I must have switched to another, automatic level. Me, who can never remember phone numbers, not even my own, gave them the number. Someone took him and Hubby down there. Vaguely I registered piles of black debris on the patio, firemen still with masks on going in and out of the house. I don't really remember too much after that for about half an hour. I went back to the neighbours house, waited for Hubby to return with news on Elmo, cuddled daughter, cuddled Jack and waited for the firemen to call us back. At this point we sent Jack and his Mummy down to other daughter, there was no way I wanted them to see the damage.

As he walked back over the road with us he told us that the smoke detector saved our lives, he had no doubt that we would all have suffocated in our sleep. It was the dishwasher that started the fire. Apparently quite common, people leave them running at night, they develop an electrical fault, overheat, smoulder away and eventually catch fire. My kitchen and family room is wrecked. The fire was confined to a very small area, just three cabinets and some work-surface, but the smoke has coated everything, ceiling, walls, windows, floor in a thick oily ash. Candles have started to melt in the heat, and the smell, all pervasive, cloying, irritating your throat. If you move anything it's as if a brilliant spotlight has been trained on that area, the ash is so black. On the carpet you can see the shape of where a cat was lying, right by the door, obvuiously trying to breath in some fresh air. The soot and the smell are everywhere in the house, your hands are always black, throat always irritated.

Insurance companies? My advice is don't have a problem at the weekend. Nothing. No help at all. Can't even give advice at the weekend. What, no water or electric, well they will arrrange for one emergency tradesman, which do you want, and by the way you have to pay him. Good news though, a cleaning company will call this afternoon. What they didn't tell us was that this was an invisible cleaning company, who wouldn't call this afternoon, and when you try to phone the insurers back they only deal with car claims Saturday afternoon and Sundays. Lets all play the waiting game.

Our neighbours have been wonderful. They have fed and watered us. Offered us help with everything. Two fire officers returned to check everything, I cannot sing their praises too highly. My Sister appeared, all ready to help with cleaning, then saw it and realised why I had turned her offer down, it is an impossible task. Son and DIL arrived, they were shocked and felt helpless. That's the general feeling, helpless. We couldn't touch anything in the kitchen anyway, the insurance company might want to inspect it. I buried Kizzy in a cool, quiet place, and planted some pansies over her. The local press appeared, would we mind talking to them, the fire service had contacted them and felt that our story would be an excellent way to promote smoke detectors. The vet phoned, Elmo was holding his own in an oxygen tent, they would keep him until Monday. My parents phoned, both upset. I washed all the bedding, when I took Jack's toys out of his cot they left brilliant white marks where they had been, one of the bulkheads that had been protecting my consciousness faltered, I realised he could have died. I swiftly put my defence mechanisms back in place and continued with my tasks.

Saturday night I didn't sleep much. The smell of burning is everywhere, I kept waking up and having to check that nothing was burning. When I got up in the morning my carefully devised method of keeping at a distance from it all failed me for about half an hour, I sat on the patio and sobbed. Then I pulled myself together and assumed my previous detached role. In the afternoon all the family came round and cooked, wait for it, a barbeque, for Fathers Day. Anyone observing us would probably think we were a very strange crew, all sitting around in the garden, without a care in the world. Late afternoon the phone rings, it's the vet. Elmo is causing her concerns, he is having real problems. Jack's Mummy and I go down there. To see an animal in such distress, occasionally making a sound like a hurt baby, coughing up blood and thick black tar and looking at me with huge, pleading eyes. I held him as the vet helped him out of his agony.

I no longer have any control over my emotions. I cry uncontrollably and unexpectedly. Apparently it's normal, its a delayed reaction. Last night I managed an hours sleep, my mind is whirling away and then I suddenly get this feeling, like when you are on a rollercoaster and you start hurtling down, I try to pull it all together, I tense everything, try fill my brain with the thought equivalent of white noise, but a loop plays constantly, images of my cats trying desperately to escape the hot, choking smoke. I am an emotional wreck.

We are alive though. The kitchen and everything else can be sorted. I still have my family, relatives and friends, and, if nothing else this episode will, hopefully, make everyone check their smoke detectors and not run their dishwashers at night.

20.6.05 08:32