Vision blurring again, he lifted his good arm. Felt for the crack in the concrete block. Dug his fingers in. Paused for breath. Got his fingers in there, squeezing. Try to burrow. It didn’t work.
The darkness was now more red-brown than grey and something black swept down, a bird or bat he thought, but it clattered in front of him and he saw what it was: a fucking security camera, a ghost from the future.
This time he gave himself ten seconds before stretching his right arm up. His plan was to get a grip on the other concrete block. The one behind him, planet-sized, causing him no bother at all. And none of this was the old hotel’s fault — he would not let anyone attribute blame — and he backed his palm into the block and clutched its upper edge, an awkward angle for his hand. Everything required calculation: every breath, every movement. Welclass="underline" he could calculate. Calculation was one of his things. He counted to five, panting, waiting for the next wave of pain, and another explosion of rubble came down, the building’s most vicious sneeze yet. When he recovered and got to five he gave himself an extra two. He tried to grip the smooth surface, haul himself back with his fingertips, unwedge his leg. He cried out, ‘Give me a chance.’ His chin was wet. He was grateful that his leg was numb. Lost his grip and the back of his head hit concrete. A howl. It didn’t work. He sensed now that his life was over, that death was the one constant thing, the destination he’d been heading to these last few weeks or years. He moaned and thrashed at this naked unfairness, pulled at his clothes in despair.
Then he thought, No. Just: no. He began to go wild on the concrete block. Began to go out-your-brain mental. He was all clawing, all thumping, all eyeball-surprise. He had an idea of unseen people urging him on. People saying, Come on, Moose, come on, Moose, come on. People thinking, Moose, Moose, I never liked you much, Moose, you’ve got a stupid name and a slow history and you’re a bit of a wet blanket, Moose; you’re a bit strange and soft-spined and irrelevant to what we’re interested in, Moose, but come on now, let’s get it together.
When he tired of his own frantic attack he saw that the crack in the block had opened up. Two sides of stone had relaxed into a roof around his knee. There was a change in the pressure in his leg. An astonishing happiness filled his heart.
He began twisting himself, breathing, oh, oh, oh. He saw his lower leg, the first sign of it, pale and swollen in his shredded trousers, an appalling sight but where was the pain now? Hello, pain, where are you? It had nothing left to attack him with. He howled as he hauled himself back, saw the pale pressed flesh shuffling out from under the concrete. Welcome back, lower leg! A blood rush now. A sense of what survival might mean. Pulling, twisting. Biting his lip. Imagining Father Christmas going ho, ho, ho. The pop of his leather loafer coming off. His foot was attached to his leg. Thank you for this gift, thank you.
He turned himself over. Considered the triangle of light on the other side of the room. Began planning a route through the debris. He was counting out seconds as crocodiles. He was allowing himself three crocodiles with his eyes still scrunched. One crocodile, two crocodiles, three. Who cared if he’d never done anything newsworthy? Day to day he had a daughter. Day to day he had shelter. His daughter would be outside and she would be one hundred per cent fine. He paused to warn the heavens that he would tolerate nothing less. He was in tears again as he crawled.
There were firemen now. Sirens. Red lights, blue lights, a confusion of noise. Police shouting ‘Back from the building! Back!’ Women in tattered dresses, men open-mouthed in the night. Chattering teeth and an ambulance.
She tugged at a fireman’s sleeve, needy. ‘My dad.’
‘Breathe!’
‘I’m already breathing! My dad’s in there.’
‘OK, OK.’ The fireman removed his hard hat. The fireman was in fact a firewoman. Her blonde hair was all balled up at the back and her eyebrows were drawn on with a pencil. Give me information, the firewoman said. His name, what he looks like, the area of the hotel he’d be in.
‘Finch,’ she said. ‘Philip. Moose.’
The firewoman shook her head. One lick of hair came loose. She made some notes on a folded piece of yellow paper and said we’re doing what we can, I’m sorry. If you think he was on the ground floor that’s good. She said this and then she put her enormous yellow hat back on, gave a policeman the piece of paper, pointed at Freya and whispered some words. Gone.
A tanned man wearing a baggy jumper and sports shorts was crouching over Susie. He had Twiglet legs. All he said about himself were the words ‘off duty’ and then ‘I don’t sleep so well’. He was touching Susie’s ankle like he could heal it by the power of thought alone and basically the stage was set for a miracle. In a minute he’d fix everything else. ‘This will be …’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, this will be …’ and Susie whimpered right up until the point where he stuffed a hanky in her mouth. Her eyes went wide with fear. Freya failed to intervene. He took Susie’s foot firm in both hands and twisted it viciously, an awful cracking sound. Susie’s muffled scream; her bared teeth biting down on the hanky; her swelling eyes as it happened. He pulled the hanky out of her mouth, strings of spit bending onto his hand. Susie fought for breath. Bit her lip. It bled. Her body was convulsing. He told her, ‘Better now, better. You don’t want to leave these things too long.’ The foot was facing the right way. Calmly he waved to a paramedic. ‘I need a hand here, when you have a moment.’
Freya found a woman who looked official. The woman was just shaking her head and muttering, shaking and muttering and waving her papers like papers could help, but as she looked up something jumped in her eyes and she threw her arms around Freya. Freya had never been hugged this way before, with so much warmth and so much need. She felt in fact that up until now she had only ever been held by the edges of who she was. She also felt trapped. She kissed the woman on the nose, fully no idea why, and the woman let go and Freya was free. Ran for it. Tripped over rubble. There were sorry flickers of orange in the air. She tried again to get into the hotel.
‘Get back!’
Another long shining line of fire engines leaning into the bends of the road. A barbecue smell and wafts of something toxic. Rubble coming down in groups of two and three, ice cubes from a tray. The sight of a man in flip-flops, vomiting. A vigilant old woman, silver hair shooting forward from the crown, poking at a camera lens with her rubber-tipped stick. Dust and a dozen people coughing. A fireman saying, ‘Get back. Get back.’
An old man approached her. ‘Might you perhaps help me find my wife?’
‘I —’
‘Please? We’ve been married thirty years.’
A woman said, ‘God. Skipper! Did you see my dog? Skipper!’
‘I’m sorry,’ the old man said.
‘Are you sure? Skipper! He’s a dachshund. Skipper!’
‘Sorry,’ Freya said.
‘Skipper! Skip!’
‘I’m very sorry,’ the man said. ‘I’m looking for my wife. We’ve been married thirty years.’
‘Skip!’ the woman called. ‘Skipper! Skip!’
Surfer John found her. He was covered head to foot in filth. She told him she was completely done with hugs. He said, ‘You’re in shock.’ She said, ‘Irrespective.’ She said, ‘You’ve got to help me find my dad.’ He stood there looking dumb and kind, not quite a lemon but a definite citrus.
Groups were forming. A minister and his wife were pacing the pavement, the wife wearing a necklace of unaffected pearls. A bathrobe, a pair of slippers. She was saying, ‘I will not be flapped.’ Someone else said, ‘The Lady is secure, the Lady is secure.’ A tiny cheer rose up into the neutral night sky. Two dozen people in nightclothes. Firemen shouting ‘back back back’. Felt like every emergency vehicle in the United Kingdom was here now. Ladders extending up from fire engines. Men in huge clothing climbing onto balconies, vanishing into the building. Who would do this? Where was her dad?