They staggered down the path in a cluster, supporting each other, not halting until they reached the gate. Kate looked back. Smoke was billowing out through the open door, and without thinking what she was doing she set down the children and ran back to the house.
She heard Jack shout, then she was in the hallway and the thick heat and smoke closed around her again. Holding her breath, she ran to where Ellis lay, barely able to see as she kicked aside the flaming papers and took hold of his feet.
His raw ankles looked bony and pathetic above the scorched training shoes as she dragged him backwards. After a few steps she stopped, pulled her coat over her mouth and nose and took several quick breaths. She was reaching down for his feet again when the tins of lighter fluid exploded.
There was a noiseless flash, and a hot pressure knocked her sideways. The hall was instantly an oven. She felt the skin of her face flayed and knew her hair was on fire.
She drew breath to scream but choked it off as the overheated air scorched her throat and lungs. Blind and burning now, she floundered, and then something banged into her.
She was enveloped in darkness as the rug smothered the flames. She felt Jack pull her towards the front door, but broke away, emerging from the rug to seize one of Ellis’s ankles again.
She saw Jack mouth curses at her, but her head was full of ringing from the explosion, and she couldn’t hear. She shook her head anyway and carried on pulling, and a moment later he threw the rug over them both and took hold of Ellis’s other ankle.
Together they dragged him towards the front door, stumbling backwards over the smoking quilt as fast as they could. She nearly fell down the step, and then Ellis bumped down over it onto the path. Kate felt a dim nudge of memory, but it was gone before she was really aware of it.
They pulled him to the gate before they stopped and shucked off the smouldering rug. The cold air was like a balm on Kate’s skin. She sucked it down into her lungs, wincing with the pain of it. Through streaming eyes, she could see that Lucy was sobbing as she tried to hug Jack with her still-bound hands.
Kate turned back to Ellis. He lay half on his side, almost in the recovery position. Kate had avoided looking at his face, but she did so now. His hair had gone, and the skin was cracked like overdone meat. She nearly gagged on the smell. She felt sure he was dead. She didn’t know herself why she had gone back for him. Then his eyes flickered. Most of his eyelids had been burned away, and Kate knew he must be blind. But his eyes moved, as though he were searching for something. His hands weren’t too badly burned, and Kate gently took hold of one.
Her throat felt as though there was broken glass in it when she tried to speak. She tried again.
“I’m here.”
The grating voice wasn’t hers. It echoed, hollow and distant, through the ringing in her ears. His eyes fixed on the sound of it. She could feel quivers running through him. His mouth opened slightly, and with a sure intuition
Kate knew what he wanted. “I’ve still got the baby,” she croaked in a whisper.
He continued to stare towards her, his sightless eyes looking slightly to one side. But he didn’t move again.
After a while she knew he was dead. She set his hand down and stood up. The house was blazing fiercely now. Smoke gouted through the doorway and windows. She became aware that the pain from her burns was growing. She went over to where Lucy and Jack were standing with the children.
Lucy’s hands and mouth were free from the tape now. She was still crying. She and Kate looked at each other, then stumbled into a hug. Kate felt her own tears begin to rack her, and the two of them clung to each other and sobbed as the house burned, and sirens began to sound in the distance.
EPILOGUE
The hospital smell is hot radiators and antiseptic. She cries out as the pain clubs at her. It seems as if it will never stop. Then, at last, it does. She sinks back.
Her short hair, still growing back, is plastered to her head.
Below one sleeve of the white cotton gown, the pink line of a newly healed scar shows. As the pain ebbs, she raises her head as a white-smocked woman approaches, holding something wriggling feebly in her arms.
The woman smiles. “It’s a boy.”