back of her mind she had the idea that something was missing. She stared down at her feet and realised what was wrong. They were bare.
There was a faint sense of satisfaction in the discovery, because at least it meant that part of her brain was working. She tried to twist around, her gaze searching the floor.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘My shoes,’ she started to say, but her voice sounded cracked and hoarse. She coughed, and tried again. ‘Why are you still here?’ She frowned, and then looked around again. ‘I need my shoes.’ A grey mist seemed to fill the room, at low level, grey, turning to black, and she couldn’t see well enough to find them. Why was everything so difficult? This must all be a bad dream.
‘We don’t have time to look for them now.’ He was urging her towards the door, a hand holding onto her arm, his other hand flat against the curve of her spine. She felt the heat of that touch as though he was stroking her bare flesh, and it was so vibrant a sensation, so intense that it seemed as though a solitary flame licked along her spine. She couldn’t understand it. Why was she reacting to him this way?
His closeness propelled her into action. She tried to fight him, but it was no use, she was powerless against him.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put this against your nose and mouth. It will keep the worst of the smoke away.’ He handed her a large clean handkerchief and opened it over her face.
‘What smoke?’ she mumbled.
He didn’t answer, but shepherded her out of the room and along the corridor, supporting her when they started down the stairs and her legs threatened to crumple beneath her. It occurred to her that the soot-laden mist followed them everywhere, but she couldn’t fathom what it was.
Cold air rushed in on her as they reached the outside of the building, and she stood still for a moment as the shock of it brought on yet another bout of coughing. Her lungs felt scratchy and raw, and when she tried to breathe it was a battle to get the air into her wheezy chest.
‘What’s going on?’ she said in a cracked voice, puzzled by the buzz of activity and the sounds that filled the night air. The sky was black, sprinkled with stars, and the quadrangle was bright with the yellow lights of the buildings all around.
Someone pushed a wheelchair behind her, and the man who had brought her out here pressured her into it with his hand on her shoulder.
‘Sit down and take it easy,’ he said. ‘You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke. Let the paramedics take care of you.’
He turned to another man and said, ‘That’s everyone accounted for. I’ve checked all the rooms and they’re all clear.’ The man he had spoken to nodded, and Amber realised that this other person was wearing a fireman’s uniform. She looked around for a fire engine, and saw one in the distance.
Almost as soon as the two of them had finished speaking, a paramedic came and strapped an oxygen mask to her face. ‘Breathe in as deeply as you can,’ he said. ‘The doctor will come and take a look at you.’
Someone—the doctor, she guessed—came over to her. She looked around for the man who had brought her here, but he had disappeared and she felt an odd, momentary sense of isolation sweep over her, as though she had been deserted. It was strange that she should feel such emptiness after the way she had resented his presence.
‘I’ll just listen to your chest,’ the doctor said, taking out a stethoscope. He placed the end of the stethoscope on her back, over what she was wearing, and listened for a moment. ‘I think we’ll give you salbutamol to help with the bronchospasm,’ he murmured. ‘It will dilate the airways and help you to breathe more easily.’
Amber stared down at her thin nightshirt. Apart from a pair of briefs, it was all she was wearing. The shirt was made of brushed white cotton, with a delicate scattering of printed flowers across the scooped neckline and the hem. She didn’t recognise it as belonging to her, but then through the fog that clouded her brain she remembered that someone had offered it to her last night. It didn’t do much to cover her, and a large expanse of her legs was showing, much more than she would have liked.
The man who had brought her here was coming back to her now. His gaze moved over her and she was suddenly conscious of her state of undress and tried to pull the nightshirt a little further down over her thighs. Her hands were shaking, and the helplessness of her situation wafted over her like a draught of cold air.
She stared up at him in confusion. Her nerves must be more frayed than she’d realised. She wasn’t usually this feeble.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Do you need anything?’ His expression was restrained, serious even.
She said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ She thought about that, and then added, ‘Actually, I have to go now. I have to go and check on my mother. I need to know that she’s all right, and I have to go and find my clothes.’
‘Is your mother in the building?’ He looked concerned, all at once, his expression urgent.
She rubbed her forehead and tried to clear her thoughts. ‘No. No, I…’ She tried to make sense of everything. ‘She hasn’t been well lately. She’s staying with my aunt.’ She started to get up out of the wheelchair. ‘I need to go and find my clothes and my bag.’
‘I think they can wait.’ He seemed to relax. ‘If your mother’s with your aunt, then there’s no need to rush away, is there? It’s very late, the early hours of the morning, and your mother is probably asleep. Your aunt will let you know if anything is wrong, won’t she?’
Amber nodded, feeling a little foolish. Of course he was right. ‘I’m sorry, I think I’m a little confused…disorientated.’
She began to shiver, and he said, ‘That’s only to be expected. It’s probably a result of all the smoke you’ve inhaled.’ He bent towards her. ‘Let me put this around you. You must be in shock, and it will help you to feel better.’ He wrapped a blanket around her, and gradually warmth seeped into her. ‘Do you remember anything that happened?’
‘Not really. I think I was asleep,’ she said, slipping the oxygen mask off her face, ‘and then you came and brought me here. I don’t know what’s going on. Is there a fire?’ Her voice rasped at the back of her throat.
He nodded. ‘It started in the kitchen of the building. Someone had left a pan of something on the hob and forgot to switch the heat off.’ Reaching out to her, he put the mask back in place. ‘Just try to keep breathing steadily.’
She held it away a little, so that she could speak. ‘I wasn’t in the kitchen. There was a party…someone’s birthday. I don’t remember an awful lot about it.’
‘Perhaps you had too much to drink.’ His expression was faintly cynical, and something in her instantly rebelled against being judged that way.
‘You’re assuming that,’ she said stiffly. Who was he to criticise her? He didn’t know anything about her.
‘It was very difficult to wake you. You didn’t seem to recognise the urgency of the situation.’
‘Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be because of alcohol.’ It must have been the smoke that had done it, that had clouded her brain. She wasn’t a drinker. She knew that much. Probably she’d had two or three glasses of wine at most.
