Margot lay in her bed in the tower and stared up at the ceiling. A sliver of moonlight sliced through the darkness, picking out the beams above her and bathing the room in a pale, watery light. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind was restless. She’d left Colm’s bed for her own, needing to be alone to try to make sense of the growing feeling of claustrophobia that had started as a twinge in her solar plexus, but was now building into a cramp. Why did she have it, this fear of settling down? She trusted Colm. She had never been able to trust her father, but she knew Colm was a totally different animal to him. If this fear stemmed from trust issues she’d had with the first man she’d loved, then her father had a lot to answer for.
She wanted to commit, she really did. But when she thought of staying in Ballinakelly, her whole body bristled with aversion. For years she’d been a nomad, travelling from city to city, following her work. She wasn’t afraid of being alone, she was used to it, and loneliness, when it crept upon her, had been dispelled by people she had picked up on her way through. Friends, lovers – strangers she’d talked to in bars or met through her research. She could argue, of course, that these people weren’t real friends. They wouldn’t be there for her if she needed them. Not like Colm. So why did she have this horrible cramping sensation in her stomach when she envisaged life in Ballinakelly? Why couldn’t she be like other women? Fall in love, marry, settle down and raise a family? How could wandering the world aimlessly on her own hold more attraction than that?
Frustrated, she went to the bathroom and rummaged around in her washbag for sleeping pills. She didn’t usually need them, but tonight she just wanted to knock herself out. The book was done. The pressure was off. She should be feeling satisfied, but she wasn’t: she was feeling restless and confused.
The sleeping pills took effect quickly. Darkness obscured the light as damp clouds covered the moon. The wind began to howl and the sound of rain pattering against the windowpanes accompanied her as she grew drowsy. There was a shuffling sound, but Margot didn’t believe in ghosts. She drifted into a deep sleep.
She was awoken by the smell of smoke and the feeling of being unbearably hot. Groggy from the pills, she opened her eyes slowly. At first she thought she was dreaming, but when she started to choke she realized, with a stab of panic, that she wasn’t. It was real. The castle was on fire.
Being an old tower, it went up like a box of matches. The crackling sound of burning wood brought her sharply to her senses. Margot jumped out of bed and gazed about her in horror. Her first thought was for the manuscript. She hadn’t worked this hard all these months for it to be consumed by fire. She tried to get into the sitting room, but was forced back by the heat. She couldn’t see her typewriter, notes or manuscript for the smoke, but the sight of the raging flames told her that it was too late; all her work was gone.
There was no time for self-pity. The fire was moving fast. The instinct to survive kicked in. She hurried into the bathroom, gasping with fear and a terrifying sense of helplessness. She threw a towel and a dressing gown into the bath and turned on the taps. Then she quickly struggled into the sodden gown and grabbed the towel. By now the bedroom was on fire as well and the flames were inching closer, devouring everything in their path. With her heart racing and her chest congested with smoke, Margot held out the dripping towel and fought her way to the window. She threw it open and took a gulp of air. It was pouring with rain. She hoped the rain would put out the fire. She looked down. There was a terrace some way below her window, a narrow walkway edged with a crenelated wall. This was the only way out. There was no other exit. However, it was too far for her to jump safely. She simply couldn’t. She’d break every bone in her body.
She turned back. There must be some way out besides the window. But it was hopeless. With the fire behind her and the drop in front of her, she only had one option if she wanted to have a chance of surviving.
Margot’s legs were trembling so violently she could barely climb onto the windowsill. She felt as if she had lost control of her body. Her insides had turned to jelly. Where was her courage? She had always prided herself in being strong, independent, fearless, but now she felt small and afraid. She sat down, legs dangling in the air, the narrow terrace a frightening vision beneath her feet. It was then that the fear really hit her. She began to sob. Loud, primeval sobs that were ejected from the deepest part of her. ‘Please, God, don’t let me die,’ she wailed. The rain thrashed against her face, the sodden dressing gown felt as tight as a straitjacket.
She thought then of Colm. How could she have doubted that she loved him? She thought of her mother, but the image quickly dissolved and Dorothy floated into her mind. Her room was not far from Margot’s. She hoped she’d managed to get out. She prayed she was okay.
The cries of the hotel guests rose up as they spilled onto the lawn. Margot looked to her left and right to see that the fire was spreading rapidly into the rest of the castle. She shouted, but her voice was lost in the roar of the fire. Would anyone see her through the smoke?
Then the flames were consuming the tower. She could feel them almost licking the back of her neck. She smelt something rotten, like a dead animal, then realized suddenly, as a pain shot through the back of her neck, that her hair was on fire. She had no choice. She jumped.
JP had seen the fire from his bedroom window. Something had stirred him in his sleep and he had awoken with dread’s cold fist clenching his stomach. He had called Colm immediately. Colm had run out to his car in his pyjamas, but he wasn’t alone on the road. By now the whole town knew. Everyone was racing up to the castle as fast as they dared drive in the rain, in the middle of the night. Colm could barely breathe. The one night Margot chose to sleep in her hotel bedroom, this happened. He cursed loudly, hooted at the car in front of him and slammed his hand against the steering wheel with impatience.
It began to rain hard. Big fat drops fell in a torrent, like a tropical rain storm, onto the land. Colm had never seen rain like it. If this doesn’t put out the fire, he thought, nothing will.
Dorothy sat up in bed. Her room was filled with smoke and flames were dancing all around her. Her first instinct was to panic. And she did panic, but only for a moment. She realized after a few seconds that she did not need to panic, because she didn’t feel the heat or, in fact, taste the smoke, which she was surely inhaling. The flames were now consuming her bed and she couldn’t see anything in the room except grey, billowing smoke, and yet she couldn’t smell it. It had no scent at all. This was very strange. A calm came over her. She climbed out of bed without the usual stiffness. Why, she didn’t even groan. She looked down at her feet, her bare feet, and was surprised to feel not the slightest discomfort from the burning wood on which she was standing. Then she turned her eyes and saw the horrifying sight of herself. Yes, there she was, Dorothy Walbridge, lying in the bed asleep while the fire took her.
She should have panicked at that point. But this calm that had come over her was total. The sight of herself was quite mesmerizing, and she would have watched for longer if she hadn’t then become aware of a light far greater than the fire. She turned her attention away from her burning body to see her daughter, Lillie, surrounded by an aura of brilliant white. She was smiling, so she certainly wasn’t at all worried about the fire. The child held out her hand.
Dorothy knew then that she was dead. A frisson of excitement rippled through her. Dan had been right all along. Lillie had come through that evening and here she was now, reaching out. She put out her hand and felt her daughter take it. At once she felt a tremendous love, a love greater than she had ever felt while alive. She was ready to burst with it.
I never got to tell Margot how good her book is, she thought, and with that one small regret, she followed her daughter into the light.
When Colm reached the castle the fire brigade was in the process of putting out the fire. The rain was helping. Indeed, the rain was a blessing. A large number of people had congregated on the lawn, their faces horror-stricken as they stared up at the burning castle in disbelief. Mr Dukelow ran among them in agitation, rubbing his hands together, shouting orders, but achieving nothing. Cars arrived in droves, locals swarmed into the forecourt, everybody wanted to help, but there was nothing they could do but hope. In everyone’s mind was the same question: how was it possible that the castle had caught fire a second time?
Colm shouted for Margot. He ran through the crowd, desperately calling her name. His chest ached with fear. The more he searched the more he feared that she wasn’t there. That she hadn’t got out. That she was still in the castle. ‘It started in that tower,’ said someone, pointing up to Margot’s room. ‘I believe it’s the oldest part of the hotel, so you can imagine how quickly it must have caught fire.’
Colm found Mr Dukelow. ‘Have you seen Margot?’ he demanded.
Mr Dukelow’s face was grey. ‘No,’ he replied. Then he lifted his eyes to the western tower.
Colm looked at it too. The wooden ceiling had fallen in, but the thick stone walls were still standing. The rain was putting out the flames that remained. However, if Margot was in there, she wouldn’t have survived.
The firemen and the rain were doing a very good job of putting out the fire, but Colm wasn’t going to stand there helplessly. He had to do something. ‘Perhaps she jumped out of the window!’ he exclaimed. ‘We need to get up to that terrace,’ he said, pointing at it.
‘We?’
‘Yes, you and me. Come on, Terrence. I need you to help me.’
‘It’s dangerous. The firemen—’
‘I’m not waiting for the firemen.’ He took Mr Dukelow’s sleeve and dragged him towards the back of the castle where the flames had not reached. Mr Dukelow found his courage – fuelled by guilt, because he knew, rather, he feared he knew, who had lit the match. Colm knew the old servants’ entrance well from when he was a child, playing about the castle with his sisters. Mr Dukelow felt nauseous as he pushed open the door, where only a week before he and the Countess had sneaked inside.
The two men hurried up the staircase. Colm jumped three steps at a time in his hurry to get to Margot. Mr Dukelow struggled to keep up. At the top of the stairs the corridor was filled with thick, grey smoke. Mr Dukelow grabbed his throat and began to cough. ‘I can’t…’ he wailed, turning back. ‘My asthma.’
‘Come on, Terrence! Don’t let me down!’ he shouted, grabbing him by the arm. If he hadn’t needed him so badly he’d have punched him in the face.
Mr Dukelow stared at him for a long moment, before pulling his arm away and disappearing back down the corridor.
Colm took off his T-shirt and pressed it to his mouth, then, with his eyes watering and his chest filling with smoke, he made his way deeper into the hotel. The closer he got to the western tower the thicker the smoke became. At one point he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find the door. But he needn’t have worried. By the time he reached it, he saw that the door no longer existed. The wall had collapsed and the roof caved in, leaving smouldering beams and rubble. Margot’s tower bedroom above had been completely destroyed. A man’s voice shouted to him through the hole in the ceiling. ‘Hey, you…’ But Colm ignored it and fought his way outside.
He saw her at once, lying like a broken doll on the stones. Blood staining her sodden dressing gown red. His heart stopped. He rushed over and knelt beside her, a sob bursting in his chest. Picking up her wrist he felt for a pulse. He thought he felt a faint beat, like the heartbeat of a bird, against his fingertips. Then he was surrounded by firemen. He was ordered to one side. After that it seemed as if everything quickened. The world looked blurred around the edges. Nothing was defined. Ambulances arrived, Margot was placed on a stretcher. Colm demanded to go with her to the hospital.
‘Are you a relation?’ an official asked.
‘I’m her husband,’ he lied.
‘Very well, then. Follow me.’