Stuart was asleep, Anita breathing gently beside him. In spite of everything they still slept together. It must have been three in the morning when the phone rang on her side of the bed. She exchanged just a few words with whoever was on the other end, then lightly replaced the receiver, got up and went to the window. She drew back the curtains and stood there a long time looking out, and although she didn’t try to rouse Stuart he was now fully awake and his curiosity pushed him out of bed. He took up his place beside her at the window and together they looked out at a distant, flickering orange glow in the night sky. There was a fire burning across the other side of the city. It looked large and fierce but it was far enough away that they soon felt able to go back to bed, thinking it had nothing to do with them.
When they woke next morning and looked out again there was smoke in the sky and the fire was still burning, but in daylight it was much less dramatic, and if anything it looked further away. It was only when Anita listened to the radio and heard the news that hundreds of Dockland apartments had been consumed by fire that either she or Stuart began to take the situation at all seriously.
Stuart had planned to cover ten miles of Dulwich that day but come mid-morning he was wandering through the City looking for a high place from which to get a better view of the fire. Unwittingly he came to the Monument, built by Wren to commemorate the previous London conflagration. Stuart paid his money and climbed the three hundred and some narrow spiral steps that took him up to the caged-in observation platform. Once there he could look down and see the scale of the fire. It was much bigger than he’d imagined, more intense and spreading like a hot, living stain.
There were others beside him at the top of the Monument. Somebody suggested the fire had been started by a terrorist bomb, others said it was a series of uncontrolled gas leaks. One man said it was the blacks who’d started it, but nobody took him senously. One thing was clear from up there; the fire was not being even remotely contained. It was out of control and the fire authorities were fighting a losing battle.
As he walked, Stuart saw strange activities taking place. There was a great movement of people and their possessions. Those who had managed to save their belongings from the consumed homes arrived at friends’ houses carrying all their worldly goods. They were taken in and for a while no doubt felt safe, but it was clear that before long these new refuges would be no safer than the ones they’d vacated, and they would all have to move again.
Arriving home Stuart realized that if the fire was as threatening as it appeared, his own house was as vulnerable as any other. He began by taking his valuables down to the cellar, thinking that would be the safest place for them. So his collection of favourite books, his stereo, his computer and of course the disk containing his diary, his photograph albums and certain business and personal documents, not least his insurance policy, were all carted down below ground. He felt briefly reassured.
That night the fire was still far enough away for him and Anita to sleep in their own bed, but at four o’clock in the morning he woke and felt that everything was still at risk and needed to be moved again.
He dressed rapidly, and looked out of his bedroom window. There was pandemonium. The police had erected road blocks at every street corner. The use of private cars was forbidden, and many had been towed away to make room for service vehicles, the only ones allowed through the city. If he wanted to carry his possessions to a place of greater safety he would have to improvise with a hand cart or baby’s pram.
Miraculously he located a shopping trolley, loaded it with his valuables and launched himself and his possessions into the dubious safety of the night. He moved swiftly, but he wasn’t sure where he was going. Then it struck him that Bethnal Green would be safe from fire, and he decided to take his things to Judy’s place. He wasn’t sure what reception he’d get there but this was an emergency after all.
He pushed on through the crowds but he got nowhere. The streets were too full. There were too many tides, eddies and undertows, all pulling in different directions. He lost his way and before long he had also lost his shopping trolley. He took his hands off it for just a moment and when he turned round it had gone. Somebody had taken all the things he valued most, and yet he realized that he felt surprisingly sanguine about it.
He knew there was no point going home. Anita would certainly not be there and for all he knew their house might already be in flames. He had no way of telling. There were no radio broadcasts any more, no television, the stations and channels were all silent. Soon the phones went dead and the electricity dried up. No newspapers were being printed. There was no information at all except what could be picked up on the streets, those things that he could see, hear and smell for himself. He grabbed a few pieces of waste paper from the gutter and began writing down what he had already observed. He knew it was good stuff, almost Pepysian; banners of smoke rising behind St Pancras Station, rocket trails of cinders falling over Trafalgar Square. In Clerkenwell Road he’d seen a fireman in tears, in Old Street there had been two tiny children squirting each other with water pistols, completely unaware of the danger they were in. This diary business was easy when you had such great raw material.
Stuart headed for the river, to Westminster Pier where he boarded a tourist boat that had put its prices up extortionately but was full nevertheless and was running river trips into the heart of the fire. The boat was crowded and Stuart was the last to get on.
Smoke was thickening the sky, and all along the river they saw large numbers of people continuing to bring their belongings out of blocks of flats, trying to save the contents of their homes, since there seemed little chance of saving the flats themselves. The sirens of fire engines, police cars and ambulances still rang through the city but it was hard to see what good they were doing.
Suddenly a small, regal-looking motor launch pulled alongside Stuart’s boat. There was a woman standing proudly at the helm. She was dressed in a heavy ball gown, thickly bejewelled and wearing a facial expression that conveyed concern but not anxiety, and, yes, there was something majestic in her demeanour. Nobody seemed to recognize her but Stuart had no doubt at all that it was the Queen of England. Quite a surprise, he thought, but why shouldn’t she be on the river at a time like this?
The two boats were almost touching and the Queen was well within hailing distance. ‘Hello there, Stuart,’ she called out. ‘What do you suggest we do?’
Perhaps he should have been surprised to be addressed so directly, but this was surely no time for formality and ceremony. Fortunately Stuart, having recently reread Pepys’ account of the Great Fire, knew exactly what needed to be done.
‘We need to pull down some buildings,’ he replied. ‘We have to create large fire gaps. Nothing else will get the job done.’
The Queen nodded sadly but saw the absolute correctness of what Stuart had said. Then she asked him which buildings would have to come down, and without hesitation he reeled off a list of names: the NatWest Tower, Centrepoint, King’s Cross Station, Canary Wharf, Harrods, the Civil Aviation Authority Building, the whole of the South Bank complex, everything ever built by Quinlan Terry.
He wasn’t sure where he was getting these names from or why he was so certain that they had to be demolished, but his confidence was enormous and one of the Queen’s minions was meticulously writing down his every word. Finally Stuart said, ‘And I’m afraid Buckingham Palace is going to have to come down too.’ The Queen was close to tears at this news but she accepted Stuart’s infinite wisdom. What else could she do? She issued a few commands into a mobile phone and repeated the list of buildings. It would be done. Her word, Stuart’s word in effect, was law. Stuart was glad he’d gone right to the top, and not bothered with politicians or corrupt local flunkies.
And so the creation of fire gaps began. Stuart was amazed by the technology of it. In Pepys’ day they’d had to use explosives to create the fire gaps, and the explosions themselves had caused as much fear and panic as the fire. These days it seemed they could simply make buildings disappear. One minute The Nat-West Tower would be standing there all solidity and corporate pride, the next minute it was gone, and not just blown up or even pulverized, but gone from the face of the city, instantly and forever. Stuart suspected there was some sort of laser involved.
All over London buildings were disappearing, like pieces being taken off a chess board, and only now did Stuart notice that all the buildings that had gone were all the ones he hated most. There was a moral there somewhere. London was being reshaped in his image. Before his eyes all the fires around London were rapidly shrinking and dying. He had saved the day. A feeling of complete well-being came over him.
The Queen took the trouble to find him again, hailed him as the saviour of modern London, and the last thing Stuart heard before he woke up was the monarch saying, ‘If you would see his monument look around you.’
He sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning but the phonecall didn’t come. He thought of going to the window and looking out, but he knew that this time there’d be nothing to see.