Nancy dreamed there were people shouting. She dreamed that her mouth was full of cobwebs and furry moths, and she had to fight for her breath. She half woke, befuddled and far too hot. She kicked the hot water bottle out of her bed. Her closed eyes were stinging, and she began to cough, wracking coughs. Breathing made it worse, made it hurt more.
She sat up in bed, fighting with the duvet that had wrapped itself round her, opened her eyes, and it took her too many precious seconds to understand that the room was full of smoke, her lungs were full of smoke, her eyes were raw with smoke.
The frame of the door was searingly bright.
She heard the sounds. Licking, crackling, roaring from the other side of the door.
She picked up the pillow, tipped the water from the tumbler over it and held it to her mouth. She made for the door, then turned back. She couldn’t go out there, into that furnace. The heat was growing. She coughed and retched. The door was rippling, blisters forming and popping in the varnish.
Nancy stumbled to the window and yanked it open. She knew that as soon as the fire forced its way into this room, then the air from outside would feed it and make it fiercer, but it was the only way out. She looked down and saw faces on the pavement looking up, the open O’s of their mouths. They were all looking at her.
Nancy was a body in crisis, hacking and gasping, panic torrenting through her veins, eyes streaming, chest and throat closing as if she must suffocate in herself. But there was a small, cold part of her that stood to one side, seeing herself framed in the window as the small crowd below must be seeing her.
And it was this calculating part of her that singled out a particular face tilted up towards her. It was not appalled; its mouth wasn’t open in horror. It wore an expression of calm, curious scrutiny.
Felix was down there. He was watching her die.
Their eyes met. He smiled, gave a little nod.
The nod was like a bucket of beautiful clear water. In one movement, Nancy reached down, grabbed her mobile, found the camera, and took a photo of him. He saw her doing it and flung up his hand to cover his face, but it was too late.
Then she clambered out of the window and onto the flimsy balcony, which creaked underneath her. She could feel it giving way and sense the rusty screws and hinges easing loose from the bricks. She leaned forward and flung her mobile towards the group beneath her, away from where Felix stood. She saw a woman catch it.
Then she fixed her eyes on the skip full of soil. The frail balcony gave a final heave. Behind her, the door burst open in a clamour of roaring flames.
‘Jump,’ the voice in the dark said. ‘Jump for your dear life. Jump as if you could fly.’
Nancy put her foot on the rim of the balcony and as it gave way, she pushed off with all her strength and all her hope, her arms open wide, her mouth wide in a cry of longing, her lungs full of blessed air, her eyes full of open sky. Free.