Page 90 of So Thrilled For You

I can’t let my parents’ house burn down. I move forward to the kitchen. If I get some water, maybe I can . . .

‘Step back,’ Charlotte yells, stopping me. ‘You’re pregnant. You need to leave.’

‘I can’t let it burn, I—’

‘The fire brigade is on its way. They’ve told us to get into a car and drive away. There’s a wildfire risk. We have to get out of here. Lauren, you have to leave, now.’ She bends down and fully smacks Lauren around the cheek. I gasp and it makes me start to choke. I feel distress kicking inside me. I start backing towards the door, my eye streaming from the smoke, the air in the room bubbling and warping under the heat.‘If you don’t get up now, Woody is going to die,’ Charlotte screeches at her, dragging her to her feet. ‘Get the fuck up. Get the fucking fuck up now.’ They carry Lauren towards me, Woody crying in her arms. I lead them out of the house, my back burning up from the temperature. The air’s only slightly better out here. The fire’s now spread to the trees on either side and they’re dancing with angry flames, engulfing the whole house.

‘Where are your keys?’ Lauren sobs something about them being in her handbag. Steffi grabs the bag as we rush down the steps and holds them up. The driveway’s empty now and as we rush to Lauren’s car, I dimly think how, only half an hour ago, it was crammed full of guests for my baby shower. My baby shower which is now burning down inside my parents’ home. A house I’m fleeing and allowing to incinerate. The flames feel like they’re almost licking us from the burning foliage around the drive. We’re all coughing now. Woody’s stopped crying and is coughing too.

‘I’ll drive,’ Charlotte pushes Lauren down into a backseat, who’s still wailing,‘My baby, they’re going to take him, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I . . . don’t . . . please . . .’ She points to me. ‘Nicki, get in front. Steffi, take Woody.’

I fling open the door and try to get inside but my bump is so bulbous and huge that I feel like my face has melted off by the time I manage to get into the seat. Steffi’s yelling behind me. ‘I can’t do up the car seat. The buckles . . . I don’t know how.’

Charlotte’s already turned on the engine. ‘Just hold onto him and let’s go,’ she shouts back. ‘Now.’

She slams the car door and we’re flung back as she revs down the gravel and out onto the countryside lane. Lauren’s wails are all I can hear as we leave the house in the rearview mirror, shimmering in the heat.

Lauren

My baby. My baby. They’re going to take my baby. I left him and he’s started a fire and almost died and they’re going to take him. I hate myself. I hate myself. Please, God, no, don’t let them take my baby. Everything’s burning down. I don’t understand what happened. I left him for one minute. One. How can this happen in one minute? Charlotte’s driving my car. Woody’s screaming in Steffi’s lap. I can’t breathe. Going to take him away. All I’ve wanted is for someone to take him away, but now I’m ripping at the seams, every organ is screaming, they can’t take him, they can’t. But he could’ve died. A house is burning. I can’t. I can’t. No.

Steffi

Charlotte’s so tiny she can hardly see over Lauren’s dashboard. The heat in here’s so intense that we roll down the windows, but the burning horizon engulfs the car. The smoke is following us downwind. Woody’s squirming on my lap, and, even though Charlotte can’t be doing more than 40mph, I’m clutching him with every ounce of my being; I’m so scared he’s going to fly out the windscreen. My lungs ache from the smoke. I still can’t understand if this is real or not. I can’t have read an email on the toilet while a house burnt down around me. Lauren is gurgling next to me, her eyes rolling about in her head. The state of her. My best friend – the one who’s always there, always cheerful, always the glue of the group – is now a broken toy. I want to cry but the baby in my arms is already too upset. Thoughts surge through me as the smoky breeze blasts my hair.I could’ve died. Any of us could’ve died. Woody could’ve died.The fire’s still burning, it’s everywhere.Is someone else going to die?I pat Woody’s hair, sayshh shh, to both him and Lauren. I try to keep going through each breath.

Nicki’s on the phone to her parents. ‘Mum? Mum. There’s been a fire . . . it’s bad . . . where are you? Stay away . . . fire brigade coming . . . Yes, I’m safe. We’re all safe . . . Where’s dad? Are you sure he’s still that far away? Call him and check . . . Yes . . . I know ... I’ll call again soon.’ She hangs up. ‘What the fuck just happened?’ Nicki twistsaround, sees the state of Lauren, and faces forward again. ‘What happened?’

‘My baby,’ Lauren just sobs and sobs, folding inward on herself. ‘They’re going to take him. Please, stop them, please.’ Charlotte and I share a desperate look in the rearview mirror.

‘I’m not precisely sure,’ Charlotte says, speeding along, her voice deeper and calmer than I’ve ever heard it. ‘But I think, somehow, Woody went out onto the decking and managed to pull the top off the smoke grenade.’

‘My fault, it’s my fault,’ Lauren says.

‘Shh, honey. He’s OK. Everyone got out OK.’

‘It’s my parents’ house,’ Nicki says, almost dumbly. ‘We need to go back.’

‘Yes, yes, in time,’ Charlotte says. ‘Let’s just get out of the way of the smoke first.’

Her complete air of calm is jarring considering Charlotte generally acts like every second of her life are the final ones of cramming before a major exam. She’s almostzen. I’ve never seen her zen. Not even when she accidentally ate half a pot brownie at a third-year house party, insisted she would die, and made me take her to hospital for ‘monitoring’. She dictated her funeral plans into her phone while eating the entire contents of the Sheffield hospital vending machine.

‘I’m a terrible mother,’ Lauren cries to my side. ‘I’m awful. You all think it.’

‘Shh, honey. It was an accident.’

‘I left him. I left my baby and look what happened. Everything’s on fire. He could’ve died. You’re all going totell. I’m going to lose him. I can’t lose him.’ She screams and Woody starts screaming too, fighting to go into his mother’s arms, squirming against me as I struggle to hold him.

‘Lauren, careful . . . careful . . . Woody, no, Woody.’

‘I need to get out. I can’t breathe. I need to get out. LET ME OUT.’

She lurches past me and makes a grab for the door handle. Woody attaches himself to her hair and we become enmeshed in a disastrous web of entangled limbs.

‘Please,’ Charlotte calls back. ‘Please stop, Lauren, please.’

‘LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT.’

‘Hang on. I need to find somewhere.’

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