Chapter 5
AJ
There are several ways to arrive at a fire station where everyone has a professional reason to dislike you.
Early, I decide, is probably the least idiotic.
Late would make me look arrogant. Exactly on time would make me look as if I had spent the morning sitting in the car having an existential crisis, which would be both unhelpful and, unfortunately, too close to the truth.
Early suggests respect. Early suggests preparation.
Early suggests a man who has not changed shirts three times and googled whether journalists are statistically more likely to be murdered by hoses than ordinary members of the public.
I pull into the car park at Fellside Fire Station at 7.43 a.m. and sit for a moment with both hands on the steering wheel.
The building looks smaller than I expected.
Not small, exactly. Practical. Brick, glass, wide doors where the fire engines come out, a yard marked with lines and equipment zones I assume mean something important to people who know what they are doing.
Beyond it, the hills rise in the distance, grey-green under a low morning sky.
There is a damp shine on the tarmac and the air smells faintly of wet leaves, diesel and that particular rural freshness that always makes me feel as if I should be wearing better trainers.
On the passenger seat beside me is a notebook, two pens, the visitor information pack Marie Louise sent over, and a packet of mints I bought because I panicked in a petrol station and apparently decided fresh breath might save my career.
Excellent.
Strong start.
I get out of the car before I can begin itemising my personal failings by category, lock it, then immediately check that I have locked it because I am not above becoming my own elderly relative under pressure.
The front entrance opens before I reach it.
A man steps out, carrying a mug and wearing the relaxed expression of someone greeting a guest rather than receiving a human apology parcel from the local newspaper.
I recognise him after half a second from the midnight research I resorted to last night when I couldn’t sleep.
Station Manager Josh Walker. Former watch manager here, according to the fire service website.
Married, if the Greenview Manor charity dinner photos I definitely did not spend too long scrolling through are still accurate.
The sort of man whose online presence suggests competence, local goodwill and an alarming number of waterproof jackets.
“Anthony?” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Although AJ is fine.”
“Josh Walker.”
His handshake is firm, brief and without any need to prove something, which I appreciate. Men who use handshakes as miniature combat sports should be made to assemble flat-pack furniture without instructions until they reconsider their choices.
“Thanks for having me,” I say.
Josh’s mouth twitches again. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Too optimistic?”
“Possibly. Come in.”
The inside of the station is warm and busy in a way that is not obviously busy at first. Nobody is running.
No alarms are going off. No one is sliding down a pole, which is disappointing from a cultural standpoint but probably excellent for health and safety.
Still, there is movement everywhere. A man in navy kit crosses the corridor carrying a box of equipment.
Another is checking something near a door labelled Storage.
Somewhere deeper in the building, someone laughs, followed by a voice calling, “I’m telling you now, if Kev’s made coffee, I’m reporting it as a hazardous substance. ”
Josh leads me through reception and into the garage.
Not garage, technically. I know that because the visitor information pack used the phrase appliance bay several times, and I read it with the nervous attention of a man revising for an exam nobody had confirmed he was taking.
Still. In civilian terms, it is a garage.
A very serious garage. A garage with better equipment, higher stakes, and fewer Christmas decorations in boxes.
The fire engine dominates the space. I am aware that appliance is the correct word because, again, I read the information pack twice and then said appliance aloud in my kitchen until it stopped sounding like something that belongs next to a fridge.
Red, gleaming, enormous, it sits there with a kind of quiet readiness I have never associated with vehicles before.
Josh notices me looking.
“First time inside a station?”
“Not counting school visits and one press photo about smoke alarms, yes.”
“Then welcome to the glamorous heart of emergency response.”
As if summoned by that, a firefighter walks past carrying a mop bucket.
He looks at me. Looks at Josh. Looks back at me.
“This him?”
Josh says, “This is AJ Hodgson.”
The firefighter nods. “Right.”
That is all.
No greeting. No smile. No threat either, although his tone suggests threat would be available on request.
Josh gestures. “Kev.”
“Morning,” I say.
Kev gives me a once-over with the careful neutrality of a man assessing whether I count as a person, a problem, or something that will need moving later.
“Morning.”
Then he walks away.
I look at Josh. “That went well.”
“Kev used two syllables,” Josh says. “Practically a welcome basket.”
We move further into the garage.
“On call-outs, Pippa rides with Kev, Mish and Dan, and you’ll travel with them,” Josh says.
“That means, for most of your time here, they’ll be the crew you’re closest to.
You’ll meet everyone, but if we get turned out, you stay with whoever Pippa or Dan puts you with.
No wandering. No trying to get a better angle. No making yourself interesting.”
“I’ll try to be as dull as possible.”
“Good. We value dull in observers.”
I am introduced to the rest of the crew in stages, and the reception ranges from polite to polite in a way that has clearly seen a solicitor.
Dan shakes my hand and says, “All right?” with the warmth of a locked filing cabinet.
Mish, who is checking equipment near the lockers, gives me a small nod but does not stop what she is doing.
Lee smiles, but it is the sort of smile people use when they have decided to reserve judgement until after the first incident, scandal or tea round.
I cannot blame them.
This is the problem with being sorry. It does not automatically make people less affected by the thing you did. It just gives them a new version of you to consider while they decide whether the old one is still standing too close.
Josh takes me through basic visitor information. Where I can go. Where I cannot go. What to do if the alarm sounds. Who to listen to. What not to touch. This last category appears to be broad and spiritually important.
“If in doubt,” he says, “ask.”
“Understood.”
“If someone gives you an instruction during a call, follow it immediately. Not after writing it down. Not after asking a follow-up question. Immediately.”
“I can do that.”
His eyes sharpen slightly. “Can you?”
I deserve that.
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
He holds my gaze for a second longer, then nods. “Good.”
We end up in the kitchen.
It is not terrible.
That is my first thought, which probably says too much about the state of the newsroom kitchen and the emotional damage it has done to me.
The station kitchen is warm, practical and clearly used by people who are regularly interrupted halfway through doing things.
There are mugs near the sink, a tea towel hanging over the back of a chair, a cereal box left open on the counter and a faint smell of toast, coffee and something fried that has made itself part of the walls.
Someone has written MILK on a whiteboard and underlined it three times, which suggests either excellent communication or a historic dairy-related incident.
The sink could do with a rinse.
A cupboard door is slightly open.
There is a pile of paperwork on one end of the table that has begun to develop its own personality.
I do not say any of it.
I am not here to assess their kitchen. I am here because I wrote an article that made a woman’s professional life harder, and beginning my first day by suggesting a loading strategy for the dishwasher would probably be unwise even by my standards.
Josh gestures towards the kettle. “Tea? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be great, thanks.”
“Strong?”
“Yes.”
He gives me a quick look. “Sensible.”
A man at the table glances up from his phone. “If Kev made it, don’t drink it.”
“I heard that,” someone calls from beyond the door.
“You were meant to.”
Josh opens a cupboard and takes down a mug. “That’s Sean.”
Sean lifts two fingers in greeting without getting up. “All right?”
“All right,” I say.
Sean looks at me again, briefly. Not unfriendly. Not friendly either. He has the expression of someone reserving judgement until the evidence stops being inconvenient.
I accept the coffee from Josh and take a sip.
It is hot enough to remove a layer of tongue and strong enough to qualify as performance-enhancing drugs.
“Good?” Josh asks.
“Very,” I say, once I can feel my face again.
Before I can decide whether this is a test I have passed or failed, footsteps cross the station corridor.
Josh glances towards the doorway.
A moment later, Philippa Hart appears in the kitchen.
I have seen her photograph.
That should have helped.
It does not.
In the article photo, she was in uniform, helmet tucked under one arm, expression calm enough to imply she had once personally negotiated with a burning building and won. In person, out of uniform, she is somehow more intimidating and less intimidating at the same time.
She is wearing dark jeans, sturdy boots and a green jumper under an open jacket.
Her hair is short and dark, cropped close around her face in a deliberately messy way that should probably look careless but very much does not.
Soft spikes. Feathered edges. A fringe that looks as if it has been told to behave and has agreed only in principle.
It suits her annoyingly well, sharp enough for work, soft enough to make my brain briefly forget why I am here.