Chapter 7
AJ
The first thing I learn about being clean-shaven in a fire station is that firefighters are not nearly as emotionally supportive as public messaging would suggest.
I come out of the locker room with my jacket back on, my helmet under one arm and my face feeling aggressively exposed.
Kev looks up first.
He stops what he is doing.
“Oh,” he says.
Mish turns round.
Then Dan appears from the direction of the kitchen, carrying a mug and the expression of a man who has arrived at precisely the right time by accident or divine intervention.
His eyes land on my face.
He smiles.
Not widely.
Worse.
Fondly.
“Look at him,” he says. “Fresh out of sixth form.”
“I’m forty-one,” I say.
Kev nods. “Bless.”
“I have a mortgage.”
“Do you?”
“No, but I could.”
Mish makes a small sound into her clipboard. Pippa, standing beside the breathing apparatus set, does not join in. She checks the straps instead, her face composed, her mouth almost too composed, which tells me she is enjoying this privately and intends to be professional about it.
Dan takes a sip of coffee. “Do we need a consent form from his mum?”
“I’m not a baby.”
“No,” Mish says, kind enough to sound as if she means it. “Not a baby.”
“Thank you.”
“A toddler, maybe.”
Kev laughs.
I close my eyes briefly. “I am beginning to feel this workplace may not be psychologically safe.”
Pippa lifts the BA set. “You’ll survive.”
“Is that your official assessment?”
“For now.”
There is a dangerous amount of amusement in the room, but it does not feel cruel. Not exactly. More like I have been given a place in the morning’s entertainment because I have arrived with an article, a beard sacrifice and too much confidence. I can probably allow that.
Also, I am too tired to fight properly.
Pippa steps closer with the set. “Turn round.”
I do.
The cylinder settles against my back with enough weight to make my knees reconsider their contract. I keep my face neutral, which is easier now no one can mistake the beard for emotional support.
“Shoulders back,” Pippa says.
I obey.
She adjusts the straps, then tightens one across my chest. The movement is brisk, efficient and very hard to ignore when her fingers are close enough to brush the front of my jacket.
Not intimate.
Not even close.
The trouble is that my body has recently suffered a shaving-related identity crisis and is apparently looking for new problems.
“Too tight?” she asks.
“No.”
“Can you breathe?”
“Yes.”
“Comfortable?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Good. You’re learning.”
Kev walks past and gives the cylinder an approving nod. “There you go, babyface. Now you look like a proper recruit.”
“Babyface?”
“It’s that or chinny.”
“Babyface is fine.”
Pippa looks at Kev. “Enough.”
Not sharp. Not angry. Just a line drawn because she has work to do and I have been publicly infantilised enough for one morning.
Kev lifts a hand. “Done.”
He is not done, judging by his face, but he is done for now.
Pippa picks up the mask. “We’ll check the fit. You’re not going under air today, but I want you to understand the process.”
“Right.”
“Mask on. I’ll talk you through it.”
The mask presses against my newly vulnerable face, cool and rubber-edged, and for one brief, unpleasant second I understand why she asked about panic. The world narrows. The air feels different even before anything is attached. Not worse exactly. Just less casual. Less mine.
“Breathe normally,” Pippa says.
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m attempting normality.”
Her voice stays calm. No teasing now. No audience in it. Just instruction, steady and level.
“Slow in. Slow out. Don’t fight the mask. Let it sit.”
I do.
Not immediately.
She watches me for a few seconds, eyes on my face, not my face in the way I might have liked under almost any other circumstances, but my breathing. My focus. Whether I am about to be stupid.
I am not.
Mostly because she is standing there making stupidity feel both unnecessary and a bit embarrassing.
“Better,” she says.
I nod.
“Good. Mask off.”
I take it off carefully and resist the urge to inhale like I’ve just come up from a deep dive.
Pippa points towards the yard. “Now we move.”
“With this?”
“With that.”
“Excellent.”
“It’s only familiarisation.”
“People keep saying only in ways that concern me.”
Dan drifts closer, mug still in hand. “Want me on timing?”
Pippa nods. “Basic circuit. Nothing fancy.”
That is how I learn that nothing fancy in fire station language means carrying equipment, moving hose, following instructions, stopping, starting, turning, lifting, lowering, clipping, unclipping and discovering that every part of my body has been quietly lying about its loyalty.
The first drill is simple.
Pippa says that, so I know not to trust it.
I carry a length of hose from one side of the yard to the other, set it down where she tells me, return for another, then move both again because apparently firefighting involves a lot of putting things somewhere only to be told that somewhere else is now better.
The cylinder on my back changes everything.
It shifts my balance, pulls at my shoulders and makes the kit feel twice as hot.
I can still do it, which is both reassuring and deeply irritating because the fact I can do it means Pippa gives me something else.
“Again,” she says.
I look at the hose.
The hose looks back.
I may be hallucinating.
“Problem?” she asks.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then again.”
I go again.
Then we add instructions. Not complicated ones. Left. Right. Stop. Back. Kneel. Stand. Pick it up from the coupling, not there. Watch your footing. Don’t turn your back on the equipment. Don’t step over that line. Tell me what you see.
What I see is my life choices gathering in the corner to laugh at me.
What I say is, “Hose, cone, bay door, Kev enjoying himself.”
Kev says, “Accurate.”
Pippa does not smile, but there is a softening at the corner of her mouth. “Again.”
Of course.
By the time we move to dragging, my thighs have begun to send strongly worded letters to management. My shoulders are hot. My shirt is sticking to my back under the kit. The cylinder, which at first felt like equipment, has become a permanent moral judgement.
“Keep your pace steady,” Pippa says. “Don’t rush because you’re tired.”
“I’m not tired.”
Mish, walking past with a crate, says, “That was adorable.”
“I’m slightly warm.”
“You’re red.”
“I’m naturally vivid.”
“Again,” Pippa says, but there is something in her voice now that tells me she is watching properly. Not just enjoying the spectacle. Checking the line between useful and too much.
I hate that I appreciate it.
I also hate that I want to do it right.
I drag the hose again.
Halfway through, my boot catches slightly on the edge of a mat. Not enough to fall. Enough to throw me off. I recover, but not neatly.
“Stop,” Pippa says.
I stop.
“Reset.”
“I’m fine.”
“I said reset.”
There is no heat in it. No drama. Just command.
She steps closer. “Don’t push through bad movement. That’s when people get hurt.”
“I didn’t fall.”
“Do you want praise for nearly falling?”
“No.”
“Then reset.”
I look at her.
She looks back.
I reset.
This is the other thing I learn: Pippa Hart does not need to raise her voice. She has a tone that makes argument feel like a waste of oxygen, and as oxygen has become a topic of personal interest, I choose not to waste it.
We do it again.
Better this time.
She nods once.
Not praise. Not exactly. But something close enough to make me straighten like a fool.
Then she gives me another drill.
By the time she finally says, “Break,” I am in a meaningful relationship with death.
Not actual death.
Obviously.
I am aware of the distinction. I have read pamphlets.
But a dramatic part of my soul has lain down on the yard and is asking to be remembered fondly.
Pippa helps me out of the BA set before I can embarrass myself by fumbling with the straps for too long. Her hands are quick and impersonal. The cylinder comes off my back, and I experience relief so profound it nearly becomes religious.
“Water,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Sit if you need to.”
“I’m fine.”
She gives me a look.
“I’m going to sit,” I amend.
“Good choice.”
I get water from the bottle someone points me towards and make it as far as the low wall just outside the garage before my legs vote for an extra bank holiday. I slide down to sit on the concrete, back against the wall, one knee bent, helmet beside me, face cooling in the air.
Inside, the crew has shifted into some other rhythm. Kit being moved. Doors opening. Someone laughing. Pippa’s voice, low and clear, saying something about lunch like the last hour has not stripped me down to my component parts.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I stare at Chloe’s name for a second, considering whether I have enough pride left to let it ring out.
Apparently not.
I answer. “I am calling from beyond the veil.”
“Oh, good,” Chloe says. “You’re alive.”
“Technically.”
“You sound awful.”
“I’ve been professionally developed.”
There is a pause.
Then she says, “I’m putting you on video.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Chloe.”
Too late.
Her face appears, far too bright and delighted for a woman indoors with access to chairs. Then another face leans into frame beside her.
Ava.
Chloe and Ava are my work besties and, if I’m honest, probably my two best friends in and out of work. Of course they want to see me suffer. That’s what we do best. Moral support through teasing.
“Oh my God,” Chloe says.
I close my eyes. “Don’t.”
“The beard,” Ava says.
“I said don’t.”
“You look so young.”
“I am young.”
“You look like you’re about to ask permission to go on a school trip,” Chloe says.
“I’m hanging up.”
“No, don’t. Turn your face to the light.”
“I’m not giving you angles.”
Ava’s eyes narrow with the focused kindness of someone about to be deeply unkind. “It’s actually very sweet.”
“Sweet is not better.”
“It is from this side of the screen.”
Chloe grins. “Does the Watch Manager like it?”
“Pippa? Why would that be relevant?”
“Oh, interesting.”
“No!”
“That no had panic in it.”
“It had dehydration in it.”
Ava leans closer. “How’s the station?”