The Second Home
Prologue
The night sky is black and star-spangled, as it always is on clear summer evenings like this one.
All the smoke and fizz and bang of the earlier fireworks display — the annual August bank holiday celebrations — has gone, chased away by the gentle sea breeze.
Just the hint of cordite hangs in the air, acrid and perfumed, amid the distant call of gulls further out, on the wing, still unnerved by the explosions.
The man picks his way along the beach, allowing his dog off the lead to explore every piece of festering seaweed and discarded litter.
He stands looking out across the water, enjoying the peace and quiet now that all the festivities are over for another year, all the bars and restaurants emptied out.
He watches the boats bob lazily, as though rocked to sleep by the tide, and he yawns.
He is about to turn his gaze inland again, to whistle up his dog and return home to his own waiting bed, when his eye snags on a patch of colour.
It is way across on the other side of the bay, where houses and cottages nestle together, cheek by jowl, as they creep up the cliff side.
It is a powdery orange hue. But as his eyes struggle to focus in the moonlight, it takes on a brighter glow, alive and moving. A haze of smoke drifts upwards.
At first he presumes it must be some of the local kids mucking about; an unauthorised, after-hours bonfire, a private party continuing late into the night.
Is that a shower of sparks he can see shooting into the air?
Everyone knows this sort of thing is not allowed outside the designated areas ordained by the council.
But youngsters round here get bored. Tonight is one of the few nights they get to let their hair down, when the intense heat and activity of the tourist season peaks and boils over.
He calls to his dog, turning his body away, when a loud bang draws his head back with a jolt.
The sound of it ricochets off the sides of the buildings along the shore, the faces of the craggy inlets.
Surely it’s just hoodlums letting off rogue bangers.
But the sound gives him concern, makes him pause.
It isn’t the jubilant snap and crackle of his childhood, the illicit pop of his youth.
It is like a landslide; the sound of something falling, collapsing.
The man strains his eyes a final time to see the golden colour intensify, the smoke billowing now, growing bolder with every passing moment.
It is a fire; a real one. Not constructed for pleasure or celebration but fast, furious and out of control.
He turns, snapping the lead onto his dog’s collar, and begins to run.
By the time he has dialled the emergency services, shouting into his mobile phone in broken sentences, it is confirmed that a fire crew has already been alerted and dispatched.
Nevertheless, he carries on running round to the other side of the harbour and into the streets of houses, the high orange glow in the sky his only navigational tool.
As he reaches the site of the fire, he sees there is nothing he can do to help.
The fire brigade is already assembled outside the row of tall terraced buildings, focusing their efforts on the one with the scaffolding, half of which has collapsed.
The heat from the burning house is immense now, rendering the air thick and toxic as embers fill the sky like fireflies.
The crew works efficiently, deploying the equipment, aiming the torrents of water at different sections of the burning shell.
Nearby, residents stand on their doorsteps looking on forlornly, some peering out of upper windows, as though they are all watching yet another display, their faces a mask of shock rather than delight this time.
The man sees one of the crew standing by the fire engine, directing others in his team. He recognises him; the son of a friend he knows from this close-knit community of generations. He wanders over and the two nod briskly at each other in acknowledgement.
‘All right?’
‘Bit of a bloody mess this then.’
‘Sure is. But we’ve got it under control.’
‘Everyone out okay, then? Next door. No one hurt, I hope?
The younger man looks towards the houses but makes no answer as he coordinates his team, calling out instructions.
‘Just as well it was a building site, eh? No one living there. Silver linings and all that,’ the man says, tugging his dog to heel.
Something passes over the other’s face. He sees it.
‘What is it, Tom? What’s happened?’
‘Sod it,’ he hears him mutter. ‘It’ll probably be all around the town by daybreak anyway. Don’t say I told you but we’ve pulled a couple of people out. Now do me a favour and get back would you?’