Morveren

Fear

Everybody's scared of something.

Some people shriek and squeal whenever they see a spider.

Some people are terrified of injections, fainting whenever they see a needle.

Others are petrified of heights; they can't even climb a ladder without freezing up.

Me? I used the think I wasn't scared of anything. I used to think these people were silly. That it was pathetic to be so afraid of things. Until one night when I was twelve. That was the night that changed everything.

It was a cool night, late October. The three of us had watched the usual Saturday night T.V; You've Been Framed, T.V. Burp, the X-Factor, curled up on the sofa with hot chocolate and plenty of junk food. I suppose we'd been happy to an extent, but it didn't feel quite the same without Dad; although the lack of rude remarks and atmosphere of apprehension was a relief. We didn't have to worry about him getting angry and yelling at us all, didn't have to worry about him and mum having long shouting matches well into the night, whilst Jennie and I curled up together in my bed, hiding our heads under the duvet cover, desperate to block out the noise. Thanks to the restraining order, we didn't think we would ever have to worry about that again.

We went to bed around eleven, laughing about some of the crazier acts, and at the female judges extravagant outfits. I hugged Jennie goodnight and tucked her up in bed, making her laugh when I got her toys to 'speak' to her; the teddy in a gruff, growly voice and the rabbit in a soft, squeaky voice. Mum came up with a hot water bottle for Jennie's feet; she'd been getting so cold in the nights that she needed the heat. Then she sat on the end of her bed, to listen to me sing.

Jennie got me to do it almost every night; she had a playlist of her favourite songs, silly songs, childish songs, Puff the Magic Dragon, A Mouse In A Windmill and old songs, traditional songs, like Barges, The Parting Glass, O Peggy Gordon.

That night I sang The Parting Glass, my soft soprano seeming loud in the quiet night, the Scottish folk song rolling off of my tongue easily. I suppose I'd always been quite a good singer; I'd been asked to audition for choir, I'd had a solo in the school play, but tonight I sang like I'd never sung before.

Of all the comrades I've ever had,

They are sorry for my going away...

My voice was clear, high...I felt like I would never stop singing, the lilting melody seemed to pierce my heart to the core.

But since it falls unto my lot,

That I must rise and you should not,

I'll gently rise and softly call

"Goodnight and joy be with you all..."

I shivered slightly when I'd finished. I felt strange, apprehensive; the lyrics seemed to touch a strange sense inside me. That I must rise and you should not...Looking back now, I can see that it was almost a premonition. I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. But I squashed it down and ignored it, going into my own room and curling up in bed. That was my last, carefree moment. My last moment without sorrow.

Because I can remember everything that happened next in searingly painful detail.

I can remember my sisters screams as she tried to get out of her room; tried to get through the jammed door.

I can remember the desperation in my mother's eyes as she screamed at me to run.

I can remember the way the smoke stung my eyes as I coughed and chocked, trying to find my way.

"Run Morv!"

So I did.

I left them there, my mother frantically jiggling the handle, trying to get my sister out.

That was the last time I saw them. Alive, that is.

I stumbled down the stairs, searching blindly for the front door in the thick black smoke, twisting the handle, fumbling with the bolt until it slid across, practically falling into the front garden, retching, trying to find clean air.

I lay there, the stars above me spinning around and around, slowly growing dimmer as the sky filled with chocking smoke and petrol fumes.

The Fire Brigade arrived too late. Far too late.

I had no other family; three of my grandparents were dead and my mother's mother was in a home, unable to even remember her own name, let alone mine, so I had nowhere to go. I was taken into care. I drifted through the days, vacant uncaring. What did I have left to care about? My mother and sister were gone, killed in the blaze started by my father. The blaze that killed him too.

I remember how I stood in a box in court and testified, how I heard how he couldn't take the fact that my mother had won custody, how he set the fire using rags soaked in petrol, throwing them through the first floor windows in glass bottles. How the front bedroom went up first; the room he used to sleep in with my mum. How mum was downstairs when she heard my little sister screaming. How they both died in each other's arms, trapped on the second story.

How he'd said that he couldn't have us then no one could.

The funeral was a few weeks later, and the entire school attended, a sea of staring faces peering curiously at me. I didn't make a speech; what could I have said? I was numb, too numb to think of anything except that roar of flames, the hot spitting crackle...I kept quiet, staring at my hands whilst people I didn't even know said prayers for my family, whilst a roaring cacophony of voices sang hymns around me. Bitterness filled me. None of them knew Jennie; none of them knew Mum. They were just strangers.

I went back a year later, on the anniversary of the fire. A burnt out black ruin greeted me. I tried to see the home I'd loved; the home I'd grown up in. The stairs I'd rushed down every morning, the corner of the front room that we'd set the Christmas tree up in every year.

All I could see was an empty shell.

I didn't go back again.

I wish I'd never gone back at all.

Because that ruin haunted me, haunted my dreams, haunted my every waking moment. The burnt out black structure made it too easy for me to picture their bodies, remember Jennie's screams, the screams that woke me. I wish they hadn't. I wish I'd died too.

Every night, the moment I close my eyes, I can see the flickering flames, smell the acrid smoke, I can hear the roar of the fire that consumed everything I loved.

The fire that stalks me, rearing its head at every corner.

The fire that won't ever let me forget.

I used to think I wasn't scared of anything.