Story by Vivienne

It is a balmy Summer evening in Sydney.   My husband went out for the evening to see the school play the Emperor and the Architect.   I decided not to go as we had seen the play in London when it starred Anthony Hopkins and Jim Dale.  Having seen the best, I couldn’t imagine how I could sit through the school play version even though hubby had been involved in its production.

There was a reasonably good film on the tele and after about half an hour I heard thump thump coming from the unit above.  Gee, I thought, Doreen’s rearranging her Parker furniture again.   Quiet, then thump, quiet, thump thump.   Heck, must be a big makeover.  Then bang at the door and upstairs opposite neighbour breathlessly asks for a woollen blanket.   I hand it over, close the door then think – what on earth for?  I go upstairs and see smoke coming out from Doreen’s door where my blanket is stuffed.

Have you called the fire brigade?   Yes.  Good.   Where’s Doreen?   Oh, she’s still in there.   WHAT ? !   At this stage I can’t remember just what I said but I took a big deep breath and opened Doreen’s door and went in to find her.   Eyes closed – I couldn’t see a thing – so much thick smoke.   My good luck was that her unit was exactly the same as ours and I could find my way around in the dark.  Thump, bump – I hear her, she’s in the bedroom.  With my arms spread out I find Doreen and manage to scoop her up and half drag her out of the unit, close door and over to the opposite neighbour.  By this time other neighbours had gathered and I asked them to comfort Doreen – cup of tea, perhaps a brandy.

The fire brigade still have not arrived.    I race downstairs and go outside to view the fire – the balcony is ablaze, it looks rather frightening.  I race down the driveway to the road – no sign of fire brigade.   Race back to upstairs neighbour – ring the fire brigade again.   Back downstairs to see how the fire looks – not good.  All this went on for some time – another sprint down the driveway – I look up the road and there is the fire brigade at the wrong address, about 100 yards up.   Running, yelling, follow me the fire is this way.   Well, amazingly from the road there was no sign of fire, let alone smoke.  The brigade drive down after me and two of the fire chaps run with me, with axes in hand.   Within minutes the fire is out – big mess.

Back to Doreen – she is in shock, she looks a wreck, her toes are burnt, her face is smudgy black – but basically she is okay.  It was at this stage that it finally dawned on me as to why the opposite neighbours were very blasé (oh, she’s still in there !) – they were pissed.

One of the downstairs neighbours offered to put Doreen up for the night, I went back to see the closing credits of the film.   Hubby arrived home.   I told him he’d missed an exciting evening and I’m so glad I didn’t go to see the play because if I had gone Doreen might well be dead and our units burnt to the ground.  I finally went to the bathroom and saw myself – half my eyebrows were gone, my eyelashes were suddenly very short and I had a sort of mohawk hair style.  I was filthy as well.  I took the next day off work and helped sort out Doreen who was still in shock and totally incapable of doing anything to help herself.  I took over and sorted out her insurance claim, got her into a motel, arranged for assessors access etc.  I inspected her unit – nothing escaped the smoke and water damage but the fire was mainly at the balcony end and some of the seagrass matting was burnt.   What caused the fire – Doreen had put up new curtains and put some candles nearby to admire them.  They caught fire.  The rest you know.

Doreen recovered and was grateful for all my help.   My efforts went unreported until now.