TOP FLOOR FIRE

In the laundry this morning I heard about a fire’d taken place in one of the single bed flats on the top floor a year or so before I’d moved into the block.
They never discovered the cause and the woman whose flat it was lives there now after coming back from being re-housed by the Council as they re-furbished.
When my source was invited up to see the damage she told me, ‘all the plaster was off the walls and they were sifting through piles of it with those garden sieves, you know, looking for jewellery and things especially a bracelet given her by her father just before he died.’ They found nothing, apparently, and she like the flat was gutted.
‘Did you see the fire?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I couldn’t believe it, saw blue flashing lights of the fire engines through my window went out to the balcony see what was going on and saw flames from the flat at the top there, curling over the roof.’
‘What about her?’
‘Well that’s the thing see, I have nightmares about it still and telling you now is sending a shiver through me...
...she got from her balcony to the one below, I saw her.’
‘How’d she do that, was there someone there to pull her in?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, so what she do?’
‘Lowered herself down from hers, held on at the bottom, and straddled the balcony below. The man lives below her was asleep and is still angry she got in his flat and woke him up. I don’t think he knew hers was on fire, probly had a few it was a Friday night.
‘Anyway I found her out the back with only her nightie on so I took her to my place found some clothes for her, gave her my slippers because my shoes didn’t fit.
‘The insides of her legs right up her thighs were badly scraped and bloody, must've been from climbing down, brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.’
‘That’s incredible her getting out like that. I’ve thought what I’d do if it was the only way out for me.’
Me too,’ she said, ‘but there’s a difference imagining it to actually having to do it.’