ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL

“I think I’d just scream.”

“Go onto the street and direct people away.”

“Alert the staff ... probably, first.”

“Call the fire brigade and the police if kids did it.”

“Ask whether or not there were any other crisps in the shop apart from Smokey Bacon.”

Everyone in the semi-circle laughed, and with a broad smile he stopped the footage of Bradford City’s wooden football stand burning to the ground, and asked me the same hypothetical question he’d given the staff to my right.

“So, Michael, you’re in the shop and you notice the crisp stand on fire, what d’you do?”

I sighed. Like all the courses Fire Training was mandatory. Some of the staff came in on their day off in their own clothes and it struck me how different they looked having only ever seen them in uniform. Like actual human beings with a range of feeling and various facial expressions. Even moving across the room in a new way. Kind of easy and untroubled. I had time to think about my answer but everything I came up with irritated me. I even considered going to the toilet but it was too obvious now.

“I’ve absolutely no idea,” I said, “I’ve never been in that situation.”

“Well, just have a guess.”

“The thing is, I don’t know how I'd react in any situation until it actually happened, and then I could maybe recall it, but that wouldn’t necessarily dictate how I would act in any similar future situation.”

He tucked a stray bit of shirt in and put a thumb round the inside of his waistband to his large trousers, “Just guess, what would you do?”

“I couldn’t possibly say.”

Someone groaned. Every department dismissed the other. The housekeepers and the receptionists, the bar staff and the kitchen, the conference side and restaurant side and the cold-calling sales girls in grey suits and flesh coloured thongs, all positive posture and instinctive smiles.

I’d heard the words sick building syndrome a few times, others cited the fact it used to be a madhouse but most simply despised the work and the pay and couldn’t find the energy to get on with the transients in other departments. Anyone here longer than six months was manager material. In response the energetic directors attempted to suppress the enmity, as obvious as the air in a windowless room, by arranging regular training and bonding sessions in various conference suites across the building named after local people of note. The Brunel could fit the most people comfortably.

I did my absolute best to get out of these things. What Do You See In The Mirror? Chemical Safety. Better Performance For A Better Future. Smile, Always! Manual Handling. Positive People Do Positive Things. Customers Are Never Wrong, Right? Electrical Safety. Health & Safety. Fire Safety.

He shifted his bulk and asked me again with remarkable patience, perhaps sensing the room to be on his side. He did all the personable stuff earlier, asking everyone’s name, making pretty good jokes and putting people at ease. He spoke about his native Australia whilst sucking on the complimentary boiled sweets. He spoke about the horrifying things he saw during his days as a fireman before becoming distracted by the taste in his mouth. Strawberries and cream! From which he began to joke about odd English traditions. Like celebrating criminals in November during Bonfire Night. It may have been the way the staff in their own clothes walked into the room physically transformed that made me speak up that it wasn’t a criminal being celebrated at all but an act of terrorism being stopped, that’s what’s celebrated, burning a man on top of a fire until you can see through his body. He stopped sucking, shrugged as though it was only a theory of mine and mumbled that it should be banned regardless whilst putting on a DVD of a night club burning down. It was just possible to hear the screams inside, he said.

 My presence became a burden to him and he began to look even heavier, a lot fatter around the waist and in the cheeks. Nobody smiled anymore, I sensed, feeling more keenly all the eyes taking me in.

“Hold my arms out to clear some room. Tell people not to get too close, I guess.”

I beat myself up about it the rest of the day. Gave myself a really hard time. Repeated it in mocking tones Non’t git too clo-se nunt et noooh nohse until I nearly wanted to cut my tongue out and put it in a glass jar so I could watch it turn to dust. The person after me gave the best answer and I immediately sank further in my chair and in my body and in my mind wondering why I didn’t think of it.

“Well, I would probably just stand there and watch, you know, just to see what happens.”

Everybody agreed.

Later we left Brunel each with a clip board and visited other rooms like John Wood and Beau Nash to list potential fire hazards and ways of preventing or possibly tackling them. Then we went out to his truck in the car park. He lifted part of the back up and revealed a mock living room. He put a water hydrant a few yards away from it and told us to pace back a bit further. He pressed a button and fire suddenly emerged from the metal bin. We all took it in turns to walk toward the hydrant and put the fire out.

“Good, good.”

He pressed another button and fire engulfed the armchair. We all took it in turns to march forward again and spray the flames out.

“Excellent.”

Finally he called me over. Told me to pick the thing up and wait. Eyeing the furniture I waited, pointing the hose at different things, still things, waiting for a wooden man to flip into view pointing a gun and threatening to blow my head off. The television went up, its cracked screen black from its all too frequent belly of fire. I attacked it and a thunderous boom came from somewhere and people yelped from behind and laughed nervously. Smoke climbed into the air from the TV.