Crystal Clear

Chapter Seven

Richard sneered, “Better brother! What a crock of… It’s all smoke and mirrors with you isn’t it Ava?! You couldn’t have Daniel, so you settled for me. I genuinely thought you loved me or was it all just an act? You’ve lied to me. You said you were fed up with liars and cheats. For all I know you’ve been shagging him behind my back too”

Ava searched for an answer “I love you Richard” was all she could summon in response.

Richard lifted his eyebrows, sighed “Don’t call me. I need time to think. I’ll call you…well. That is if I decide to forgive you! Don’t follow me” he then walked back inside the pub.

This felt like New Year’s Eve all over again, the tears ran down Ava’s face, no doubt destroying her make up. She wanted to go back inside the pub to the lady’s toilet to continue crying but Richard told her not to follow him and Dan who was sheepishly hanging around in the pub doorway.

“Leave me alone!” Ava shrieked at Dan as he started to walk towards her.

“You look a state; let me take you home…I’ll call a cab for us”

“What, so you can attempt to charm me into bed? I’m not 20 anymore Dan!”

“You’ve never said no in the past!” Dan chuckled.

Ava slapped him around the face “How dare you! Keep away from me, never talk to me again. I mean it this time. If you do, I’ll get an injunction against you or something!”

Dan looked shocked. “Fine, but don’t come crawling back to me when no one else wants you!”

Ava flashed him a stare and told him firm voice “That will never happen; I’d rather die than go back to a creep like you!”

Ava managed to hold her tears in all the way home in the taxi drive home alone, before she ran inside, went to her bedroom and cried. It was worse than even she’d imagined it would pan out and cried harder than she’d ever cried before. She’d lost both.

Richard pulled into the Fire Station car park. His alerter had been bleeping at him for the last 3 minutes. It was blindingly light outside; August mornings were far too bright for Richard’s tastes. The car’s tyres crunched the stones in the car park as he pulled into a space. Luckily, he didn’t live too far away from the station, as it took him less than 4 minutes to get there. He’d had such a bad night’s sleep, he’d tossed and turned. His face certainly looked like he’d only got two hours’ worth of sleep. No expensive moisturiser or a splash of cold water could cure this amount of tired.

Fortunately, Dan’s punches had all missed his face; his body certainly ached in places though. Hopefully, other than tired, no one would realize he’d been in a punch up a few days ago. Richard hadn’t fully checked the full extent of the bruising but the ones that Dan had caused to his torso were a deep purple and painful to touch. He secretly hoped that Dan was in the same state if not worse – he deserved it. He couldn’t quite believe what Dan had told him; after they’d stopped fighting Dan - he’d the audacity to continue talking to back him in the pub and tell him that Ava and he had been dating on and off for many years and she still loved him as they still exchanged messages every day. They’d apparently got closer after Cecilia’s death and surely if Ava wasn’t in love with Dan - why had she kept it a secret? It wasn’t as if she’d denied it either when he confronted her. It was like an arrow through Richard’s heart, the secrets and the lies had to mean that she was disguising her feelings surely? Richard thought it all over, as he went about his job on autopilot, his mind turned to Ava, this was the longest they’d not spoken for months. He remembered her pretty heart-shaped face, her beautiful eyes with those black smudges of makeup around them and the tears that streaked down her porcelain cheeks when he’d found out.

Responding to his alerter, he rushed across the car park, straight into the fire station, the door was propped open and the other fire-fighters in his crew were getting changed into their uniform. Richard shoved his personal belongings into a locker and scooped up some uniform. He quickly got dressed and jumped into the back seats of the fire engine. He put his helmet on as they were driving, and he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The fire engine slid through the traffic in the city streets like a hot knife does butter. It took a few minutes of driving before the fire engine drove up a private driveway; Richard could see the house in front of him, smoke billowing out of the back. There was another fire engine already there; it must have arrived less than a minute before as they were just getting out. The hoses rolled out and a strong jet of water was fired at the house. When Richard got out of the engine there was a strong smell of petrol in the air. He got briefed and prepared to go in the house.

Richard was about to enter the building; a beautiful country house had suffered from an arson attack. Its owners were on holiday, but their cleaner had come over to do her duties when she had seen the fire and went inside to rescue the family’s expensive jewellery. The cleaner had called as she couldn’t get out; the fire brigade had no idea where she was in the house as the fire had knocked out the telephone connection. It was Richard and two other firefighters jobs to find out which of the bedrooms had the cleaner in. The house was so dark and smoke filled, the noise of the air being fed into Richard’s mask was oddly soothing. He could hear the roar of the fire and a jet of water being applied by another group of fire-fighters. The hallway was covered in a layer of blackness and the wallpaper peeling from the walls. He could hear his radio too, commands being fed to him from outside. It was scary but exhilarating at the same time – it always was. Richard’s thoughts came to Ava, he wondered about her feelings about Dan. Ava had spoken to him about so much about her past, Richard couldn’t help but speculate how she’d got around telling him about Dan.

Richard closed his eyes and shook his head – he needed to stop over thinking everything. The more he thought it over, the more his head ached from making this so much bigger than it probably was. He was upstairs now; he and the other fire-fighters were investigating each room, in turn, trying to find the cleaner. Richard then heard via his radio she’d been found, he was overcome with a sense of relief. Just as he was about to turn around and leave the bedroom he was in, he saw a small brown and orange lump in a corner covered in a layer of debris. He went over to investigate; he got closer, brushed the debris off and checked it out. It was a cat, lifeless and limp. He picked it up, his thick gloves supporting the huge mass of fur. At first, he thought it was dead, so he held it close to his visor. On closer examination it was alive – but barely; the cat’s eyes were tiny slits. Richard radioed in his findings, and he carried the cat out of the room and onto the landing. The floorboards creaked under his feet, and as he walked down the charred-looking staircase Richard looked down at the cat. Its fur was the colour of Ava’s hair, dark brown with paler streaks running through it. A moment later, the stairs creaked, this time, much louder than they should have done; he threw the limp cat forward to the fireman at the bottom of the stairs just as the stairs gave way underneath his weight. He shouted out as he fell, his body shot down the gap and the concrete floor in the cellar with a loud thud. The dust settled on him gently like snow. The last thing that Richard thought of before his eyes closed was Ava.