Blue Smoke Read Free

but winced in pain, choking on the thick dust that seemed to be filling her mouth. Shecouldn’t see at all and Keely’s voice sounded miles away. Something was crushing her, and her ribs and legs ached; she couldn’t move, and could barely breathe.
    Had she been buried alive? Was she about to die without even the chance to say goodbye to anyone? The thought of expiring right here on a Napier street under a ton of bricks hurled her into a panic, and her hands scrabbled wildly but ineffectually at the rubble entombing her.
    ‘Oh no,’ she whispered thickly. ‘No, not yet !’
    Then she took as deep a breath as her searing ribs would allow, told herself sternly not to be so melodramatic and concentrated on trying to get up. It was then that she realised she wasn’t lying on her front at all, as she had first thought, but on her side with her right cheek jammed against the rough and hot tarseal. This explained why her face and mouth hurt so much. She couldn’t feel the touch of air on her anywhere, and if someone didn’t come and move whatever was squashing her soon, she could be in real trouble.
    The ground jolted and dropped nauseatingly again, and Tamar’s heart lurched as she envisioned even more bricks and rubble crashing down on top of her. But none did, and the movement subsided to a series of trembles. She didn’t know it then, but after two and a half minutes of catastrophic upheaval, the worst of the earth quake had passed.
    She heard muffled yelling, and felt movement against her left hand as someone dug at the rubble. Then suddenly air trickled across her skin, and fingers were touching her own.
    ‘Mam? Can you hear me? Mam?’
    Tamar responded by squeezing Keely’s hand weakly, and heard her call out to someone, ‘She’s alive; she’s holding my hand! Help me!’
    She felt more rubble being dug away, and faint light beganto filter into her temporary tomb. After a minute her head was uncovered and she squinted through scratchy, teary eyes at the daylight. And at Keely who crouched several feet away, her hat and shoes gone and covered with thick, white dust from head to toe.
    ‘Oh, Mam,’ Keely sobbed, tears cutting shiny tracks down her dirty face. ‘Oh my God, Mam, I thought you’d been killed!’
    Tamar shook her head mutely. Not this time.
    ‘Are you hurt? Does anything hurt?’
    ‘My leg and my chest,’ Tamar wheezed.
    Keely panicked momentarily and clutched the arm of the man squatting next to her. ‘Oh, God, she’s having a heart attack! Get a doctor!’
    Tamar coughed painfully and cleared her throat raggedly. ‘I’m not, it’s my ribs. And I think my leg might be broken.’ Then she added crossly, ‘For God’s sake, Keely, you’re a nurse, stop dithering and have a look.’
    ‘I can’t see, there’s too much rubbish on you!’
    ‘Well, get it off then!’
    Keely decided then that her mother certainly didn’t sound at death’s door, and struggled to pull herself together. A long time had passed since she had nursed, but she didn’t think she could have forgotten much. She grasped Tamar’s wrist, pressed two fingers against the fat vein at the base of the thumb, and counted; her mother’s pulse was fast but strong, a good sign.
    She said to the man at her side, ‘Could you please help me get her out? I don’t think I can do it by myself.’
    The man, whose own hat had disappeared and who had several bleeding scratches on his grimy face, nodded and began to dig. He was soon joined by several others, who looked shocked but determined to help.
    ‘Hold on, Mam, we’ll have you out in a minute,’ Keely soothed as she heaved bricks and pieces of wood off Tamar’s prostrate body.
    ‘We should take her down to the beach,’ one of the helpers suggested, ‘that’s where everyone else is heading. In case there’s another one.’
    Keely stopped digging and watched closely as two men lifted a heavy wooden beam off her mother’s legs. Tamar flinched but managed not to cry