No More Heroes

I don’t sleep when Jeanette is on call, so I sat in the dark as the TV flickered, and watched the tower burn. The picture showed firefighters heading towards the flames. They only showed a glimpse of them, and it was dark, but I watched intently. I didn’t see Jeanette. I had the sound down low so it wouldn’t wake Jason, but I could still hear the reporter’s voice: “heroes. Running towards danger, regardless of the threat to their own lives.”

Heroes.

The reason we called Jason Jason is because you can’t call a kid in 21st century London Achilles or Hercules or Perseus. But I knew I wanted my kid to have a hero’s name. I wanted to give him that much, at least.

“He went off in a ship to find a golden fleece. He was one of the Ancient Greeks,” I told Jason.

“Like Granny and Grandad are ancient Greeks?” he said.

“No. They’re just old Greeks. Well, they’re quite ancient,” I said, as Jeanette laughed.

Her laugh always reminded me of summer rain pattering on the roof of an airy conservatory.

Watching the smoking tower, I didn’t want to think about Jeanette’s laugh.

I told Jason all the stories: Odysseus and Theseus and all the heroes. He liked hearing about Theseus best – how he killed the minotaur. But he pretended to like Jason best.

“Daddy, why are there no heroes any more?” he asked.

On the TV screen there was a wide shot of the tower: a colossus against the night sky, oozing smoke from every floor, writhing with flames. A monster of mythic proportions.

They showed more firefighters. I could only see their backs, but they all seemed to be men. No Jeanette. I knew she was there though, somewhere.

The reporter was still blabbering. I heard that word again: “heroes.”

“No,” I muttered at the screen, “just doing their job.”

It should have been me there, doing my job. It should have been Jeanette here with Jason. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned or out-of-touch or sexist, but there it is. I know Jeanette’s an excellent firefighter. She’s also a wonderful mother. She takes care of Jason on the days I can’t drag myself out of bed, then goes off to work while I sit and marinate in my own shame.

“It’s very common,” my therapist said, “to feel shame. But mental illness is something that can affect anybody. It’s no reflection on you. You need to challenge those feelings of shame when they arise.”

I said, “when can I go back to work?”

He said, “you really need to think about whether such a highly stressful work environment is right for you at the moment.”

It was right for me. Being a firefighter made me whole. It made me worthwhile. It was where I met Jeanette. But I wasn’t right for it. Not good enough. Not strong enough.

“Daddy?”

I jumped.

“Jason, what are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep.”

He stood in the doorway in his Spiderman pyjamas, clutching Billy Rabbit by the ear.

Quickly, I switched off the TV, although I still hadn’t caught a glimpse of Jeanette.

“Come on, Jay-Jay, let’s get you back to bed.”

I sat on the floor by Jason’s bed. It’s a little, kid-sized bed, and I always feel like an awkward giant squeezed into a doll’s house when I sit next to it. I told him about Theseus again. He never gets bored of hearing it. When the story was over I watched his gentle breathing for a while. I thought he was asleep, but then he murmured, half-waking, “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“If the princess hadn’t given Theseus the string he wouldn’t have found a way out of the lab-rinth, ever!”

“That’s true.”

“So, she’s the hero too. As well as Theseus.”

I sat quiet until I was sure he was sleeping.

I went to the kitchen, got a glass of water. Then I went back to the living room. I switched on the TV. The tower was still burning.

If I had a piece of string, fireproof, steel string, attached to Jeanette, she would always find her way back to us.

“Please, God,” I whispered, “if there is such a being, if you care about puny humans at all, please save Jeanette.” And, then, realising how selfish that sounded, I added, “and the others in the tower too. All of them.”

I knew I was asking too much. I only had to look at the blazing tower on the screen to know that some people would not be saved that night.

"There may come a time," I was told, when I first joined the fire service, "when you will try to save somebody and it will not be possible. If you're going to do this job, you have to be prepared for that."

For me, it was a family. A Mum, a Dad and two kids. It was a few years ago. Jeanette was at home, bulging with unborn Jason. It was a house fire. They didn't have smoke alarms. By the time the neighbours spotted the blaze and dialled 999 it was too late. It wasn't anyone's fault. But that was when I stopped sleeping. That was when it all began.

Still the tower burned. The morning news came on. No reports of any firefighters killed or injured. Not yet. Some residents reported dead already, many more missing or fighting for their lives, number of deaths expected to rise significantly. They showed pictures. There was a little boy about Jason's age.

While Penelope was waiting for Odysseus to come home she worked on her weaving every day, and unpicked it every night, so that it would never be finished. If it was finished she'd have to marry some other guy, but she knew Odysseus was coming home. Even when everyone said he wouldn't.

I reckon, if she could, she would have gone and looked for Odysseus herself. But someone had to take care of the kid.

"Heroes." It was a different reporter now, but the same old refrain. "Without a thought for their own lives..."

That reporter didn't get it. When you're fighting a fire it's not about you, or the danger, or being a hero. There are no heroes. We do what we do. What we're good at. What we're trained for. Even during my worst times I could always get it together during an incident. It was the rest of the time I started to unravel. Like Theseus' ball of string. And I was groping in the dark, trying to find the end of it, knowing that without it I'd never find my way out.

This isn't about you, I told myself, people are dying and you're feeling sorry for yourself.

My therapist had given me strategies for dealing with these thoughts. Thoughts about being worthless. About being a burden. About how Jeanette and Jason would be better off without me. The only thing that worked when it got bad was the thought that it might be Jason who found me.

The moment I heard the front door I was on my feet and in the hallway. She threw her arms around my neck, and I held her tight. She smelled of smoke.

"Don't let go," she whispered. "Oh, God, I would never have got through tonight if it wasn't for you."

"I didn't do anything," I said.

"You didn't need to. You're here. That's enough. I love you."

So I didn't let go. I may not be a hero, but I'm a husband. I'm a Dad. And, one day, I will be a firefighter again.