Igor Clark

We sat on Thursday evening, side-saddle on the pouffe in the fifth-floor lounge, chewing on some fruited bread and waiting for a table, when I became aware of a smell of something burning. An electrical smell, maybe? Or perhaps plastic? A girl sitting on a nearby armchair turned and sniffed the air at exactly the moment I did; our eyes met and we nodded. Something's definitely burning. She called a waitress to inform her of our concern. The odour wafted away from me and idly I focussed momentarily on the menu; on various private considerations; on the game of backgammon I was shortly to play; then suddenly on the pall of thick black smoke engulfing the chunk of world outside the window. A moment of calm, serene clarity - the floor below must be on fire; we have to get out. Now. The peals of the fire alarm seemed to confirm my instinctive diagnosis.

My friend returned from a quickly-abandoned trip to the ladies' room, from where she'd seen the same display; we exchanged a swift, solemn glance, and headed for the fire exit. By the time we got to the street we could see that flames licked only a motorbike on its side and this adjacent Vespa whose burning vinyl seat had emitted such a voluminous cloud, the pair nestled ultimately safely between a cold brick wall, a cemented pavement and a cobbled street.

We circumnavigated the block so as to grant a decent perimeter to the firemen's activities, and returned to the bar, where a much better seat at a table we could now have to ourselves was waiting, and where the queue to order dinner had mysteriously evaporated, sublimated by the fire into a ghost of past expectations, and a waitress appeared, phoenix-like, to take our order. I won the round of backgammon 4-2, with two of my victories sullied by narrow squeaks and lucky throws.