Bright Spark
Text
copyright © 2012 Gavin Smith
All
rights reserved
1977
The
sky was yellow and grainy like old newsprint. Every few minutes, an airliner
would cross it, drawing an arc of noise and grime all the way from Torremolinos
to Ringway. The whining would swell into a pressure that flattened the world
and receded as slowly as the day’s heat. There was no room for simple heroism
in these skies, no silk scarves and goggles, no delirious vapour trails as
heroes in Spitfires and Hurricanes slashed across a blue and better sky to fend
off the evil Hun.
The
blonde boy screamed a throaty, twelve-piston roar as the Spitfire in his hand
banked and rolled in pursuit of Matty Henderson’s Messerschmitt. Matty flung
the yellow-nosed craft into an inverted loop but the pilot’s efforts were in
vain when Matty’s toe hit a stone and he crashed to his knees. He rolled onto
his backside, knees glistening with blood and ribbed with peeled skin, the 109
still held heroically aloft. The silence thickened and Matty’s eyes glistened
as he considered whether or not to cry.
“Gerrup,
you puff,” said the blonde boy. Matty nodded at him, sniffed and stood. Eight
year olds didn’t cry. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“Oi,
Pyro, why am I being chased all the time?”
“’Cause
you’re the Jerry. Good guys win. We won, stupid. Anyway, don’t call me that.”
“Why
not? That’s what my dad calls you. I’m not supposed to play with you ‘cause
you’re a dangerous pyroniac.”
“Why
not? ‘Cause I’ll give you a dead-arm times ten, that’s why not.”
“Oh,
ok. Anyway, why am I always the Jerry?”
“My
aeroplanes. My rules. Look out, achtung, Spitfire out of the sun.” The blonde
boy brought the plastic killing machine in a high arc down towards Matty’s
head.
“Catch
me first.” Matty ran, one leg stiff at the knee and smeared red. The blonde boy
followed, machine-gun noises and flecks of spit flying from his mouth.
A
Maxi was labouring and spluttering up the track towards them at crawling speed,
windows open, radio belting out some nonsense about a brand new combine
harvester. Tethered to the wing mirror an old greyhound lurched along, no more
than bones and gristle held together by overstretched skin. The boys knew the
old man at the wheel would have something to shout about because he always did.
They could already see his lips working soundlessly beneath that nose, wide and
blooming with reds and purples.
Matty
took a leap into the weeds, kicked another stone out of the farmer’s wall as he
half fell across it and set off through the nettles towards the field thick
with yellow stubble and the barn beyond. The blonde boy followed, pausing when
he was safely over the wall to flick two fingers at the old man. The dog yelped
as the car’s brakes dug in and its lead was jerked to a stop. Whatever the old
man shouted was lost as another airliner churned the air into noise and grime.
“My
plane is faster in a straight line, you divvy,” shouted Matty as he sprinted
across the field, stubble crackling under his Dunlops, once white and now grey
like old chewing gum. The blonde boy pelted after him, knowing his gangly legs
would close the distance quickly. The familiar throbbing in his temples had
returned.
They
both slid to a stop as they found the corrugated cement of the farmyard. The
barn doors were open, a safe darkness lay within and it wasn’t overlooked. The
air carried the sweetness of hay and the tang of ammonia, a distant rumble of
generators, the lowing of cattle nearby.
“It
says not to trespass over there,” whispered Matty, Battle of Britain forgotten.
“Been
here lots of times. That barn’s haunted or something. No-one ever comes. You
scared?”
Matty
shook off the question as though it were an inquisitive wasp.
“Right
then.” The blonde boy sprinted towards the barn. “Last one in loses the
dogfight.”
Shadow
embraced them as they lurched inside, Matty trailing yards behind. This shadow
should have felt cool but it nursed towers of baled hay, reeking of heat and
cut grass. Stalks and cut twine were strewn on the floor and the corrugated
roof and wooden beams ticked and groaned above them.
“You
lost the dogfight.”
“Not
fair. You didn’t say go.”
“Doesn’t
matter. Shot you down in flames.”
Matty
dangled the plane by its tail and let it pirouette to the floor with a rising
howl followed by a phlegm-filled explosion. He laid it down gently without even
bending a propeller blade. “Let’s go back; it’s nearly time for my tea.”
“Not
yet. I shot you down in flames so that plane needs to burn.”
“It
did. I made an explosion and everything.”
“No,
I mean for real.”
“But
you made this one.”
“I’m
a bit sick of it. Anyway, I’m getting a Focke-Wulf at the weekend.” The blonde
boy handed Matty his Spitfire and pulled a plastic lighter from his hip
pocket.
“You
are tapped.”
“What
you afraid of? A few cows? Just watch this Nazi burn.” With a practised motion,
he struck a flame and held it to the plane’s tail. Both boys watched
goggle-eyed as the fuselage blackened then drooped and refused to catch light.
“Thought
you knew all about fires then?”
“Not
my fault. I thought all that glue would burn. Just give us a minute.” The
blonde boy picked some long stalks from the floor and wrapped them around the plane
with a length protruding from the tail. He flicked the lighter again and the
taper embraced the flame.
“Watch
him crash and burn now then.” He tossed the plane earthwards, trailing gouts
of flame and smoke. The moment it left his hand and moved beyond his reach, a
new knowledge moiled in his guts. Even before it fell to earth, he saw in a
flash of flame and destruction and heartache what he might have done, and knew
he no longer wanted to be the fool who did these stupid things.
The
plastic plane crashed and splintered onto the hard floor and slid into a bale,
no longer aflame but blackened. Matty’s mouth twitched into the ghost of a
smile. For a second, the blonde boy breathed again. Then the parched straw
found the heat and let out a grateful gasp of white smoke.
“What
did you do that for? What do we do now?” Matty was shifting from one foot to
another, still holding the precious Spitfire.
The
blonde boy pinched his eyes shut and slapped himself once then twice. “Can’t
have this again. Go get water.” Matty’s eyes were beading and his lower lip
trembled. “Go on. Just get water.”
Matty
ran, his Dunlops slapping the concrete hard. The blonde boy stood and watched,
willing the bale to stop. The sweet grassy air was turning into something hot
and bitter, something that tickled the back of his throat and squeezed his
eyes. He grabbed the smoking bale and tried to move it, but it must have
weighed as much as he did. He felt it crackle and breathe heat at him, dropped
it and stood back, trembling.
He
shouted for Matty and the water and slapped himself again, harder. Minutes
passed, or seconds, and Matty didn’t come. He couldn’t see the roof and the
high beams were receding from view, shadows dissolving in gauzy heat. Cackling
imps of flame were leaping from more bales as though they’d been waiting there
all summer for this chance to escape. He plucked the lighter from his pocket,
swore at it, dropped it and stamped it until it smashed.
Then
he ran, the way Matty must have done. Lungs working like bellows, drawing the
smuts and the smoke and the taste of his own wicked stupidity deep into his
lungs, he reached the tree-line, hunkered down in the weeds and turned and
watched. Help must come. Farmers had hoses and water. Only the old man had seen
him near here. What would happen? Would his life end? Would he go to jail?
Tiny
compared with the stocky farming lads he wanted to see, Matty staggered into
view, lop-sided with an enormous grey bucket in one hand, and vanished into the
smoking maw of the barn. He didn’t come out until after the beams crashed in,
after the farmer in his blue overalls had tried and failed to defy the flames,
after the fire men had hosed it all down. Then the ambulance men turned up with
a stretcher and a red blanket to bundle up something the size of Matty.
The
present
A
bitter heat followed the house martins back from Namibia to their cool and
verdant summer residence. It had been dragged across vast skies by the sucking
chill of the outgoing winter, nourished by the equatorial sun and laden with
quartz by Saharan dust-storms. Now, long after dark on a lazy bank holiday
evening, it hung over a world of privet hedges and tamed horizons, letting the
air thicken into a promise of stormy weather.
For
a while longer, the heat warmed house martin chicks as it bled from the
brickwork of 13 Marne Close. Weeks earlier, flitting through cooler skies,
their quick eyes had found this dream home in suburbia. With its sheltered
eaves, solid brickwork and ready supply of mud, grass and wind-blown insects,
it was a desirable residence for any young family.
It
hardly mattered to their bird brains that the neighbours on the other side of
the brickwork had a language harsher and louder than theirs, and didn’t cease
their screeching, senseless racket until long after dark. Nor did they
appreciate the new guttering, the re-pointed mortar or the UPVC double-glazing.
It was enough that they could remain comfortably aloft, far from the dirt and
tarmac and the lumbering creatures who had to make do with walking and
crawling.
It
was therefore an untroubled roost, save for the unceasing demands of the
chicks. So feathers were ruffled and a black eye glistened when long after
sundown the gravel shifted on the driveway beneath. The moment stretched, a
movement held mid-step. The bird had almost settled into sleep when the gravel
moved again, this time rhythmically, starting at the garden gate and ending at
the front door. The bird peeped but her challenge went unanswered. The chicks
began to clamour under her half-spread wings, her alertness a sign that some
wriggling morsel might be forthcoming.
Thirty
feet below, the crunching of gravel ceased and was replaced by a sequence of
sounds that were unintelligible and therefore meant danger. A faint wheezing,
as of lungs barely able to choke down the air. A sloshing of liquid in a
container, a flat note when it struck gravel suggesting fullness. The
spattering of liquid poured onto a hard surface, punctuated by the glugging of
air replacing it in the container. A rattle, a scrape and a small crackling
burst. Gravel shifting as footsteps moved away, their direction lost in a
hungry purring.
Tendrils
of smoke carried danger to the nest, the first predator to do so. The bird cast
herself from the nest and scoured the air, finding no enemy she could
understand. The chicks peeped with dumb desperation, their need for succour
renewed. A monster had enveloped the house in its orange tendrils, and it
crackled, spat and belched black smoke at the bird.
Flames
slashed at windows behind which human forms danced in imitation. The frames
shook as fists were pounded against their panes, and held firm. The bird
shrieked her alarm but the predator was not dissuaded and no help came. She
flew in tight helpless figures of eight around the nest, finding no vector of
escape. Her lungs were raw with inhaled poisons and she could smell her
feathers singeing. Instinct had to be obeyed, first, last and always. She
pirouetted in black air, folded her wings and dropped into the nest. Alarm and
pain consumed her senses and there was nothing to do but shelter her brood from
the beast.
She
didn’t hear and wouldn’t have understood the voices of pleading and terror
outside, the sirens, diesel engines and pumped water. As the shrivelled nest
fell to ground under the first high-pressure blast, the weather changed. The
heat shrivelled as cooler air swept in and fat raindrops fell on the
conflagration, red with sand from a cruel emptiness far away.
Harkness
staggered under the weight of whisky sloshing around in his forebrain. Not the
good stuff either; this didn’t seduce or lull, it bludgeoned. His pulse struck
up a macarena in his temples and his stomach agreed to join it on the
dance-floor. Heat chafed him everywhere save between his toes where he’d found
grass dampened by beer. A fugue of gossiping voices underscored by his least
favourite eighties compilation encircled him.
So
much to think about. But he had a job to do, if only he could focus. His
forearms prickled, a plastic bottle crumpled in his hand and thick fluid arced
from its nozzle. A wall of light became a blaze of pain. His feet let him
stagger back.
“Jesus
wept, Rob.” A familiar voice separated itself from the fugue. “Look what you’ve
done to my sausage.”
The
bottle was torn from his hand by Slowey’s familiar shape, reduced to a jumble
of impressions; pink limbs, too short shorts, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, a goatee
making up for what a bald-patch lacked. The barbeque was now crackling again.
“Earth
to Rob.” Slowey wafted a hand in front of his face. He found himself staring
into the ruby eyes of Eddie, the trademark skeletal ghoul plastered across
Slowey’s pert beer gut. At least Eddie was amused. Another shape arrived,
unmistakably Hayley, hands held fidgeting at her hips as she resisted the
temptation to fold her arms and sigh. He imagined a dozen other faces looking
at anything but him.
“What?”
he demanded, more loudly than he’d intended. Important to stay in charge of the
situation. Better to be drunk and in charge of something than to sit in a
corner waiting for something to take charge of you. Who were they to take
charge of this highly charged situation when he was so good at charging in and
making the charge stick? If he didn’t take charge, he might be dishonourably
discharged. He twitched his head, hoping to jumble more sense from his inner
monologue. He knew he was drunk when he couldn’t walk or think in a straight
line. His face smelled of burned meat.
“Bring
him inside, Slow,” said Hayley as she moved towards the patio doors. Someone
had turned off the music and glances were being flicked at watches. He hadn’t
noticed the darkness falling on them, as hot and black as ash. This didn’t feel
like the kind of night that would bring relief from the day; it would only
thicken the heat and poach them in their beds.
“Water,
Slow. Why won’t it rain? Have a word, would you? Someone should grip it. Too
hot.”
“I
hope you weren’t too attached to your eyebrows, matey. And you’ll have a tan
like a Scotsman.”
“What?”
“About
two minutes ago, you flame-grilled your face. More accelerant and enthusiasm
than my cold sausage dilemma warranted. And you’re absolutely shitfaced. And
you’re on call.”
“Balls.
Big balls of fire.” His forehead crumpled into a frown which showed him exactly
where it hurt. “Need first aid kit. Need fluids.”
In
the time it took Slowey to catch a sympathetic eye through the dissipating
smoke and open his mouth to speak, Harkness had crossed the patio in a headlong
lunge, ripped the lid from a water butt and plunged his head into its mossy
depths. The plastic resonated as Harkness screamed into water.
He
withdrew his head, glistening and red, and grinned.
“Better!
Again.”
There
was a new noise, a good noise. Something from above was prickling his face,
running over his eyes. He looked up, a bubble shifted and sloshed in his head,
he slumped against the wall, belching, and was enraptured by the fat drops of
water being hurled towards him.
The
workaday world evaporated and he was being propelled through some cool and
beautiful space where onrushing droplets captured the light, kindled it into
crystalline marvels, and then vanished into the void again. He marvelled at his
own power to command the weather and allowed himself to smile while he hummed
and swayed and cooled.
A
phone was ringing somewhere in the house, a million miles away. He detached
himself from the wall.
“Damn
those bells. Hang on, might be a shout.
Pew
, Pew, Barney, McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub. See, knew
‘em all, can’t be too pissed. No fire here though. Just as well, they’re
probably all out on the town, looking at skirt and chewing on kebabs.”
Nobody was laughing. Nobody was outside any more. Slowey was
talking to someone in the living room, sober and glib. Harkness couldn’t hear
the words but he knew the tune; good old Harkers, top bloke, smart, little bit
wild but basically sound as the proverbial, just lost his off-switch tonight,
he’s had a tough time, just as well we didn’t invite the vicar for tea and
cake. He shook water from his hair, speckling the windows with a thousand new
sparks. He felt his eyebrows crumple and ache with the wonder of it all.
Hayley appeared, breathing slow and hard, chewing her bottom lip,
her gaze fixed somewhere over his shoulder. Her left hand rested on her hip;
her right cradled the phone, weighing it, mouthpiece uncovered, call-centre
chatter leaking from the earpiece.
He drank in the fine intelligence of her face. Her green eyes
always fizzing with passion or glossy with resentment these days, her lips
parted to savour some bitter notion or other. He wanted to trace with his eyes
and fingers and tongue the amber necklace he’d bought her, over the delicate
notches of her collarbone, the sweet salt of her bronzed skin, between her
breasts, then down to her belly; her hips, her thighs. But the necklace was
missing, the trail cold.
“A call for Detective Sergeant Harkness,” she said. “He is on
call, apparently. Might the nice lady from the control room speak with him? Is
he at home, waiting dutifully by the phone in his jimjams? Or is he waist-deep
in some adolescent orgy of binge-drinking and self-flagellation?”
Slowey swept in, the up-tempo slapping of his flip-flops on the
stone floor belying the serene glaze on his face. “That’ll be for me. If I may,
Lady Hayley.” He smiled his sweetest smile, daring her to hurt his feelings.
She turned and stalked away, tossing the phone in a lazy arc over
her shoulder. In one fluid movement, Slowey caught the tumbling handset,
clasped it to his rear and held a finger to his lips. Harkness let Hayley walk
away with her name held fast between his clenched teeth.
“Good morning, DC Slowey here. I’ll be DS Harkness’s spokesman
tonight. How might we assist?”
“Tell me again,” mumbled Harkness, face pressed against the
passenger window of Slowey’s Fiesta. Hot mercury was bulging and shifting just
behind his forehead and acid lined his throat. Near insensible as he was, he
managed to notice Slowey’s harsh use of brake and clutch and the reek of wet
dog, vomiting children and fast food wrappers.
“Marne Close, off the Ermine estate. Woman and kiddies in a house
fire. It’s ‘likely to prove’ so I guess that means it has ‘proved’. Obvious
malicious ignition, accelerant through the letterbox. No other DS willing or
able. The DI is monitoring, whatever he means by that. I did try, honest.”
‘Likely to prove’, Harkness thought. Nobody liked to finish that
sentence. Perhaps we can all avoid it if we don’t say it, think it or look at
it.
“Super. Top banana.” Harkness’s head bounced into the door frame
and he gulped back something not unlike methylated spirits as Slowey dropped
one gear too many.
“DC Slowey, you do not have to maintain eye contact with your
passenger while driving. I’ll just assume you mean what you say. Now, how do I
sober up fast?”
“Well, Sarge, I’d love to offer you a miracle cure but I’m right
out of powdered elk spleen. A cold shower and black coffee might perk you up,
but they won’t sober you up so you’d be better off having a peek at a lingerie
catalogue. Apparently, a healthy liver gets rid of one unit per hour, so I
think about 48 hours of bed rest should sort you out.”
“Thank you, Wikipedia. Just pull over by that bus shelter.”
The Fiesta weaved and shuddered to a stop, rear tyre scuffing the
pavement and front tyre well clear. Harkness groped for a handle. “I know I’m
pissed, but isn’t this car crabbing like a bastard? I swear I’m looking one way
and the car’s going another.”
“Slight issue with the tracking. Or the brakes. And the steering’s
very soggy. But don’t worry; I’ve learned which way to look. You’d never know
it if you were just a little bit pissed.”
“Excuse me for a second or three.” Harkness levered himself from
the car and its fug of family life. Lights speckled behind his eyes and he hiccoughed.
On both sides of Burton Road, orderly semi-detached homes slept in shadow, the
glare of streetlights smothered by old trees in full leaf. Ahead of the car lay
the city. Behind it, a bridge spanned the western bypass a hundred feet below,
marking the limits of the city and the beginning of ancient villages, fields
and hedgerows. Before him stood the bus shelter, pebble-dashed and clutched at
by weeds that prospered in cracked concrete.
He tasted dry sweat and stale piss on the air. In the fading glimmer
of the Fiesta’s interior light, the shadows bulked into human form on the
bench. It would have to wait.
He staggered to the back of the shelter, pressed a forearm against
the jagged stonework and jabbed a finger into his epiglottis. It tasted of chip
fat and pine-scented air-freshener. His eyes bulged, something in his guts
balled itself into a fist and his gorge heaved and flung a toxic slurry at the
wall.