The Fire-Eaters (11 page)

L
ater Ailsa and I went out and we stood in the sea beneath the stars.

“Every one's a million million miles away,” I said. “And they look tiny, but every one of them's a massive sun.”

A shooting star streaked through the sky and for an instant was the brightest thing above.

“And that's mebbe no bigger than a fingernail,” I said.

I kicked the water with my bare feet. The lighthouse light swept across us.

“Why's it all so bloody hard?” I said.

She laughed.

“‘Cos you think too much,” she said.

I knew she was right. I tried to empty my mind of everything but the sea, the night and Ailsa.

“What did you do to heal the fawn?” I said.

“I told you.”

“Was it really that easy?”

“Lemon squeezy.”

“Will you do it for me dad?”

“Your dad?” “I think he's really ill. Will you tell God to make him better?”

“Course I will. But you do it and all. Two folk asking's got a better chance than one. What's wrong with him?”

“I dunno. It's probably nowt.”

“It'll be a piece of cake, then.”

She laughed at me again.

“You're a strange'n, Bobby Burns. Let's do it now.”

“Eh?”

“Let's do the asking now. Howay.”

She led me to the water's edge. We knelt on the wet sand. She put her hands together.

“Howay,” she said, so I put my hands together too.

“Close your eyes,” she said, so I closed my eyes.

“Make Bobby's dad better,” she said. “Say it, Bobby.”

“Make Dad better,” I said.

I peeped into the endless sky.

“Say it again,” she said. “Will it to happen. Speak to God.”

“Make Dad better,” I whispered.

“Now wish and wish and wish and wish,” she said.

I felt the water seeping through the sand. I felt the cold breeze from the sea. I saw the brightness of the lighthouse light sweep across my closed eyelids. I tried
to wish and wish and pray and pray. I tried to imagine God looking down at us from somewhere past the stars. What would he look like? And why would he look down on this place, this coaly beach by a coaly sea, when there was all the universe to look at? Why would he hear us, a pair of kids? Why should he listen to us?

“What if there is no God?” I said.

“Mebbe that doesn't matter. And mebbe it doesn't matter to God if you think he's there or not. And wondering about them things certainly isn't going to help your dad, is it?”

“No.”

“So put the wondering out of your mind and say it and wish it and do it properly as you can.”

I closed my eyes and wished and prayed.

“That's better,” she said. “It'll take a lot of doing. That little fawn was just a little fawn. It's probably harder to get it to work for a grown man.”

We prayed again. I opened my eyes and saw her eyes shining brightly as she laughed at me.

“So let's hope it's nowt after all, eh, Bobby Burns?”

“Yes,” I said, and already I felt happier.

“Your dad's strong as a cart horse,” she said.

Then she peered past me.

“Who the hell's this?” she said.

A
dark hunched figure, the shape of a man. A shadow, a moving silhouette. It moved toward us from the south, through the night, skimming the water's edge. It moved quickly, legs striding forward. A sack bounced at its back. It kept its head down. No eyes glittered. We knelt there and didn't move and hardly breathed. Ailsa pressed against my side. It was a man, in heavy boots, with a dark cap pulled tight on his head, with a dark jacket buttoned tight. We heard the water splashing beneath his feet. As he approached, we heard the rasping of his breath. I smelt fire, smoke, paraffin. And then the lighthouse light came round again.

“McNulty!” I gasped.

He didn't pause. He didn't see us. He splashed straight past us. I held my hand up.

“McNulty!”

He didn't turn. He continued northward toward the
lighthouse headland, the rock pools, the dunes, the pines.

“McNulty?” said Ailsa.

“He's a fire-eater. An escapologist.”

“I smelt him,” she said.

I nodded.

“He's harmless,” I said. “I saw him at the quay. He does things for money. My dad knew him, long ago in the war.”

We stood up and watched him moving north. Soon he blended with the night. When the lighthouse light came round again there was no sign of him.

“What brings him here?” said Ailsa.

“He told me he might come.”

“He told you? So why didn't he remember you?”

I shook my head. He had seemed so close, those days he stared into my eyes and held me and begged me for my help.

“His mind's gone,” I said. “He doesn't remember things. He says he's like a little child.”

We looked northward. We held our arms against the lighthouse light. It passed. Another star fell toward the sea.

“I'll tell you what it was like when she died,” she said. “It was like the whole world was the devil's place. Like there'd never be any goodness, ever again. Like there'd never be any light.”

She kissed my cheek.

“I love you, Bobby Burns,” she said.

I felt my face burning.

“Say it, Bobby,” she said. “Say you love me too.”

“I love you, Ailsa Spink.”

And then we ran: from each other, from the shining stars, from the turning sea, from the yawning spaces of the night, from the presence or the absence of God, from the devil McNulty, from the aching in our hearts that threatened to overwhelm us.

“Good night, Bobby,” she yelled.

“Good night, Ailsa. Good night!”

I
started to tell Mam about it when I got in.

“I saw—” I said.

She put her finger to her lips.

“Quieter, Bobby,” she said. She pointed upstairs. “He's having a sleep, and he needs his sleep. It's hospital tomorrow.”

“I saw McNulty on the beach,” I whispered.

“Did you now?”

“He was heading north.”

“Was he now?”

She tilted her head and listened. We heard Dad groaning, snoring.

“McNulty?” she whispered.

“It was dark, I couldn't see him properly, but it was him.”

She absentmindedly stroked my shoulder.

“Mebbe you just imagined it, Bobby,” she murmured.

“Mebbe. What's wrong with him, Mam?”

“Nothing, son. We'll find out. He'll be right as rain.”

We listened. Just deep silence, and the never-ending rumble of the sea.

T
he biology room again. We sat around a table, all of us, gathered around Miss Bute. She had a tall glass jar between her hands. Ghostly beasts dangled there, heads and limbs and tails distorted by the curves of the glass, by the liquid that contained them.

“This time you must behave,” she said.

We nodded.

“Yes, miss,” we said. “Dead right, miss.”

We breathed at the memory of Todd. We glanced at the closed doors.

“It's not only because of that,” she said.

She began to unscrew the lid of the jar.

“It's also because these were once living things. And like all living things, they were sacred.”

She took off the lid and the weird scent of formaldehyde rose to us. Some of us put our hands across our
noses and mouths. Some of us caught our breath in apprehension. She put down the lid, lifted a pair of tongs.

“Once they were as alive as you are,” she said. “Remember that.”

She dipped the tongs into the jar. She peered down and gently moved the beasts. Then caught a head between the tongs and lifted a creature from the liquid. She held it over the jar for a few seconds, letting the liquid drain from it. Then laid it on a clean white cloth. It was a frog. She lifted it again and held it in her palm, showed us the powerful long back legs, the short forelegs. She showed us the webbed feet, the smooth slick skin.

“See how perfectly it was made,” she said, “how perfectly it was suited for its life between air and water.”

She stroked its cheek. It gazed at her through dead, clouded, empty eyes.

“Pretty thing,” she murmured.

She laid it down again, on its back. She gently tugged its legs until it was splayed on the cloth.

“Does it look strange?” she asked us. “Eerie? Alien? Very different to us?”

“Yes, miss,” someone murmured.

“Never seen one up so close,” said another.

“The Thing from Planet Zog,” said another.

“And yet it's also familiar,” said Miss Bute. “It shares our world and we know it and recognize it. It is our neighbor. A frog. Perfect in its frogginess.”

She sighed as she lifted a scalpel. She looked to Jesus, hanging there in agony above the door.

“This is for the best of purposes,” she said.

She turned her eyes back to us.

“The word for this is
dissection,
” she said. “The cutting apart of the dead. It is never to be undertaken lightly.”

We gasped as she started to cut. She cut the frog vertically from throat to groin. Then made another cut, horizontal. With great tenderness, using her fingers and the scalpel tip, she teased back the flesh from her crossshaped incision, she tugged open the tiny rib cage, she eased apart a pair of tiny lungs, and finally exposed the tiny heart.

“See,” she whispered. “Skin, muscle, bone, lungs, heart. So alien and eerie and so just like us.”

She stroked its cheek again.

“Forgive me, little frog,” she said.

She put the scalpel down. “At least she is beyond pain,” she said.

Next she reached to a shelf behind her and brought down a battery with two thin wires wrapped around it. She put it down beside the frog, unwrapped the wires.

“What is missing?” said Miss Bute.

“Sorry, miss?”

“From the frog. What has it lost?”

“Its life, miss.”

“Yes, its life. And if it had its life again?”

“Sorry, miss?”

“If it had its life again, what then?”

“It would feel pain again, miss.”

“It'd hop off the table, miss.”

“Its heart would beat again, miss.”

“Ah,” she said. “Its heart would beat again.”

She took one of the thin wires and pressed it into the flesh on one side of its heart. She took the other wire and pressed it at the other side. She gently moved the two wires, seeking their proper place, and then we gasped again. Someone squealed. For the heart flickered. It flickered again. We crowded close. Miss Bute touched and touched again with the wire and the heart moved in rhythm. It beat, as it had when the frog was alive. She touched other parts of the frog and the legs twitched, the head twitched.

“So is the frog alive again?” she said.

“No, miss.”

“Course not, miss.”

“It's just a trick, miss.”

She smiled.

“Yes. It's just a trick. A Frankensteiny trick.”

She put the battery back. She eased back the frog's bones, flesh and skin. She pressed it tenderly with her palm. She looked at us.

“I'll ask the same question again. What is missing? What has the frog lost?”

“Life,” someone said.

“So what is life?” she said.

We couldn't answer.

“Does a frog have a soul?” asked Mary Marr.

“Ask that question to a priest,” said Miss Bute. “But what it does have is a mystery. We open it up to find an answer and the mystery only deepens. What is missing? What has been lost? What is life?”