The Fire-Eaters (7 page)

“I hear nothing, Mr. McNulty.”

“Is that true? There's nowt outside? Just peace and quiet? Mebbe it's so. Mebbe McNulty's just too much alone, my bonny boy, and he needs a lad like you to be beside him. Come and help us, bonny. Come and open that box for us again.”

“McNulty,” said Dad.

McNulty's eyes swiveled toward him.

“Do you remember me?” said Dad.

No answer.

“We were in Burma, McNulty,” he said. “We came back on the boat together.”

“I remember nowt,” said McNulty. “I remember that days is light and nights is dark and that the year turns round us like a wheel.” He jabbed his sack at Dad's chest. “Money out and pay.”

Dad dropped a coin into the sack.

“We were in Burma,” he said. “We were in the war, McNulty. When we went out, we were hardly more than lads. When we came back—”

“I remember nowt. There was days of fiery heat and now there's days of icy cold. I was young and now I'm
old. I remember this boy was a help to me and there was an angel at his side and I hear the booming and the thundering in the skies. Help us again, bonny?”

“I helped you,” said Dad. “Remember? You were on the stairs. They'd beaten you.”

“Look at this one,” said McNulty.

He ran his hand across the picture of a woman tattooed on his upper arm.

THERESA was written under it. TRUE FOREVER.

“Who's this?” he hissed. “I look at her and look at her and get no answer.” He rubbed the ink as if trying to rub it away. “Who's this? How did this get on us?” He touched the other tattoos. “And this one, and this one. Where did these come from?”

He reached to me again. He cupped my face in his fingers. His body stank of kerosene and fire.

“I'm like a little bairn. I remember nowt. I know that you were here with us before, and there was an angel all in red, but past that there's just darkness and silence and a great nowtness, going on forever.” He sniffed. “I smell fish and salt on you, bonny.”

“The sea. We live beside it. Keely Bay.”

“Lucky boy. Don't get on them boats, though.”

“And you,” said Dad. “Where do you live, McNulty?”

“On the ground.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“On the ground. In holes, in doorways and alleyways. In the dark where nobody passes. And I wander.”

He kissed me quickly on the cheek.

“The sea,” he said. “Mebbes one day I'll come wandering past your place. Keep your eyes peeled. Listen out for us.”

He looked at our audience. He glared. They shrank away. They laughed. He jabbed his sack at them. He moved away from us. Dad caught at his elbow and he turned and looked into Dad's eyes and there was a yearning in him, as if he wanted to stay with us, talk with us, as if he wanted to stop being McNulty with his stick and sack and his instruments of torture. But he broke away. He hurried to his wheel. He lifted it to his knees. He lifted it into the sky and rested it on his skull and he stamped the earth as he bore its weight and teetered and searched for a place of balance. Soon the wheel thudded back down to the cobblestones and it shattered when it fell.

“Poor soul,” said Dad.

And McNulty was lost in himself again. He wept over the broken wheel. Then he opened his box. He took the skewer out. He shoved it through his cheeks. He grunted and hissed and his eyes were filled with fight and fire.

N
ext morning I put the uniform on. I put a new leather satchel on my back. Mam could hardly speak. Dad just shook his head and grinned.

“Who'd believe it?” he said. “Who'd blinking believe it?”

I rolled my eyes.

“All I did was get older,” I said. “All I'm doing is starting a new school.”

He clapped his hands and Mam spoke through her tears at last.

“Yes, we know,” she said. “It's nothing. It's ordinary. And it's just miraculous.”

They came out with me. They watched me from the front door as I walked along the lane beside the beach. Seagulls squealed and the sea slapped and a foghorn droned from beyond the lost horizon. I waved once,
then turned into the lane toward the Rat. I kept pulling the loose blazer up to my shoulders. My brightly polished shoes were stiff. The shirt collar chafed my throat. One of Mam's tacking pins was still in the blazer cuff. I pulled it out and stuck it in a seam. I shivered and my heart raced.

“Bobby! Bobby!”

I couldn't tell where it came from. Then there was a wolf whistle, and my name was called again.

“Bobby! Little Bobby Burns!”

There he was, backed into a hawthorn shrub. Joseph. He came out as I passed. His voice was high and singsong, like a girl's.

“Ooh, Bobby,” he said. “Don't you look so sweet?” He came to my side, walked at my side. He tapped a finger at his cheek; he raised his eyebrows.

“So, Robert. Do you think it will be mathematics this morning? Or geography? Art history, of course. Or perhaps there will be flower-sniffing. Do you have your dancing shoes today? There will of course be elocution. How now, brown cow? Where does the rain in Spain fall, Robert?”

I walked and let him talk. I kept my eyes averted.

“On the plain, of course,” he said. “On the blasted plain.”

He smiled. He put his arm around my shoulders.

“Just kidding,” he said. “You know that, eh?”

“Aye.”

“Aye. Good lad.” He licked his lips. “I'm proud of you, Bobby.”

He turned his eyes away. We walked in silence, close to each other.

“Done you this,” he muttered.

He pushed a little penknife into my hand.

“It's nowt,” he said.

I held it in my palm: a black stock, a shining silver blade.

“It's nowt,” he said again. “Just something I had in me box.”

“It's great,” I said.

His face colored and he shrugged.

“Thanks,” I said.

We didn't know what else to say. We saw Daniel coming out of his own lane, walking in his new uniform toward the Rat.

“Look at the way he walks,” said Joseph. “Like he's a bloody tart. Like he owns the bloody place. Know what I mean?”

“Aye.”

“Keep your distance from him, eh?”

“I will.”

He gripped my shoulders and squeezed me with his strong hands.

“Good luck, Bobby,” he said. “You're a special kid.”

Then he turned and hurried back through the hawthorn hedge.

I watched him leave my sight.

I ran my fingers across the letters he'd carved into the bone handle: BOBBY.

W
e nodded at each other, but I didn't sit with Daniel on the bus. He sat behind me and my cheeks were burning. I thought he was watching me, but when I dared to turn I saw he was reading a book, lounging with his knee raised onto the seat. He had his tie loosened and he held his hair back with his hand. I turned back again when he raised his eyes to me. Other kids got on, older kids, but some of my mates from the juniors as well: Ed Garbutt, Diggy Hare, Col O'Kane. Diggy sat beside me, the other two in front.

“They stick your head down the netty, you know,” he said. “They turn you upside down and pull the chain. Initiation.”

“Aye, I know,” said Col. “I heard. D'you sometimes wish you hadn't passed?”

“Aye,” we all muttered.

“Who's that?” said Ed, nodding at Daniel.

“New kid,” I said. “Come from Kent or somewhere.”

“They make you eat dirt,” said Diggy. “They make you drink your own piss. They stick needles in you. They got one kid took to hospital and he nearly died. It's true. Johnny Murray told us.”

“I heard the same,” said Col. “They had to pump his guts out and he's never been the same since.”

A couple of the older kids were grinning at us. We kept our eyes away. Doreen Armstrong got on. Her skirt was hitched up above her knees.

“Oh, wow,” said Col.

“D'you sometimes wish you were older?” said Ed.

“Aye,” we muttered.

We headed down the coast. The sea was on our left. A massive tanker was heading in toward the Tyne. Some kind of battleship was heading out into the mist.

“Me dad nearly didn't let us come,” said Ed. “Says it's hardly worth the bother. Says what's the point in all the tests and the uniform palaver. Says there's bound to be another war and when there is …”

I shook my head.

“There won't be,” I said.

“How d'you know?” said Col.

I shook my head.

“See?” said Ed. “Nobody knows. Nobody can do nowt.”

“There'll be nowt left,” said Diggy. “They could blow the whole world up umpteen times if they wanted to.”

“Kapow,” said Col.

“They hung one kid,” said Diggy. “They did. If the teacher hadn't come along and cut him down …”

“But they say the teachers is even worse,” said Col.

I felt the penknife in my pocket. I opened the blade.

“I was in town yesterday, at the quayside market,” I said. “I saw this fire-eater bloke.”

“Me and all,” said Ed. “He's a bliddy loony, eh?”

“Aye,” I said.

I felt the sharpness of the blade against my thumb.

One of the big kids lit a cigarette at the back of the bus. Doreen squealed with laughter at a joke. Ed put his chin on the seat back and stared at Daniel. Diggy looked out at the sea.

“It's like ganning to the bliddy slaughterhouse,” said Col.

T
here was a long redbrick front with long shining windows. There was a great golden crucifix over the main door. Half a dozen steps led up to it. We first-years had to wait there when the bell had rung. The others streamed inside. A group of teachers stood on the steps above us.

“Your names will be called,” said one. “Then you will step forward. When your class has been gathered, your teacher will escort you inside.”

He had a suit and tie on, and a black gown over his suit. He drew his gown open. A black leather strap curled out from his breast pocket.

“My name is Mr. Todd,” he said. “Your teachers will introduce themselves when they are with you in your rooms.” He paused. “We are waiting for order.”

He came closer to us.

“I wish to see straight lines,” he said. “Straight lines!”

We made clumsy lines that straggled out across the pale concrete yard.

He sighed.

“So,” he said. “You are those who have passed the eleven-plus. You are the elite.” His face hardened. “Do not believe it. You may have proved that you have something like a brain. But you have not yet proved that you are suitable to be with us. You have not proved that you have character or moral fiber. You are half civilized. You are wild things. And you must be taught to conform.”

I kept turning, trying to see Ailsa, but she was nowhere.

“What is your name?”

He was at my side. He held the strap between his hands.

“What is your name?” he said again.

“R-Robert Burns.”

“Robert Burns what?”

“Robert Burns, sir.”

“Put your hand out, Robert Burns.”

I blinked.

“Put your hand out.”

I put my hand out. He raised the strap as high as his shoulder and lashed it across my palm.

“Other hand,” he said. “Other hand!”

I put out my other hand. He strapped me again. I clenched my stinging hands. Tears burned the rims of my eyes.

“You will pay attention when a teacher speaks,” he said. “Do you understand?”