The Fire Starters

by Jan Carson

  Jonathan Murray was born here, too, just five minutes up the road from Sammy, though the distance between them is continental. It isn’t just money that keeps one man from mixing with the other. It’s education and reputation, and something harder to pin down; a whole different way of carrying yourself through life. Jonathan couldn’t say he knows this city like Sammy knows it, for knowing implies familiarity and he’s been holding himself at a distance for as long as he can remember. It isn’t home to him. It doesn’t even feel close. He drives its pressing streets daily and doesn’t take time to look. He couldn’t say with any confidence that this is not the place it was ten years ago, or point to any marked difference from the shooting days of the seventies and eighties. It could be any such city to him: mid-sized, industrial, sea-skimmed. Cardiff. Liverpool. Glasgow. Hull. One damp metropolis looks much the same as the next. Jonathan has no real sense of where he is or where he belongs; what it means to have a home.

  This is Belfast. This is not Belfast. This is the city that won’t let either man go.

  It is summer in the city now. Not yet high summer, but hot enough to leave the local lads bare-chested, their backs, bellies and shoulders already pinking to the colour of cooked-ham slices. It is a World Cup summer. The people here are particularly fond of football because it is a game of two sides and involves kicking. The sound of televised crowds can be heard grumbling through the open windows of every other house in the East. Drink has been taken. More drink will be taken. In the morning the smell of it will be like a damp cloth in a closed room. Overhead a helicopter hovers. It is a sort of insect, humming. Its blades turn the hot air this way and that. It is barely moving.

  The women, who are mostly indifferent to sport, have dragged dining-room chairs into the street. They sit in front of their houses, like fat Buddhas, watching the traffic idle. Sometimes they call to each other across the road. ‘Good to see the weather back,’ or ‘I hear it’s to turn at the weekend.’ Sometimes they duck into their little kitchens, returning with fizzy drinks in glasses and tins. Before drinking they press the coldness against their foreheads for a minute and sigh. Afterwards the flesh is pink, as if it has been burnt. The deep V of their breasts is also pink and turning red. By ten o’clock it will smart like nettle stings but they do not, for a minute, consider sun cream. Sun cream is only for holidays abroad. The local sun is weaker. It is less inclined to provoke cancer than the continental sun. Every woman on the street is determined to be brown by September. They wear their skirts hoicked up above the knee, revealing splayed thighs and varicose veins, winter fur and occasionally the fine-laced ghost of a petticoat hem. They are their mothers and their grandmothers before them. They have been guarding these streets in similar fashion since the shipyards demanded houses, a hundred terraced streets rose in response, and this became known as the glorious East.

  The children who belong to these women are watching the football or kicking their own footballs between cars. They are wavering up and down the street on hand-me-down bikes, their arms raised high above the handlebars, as if caught in the act of charismatic worship. It is two full months till school. All of July. All of August. When they think about the end of the holidays it is like thinking about the distance between solar systems. This is eternity, and the children are giddy on the wideness of it.

  The air is hot in the East. Someone has lit a barbecue. The smell of cooking meat catches in the noses of the women, making their throats run. If the weather holds they will get the barbecue out at the weekend. If the weather holds longer, they may take a run up the coast: north to Portrush, where there are friends with static caravans, or down to Newcastle for the water park. The weans love the water park and the long, sanded beach.

  There is nothing like a beach in the East, nothing for the weans but the street and, at the end of the street, the shop. There is not even a garden or a decent-sized patch of grass. People think the East is red, white and blue but these women know differently. The colour of the East is grey, forty shades, each one firmer than the last. This is a perfect complement to the rain and only a problem when the sun comes out. There is nowhere to plant a barbecue here. When the street is your garden to back and front, there is nowhere for a deckchair to sit. In the summer the rest of the city stinks of cut grass and hedges. There’s no grass in the East to cut. The summer here smells of melting tar and bins, traffic exhaling on the Newtownards Road. On the warmest days the sea can still be smelt, curdling in the basin of the Connswater, like the egg and brine stench of a public toilet.

  It is almost five now. The match is over. They have won, which means, on the other side of the city, they have lost. There are two sides to everything here, especially football. Everyone is obliged to pick a side and stick.

  The men are rising from the sofa and flicking the television to mute. ‘What’s for tea?’ they are asking the women.

  ‘What’s for tea, yourself?’ the women are replying.

  They are saying this with sauce, one hand hipped and shoulders cocked to the left, like young girls in heels. In the East a stand-off precedes every meal. Nothing is for certain until the first mouthful is taken. The contents of the fridge are dissected, curated, found either wanting or worthy. A meal is fashioned from the shrapnel. If there is not enough eating for a full meal, a child is dispatched to the shop for something to add bulk.

  Tonight, as they eat their shepherd’s pie, their potato waffles and boil-in-the-bag rice, the people of the East smell barbecued meat wafting over their plates. The scent leaves them disappointed with their own dinner. Nothing they eat today will taste as good as the barbecue they are shovelling inside their head. Behind the barbecue there is another burnt smell, like the dry heat of a hairdryer left on too long. Somewhere in the East something is on fire. It is not the first fire of the season. It will not be the last.

  Parts of the city are alight. A single fire here, another there, each one planned and planted by a different hand. And these are not the usual Eleventh Night bonfires which, every year, herald the beginning of another Twelfth. They’re neither traditional nor expected. The women pulling their uPVC windows shut against the smoke catch a whiff of burnt air and tut softly. They enjoy a good bonfire as much as the next one, but they don’t approve of fires lit before their appointed time. It’s not even July yet. Parade season’s barely begun.

  At night, from Black Mountain and Craigantlet, these fires appear as birthday candles or amber blossoms dotted across the cityscape. They are surprisingly beautiful. From this distance there is no heat off them. There is no pattern apparent either. The only thing binding one fire to the next is its height – at least thirty feet off the ground – and its intent, which is, as the politicians like to put it, the desire to cause as much disruption as possible.

  Across the political spectrum the new fires are widely condemned. ‘The time for this sort of thing is over,’ the politicians say. On television they look glass-eyed. This comes from years of staring straight down the barrel of a camera and lying. ‘We’ve moved on,’ they say. ‘This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.’ No arrests are made. The fires continue. The city migraines with the constant shriek of sirens speeding from one incident to the next. The police are bricked and bottled attending the fires. They come now, in riot gear, expecting trouble. The fire brigade is overworked. They are considering help from across the water: extra men, extra engines, a fresh perspective on the same grim problem. Water for hoses and paddling pools may be banned.

  None of this is without precedent. The summer is always strained in this city. There are always sirens and bonfires and angry people protesting in groups. Those who can afford to avoid the worst of it are always leaving for the Continent and coming back when it’s blown over. It’s been like this for decades. But this summer is different. This summer will become known as the Summer of the Tall Fires. It will be written with a capital S, because of its association with the Troubles.

  It is only June now and the summer has not yet grown int
o its name, but everywhere in the city people are clutching for the correct way to say it, for a collective noun they might use in conversation. Something both wide and specific is required; a word that will set this year apart from the bonfire seasons, which bookend every ordinary summer. A baptism of fire? That is not quite right, for a baptism is a holy thing and there’s nothing holy about this season. It is more like the Blitz. At times it seems as if the whole city is on fire, one building burning into the next. The oldest residents can still recall the warm nights in 1941 when the whole city flamed red with German spite and all but the richest took to the hills, clutching pillows and blankets. Though, from a distance, these nights look similar, they are very different. The Tall Fires have not been started by a faraway enemy. This is the kind of violence a group of people will do to themselves.

  It is impossible to tell who calls it first: a journalist, a news anchor, a small child, perhaps, for it has the ring of something a wean might say. By the end of June it has stopped being called ‘sporadic fires’ and ‘arson attacks’. It is only ever referred to as the ‘Tall Fires’. Talk of it is not just in the local newspapers now. It is in the mainland papers and on the proper BBC. The politicians fear it will make America: potential visitors will remember it is not safe to visit the city. This is to be avoided at all costs.

  In the East, people are torn. It is part of their culture to burn things, yet they cannot possibly condone burning without order. The right and wrong of this is dragged backwards and forwards across the little streets. Strangers pressing their ears against the thin walls that separate one house from the next may well hear shreds of the argument leaking through the wallpaper. ‘It’s our tradition’; ‘Why should we listen to the politicians?’; ‘It’s only a matter of time before somebody gets hurt.’ Yes, the people of the East are torn. They have a peculiar angle on the whole situation.

  There have always been bonfires in this part of the city. Not these haphazard pyres. Traditional bonfires, limited to a single night of burning. Each July on the Eleventh Night the whole city will flame and afterwards cool and, though it’s hellish in the moment, at least it happens only once a year. There is a history behind this practice. Something about King Billy picking his way through a darkened city, and the bonfires marking his way. Something about setting everyone up for the Orange parades on the Twelfth. Most people cannot remember the story in any detail but the memory of fire is hard to forget. These are no bonfires as outsiders might picture bonfires, with sticks and logs and perhaps an effigy of Guy Fawkes flaming on top. These are mountains of molten wood, two months or more in the construction.

  Everyone is involved in the building, especially the children. They go from door to door begging wood and furniture. They pile it high on wheelbarrows and skateboards, dragging it through the streets to the place where the bonfire will be built. They sleep in shifts beside their wood, guarding against theft and those outside elements who would instigate fire before its proper time. The older lads do the building. They’ve learnt this skill from their fathers and profligate uncles, who also taught them drinking and pissing in the street. There is architecture in arranging the tyres and wooden pallets that hold these high temples together, collecting and connecting all the elements until the bonfire’s tip soars high above the surrounding chimney pots.

  When the bonfires burn, the flames leap a hundred feet into the air. The entire city is shrouded in a blanket fog. The heat is an angry god. Nearby windows buckle. Satellite dishes droop, like week-old flowers wilting in the vase. People cannot remain inside their homes for fear of being cooked. Children scream, in fear and thin delight, and sometimes the whole structure slides loose. The fire comes swimming down the street as if it is a burst volcano. This is a glorious thing to look upon, from the periphery, with a cold can in hand. There is always music playing loudly. If you close your eyes, it sounds like Christmas come early.

  The other side is not quite so festive. Injuries occur. Children fall from great heights. They break bones or die. Sparks spitting from the dry wood catch on synthetic tracksuits, and the fire, sinking its teeth into an arm or leg, will claim its pound of flesh. Bystanders drink, and drink too much, and by midnight are throwing punches at their neighbours’ sons. They appear in silhouette with the bonfire helling behind them. These are the kind of photographs the newspapers really go for. Afterwards the asphalt will bubble for almost a week. Streets are permanently damaged. They cost public money to fix. Those people not raised on bonfires question the wisdom of lighting large fires in residential areas and why it is permitted to burn flags and even effigies of people still alive. But there have always been bonfires in the East. No one has succeeded in putting them out and there have never been restrictions before.

  ‘It’s like this,’ the politicians have now said, paraphrasing themselves for the press. ‘Tradition is one thing, but these enormous bonfires are in breach of health and safety. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets killed.’

  People have already been injured, but it has not stopped the advance of the bonfires. All over the East and in certain parts of the West they have been inching ever upwards, like burning Babels: one foot, two foot, ten foot closer to Heaven with every passing year. The tallest are seventy or even eighty feet high now. This is approximately twenty-five metres in metric or, for those given to visualization, the equivalent of stacking three average-sized houses one on top of another. This is not even counting the flags shimmering from the topmost point of the pyre.

  ‘Enough is enough,’ the politicians have finally decided. They’ve been charged with the responsibility of moving things forward and most people in this city no longer want bonfires. ‘You can have your traditional bonfires,’ they’ve said, ‘but they can’t be any higher than thirty feet.’ Thirty feet still sounds ludicrous to them. But the politicians here know how quickly things will kick off if they chance an outright ban. Best to do away with the practice gradually. Best to wear the bonfires down. Inch by inch, if necessary. Most people think thirty feet is quite a reasonable compromise, or that bonfires should be banned outright, or, if they are particularly innovative, suggest one enormous bonfire on the city’s edge, where no damage can be done.

  In the East almost everyone thinks the restrictions are a terrible idea. They are only just beginning to scratch the surface of possibility when it comes to height and fire. Why should they stop now? Why not push for a hundred feet, or two? A flaming statement that might be seen from space or, more importantly, Dublin. They are talking about the injustice of it all in every pub and corner shop. The women tanning themselves on the pavement are thick with it. Even the children are pissed: half a bonfire means half the scavenging, and what will they do with the rest of the month? There is talk of disregarding the politicians and building the bonfires as high as they bloody well want. For the most part it’s only talk. The football and the heat have drained the fight right out of the men. They are only good for cold beer and jawing.

  But now, weeks before the bonfire season begins in earnest, there has been a spate of very different fires. Tall Fires, each one planted as close to the thirty-foot mark as possible. The first in the lingerie department of Marks & Spencer’s Royal Avenue store, stuffed beneath a rack of silk pyjamas, the second in the disabled toilet at the Linenhall Library. Then the City Hospital, the Royal Hospital and the education suite of the Ulster Museum, where the ancient Bengal tiger, stuffed inside his glass case, took the worst of it. It is only after the fifth fire that the police begin to notice patterns: the height, the time, the perpetrators in blue jeans and tracksuit hoods drawn over their heads so they may be anyone at all scuttling across the CCTV footage.

  These fires have been planned meticulously. They start in pre-prepared rucksacks packed with a careful mix of petrol, paper and firelighter. They are always left in a particularly flammable situation. No one has been hurt yet. The fires are set to go off when there are few people around: first thing in the morning, or just before closing. This
is a small mercy, the police say, in their official statements, but it is only a matter of time before an injury occurs. This is fire, after all. No one can predict its sly inclinations.

  Once the fires are officially linked, it seems they are everywhere. At first they are only planted in high-profile spots. Half of the city’s listed buildings are suffering from scorch marks and water damage. The cost is astronomical, the possibility of losing one of Belfast’s signature buildings too painful to contemplate. Stormont and the City Hall are on high alert, bordered by a ring of police officers with bulletproof vests and fire extinguishers. Now, having caught the media’s eye, the fire starters have moved on to less obvious targets: bridges, warehouses, derelict buildings and social housing, the abandoned carcass of Maysfield Leisure Centre. The whole city is alight. But this is not anarchy. This is carefully orchestrated chaos. There are rules to the game: do not harm civilians, do not be seen and, most importantly, the thirty-foot rule, this being the central tenet of the Tall Fires.

  In the last few days a video has appeared on the internet. People are re-posting it on Facebook and YouTube and, on the local news, there is a grainy snippet, repeating morning, afternoon and night. The video features a person who calls himself the Fire Starter. It is impossible to tell who he is. It may even be a woman. It wears a Guy Fawkes mask and a black hooded sweatshirt drawn high over the head. It does not speak but, given the message, it is easy to imagine a thin East Belfast accent, all nose and high up in the throat. It holds cardboard signs to the camera.