The Fire Starters

by Jan Carson

  Every day I’m finding new ways to adapt to Sophie. For the moment we’re managing. We’re more than managing. We may even be flourishing. I sleep better than I’ve slept in years and when I wake to Sophie, or the sun blushing through my bedroom curtains, I’m often smiling. This is the closest to happy I have ever been, even as a very small child. I still count my fears – this is a habit like brushing teeth or tugging an earlobe when nervous – but there’s only one fear left and it’s a brand-new fear: the fear of what will happen next.

  Sophie is fussy this morning. She hasn’t slept well these last few nights. I blame the heat and the drums rumbling around the city’s edge. There’s no way to explain the drums to a small child. They’re like something awful circling and I don’t entirely understand their significance myself. I lift my daughter from the cot and hold her against me as she fights tiredness. Her eyelids flutter against my neck, closing and opening, struggling against sleep, like a drunk playing sober. I enjoy the weight of her becoming heavier as she drifts off. My left arm has grown tighter than my right just from holding Sophie. The sweat from her head leaves a damp island on my shirt but I don’t mind at all. I hum to her – old folk songs and television jingles, anything that comes to mind. I have a decent voice. My mother once told me this. It’s the only compliment I can remember in a lifetime of subtle gibes. I sing and the drums keep time for me. I’m pleased with this arrangement.

  Sophie sleeps better when I hold her, better still when I hum. I’m not humming now. I’m watching the news and trying to jiggle the fuss out of her. As I dance my daughter round the kitchen, the sound of her gurning is not quite human. It is more like the noise that comes off a domestic machine: a blender or vacuum cleaner. It’s giving me a headache. She has woken early this morning. So have I. The heat rises during the night and is almost unbearable on the top floor of the house. I plan to buy an electric fan at the weekend. If the weather doesn’t break first.

  As I fix my sandwiches I keep one ear angled towards the front door, ready to turn off the television as soon as I hear Christine. Things are going well with the nanny. There have been no slip-ups since the first day with the cartoons. I don’t want her to discover that, despite what I’ve said, I still let Sophie watch television. Life has been ten times easier since Christine arrived. I look forward to work and then look forward to coming home. I’ve begun to let myself imagine Sophie at one, two, and even four, heading off to school in buckle-up shoes. All this is because of Christine and the order she’s brought. I can tell Sophie has taken to her too. There’s a very specific way she lights up, like a memory surfacing, every time she focuses on Christine’s face. She does the same with me, but this is to be expected. Looking into my face is like looking at her face in the mirror.

  At night, after her bath, I hold my face beside Sophie’s in the bathroom mirror and go at her like a spot-the-difference picture. Same eyes. Same nose. Same high cheekbones and teacup chin. I glance quickly past her mouth and ears. I can barely remember what her mother looked like. ‘We are normal,’ I tell my frowning reflection. ‘We are a family.’ I like to use the phrase ‘single parent’ when the opportunity comes up in conversation. It makes me feel normal. Lots of people are single parents, these days, even men. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a man. This isn’t something I’ve given much consideration to until now.

  Last night was the World Cup Final. I watched a little of it half-heartedly, flicking backwards and forwards between an old Bruce Willis movie on Channel 4. I’ve never been much of a sports person but, now that I’m a father, I’m experimenting with different manly practices: drinking beer instead of wine, newspapers with breakfast, football, rugby, proper shaving with a blade and foam, ordering takeaway pizza. I had a go at watching porn but found this to be a strangely removed experience, like observing animals at the zoo through a sheet of protective glass. I didn’t try it again. I’m probably the kind of man who enjoys golf more than pornography.

  Watching the news is another of my man things. It’s good to be informed. This morning the news is a game of two halves. Fifty per cent of air time is given to dissecting the World Cup Final. The rest of the footage is focused on the ‘Belfast fires’. This is what the world’s media have come to call the situation outside my front door. As a kind of courtesy, the newscaster flies briefly through the news in other places, then immediately returns to Belfast. The World Cup Final has only made things worse, he explains, for the benefit of all those unfamiliar with the city’s partisan tendencies. The wrong team has won, which means that in certain parts of the city the right team has won. This has been interpreted as yet another good reason to riot. Things are becoming ‘increasingly tense’, which is newscaster-speak for complicated, for violent, for ‘Damned if I know how they’re going to sort this one out.’

  There is weariness in the way the newscaster is reading the teleprompter feed, like an actor five weeks into a six-week run. He is one of the BBC’s recognizable faces. He’s been reading the news since the early seventies. It’s not the first time he’s spoken the words ‘increasingly tense’ and ‘Belfast’ in the same breath. It probably won’t be the last. Nevertheless, it’s reassuring to see him, suited and shuffling his notes, like God is still in his Heaven; the weather will shortly follow.

  The last few days have been a kind of war. Stormont continues to dally over what government involvement should look like. They might start another round of talks. No surprise there. The army marks time on the sidelines, neither fully committed nor permitted to retreat. The Orangemen decide to continue with their traditional parades. The Twelfth day storms angrily down the already flaming streets; all is fire, all is rage and chaos. There are stand-offs and riots, slanging matches, punishment beatings and, in an estate on the edge of Castlereagh, two young fellas are kneecapped, still wearing their pipe-band uniforms. It’s unlikely that they’ll march again.

  The hospitals cannot cope. They are treating people on trolleys in the car park. Thank goodness the weather is holding. They haven’t got a back-up plan if it rains. The church folk are praying for rain. They’re asking for a flood like Noah’s, and while God has promised he won’t be pulling that damp move again, they wonder if maybe he’ll make an exception for them and their ongoing troubles. At the back of their minds they remember that the world will end with fire. ‘No man knoweth the day nor the hour,’ they repeat, as the smell of ash and brimstone drifts down the little streets and big. They are not as ready as they thought they would be.

  The fire brigade cannot cope. There is talk of bringing in extra engines from Scotland on the passenger ferry. There is further talk of banning matches and firelighters of all kinds. Now the football fans are rioting with sticks and bricks and Molotov cocktails fashioned from empty milk bottles. It is mostly young people orchestrating this. A still from the Fire Starter video flashes up behind the newscaster, and a series of statistics about youth unemployment among the working class of Belfast.

  The news desk disappears, seamlessly segueing into footage from an outside-broadcast unit on Cave Hill. The camera pans slowly across the Belfast skyline. The newscaster is saying something about lost revenue: tourism, retail, transport. He is mentioning a number significantly higher than a million. He looks like he’s struggling not to roll his eyes in frustration.

  I curl Sophie into the crook of my neck. I’ve spent so long making sure she doesn’t hear things that could hurt her. Now there are things I don’t want her to see.

  On screen a sea of men and women is rushing the riot squad, pelting them with bottles and bricks as they run. Then, a small group of children, wearing children’s clothes – Disney tops, white school gutties, tiny hearts and stars threaded through their pierced ears – appears. They are smashing the plate-glass front of a Chinese takeaway, raiding the fridges for fizzy drinks. Then there are cars on fire, ambulances on fire, a primary school on the Antrim Road charred inside, though it is still possible to distinguish the outline of the ki
ds’ artwork, giraffes, lions and crudely drawn elephants, pinned to the walls. None of this is more than a couple of miles from my front door. ‘This is footage taken just an hour ago,’ says the newscaster. I believe him. I can smell burnt petrol wafting through my open window.

  I turn off the television, as much for myself as Sophie, and think about the three young lads setting fire to the climbing frame in Victoria Park. It’s hard to believe they’re involved in this madness. I remember their crisp tracksuits, the easy way they had of ribbing each other gently, as only good friends can. I can’t seem to reconcile my memory of them with the crass violence on the news. I don’t believe they’re the kind of children who would ruin things on purpose. They were not without kindness, better than all of this or, if not above it, unfortunate heirs of someone else’s spite.

  The front door opens and closes sharply. Christine comes hurrying into the kitchen. She flings her handbag on to the table and reaches for Sophie. I pass the baby into her arms and am once again astounded by how natural they look together, leaning against the fridge-freezer. They could be mother and daughter. Maybe this could be said of any woman under fifty holding a child the right way up. Christine looks somewhat frazzled this morning. The corner of her eye make-up has slid downwards as if she’s been crying or rubbing her eyes. Her normally pale face is flushed. She looks like a person who has recently been unhappy. I curl my thumb and finger into a circle, make comet tails of the other three fingers and raise my hand towards her. I arrange my face so it is also asking, ‘OK?’

  Christine nods. ‘Yes.’ She taps her wristwatch once, twice, three times. Then, balancing Sophie awkwardly in the crook of her elbow, she mimes holding a steering wheel, rotating it slowly left and right, all the time looking furious. I guess traffic. This is how we mostly communicate: snippets of sign language and a kind of charades. It works for us and when it doesn’t work we use the notepad. I reach for it now and write, ‘Tall Fires?’ Christine nods. I write, ‘It feels like the end of the world, doesn’t it?’ She nods again. She lifts her right hand and slices it sharply against her forehead, perfectly in line with her nose. This, I remember, is the sign for ‘idiot’, or it could be something stronger. I’ve been teaching myself sign language online and there is a course at work I’ve asked to be sent on. Marty is pleased every time I mention it. He thinks I’ve come back with renewed enthusiasm for my job.

  I place a hand lightly on Christine’s shoulder. I still haven’t learnt the sign for ‘sorry’. I keep getting distracted by swear words. They are, for some reason, funnier gestures than the ordinary words. I like the idea of making them subtly when my colleagues or the lady receptionists annoy me. Christine shrugs off my hand. Have I been overly forward? Will she suspect me in love with her now? I’m definitely not in love with Christine but I don’t know if I could cope without her. Once again I wonder if I should tell her there’s no possibility of romance blossoming between us. No chance at all. But women are strange when it comes to this sort of thing. They hear the opposite of what men say. It might make everything more complicated.

  Christine sighs and makes the sign for ‘Go,’ which is remarkably similar to the sign for shoving me face forwards towards the door. I grab my lunch on the way, return for my keys and, just before leaving the kitchen, turn to scribble, ‘There’s lasagne in the fridge. Help yourself.’ I’ll find this note later and allow myself the dry pleasure of pretending it has been left by an entirely believable wife, off to Pilates or working late. This is the kind of ordinary I crave in the same way that other people crave money or holiday homes in Spain.

  As I back the Renault out of the drive I notice Christine’s little Corsa parked under the streetlamp. It’s missing a wing mirror. The passenger door is deeply dented as if it has been kicked or hit repeatedly with a blunt weapon such as a brick. I text her from the health centre: ‘SAW UR CAR. WOT HAPPND?’ She replies immediately: ‘RIOTERS GOT ME AT THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS. WEE BASTARDS.’ Reading her text I instinctively raise my right hand like a vertical line, slicing into my face. I’ve remembered that is the sign for ‘bastard’. ‘Idiot’ is a lot softer, like a wave.

  The health centre is quieter than usual. People are staying at home if they can. There hasn’t been a pre-dinner riot since the Twelfth and the fires only really get going at night. But people, especially the old, are cautious. They will stay in and quietly die of treatable illnesses, rather than risk getting caught in a blockade. Like back-to-front vampires they fear not being able to get home by dark. This is not just because of the fires. It is endemic here: something to do with the Troubles and the fear of those creatures, both mortal and magic, that creep around in the shadows. The old people practically hibernate during winter.

  Neither of the two younger doctors has made it into work. They live further away, on the other side of the city, while Marty’s house is just a block away and mine less than a mile. It is not safe crossing the bridges after five and, fearing they might be trapped here in the East, Marty has told them to stay at home till things calm down. He decides that we will divvy up the spare patients between us. That is how I come to meet Sammy.

  The Girl Who Is Occasionally a Boat

  In a backyard on the edge of Castlereagh, Lucy Anderson is becoming a boat for the third time this week. She stands ankle deep in her sister’s paddling pool and waits. Her father’s let the hedge grow high so the neighbours can’t see. Lucy prefers to be a boat on the river. She likes to glide with the loop-necked swans at Victoria Park. But sometimes the need to change comes on her quickly and there isn’t time for anything but the backyard and the paddling pool, with its lurid pattern of tropical fish. Privacy’s essential. Hence the hedge and the curtains drawn throughout the house. It wouldn’t do for some passing stranger – a postman or politician canvassing – to peer through the front window and see her pale face straining from a boat bow, her arms and legs stretched to planks.

  Lucy waits in the tepid water. She waits patiently while the heaviness falls off her, like damp dripping from wet washing on a line. Her bones begin to ache in the familiar fashion. It isn’t exactly painful. The stretching. The twisting. The coming together of separate parts. It isn’t normal either. Lucy can’t really say what her body’s doing right now. Transforming. Turning. Taking the piss. She’s come to call it ‘changing’ and afterwards feels like she’s been crucified. She won’t be able to bend for a week. In the moment it’s glory, though. Her bones are made of air, her flesh feathers, and the breath in her lungs is not breath but some lighter substance, helium, perhaps, or pure white cloud. Then Lucy is not the dumpy girl she sees in the mirror. She is not hefty, big-boned or thick of thigh. She sits lightly on the water. She floats. She glides, which is how you’d describe an elegant girl’s movements: a ballerina, for example, or a catwalk model.

  Lucy’s become a boat 149 times already. She can’t remember her very first change. She was only two at the time, her small body discovering some new ability almost every day. Who’s to say she hadn’t taken it all in her stride, adding boats to walking, talking and all the other tricks she’d lately learnt to do? Her parents tell her she howled for hours afterwards. ‘It was only a puddle,’ they say, and tell her the noise she made was something shocking, like matchsticks splintering and rubber stretched to breaking point. Her father’s never got over the shock. Lucy’s body’s grown used to becoming a boat now. She’s almost sixteen and so accustomed to the bone-creaking, skin-yearning sensation of changing she’s stopped keeping track of how many times she’s done it. It’s a curse she carries. It’s a kind of blessing. She wouldn’t know herself without it. She wouldn’t know where to start. What’s the point in being a boat? Lucy’s not decided yet. She thinks it’s something to do with the act of carrying: people, problems, large unwieldy things. She refuses to call herself unfortunate. But it would be nice to have a name for what she is, a word for being in between.

  10

  A Very Bad Man

  Sammy has been a patient in thi
s GP practice for the last six months. He’s only ever seen Dr Owens before. He’s the kind of man who would feel awkward exposing any part of his body to another man, even a doctor. He can’t bear the thought of being naked and touched by anyone but a woman, though if it were a surgical procedure he’d insist upon a man. This would be a matter of competence.

  Sammy is already waiting at the reception desk when Jonathan arrives at the health centre. The two men nod at each other as they pass. Sammy doesn’t know that Jonathan is a doctor. He looks at the younger man, striding purposefully through the foyer in his suit and pressed shirt, and imagines him to be a lawyer or something equally well paid and accomplished. He wonders what he’s in for. There’s not even the slightest skiff of embarrassment off him, so Sammy diagnoses a throat infection or something similarly mundane; nothing sexual, nothing grim with bowels or flaky skin, certainly nothing mental.

  Sammy is feeling a little mental.

  It’s taken him all night to get the nerve up to see the doctor. Now he is leaning his entire weight against the reception desk, as if leaning will make him less inclined to turn tail and march home. He asks for Melanie by name. The lady receptionist with the strong perfume wishes to clarify, does he mean Dr Owens, and Sammy nods. Dr Owens is a young GP, recently graduated. She lets her patients use her first name. Sammy can picture Dr Owens in his mind. She has a face like that of a kindly lamb. He has been up all night practising his confession and in every one of these dry runs it is this lamby woman who takes notes and prescribes pills. It is Melanie with her long, sloping nose and her teeth like the tiny smiling teeth of his late grandmother, who covers his hand with her own white one, and says, ‘Don’t be worrying now, Mr Agnew. It’s not the end of the world.’