The Fire Starters

by Jan Carson

  ‘Not according to your man, here. He says it’s only getting started. Look, till you see for yourself.’

  In the window sideways, Sammy can see the second lad in profile. He can’t be more than fifteen. His voice is still girlish on the vowels.

  ‘Give us a look,’ he says. He takes his mate’s phone in his own hand and holds it up to his face, plugs the earphones into his own ears so Sammy can’t hear what’s being said. He has to imagine the threatening thump of the Prodigy bookending either side of the clip and the papered flinch of cardboard signs passing through his son’s hand, like Bob Dylan feeding lyrics to the camera. He has to imagine it all. It isn’t difficult. He dreams about those videos.

  The lad watches the video all the way through. It takes less than a minute. It feels like a month to Sammy but the bus is still idling at the same red light when he yanks the headphones out of his ears and passes the phone back to his friend.

  ‘Deadly,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ replies the second. ‘That lad’s a psycho, isn’t he?’

  ‘Complete mentalist.’

  ‘Some balls on him having another punt at the whole thing. You’d think he’d have given up by now.’

  ‘Naw, my da says lunatics like that never change. He went to school with this fella that was deep into torturing and stuff during the Troubles. Dad says you’d always have known there was something odd about him. He’d no fear nor nothing. No sympathy for other people. He was just unhinged. Your lad in the Fire Starter video’s the same.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Aye, my da says he’s no more interest in the politics. He’s only doing it to cause chaos.’

  ‘Like the Joker.’

  ‘Aye, Darren, exactly like the Joker.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Very cool. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of that bastard, though. You never know what a psycho like that’s capable of.’

  The lads fall briefly silent as the bus pulls away from the stop lights and goes lumbering down the Castlereagh Road, wavering between the rows of parked cars.

  ‘I’d be up for it, so I would,’ says the first lad, breaking the damp silence.

  ‘Up for what?’ asks the second.

  ‘Whatever your man’s after.’

  ‘More fires?’

  ‘Whatever – fires, beatings, bricking the police. Sure, wasn’t it good to have something to be at for a change?’

  ‘Aye, it was great craic.’

  ‘Best summer ever.’

  ‘No reason why it has to end.’

  ‘No reason at all.’

  ‘Wee bit of rain shouldn’t stop us defending our civil liberties.’

  ‘Dead right. Psycho or not, your man’s no pussy. He’s not lying down and letting the other side march all over him. I’m in. Whatever it is he’s wanting us to do, I’m totally in.’

  ‘Chaos. Anarchy. No surrender,’ they chant together.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Like lyrics from an old punk tune. Sammy can only imagine this is part of the Fire Starter’s call to arms. He pictures each word individually, printed on a single sheet of card. He can almost hear the thundering bass line. It’s not the most original, but Mark knows exactly what he’s doing, wheeling out the mother tongue, provoking nostalgia.

  No surrender, indeed.

  The vomit comes sliding up Sammy’s throat. He forces himself to choke it down, placing a hand over his mouth to keep the bile in. It isn’t my fault, he thinks. I did everything I could to keep him straight. Sins of the fathers, he thinks, dredging up all the old Sunday-school guff. He knows his hand is in this, heavy as a dropped hammer. He might as well be posting these videos himself. Part of him wishes he was. The smallest, ugliest part of him is proud of Mark. Jealous, even. He feels a headache coming on, a tightening in his heart, which might be angina or just anxiety. Maybe, if he’s lucky, the bus will drive itself off the Albert Bridge, put him out of his misery.

  ‘What’s anarchy?’ asks the lad behind him. The other one isn’t quite sure but thinks it definitely involves guns. ‘Deadly,’ says the first lad. The other claims he’s heard from a mate of his brother that the Fire Starter’s going to do a bomb next.

  ‘Is it still anarchy if you use a bomb instead of guns?’ asks his mate, and the other lad reassures him that it’s totally still anarchy so long as there’s some kind of explosion. This seems to satisfy them both. They return to their individual phones, googling football results and texting their friends.

  They get off the bus two stops before the bridge. Sammy sits on, all the way to the depot. He means to get off at the markets and can’t. He tries again at Rosemary Street but his muscles won’t move and he doesn’t trust his legs for standing. When he finally manages to make it down the three steps at the front of the bus he feels as if he’s aged ten years in the course of the journey. He holds tightly to the door to keep himself from toppling over.

  Sammy walks round the town for an hour. He does not buy slippers. He doesn’t buy anything at all. He moves from one bench to another, sitting down to watch the Saturday-afternoon shoppers cart their carrier bags and children round the shops. In and out they go, buying birthday presents and books, school shoes for the weans and wee tasty things from Marks & Spencer, a jumper they fancied in H&M, make-up remover from Boots, cappuccinos in Starbucks: a hundred thousand ordinary exchanges, which Sammy usually doesn’t take the time to notice. He notices now. He wonders where they are all coming from, these people he doesn’t know; where they will be in three hours’ time; who they matter to; who will feel the gap they leave behind. They are so ordinary to him, unremarkable as ants. This is how God must feel with all the power in his hands.

  He imagines the afternoon in pieces. It isn’t hard. There are photos from before: news reports from the seventies and eighties come quickly to mind. Those pictures are not easily forgotten. Shattered windows. Shopping bags shredded, like wedding confetti, tins of beans and other groceries rolling down the street. Dust settling. The grainy hint of something no one really needs to see: an arm, a head, a shoeless leg kicking at thin air. A child’s stuffed animal, sooty now from the blast. Blood. Cars and rubbish bins turned wrong side up. Flashing lights. Sirens. The dead, ghostly silence before the screaming begins. Sammy sees it all: the way it has been; the way it could be again. He sits for fifteen minutes outside Build-A-Bear watching the children queue to spend their pocket money. Families with buggies and little babies strapped to their parents’ chests. Grandparents. Tourists. Teenagers chirruping away, like angry starlings. Shop girls on their breaks. No one is bracing themselves for an explosion. No one is suspicious or afraid.

  These people are like children, trusting implicitly. They should know better. How could they have forgotten so quickly? Sammy’s anger rises against them. Stupid they are, like sheep moving in the one direction, never looking back. He wants to scream at their ignorance, spit judgement like an old-time street preacher. Then the pity comes in waves. He might cry. He can’t, not in public, but the sobs are going through him, regular as contractions. He wishes to place himself as a barrier between them and the things his son might do. He can do this right now with his mobile phone. He can call for help. Police. Ambulance. Fire brigade. All of the above, and the Coast Guard too. This is my son. He’s going to ruin everything. Abraham he will then be, or maybe God, offering his son up as a sacrifice. No, this won’t be anything close to true. Sacrifice only works with good sons. The bad ones are dispensable. Still he can’t bring himself to dial the number.

  His chest is turning itself inside out. He can’t breathe. This must be a heart attack, he thinks. He hopes it is: an easy way out; a decision lifted out of his hands. It isn’t a heart attack. After twenty minutes his breathing evens. He can walk so long as he doesn’t think too much about the step after the next. He gets a taxi home, through the East, over the ring road to his house. And Mark.

  Police. Ambulance. Fire brigade. Sammy knows what should be done. He doesn’t know if h
e can do it. Not today, he tells himself. It’s not that urgent. He decides to sleep on it. He doesn’t sleep. The next morning he feels like death. Pamela puts him into the car and drives him to the doctor’s. She doesn’t ask him what’s wrong. She knows better.

  16

  The Flood

  The rain is coming down in torrents now. The city is swimming in its own piss and everyone is worried about the rising waterline. It hasn’t rained like this in decades. I am at work when Christine texts to say downstairs has flooded. The water’s seeped under the door. It’s half a foot deep in the living room. Lighter items of furniture are beginning to float.

  I can’t leave immediately. Marty still has me on a kind of probation. He’s keeping a tight eye on everything I do and I want to look as professional as possible. There are two patients before lunch. Then I can escape for an hour, maybe more if the flooding turns out to be an actual emergency. I could ask one of the women to cover for me. They have small children themselves. They have partners to share the burden and are soft when it comes to my situation with Sophie. Sometimes they bring me home-baked cakes and buns, or a portion of lasagne in a disposable plastic tub, the kind Chinese takeaway comes in. ‘Just bin the tub when you’re done,’ they say, and explain how long it’ll need in the microwave. They wouldn’t be doing this if I was a woman. They certainly wouldn’t be doing it if I had a wife. I’m not complaining. It’s great that they’re so willing to cover my shifts.

  My phone keeps flashing. I can feel it vibrating in my pocket all the way through my first appointment. I check it surreptitiously while the patient is undressing. I am careful not to look suspicious. It’s best not to be messing around with mobiles when you’ve a half-naked patient with you. Christine wants to know what she should do. She has texted three times now. The third is just a series of question marks: two dozen or more in a block. I stare at this line of tiny hooks and feel dizzy. Damned if I know what you should do, I think. I don’t write this. I don’t know what I should write. In this sort of situation I never feel like a grown-up or even a proper man. I’m equally useless with car problems and anything to do with electrics.

  ‘HOLD TIGHT,’ I type. ‘WITH U IN A MIN.’ Christine is using sad face emoticons now, one with actual moving tears and another like a little man waving his hands wildly above two squiggly lines. Not waving but drowning, I am meant to think. Not funny, Christine. Not funny at all. I begin to panic. The panic gets thicker when she asks if she should call someone: a plumber, a handyman or her father, who is very good in such emergencies.

  ‘NO,’ I text back. No one must be called to the house until I get home. Even in an emergency I can’t risk strangers around Sophie. ‘STAY UPSTAIRS. KEEP SOPHIE WARM. DONT PANIC. I’LL B HOME IN AN HOUR.’

  I am home in forty-five minutes. I’m not proud of myself but I’m hardly even present with my last two patients. I write prescriptions for painkillers and anti-depressants before they’ve even finished describing their symptoms. I have them in and out in under five minutes. This is record-breaking speed, even for me – I don’t, as a rule, do chit-chat. I can think about nothing but getting back to Sophie. I have an image lodged in my head: my daughter in an old-fashioned life-ring, bobbing around her flooded nursery, screaming hysterically. It’s not rational. The water hasn’t even made it up the first stair but I can’t seem to shift the thought of her wee face, curled up in panic. I try to concentrate on my patients but all I can think about is Sophie.

  On the way home the rain is spit-thick sliding across my windscreen. The wipers can’t shift it. It moves from side to side, like spilt grease, leaving track marks on the glass. Outside, the water is bouncing off the pavements, coming down heavy as a drive-through car wash. I’m drenched while dashing from the health centre to my car and about to be drenched again between the car and my front door. I’ve sorted it with Susan. She’s covering for me so I don’t have to come back after lunch. I make a mental note to buy her a bottle of wine and a thank-you card: something with animals on the front. I’ll sign the card from Sophie and myself, fake a scrawly signature for the baby. Susan is a sucker for that kind of crap.

  I park my car in the drive. A river is running through my garden, sweeping the shrubs out of their beds and across the lawn. A bigger river is the road. I can barely see through the sheets of rain. It’s like being in a room where all the walls are running. I tent my hands above my head – they make a useless umbrella – and sprint from the car to the house, not even bothering to lock the doors.

  I can smell the water before I even step through the front door. It is not the same as tap water or even river water. It has a stale nip to it, like stagnant puddles or laundry left wet inside the washing-machine. It is the colour of weak tea, seeping across the hall carpet and pooling on the kitchen tiles, staining everything it touches. I stand for a moment on the doorstep, sheltered by the roof’s pitch, and survey the chaos. The coffee-table is doing its best to float. There is a dark tideline creeping up the curtains’ hem and the electricity is out. At least we don’t have to worry about electrocution. I hesitate on the edge of my home. It’s a horror show. I could easily turn tail, run away from it all and come back later when the insurance has dealt with the mess. Old me probably would have done that. I’ve never been good in a crisis. But now there is Sophie. She’s like an anchor lodged inside me. I can’t help but think about her. It isn’t in me to leave her behind.

  Up the stairs I slop, two at a time, dragging the wetness with me. I haven’t got the right shoes for this. I was soaked to the knee just puddling through the hall. I find Christine in the spare bedroom holed up with a paperback novel. I stand on the landing, dripping sediment all over the carpet, and wait for her to notice me. I still haven’t worked out how to approach her and often appear abruptly at her side, making her jump or drop whatever’s in her hand. Thankfully, never Sophie. When she finally looks up she smiles and makes the sign for OK when ‘OK’ is a question rather than a statement. I give her a thumbs-up. I’m OK. She indicates with her hands and her head that Sophie is fine, fast asleep in the cot next door. There’s nothing to write with up here. In the panic Christine has left her notepad on the kitchen table. The table is an island now, marooned in a sea of brown sludge water. We use our phones to talk, typing out messages and passing them backwards and forwards across the bed.

  ‘SORRY,’ I type. ‘I DIDNT THINK THIS WOULD HAPPEN.’

  ‘NOT UR FAULT,’ Christine replies. ‘UR NOT GOD.’ She adds a winking smiley face.

  Just thinking about smiling is enough to make her smile. She’s a sunny sort of person by default, the opposite of me, and though she isn’t exactly beautiful, when she smiles she’s decidedly less odd-looking. Later, when we’re not in the midst of an actual emergency, I must find a way to tell her so without sounding creepy. Christine isn’t good with compliments: even the smallest accolade seems to fluster her. She still blushes every time I tell her how good she is with Sophie, or what a tremendous help she is to me.

  ‘HOWS SOPHIE?’

  ‘ALL GOOD. V HAPPY. TOTALLY LOVES WATER. ITS WEIRD. U SHOULD TAKE HER SWIMMING SOMETIME.’

  This is not what I want to hear. I’m keen to keep her landlocked. If anything, I’d prefer the child to be terrified of water. I certainly don’t want her drawn to it as her mother was. But Sophie is not afraid of water. She’s happiest in the bath, half submerged, and wriggling around the tub, like a slick pink salmon. Her skin seems to hold wetness like a cloud. Even hours after a bath her hair is sleek and cold to the touch, as if permanently damp. She will watch a running tap with the same rapt attention other children give to moving pictures on a television screen. Now, here she is, a little mermaid baby, riding high and happy on the surface of a flood. This means nothing, I tell myself. All little kids like water, something to do with being in the womb so long. This means nothing at all.

  ‘THANKS,’ I type, ‘4 EVERYTHING 2DAY. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT. U CAN HEAD HOME IF U WANT 2.’

  ‘WHAT RU
GOING 2 DO ABOUT DOWNSTAIRS?’

  ‘BUCKET AND MOP?’

  ‘Smiley face. NO REALLY J. WHAT RU GOING 2 DO?’

  ‘CALL A PLUMBER.’

  ‘WELL IF U THINK U CAN MANAGE WITHOUT ME I MIGHT HEAD HOME BEFORE IT GETS DARK.’

  ‘GO AHEAD. WELL B FINE.’

  Christine reaches across the bed and pats my hand, once, twice, three times. If she was the sort of girl who could speak, she’d be saying, ‘I have every confidence in you,’ or ‘You’ve got this one covered, mate.’ But she can only use her hands to drum these feelings into me. This works almost as well as words. Each time her hand meets mine I feel entirely capable. Like a man. Like a man who is also a father. Perhaps I should ask Christine to stay. It’s so much easier when she’s around. Two can bear a lot more than one. I think this is a saying from the Bible, or possibly Shakespeare. But I can’t ask her to stay. She might get the wrong idea. She might panic and leave us for ever.

  I find a torch in the bathroom and help her downstairs. As she wades through the floodwater she holds her handbag high above her head like a jungle explorer. This is hardly necessary. The water is only ankle-deep and it makes me smile. She’s not a subtle girl, not the sort to practise restraint. Even this is an adventure to her, a fuss to break the silence. I’m jealous of the way she sinks her teeth into everything. I envy her joy. I’ve never had the gall for it.

  After Christine leaves, I feed and change Sophie. She is particularly content tonight. She curls into the corner of my neck to doze. I hope it isn’t the water that’s soothed her. She hasn’t been so limpet-like in weeks, not since she first learnt how to roll. We sit on the edge of my bed for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness of each other as the room begins to darken. It is only when the hall clock chimes six that I remember the plumber. I flick through the Yellow Pages and choose one from the very end of the list. Mr Young, with a Y: I think I’m being clever, avoiding the beginning of the alphabet. Plumbers will be in hot demand tonight. People will call the first name they come to. Not me. I’m smarter than that.