The White Stuff

by Simon Armitage

  ‘Felix. Felix,’ he heard Jed shouting from somewhere above him.

  ‘What?’ he called back from the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Throw us one of those magazines up, will you? Might as well have a quick squint while I’m at it.’

  It was almost a fortnight till they saw each other again. Felix was busy at work. Jed was busy at work. They were busy at home too. Jed was boarding out the attic for a playroom for the twins. Felix was devising a new riling system for all the receipts, guarantees, policies and other important documents that were presently stuffed in a shoebox in the spare bedroom. As he sorted the paperwork into separate piles and wrote out neat headings on sheets of coloured card, he could hear the thump of a hammer somewhere above him, the sound of nails being driven through panels of chipboard into the beams and joists. Occasionally he heard a power tool, the screaming of a drill as it bored through timber and into the block-work or stone behind, or the drone of an electric sander, or the deep, unfamiliar rumble of some altogether more complicated piece of equipment performing a more esoteric task. Then just when Felix was wondering if he should phone and make contact, Jed left a message on the answering machine at work saying he’d be ‘testing a new batch’ next Friday morning and why didn’t he join him. ‘You can phone in sick, can’t you? For once.’

  Felix had driven past the gates of Kingfisher Fireworks many times on his way to the golf club but had never actually been inside. He entered the drive and followed the signs in the shape of a bird with the word Visitors’ written across its breast and its beak pointing towards a Portakabin on a mound of cinders. The door was locked. Felix sat on the metal step and looked out across the site, which appeared more like an army barracks or military hospital than a factory. The sheds, of which there were thirty or forty, were made from dark-green corrugated iron, semicircular in shape like Nissen huts, with as much space between them as was geometrically possible, the principle being that if one shed blew it wouldn’t take the whole factory with it. Three larger constructions to the right were rectangular, with a row of windows along the side protected by bars and mesh. Each building had a sign attached to the door. Although Felix couldn’t read the words from where he was sitting, it was clear the red and white lettering was a warning against some pretty serious type of danger. Jed had told him that the buildings were made from metal to cut down the risk of fire, which meant that each hut was like a kiln in summer, with the sun beating down on the curved roof. In winter they were cold and a lot of the employees wore thermal underwear, gloves and even balaclavas.

  Looking to his left, Felix could see two small patches of charred earth. He’d read in the paper about one disaster when lightning had struck Kingfisher Fireworks during a storm. And Jed often talked about a legendary incident from a few years back when a man and a woman had lost their lives. A stock of gunpowder had exploded, and although it had never been proved, it was rumoured that the couple were misbehaving during their lunch hour. A flash of static electricity had been generated as the man removed his nylon underpants, causing a spark that blew them both to kingdom come. Felix started to imagine cameos of sexual activity going on inside each of the little green sheds. Perhaps those red and white signs on every door were a set of rules prohibiting heavy petting and postcoital cigarettes as well as a warning about the dangers of underwear made from anything less than 100 per cent cotton.

  A small man with a shaved head walked from one hut to another with a tray in his arms, then dosed the door behind him. Followed by another man pushing a handcart, then a woman with a long pole in her hands. Everyone wore the same regulation brown overalls. The area was zigzagged with paths, some of them tarmacked or paved with flagstones, others being muddy short cuts across areas of grass. For a further ten minutes or so Felix watched the workers coming and going. At half past ten there was a long, high-pitched blast from a hooter somewhere behind the Portakabin, and instantly every door on the site opened and out of every green shed came two or three workers, some of them unbuttoning their work clothes, some carrying newspapers under their arms, all walking in the direction of a bigger, stone-built building on its own with steam rising from an aluminium chimney stack and a row of wheelie bins parked along the side. Some of the younger men were running to be first through the door. As it opened, Felix could see a counter at the far end with an enormous tea urn next to a trolley full of cups and saucers. Two women stood behind it in blue pinnies and white cotton hats. Turning back towards the stream of workers, Felix caught sight of Jed making his way up the central path towards him, head and shoulders taller than most of the people at his side. A young woman stopped him and put a notepad in his hand. There was a brief conversation before Jed took a pen from his top pocket, signed the docket and handed it back He was stopped three or four more times before he reached the steps where Felix was sitting.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  He unlocked the Portakabin and they went inside. He had a couple of phone calls to make and a fax to send. Then he opened a wooden shutter in the wall and took a key from a hook, and Felix followed him to a parking area at the rear, where they jumped into a battered old Transit van with the Kingfisher logo on The side and ‘ set off.

  No weapon had been discharged at the town firing range for several years now and most people knew that the bangs and thumps coming from the edge of the moor every second Friday did not originate from side arms or shotguns but from the trying and testing of Kingfisher Fireworks’ latest products. The reverberation of air-bomb repeaters between the walls of the valley and the occasional twist of grey smoke hanging in the afternoon sky reminded people down in the streets and houses that the town’s fourth-biggest employer was still in business. It was a tradition and, in an age of economic uncertainty, a comfort. But what they couldn’t have known was the way in which the tests were conducted. Whenever Jed had talked about his Friday afternoons ‘in the field’, Felix had pictured a series of controlled explosions.’ At the very least he, had envisaged electronically detonated pyrotechnics and the close monitoring of their behaviour from a safe distance. In reality, the research and development arm of Kingfisher Fireworks consisted of Jed and a dwarf called Keith, and its equipment extended no further than a van full of gunpowder, several assorted Wellington boots and a box of matches.

  For two hours, Felix sat on top of a wooden dugout covered with turf and watched as Jed and Keith loosed off a hundred or so explosions. In what looked to be more of a routine than a system, Jed would select a firework from the back of the van and throw it down over a wicker barricade to Keith. Then Keith would amble to a launch site about fifty yards away and either attach the firework to a plinth on the ground or mount it on an upright metal frame. When Jed gave the signal by raising his arm in the air, Keith bent over the touchpaper and, if he was lucky, ignited it with the first strike of a match. Sometimes it would take two or three strikes, and one in every ten fireworks refused to light at all. Keith would confirm this failure with a downturned thumb, at which point Jed would make a little note in his pocketbook, then go back to the van and select the next squib. Some of the fireworks were little more than common bangers or bog-standard Roman candles. Very often Keith took no more than a couple of steps backwards and Jed hardly bothered to look. But then came the big ones, the display models, more like weapons of mass destruction than anything designed for the purpose of entertainment. Keith tottered out to the launch pad with them, stumbling under the load, and had to go down on one knee to lay his payload on the ground. On these occasions the match would be struck with more purpose and held out with a stiff, fully extended arm. As the touchpaper started to fizz, he’d scuttle backwards, then turn and leg it towards some sort of trench or foxhole in the ground, completing his retreat with a well-practised commando roll. Then he’d peep from behind the mound of earth, using the flat, of his hand as a visor. Invariably, there would be several detonations, each one sending up a cluster of smaller fireworks, which exploded in turn, and
although it was hard to detect the colour or even the shape of the flaming gunpowder against the brightness of the sky, there was something about the timing of each explosion - as a sequence - that implied success.

  One of the bigger fireworks, which looked to Felix like a real heavy-duty piece of kit, smouldered on the ground for a while and let out a couple of dull thuds, but nothing appropriate to its size. In fact if size was anything to go by, a sustained barrage of anti-aircraft fire would have issued from the thick black cylinders pointing into the heavens. From his trench, Keith gave the thumbs-down to Jed. Then a series of more convoluted hand signals was exchanged, resulting in Keith pulling a pair of goggles over his face, approaching on all fours and, with the aid of a long-handled spade, flipping the rocket launcher on to its front. Jed vaulted over the barricade and jogged to the launch site. They kicked and prodded with their feet and pointed with their fingers. Jed made a few notes as Keith dragged the piece to one side. Then Jed went back to the van, but this time produced a flask of coffee and a paper bag, and held them in the air for Felix to see. There was an Eccles cake each and a vanilla slice to share, though by the time Jed had torn it in two, squeezing the custard out on each side and covering his hands in icing sugar, there wasn’t much worth having. They’d climbed up the metal ladders on the side of the van and were sitting on a narrow wooden platform that formed part of the roof rack. Their feet hung down over the open back door. Jed drank half a cup of coffee from the lid of the Thermos and handed it across for Felix to finish. It was sweet and syrupy. As they sat there, Keith raked all the duds into a large black pile to one side of the launch pad, then set about shovelling them into a wheelbarrow with the long-handled spade. The spade was at least a foot taller than he was.

  ‘Why don’t you get him a shorter one?’ Felix asked, after a while.

  ‘He likes the big one. Stops him getting too dose.’

  ‘He doesn’t say much, does he?’

  ‘Not since he got that rocket in the mouth.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘1985.’

  Felix helped himself to another cup of coffee and Jed set about licking the icing sugar from between his fingers and out from behind his wedding ring.

  ‘Did he sue?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Did he sue his employers? An industrial injury like that, he could get millions.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t work here,’ said Jed. ‘He just does it for fun.’

  Keith had finished loading the wheelbarrow with the spent casings and other bits and pieces, including the big rocket contraption that had gone off at half-cock, and was wheeling it across the moor along a length of chestnut paling laid flat to act as a path. The two metal rests at the back of the barrow kept catching on the wooden struts. To lift it higher, he hoisted the handles on to his shoulders. Then he walked back to the launch site for the spade.

  ‘Not very scientific, is it?’ said Felix.

  Jed shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. What more do you want?’

  ‘Well, don’t you make note of what they look like? Don’t you take pictures or anything?’

  ‘Can’t see anything during the day and we’re not allowed to test at night. Anyway, that’s not my department. They sort all that out on computers. As far as I’m concerned, it’s either a tick or a cross. Did it get off the ground? Yes. Did it make a big fucking bang? Yes. Job done.’

  Keith was now digging a hole in the moor and piling the peaty earth to one side. He stood on the metal edges of the spade to chop a large piece of turf.

  ‘Are we still talking about fireworks?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Probably not,’ said Jed. Then after a pause added, ‘So is she or isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s doing a test tonight.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But she’s a day late.’

  Jed shook his head and looked up towards the long, dark quarry about a mile or so beyond the back of the firing range, and Felix followed his stare. The stone face must have been sand yellow at one time, when the quarry was in use, but there hadn’t been a grain of rock taken from that hill in a couple of hundred years. Two centuries of smog and bad weather had stained it black. Sometimes from the town you might look up and see the last of the sun catching the giant slabs, and almost anything will shine in direct sunlight. But mostly it was a gloomy, brooding mass on the skyline, the geological equivalent of the Lakeland Estate on the opposite hill. A rock and a hard place, with the town in between. Down below, the Horseshoe roundabout appeared busy with cars, people knocking off early for the weekend. Then Felix looked at Prospect House, and counted the floors and the windows until he was looking at his office, and wondered if Neville was there at the end of his telescope, looking back.

  ‘Do you want me to call you tonight, to tell you what’s happened?’

  ‘Apparently you’re coming round to ours. Max is cooking.’

  ‘Isn’t it our turn?’

  ‘Yeah, but we can’t get a sitter. Listen, whatever happens, try and put it off till later, all right? I can just see it, Abbie going upstairs to the loo with her handbag, then coming back down all smiley and full of it, making the big announcement, and Max opening a bottle of champagne, and me and you sat there like a right pair of…’ He slithered down from the van roof. ‘Wankers, I was gonna say.’

  He rummaged in the glove compartment for something, which turned out to be a packet of cigarettes. Felix looked down through his legs and saw that one side of the van was still piled high with fireworks, some packed neatly in boxes, others loose, rolling around on the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jed. ‘I’m not that stupid.’

  Felix watched him as he jumped the barricade and strolled over to where Keith had finished digging the pit. He was leaning on the spade, having a breather. As Jed approached, Keith reached into his inside pocket and handed over the box of matches. Jed turned out of the wind and lit a cigarette, facing the quarry. Smoke streamed away from him, over the moor. With Keith at his side, holding the long spade like a primitive flag, they could have been Don Quixote and Sancho Panza staring out over the plain, contemplating their next adventure or their latest farce. Keith lifted the wheelbarrow by its handles and with some effort managed to tip the contents into the pit. Then, with the spade, he began digging at the pile of loose earth and heaping it over the cache of tested fireworks. Before the hole was completely covered over, Jed stooped over the mound and planted what looked like a black metal tube in the middle. Keith raked the soil more carefully around the tube until it stood on its own, wedged in the ground like a tiny chimney.

  ‘Felix, watch this,’ Jed shouted towards the van.

  Keith was already hurrying away, dragging the spade behind him. Jed took a long drag on the cigarette and seemed to examine the burning tip before dropping it into the top of the tube.

  Keith had made it to his bunker before the blast occurred, but Jed was only about halfway back to the barricade. The noise was low and heavy, as if from several miles away, and the eruption that followed must have been spectacular, although Felix saw little of it. The expression on Jed’s face as he studied the glowing cigarette had told him what was coming and in one seamless move he had swung down from the roof of the van and yanked the door dosed behind him. As he cowered by the wheel arch and removed his hands from his ears, cinders and dirt began raining from the air. It was like being in the caravan when he was small, the night of the hailstorm. Then two bigger dumps of soil thumped down and a pebble ricocheted off the bonnet.

  When the fall-out had stopped, Felix looked up and saw Jed girning through the back window. ‘BOOM!’ he said, and pressed his face against the sooty blotches on the glass. ‘Now that’s what I call a firework.’

  The twins were in bed. Maxine hadn’t cooked but they’d phoned for a pizza. Abbie and Felix were on the sofa. Jed was in the comfy chair with a large mug of t
ea resting at a dangerous angle on the arm. Maxine sat on the rug in front of the fire. ‘Only me drinking?’ she said, reaching out for the bottle of red on the coffee table. Abbie wanted a glass of water, please. They talked about work. Maxine said she once worked in a hotel in London, as a chambermaid to begin with, then in the restaurant and behind the bar. Just for a while, until she knew what she wanted to do. With her life. It was a big hotel used more by businessmen than tourists. One evening she was chatting with a friend of hers in the kitchen, when the chef told her to make herself useful. He put a tray in her hand and said to take it to a room on the top floor. She went up in the lift and walked along the corridor. The door was ajar, so she knocked and she heard a man’s voice telling her to come in. She went in. At the far end, in front of an enormous pile of books, was a tiny little man in his underpants. He didn’t turn round. He just sat there in his underpants. Red ones. He was taking books from a great big pile on one side, signing them and putting them on a great big pile on the other side. There must have been a thousand books in the room. He was skinny as well, she could see his ribs. He just said, ‘Leave it on the bed.’

  ‘Who was it?’ said Abbie.

  ‘That jockey. The one who writes thrillers.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Just sat there in his knickers, signing books.’

  Abbie described a job interview she’d been for once in an umbrella factory. The man doing the interview had asked her what her favourite kind of weather was, and she’d said clear winter skies, and she didn’t get the job. Maxine said that she’d once been for an interview in a bank and the manager had no arms. The sleeves of his suit were folded over in front of him and stitched together to make it look as if he had his arms crossed. She realized she couldn’t shake hands with him so she kissed him on the cheek. Just like that. He’d been in an accident on a farm. She got the job but didn’t accept it because she’d been offered something better on the perfume counter in Boots. A couple of month later she’d seen him driving a car.