The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  Chapter Forty-five

  I try to block out the reassuring hum of the city seeping through my walls. I let my mind fly over the miles of dark country, fly on its rapid journey back across so many years; I let it fly through my memory’s smoky haze, back to that November evening in Emberfield. On the night of the fifth, I see myself trooping to the bonfire with my parents and sister, all of us wrapped in scarves and gloves against the chill. It was at least dry so no rain would quench our blaze. We trudged down the dirt track that led to the farm where the display would be held – for once we could pass beyond the barbed wire, pass through the forbidden farmyard. After tramping over its dung-splattered concrete, past barns smelling of hay and manure, past the sleeping tractors and hibernating combines, we came to the bonfire field. People were milling around; it was dark, of course. No stars peeked through the clouds that massed in the heavens, but a couple of powerful electric lights helped us see. One was pointed at the bonfire and guy. Our mannequin crowned a pyre, much larger than I’d expected – a small mountain of pallets, logs and beams. At the top of that wooden hill, he was lashed to an old chair. For a second, a fear seized me it was a real man we’d torch. After all, I had done well with the face. I overheard two blokes talking.

  ‘It’s a good one this year, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, most lifelike. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who.’

  ‘Does look a bit peeved, doesn’t he? Though I can’t say I blame him. And the organisers say we might have a little extra surprise when the fire gets going.’

  But, for a time, the fire stayed unlit. My heart banged, my body shivered with more than the night’s chill as I wondered if our magic would work. When the blaze devoured the guy, would we see Weirton writhing as invisible fire consumed him? Or would the enchantments be more subtle: would the embers of sickness wither the headmaster over time or would the magic strike with its deadly flaming force at a future date? I shook more, my heart boomed louder as I thought about the evil of what we wanted to do, about how I’d carefully constructed that guy to bring pain and death to Weirton. Then again, would our wicked act be for a greater good, would we be doing God’s will by ridding our town of that bully and murderer? Even Weirton himself had said that sometimes the Lord wanted good men to act for Him and that we shouldn’t stay our hands against evildoers.

  As I stamped my wellies on the frost-furrowed earth to drive the numbing cold from my toes, I tried to distract myself from such heavy thoughts by pondering that strange time of year. It was jammed with special days, packed with festivals. First was Halloween, when witches, goblins and ghouls were unleashed. Though some kids went trick-and-treating, no one I knew would stay out late. We’d all be huddled in our homes as the otherworldly regiments flew or scuttled outside. And in a place as haunted – and with as many legends – as Emberfield, we were especially fearful, praying the hideous turnip lanterns lighted in our windows would scare the spooks away. I had wondered lately why those ghouls should be frightened of a bit of fire in a vegetable, but making the lanterns was fun, and when they were lit there was something ancient and powerful about how their crude faces flickered. As I watched the fire dancing behind those sinister eyes and teeth, I soon forgot my doubts. Then came All Saints’ Day on November 1st – when the vicar had told us we should pay homage to all the saints of God, all the people who’d died in the pictures he’d shown us by being roasted, boiled, baked, crushed just because they believed in Jesus. I was glad that – as a Christian – I hadn’t lived in those ages. The day after, the vicar said, was All Souls’ Day, a time when we should think about and honour all the dead Christians who were now in Heaven with the Lord. If they were in such a blissful place, I didn’t understand why they should care whether we thought of them or not, but I tried to do what the vicar said. Yet I’d also heard a legend the dead didn’t just stay in Heaven at that time of year, but came back to visit us. I imagined the ghosts rising up from their rest in the churchyard at Salton and in the cemetery on the way to Goldhill, stretching see-through limbs then setting off on a stumble across the dark fields to our town. I’d heard it said you should keep lights on and fires lit to welcome the shades and guide them, otherwise they might get lost and wander forever in that strange no-man’s land between this life and the next. Maybe that was one of the purposes of Bonfire Night: to make a huge blaze our ghosts could warm themselves at and let them – at least once yearly – thaw out death’s chill. And the light of the flames and the banging fireworks would mean even the dimmest spooks wouldn’t get lost on the way. Just as we’d doubted whether the ghostly kids in the Old School could scoff sweets, I did wonder if spooks, having no bodies, could feel heat or cold at all. But I supposed it would be mean to deny them warmth and light as long as there was the slightest chance they could.

  The fourth of November was, of course, Mischief Night, when older lads went round town amusing themselves with pranks. Road signs were graffitied, gnomes were nicked, front door keyholes superglued, fireworks let off on old ladies’ windowsills. The most famous act that year had involved the Stubbs family gnome. It’d been wrenched from its place in the garden, its base had been coated with superglue and it had been stuck – Rolls-Royce like – on the bonnet of Mr Stubbs’s car. Unable to remove that merry dwarf, Mr Stubbs had been forced to drive to work and back with it beaming from the front of his vehicle. Jonathon’s brother and Darren Hill, along with a bunch of older boys, turned out to be responsible, and the brother had got from his dad – according to Jonathon – the belting of his life. But here were the Browning family now, rubbing hands and stamping feet, to the left of the pyre. The brother – showing little sign of the hiding he’d received – was demolishing a steaming jacket spud.

  More people came and the crowd swelled. They hopped and rubbed their arms in the cold, breathed out clouds of dragon breath, added to that steam with hot potatoes and soup from the food stall. Lots of kids from school showed up with their families. Even Mr Weirton had come – neck swathed in a stylish scarf, he went round shaking hands, chatting jovially, boasting about the guy his school had made. He strode up to us, shook hands with Mum and Dad.

  ‘Terrific guy,’ Weirton said. ‘I have to say, the kids have done a great job, especially this little chap here.’

  Weirton ruffled my hair; my parents laughed.

  ‘Yes, Ryan and his friends gathered most of the guy’s clothes, got the glasses. Ryan painted that moody face – it’s eerily realistic!’

  ‘Yes,’ my father said.

  He glanced at Weirton, looked back at the guy, his exaggerated movements attempts at comedy. He then said, ‘It doesn’t remind me of a certain someone, does it?’

  Weirton erupted in a laugh.

  ‘Must be the glasses,’ the teacher said, ‘those and the blond hair.’

  ‘Well, that suit,’ said my dad, ‘that’s an old one of mine. It took some persuading to get it out of me, let me tell you! I wasn’t all that eager to sacrifice it to the flames.’

  ‘The spirit of sacrifice you have for your community is admirable, Sir!’ Weirton’s jolly lips said. ‘But I’ve heard there’s going to be an additional surprise with our handsome guy.’

  ‘It’s all excitement in Emberfield, isn’t it?’ Dad said. ‘We’ll look forward to it.’

  Weirton said his goodbyes and drifted off, and was soon doing the same routine with Richard Johnson’s family. After a few more minutes, the town’s mayor – his chain of office gleaming in the electric light – stood up and made a boring speech. He thanked Weirton and our school for the guy, thanked the soup makers, the potato bakers, the wood gatherers, the farmer, thanked everybody then eventually said, ‘So without further ado, let our great bonfire be lit!’

  A man went once round the pyre, sloshing some liquid from a battered barrel onto the wood. He took a stick with a rag on the end, clicked a cigarette lighter – a tiny flame in the darkness – and jerked it up to meet the rag, from which a much stronger fire blazed out. For
a few seconds, he held up his burning brand before he launched it onto the heap. Fire – its higher capering flames an eerie green – spread around the base, and soon – its colour back to a more normal orange – it was licking at then gobbling the wood further up the pile. The mountain sighed and shifted; our guy slid and wobbled on his chair, but wasn’t toppled. The wood cracked, the flames waved, the fire grew and we had to shuffle back as a thick wall of heat pushed at us. Still – when not hidden by longer tongues of flame or billows of smoke – we could see the guy: he still sat in his blond wig, his black suit; the face still scowled in anger at his fate. My heart pounding, my mind eager to see what would happen to Weirton, I urged the fire on as it licked around the guy’s throne. The straw legs started to blaze then a curious thing happened. Someone must have put some gunpowder in his pipe because its bowl began to fizzle and fling out multi-coloured sparks. A murmur of laughter and exclamations spread through the crowd; there were pointing fingers, smiles, but I felt disappointed that was all our surprise could be. The flames licked higher and began to devour the torso. From the left of the guy’s chest came a huge bang. As one the crowd leapt, let go a startled cry. The guy jerked in his seat; there was a cloud of smoke and flying straw then three more bangs blasted from that region as stars burst of green, red, purple, each accompanied by jumps and gasps from the crowd. As the smell of gunpowder mingled with the wood smoke, someone shouted, ‘Now that’s what I call a heart attack!’

  The whole hill was ablaze; we just got glimpses of the guy’s shoulders and head through the veils of smoke and dancing curtains of flame. I glanced over at Weirton. A part of me expected to see him clasping his chest, falling to the ground as his heart erupted in fatal imitation of his effigy. But another part of me feared it wouldn’t happen, and – sure enough – the teacher was chatting and laughing with Mr Stubbs, pointing at something in the blaze. I looked back to the fire – the guy’s shoulders were burning now; the crowd were shuffling back as the heat pressed us. Between the prancing flames, we could still glimpse the guy’s head though the face was now crinkled and black. The hair went up in a shock of orange, to be followed by the rest of the cushion head. It burned a strange reddy-green then there came a terrific blast. The crowd sucked air as a bang tore the head apart. With deafening cracks, stars exploded from where the brains would have been. Yellow, red, blue, violet – each drew a gasp from the audience. A rocket whooshed up from the blasted skull to erupt in a thousand sparks high in the heavens. White smoke floated as those sparks showered down.

  ‘He’ll have a headache in the morning!’ someone called out.

  ‘Thought that last one was the poor blighter’s soul going up to heaven,’ another person said. ‘Didn’t quite make it though, did he?’

  Again superstition hauled my eyes across to the headmaster. Could the teacher be twisting on the ground, gripping his head as his mind exploded? No, he was now laughing with and patting the back of Mr Browning, giving Jonathon and the brother the same hair ruffles he’d given me. My heart sagged. But still in my mind there was quiet satisfaction at seeing Weirton destroyed – even if only in effigy. And who knew what the unseen forces we’d set in movement might do in the coming weeks and months?

  What had been a mountain of wood was now a mountain of flame. It blazed away, devouring itself – its wall of heat pushed the crowd back more. A gap in the throng appeared where the breeze blew the most smoke. Our guy now cremated on his pyre, the fireworks began. Rockets rushed to daub patterns on the cloud-crammed sky; bangers blasted. Catherine wheels whizzed in fizzing circles before their smoky ghosts were given up. Kids painted on the air with crackling sparklers, those wands releasing a wispy gunpowder scent to drift on the more pungent wood smoke. While all this went on, I thought some more about how wonderful Bonfire Night was. Not only did it celebrate the foiling of that treasonous plot by that foul Catholic Guy Fawkes, which was why we burnt him each year to merrily remember his grisly end, but all those flames and flashes also guided our ghosts as they came stumbling into town from the graveyards. And, of course, there was its main purpose of encouraging our weakening sun. I silently cheered each rocket that shot up to explode in its star-shape, to remind the sun of its duty to shimmer and spark, cheered each banger that made the heavens shudder, rousing the sleepy sun from any daze it might have drifted into. I cheered our fire as it flamed, reminding the sun of its responsibilities by giving it a reflection of itself here on earth. I knew the sun was far away, making it look smaller than it really was, so I guessed it was about the size of our blaze. Surely, in its revolutions around the globe, the sun would be heartened by the many fires lit all across the world. I uttered prayers to God, thanking Him for His mercy in letting us celebrate Bonfire Night. A tap on the shoulder startled me from my ponderings. I turned to see Jonathon. We walked a few paces from my family so we could talk.

  ‘Did you like the guy?’ Jonathon said.

  ‘It was brilliant!’ I said. ‘Weirton’s heart and head exploding! Wish that could happen in real life!’

  For some reason, I felt shy of what I wanted to say next, but still I went on.

  ‘Then again, maybe it will! Perhaps the magic will just take time to work. We’ll just have to wait.’

  ‘Can’t wait too long!’ Jonathon said. ‘If that magic does ever work, by then it might be too late and we could have another Marcus or Lucy! Wish we could find a way to get rid of Weirton right now!’

  The fireworks banged, flashed and crackled as we stood and thought. They were let off from a place to the side of the crowd where two men worked, fetching the fireworks from the open boot of a car parked in the dimness where the firelight flickered less. They’d kneel on the ground and position the rockets in empty milk bottles. After sparking the fuse that hung over the bottle’s rim, they’d trot back as light fizzed up that tail before launching the rocket skywards. The Catherine wheels they nailed to posts. They lit their fuses, retreated as those discs of frantic fire spun. I moved my gaze from them, look over at Weirton, who was chatting to Suzie Green’s dad.

  ‘Bit common the Greens, aren’t they?’ Jonathon said. ‘My mum says Mr Green just works on a farm and they live in a council house. No wonder Suzie’s so dim!’

  I nodded, but kept my eyes on the headmaster. After he drifted away from Mr Green, there were no families left to talk to. Weirton went to the food stall, where he was invited to the queue’s front, beaming in mock modesty as he was swiftly served. Then taking his cup of soup, he walked a good few metres from the crowd and stood, staring into the fire as the steam from his soup drifted up. Just a bunch of kids were near him; they rushed about to his left, playing with sparklers. They weren’t from our school, hence their lack of fear. A hand clasped my shoulder, shook it. I turned, saw Jonathon’s scrunched eager face.

  ‘I’ve got an idea!’ he said, ‘Something I reckon will work much better than magic! Come with me.’

  Jonathon beckoned; I followed him. We walked till we were in the blackness, to where we weren’t lit by the blazing mountain. We squatted on the hard-ridged earth. I was glad I was with my friend; otherwise I’d have been scared to meet any ghosts stumbling on their way to the fire’s warmth.

  ‘Right,’ Jonathon said, ‘first part of the operation, I’ll creep up to that car, grab what I can out of the boot.’

  Before I could ask any questions, Jonathon scampered off into the gloom. The car was sometimes illuminated, sometimes not, by the dancing fire, the explosions in the sky. A firework flashed and I saw him crawling along the ground; the fire shifted, something in it fell, one side of it blazed out and I saw Jonathon at the car, reaching into the boot. Another minute and he was jogging back to me. My heart boomed as I saw he held two rockets and one Catherine wheel, along with a box of matches and milk bottle.

  ‘What you doing?’ I hissed. ‘What did you nick those for?’

  ‘Look, Weirton’s on his own, isn’t he?’ Jonathon said, panting after his run.

  ‘Yeah,’ I s
aid, ‘except for those kids playing near him.’

  ‘Well –’ Jonathon shrugged ‘– sometimes in war.’

  ‘What the hell are you going on about?’

  ‘It could be easy.’ Nervous gasps jolted Jonathon’s whispers. ‘I just have to know exactly where Weirton’s standing. I’ll aim the milk bottle at him, put a rocket in it and light the fuse, just like those blokes were doing. Then the rocket will shoot at Weirton through the fire!’

  ‘OK.’ Though my body shook, some evil resolve within made me agree at once to Jonathon’s plan. ‘What about the Catherine wheel?’

  ‘We’ll save that for last, in case the rockets don’t hit him. I’ll just chuck it at Weirton through the flames. I reckon I can est-imate all the angles. All you need to do is …’

  Jonathon jogged around the blaze till he was opposite the teacher. He gathered some stones, leant the cannon of the milk bottle on them. He fiddled with it till he’d got it tilted at more or less the correct angle then slid the stem of the first rocket inside. I walked round the blaze until I stood where I could see both my friend and the crowd on its other side. Weirton was still alone; the kids now played further off, but weren’t completely out of the range of danger. The teacher gazed into the fire, his soup resting on his folded arms. He didn’t move; he seemed hypnotised by the flames: he stared as if hoping to find something in them. A sudden sense of his loneliness rose up in me – after all the laughter and back-slapping, he stood by himself, just him and the inferno, with nothing more to say. But I banished pity by summoning pictures from his long record of crimes, images from all those years of humiliations and thrashings. Like seething acid, my hatred bubbled. I pretended to yawn and stretch, extending one arm towards the teacher. My heart raced and bashed; I shivered violently as Jonathon made minute adjustments to the tilt of the rocket. A match sparked; the fuse fizzed; the rocket whined and took off. It flew into the fire, hurtled out the other side – a flaming comet of vengeance shooting straight at Weirton. A shudder jerked the teacher; he flung his arms; hurled up his soup. He turned, ran; the rocket rushed after him, propelled by its wicked whine. The teacher flung himself at the earth; the rocket whizzed over his diving body, flew low into the darkness before erupting in bangs and sparks. Weirton lay flat and trembling; the nearby kids dropped their sparklers, ran screaming to their parents. The headmaster clambered up, stood with body tensed, jolting his head around. The crowd hummed with rapid chatter; fingers jabbed and pointed. I also thrust my finger at the teacher. My heart thudded faster; my throat gulped as Jonathon adjusted the milk bottle, lit the fuse of the next rocket. It screamed into the fire, screeched out blazing at Weirton. He leapt back, stumbled then sprinted as that flaming brand chased him. He hurled himself to the ground as just two metres above the missile ripped itself apart with an ear-shattering bang, showering the teacher with stars. Weirton rolled on the grass to snuff the sparks; jumped up and patted his coat to get rid of any last flickers of flame. The crowd gasped; chatter rose – a chatter that buzzed with anger, shock; a chatter that built upon itself like a hastily flung-up house. More fingers flew, pointed at the teacher, who was still slapping his coat, jerking his head around, pointed to where the ghostly smoke of that rocket hung. I also pointed at that missile’s victim. Like a discus thrower, Jonathon took the Catherine wheel in his right hand. The fuse was sparked; as it fizzed he moved his weapon forward once to check his aim. He hurled it into the fire. Out flew a burning disc – its gunpowder popping in snarls and snaps. It spun in a curve, but whirled too high over Weirton. The teacher gazed up – body stiff, feet rooted, mouth hanging – as that wheel arced. On its downward sweep, it sped towards the crowd. Another gasp went up; the crowd parted – people sprinting in different directions, women crying, kids screaming. The one figure that flaming ring made for was Dennis Stubbs. It flew down at him, but – as he pelted away – it levelled its flight and chased him at the height of his head. His arms pumped as he powered across the frozen soil, bawling and weeping. Stubbs flung himself on the earth, the discus blazed above him and a few metres on scudded to the ground, where it shuddered with fizzes and pops before its flames died. Stubbs pulled himself up, and – when clear no further explosions were coming – the crowd drew together. Angry chatter rose again; Weirton paced through the throng, flinging his arms and yelling. Jonathon kicked away the stones he’d used to prop his cannon, pitched the bottle far into the darkness and sneaked over to me. We sloped back to join the others. My heart still hammered; my eyes shot around – nobody was looking in our direction. We were soon close to the teacher, who still strode and shouted, the fire flickering over his red face.