Cold Fire

by Craig Saunders

  Maybe I’ll go and see the sand. For now, the waves, crashing against the sea defences. That’s what does it for me. The weather, being born out to sea. The rain, the spume (I learned that from Frank. I had to ask Helen what it meant) and my yellow sunset that only I can see. The after light.

  I didn’t talk to Helen about it, not again. But I made sure we were at the sea for sunset. That burst of yellow was like a shutter going down on the day, or a blanket, being pulled up to your chin on a cold night.

  It became something I did, like brushing my teeth before bed, or going to the toilet.

  Always in that order. Minutiae, but ritual, too.

  It gets you through the days.

  *

  14.

  Sunday comes around.

  I sit in the living room, out of the way. Helen gets shitty when she’s doing a big dinner. I never get to hang out with her. In London, our kitchen was tiny, so it wasn’t an issue. Now the kitchen’s huge, big enough so we can have a table in there, too, and I still can’t hang out.

  It feels weird, but it’s OK, too. I’m into this story by Joe R Lansdale. I haven’t heard of him, but there’s a preacher in it, with six-shooters, and a dead guy with bees coming out of his chest cavity. What’s not to like?

  Sometimes I have to close my eyes mid-story, when my eye gets tired. The words dance around but that’s OK. If I’m enjoying a story I read on, if I’m not I don’t bother. It’s a good system.

  There’s a knock at the back door. I like that. I know it’s Frank. He doesn’t use the front door, like a stranger would. That means something to me.

  Like so much else, I don’t know exactly why things touch me all the time these days. I’m an emotional wreck. I cry sometimes watching the Simpsons because most everyone’s grey and it’s really fucking depressing.

  ‘Sam, get that, would you? My hands are full.’

  I’m slow, but I hurry. I don’t want to make Frank wait too long.

  ‘I brought a bottle of wine. For Helen,’ he tells me, when I finally open the door. Helen joins me. Her hands are empty.

  I don’t offer to take the wine. I’ve got the door in one hand, the stick in the other.

  We don’t shake. No point. We’ve done that.

  ‘Thanks,’ Helen says as she takes the wine. There’s a moment, just a second. I notice. Frank doesn’t. Then Helen makes up her mind and kisses him on the cheek. No more moments after that. This is the way it’s going to be between them.

  Then he’s in.

  ‘Dinner’s coming. You want to go through to the living room? I don’t want you hanging around the kitchen.’

  This she directs at me. She’s taking charge. I grin. Frank gets it.

  ‘Beer?’

  Frank thinks for a second.

  ‘Please.’

  Helen waves me away as I make to go into the kitchen.

  ‘Glass or bottle?’

  ‘A bottle’s posh enough for me. I’m normally a can man.’

  There’s a clunk and a hiss. Helen hands Frank a lager.

  ‘Is that OK?’

  He takes a sip. Sighs.

  ‘Better than OK. Thank you.’

  Helen nods. Disappears back into the kitchen.

  ‘Come in,’ I say. ‘We’re still all over the place. It takes a while.’

  ‘I’ve still got boxes stacked in two of the bedrooms.’

  We sit down. Between the two of us, we make a fairly good comedy sketch. One of those long running shows where people say the same thing, different scenarios. We sit, we go 'ooch'. Everybody laughs.

  ‘We managed to get the essentials done,' I say, shuffled into my chair, 'but mainly we’ve been getting to know the neighbourhood.’

  ‘It’s a good town. It’s got most of what you’d need. The supermarket down the road’s got pretty much everything else.’

  ‘How do you get there? You haven’t got a car, right?’

  ‘I get the bus, if I have to. My eyes keep getting worse. It seemed sensible to give up the car. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened.’

  ‘I can’t say I miss driving.’

  ‘Me, neither.’

  Helen’s standing in the doorway.

  ‘Well, I’ve never had to call you to the table before. Sam’s got some kind of sixth sense when it comes to dinner.’

  ‘I’m slacking.’

  I push myself up. Frank does the same. He winces, but doesn’t complain. It must hurt. I’m lucky. Mine doesn’t hurt, I just look like a dead crab rising from a watery grave.

  He should have a stick. Maybe it’s pride.

  Helen’s given us fair warning. She lays the last of the dishes as we make it to the table.

  ‘Where am I?’ says Frank, eyeing the food. His mouth is just shy of watering.

  ‘Here,’ she says. She holds the chair out for him. He gets his own back. He waits for her to sit down before he takes his seat. This impresses me. It’s a nice touch. Old school. I think, I’ll remember that.

  I follow his lead. It’s a small thing but Helen seems pleased.

  Frank’s wife must have been one happy woman.

  ‘This looks fantastic,’ Frank says, once we’re all seated.

  ‘I hope you enjoy it.’

  ‘I’m going to. I haven’t had a home cooked roast since I lost Dana. You’ve no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this.’

  ‘Well,’ says Helen, a little flushed, ‘help yourself.’

  We let him take first shot at everything. We pass him pork, roast potatoes, green beans, carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, gravy, apple sauce. I pass him the crackling.

  He grins.

  He takes some, taking a bite and cracking it with his teeth – his own, I’m sure.

  ‘That’s perfect.’

  I offer it to Helen. She shakes her head, like always. I take some, leave the plate between me and Frank. I leave the crackling ‘til last. I know it’s good. It always is.

  We eat. We don’t make conversation. We just pass dishes, clack serving spoons and slop on apple sauce. Frank makes this noise while he eats. A kind of contented hum.

  He finishes first. Like he’s not had any kind of meal since Dana died, let alone a roast.

  ‘You’re a lucky man. That was a fantastic dinner, Helen.’

  ‘Seconds?’ says Helen.

  ‘No. Thank you. That’s enough for me.’

  ‘There’s plenty,’ she says, and there is. She’s done enough for six.

  ‘Well…’

  Sensing he’s going to cave, Helen just passes him the spuds. I take my cue.

  After a while, it finally looks like we’ve made a dent in the mountain of food.

  Me and Frank share the last of the crackling.

  ‘That’s the best meal I’ve had in years,’ says Frank. ‘But no more. You’ll kill me.’

  ‘We can’t have that,’ Helen says with a smile. ‘Beer? Coffee?’

  Frank swishes the dregs of his beer.

  ‘I better go with coffee,’ he says. ‘Any more beer on top of that and I’ll sleep for a week.’

  We offer to help clear up, but don’t complain too hard when Helen shoos us away.

  Back in the living room, we sit, too stuffed to move. Ooch.

  ‘How are you getting on? With the stick?’ he asks.

  ‘It helps. I’m hoping I won’t need it forever.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of getting myself one.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. You get used to it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he says. Helen comes in to hand him his coffee, me a tea. She goes out again.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says, as if there was no interruption.

  ‘I’m trying to get some more exercise in. I want to be able to walk up the shop. I won’t be driving again, but I feel bad, you know…Helen does all the driving.’

  ‘I go to Skip’s, at the edge of town. It’s not too far.’

  ‘Is that the closest?’

  He pauses. ‘No. There’s th
e Stop Shop.’

  ‘The closer the better.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘There’s a cut through, past the old youth centre. Up an embankment. I don’t go that way. I wouldn’t make it with my hip. I guess you wouldn’t make it, either.’

  ‘What way do you go?’

  ‘You can go through the estate, over the back. Cut down the alley by Bob’s,’ he says, sees my look. ‘You haven’t met Bob? Well, you can make your own mind up, there. He’s the other side – the one with the ugly shed. Anyway, the alley comes out on Cedars. It says it’s a dead end, but it’s not. There’s a footpath, leads out onto Townshend.’

  ‘Townshend?’

  ‘Townshend. With the ‘H’. Don’t ask me why. Follow that, you’ll come out on the old Fakenham road. Down the hill, there’s the one-stop. But I don’t go that way.’

  I smile, like it’s a joke. But it’s not a joke.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t like it.’

  ‘What, the estate?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Is it rough?’

  He laughs. ‘It’s just…it feels wrong...’

  He seems like he’s got more to say. I don’t push him. He’s getting there. I don’t rush around anymore. Neither does he.

  ‘Well, alright,’ he says, like I’m pestering him, but I’m not. I’m just drinking my tea.

  ‘Best I can put it…when I was working on a boat, sometimes you’d know it wasn’t right. You’d do the same thing as always. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, thing would go right. But that one time…things just wouldn’t run true, no matter what you did. I guess estates are like that. You do the same thing a hundred times, one’ll be bowed.’

  ‘Now I’m intrigued,’ I say, both that he used to work on boats, and about the estate.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m just a superstitious old man. You’d probably think nothing of it. But, like I say, I don’t go that way.’

  I don’t know why, but I get the sense that he’s holding something back. It puzzles me. I’m not a great judge of character, but Frank seems as straight as they come. I’m sure I’m not wrong on that front, but just the same, I feel there’s something else.

  He shrugs. ‘Like I say, I don’t go that way. It’s quickest, though. Still, if you want, I’ll show you the way to Skip’s.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. And then we’re back to normal.

  ‘I better get going. I don’t want you to think I’ve lost my marbles.’

  I think about sunsets. I think about people on fire, way back when. It seems like another life. The man in the sports shop. I think back…it’s only just over a week ago, but it’s faded. Things like that fade. That’s good. Some things should fade.

  If Frank says it’s wrong, I’m not going to argue. I don’t think he’s lost his marbles.

  But I’m still intrigued.

  I walk him to the back door, after he’s said his thanks and goodbyes. I watch him go to our back gate. I hang by the back door until he comes into sight again, walking slowly to his back door.

  He pauses, at the back of his house. Pulls a cigarette from his shirt pocket, flicks a lighter. Then he waves and goes inside.

  *

  15.

  Me and Frank do the walk to Skip’s the next week. I go over to his, knock on the back door. I feel like saying, ‘Do you want to come out and play?’ but I don’t.

  ‘Do you fancy that walk? I’m taking your advice. I’ll try Skip’s.’

  ‘Let me get my coat,’ he says.

  I don’t have a coat on. I wonder if he knows something I don’t. Maybe old boat builders know about the weather.

  He comes back and locks his door.

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘She’s getting her hair done. She’ll be gone a while.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want a pretty woman to see me fall on my arse.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. She wouldn’t laugh. Much.’

  ‘Still,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  We’re outside Bob’s. Bob’s washing his car. He’s not wearing a coat either. He’s washing the tyres. He doesn’t look up.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, from a respectful distance. I stop.

  He looks up, but doesn’t come over. He’s in his fifties. He’s got a wide head. Short cropped grey hair. A fat nose.

  ‘Bob,’ he says. He carries on washing his car. I could go over, shake his hand. But it’s his drive. I’ve got a stick. If he’s not going to come down the drive, I’m not going to go up.

  ‘Sam,’ I say.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Better crack on.’

  Like I’m pestering him. It gets my goat, but I shrug and share a look with Frank.

  ‘Frank,’ says Bob.

  ‘Bob,’ says Frank.

  We walk on, slowly. Frank doesn’t complain. I take his lead and soldier on.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ I say, when we’re a safe distance down the road.

  ‘Polishing his tyres,’ says Frank, like that explains everything.

  I have to admit, it does seem a little odd.

  ‘Whatever,’ I say.

  He nods. We make tracks.

  It takes about half an hour, there. It would probably be a ten minute walk for someone with the full use of their legs.

  I’ve got a backpack. I fill it with some light stuff. Chocolate for Helen, a can of coke for me, feeling guilty by association but OK with it because that’s the nearest I get to the real thing.

  I get a pint of milk, too. I’m one of life’s pint buyers, now. I don’t want the usual four pints in my backpack. I’m liable to keel over.

  Frank gets a pouch of tobacco and some papers.

  I look at my watch. It’s the same watch as always, but it slips around now. I didn’t realise wrists got fat, but if they’re getting thinner then the opposite must be true, too.

  Outside, I rest against a wall. There’s a pub there, right across the street.

  ‘Treat you to lunch?’ I say.

  Frank puts the thin cigarette he’s been rolling between his lips and lights it.

  ‘I could do with a pint. Not here, though,’ he says. ‘Me and the landlord don’t see eye to eye. Down the Crown. If Dave’s on he’ll let me smoke in the back room. I can’t do the pub these days. I’m set in my ways, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem right, drinking a pint without a cigarette. I don’t mind round someone’s house, but it doesn’t seem right, in a pub.’

  ‘Just one of a long list of things you can’t do anymore. It used to drive me nuts. I don’t mind so much now. I’m trying for mellow. After a heart attack and a stroke, I let things slide, if I can.’

  ‘It creeps up on you,’ says Frank. ‘One thing, you wear it. One thing becomes two, then a hundred. We’re not so far off a police state. At least, that’s the way it seems to me.’

  Frank sighs and pinches out his cigarette.

  ‘Don’t mind me, Sam. I’m just old.’

  I think about what he said. Frank’s in his seventies. I figure if he wants to smoke in his local, I’m not going to stop him.

  We go to the Crown.

  It’s nice. He’s right. His beer looks good, cigarette in one hand, beer in the other. He wouldn’t look right without both.

  I have a sandwich. I wish I had a beer and a cigarette. It looks cooler than egg mayonnaise.

  I realise I’ve got some weird hero worship thing going with Frank. It makes me smile.

  I also don’t know how to broach the subject I really want to talk about, but I guess this is the best time. We’re getting along.

  ‘Me and Helen, we’re going to do the tourist thing. Blakeney Point. Take a boat out, see the seals. We were wondering, do you want to come?’

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll pass, though. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just…shit. I’ve never been on a boat.’

  ‘You used to build boats?’

  ‘Stupid, right? I love the water. But I’ve never been i
n. I never learned to swim. I’ve never been in a boat except on land.’

  ‘First time for everything.’

  I can see Frank’s worried. Some people love the water, but they’re scared to go in. Maybe that’s it. I don’t want to push him, though.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You know, I never saw the sea until I moved here.’

  ‘Is that so?’ says Frank.

  ‘I’d seen the Thames. It’s not the same.’

  ‘I did always love the water.’

  ‘You must know a good boat if you see one.’

  ‘I can tell.’ He nods. ‘I can tell. Can’t swim, though.’

  ‘That’s alright, then,’ I say. ‘We’re not going swimming. We’re going on a boat.’

  Frank chuckles through his nose. Smoke comes out in two plumes.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Swimming optional,’ I say with a shrug. ‘You want to go swimming, up to you. But your choice. Just a thought.’

  He takes a big gulp of his pint. ‘All right. You’ve talked me round.’

  ‘I wasn’t really trying to talk you round,’ I say. ‘Well, not trying that hard...’ I add. I grin a little. I’m not accustomed to grinning and my face doesn’t really like it. It’s still a little droopy. Spazzy, I think, but then Helen’s not around so I can think spazzy all I like. I’m in a pub. Man rules.

  ‘Just the same. I’ll go.’

  ‘Great,’ I say. I mean it. I want him to come.

  When we get home, we part ways. The car’s in the drive. I call out for Helen from the front porch. Frank goes round the back of his house. I still go in the front door.

  ‘Well?’ she says.

  ‘I like it,’ I say. She preens. It makes me smile.

  ‘He said yes.’

  ‘Great. Did you have a nice time?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re making friends.’

  I want to argue. My natural inclination. But it’s true. Or it’s getting that way.