Cold Fire

by Craig Saunders

‘I can do it. Don’t mother me.’

  She looks hurt, but I soften it.

  ‘I’ve got to keep active. I can’t just sit on my arse all day.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘You’re doing a pretty good job of that.’

  She’s fine. I go and get the beer. It takes a while, but I get it done.

  When I get back, they’re talking about Frank’s garden.

  I phase out. We’ve got a gardener now. He must love us. Easiest job he’s got. Cut the lawn, collect twenty quid, go up the pub. He’s an old boy with broken blood vessels running from his left cheek to his right, without stopping for his nose.

  I watch them, conversation going back and forth. Helen loves Frank, and I guess he might have some kind of old man crush on her. I imagine when and if I get to his age I’d be more than happy to spend a sunny evening talking to a beautiful young woman.

  She is beautiful, too. As I watch her, I’m struck, not for the first time, how the light catches her hair, her dark eyes. She’s caught a hint of sun and her skin’s darker. It looks good on her.

  I’m getting a middle aged man crush on her, just watching her talk. The way she moves her hands, the freckles on the back that come out with the summer.

  The sun’s on its way out. The evening is coming to a close.

  I think of ways to get rid of Frank. I don’t have to. He sees me watching Helen. He sees very well for an old guy.

  ‘Well,’ he says, when there’s a lull, ‘I think I’ll head back. I’m three beers to the good. If I don’t call it a night I’ll be singing and dancing and breaking my hip all over again.’

  ‘It’s nice to see you,’ says Helen. She gets up, giving us both a hint of cleavage. Frank pretends not to look. I don’t mind a bit.

  ‘I’m going into town tomorrow,’ he says, to me. ‘You want anything?’

  I know what he’s angling for. He’s been watching me like a hawk when his attention wasn’t on Helen. He knows something’s up.

  I’m not ready, but Helen decides it for me.

  ‘A walk’d do you good. You’re beginning to mope.’

  ‘Mope?’

  ‘Yes. Mope.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. It’s time to get out of the house, Sam. If you don’t go I’ll take you somewhere and leave you there to walk back on your own.’

  ‘Is this what’s known as a fait accompli?’

  ‘I do believe it is,’ says Frank. He pushes himself up with s slight grimace, tips an imaginary cap.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he says.

  We echo him. Helen picks up after us. I walk around the garden while she’s tidying, just to kill the time. Bob’s in his garden, too. He’s sitting on a chair, staring at the back fence. Maybe beyond it, to where the estate lies. In the fading light I see him pick up a book. A dim light plays on the back of his head and I see he has a candle in the window behind him.

  He sees me looking and gets up. He comes over to the fence. It’s the first and last time he comes to me to talk.

  I walk up to my side of the fence.

  ‘Bob,’ I say.

  He flicks his head over his shoulder, kind of indicating the candle in the window, like he can’t really be bothered to talk.

  ‘They used to put candles in the window for the sailors to find their way home at night,’ he says.

  I want to say whatever. Every time I talk to him he’s got some kind of nonsense coming out of his spout.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say. It sounds like a stupid comment, even to me, but that’s the best I can do in the face on Bob.

  He nods and walks back to his chair. He picks his book up and reads by the dim candlelight while I shake my head and walk back to my patch.

  I don’t think about Bob anymore because when Helen finishes with the mess she leans over me and gives me a look, like, I saw you checking me out, what you going to do about it? She’s got this grin, ear to ear. Looking at that grin, I remember how it felt to be a teenager.

  I take her upstairs.

  *

  43.

  The morning comes.

  ‘Ready?’ says Frank.

  I know what he’s doing. He’s giving me no reason to weasel out. But he doesn’t need to worry. I’ve got my coat on, ready to go.

  We walk without talking for a time. Me and Frank, we’re a sight to see. Me with my new cane and limp; Frank with just the limp. We concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

  At least, for anyone watching, that’s what it’d look like.

  The truth is, I’m thinking about what I’m going to say when Frank asks what really happened to my wrist.

  He’s thinking about how he’s going to ask.

  We both know I need to talk.

  ‘Sleeping OK?’ he says.

  It’s a venture, a foray. He watches me out of those cold blue eyes.

  Those eyes might be old, but they’re as sharp as the shards of glass grinding away in his hip.

  ‘So so,’ I say. ‘Some nights worse than others.’

  He nods. We walk. He’s not finished.

  The stranger’s there, like a chaperone. He’s got lies ready. Sam’s right there, too, though, and I’m in trouble. I know it. Helen’s my rock, but that’s closed to me. There’s only Frank, and I need him.

  ‘Problems?’

  The thing is, me and Helen, we’ve got a history of lies. Me and Frank, well…I don’t want to start down that road.

  Frank’s not Helen. I could lie. It’s on my lips.

  Sam takes a look at those eyes. Takes a breath.

  ‘I went back.’

  He nods again.

  ‘I thought so.’

  Then he goes back to being quiet. The world’s greatest interrogator, slicing me apart with silence.

  ‘I know. You told me not to go.’

  ‘It got on your mind?’

  That’s about right.

  ‘Yeah. I couldn’t stop. Like the coke. Worse.’ I’ve told him about the coke. That was easy. No interrogation required. I needed to talk about it, Frank listened.

  This is harder.

  ‘My advice, if you’ll take it, stands.’

  ‘Don’t go back?’

  ‘You’d do as well to leave it alone,’ he says. ‘The place is bowed.’

  ‘I’d listen, now.’ That’s not the end of it, is it? I think about what I’m going to say. What I need to say. It’s hard to get the words out, but from here the only way is forward.

  ‘I think it’s too late,’ I say, and look at him.

  He raises his eyebrows. I hate to think what he sees in my eyes. I could cut myself on that look.

  ‘Shit,’ I say. He waits. I cave.

  There’s a bench in the middle of a memorial garden.

  ‘Let’s sit,’ I say.

  ‘I could use a breather,’ he says.

  He’s not out of breath, I am. But I appreciate the lie.

  I go over things in my head, yet again. Try to find an out. But the best I can do is hold back the parts that he doesn’t need to know. I’m in this, but I don’t need absolution. I need help. Holding back isn’t the same as lying.

  ‘So, OK. Me and Helen, we go to the one-stop, through the estate.’

  I wait for a telling off. He’s old enough not to call me a fool. He just leans back, stares at the sky. It makes it easier when I haven’t got those eyes on me.

  ‘I know why you don’t go there. Right off, there was a strange feeling. I can’t put it better than that. No people. And this atmosphere. The kind you get when you walk into certain pubs you don’t belong. I was curious, I suppose. Same thing that always gets me in trouble.’

  ‘Are you, Sam?’

  ‘Am I…?’

  ‘In trouble.’

  I puff. ‘I think I might be.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Just that. No more. He waits for the rest. I pick at a piece of nothing on my trousers. The piece of nothing isn’t there. Frank is. The way he’s sitting, I t
hink he could wait me out all day.

  ‘I think Helen got it,’ I say, finally. ‘Not the same way. She reads all these books, but it’s weird, because it’s like she’s got no imagination. But I get the place. My imagination’s running wild. You know?’

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  ‘Well, there’s a guy. Painting a window frame.’

  ‘Yeah? Sprucing it up, maybe.’

  ‘I know. So what? Right? But it’s UPVC. Who paints UPVC?’

  Frank sighs.

  I think back.

  ‘No van, either.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  That could get infuriating, but I can’t say that.

  ‘You know something?’ I ask.

  ‘Getting the picture,’ he says. He won’t be drawn. He’ll tell me what he knows in his own time, or not at all. There’s no sense in pushing him.

  ‘It freaks me out. I get this cracking headache after the first time. Helen thinks I’m dying. I can’t say I blame her. A trip to the hospital later and it turns out I’m fine.’

  ‘It didn’t seem like a routine check-up. The way you looked…’

  ‘Yeah. I should’ve told you.’

  ‘Makes no bones to me. Your business, not mine.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  I want to ask what he saw on the estate. I’m sure he saw something. Only difference is he was smart enough not to invite it in.

  ‘It didn’t end there, did it?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I went back. More than once. There was a cat.’

  He gets this look. Staring off at nothing.

  ‘OK, it was just a cat. Shit. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not just a cat.

  ‘The first time I saw it, it was moving its jaw. Like it was miaowing. You know.’ I move my jaw. Miming, like the cat.

  Frank spits to one side.

  ‘Stubby tail,’ he says.

  I stare at him. He doesn’t look at me. Now he’s the uncomfortable one. He glances at me.

  ‘I haven’t told anybody this. Not ever,’ he says, and his voice is cold, like he’s daring me to laugh at a story he hasn’t even told.

  It’s my time for silence. For patience.

  Eventually, he says, ‘I moved in a couple of years before you. I went walkabout a lot, back then.’

  ‘Dana was a heavy weight, some days. I was trying to walk it off, like you would a kick in the balls. It’s been some time since she died, but that kick in the balls you get when you lose someone you love? Well, you know. It’s like Johnny Wilkinson just wound up his boot between your legs.

  ‘People must’ve thought I was an old fool, but most people round here were kind enough.

  ‘I found the estate after a while. The snowdrops were out, so I suppose it must have been the start of spring, though I can’t remember exactly when.’

  He pulls out his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket and rolls a swift cigarette with his thick, gnarled hands. Those hands are nimble.

  He flicks his lighter and I sit silent while I wait.

  ‘I got obsessed. I think that’s the way it was, but it seems distant, now. I walked out that way most days. Then, about a month after I found it, although it could have been longer, I started seeing the cat.’

  I’ve been holding my breath, seeing stars. I breathe out. The world darkens. I breathe in, breathe out. Concentrate on that for a while.

  Frank doesn’t notice. He’s lost. Remembering.

  ‘I saw it a few times. Then it started coming round the house.’

  He doesn’t look at me. He can’t see the colour drain from my face.

  ‘It always came at night. It began to scare me. I can’t say why. It’s just a cat, right?’ He laughs, but not because of anything funny.

  ‘I used to kick it. Throw things at it. That went on for a while.’

  He looks at his cigarette, realises it’s gone out. He pinches the end off anyway and tucks it behind his ear.

  ‘Fucking cat. Tried to kill me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. No way, right? But you believe me. I see it in your face.’

  I nod. ‘I’ve seen it enough.’

  ‘Don’t go back, Sam.’

  ‘The cat?’ I ask, sidestepping.

  Frank sighs, but he hasn’t got the energy to chase around the houses with me.

  ‘It was late, and I was down the sideway, taking the bins out. I was looking out for the cat. I hated that fucking cat. I still do. It wasn’t there, so I scooted along, in the dark. I had my hands full. The cat knew. I swear it knew. It darted out, quick as lightening, straight between my legs. I went down like a sack of potatoes. I had a plastic hip already by then. It was OK. Now it’s the way it is. The cat did that.’

  ‘Can’t you get it seen to?’ I ask. It’s not what I really want to ask, but I’m scared to get in any deeper.

  ‘People die of this, Sam. It might not go down as the hip, but when you get to my age, people die. No, I think the hip will outlive me. It just hurts.’

  ‘I’ve seen the cat. At my house.’

  ‘It’s back?’

  ‘I think I brought it.’

  ‘Sam, please. You’ve got to leave it alone. Something’s wrong with the estate. The cat’s just part of it. You know.’

  ‘It won’t go, will it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, but I can tell he doesn’t think so. ‘Shit. It’s probably just a cat.’

  ‘Frank, don’t.’

  He rubs his hand across his face.

  ‘No. It won’t go. You’ve drawn it.’

  Drawn it. I don’t like that. Not at all.

  ‘It’s not just the cat,’ says Frank.

  He leans back, closes his eyes and begins to speak.

  *

  44.

  ‘One day, I’m more tired than usual. This is before the cat fucked up my hip. I had a bad dream about Dana the night before. It was a hell of a dream. I’m an old man. I’ve had a lifetime to dream. Nightmares, sweet dreams. Wet dreams, I guess, when I was young enough. This was a nightmare, through and through. At first I thought – the dream was clear enough so I could think – it’s nice to see her again.

  ‘I always miss her. It doesn’t get any easier. A long time together, apart longer, it seems, though it’s not. I can barely remember what it was like before her.

  ‘She’s wearing this bright dress, a summer dress, in the dream. She walks down the street outside our old house. I follow her down the street, calling out. She doesn’t turn, just keeps going. It was like losing her all over. I guess other people, they lose someone, they have dreams like that.

  ‘I walk faster, down our old street, then it’s this street, down the alley. She never saw this house, but she leads me, like she knows the way. The alley’s grown over.

  ‘She goes along on Cedar, then onto the estate.

  ‘I shout at her to stop. I think at some point in the dream I tell her I love her. I don’t think she heard me.

  ‘The estate doesn’t fucking care, either way. It’s pristine, like new. The paint on the doors gleams. I run. It takes a long time, in the dream, but I catch her. Grab her shoulder, swing her round.’

  My tongue feels like sandpaper as I listen to Frank. I try to work up some spit. It’s so similar to my nightmare it’s terrifying. Even though the sun is high, I’m cold, cold to the bone.

  ‘She’s got no face, Sam. There’s the shape of a face, but no holes for eyes, mouth, nostrils. Blank. The thing is, even though she’s got no face, I know she’s screaming.’

  I feel the fear in me, just like before. Coming from the past and the present. My dream, Frank’s dream…the lost girl…

  What’s to come?

  Frank pauses. He rolls a cigarette. His hands aren’t so clever anymore.

  ‘That day,’ he says, flicking his lighter, ‘I go back to the estate. I’m sure she’ll be there. I’m sure I can save her. I know she’s damned. I never believed in damnation, but I know that’s what it is.

  ‘Sh
e’s there. Standing in the street outside a house. The house is like new, perfect. It’s the middle of the day. She turns, she’s got no face. It’s like the dream all over. Except it’s full light and I know I’m awake. She goes into the house. A man opens the door for her.’

  There are tears on his cheeks. I can’t stand it. My need to know is so strong, but I can’t bear to see Frank like this.

  ‘Frank, you don’t have to…’ I say.

  ‘Shut up, Sam. Let me talk.’

  I shut up. I watch the man tear himself open. Tearing the wound. Showing me how he bleeds.

  If he can stand it, I can watch. I can listen.

  I have to listen.

  ‘She’s screaming. He’s laughing. He’s got no face, but I know he’s laughing, same way I know she’s screaming.’

  Frank catches his breath. He’s sobbing now. It’s breaking my heart.

  I reach out to him. He shrugs me off.

  ‘I left her. I left her. I was too afraid to save my own wife.’

  I wait, watching his tears drip from the end of his nose, until he turns his head up and the channels in his wrinkles change so his tears run down his cheeks and onto his stubbly neck. I can’t watch anymore.

  I turn away and stare off into the distance until the tears slow. I don’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  I’d almost laugh but I know nothing’s funny about a man saying sorry when it’s me that watched the tears run down his unshaven cheeks like some teenager peeking through the bathroom keyhole at his mother in the shower.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for, Frank. It’s terrifying. I did the same thing.’

  He doesn’t hear. He’s lost in the past. I’m there with him. I can feel how he feels, because I felt it, too.

  ‘Hardest thing I ever did. If I’d gone in there, I’d be damned, too, but I know I should’ve gone, just the same.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I say. ‘If you’d gone in, I don’t think you’d be here today.’

  ‘I should’ve gone.’

  ‘Frank, I don’t think the people who live there would have let you go. I saw a girl. She went into a house. I didn’t save her. The people there...they’re on fire. Burning men…that’s what they are. I don’t believe in damnation, either, but if anyone’s damned, Frank, it’s not Dana, and it’s not us. It’s them. The burning men.’