Cold Fire

by Craig Saunders

  ‘Fuck. Sam...’

  ‘I know. The thing is, I’ve got to save the girl, Frank. I couldn’t save my daughter. I’ve got to save her. I think the people who live there killed her.’

  ‘You can’t fight what’s not real, Sam.’

  ‘What? Real enough, and you know it. Real enough to kill that girl.’

  ‘Don’t you get it? The company that built that estate went bust over ten years ago. It was never finished, Sam. It’s derelict.’

  ‘What?’ I couldn’t find any other words.

  ‘No one lives there,’ he says. His eyes are cold blue fire. ‘No one ever lived there.’

  The world is fading away again. It sharpens to a point, just between my feet, with black all around.

  ‘These things, they’re…I don’t know. Ghosts. Memories. Shit, whatever they are, Sam, they’re not real.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, when the world bleeds back in. I can’t get any words out for a long time. I can’t look at him. I don’t want to see the look in his eyes. I just look down between my feet. ‘What the fuck’s going on, Frank?’

  ‘I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s gone too far. Stop. Now.’

  ‘I can’t. You don’t understand. The girl. She’s real. But I think she’s my daughter, too. I walked away from her once. I can’t do it again.’

  The tennis ball is in my hand.

  I know it’s true.

  I find it’s easier if I don’t look at him. I concentrate on my ball.

  ‘She killed herself. I couldn’t save her then. I’ve been given a second chance. Now I know why I’m not dead, even though I’ve no right to go on living, all the shit I’ve put my body through.’

  I’m shaking. Whether it’s passion, or fury, I can’t tell. It’s too raw.

  ‘I’m here, and I’m not going to waste it.’

  I turn the tennis ball. In the right light the bald band round the middle is smiling.

  *

  45.

  I hold the ball.

  ‘I was over there, with Helen. I saw a girl. She went in. I didn’t run. But I turned back. She had a face but I remembered later that I had a dream, too. It was Samantha in the dream. In real life, the girl’s name was Sarah. I put the pieces together. I saw where the girl killed herself. In the show home, on the green. I saw her blood in the bath.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. But the cat showed me.’

  I still can’t look at Frank, but at the edge of my vision, I can see he’s rolling another cigarette. His hands have stopped moving. The paper is shaking.

  ‘I think it’s time you told me everything,’ he says. His voice is steadier than the paper, but not by much.

  He’s right. It’s time. Time to open up to him. I trust Frank. I trust Helen, but I love Helen. I can’t tell her this.

  I start talking and I don’t leave anything out. Frank doesn’t interrupt. The dream, the phone call, the buried mobile, the blood. Most of all, the blood. It’s the sight of the blood that still haunts me.

  I can’t put it into the right words, but I paint a vivid enough picture for Frank. The thing is, if I told Helen this, as much as I know she loves me, I’d be talking to a doctor about an hour later. But Frank’s ready to believe.

  The telling takes a long time. I go back, to the parts I missed. I tell him about the poster. The poster that was there, then wasn’t.

  Helen calls, breaking it up.

  ‘Yes, Honey, we’re just in the pub.’

  ‘…’

  ‘No, I’m not drinking.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Sure. Be home for dinner.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I love you.’

  It gives Frank time to pull himself together. Me, too. It’s like I’ve had my fix of lying. I can take the truth again.

  Then we’re onto the bones. The hardest part of all.

  ‘I’m in too deep to stop now, Frank.’

  ‘I’ve seen what that place is doing to you, Sam. It doesn’t matter what you think you need to do. If you don’t leave it alone, it’ll kill you. You’ll be just as dead as the girl. I don’t know why I know it, but you do, too. I’m not superstitious. I’m not what you’d call an imaginative man, but it’s killing you just the same.’

  ‘It’s not for me, Frank. At first it was like an addiction. It’s more now. It’s not about me...it’s...’

  But I’m lost for words to describe it. I don’t know what it is. I sit and think and Frank sits and smokes and waits.

  ‘I think it’s a place of ghosts,’ I say. ‘I think something lives there. Something’s made that place home and it’s got my little girl. It’s got your wife, too.’

  ‘That’s not real, Sam. That’s just what pulls you in.’

  I take a deep breath. I didn’t think Frank would believe me. Now he believes me, I don’t know where to go. I’m good at lying. I lie to Helen all the time. Even when I’m Sam, I lie to her.

  I’m adrift. Frank’s looking at me with such honesty, such bare belief, that I never realised until now what true belief looks like. All the time I lied to Helen, she never looked at me like that.

  I don’t know where to go with it. I’m totally disarmed. I can’t back away from him, from his honesty…

  And I realise what I’m seeing isn’t honesty. It’s a lie. I’m looking at a reflection of the stranger.

  Frank’s not opening. He’s closing.

  ‘What if it’s true? What if it’s only part true? Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘It’s not true.’

  He is not shouting, but his tone is like ice.

  I get it. I’m a cunt. Six ways to Sunday.

  I’m not just talking about Samantha and Sarah. I’m talking about Dana, too.

  ‘Frank. Shit. I’m sorry.’

  But I can’t back off now, because the stranger is shouting at me. Sam and the stranger both, we’re cold to the bone. The stranger won’t let me quit. Even if I wanted to. He’s in it ‘til the end. Why does he keep taking me back?

  ‘But what if it is true, Frank?’

  ‘It can’t be. Dana’s buried and dead. She wasn’t there.’

  It’s time to be hard. Like I know I can.

  ‘You know she was there, Frank. Don’t tell me you don’t. You felt it. Samantha was buried back in London, but she’s there too. I don’t know how, or why, but they’re in trouble. I can’t turn away. I can’t leave her there.

  ‘She had cancer. She might have lived. She was just a kid, but she couldn’t take the pain.’

  This is the hard part. This is the part the stranger wants to push me away from, because he looks after me. But I shut him away. Because I need this.

  ‘She had morphine. But the pain…it was eating her. She might have survived, but she couldn’t take it. She was just a child. I don’t blame her but I should’ve given her the strength.

  ‘I failed her.’

  Frank’s silent. He lets me speak, even though he’s thinking about Dana.

  And I get it.

  ‘Dana, too? She killed herself? I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Don’t, Sam.’

  ‘I’m right.’

  ‘Back off,’ Frank says. His voice is cold. Like his eyes.

  I don’t back off though. I can’t.

  ‘No, Frank. You couldn’t save her. I get it. But she’s not safe, Frank. The burning men. They’ve got her. They’ve got Sarah. Dana. Samantha. Who knows who else? I don’t know if I’m right, but if it’s true, all suicides? That place, it’s got…’

  Then my ears are ringing and there’s blood in my mouth.

  Frank is standing over me. His fists are clenched and he’s shaking.

  ‘Fuck you, Sam. You don’t know.’

  ‘Frank…’

  But he’s walking away. The stranger wants to push him further because he needs Frank’s help.

  Sam takes hold of him, pushes him back inside. Back down, into the dead parts. I’m Sam, and I’ve pushed Frank too far.

/>   I feel around in my mouth with a finger. It comes away bloody.

  I wonder if Helen will wear another falling down story.

  I want to give up on the shop, but if I don’t bring back the milk I’ll never get the lie to stick.

  I think about Frank all the way home. I think about what a shit I am. I think about how I can win him over, because I know now what the link is.

  Sarah, Dana, Samantha…suicides, all.

  I think about the nature of salvation and damnation.

  Frank may never have believed in damnation, but I do. After all, I’m part way there.

  I know they were screaming. The estate’s not just bowed. It’s a place where the fabric of things is worn thin. Thin enough for the other side to see us, and hunger.

  I don’t want to waste time on doubt.

  I know my little girl is stuck with the damned. She’s screaming and she’s afraid.

  I couldn’t save her then. Maybe I can do something now, and if that hurts Frank, then fuck him, because I walked away once. I won’t back off now. Not even if it kills me.

  *

  46.

  I get back at six. Helen warms my dinner up for me. She’s frosty because I’m late, though not for any other reason. My lip’s not swollen so bad she’d notice.

  I want to keep her happy. I’m not talking to Frank already. I don’t want to end the day not talking to my wife, too.

  We eat dinner in silence while I think of ways to make it up to her.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, eventually. I push myself up from my dinner. It was good, but warmed through, dry. ‘Get the keys,’ I say, like I’m taking charge.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We haven’t been to the sea for a while. It’s a nice evening. Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘If you won’t come, I’ll have to drive.’

  ‘You can’t drive.’

  ‘I remember how. I can’t walk, not again, but I want to see the sea, and I want you with me.’

  We go around a while, but she caves. She always does when I bully her, but I justify it. It’s for her own good. It’s for us.

  We take the short drive to the sea and make it down the steps to our bench. It’s empty, but there are more people in town now. Visitors. Outsiders. Come full summer we’ll probably just have to stand there. It’ll be packed. Screaming children and drunk men with their tops off, blurry tattoos bleeding into their skin. Old people walking dogs, old people with sticks and electric buggies. Couples on weekend breaks by the sea, staying in the bed and breakfasts or the town’s one hotel. They’ll walk down the steps to the narrow stretch of beach and never know whether the tide’s coming or going. I haven’t been here for a summer yet, but I know the routine.

  For now, the evenings still get chilly. People are mostly soft. They only go to the coast when the weather’s nice. They miss the best part. The sea shouldn’t be about sunshine and sunburn. The cold sea air, the wind, the spume when the sea’s rough, the wheeling gulls in the gust. That’s my sea. The kind of seas that give birth to storms.

  I sit there for a while, staring out at the sea. It’s glassy where the wind’s still. No white peaks. It’s more a kind of jaded green, like sea glass.

  I look over at Helen. She’s still cold. I put my arm around her, pull her towards me. My left arm around her shoulder, my right hand in my jacket pocket, just resting on my tennis ball. Remembering why we’re good.

  After a while she snuggles. I smile. The sun moves on. Time, winding down another day.

  ‘We nearly didn’t make it, did we?’ she says.

  For a second, I think she’s talking about the sunset.

  Then I get it.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Was it Samantha?’

  Was it Samantha? The thing that pulled us apart? We haven’t spoken about it. Not really. It’s taken years, but if she’s ready, then I am. After speaking to Frank, it’s a wound that’s already open. It’s bleeding freely. It has been all day. Hard for Frank to face Dana, just as hard for me…for Helen.

  ‘I think it was,’ I say. There’s more but I don’t know what I’m going to say until it comes out. I don’t try to think, I just let my mouth run on to see what’s going to come out.

  ‘I should...I wish I could have done something. She could have…they said she had a chance.’ I shrug as the words run out. I don’t want to force them. They’ll come, or they won’t. I can’t make them.

  She nods. There are no tears. There never were. Maybe that’s what we need. To wash it clean.

  I imagine putting my face into the frigid sea to let it cry for me.

  ‘That’s what it is,’ she says. ‘For me, it’s the guilt. Why couldn’t we save her? You know? Stop it.’

  We sit quietly. We sit that way for a long time.

  ‘Me too,’ I say finally. ‘Guilt. It still makes me feel the same even now. I should have known.’

  ‘How could we? I suppose that should make it feel better, but it doesn’t.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. She was our daughter. We should have seen something.’

  ‘Is that why? You know, the drugs?’

  I never really thought about it. I’m not stupid. I should have. But maybe I am. Stupid.

  ‘Not consciously. But maybe. Yeah. Probably.’

  ‘Were you trying to kill yourself?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘What do you call it, then? A ton of coke. Drunk most nights. So messed up you have a heart attack and a stroke.’

  I want to tell her I call it an accident. But really? What do you call such abandon, over the course of years? Carelessness, or something more contrived, deep down where you don’t even realise where it’s sitting.

  I want to say it’s ridiculous, but I think about it first.

  It’s not ridiculous. Helen’s got no imagination but she’s never been stupid. Not like me.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, after a long time. ‘Maybe it was. It hurt. I hurt so much. I just didn’t want the pain. I think I was trying to put it off. Does that sound strange?’

  ‘You left me alone, Sam. That hurt. I lost you when I lost Samantha.’

  I never looked at it like that. She’s never said it, but it’s true. That hurts afresh.

  I never said sorry. I know I should. How do you say sorry for that?

  Nothing for it but to say it.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was selfish…’ I’m going to justify it. Tell her how much pain I was in. But that’s childish. This apology needs to be unadorned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. Now I’ve opened it, I can’t seem to stop.

  She stops me with a kiss.

  ‘I missed you,’ she says, holding my face in her hands.

  We still don’t cry.

  The moon’s out, but the sun’s gone and the sky is yellow. I look at the scar, still pale even though her face is tanned.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Helen,’ I say, eventually. ‘The crash?’ I trace the scar with my finger. She gently leans her head to one side and pulls her hair down along her jaw line, though she can’t hide it.

  She nods. She can’t say it. I don’t blame her.

  Then I click. It’s a physical thing, like when you turn your head too quickly and your neck cracks, but this is in my head.

  I’m shocked at her confession, but somewhere deep down I probably knew it all along.

  I’m more shocked at what it means for us, right now.

  She tried to kill herself.

  I tried.

  Frank?

  I’m willing to put money on it.

  That’s why she could see the girl. It’s why we all see things. We’re linked, in more ways than one.

  There’s some kind of joining happening. Frank, Helen, me. We’re feeding the thing that is the estate. It knows us. It knows what we are.

  I think it wants us. We belong there with them.

  Our future is fire. An eternity of fire.

  Frank was right about the cat. I dre
w it. But the estate drew us. Because Sarah and Dana and Samantha aren’t enough. It’s never enough.

  We’re damned too.

  ‘Helen,’ I say. The yellow’s fading. Soon it will be dark. I don’t feel safe in the dark anymore. Even here, with the sea watching over me.

  But I need to know. It’s not just about Samantha anymore.

  I can’t tell her anything about the estate, or the cat, or the lost girl, but I need to know. I’ll carry on lying to her, just like always, but this time I have to lie. She can’t know. She can never know.

  ‘Have you seen a cat in the garden?’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’ Breezy. I pull it off.

  ‘Yes. Little forlorn thing. Stubby tail.’

  Fuck.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about getting some food,’ she says. ‘Poor little thing looks like it’s starving.’

  I don’t want her to do that, but whatever the cat is, I think we could do with a little goodwill.

  ‘We’ll pick up a couple of tins on the way back. Mind, though, we might adopt it.’

  ‘Cats pretty much make that choice on their own,’ she says. She likes cats.

  I don’t know anything about cats. But I know kicking it, like Frank, is not the way. We’ve drawn it, like he says. But Helen’s drawn it, too.

  I’m scared of the cat. Enough so I want to be nice to it.

  I’m scared of the estate.

  Most of all, I’m scared for Helen, because she’s in this and she doesn’t even know. I’ve got to make sure she never knows because I can’t lose her. She’s all that’s holding me on.

  We’re finished for now, but it’s not over. We’ve got a lot of talking left to do.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. We get up.

  I take out my tennis ball. I don’t know why. Maybe I just want to see it and take strength from it, like a talisman against the dark. It’s there, in my palm, my fingers around it. The cast stops my thumb from moving.

  She sees it and she smiles. Then a gust of wind snatches it and it falls. It bounces, once, twice, and over the edge. I lunge for it, but way too late. It’s there, bobbing, twenty feet below me, then the sea swallows it.

  ‘Oh, Honey,’ Helen says. She rubs my back. I lean over the railing. I get an urge, just for an instant, when I want to dive over the edge, just sail over.