The Fire-Eaters (14 page)

M
aybe Ailsa read my mind. It was late afternoon. I was doing my homework, a drawing of the skull, the way the bones are fused in it, the way the openings are formed in it, the way it's so beautifully made to protect the brain. I was shading in the pitch-black eye sockets. But my thoughts were in the dunes, seeking McNulty. I was about to ask Mam if I could take some food to him. There was a knocking at the door.

“Who's there?” called Mam.

“Ailsa Spink!” came the reply.

“Come in, pet!” yelled Mam.

Ailsa clicked the latch and stepped inside and stood there grinning.

“Hello, pet,” said Mam, ruffling Ailsa's hair.

“I brought you these,” said Ailsa. She opened a cloth and showed a plateful of jam tarts, all bright and glistening. “We had some spare, Mrs. Burns.”

“Spare? Even with them ravenous men of yours?”

Ailsa winked.

“Kept them out of sight, sneaked them out the house. They'd eat the plates if I let them. Go on.” She held them out to Dad. “I know you like them, Mr. Burns. Black currant or plum. They're lovely.”

Dad smacked his lips and chose black currant. He ate. She held out the plate to Mam and me. We ate and grinned and licked the crumbs from our fingers and said how tasty they were.

“You'll have come for our Bobby, then?” said Dad.

“Distracting him from his work,” said Mam. “Leading the poor lad astray.”

Ailsa shrugged and pondered.

“That's right,” she said.

Mam clicked her tongue.

“We hear you're still not going in,” she said.

“I'm not,” said Ailsa.

Mam pointed and wagged her finger.

“You'll regret it, you know. Silly lass. School could open up a whole new world for you.”

Ailsa sighed. She stared at the ceiling.

“I know,” she said. “And probably I will go in the end. Even stupid Losh and Yak know that. Then they'll lose their skivvy, eh?”

“Too much fire in you, that's your problem,” said Dad. “You'll lead them a dance when you do go in.” He grinned. “You'll be the brightest of them all.”

We smiled together. I looked at Mam.

“Aye, go on,” she said. “Long as you're back in time to finish it all.”

I went upstairs and changed out of my uniform, then left the house with Ailsa. She lifted a package from the garden.

“More tarts,” she said. “A bottle of warm tea. Howay.”

“For McNulty,” I said.

“That's right.”

“I should take him something too.”

I opened Dad's garden shed and took out two candles and some matches.

We walked quickly toward the dunes.

“We saw him wandering in the dunes,” she said. “Me and Daddy and Losh and Yak. Losh thought he was some villain after the chickens or something; then we saw he was just like a poor lost soul. Running back and forward across the sand and his eyes all wild and he's jabbering to himself. He seen us and he tailed it. We followed him to his shack. I tell Daddy and the lads what you told me: the war, the quayside, the fire and the skewer. McNulty turned and looked before he went in. Stared at us like he's looking back across a thousand miles. Then he looks straight at me and points at me and goes, ‘Come and help us, bonny bairn.' Losh stands right in front of me. He says nobody looks at his sister like that, and he's all for going straight down and kicking him on his way. But
Daddy says, ‘Mebbe he's harmless, mebbe he'll go off of his own accord. Mebbe it could happen to any of us. Mebbe things has happened to him that'd drive any of us mad.' Losh grunts and spits. McNulty scuttles into the shack. We watch and wait. Nowt else happens. We head back to the house. I put the kettle on. Dad says I got to keep out of the dunes from now on. Losh and Yak's looking at each other. They're saying the wild man better keep away. Soon Yak's got a great big knife out and he's sharpening it on a stone.”

We hurried through the pines.

“They'll drive him out,” she said. “If it's not Losh and Yak it'll be somebody. We got to help him while we can.”

We climbed the hill of sand.

T
he sun was low over the moors to the west. It cast shadows into the hollow where McNulty's shack was. His fire smoldered outside. We watched and waited, but saw nothing. We walked down. The only window was broken and an ancient tattered curtain hung inside. The timbers were bleached as dry and pale as bone. The twisted door dangled from a single hinge. SWEET HOME was carved into it, and the remnants of some old birdand-flower pattern. Sand was heaped up on the threshold. Deep footprints led inside.

We hesitated, a few yards away. The sun sank and the shadow fell across us.

“Mr. McNulty!” I softly called.

“We've brought some food, Mr. McNulty!” said Ailsa.

Nothing stirred down here. High above, a flight of
gannets headed north. A fox barked somewhere. The sea turned and groaned.

“We could just leave it in the doorway,” I said.

“Yes,” said Ailsa, and we moved forward again.

Then the curtain moved, his face appeared and we stood dead still. He stared. The lighthouse light swept past and lit the air above our heads.

“Come nearer, bonnies,” said McNulty through the broken glass.

We didn't move.

“We brought you food and light,” I said.

He stared. I wanted to drop our gifts, to grab Ailsa's hand, to run back home again. He raised his hand.

“This is the one I know,” he said. He beckoned me. “Come closer, bonny lad.” His face softened. “There was an angel at your side.”

“Yes,” I said. “I helped you. I held the casket, I collected money. It was in Newcastle, at the quay.”

Ailsa held the package out.

“You must be so hungry,” she said.

He closed his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “It is a time of great hunger, famine, waste and want.” He tilted his head. “There it is. You hear it? You hear the wailing and weeping that's all around?”

“Yes,” said Ailsa. “Mr. McNulty, will you eat the food we've brought?”

“Come inside, my bonnies. Come in through the door.”

At first we didn't dare to move; then we caught each other's eye. We nodded. I lifted a stone as we crossed the threshold, waded through the deep soft sand there. There was a tiny dark hallway, then another door into the room where he waited for us. As we entered it I looked through the window and saw the final sliver of the sun go down.

Inside, everything was vague and lumpy: a mattress, a broken table, a ruined armchair. The floor was inches deep in sand. McNulty stood in the far corner.

“Be at home,” he whispered. “McNulty will not scare you.”

I lit the candles and stood them in the sand. Ailsa opened the package.

“They're jam tarts,” she said. “And there's tea. Drink it while there's still some heat in it.”

At first he wouldn't touch anything; then he crouched beside us and crammed the tarts into his mouth. He sighed at their sweetness. He gulped the tea. His face glowed in the candlelight.

“Such lovely bonny bairns,” he said. He licked his lips. “I been eating seaweed. I been catching crabs and roasting them. I been glugging water from rain butts. But jam's the thing. Jam and tea.”

I saw there was another window in the back wall of the room, but the dune had grown over it. Behind the
glass were sand and soil and roots. There were seashells and stones and bones. He saw me looking.

“It's deep as the grave in here, bonny,” he said. “We're down where the dead live. You want to see the needles and the skewer stuck in?”

He leapt for his casket, which lay in a corner on the sand.

“No,” I said. “We need to go, Mr. McNulty.”

I knew that people—Losh and Yak, my dad if he was able—would come searching for us now that McNulty lived beside us in the dunes.

He grabbed my wrist with bony fingers.

“You want to see the chains?”

I shook my head. I clenched my stone.

“Ailsa,” I said.

He held me tighter.

“The world's afire!” he gasped.

We turned our faces to the shattered window. The sky above seemed filled with fire: great streaks of red and orange like flame and streaming lava.

“It's just the sunset,” I said.

“Then what's all that weeping and that wailing, bonny?”

“It's just the sea, Mr. McNulty.”

Ailsa touched him.

“Yes,” she reassured him.

“It's just the sea.”

“We'll come back,” I told him. “Take care. Be careful of who comes looking for you.”

“Just the sea?” he said. He listened. “No, more than that.” He held us for a moment. “Hurry home, children. Hurry to your beds and to your sleep. Oh, but then there's nightmares. What's to be done? Hurry home to your mummies and daddies and hold them close.”

He let me go. We backed away. He came with us to the door. His face burned, a wild reflection of the sky. We hurried away into the deepening dusk.

“Get your shelters dug!” he yelled, as if to the whole world. “Dig down to where the dead live! Cover yourself with the earth. The world's afire! The sky's ablaze! There's no more night!”

We ran. His voice echoed after us. He howled like an animal in pain. We ran through the pines. We kept stumbling, and crashing into tree trunks. At last we reached the beach. We laughed together at the fear and excitement we felt. The lighthouse light swung beneath the fiery sky.

“Tomorrow,” we whispered. “We'll take him more.”

I rushed back to my homework.

Dad pressed his finger to his lips as I stumbled in.

“Hush, Bobby!” he hissed.

Neither he nor Mam took their eyes from the TV screen. There were pictures of nuclear missiles pointing at the sky. Then President Kennedy came on. He stared out at us. His gaze was calm.

“The world is on the abyss of destruction,” he said.

His face disappeared. A nervous newscaster replaced him. He licked his lips. No one smiled.

“What's happening?” I said.

“Cuba,” said Dad. He was racked with coughing. “Bloody Cuba.”

“T
his is Cuba,” said Daniel. “This is the coast of America.”

We were on the bus. He used his finger to draw in the condensation on the window. We perched on the seats around him: Diggy, Col, Ed and me. As he talked, others came closer: Doreen Armstrong and her friends, older kids.

“They're only ninety miles apart,” said Daniel.

“Ninety miles!” said Col. “That's bloody miles, man. That's as far as …”

“Scotland!” said Diggy.

“Why, aye. Scotland,” said Col.

Daniel just looked at them.

“Russia's put nuclear missiles into Cuba,” he said. “They're pointing straight at the USA.”

“USA?” said Col. “That's miles away and all.”

“Far side of the world,” said Diggy.

“And me dad says the USA's always too full of itself,” said Ed.

“Why, aye,” said Col.

Daniel shook his head. “What about the missiles in Russia pointing straight at us?”

Ed giggled.

“Mebbes they'll miss,” he said. He arced his hand like a missile flying over us. “Splash! Straight into the Irish Sea.”

“Aye,” said Col. “Them Russians, man …”

Daniel shook his head again. “Do you lot know nothing?” he said.

No one answered. We peered through Daniel's map into the sky.

“America's told Russia to get the missiles out of Cuba,” said Daniel.

“And Russia's said hadaway and shite,” said Diggy.

“And now,” said Daniel, “there's Russian ships taking more missiles there, and America's told Russia to turn the ships back…”

“And Russia's said hadaway and shite,” said Diggy.

“And now,” said Daniel, “America's sent ships to stop the Russian ships and…”

Col stood up and made a pair of six-guns with his fingers, and drawled, “This ocean ain't big enough for the two of us.”

Daniel looked at us all in amazement. “Do you lot not understand how dangerous it is?”

Diggy spat.

“Aye, Daniel, we do. So stop ganning on like that and stop goggling at us like that.”

“Me dad was right,” said Ed. “There's no point doing nowt.”

“Once it starts …,” said Col.

“Plenty missiles to destroy the whole world a dozen times over,” said Diggy.

“All over the world they're getting ready,” said Ed.