The Healing (11 page)

She hesitated, her hand flicking away hair that wasn't there. He watched her eyes examining the couple, taking in their clothes and their appearance, trying to gauge their characters and evaluate their degree of responsibility. She wasn't sure at all. He could see her eyes locking on the
blond hair of the girl, the young man's leather jacket. But she was wavering.

‘Maybe it would be good for Samuel to get out for a while. He'd enjoy seeing the bonfires and we wouldn't let him out of our sight for a second,' the girl said, smiling at her, her eyes wide with sincerity. ‘It'd be a shame if he missed it.'

‘Cindy, stop twisting Mrs Anderson's arm. Maybe she'd be happier if Samuel stayed here with her. It's only a bunch of fires. It's not the most exciting thing in the whole world.'

The reasonableness of the young man's words reassured his mother. He seemed a sensible boy, and if she didn't really know him very well, he was Mr Ellison's son. And if the girl's hair was too blond and out of a bottle, young people had their own styles and it was wrong to judge her. He sensed the thoughts flying about his mother's head like small birds. She looked at him with a question in her eyes.

‘Would you like to go, Samuel?' she asked, the openness of her tone leaving the decision up to him.

He wanted to go. He wanted to see the great fires and as he nodded his head, the girl put her arm round his shoulders and the boy ruffled his hair. His mother smiled, her confidence that she had made the right decision beginning to rise.

‘I suppose it'll be right and late before he's home,' she said.

‘Well, some of the big fires don't get lit until midnight, but it all depends,' the girl replied.

His mother hesitated, but she had already committed
herself. He could see little bubbles of doubt floating to the surface.

‘But it's only once a year, and it'd be a shame to miss it,' the girl insisted. ‘Sure, Samuel could have a good lie on in the morning.'

His mother allowed herself to be persuaded, but the doubts still lingered in her eyes.

‘There wouldn't be any trouble, would there?'

‘No, no,' the young man answered. ‘Just people having a bit of fun. There's nothing to worry about.'

His mother shelved her remaining objections and gave her permission, telling him to go upstairs and wrap up well. As he scampered up the stairs he could hear her explaining things to the couple, making sure they understood, giving them advice. When he returned his mother insisted on the young man taking five pounds, forcing it on him under the title of ‘petrol money', then she turned back to him and checked his appearance, smoothing his hair with the palm of her hand.

‘Maybe it'll be good for Samuel to get out without me hovering at his shoulder,' she said to no one in particular as she buttoned his jacket. ‘We've been cooped up a lot in the house. Maybe a change will be good for him.'

As they drove off in the car he turned and waved through the rear window, telling her that he was all right and she was not to worry. The girl sat sideways on the front seat talking all the time, sometimes turning to smile at him and check that he was okay. His eyes examined her hair, her red-coloured lips. She laughed a lot and her words splashed about him like drops of water while her companion drove the car, seemingly indifferent
to the constant stream of chatter, almost as if his thoughts were somewhere else. The car was old and it struggled as they drove further into the Castlereagh hills. He was unsure why they were heading upwards rather than down into the city, and as the engine dropped into lower gear on the steep climb it began to labour, with the heaving engine threatening to stall.

‘We're going up here because you get a really good view of the city,' the girl explained.

‘First time we ever came up here just to look at the view.'

‘Hush, Billy,' she laughed, slapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. ‘Don't you pay any attention to anything he says, Samuel. He just likes his wee jokes.'

The car groaned to the top of the hill and stopped at a metal gate into a field. They got out and sat on the top bar.

‘Well, Samuel, what do you think of that?' she asked.

He stared down into the black basin of night, its glittering frost of light cold to his eyes, as cold as the metal bar under his hands. It was the same frozen picture he saw each night from his room. But then he looked again and this time he saw them – red embers of light sparking in the darkness like fireflies, tiny quivering glows of colour and faint grey palls of smoke mingling with the night sky. Billy began to point them out to him, telling him which parts of the city they belonged to, where the biggest fires were, about the rivalries which existed between different districts.

‘Come on, Billy. I'm getting cold,' the girl said, climbing down awkwardly from the gate and brushing the seat of her jeans.

‘Women, Samuel – they nag you to take them somewhere, and when you get there, they want to go somewhere else. You take my advice on women – give them a wide berth.'

‘It's getting cold and we'll miss it if we don't go,' she insisted.

‘Can't have Cindy getting cold, can we, Samuel?'

They clambered into the car and headed down into the east of the city. He felt safe in the car and a little excited, as they drove past streets where remnants of small fires continued to burn and crowds of people strolled along the pavements. Sometimes the crowds spilled into the road but he felt cut off from them, closed in his own little triangle of security. Often people waved at Billy and he shouted back bantering greetings. Someone sat on the bonnet before jumping off again. He realized that the crowds were beginning to move in the one direction. Many of them were drinking from cans of beer and he could hear bursts of discordant song, while in the background throbbed the dull thud of insistent drumming. The smell of burning filtered into the car as the crush of people forced them to park and join the singing, dancing flow.

Usually he could not bear to be with crowds of people, but he felt as if these people were joined together in one face and it was a face which wished him no harm. The girl took him by the hand, making him feel like a child, but he let her lead him closer to where the great fire had started to blaze. The deep-throated crackle and spit of the fire blended with the reeling songs of the revellers, as the innards of the fire caught, shooting fierce tongues of flame
up through the brittle tinder which hooped and sloped the narrowing sides to the sky. A streaming grey funnel of smoke spiralled above the terraced houses, lighting fires in their windows and dispersing fantails of smoke until they were swallowed by the blackness. He felt the growing heat on his face. The girl had let go of his hand now and she was drinking from a bottle someone had passed to her. When she was not drinking from it she jigged a little dance, circling herself and holding her free hand in the air. Billy stood sipping from a can of beer, quiet, pensive, at a distance from everything that went on around him.

Suddenly, the fire gave a loud bang as something exploded in the intensity of the heat and a cheer broke from the throat of the crowd. The noise startled him and gradually the sounds and colours of the night began to fuse, with reds and oranges, blue-tipped flames washing over everything, until everywhere he looked and everyone he saw was bathed in the savage glow of the fire. He wanted to pull further back from the flames, but the girl danced with more abandon, her movements exaggerated and uncoordinated. She was drinking more. Sometimes she stopped and hugged him, inviting him to join her, but he turned his head away. Billy smiled at him and went on sipping his beer. They stood for a long time, while the fire burned on, ravenous, self-consuming, and everywhere was washed by the red of the fire. Red like a setting sun. Red like rain bleeding across the sun. He shivered and a whorl of sickness unwound in his stomach. He screwed his eyes tightly shut, tried to deafen his ears, but the heat of the fire felt like it was searing his skin inch by inch. A hand rested on his shoulder.

‘Are you all right, kid?'

He nodded a lie, but he knew he was still watching him. Then Billy dropped the beer can to the ground and called to Cindy, who had drifted over to some friends. He told her they were going. She looked surprised and confused.

‘But Billy, it's only half gone. What's the rush?'

‘We're taking Samuel home now. Come on,' he said with a sense of finality.

They started to make their way back across the waste ground towards the car, mixing with other groups who were beginning to drift away. She was complaining all the time, but he ignored her. The wail of a fire engine sliced the air. When they had almost reached the car, two men appeared and called to Billy by name. He spoke to them briefly then opened the car.

‘I won't be long,' he said.

‘Billy, where're you going?'

‘Nowhere. Just a bit of business. It won't take long.'

She sat back sulkily in the front seat. Past her blond hair, through the front windscreen, he could see the remains of the fire shuddering its final desperate flames into the sky. The inside of the car swam with the orange light of a street lamp and the red glow from the fire, tiny reflections stuttering in the glass. Flickering in the glass like serpents of fire.

‘He'll do this once too often. One day I'll not be sitting waiting for him when he comes back. Thinks he's God's gift to women – but he's not the only boy in the world.'

She took a brush out of her bag and angrily brushed
her hair with long, sweeping strokes, looking at herself in her little vanity mirror. She saw him watching her. The brushing seemed to drain her anger away and when she had finished, she shook her hair gently and flounced it with her hand. Then she turned sideways on the seat and smiled at him.

‘I'm sure you wouldn't treat your girlfriend like this.'

She knelt on the seat and turned fully round to face him, her face framed by the fiery halo of light and her hair tumbling over the top of the seat. A gold chain glinted at her open neckline.

‘Did you get a bit frightened at the fire? You did, didn't you, you poor wee mite? But don't you worry yourself, we're here to look after you.'

She leaned forward and patted him on the knee. He could see the blue-veined tops of her breasts. She looked at him with curious eyes.

‘Why won't you talk, Samuel? Why don't you talk to me? We could be friends, secret friends. You'd like that, wouldn't you?'

He stared into her wide, persuasive eyes.

‘Just you and me. No one else would know.'

The red light flickered on her face, deepening the colour of her lips.

‘Do you think I'm pretty, Samuel? Do you think I've nice hair? Would you like to touch it? You would, wouldn't you? Don't be frightened.'

She took his hand and placed it on her hair. His hand froze on the blond curls.

Slowly, he opened his fingers and let them run through her hair.

‘That's better. You like that, don't you? Now, why don't you trust me and speak to me? Secret friends, that's what we'd be.'

She placed her finger gently on his lips.

‘Why don't you use this tiny mouth of yours to speak to me? Don't be frightened. It would make us secret friends. Our secret and no one else's.'

He glanced up at her, then stared past the fire in her hair to where rain was bleeding across the sun. His hand dropped from her hair as if he had been burnt. But she put her finger under his chin and tilted his mouth upwards, then kissed it, pushing his lips open and filling him with the hot surge of her scent and the wine on her breath. He squirmed back into the seat. He was slipping into the fire, sinking into the flames. She drew back and smiled at him.

‘Secret friends,' she whispered, as out of the shadows a figure strode towards the car.

‘Well, that wasn't long, was it?' he asked.

‘Long enough,' she complained, but her voice held only the pretence of anger.

‘All right, Samuel?' he asked, looking at him in the rear view mirror.

‘Oh, don't you worry about Samuel. We've been having a good talk. Just the two of us.'

‘And what've you been talking about?'

‘That's for us to know and you to find out,' she pouted.

The car started and they drove slowly home. At regular intervals they passed smouldering mounds of ash and coiled metal springs, which blistered the blackened ground.

The girl had spent the night. He had heard her voice in the early hours of the morning and the front door closing as she slipped away. It was an abomination to him, bringing shame to his house and provoking a greater wrath than his. He could not let such sin come so close for fear it would infect the holiness of the task that had been appointed to him. He knew, too, that his son had committed other sins which warranted a much greater punishment. An image of the yellow parcel in the garage forced its way into his consciousness and made him shiver, but he tried to push it back into the dark sea. He closed his eyes and prayed that God would reveal to him what must be done.

Perhaps to balance the bitterness of the present, he often found his mind drifting into the warmth of the past, where his son was still a young child. There were good memories there for him and he lingered over them with affection, reluctant to exchange them for the husks of the present. He turned them over slowly, handling them delicately, almost frightened that they might fragment under his touch and
vanish into the darkness. There was one which was special to him, precious not because of its drama or magnitude but because of its simple purity which warmed his soul. He remembered it all so clearly, remembered the scent of the day, even the clothes the three of them had worn. He had been working in a local park on a summer's afternoon, planting out a bedding display. He could still see the plants – lobelia, alyssum, salvia – feel the warmth of the soil on his fingers, the cool, smooth, wooden shaft of the spade. Looking up and seeing Lorna with the child in his pram, being surprised and pleased. Drinking the lemonade from the flask she had brought. Showing the boy off to the men with whom he worked. Feeling proud. Later he had taken the child to the swings and sat him on his mother's knee, and pushed gently. The light, careful push he gave the swing, the little squeals of protest when she felt she was going too high. The child's laughter.