The Fire-Eaters

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  For Isabel Boissier

  It all starts on the day I met McNulty. I was with my mam. We left Dad at home beside the sea. We took the bus to Newcastle. We got out below the statue of the angel, then headed down toward the market by the river. She was all in red. She kept singing “The Keel Row” and swinging my arm to the rhythm of the song. A crowd had gathered beyond the market stalls but we couldn't see what held so many people there. She led me closer. She stood on tiptoes. There were bodies all around me, blocking out the light. Seagulls were squealing. It had been raining. There were puddles in the joints between the cobblestones. I kicked water across my shiny new black shoes. The splashes turned to dark stains on my jeans. The water splashed on her ankles as well but she didn't seem to feel it. I tugged her hand and wanted to move away, but she didn't seem to feel it.

  His voice was muffled by the bodies, and at first it seemed so distant. “Pay!” he yelled. “You'll not see nowt till you pay!” I tugged her hand again. “Are you not listening?” he yelled. I raised my eyes and tried to see. And she put her hands beneath my arms and lifted me and I teetered on my toes and there he was, at the center of us all. I looked into his eyes. He looked back into mine. And it was as if my heart stopped beating and the world stopped turning. That was when it started. That moment, that Sunday, late summer, 1962.

  He was a small, wild-eyed, bare-chested man. His skin was covered in scars and bruises. There were rough and faded tattoos of beasts and women and dragons. He had a little canvas sack on a long stick. He kept shoving it at the crowd.

  “Pay!” he yelled and snarled. “You'll not get nowt till you pay.”

  Some of the crowd turned away and pushed past us as we moved forward. They shook their heads and rolled their eyes. He was pathetic, they said. He was a fake. One of them leaned close to Mam. “Take the lad away,” he said. “Some of the tricks is just disgusting. Not for bairns to see. It shouldn't be allowed.”

  McNulty's hair was black. He had pointed gold teeth at the front of his mouth and he wore tiny golden earrings. There were deep creases in his cheeks. The bridge was high behind him. The sun shone through its arch. Steam and scents from the hot dog stalls and popcorn makers drifted across us. Mam held me against her.

  “Reach into my pocket,” she said. “Find him a coin.”

  I reached down and took out some silver. When I looked up again his little sack was right before my eyes.

  “Into the sack with it, bonny lad,” he said.

  I dropped the coin in. He held my eye with his. He grinned.

  “Good lad,” he snarled.

  He took the sack away.

  “Pay,” he yelled, shoving the sack at other faces. “Get your money out and pay!”

  She pushed my shoulders, helping me forward. I squirmed through, right to the front of the crowd.

  “Bonny lad!” he muttered when he saw me there. He looked through the crowd. “Bonny lady.”

  The stick and the sack were on the ground. He flexed his muscles. A cart wheel lay on the cobbles beside him. He stood it on end, in front of him. It had heavy wooden spokes, a thick steel rim. It was as high as his chest.

  “Could McNulty lift this?” he hissed.

  He took it in his hands, spread his legs, bent his knees and lifted it to his thighs and let it rest there.

  “Could he?” he said through gritted teeth. “Could he?”

  There were tears of strain in his eyes.

  He groaned, lifted again, a sudden jerk that took the cart wheel high. We gasped. We backed away. He leaned his head back and rested the wheel on his brow so that it stood above him, with the sun and the bridge caught in its ring. He shuffled on the cobbles, balancing himself with his elbows wide and his hands gripping the rim of steel. He grunted and hissed. Then he lifted the cart wheel free and let it fall with a crash and the whole earth seemed to shake.

  He glared at us. He blinked, wiped his tears away.

  “See? See what a man can do?”

  I reached behind me but Mam's hand wasn't there. I looked back through the crowd and saw her and she smiled and held up her hand, telling me to stay there.

  “What next?” said McNulty. “The fire or the chains or the …”

  He fell silent as his eye met mine again. He leaned close.

  “Help me, bonny,” he whispered.

  He reached for my hand. I turned to Mam. She waved again and smiled, as if to tell me everything was fine, she was still there, there was nothing to fear. He cupped my shoulder and drew me to him. Dozens of eyes watched.

  “This is my assistant,” he said. “His name is …”

  I couldn't speak. He leaned close. He cupped his hand across his mouth, whispered into my ear.

  “His name is …”

  “R-Robert,” I stammered.

  “R-Robert!” he announced.

  He crouched in front of me. His skin glistened. I caught the smoky sweaty scent of him. I caught the sour smell of the river flowing darkly nearby. I looked into the black center of his eyes.

  “There is a box here, bonny,” he told me.

  He slid a casket to my feet.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I did nothing.

  “Open it, Bobby,” he whispered.

  With trembling fingers, I opened it. Inside were needles and pins and fishhooks and skewers and knives and scissors, some of them all rusted, some of them all bright.

  “Take out something awful,” he said. “Take out the thing that you think should make the most pain.”

  I stared into his eyes, so deep and dark.

  “Do it, Bobby,” he said.

  I took out a silver skewer, as long as my forearm. It had a Saracen's head as a handle. The point was needlesharp.

  He shuddered.

  “Well chosen, Bobby.”

  He stood up. He held the skewer between his index fingers for the crowd to see.

  “Who would dare?” he said. “Bobby!”

  I looked up at him.

  “Bobby, pass the sack to them. Tell them to put their coins in it. Tell them they'll not see nowt until they pay.”

  I just wanted to escape, but the bodies were packed before me. The faces were all smiles. Mam had her hand across her mouth. She widened her eyes, she raised her shoulders, she tried to go on smiling.

  “Do it, Bobby,” he said. “Do the buggers think a man like me can live on fresh air? Pay! Tell them! Get your money out and pay!”

  I weakly pushed the sack into the crowd. McNulty barked his demands. Mam leaned far toward me, dropped three coins in. I wanted to reach out to her, grab her hand, get her to pull me away. Then McNulty snapped:

  “Enough, Bobby. They're tightfisted crooks and they won't give us what we need. But to hell with the
m. Let's give them something to infect their waking and fire their dreams.”

  I turned to him. He touched my cheek. He drew me to his side. He spoke to me as if no one else existed, as if there were just the two of us there beside the river on that brightening late-summer day.

  “Help me, son,” he said.

  He stood stock-still. He lowered his head, closed his eyes. He breathed deeply. He muttered incomprehensible words. He raised his head, opened his eyes. He held the point of the skewer against his cheek. He looked blankly at the crowd.

  “Bobby,” he said. “Touch me if I cry out. Catch me if I fall.”

  My heart began to race. I could hardly catch my breath. He held the Saracen's head and pushed. The point of the skewer entered his cheek. He blinked and sighed. He pushed again. The skewer slid further in. A tiny trickle of blood fell down his cheek. He smiled, at nothing, at no one. Many in the crowd recoiled in fear and disgust. The skewer slid further. Soon it pressed against the inside of his other cheek. He kept pushing and the point broke through and another tiny trickle of blood fell from his other cheek. Now he held the skewer still, one fingertip resting on the Saracen's head, another on the needle point. He grinned out at the crowd. He opened his mouth, slowly turned his head from side to side and everyone leaned close, to see the metal stretched between his teeth, across his throat. There were giggles and groans, yelps of disgust.

  He crouched before me again, as if to show me, just me.

  Then he pulled the Saracen's head, and slowly drew the skewer out. He licked his lips, brushed his bloody cheeks with the back of his hand. He wiped the skewer on his forearm and passed it to me.

  “Back in its box, Bobby,” he said.

  I put it back into its box. I closed the lid. I shuddered. I could hardly breathe. I started to shuffle away.

  “Don't leave me, Bobby,” he said.

  I shook my head, backed away. I twisted my head. Mam reached out to me, beckoned me to her.

  “At least don't go without your pay,” he said.

  He drew me back to him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He pressed a silver coin onto my palm. “We'll mebbes meet again,” he said, and a tiny splash of blood fell from his lips across our joined hands.

  Then he let me go, and the crowd parted, and let me get through to my mam, while behind me McNulty already snarled and snapped again.

  “What's next? The fire? No, we're not ready for the fire and the madness of the fire! The chains? Get your money out and pay! You'll not see nowt till you pay!”

  We twisted and turned through the crowds between the stalls. Mam picked up trinkets and scarves and dropped them back again.

  “It's all rubbish,” she whispered. “Rubbish and tat.”

  She took out a white shirt from its cellophane and held it against me. She smiled with delight.

  “You'll look so grand,” she said.

  She tugged at the seams, she held the shirt up to the sun, she twisted her face and pondered, then passed a couple of pounds over.

  She laughed.

  “It'll shrink. I know it. But you'll look great. You'll be the proper little man.”

  We ate hot beef sandwiches, smeared them with sauce and mustard, licked the juices that ran down our chins and across our fingers. We drank bittersweet sarsaparilla from a health stall. Then we moved away from the stalls and walked right by the water's edge. It flowed ten feet below us. Seagulls hovered over the water and swooped for the scraps thrown by a bunch of children. The tide was turning and the center was all eddies and swirls and agitation. Mam kept laughing, holding her face up to the sun.

  “I told your dad the day would brighten,” she said. “He's an old misery! All that autumn and winter nonsense!”

  And she took my hand and hurried me forward. “Come on!” she said. “Let's ride a lift up to the sky!” The lift was inside the stone column of the bridge. We stood in the shade of the bridge's great steel arch. I spread my hands across its huge rivets. Traffic roared high above us. Nearby, a herring gull ripped at something bloody in a brown paper sack. A river bell rang, a distant ship hooted.

  When the lift came down, there was a little man inside sitting on a stool.

  “Come in, madam,” he called. “And you, young sir!”

  He pressed his buttons and pulled his levers. I saw how he couldn't keep his eyes off her as we shuddered up toward the sky. On a shelf at his side were a Thermos flask, a sandwich box, and a notebook and a pen. He saw me looking.

  “I keep a note of everyone,” he said. His eyes sparkled. “All my customers. Just for memory's sake.”

  I wanted to reach out, lift the book, look inside, and he knew it.

  “Ah, to you it would be simply boring,” he said. “It's nothing but dates and descriptions and weather reports.” He shrugged. “I must do something to fill my days of rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall.”

  He took the coin she handed him and opened the door with a flourish.

  “Here we are, then. Farewell, madam. Farewell, young sir!”

  We stepped out onto the platform of the bridge. As the doors closed, he was already writing.

  “Beautiful bright lady,” I heard him say. “All dressed in red. Her quiet boy. September 2nd, 1962. Sunshine after rain.”

  The lift door closed. Buses and trucks and cars trundled past us. There was a stink of exhaust smoke. Mam stood at the parapet and stared down toward the river and the market. I crouched beside her and looked through the metal palings. The river swirled. Seagulls flew below us. Down at the market's edge, we saw the crowd around McNulty. He was wrapped in chains. He writhed and jerked and struggled on the cobbles.

  “Look at him,” she said. “The poor soul.”

  She tipped her head forward so that her hair fell down in front of me. She leaned further and her upsidedown face came into view. She smiled at me from the dizzying space outside the bridge. Then she laughed and started running. The red coat opened and rose around her like wings.

  “Come on, Bobby!” she called. “Run! Race you to the other side!”

  We walked back into the city. We waited for the bus beside the war memorial. The angel with her sword looked down on us. Struggling ranks of stone soldiers reached up to her. Someone had painted BAN THE BOMB in white across the densely packed names of the city's dead. In the bus I let Mam put her arm around me and we leaned together as we rattled past the city's edge. I tried to listen to her heart. She said the sky was beautiful, the way its blueness faded into countless shades of purple and orange and pink. She praised the fields, the hedgerows, the allotments, the pigeon lofts, the silhouettes of pitheads to the north. She gasped at the first sight of the distant glistening sea, at the rooftops of our Keely Bay.

  “It's like …,” she said. “But who could catch such beauty?”

  “You,” I murmured, much too softly for her to hear.

  “You,” she said. “You're such a quiet one these days. What happened to our little laughing wild lad?” She squeezed my hand. “Not to worry. It's a stage. The laughing lad'll soon come back again. Oh, just look at Mister Organizer!”

  There was Dad, waiting at the junction by the Rat, with his arm held high to stop the bus. She stamped her foot when she jumped down.

  “Do you think we're too daft to get off at the right stop?” she said.

  Then she giggled and kissed him.

  “What a time we've had!” she said. “Markets and bridges and strongmen. Tell him, Bobby. Tell him what you did! Come on!”

  We set off arm in arm along the lane toward the sea. We passed the post office, its window packed with fishing nets, comics, tin cars and soldiers, fake dog turds, buckets and spades. I gathered my thoughts.

  “There was this man called McNulty…,” I started, but she butted in straightaway.

  “Man?” She laughed. “Man? He was a devil, a demon, a rascal … and guess who he picked out from the crowd!”

  We all laughed as she told the tale of the wild
man with his skewers and chains, and of little quivering me, his helper. Then Dad was silent for a while.

  “Small, black-haired, tattoos?” he said. “McNulty?”

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “I knew him.”

  “You knew him?” I said.

  “Aye.” He shook his head and stared into the empty sky. “But I thought he'd be surely dead by now.”

  Mam looked at him, wide-eyed.

  “Howay, then, mister,” she said. “Tell us the tale.”

  He laughed softly. The lane opened out to the scruffy edge of the beach. There was a rutted turning circle for cars and carts. We walked through to the beach, where fragments of sharp coal mingled with the soft beige sand.

  “Come on,” said Mam.

  “It was the end of the war,” he said. “All them years back. Nineteen forty-five, the year they let us come home. He was on the same boat as me, coming back from Burma. He was one of them that'd seen too much, suffered too much. It was like his brain'd been boiled. Too much war, too much heat, too many magic men. The man was such a mess. Little McNulty, eh? Fancy him lasting all this time.”

  It was darkening. Stars came out. The lighthouse light began to turn. We walked toward the sea.

  “He was the ship's fool. Mostly we put up with him, or laughed at him. His mind was all gone. Chants and spells and curses and dances. Them things he did with ropes and swords and fire. There was them that said he was a proper magic man. There was some that humored him or tried to care for him. It was clear he was going to need looking after. But some of the blokes … There's no end to cruelty, is there? One morning I found him in a heap on the stairs with his clothes all ripped and his skull cracked and blood all over him. What's happened? I says to him. Nowt, he says. Nowt. But he's crying like a bairn. He flinches. When I touch him his eyes is like a little desperate dog's. And the whimpering he made …I found a nurse and he never flinched while she stitched him. He just stroked my arm and said I was a bonny bonny lad. Poor soul.”

  “Wonder what brings him here now,” said Mam.

  “God knows,” said Dad.

  The lighthouse light turned. It became more brilliant as the daylight faded. We stood and breathed the sea air. We watched a late tern diving at the sea. Further along the beach, the sea coalers and their ponies dragged carts filled with coal from the sea. There was a girl's laughter and I peered toward it through the dusk. The air calmed. The sea calmed. It stretched like burnished metal to the dark dead-flat horizon. The lighthouse light became a beam that swept the sea, the land and then the sea again. We were silent and still. We hardly breathed, as if we didn't dare disturb such peace. Then Mam sighed at last. Dad lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it.