The Fire-Eaters

  Next morning I put the uniform on. I put a new leather satchel on my back. Mam could hardly speak. Dad just shook his head and grinned.

  “Who'd believe it?” he said. “Who'd blinking believe it?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “All I did was get older,” I said. “All I'm doing is starting a new school.”

  He clapped his hands and Mam spoke through her tears at last.

  “Yes, we know,” she said. “It's nothing. It's ordinary. And it's just miraculous.”

  They came out with me. They watched me from the front door as I walked along the lane beside the beach. Seagulls squealed and the sea slapped and a foghorn droned from beyond the lost horizon. I waved once, then turned into the lane toward the Rat. I kept pulling the loose blazer up to my shoulders. My brightly polished shoes were stiff. The shirt collar chafed my throat. One of Mam's tacking pins was still in the blazer cuff. I pulled it out and stuck it in a seam. I shivered and my heart raced.

  “Bobby! Bobby!”

  I couldn't tell where it came from. Then there was a wolf whistle, and my name was called again.

  “Bobby! Little Bobby Burns!”

  There he was, backed into a hawthorn shrub. Joseph. He came out as I passed. His voice was high and singsong, like a girl's.

  “Ooh, Bobby,” he said. “Don't you look so sweet?” He came to my side, walked at my side. He tapped a finger at his cheek; he raised his eyebrows.

  “So, Robert. Do you think it will be mathematics this morning? Or geography? Art history, of course. Or perhaps there will be flower-sniffing. Do you have your dancing shoes today? There will of course be elocution. How now, brown cow? Where does the rain in Spain fall, Robert?”

  I walked and let him talk. I kept my eyes averted.

  “On the plain, of course,” he said. “On the blasted plain.”

  He smiled. He put his arm around my shoulders.

  “Just kidding,” he said. “You know that, eh?”

  “Aye.”

  “Aye. Good lad.” He licked his lips. “I'm proud of you, Bobby.”

  He turned his eyes away. We walked in silence, close to each other.

  “Done you this,” he muttered.

  He pushed a little penknife into my hand.

  “It's nowt,” he said.

  I held it in my palm: a black stock, a shining silver blade.

  “It's nowt,” he said again. “Just something I had in me box.”

  “It's great,” I said.

  His face colored and he shrugged.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We didn't know what else to say. We saw Daniel coming out of his own lane, walking in his new uniform toward the Rat.

  “Look at the way he walks,” said Joseph. “Like he's a bloody tart. Like he owns the bloody place. Know what I mean?”

  “Aye.”

  “Keep your distance from him, eh?”

  “I will.”

  He gripped my shoulders and squeezed me with his strong hands.

  “Good luck, Bobby,” he said. “You're a special kid.”

  Then he turned and hurried back through the hawthorn hedge.

  I watched him leave my sight.

  I ran my fingers across the letters he'd carved into the bone handle: BOBBY.

  We nodded at each other, but I didn't sit with Daniel on the bus. He sat behind me and my cheeks were burning. I thought he was watching me, but when I dared to turn I saw he was reading a book, lounging with his knee raised onto the seat. He had his tie loosened and he held his hair back with his hand. I turned back again when he raised his eyes to me. Other kids got on, older kids, but some of my mates from the juniors as well: Ed Garbutt, Diggy Hare, Col O'Kane. Diggy sat beside me, the other two in front.

  “They stick your head down the netty, you know,” he said. “They turn you upside down and pull the chain. Initiation.”

  “Aye, I know,” said Col. “I heard. D'you sometimes wish you hadn't passed?”

  “Aye,” we all muttered.

  “Who's that?” said Ed, nodding at Daniel.

  “New kid,” I said. “Come from Kent or somewhere.”

  “They make you eat dirt,” said Diggy. “They make you drink your own piss. They stick needles in you. They got one kid took to hospital and he nearly died. It's true. Johnny Murray told us.”

  “I heard the same,” said Col. “They had to pump his guts out and he's never been the same since.”

  A couple of the older kids were grinning at us. We kept our eyes away. Doreen Armstrong got on. Her skirt was hitched up above her knees.

  “Oh, wow,” said Col.

  “D'you sometimes wish you were older?” said Ed.

  “Aye,” we muttered.

  We headed down the coast. The sea was on our left. A massive tanker was heading in toward the Tyne. Some kind of battleship was heading out into the mist.

  “Me dad nearly didn't let us come,” said Ed. “Says it's hardly worth the bother. Says what's the point in all the tests and the uniform palaver. Says there's bound to be another war and when there is …”

  I shook my head.

  “There won't be,” I said.

  “How d'you know?” said Col.

  I shook my head.

  “See?” said Ed. “Nobody knows. Nobody can do nowt.”

  “There'll be nowt left,” said Diggy. “They could blow the whole world up umpteen times if they wanted to.”

  “Kapow,” said Col.

  “They hung one kid,” said Diggy. “They did. If the teacher hadn't come along and cut him down …”

  “But they say the teachers is even worse,” said Col.

  I felt the penknife in my pocket. I opened the blade.

  “I was in town yesterday, at the quayside market,” I said. “I saw this fire-eater bloke.”

  “Me and all,” said Ed. “He's a bliddy loony, eh?”

  “Aye,” I said.

  I felt the sharpness of the blade against my thumb.

  One of the big kids lit a cigarette at the back of the bus. Doreen squealed with laughter at a joke. Ed put his chin on the seat back and stared at Daniel. Diggy looked out at the sea.

  “It's like ganning to the bliddy slaughterhouse,” said Col.

  There was a long redbrick front with long shining windows. There was a great golden crucifix over the main door. Half a dozen steps led up to it. We first-years had to wait there when the bell had rung. The others streamed inside. A group of teachers stood on the steps above us.

  “Your names will be called,” said one. “Then you will step forward. When your class has been gathered, your teacher will escort you inside.”

  He had a suit and tie on, and a black gown over his suit. He drew his gown open. A black leather strap curled out from his breast pocket.

  “My name is Mr. Todd,” he said. “Your teachers will introduce themselves when they are with you in your rooms.” He paused. “We are waiting for order.”

  He came closer to us.

  “I wish to see straight lines,” he said. “Straight lines!”

  We made clumsy lines that straggled out across the pale concrete yard.

  He sighed.

  “So,” he said. “You are those who have passed the eleven-plus. You are the elite.” His face hardened. “Do not believe it. You may have proved that you have something like a brain. But you have not yet proved that you are suitable to be with us. You have not proved that you have character or moral fiber. You are half civilized. You are wild things. And you must be taught to conform.”

  I kept turning, trying to see Ailsa, but she was nowhere.

  “What is your name?”

  He was at my side. He held the strap between his hands.

  “What is your name?” he said again.

  “R-Robert Burns.”

  “Robert Burns what?”

  “Robert Burns, sir.”

  “Put your hand out, Robert Burns.”

  I blinked.

  “Put your hand out.”

/>   I put my hand out. He raised the strap as high as his shoulder and lashed it across my palm.

  “Other hand,” he said. “Other hand!”

  I put out my other hand. He strapped me again. I clenched my stinging hands. Tears burned the rims of my eyes.

  “You will pay attention when a teacher speaks,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  I couldn't answer. He flexed the strap.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir. I have my eye on you, Robert Burns. I know you now.”

  He moved on. I heard kids gasping for breath around me. I kept my eyes to the front. The other teachers looked down on us, expressionless.

  Todd said it again. I didn't turn.

  “What is your name, boy?”

  “Daniel Gower.” He said it calmly, confidently. “Sir,” he added.

  “What is this, Gower?”

  “It is my hair. Sir.” “It is too long.”

  There was silence. Then Todd spoke again.

  “No boy looks at me like that. Put your hand out. Put your hand out!”

  I flinched as the strap struck Daniel's hand, as it struck his other hand.

  “You will have your hair cut,” said Todd. “You will never again look at a teacher like that.”

  He moved to the front again. He held a file of names.

  “Many of you will find that you are separated from those you knew before. This is not a play group or a happy family. When your name is called, step forward.”

  He began the roll call of the names. I was separated from Diggy, Col and Ed. Ailsa's name was called and nobody stepped forward. My name was in the same group as Daniel's. As we moved forward together, he squeezed my arm.

  “He's an evil bastard,” he hissed.

  We sat close together in the classroom that was filled with single desks. Our teacher, Lubbock, sat before us.

  “Some of us have begun to be taught our lessons early,” he said.

  He showed his teeth in a half-smile.

  “It's not too bad a place once we've settled you in,” he said.

  He taught us how to rise and say good morning when he or another member of staff entered the room. He gave out exercise books. He laid his strap on the desk in front of him.

  “Put your hands together,” he said.

  I pressed my palms against each other, trying to press away the last of the pain.

  “We will say the Lord's Prayer,” he said.

  Ailsa giggled at the chicken that pecked around her feet. She picked pea pods and put them into a white enamel bowl. She kept moving away from me.

  “Stop pestering me, Bobby Burns,” she said. “But why weren't you at school?” I asked her. “You must be stupid, man.”

  “I know.” She laughed. “I know, I know. I always was.”

  “I don't mean that. You're really clever, man.”

  “I know that and all!”

  I kicked the sandy soil.

  “Dad left school at twelve,” she said. “Losh and Yak were expelled. So mebbe it's just the family way.”

  She led me to the far end of the garden, where there was a fence half buried in the dunes. We sat on an ancient white-painted bench. I helped her to shell the peas. We looked out over their house toward the distant city. We could see the cranes, the steeples, the first of the tower blocks.

  “Anyway,” she said. “They work that hard, and they need somebody to look after them. What's it like, anyway?”

  “It's OK.”

  She laughed.

  “Aye. I'll bet.”

  “Some of them's Nazis,” I said.

  “I can imagine.”

  She popped a pea into my mouth, delicious and sweet.

  “It's fine for you, Bobby,” she said. “But I don't need it. Daddy says the coal'll last forever, even after all the pits is closed. We've got a place, we'll make a living. I love it here. I don't want nowt else.”

  We went on shelling peas.

  “You'll leave, though,” she said. “You'll go somewhere really fancy, won't you? University, all that kind of stuff.”

  “Will I?”

  “You know you will, Bobby.”

  I tried to imagine all those years ahead, leaving home, going to another town. University. Nobody I knew had ever been to university.

  “But you could, too,” I said.

  She laughed.

  “Me? A sea coaler's daughter? A Spink at university!”

  “You should be proud of who you are and where you come from.”

  She popped another pea into my mouth.

  “Oh, I am, Bobby,” she said. “Mebbe that's why I want to stay who I am and where I am.”

  I turned my face from her. I listened to the sea beyond the dunes. I thought of the waves pouring in and pouring in as they had forever.

  “They'll come for you,” I said.

  “Who will?”

  “The council. They won't let you stay away from school.”

  “They've been already. Daddy just told them to hadaway and shite.”

  We laughed together.

  “But they'll be back,” I said.

  “Let them see if we care.”

  She stood up and set off back toward the house.

  “Anyway,” she said. “School, university, all that stupid stuff. Yuck! There's more important things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like miracles. Do you believe in miracles?”

  “Eh?”

  “You're supposed to, you lot. Howay. Come and see.”

  She put the bowl of peas on a bench inside the door. She took me around to the back of the house. There was a wooden shed there.

  “It is a miracle,” she said. “Be quiet.” She smiled. “It's lovely, Bobby.”

  She carefully inched open the door. She crouched, low to the earth. She made soothing noises with her breath. “Hello,” she whispered. At first I saw nothing, then there it was, curled up on a little bed of straw. It was a fawn, no bigger than a baby. Its eyes glowed, reflecting the daylight that fell through the dusty window above it. There was a bowl of milk beside its head.

  “It was dead,” she whispered. She looked me in the eye as if she was testing if I believed her. “I found it in the yard yesterday morning. Like a fox had been at it, or a dog or something. Like it had run here, been chased here, and they got it here. Wasn't breathing. Heart wasn't beating. Dead.”

  I touched its soft coat with the back of my hand. I felt its warmth, its little beating heart. It didn't seem to be scared. I put milk on my finger and touched its tongue. It licked gently.

  “Daddy said bury the poor thing,” she said. “But I couldn't. I put it in a basket beside me bed. I put a blanket on it. I told God to heal it. I stayed awake for ages, long after Daddy and the lads were fast asleep. I just kept telling God to heal it. I stroked it. I told it that I loved it. Nothing happened. And I fell asleep, and all night I dreamed of it running through fields and woods and the sun was shining bright. Then I woke up in the morning and it had its eyes open and it was looking up at me.”

  She stroked it with both hands.

  “Isn't it so beautiful?” she said.

  “Aye.”

  “Yak said deer play possum sometimes. Daddy said we must've been mistook. But I don't think we were. It was dead and it came alive again.”

  I let it lick more milk from my fingers.

  “D'you believe me, Bobby?” she said.

  I felt its wet tongue on my skin. I looked into its trusting eyes.

  “Aye,” I said.

  “That's good.”

  She lifted the fawn into her arms and stood up and carried it out through the door.

  “You got to believe, don't you?” she said. “Or nowt'd ever happen. Nowt worthwhile.”

  She set it on the ground outside and we watched it rise and totter on its skinny legs.

  “Go on,” we said. “Go on, l
ittle'n.”

  She giggled.

  “I'll keep it here till it's strong,” she said. “Then I'll put it back into the wild.”

  The sun fell on the fawn, its dappled fur, its dark eyes, its skinny legs. So beautiful.

  “What I don't understand is why it's so young,” said Ailsa.

  She looked over the fields, past the pitheads, toward the distant woodlands where it must have come from.

  “How d'you mean?” I said.

  “It's so late, Bobby. It should've been born in spring, not now when the days are getting darker and colder.”

  She clicked her tongue and shook her head and smiled. She whispered into its ear:

  “What were your parents thinking of?”

  Then she lifted it up and put it back in the shed to protect it from the fox.

  “There's no good in dead things, is there?” she said. “Best keep lovely things like this alive.”

  I dreamed of McNulty's fire. I dreamed that he stood on the quayside at Newcastle and breathed the fire into the air and it did not stop. It spread all around, engulfing the market stalls, the cranes, the warehouses, the arching bridge, and there was nothing but the great roar of the flames and the screams of those who'd been taken. The river became a river of fire that raced toward the sea and flames a mile high leapt from the water and the smoke blotted out the sun. I stood with Mam and Dad at our window and we had gas masks on and we saw the fire rushing toward us and there seemed nothing we could do and nowhere we could run to and we just held each other tight and then I screamed: “Breathe, Mr. McNulty! Breathe back in!” And the fire paused, and rushed away again, back to the quayside and into McNulty's throat.

  Then I woke and the night was so still, so quiet. The lighthouse light swept through my room. Dad snored next door. I knelt at the window and looked out past the Lourdes light. The beach was so calm beneath the stars. Rock pools lay like scattered glass and the sea like a great mirror. I closed my eyes against the returning lighthouse light. I tried to pray but I didn't know what to pray to and the things I whispered seemed so childish.

  “Look after us. Don't let terrible things happen.”