Part 4 (1/2)

”If you've no objection.” The door opened and Joe's mother appeared, patched jumper, encircled eyes and curlers: she saw me and frowned. ”I'm Joe's friend,” I tried to ingratiate myself.

”I didn't know he had any up this end.” But she closed the door behind us. ”Your father's not feeling well,” she told Joe.

”Who's that?” a man's voice roared beyond the hall, the ancient coatstand where an overcoat hung by a ragged tag, the banister wrenched dangerously by some unsteady pa.s.sage. ”Is that Joe just come in? Have you been spilling paraffin round the house, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d?”

Joe's mother glanced at him and winced, then hurried with Joe towards the voice. Left alone, I followed. Vests hung in the kitchen; Mr Turner sat in vest and braces at the table with his feet up, spitting into the sink, a Guinness at his side. ”Of course he hasn't, Fred,” she intervened unevenly.

”Then it's you,” her husband shouted at her. ”You've got that trunk hidden somewhere. I'll find it and fix it for good, my girl, don't you worry. I heard them moving round in there last night.”

”Oh, my G.o.d,” Mrs Turner muttered. ”Shut up, will you, shut up, shut up. ...8 Her husband snarled at her, tried to stand up, raised a foot and thumped it on the table. ”You watch out, my girl,” he threatened. Then he noticed me in the doorway. ”Who the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l's that?” he yelled.

”A friend of Joe's. I'll make some tea,” she told me, trying to ignore her husband's mumbling.

”I'll do it,” Joe said; he seemed anxious to please.

”No, it's all right. You go and talk to your friend.”

”I'll help you carry it in.”

”Don't bother. I can manage.” She looked at Joe strangely, I couldn't tell why: I know now she was scared.

”How much b.l.o.o.d.y tea do you think we've got in this house?” Mr Turner bawled. ”Every little b.a.s.t.a.r.d Joe brings home gets a free meal, is that what you think?” I'd become the victim and I didn't like it; I looked at Joe and his mother in turn, attempting to convey my regret for having been a witness, for my incomprehension, for fleeing, for everything. Then I escaped from the misshapen house.

In the next week our walks home were jagged with silence, the unspoken. I said no more about Joe's brother; nor did he. The bonfire approached, and ------------------------------------com85 I waited to be invited again; I felt that my experience in Joe's house had rendered our friends.h.i.+p unstable. Meanwhile, each night as I worked in my bedroom, hissing trails of sparks explored the sky; distant shots resounded like warfare. One night, a week before Guy Fawkes, I abandoned my history homework in the middle of a sentence, stared round my room, at my father's inherited Children Children 'so Encyclopaedia beneath my Army posters, and stood up to gaze from the window. Three gardens from mine I could see the Turners'; during the day they had built their bonfire. The moon was up; it gleamed in a greenhouse like eyes. On top of the bonfire, above a toilet seat and piled planks like a gutted roof, stood the guy. Its arms were crucified across its wooden body; it swayed in a breeze. Its head turned back and forth beneath the moon; its paper face lifted to me. There was something horrible about that featureless grey expanse, as if eyes which should have been watching me were not. I drew back from the window and opened my door, for downstairs I'd heard my father say ?--paraffin.” 'so Encyclopaedia beneath my Army posters, and stood up to gaze from the window. Three gardens from mine I could see the Turners'; during the day they had built their bonfire. The moon was up; it gleamed in a greenhouse like eyes. On top of the bonfire, above a toilet seat and piled planks like a gutted roof, stood the guy. Its arms were crucified across its wooden body; it swayed in a breeze. Its head turned back and forth beneath the moon; its paper face lifted to me. There was something horrible about that featureless grey expanse, as if eyes which should have been watching me were not. I drew back from the window and opened my door, for downstairs I'd heard my father say ?--paraffin.”

”To have a bonfire after that,” my mother said; a gla.s.s clinked. ”It's unfeeling. They're like animals.”

”Hold on now, it wasn't ever proved,” said my father. ”You can't condemn someone without a fair trial.”

”I know. You've only got to look at him. I know.”

”Well, we'll agree to differ. Remind me tomorrow, I must buy that Beethoven.”

Nothing about a trunk. In a far garden a ball of fire leapt up screaming. I picked up my history sentence, and next day, drop-kicking a can to Joe, I said ”What was your brother called?”

”Frankie.” Savagely he kicked the can against a bus-stop. I wanted to trust him. ”You never did tell me what happened,” I prompted.

His eyes fastened on the can; they glazed with fear, distrust, the look I've seen before my desk when I've enquired into family backgrounds. He strode exaggeratedly to the can and crumpled it beneath his heel. Suddenly he muttered ”We had a bonfire. It was going out. My father got a can of paraffin and we threw it on the fire. It spilled on Frankie. We called an ambulance, but they didn't come in time.”

I was silent; it hadn't helped my trust. ”I bet they all think we're cruel round here, having a bonfire this year,” Joe said.

”They don't know anything about it. Anyway, you're not,” I told him. I couldn't repeat what my parents had said: I wasn't ready to oppose them.

”It was my mother's idea to have one this year. I think she wants to make me forget.” Or somehow to prove to herself that she was wrong to suspect: ------------------------------------com86 not that I made this connection then. ”I don't want to have a bonfire all by myself,” Joe continued.

”You won't. I'll be there,” I said. Some part of me trusted him.

At dinner on Guy Fawkes Night, after my usual taste of table wine, I told my parents ”They've let us off homework tonight,” which was true. ”I'm going to see The Bridge on the River Kwai The Bridge on the River Kwai with some friends from school,” which wasn't. with some friends from school,” which wasn't.

”I don't see why not,” my mother said. ”Joe Turner won't be there, will he?”

”No, he won't.” He wouldn't.

”You won't have time to listen to this, then,” my father said, reaching beneath The The Times Times on the coffee table to produce Beethoven's Seventh. For a moment I was ashamed: they trusted me, they bought me presents, and I betrayed them. But they condemned Joe without ever having met him. I knew Joe; I'd seen how withdrawn his parents were from him; tonight he'd be alone if I didn't keep my word. ”Thanks very much,” I said, and took the record to my room. on the coffee table to produce Beethoven's Seventh. For a moment I was ashamed: they trusted me, they bought me presents, and I betrayed them. But they condemned Joe without ever having met him. I knew Joe; I'd seen how withdrawn his parents were from him; tonight he'd be alone if I didn't keep my word. ”Thanks very much,” I said, and took the record to my room.

Night had fallen; curtains glowed and shadows moved. I glanced back, but my parents weren't watching. Again I felt a twinge of shame. In the sky around me it had started; green stars sparkled blue and fell; the twinkling blue star of an ambulance swept past. I stood before the Turners' door. Mr Turner swearing, drinking; I didn't want to face that. Once more I was ashamed; if Joe could stand him, it was up to me to do so for Joe's sake. I knocked.

Mr Turner pulled the door from my grasp. ”Oh, it's you,” he said, falling against the door-frame, hooking his braces over his shoulder. I half expected him to close me out, but he seemed triumphant about something. ”I'm not the b.l.o.o.d.y butler,” he said. ”Come in or don't, it's all the same to me.”

I heard voices in the front room; I entered. Joe was on the floor, counting out fireworks: volcanoes, worms, wheels, stiff-tailed rockets. Around him stood boys I'd never seen before; one had a headscarved girl on his arm and was fondling her. I knew they were from Lower Brichester. I looked at Joe, waiting to be greeted. ”There you are,” he said, glancing up. ”These are some of my friends from where I used to live.”

I felt out of place, no longer important, in a sense betrayed; I'd thought it would be Joe and me. But it was his home; it wasn't my place to judge-- already I'd determined not to harden prejudice as my parents had. I tried to smile at the girl. She stared back; I suppressed my suburban accent. Ill at ease, I stood near the door, peering into the hall as Mrs Turner came downstairs. Her eyes were red; she'd been crying. She confronted her husband in ------------------------------------com87 the kitchen, out of sight. ”Well, now you've built your bonfire, aren't you going out to watch?” she demanded.

”It was your idea, not mine, my girl. I'm not getting dressed to go out and play with all his little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I've done my bit for the bonfire,” he laughed.

”You're scared,” she taunted. ”Scared that you might see something.”

”Not me, my girl. Not anymore. I'm not going to hear them moving about anymore.”

”What are you saying?” she cried, suddenly audibly afraid--and Joe said ”Wake up, everyone, time to start.” We carried fireworks through the kitchen; Mr Turner's feet were on the table, he lay back with his eyes closed, smiling; his wife turned from him to us with a kind of desperation. A vest dripped on me.

The gravel path was strewn with twigs; what had been a flower-bed was now waste, heaped with wood. The girl tacked Catherine wheels to the fence; the boys staked out the soil with Guinness bottles, thrusting a rocket into each mouth. I glanced up at the bonfire against the arcs of fire among the stars, remembering the wooden figure like a witch's skeleton at the stake. ”Where's the guy?” I asked Joe.

”Come on, you lot, who's got the guy?” Joe called. But everyone protested ignorance. We went back into the kitchen. ”Has anyone seen our guy?” Joe asked.

”Someone must have stolen it,” his mother said uneasily. ”You'd think up this way they'd know better.”

”After I dressed it up, too,” his father mumbled, and turned quickly to his Guinness.

We searched upstairs, though I couldn't see why. Nothing beneath a rumpled double bed but curlers. Joe's room featured a battle of wooden model aeroplanes and a sharp smell of glue like paraffin. One room was an attic: dusty mirrors, footb.a.l.l.s, boots, fractured chair-leg. Behind two mirrors I found a trunk whose lock had been forced. I opened it without thinking, but it was empty. ”The h.e.l.l with it,” Joe said finally. ”It's the fireworks they've all come for, anyway.”

The girl had set one wheel whirling, spurting sparks. They lit up Mrs Turner's face staring from the kitchen window before she moved away; her husband's eyes were closed, his mouth open and wheezing. Joe took a match and bent to the bonfire; fire raced up a privet twig. Above us hands of fire dulled against the night. One of the boys sent a rocket whooping into s.p.a.ce; its falling sparks left dents of darkness on my eyes. I had no matches; I approached the boy and asked for one. He pa.s.sed me a handful. Beyond the ------------------------------------com88 fire, now angled with planes of flame, the girl was giggling with her escort. I struck a match on my sole and counted: ”Ten, nine, eight, seven, six--was when the rocket leapt. I'd forgotten to m.u.f.fle my accent, but n.o.body cared. I was happy.

The girl came back with her escort from a region where chimneys were limned on fans of white electric fire. ”The bonfire's going out,” said Joe. I gave him some of my matches. Red-hot flecks spun through the smoke and vanished; the smoke clogged our nostrils--it would be catarrh in the morning.

Over the houses rose a red star. It hung steady, dazzling, eternal. Our gasps and cheers were silenced. The white house-walls turned red, like cardboard in a fire about to flame. As suddenly, the star sank and was extinguished; in another garden someone clapped. Everything was dimmed; Joe felt his way to the bonfire and struck matches.

Someone stood up from the corner of the house and moved behind me. I looked round, but the face was grey and formless after the star. A hand touched my arm; it seemed light as paper. The figure moved towards Joe. My sleeve was wet. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed; it was stained with paraffin. I might have called out if Joe's mother hadn't screamed.

Everyone but Joe turned startled to the kitchen. Mr Turner stirred and stared at her. ”You must be b.l.o.o.d.y off your nut,” he snarled, ”waking me like that.”

”Frankie's clothes!” she cried, trying to claw at his face. ”What have you done with them?”

”I told you I'd find your trunk, my girl,” he laughed, beating her off. ”I thought I'd do something for the bonfire, like dressing up the guy.”

She sat down at the table and sobbed. Everyone was watching aghast, embarra.s.sed. Our eyes were readjusting; we could see each other's red-hot faces. Suddenly, terrified, I looked towards Joe. He was kneeling by the bonfire, thrusting matches deep. My eyes searched the shadows. Near the hedge stood a Guinness bottle which should have held a rocket. Desperately, I searched beyond. A figure was creeping along the hedge towards Joe. As I discovered it, it leapt.