Part 1 (1/2)

The Burning.

by Justin Richards.

Chapter One.

Fighting Fire.

The fire was a living thing. Burning. Roaring its way through the roof timbers and running liquid down the front of the building. It licked its way out of the eye*windows of the house, crackling and cackling in the doorway.

The glow was hot on the boy's face as he watched. His eyes were wide, his mouth an open 'o' of rapture. He sat immobile, letting the firelight dance and flicker in his eyes and across his reddened cheeks. The blur of movement, of people running, buckets pa.s.sed, hoses unwound, hands at the pump, was lost to him. Only the flames mattered, the heat. The burning.

'There you are.' There was relief mixed in with the annoyance in her voice. 'Mum was worried. We all were.'

He did not reply. He leaned slightly to the side, to watch the flames past her. They seemed to erupt from the black silhouette of her body in the autumn dusk.

'Supper's been on the table for an hour,' she said. 'Don't you know what time it is?' More anger now. 'What do you think you're doing?'

'Watching.' His voice was barely more than a whisper. 'I'm watching the fire, aren't I?'

She raised her hand, ready to cuff him for his insolence. 'I can see that,' she hissed. 'But it's time to come home. Long past time. Mum'll learn you to be late when we get back.'

There was a crack from across the street as a wooden beam gave way under the onslaught of the fire. It crashed through the weakened first floor joists sending cascades of sparks flying out of the ruptured roof and through the sightless windows. The girl turned to watch.

For a moment, the briefest of instants, her expression mirrored her brother's awe, excitement, rapture. For an instant she too seemed to see the beauty and life in the dance of the flames. Her hand rested on her young brother's shoulder, holding it affectionately, protectively.

Then a fireman ran across in front of her, oilskin jacket glistening as the water from the steam pump dried in the heat. Behind him a horse whinnied and trod the air in fright and surprise at the sparks and the flames. The steam pump lurched as the horses moved. Firelight gleamed off the bra.s.s of the boiler mounted on its carriage. Black smoke rose from the funnel, mingling with that from the house fire. The people encircling the burning house stepped back, as if part of the dance, as the fire jumped and raced to the adjacent house and started to rip into its roof with a dry throaty cackle.

'Mum says you're to come now,' the girl said. Her voice was husky and dry, barely audible above the cracking and popping of the fire and the cry of the horses and the people. Somewhere down the street a baby cried. At the front of the house the flames balled and gathered, as if preparing for an attack on the house opposite. The fire was gathering itself.

The boy licked his lips.

Chapter Two.

Manson's Progress.

The tankard had a gla.s.s bottom. Harry had told him more times than he cared to recall how he was forced to watch the beer slosh about as Pete Manson drank. Harry had also told him just as often that he didn't care for the view of the inside of Pete's mouth as he drained the pint. But Pete didn't care. In fact, it made him smile almost every time he saw the picture etched on to the bare of the tankard emerge from the froth and body of the ale.

Almost every time. But not today. He kept the tankard raised as the last drips of warm liquid ran into his mouth. Even the beer didn't stay cold in winter these days. What was happening to the weather? The picture revealed on the gla.s.s disc beneath the ale was a gallows. Not an especially good sketch, it showed a sticklike figure hanging from the noose. There was n.o.body else depicted. The man was dying in a world of his own. Beneath his perpetual death was inscribed: 'The Last Drop'.

The last drop indeed, Pete reflected as he set down the tankard and wiped his mouth. His last drink in The Pig and Trumpet The Pig and Trumpet. His last drink with Harry Devlin. His last ale in Middletown.

'Another?' Harry asked, as if offering a reprise.

Pete shook his head.

'This is it then.'

'This is it,' Pete agreed.

'Well.' Harry considered. He pulled himself slightly unsteadily to his feet. 'You'd best be off then.'

'Best be off,' Pete repeated. a fair walk to Ambleton.' He stood up beside Harry Devlin. He reached almost to Harry's shoulder. He felt his hand smothered by Harry's huge paw as the big man sadly said his farewells. Then abruptly, Pete felt himself dragged into a crus.h.i.+ng embrace. When he stepped back, there were tears in Harry's eyes.

'We'll miss you, lad,' Harry said. 'You have to go, I suppose.'

Pete looked round the public house. It was almost deserted. By eleven in the morning on a Sat.u.r.day it should be heaving with life. They should have to shout to be heard. As it was, the loudest sound was the click of the dominoes from the other side of the room. 'I have to go,' he said. 'Nothing to keep me here. Not now the mine's closing. You know that.'

Harry nodded. 'I'd go myself,' he said, staring past Pete as if afraid to look at him. 'If I had anywhere to go.'

Pete slapped him on the shoulder. 'And you've got Rosie and the kids to think about.' He tried to sound bright, optimistic. 'Hey, you're the foreman. You'll get another job easy.'

'Sure I will,' Harry said quietly. 'Mind how you go, eh?'

Pete laughed, but there was little humour in him. 'I'm only going to Ambleton, no harm in that.' He hefted his holdall over his shoulder.

The sound of breaking gla.s.s made them both flinch with surprise. A moment later there was another crash as the floor trembled beneath them. A bottle behind the bar edged and jiggled its way to the front of its shelf before toppling forwards and shattering on the flagged floor.

'Not again!' Arthur Melstead said loudly. He dropped the cloth he had been using to polish a gla.s.s and started to push bottles back deeper on to the shelves. He grabbed other bottles from the more crowded shelves and dumped them on the bar. 'Give us a hand, will you?' he shouted. He had to shout to be heard above the crash and splinter of gla.s.s. A framed map fell from a wall and cracked on to the table beneath. The lamps swung, spreading smoky trails of light in their wake.

'Another tremor,' Harry sighed. 'Best be on your way,' he said to Pete. 'Otherwise Arthur'll have you sweeping up and you'll be here all day.'

Arthur's noisy swearing cut across Pete's reply. Harry turned away. 'All right, all right, I'm here.'

The tremor was subsiding now, the shuddering of the floor, the shaking of the walls abated, faded. Stopped.

Middletown was dead. How many of the houses were empty sh.e.l.ls now, Pete Manson wondered? There were a couple of hawkers in the street. A costermonger with a barrow of fruit and vegetables stood alone and forlorn on a corner. He exchanged a sullen nod with Manson.

The community had been and gone. Only the tin mine helped Middletown to ding on at all after the railway ignored the town and came to Ambleton instead. And now even the mine was closing. Empty factories, empty houses, empty ground. Soon there would be nothing left and the place would become in reality as well as name just the midway point between Ambleton and Brans...o...b..*sub*Edge. A place defined by where it was rather than what what it was, with no ident.i.ty of its own. it was, with no ident.i.ty of its own.

The built*up centre of the town was very small, just a few streets. The housing was mainly stretched out towards where the factories had been. The mine was in the opposite direction, on the Ambleton side, and close to that was the remains of the original medieval village cl.u.s.tered round the small church. The church tower was the highest point on the skyline as Pete Manson left the main part of the town. A point of reference, somewhere to head for.

He pa.s.sed the Reverend s...o...b..ld outside the Grange. Visiting Lord Urton probably, Pete reflected as they exchanged greetings. s...o...b..ld was the one person who was likely to get more work when the mine closed. Until everyone had realised that there was nothing left for them here and moved on. He reckoned Lord Urton himself would be on his way before long. Without the mine, he had no income. His last desperate gamble to keep it open, to find a new seam of tin, had failed. Local gossip had it that he had spent all his remaining money on building the dam.

They had drained the river, tunnelled underneath it along the dying vestiges of the most promising seam of metal. And found nothing. Just earth. That was when Pete had decided it was time to leave. That was when Lord Urton had announced that he would shortly have to close the mine. There was no resentment, no bitterness amongst the workforce. They all knew the mine hadn't made a profit in years. They all knew that Urton had kept it going, had kept their jobs going, for far longer than made any sense. Now he was ruined, just as his workers were. If anything, Pete and Harry and the others felt more keenly for Lord and Lady Urton than they did for themselves. In a way, they were themselves to blame.

Pete's plan once he got to Ambleton was simple. Find work if there was any. If not, then get on a train and go where there was was work. London, maybe? Birmingham? He had never travelled further than Ambleton before. Never been on a train even. work. London, maybe? Birmingham? He had never travelled further than Ambleton before. Never been on a train even.

In the distance he could see the dam, its pale stonework standing out against the darker rock that surrounded it at the head of the valley. It was a ma.s.sive and ma.s.sively expensive construction. Building the dam had provided employment for almost a year. More than that, it had imbued them with optimism, with a feeling that the future was a.s.sured and bright. For a while. Now it was simply a constant reminder of their folly, of the stark reality of life in Middletown.

It was the movement that attracted his gaze. He stood and watched for a while, s.h.i.+elding his eyes with his hand from the wintry sun. Despite the time of year it was hot, humid. He wondered whether it would be easier if he carried his coat. There was movement on the top of the dam. Tiny specks of red cl.u.s.tered at one end. Without making a conscious decision, Pete found he was heading that way. He could always join up, he thought. Army life couldn't be that bad.

He paused again, watching the tiny figures spreading out along the top of the dam. Several were hanging off the side on ropes, inspecting the workmans.h.i.+p. He had heard they were sending engineers from the barracks at Ambleton to check the structure after the tremors. Maybe they would want help from someone who had worked on the construction. Maybe there was a few s.h.i.+llings' work to be had there.