Before the Fire (26 page)
Authors: Sarah Butler
Owen Lee. Who stopped by the doors to the Arndale Centre, lifted the broken glass like a curtain, and slipped inside.
Stick went after him into the quiet, white space. All the shutters were down. All the lights were off. It was empty, save for them. Stick dropped the roses onto the nearest bench. He would say
something first, he thought, Mac’s trainers squeaking against the floor tiles as he walked.
This is for Mac. You can’t get away with doing that to my best mate – to
me.
There was a flurry of noise ahead and a crowd of men came around the corner, running.
‘Pigs,’ one of them shouted.
Owen Lee turned and ran towards Stick. ‘Get out,’ he yelled, as he approached. ‘Feds.’
Stick stayed quite still. When Owen Lee dodged to one side to avoid him, Stick also dodged and the two of them collided.
‘Get out the fucking way,’ Owen Lee hissed.
Stick was close enough to see tiny beads of sweat on his top lip, close enough to smell him. He took the bloodstone out of his pocket.
It gives courage to overcome obstacles and wisdom to
decide how to do so.
Owen Lee shoved him in the chest – the edges of the shoeboxes hard against Stick’s bruises – but Stick got hold of his sleeve and didn’t let go.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Owen Lee shouted. He sounded frightened.
Stick realised he could do anything. Owen Lee was taller and broader but Stick was stronger. He could lift him up above his head and throw him as far as he chose. He could headbutt him until his
skull cracked. He could smash the bloodstone into his face until it wasn’t a face any more.
The other men swerved either side of them, like a river splitting around a rock. They were facing the doors now, Owen Lee struggling to get away. Stick looked past him and saw a flicker of
orange flame reflected in the shattered glass. He took a breath and thought of the anger-management woman, sitting at the front of the classroom, a lifetime ago – you can make a choice
– and then he looked at Owen Lee, wriggling like a caught fish, dragging Stick towards Market Street. J would be there by now, looking for him. And Mac was dead – nothing was going to
change that.
He let go.
Owen Lee catapulted forwards and ran to join the scrum at the doors. Mac would be dancing through the streets if he was here – his arms above his head, fists punching the air, whooping and
yelling. He’d nick bags of sweets and cans of beer and then give them away. He’d help out people who’d fallen over, or cut themselves on broken glass. He’d be having a ball.
Stick felt his friend’s absence like he’d been punched just below the ribcage.
The police were coming. Stick heard the tramp of their boots and as he turned to look it struck him that they must be hot – maybe even scared – underneath all that protective gear.
He grabbed the roses off the bench and slipped out onto the street before they reached him.
Miss Selfridge was on fire. Flames surged out of the shop window, their edges gushing black smoke up over the bricks into the cool early-evening sky. Groups of people stood and watched, the
blaze repeated over and over again on tiny phone screens held up to catch the action. And there, in amongst the crowd, was J, standing by the burger van like she’d said, strands of blue hair
escaping from the edges of her hood.
He watched her watching the shop burn.
You’re beautiful
, he wanted to tell her.
I want to fuck you. I want to run away with you. I want to marry you.
She’d laugh
and punch him on the arm, and say
give over, get out of here.
Or maybe she’d say
yes, me too.
J looked up, as though she could feel his eyes on her. She saw him and grinned, waved. When he reached her, he slipped an arm around her waist and she turned towards him, lifted her face and
kissed him hard, the roses squashed between them, her skin hot from the fire.
For me, research is a process of conversation and observation, all of which gets filtered through multiple drafts until it becomes something perhaps unrecognisable but still
rooted in a word, a gesture, a story told. Many people shared their expertise, experiences and opinions with me throughout the writing of
Before the Fire
and I am grateful to them all:
Martin Bottomley, Tony Heslop, Karen Ryan, Jean Betteridge, Thomas Nicholson, Paul Hunt, Sam Baars, Jill Johnson, Eilish Blunn-Galagher, Cath Potter, Razia Shah, Katie Parr and students at St
Augustine’s: Moyzz, Kevin, Maria, Malika, Naomi, Mariam, Jasmine, Joel, Bradley, Fatimata, Samira and Tayyibah; Moona Khan, Sarah Whittington and students at Manchester Communication Academy:
Riler, Kyle, Remy, Mo, Tyler, Thabi, Luke, Mohammed, Habib and Keifer; Rose McCarton and the over-fifties group at the TLM Centre.
Writing
Before the Fire
also coincided with a writing residency hosted by Age Concern Lancashire and CSV Learning North West, working with young people and people living with dementia.
I’m especially grateful to Mechila, Daniel, Shakira, Liam, Aidan, Shelia and Rob Warbrick for their time, energy, honesty and patience.
The characters described in the novel are entirely fictional, but conversations with all of the above were invaluable in helping me imagine them and their world.
In 2012, I wrote my MSc Urban Studies dissertation on narratives of the riots of 2011, an experience which again permeated the writing of
Before the Fire
. Thank you to Jane Rendell,
Steve Pile, David Roberts, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Sophie Woolley and Luke Wright for their questions, answers, suggestions and support.
Thank you to Château de Lavigny and the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation for a blissful month of writing in summer 2014, and to Sharon Morris for sharing her Pembrokeshire cottage and creating an
equally productive retreat.
I have a fantastic group of fellow writers whose feedback and support is massively appreciated. Particular thanks to Emma Claire Sweeney, Emily Midorikawa, Paul McVeigh, Yemisi Blake,
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Sian Cummins, David Gaffney, Benjamin Judge and Adrian Slatcher.
I also have a brilliant pair of readers in Andrew Kidd and Francesca Main. Particular thanks to Francesca for being the most incisive, dedicated, generous editor a writer could hope to have.
And thank you, as ever, to my family for always being there and always believing, and to Matt, for everything – this one’s for you.
‘Butler is brilliant at capturing Stick’s inner teenage turmoil, his anger, his feelings of futility, the terrible depths of his grief and his easy contempt for
adults who clumsily try to help. By setting the novel in the months leading up to the 2011 riots, Butler also hints at a wider social dimension to teenage disaffection, while ensuring that Stick
remains a riveting and sympathetic character’
Daily Mail
‘Authentic, well-paced . . . Butler’s prose is microscopic, delicate and honest . . . Instead of trying to condone or condemn all young people, Butler is more
interested in telling a human story about grief and how that can manifest itself in unflinching anger, no matter our age’
Nikesh Shukla,
Independent
‘A gentle, wise and important story of modern youth’
Paul McVeigh,
Metro
‘The portrait of a young man on the edge, consumed by rage and grief, is beautifully drawn and captivates the reader so well that as the story builds towards the climax
the tension is almost unbearable. I liked too the flashes of humour and poignancy in the novel, which reads like a bitter-sweet love letter to Manchester’
Cath Staincliffe, author of
Ruthless
‘A brilliant, punchy and utterly contemporary novel which reminds readers of the vitality and resilience of the novel – and the urgency of the issues it explores
through its beautifully realised and notably passionate characters.
Before the Fire
is a novel about what it’s like to live now, created by a writer with an unerring eye and a heart
which is both humane and discerning’
Bidisha, journalist, broadcaster and author of
Asylum and Exile
‘To read
Before the Fire
is to walk several miles in other people’s shoes, such is the empathetic nature of Sarah Butler’s writing. We feel acutely
Stick’s raw and raging grief, his disillusionment for the future, and the hopeless, heart-breaking gestures of those around him. It’s a tender, powerful, affecting novel, and one I
enjoyed greatly’
Emylia Hall, author of
The Book of Summers
‘A moving portrayal of a country in crisis, getting under the skin of both the issues and the people affected by them’
Emma Chapman, author of
How To Be A Good Wife
‘Too few novels describe working-class lives and the context and reasons for their anger and hopelessness. I found the characters in
Before the Fire
real and
authentic and was rooting for them throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed it’
Alex Wheatle
‘An extraordinary novel, set in a world that isn’t often written about with such a profound sense of understanding and truth. Stick is a beautifully drawn, complex,
likeable, understandable boy/man, living on the edge and struggling with making sense of it all . . . Brilliant . . . A stirring read’
Mavis Cheek
Sarah Butler
is the author of
Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love
, which was published in fifteen languages. She runs a consultancy which develops
literature and arts projects that explore and question our relationship to place. Sarah has been writer in residence on the Central Line, the Greenwich Peninsula, and at Great Ormond Street
Hospital, and has taught creative writing for the British Council in Kuala Lumpur. She lives in Manchester.
Also by Sarah Butler
TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE
First published 2015 by Picador
First published in paperback 2016 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2016 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-4472-5157-6
Copyright © Sarah Butler 2015
The right of Sarah Butler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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