The Standing Water (49 page)

I didn’t understand
all the teacher’s words, but there was something about how he said them that
made me nod and smile.

I try to block out
the reassuring hum of the city seeping through my walls. I let my mind fly over
the miles of dark country, fly on its rapid journey back across so many years;
I let it fly through my memory’s smoky haze, back to that November evening in
Emberfield. On the night of the fifth, I see myself trooping to the bonfire
with my parents and sister, all of us wrapped in scarves and gloves against the
chill. It was at least dry so no rain would quench our blaze. We trudged down
the dirt track that led to the farm where the display would be held – for once
we could pass beyond the barbed wire, pass through the forbidden farmyard.
After tramping over its dung-splattered concrete, past barns smelling of hay
and manure, past the sleeping tractors and hibernating combines, we came to the
bonfire field. People were milling around; it was dark, of course. No stars
peeked through the clouds that massed in the heavens, but a couple of powerful
electric lights helped us see. One was pointed at the bonfire and guy. Our
mannequin crowned a pyre, much larger than I’d expected – a small mountain of
pallets, logs and beams. At the top of that wooden hill, he was lashed to an
old chair. For a second, a fear seized me it was a real man we’d torch. After
all, I
had
done well with the face. I overheard two blokes talking.

‘It’s a good one
this year, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, most
lifelike. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who.’

‘Does look a bit
peeved, doesn’t he? Though I can’t say I blame him. And the organisers say we
might have a little
extra
surprise when the fire gets going.’

But, for a time,
the fire stayed unlit. My heart banged, my body shivered with more than the
night’s chill as I wondered if our magic would work. When the blaze devoured
the guy, would we see Weirton writhing as invisible fire consumed him? Or would
the enchantments be more subtle: would the embers of sickness wither the headmaster
over time or would the magic strike with its deadly flaming force at a future
date? I shook more, my heart boomed louder as I thought about the evil of what
we wanted to do, about how I’d carefully constructed that guy to bring pain and
death to Weirton. Then again, would our wicked act be for a greater good, would
we be doing God’s will by ridding our town of that bully and murderer? Even
Weirton himself had said that sometimes the Lord wanted good men to act for Him
and that we shouldn’t stay our hands against evildoers.

As I stamped my
wellies on the frost-furrowed earth to drive the numbing cold from my toes, I
tried to distract myself from such heavy thoughts by pondering that strange time
of year. It was jammed with special days, packed with festivals. First was
Halloween, when witches, goblins and ghouls were unleashed. Though some kids
went trick-and-treating, no one I knew would stay out late. We’d all be huddled
in our homes as the otherworldly regiments flew or scuttled outside. And in a
place as haunted – and with as many legends – as Emberfield, we were especially
fearful, praying the hideous turnip lanterns lighted in our windows would scare
the spooks away. I had wondered lately why those ghouls should be frightened of
a bit of fire in a vegetable, but making the lanterns was fun, and when they
were lit there was something ancient and powerful about how their crude faces
flickered. As I watched the fire dancing behind those sinister eyes and teeth,
I soon forgot my doubts. Then came All Saints’ Day on November 1
^st
–
when the vicar had told us we should pay homage to all the saints of God, all
the people who’d died in the pictures he’d shown us by being roasted, boiled, baked,
crushed just because they believed in Jesus. I was glad that – as a Christian –
I hadn’t lived in those ages. The day after, the vicar said, was All Souls’
Day, a time when we should think about and honour all the dead Christians who
were now in Heaven with the Lord. If they were in such a blissful place, I
didn’t understand why they should care whether we thought of them or not, but I
tried to do what the vicar said. Yet I’d also heard a legend the dead didn’t
just stay in Heaven at that time of year, but came back to visit us. I imagined
the ghosts rising up from their rest in the churchyard at Salton and in the
cemetery on the way to Goldhill, stretching see-through limbs then setting off
on a stumble across the dark fields to our town. I’d heard it said you should
keep lights on and fires lit to welcome the shades and guide them, otherwise
they might get lost and wander forever in that strange no-man’s land between
this life and the next. Maybe that was one of the purposes of Bonfire Night: to
make a huge blaze our ghosts could warm themselves at and let them – at least
once yearly – thaw out death’s chill. And the light of the flames and the
banging fireworks would mean even the dimmest spooks wouldn’t get lost on the
way. Just as we’d doubted whether the ghostly kids in the Old School could
scoff sweets, I did wonder if spooks, having no bodies, could feel heat or cold
at all. But I supposed it would be mean to deny them warmth and light as long
as there was the slightest chance they could.

The fourth of
November was, of course, Mischief Night, when older lads went round town
amusing themselves with pranks. Road signs were graffitied, gnomes were nicked,
front door keyholes superglued, fireworks let off on old ladies’ windowsills.
The most famous act that year had involved the Stubbs family gnome. It’d been
wrenched from its place in the garden, its base had been coated with superglue
and it had been stuck – Rolls-Royce like – on the bonnet of Mr Stubbs’s car.
Unable to remove that merry dwarf, Mr Stubbs had been forced to drive to work
and back with it beaming from the front of his vehicle. Jonathon’s brother and
Darren Hill, along with a bunch of older boys, turned out to be responsible,
and the brother had got from his dad – according to Jonathon – the belting of
his life. But here were the Browning family now, rubbing hands and stamping
feet, to the left of the pyre. The brother – showing little sign of the hiding
he’d received – was demolishing a steaming jacket spud.

More people came
and the crowd swelled. They hopped and rubbed their arms in the cold, breathed
out clouds of dragon breath, added to that steam with hot potatoes and soup
from the food stall. Lots of kids from school showed up with their families.
Even Mr Weirton had come – neck swathed in a stylish scarf, he went round
shaking hands, chatting jovially, boasting about the guy
his
school had
made. He strode up to us, shook hands with Mum and Dad.

‘Terrific guy,’
Weirton said. ‘I have to say, the kids have done a great job, especially this
little chap here.’

Weirton ruffled my
hair; my parents laughed.

‘Yes, Ryan and his
friends gathered most of the guy’s clothes, got the glasses. Ryan painted that
moody face – it’s eerily realistic!’

‘Yes,’ my father
said.

He glanced at
Weirton, looked back at the guy, his exaggerated movements attempts at comedy.
He then said, ‘It doesn’t remind me of a certain someone, does it?’

Weirton erupted in
a laugh.

‘Must be the
glasses,’ the teacher said, ‘those and the blond hair.’

‘Well, that suit,’
said my dad, ‘that’s an old one of mine. It took some persuading to get it out
of me, let me tell you! I wasn’t all
that
eager to sacrifice it to the
flames.’

‘The spirit of
sacrifice you have for your community is admirable, Sir!’ Weirton’s jolly lips
said. ‘But I’ve heard there’s going to be an
additional
surprise with
our handsome guy.’

‘It’s all excitement
in Emberfield, isn’t it?’ Dad said. ‘We’ll look forward to it.’

Weirton said his
goodbyes and drifted off, and was soon doing the same routine with Richard Johnson’s
family. After a few more minutes, the town’s mayor – his chain of office
gleaming in the electric light – stood up and made a boring speech. He thanked
Weirton and our school for the guy, thanked the soup makers, the potato bakers,
the wood gatherers, the farmer, thanked everybody then eventually said, ‘So
without further ado, let our great bonfire be lit!’

A man went once
round the pyre, sloshing some liquid from a battered barrel onto the wood. He
took a stick with a rag on the end, clicked a cigarette lighter – a tiny flame
in the darkness – and jerked it up to meet the rag, from which a much stronger
fire blazed out. For a few seconds, he held up his burning brand before he
launched it onto the heap. Fire – its higher capering flames an eerie green –
spread around the base, and soon – its colour back to a more normal orange – it
was licking at then gobbling the wood further up the pile. The mountain sighed
and shifted; our guy slid and wobbled on his chair, but wasn’t toppled. The
wood cracked, the flames waved, the fire grew and we had to shuffle back as a
thick wall of heat pushed at us. Still – when not hidden by longer tongues of
flame or billows of smoke – we could see the guy: he still sat in his blond
wig, his black suit; the face still scowled in anger at his fate. My heart
pounding, my mind eager to see what would happen to Weirton, I urged the fire on
as it licked around the guy’s throne. The straw legs started to blaze then a
curious thing happened. Someone must have put some gunpowder in his pipe
because its bowl began to fizzle and fling out multi-coloured sparks. A murmur
of laughter and exclamations spread through the crowd; there were pointing
fingers, smiles, but I felt disappointed that was all our surprise could be.
The flames licked higher and began to devour the torso. From the left of the
guy’s chest came a huge bang. As one the crowd leapt, let go a startled cry.
The guy jerked in his seat; there was a cloud of smoke and flying straw then
three more bangs blasted from that region as stars burst of green, red, purple,
each accompanied by jumps and gasps from the crowd. As the smell of gunpowder
mingled with the wood smoke, someone shouted, ‘Now
that’s
what I call a
heart attack!’

The whole hill was
ablaze; we just got glimpses of the guy’s shoulders and head through the veils
of smoke and dancing curtains of flame. I glanced over at Weirton. A part of me
expected to see him clasping his chest, falling to the ground as his heart
erupted in fatal imitation of his effigy. But another part of me feared it
wouldn’t happen, and – sure enough – the teacher was chatting and laughing with
Mr Stubbs, pointing at something in the blaze. I looked back to the fire – the
guy’s shoulders were burning now; the crowd were shuffling back as the heat
pressed us. Between the prancing flames, we could still glimpse the guy’s head
though the face was now crinkled and black. The hair went up in a shock of
orange, to be followed by the rest of the cushion head. It burned a strange
reddy-green then there came a terrific blast. The crowd sucked air as a bang
tore the head apart. With deafening cracks, stars exploded from where the
brains would have been. Yellow, red, blue, violet – each drew a gasp from the
audience. A rocket whooshed up from the blasted skull to erupt in a thousand
sparks high in the heavens. White smoke floated as those sparks showered down.

‘He’ll have a
headache in the morning!’ someone called out.

‘Thought that last
one was the poor blighter’s soul going up to heaven,’ another person said. ‘Didn’t
quite make it though, did he?’

Again superstition
hauled my eyes across to the headmaster. Could the teacher be twisting on the
ground, gripping his head as his mind exploded? No, he was now laughing with
and patting the back of Mr Browning, giving Jonathon and the brother the same
hair ruffles he’d given me. My heart sagged. But still in my mind there was
quiet satisfaction at seeing Weirton destroyed – even if only in effigy. And
who knew what the unseen forces we’d set in movement might do in the coming
weeks and months?

What had been a
mountain of wood was now a mountain of flame. It blazed away, devouring itself
– its wall of heat pushed the crowd back more. A gap in the throng appeared
where the breeze blew the most smoke. Our guy now cremated on his pyre, the
fireworks began. Rockets rushed to daub patterns on the cloud-crammed sky;
bangers blasted. Catherine wheels whizzed in fizzing circles before their smoky
ghosts were given up. Kids painted on the air with crackling sparklers, those
wands releasing a wispy gunpowder scent to drift on the more pungent wood
smoke. While all this went on, I thought some more about how wonderful Bonfire
Night was. Not only did it celebrate the foiling of that treasonous plot by
that foul Catholic Guy Fawkes, which was why we burnt him each year to merrily
remember his grisly end, but all those flames and flashes also guided our
ghosts as they came stumbling into town from the graveyards. And, of course,
there was its main purpose of encouraging our weakening sun. I silently cheered
each rocket that shot up to explode in its star-shape, to remind the sun of its
duty to shimmer and spark, cheered each banger that made the heavens shudder,
rousing the sleepy sun from any daze it might have drifted into. I cheered our
fire as it flamed, reminding the sun of its responsibilities by giving it a
reflection of itself here on earth. I knew the sun was far away, making it look
smaller than it really was, so I guessed it was about the size of our blaze.
Surely, in its revolutions around the globe, the sun would be heartened by the many
fires lit all across the world. I uttered prayers to God, thanking Him for His
mercy in letting us celebrate Bonfire Night. A tap on the shoulder startled me
from my ponderings. I turned to see Jonathon. We walked a few paces from my
family so we could talk.