Before the Fire Read online

  Sarah Butler

  BEFORE THE FIRE

  PICADOR

  For Matt

  Contents

  9th August 2011

  June 2011

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  July 2011

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  August 2011

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Acknowledgements

  9th August 2011

  On the corner of Market Street and Spring Gardens, a boy who is almost, but not quite, a man flicks a plastic lighter until it yields a small yellow flame. His hood is pulled up around his face and a JD Sports bag slices a diagonal across his back. Behind him, people stand and watch, their phones raised to catch his movements, the buzz of burglar alarms and police sirens echoing across the city. The shop window is already broken. He steps over smashed glass to reach his hand in through the security bars, to the plastic dummy. She has a blank white face: no eyes, no nose, no mouth. But she has breasts, and hip bones – visible beneath her scarlet summer dress. He holds his lighter against a fold of material.

  Then he turns away and crosses Market Street; stops by a shuttered-up shop, adjusts his hood, squares his shoulders, and looks back. Nothing but the smallest of flames, which seems to cling to the security bars, suspended between floor and ceiling. It is hardly big enough to notice. The people who watched him stand at the window with his lighter wait, nodding as if in agreement. The rest: the scared, the excited, the curious, the high, just walk past.

  Soon enough the fire flares upwards – a skinny flame, gathering orange around its edges. Now some of the passers-by slow and turn their heads, though few break their stride. Something drops, molten gold, to the ground and another flame starts, as if from nowhere, to the right of the first, which is roaring now, reaching for the ceiling. The second is trying to catch up. Its audience has grown. Staring. Filming. Hypnotised. Black smoke gathers behind what is left of the window. The two flames join, and together they are unstoppable.

  And now, as the crowd holds its breath, as a teenage couple kiss, as another alarm starts to wail, the fire grows. It stretches backwards and sideways, billowing behind the shuttered doors. It rushes forwards, its flames arcing from the window, pouring smoke up the brickwork, shattering what is left of the glass. It reaches for the onlookers and they shrink away, their movements short and panicked. Some turn and run. A man stumbles over a bike. A woman half trips and then rights herself. The couple, though, carry on kissing, their faces lit gold by the flames.

  June 2011

  1

  It wasn’t much of a noise, but it woke him. He was a light sleeper these days, the same as his mum. Stick stared at the greyed-out shapes of his room – the thin blue curtains, the map tacked to the wall, the wardrobe with its dodgy catch – and listened. There. Again. The brush of slippers across carpet; a faint but precise click, click, click. He turned onto his front, pressed his face into the pillow and put a hand over each ear. But it didn’t help.

  Stick pulled on yesterday’s T-shirt as he crossed the landing and walked downstairs, tracing the wallpaper’s raised pattern with his fingertips. The house was early-morning still, the street light bleeding yellow through the glass-paned front door.

  She was on her hands and knees, reaching behind the sofa.

  ‘They’re off, Mum,’ Stick said.

  She carried on scrabbling, her bum stuck up in the air, the top half of her body wedged between the sofa and the wall. Stick pressed his teeth together until his whole face hurt.

  ‘Mum?’ He raised his voice, and this time she pulled herself upright and sat back on her heels.

  ‘I’m nearly done here,’ she said, as though he’d been there all along. ‘You go on back to bed, love.’ He could see her eyes fixed on the TV and knew she was thinking about the tangle of wires behind it.

  ‘Did you listen to the CD?’ he said.

  She looked at him blankly.

  He’d been eight the first time he’d come downstairs and found her checking the plug sockets, circling the edges of each room like a ghost. Instead of answering his questions she’d just looked at him with the same vacant stare she wore now.

  ‘The whales,’ Stick said. He’d raided the ice-cream carton on top of his wardrobe to buy it. Guaranteed relaxation, it promised. Soothe away anxiety, experience true tranquillity, sleep easy.

  She smiled, still blank.

  ‘I’ll finish up here,’ he said. ‘You go and listen to it.’

  She rubbed her fingers over her lips, her forehead creased in a frown. He wanted to kneel down in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders and shake her. Stop being mental, he wanted to shout. How am I supposed to leave when you’re being mental? Instead, he reached out his hand and she took it and pulled herself to standing. She was wearing oversized slippers shaped like rabbits – pink noses, whiskers, fluffy white ears. Her legs looked too white, too thin, between the slippers and the bottom of her dressing gown. He’d got that from her as well – scrawny and pale.

  ‘You’ll—?’ Her fingers fussed at the frayed blue belt around her waist.

  ‘I’ll check all of them. Will you put the CD on? I’ll come in in ten minutes and turn it off.’ He should have stayed in bed. It’s like leaving a baby to cry – Mac had said, like Mac knew anything about babies – you’ve got to let her sort it out herself. But Stick had tried that and things had just got worse.

  ‘Please?’ he said.

  She hesitated, swaying a little, as if she was standing on a boat, not the thin grey living-room carpet. Stick took her arm and led her towards the stairs. He watched her walk slow, zombie steps up to the landing, and when she turned he said, ‘I’m on it, Mum, it’s fine.’ He made his voice sound light and unbothered, but he could feel the heaviness in his stomach, like he’d swallowed a bucketful of concrete.

  He wanted to sit on the sofa and close his eyes for ten minutes, but she’d take one look at him and know, and the whole thing would start again. So instead he prowled around the house, checking every plug socket. Off. Off. Off. Off.

  When he pushed her bedroom door open, she was sat on the edge of the bed facing the window. The room was silent.

  ‘Will you give it a go, Mum?’

  She didn’t move.

  Stick rubbed at his eyes. ‘Mum?’

  ‘You should be sleeping.’

  ‘I’ll put it on.’

  ‘You’ve got big things ahead. Big night tomorrow. Big day on Saturday. And then—’ Her voice petered out.

  Stick reached under the chest of drawers and sensed his mum flinch as he switched on the socket. The CD player flashed HELLO in green digital text. Stick slotted the disc into the machine and watched the display start to count off the seconds. It took seventeen before he heard the faint brush of waves on a beach.

  ‘Lie down, Mum,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  She stayed where she was. A flute or recorder or something started playing – soft, breathy notes.

  ‘Mum?’ Stick picked up the CD box; there was a picture of the sea at night on the cover – the moon like a car headlight over the waves.

  ‘Is Mac a good driver, then?’ his mum said.

  Stick flicked the case open, closed it, flicked it open again. ‘He passed first time. I told you.’

  ‘But is he careful?’

  He liked to rev the engine until it screamed; li
ked to make the brakes squeal by slamming them on hard and late. ‘Mum, come on. It’s four in the morning.’

  ‘I was thinking about you out there.’ She turned to him, her eyes bright. ‘I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it, Kieran.’

  ‘Listen to the CD.’ Pan pipes, that was the breathy noise. Like the men who played on Market Street at the weekend, wearing multicoloured blankets and feather headdresses. Pan pipes, and splashing waves, and a low regular sound like a heartbeat. It was probably just some guy in a recording studio in Hulme with a bucket of water and a keyboard.

  ‘Did you check the sockets?’ she said.

  Stick put his hands over the weight in his stomach. ‘Yes. All of them.’

  ‘And the one in Sophie’s room?’

  Ten years. It had been ten fucking years since it was Sophie’s room. But he swallowed and said, ‘Behind the wardrobe. Yes.’ He listed each socket, and when he’d finished she lowered herself down onto the bed, pulling the thin summer duvet over her.

  ‘It’s all right this, isn’t it?’ Stick said. ‘Relaxing.’

  ‘You will—’

  ‘I’ll turn it off. I’ll wait a bit and then turn it off.’

  She lay there for a while and Stick stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, watching the clock on the CD player and listening to the heartbeat and the waves.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ his mum said, her voice a whisper.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘It’s just—’

  Stick stared at the green numbers counting off the seconds. ‘I know.’

  She turned onto her side and drew a long breath in through her nose. Stick edged his way around her bed to the window, lifted the curtain just enough to get a view. The street lights gave out a soupy yellow glow. Patchwork tarmac. Two rows of skinny dark-brick houses the same as theirs. The kid next door’s battered plastic tractor lying on its side. A red Ford Fiesta – V-reg, 120,000 miles, £250. Shit-bucket, Mac had said, laughing. It’s a total shit-bucket and it’s going to get us to Malaga. Won’t get us home again but who gives a fuck about coming back?

  ‘Is it still there?’

  Stick turned. His mum was lying with her hands clasped up by her neck, her eyes open. ‘No one’s going to nick it, are they?’ he said.

  ‘It is safe? To drive? You’ve checked the brakes and the oil and everything?’

  Stick balled a handful of curtain into his fist.

  ‘You could ask your dad to look at it, couldn’t you? He was always good with cars,’ she said.

  Stick glanced back outside. He counted five lit windows in the tower block at the end of the road. He tried to imagine what a street in Spain would look like but could only think of Manchester – buses heaving along Rochdale Road; Piccadilly Gardens in the rain; Mac on the back of Ricky’s scooter, razzing down Monsall Street.

  ‘Kieran?’

  ‘It’s all fine.’

  ‘And you’ve got breakdown cover? I don’t want you stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bust-up car. It doesn’t look great, Kieran. I thought that when you brought it home. It doesn’t look very reliable.’

  We’re not made of cash, Mac had said, and Stick had nodded along. Less money on the car, more money for beer and fags and weed. They had not got breakdown cover.

  ‘Listen to the whales, Mum.’

  She lay quiet a while, then, ‘Which ones are the whales?’

  ‘Try and go to sleep.’

  ‘Do you think it’s that low noise? The dumpf, dumpf one? I wouldn’t have thought a whale sounded like that. Sounds like a baby’s heart.’ She paused. ‘Or a machine or something.’

  ‘You’re on early shift tomorrow. You’ll be knackered,’ he said.

  ‘I bet you’ll be swimming in the sea.’

  He’d never swum in the sea. Been in the grotty swimming pool down Miles Platting, but that was it – cricking his neck to keep his face out of the water, spitting every time it touched his lips.

  ‘Are there sharks there?’ she said.

  Stick dropped the curtain back into place. ‘I’m going to bed.’ He made his way towards the door, his shins brushing against the mattress, stopped the CD and bent down to click off the plug socket.

  ‘Kieran? Are you angry, love?’

  He had his hand on the door; he was almost out. ‘Sleep well, Mum.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, Kieran.’

  ‘Night.’ He opened the door, had his foot on the strip of metal between her carpet and the one on the landing.

  ‘Are you seeing your dad tomorrow?’

  Stick let out a breath. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you can ask him about the car.’

  ‘Night, Mum.’

  ‘Has he given you some money?’

  Stick squeezed his fingers around the door handle. He felt like his heart had pushed its way up towards his neck.

  ‘For the trip,’ his mum went on. ‘I mean they spend enough on those girls, it’s not like they can’t afford—’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Mum.’ Stick closed the door harder than he’d meant to and went back to his room. He lay on the bed, staring at the map on his wall. Manchester to Malaga, he told himself. Manchester to Malaga. Come Saturday, they’d be on the road.

  The next morning she’d left for work before he woke up. A cold cup of tea on the floor by his bed. A bowl and spoon on the table downstairs and all the cereal boxes left out. Which was her way of saying sorry.

  Stick cooked the last of the bacon. He wedged the rashers between two slices of buttered bread and ate standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the back yard where a rectangle of sun folded itself around the side of the shed and the too-big daisies drooped in the heat. It had been hot the whole week, Manchester gripped by the sudden promise of summer. It’s not like you need to go all the way to Spain, his mum had said, pretending it was a joke. It’s like the Med here for once; even you might put a pair of shorts on.

  Babs curled herself around his ankles, purring.

  ‘I’m not feeding you.’ His voice sounded thin. He had another go, lowering his chin and trying to boom the way Mac did. ‘I’m not feeding you.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide, and purred some more. He squatted and ran his hands over her head and along her back, furrowing his fingers through her long fur.

  ‘It’s up to you now, Babs,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to look after her, OK?’ He could feel the cat’s skull beneath his hand, hard and fragile at the same time. ‘Make sure she listens to that CD before she goes to bed.’ Babs narrowed her eyes and pushed her head against his palm. ‘And don’t let her go throwing herself at Dad,’ he said. ‘And don’t die. Just because you’re old, don’t fucking die.’ Babs tensed, her ears pricked to some noise outside. She slunk into the hallway and Stick listened for the slap-rattle of the cat flap closing behind her.

  He dragged the ironing board out from under the stairs, filled the iron with water and lifted his jeans and blue shirt from the washing basket. He was all for just shoving their bags in the car and driving off. But Mac had insisted. This is big, he’d said. We can’t leave without a party.

  The iron hissed as Stick pushed it across his jeans, the denim warm beneath his palms. Mac wanted everyone to dress up, but he could fuck off. Stick hated dressing up. Sophie used to love it. He didn’t remember all that much about her, but he remembered that. She’ll be an actress, his mum used to say. You just wait, we’ll be sitting here watching her on telly in ten years’ time. And his dad would frown and say, not if he had anything to do with it – bunch of sharks, telly people. She was always putting on shows. Stick would try to slip out of the room, but his mum would catch his arm and glare at him, and when he opened his mouth to say how stupid the whole thing was she’d raise a hand and say, be nice.

  Stick draped his jeans over the end of the ironing board and started on the shirt. Collar first, then sleeves. Everyone would be there to see them off, buy them a drink, pat them on the back and make jokes
about Spanish birds and not forgetting where home was. Stick nosed the iron around the buttons the way his mum had shown him, and felt a tug of excitement beneath his ribcage.

  Upstairs, he heaved his sports bag onto the bed. He was packed already: clothes, trainers, sunglasses, toothpaste, condoms, passport, money. The map was still on the wall opposite the window, fold lines running left to right, top to bottom. They’d bought it from WH Smith’s in town, spread it out on the table downstairs and drawn on their route with a yellow highlighter: Manchester to Malaga. Mac had wanted to cut it into smaller sheets. You can’t open that up in a car, he’d said, stretching his arms as wide as they’d go. But Stick liked the size of it: the fancy in-and-out of the coastlines; all the roads – orange, green, yellow, blue – like electric wires connecting places up. The sun had faded the highlighter a bit, but he pretty much knew the route off by heart anyway: Manchester — Birmingham — Dover — Calais — Tours — Bordeaux — Bilbao — Madrid — Malaga. And then a load of unpronounceable places along the way: Nordausques — St Omer — Aire-sur-la-Lys — St-Hilaire-Cottes — Lillers. He could close his eyes and trace the route in his head, reciting the place names as he went, like some kind of spell, like the kind of thing his nan might do now she was with Alan, with incense and crystals, feathers and drums.

  Stick took hold of the bottom left-hand corner of the map and pulled it away from the wall. Too fast, a rip across the sea. For a moment, he almost carried on, tearing the whole thing from bottom to top, but he stopped himself and carefully prised the paper from the lumps of Blu-Tack. It refused to fold up the way it was supposed to and he ended up with a fat rectangle that wouldn’t stay closed. He shoved it into the top of the bag, pulled the zip shut and sat down on the bed. The wall looked bare, a faint patch of damp he’d forgotten about, the blobs of Blu-Tack still marking out the shape of the map. We’re leaving, he told himself. We’re really actually properly leaving.

  2

  ‘I’ve got an hour,’ Stick said, as soon as his dad opened the door.