The more quiet the season, however, the more eager the people were for an excuse to flock out of their houses, and by seven o’clock on Guy Fawkes’ Night the dark street was astir with activity. There had been rain during the day, and many families watched from the shelter of their doorways. The youngsters braved the damp chill wind and the muddy puddles on the building site to gather round the bonfire.
The wood was wet. Dark figures hurried to and fro across the road with fresh combustibles. The screaming and scampering of children rose above the general murmur. Whenever a new piece of timber was flung on to the reluctant fire a great burst of sparks would shoot up into the night; but the sparks would die, leaving the darkness deeper than before, and the bonfire remained a black, smoking heap, with only a feeble smoulder of red at its heart. Occasionally a rocket would rush up over the rooftops, or the flash and detonation of a ‘Little Demon’ would make the girls shriek with mock fright, but most people were keeping their fireworks until the fun was more obviously under way.
Barmy Naughton wandered in the crowd with a paper bag full of fireworks under his arm. He had looked forward to this event for weeks. Mick had bought him the fireworks, and had given him the evening off, taking on another barman in his place. For weeks there had gathered in him all that agonising and immense happiness which unhappy people enjoy in their rare moments of relief. It had reached a pitch that was almost beyond endurance. Now, in a few seconds, this swelling store of emotion had been transmuted back into a misery more terrifying than he had ever undergone and, still growing upon itself, had become entirely unbearable.
A half-hour ago he had hurried to the Wakerells’ house to call for his one friend, Jack. Barmy was as frightened of the crowd as a maltreated animal. Among people, his loneliness was the greater, unless he had a friend, a protector, who could lift the burden of fear from him and through whose presence he could enter into the common spirit. But Jack, his last friend, had opened the door on him angrily; had listened impatiently to his eager babble; had said, “Be a good chap, leave us alone now, run away, go on”; and when he had protested, Jack had shouted, “For cryin’ out loud, blow! Go on, beat it! You’re more trouble than you’re worth, and I’m bloody fed up with you!” Jack had slammed the door in his face, and the slam of the door had killed the last seeds of hope in Barmy. It was the door of life that had finally shut upon him. For the first time his despair was absolute; as freezing and inescapable as if the earth had spat him out into space, condemning him to fall for ever through an infinite star-sprinkled darkness. The crowd had become a collection of unrecognizable beings. He shambled past people, and their smiles and greetings could not reach him.
He could see Jack now, standing on the other side of the fire, hands in the pockets of his raincoat, talking to Elsie Cakebread and looking about him as if seeking someone. Whenever Jack’s head turned his way Barmy skulked out of sight. More people were coming across the road. Joyce Wakerell and her father were standing on the edge of the pavement with Mr. and Mrs. Cogger. A rowdy procession of children arrived with a guy, which they carried on a crude litter made of an old kitchen chair and two poles. They set it down near the fire and put finishing touches to the effigy. One brought an old trilby hat to perch on its head; another a pipe to stick in its mouth. Elsie Cakebread rushed forward and arranged a Roman Candle between the legs of its trousers in a way that provoked shouts of laughter. Her husband called, “Trust my Else to make the sparks fly,” to which she replied at the top of her voice, “You keep quiet! I’ve never had no fireworks out of you!”
The clamour in the street increased. The crowd grew. Voices, movement, the intermittent glare of the fire as the flames began to take hold, the more and more frequent explosions of fireworks and fountains of coloured fire, generated an atmosphere of carnival. Attracted by the noise, a large contingent came pouring out of The Lamb, where they had been putting in an hour’s preparatory drinking. With Bernie Whiteflower at their head and Gus Woodruff alongside playing his piano-accordion, they came down the street bawling a local ballad —
One Sunday over the Lea,
My feller he done it on me.
He done it once, he done it twice,
And then he had the cheek to say it was nice —
while the girls in the procession whooped and linked arms in a high-kicking dance. Gloom and quiet were gone from the street; the evening was now under way.
Barmy lingered on the fringes of the group that surrounded the guy. Children swarmed round him, shouting greetings and pawing at the parcel of fireworks he carried. Barmy clutched the parcel defensively to his breast, slapped at the outstretched hands and snarled at the children. They drew back, intimidated by his glaring eyes and by the unexpected hostility of his manner. A small boy shouted, ‘Mingy bleeder, won’t give us no fireworks,’ and charged at Barmy’s legs. Others followed, and in a moment Barmy was struggling in their midst. Horrified parents dragged their children away, slapping them and asking loudly where their manners were. Some of Barmy’s fireworks had been snatched away; others were trampled in the mud. Mr. Bates, who had just informed his son that he would have the skin off his backside if he didn’t behave, picked up a few that looked as if they might still be usable and offered them to Barmy, saying, “’Ere y’are, boy. You know what kids are. You don’t want to take no notice.” Barmy glowered at him and slunk away without a word, hiding under his jacket the torn bag and the few fireworks that remained to him. A boy began to chant, “Barmy Naughton is no good, chop him up for firewood,” and others took up the cry. Barmy stumbled away among the knots of people near the fire, pursued by a handful of children who kept up their chant.
A rowdy debate was in progress about the naming of the guy. Bernie Whiteflower suggested, with much support from those round him, that it should represent an acid-bath murderer whose trial was a favourite topic of conversation at the time. Someone else shouted, “Old Attlee,” and was answered with a cry from the darkness of, “What about old Churchill?” Boris Karloff, Sidney Stanley, Joe Stalin, the rent collector, Frank Sinatra, Jack Doyle and Old Mother Riley were nominated, with yells of, “’Ear, ’ear,” and “Git aht of it” creating a background of babble in which each successive suggestion was drowned. Bernie and Gus hoisted the guy up by its poles and carried it towards the bonfire. Mr. Bates’s boy, who had appeared again in the forefront of the crowd, called, “’Ere, wait a minute,” ran alongside and stood a large square of white cardboard in the guy’s lap. People crowded in to see what was written on it. Bernie and Gus deposited the guy on the summit of the bonfire, and as they drew back someone emptied a can of paraffin across the smouldering mound. A white sheet of flame flashed up into the air, and in its light there could be read, daubed in thick charcoal strokes, the name BARMY.
Elsie Cakebread screeched, “It’s Barmy,” and the information passed back, in a confusion of voices, into the gloom of the street. Among most of the people who were wandering about or standing in little groups there was no response. Their vague murmuring and chattering continued at the same pitch as before. Someone said, “Ah, leave him alone,” and there were mutters of assent in the darkness. Along the street the rhythm of strolling footsteps continued, punctuated by the intermittent bang and flash of fireworks. In the small but dense crowd of younger people around the bonfire a different atmosphere prevailed. Excited by the heat and the leaping glare of the flames they howled, “Good ol’ Barmy!” “Take a bow, Barmy!” “Burn, you bastard!” “Warm enough, Barmy?” An inner fringe of small boys, their ferocity increasing as the flames climbed and crackled, chanted, “Barmy Naughton is no good, chop him up for firewood.”
Barmy, standing with his back to the fire, felt hemmed in by the faces crowding out of the night. All the faces, red in the flickering glare, were grinning, their open mouths baying malice at him. Beyond them was a shadowy darkness in which he could neither see nor hear any sign of a friendly, living world. He shrieked, with the terror-driven force of a child left alone in the d
ark, “Jack! Jack! Jackie!” No friendly face appeared in the circle around him. Over his own voice their shouting came to him, “Get your chestnuts roasted, Barmy!” “Guy, guy, stick him up on high!” “Why don’t you get up there wiv ’im, Barmy?” “Burn, you bastard, burn!” The flames were beginning to catch at the guy’s clothing. Barmy cried, “You’re killing him! Let him live! Leave him alone!” Laughter swept back at him. He faced the fire, his head lowered, his arm across in front of his eyes. More laughter. He leaped through the flames at the base of the fire, fell forward on to the burning timbers and began to claw his way up towards the guy. The laughter stopped and a highpitched outcry of alarm surged back through the crowd. People rushed forward and stopped helplessly at the foot of the fire. Barmy, bellowing with pain, was dragging at the feet of the guy. His clothes were catching fire. The onlookers caught a terrifying glimpse of his blackened, death’s-head face, with the eyes full of firelight shining out of it. Bernie Whiteflower roared, “Come on!” and plunged into the fire. Jack Agass, who had been pushing his way through the crowd in response to Barmy’s appeal, flung aside a wailing woman who blocked his path and went crashing in after Bernie. Some of the younger men took heart and began to pull burning timbers away, while other people shouted useless suggestions and others scurried about calling for water, for the police, for the fire brigade. Others came running to see what the hubbub was about. Barmy, grinning with pain and hatred at the crowd, screamed something unintelligible; then the charred wood gave way beneath his feet and his body crashed waist-deep into the heart of the fire. A last terrible cry died suddenly, as a great gout of sparks shot up into the sky and burning fragments showered down upon Jack and Bernie. All this had happened in the space of perhaps four seconds.
Jack, scrambling over red-hot timbers, felt the scorching buffet of a flame and half-leaped, half-toppled back, clutching at Bernie Whiteflower’s leg as he fell. He was sprawling in the mud at the foot of the bonfire, aware of little but the pain in his hands and the fact that Bernie’s weight had become inert. He shouted for aid and dragged Bernie clear. Others helped him to roll Bernie over on the wet ground and to beat out the glowing, smouldering patches in Bernie’s clothes. Jack sat up. Bernie lay moaning with his hands over his face. Jack muttered, “Where’s Barmy?’’ His nostrils were full of the smell of burning hair and cloth. The pain in his hands had increased, and his legs also hurt. He felt dazed and unable to make a complete picture of all that was happening as people hurried to and fro, blazing planks were flung aside, voices screamed, chattered and shouted, bells clanged, an ambulance came lurching on to the site, a fire engine drew up in the kerb, helmeted men raced past with hoses, a jet of water roared past his ears, a great cloud of steam, full of floating ash, rolled over him and vanished, the glare died and the darkness thickened. People swarmed round him in the gloom. He felt the tug of a knife as the legs of his trousers were slit open. Some cool and easing substance was being applied to his burned skin. A voice filtered into his dizzy brain, “You’ve come off light, my lad, there’s not much wrong with you —” and in what sounded like an aside, “— It’s only his hands and calves. His face isn’t touched. How’s the other one?” He tried to grasp what was happening, but the effort only brought a new wave of giddiness. Firemen were crashing through the smoking, dark remnants of the bonfire, dragging something forth. There was a revolting smell in the air. He could hear men whispering and women whimpering, and one voice saying, “Oh, my God!”
He mumbled again, “Where’s Barmy?” Nobody answered.
A policeman was bending over him. “Can you stand up, old son?” He tried to raise himself, and felt sick. He heard a calm feminine voice, “Leave him alone a minute.” A cool hand rested on the back of his neck, and another held a mug of water to his lips. Bernie Whiteflower was being carried past on a stretcher. Jack sipped at the water and vomited. The hand at the back of his neck pressed his head forward till it was between his knees. “That’s right, Jackie dear, bring it up.” The voice was Joyce’s. He felt relieved, and turned his face up like a child’s while she wiped his mouth with her handkerchief. His memory had not yet begun to function, and there seemed nothing remarkable about her presence. He heard her voice again, “He doesn’t want any stretchers. He can walk. Come on, dear, ups-a-daisy.” He rose obediently, swayed and put his arm round Joyce’s shoulders. The ambulance, with Bernie aboard, went clanging away. Joyce said — her voice still seemed distant — “We’ll follow on in the police car.”
He moved his lips and at last managed to express, a coherent thought. “Where?”
“To the hospital,” she replied.
He said, “Don’ wanna go no hospital. I’m all right.”
She steadied him as he sagged against her. “There! It’s just to make sure. They won’t keep you in.” People pressed close.
Their voices came to him without meaning. Joyce helped him into the car. A policeman shut the door and climbed in at the front next to the driver. A blur of faces moved backwards past the windows. He sighed, and leaned back against the cushions. Joyce sat at his side without speaking. Jack looked at her. His mind had cleared, and he wondered what significance to attach to her presence. He wanted to ask her but did not dare. His breathing quickened, and the brief grunt which he uttered at each exhalation betrayed his pain.
Joyce said, “Lean on me, you’ll feel better.”
He looked at her again. Her face was composed, her expression prim. He put his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. She put her arm round him. He felt warm and comfortable in her embrace. The pain remained, but it seemed to have become detached from his real self. He was not conscious of the car, or of the policemen sitting in front, or of the journey; only of the pressure of her arm and the noise of his own heavy breathing.
They reached the hospital, and Joyce accompanied him into the casualty department. His hands were bandaged, and some minor burns were treated on his legs below the knees. A doctor suggested that he should stay the night and go home in the morning. Before he could answer, Joyce said quickly, “No, he’d rather go home now, if you don’t mind. I’ll take him.” The doctor agreed, handed Joyce some sedative tablets and told Jack when to come back for fresh dressings. A nurse brought tea. Jack and Joyce each took a cup. As Jack sipped, he glanced guiltily at Joyce. She returned a candid, serene look as if she did not see any meaning in his regard. He tried an ingratiating smile. A slight severity crept into her expression. She said calmly, “Are you feeling better?”
He nodded, and asked, “Where’s Barmy?”
“We’ll find out,” she said. “Don’t worry now.”
Mick Monaghan came into the room. “Ah, here you are,” he said. “They tell me you’re fine and dandy. I came in the ambulance with Bernie and his missus. I’ve just been upstairs in the ward with them.”
Jack asked, “Is he bad?”
“It caught his face and body a bit, but he’s in no danger. He’ll be out in a week or two.”
“Where’s Barmy?”
Mick’s eyes, lit by brilliant points of anger so that they seemed almost to be smiling, studied Jack for a few seconds. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Jack shivered. “Oh, Gawd!”
Joyce said sharply, “Leave him alone, Mick, he’s had enough for one night.”
“He’s a big boy now,” Mick said. “He’s been through more than this in his time, haven’t you, soldier?”
Jack nodded. “Poor old Barmy! What an end!”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Both Jack and Joyce were surprised by the savage levity in Mick’s voice. “He’d probably call it cushy. Well, don’t look so shocked! It was no worse than he suffered every day of his life, near enough, for the last thirty years. And through the same lot, too.” He laughed, and went on more loudly and harshly. “I bet they buy him a hell of a fine wreath! You know, when I first saw what had happened, I was fit to shoot the lot of ’em. ‘Bastards,’ I thought, ‘You’ve done for him at last.’ And then I thought, �
��Well, maybe they’ve done the poor devil a favour. He’s out of their reach now. Perhaps he even knew what he was doing.’ Funny, isn’t it? I’d have stopped him if I could. So would you. But he wouldn’t have thanked us for it. Ah —” He made an impatient movement of his head. “Why be soft? He’s well out of it. And may the Lord have more mercy on his soul than the blasted human race ever did!”
Jack and Joyce finished their tea without speaking.
Mick said, “I’ve got a taxi waiting. I’ll take you home.”
None of them spoke on the return journey. Joyce sat apart from Jack, placid and upright, with her hands in her lap. Lamb Street was quiet, with groups of people standing about talking softly. As they stepped out of the cab neighbours hurried towards them, but Mick and Joyce helped Jack quietly into the house and shut the door behind them.
Mr. and Mrs. Wakerell, who had been waiting on the doorstep, hovered around them in the hall. “Thank God you’re back,” Mrs. Wakerell quavered, “I wanted to follow on, but this one —” she indicated her husband — “wouldn’t let me. Are you all right, Jackie dear?”
“Leave him alone,” Joyce said. “He’s all right. Have you lit the fire in his room? All right, never mind, I’ll do it. No, don’t you come up. You make a cup of tea for Mick. Could you eat a bit, Jack? Try, I know you feel sick, but it’ll do you good. All right, just a cup of hot milk then. Dad, you bring up some sticks and coal.”
Rosie Hogarth Page 31