Midnight Blue

by Pauline Fisk

  On a desk by Bonnie’s side lay an open book that had been written in with bold red ink. She picked it up. It was a diary. Under the day's heading, it said, 'Pits are dug. The weather is perfect. Everything is ready. Practice flight tonight.'

  Practice flight of what? Bonnie turned back the page. Her heart pounded again and she felt as if something that really mattered was about to happen. Then, right in front of her, in the same red handwriting, she read, 'A thousand years ago, people knew there was a land beyond the sky. They travelled to it and they came back again… '

  Bonnie looked up through the dome and then back down again to the sunshine on the floor. Deep, deep inside her, in that place that daydreamed wildly about things that couldn't really be, a jigsaw piece fitted into place. Beyond the sky. All her life long, and though she’d never understood quite why, she'd known there was a land beyond the sky. She'd wondered how to get to it and what it was like. Beyond the sky. Not 'in outer space' or 'in another galaxy' but beyond the sky - the way she'd always thought of it, as if it were possible to peel away the edge of the blue and pass straight through.

  The floorboards creaked. Bonnie jumped. The cream cat slid away again and she remembered she was a trespasser in the house of a man who would return. Reluctantly, she put the diary back on the desk, and made her way across the room. She climbed back down into the stuffy greenness of the living-room, and out on to the veranda, and over the cats and away into the wood. She turned once to look at the house, then plunged on to find the hole in the ivy, which she clambered through.

  On the other side, Bonnie leaned against the wall and thought about it all. 'The practice flight tonight…’ 'A land beyond the sky…' Finally she pushed her way back through the hollies towards the tarmac forecourt. She was about to step out of their shade when, like strangers from another world, ancient enemies who hardly matter any more, Grandbag and Doreen appeared at the entrance to the flats. They didn't see her and climbed into their car. Grandbag pumped the engine into life, hooted a sharp goodbye and drove away. Bonnie watched them go. Then, shaking her head as she did after a daydream, she stepped out into the sun, and set her face for home.

  When she got back, it was much as she expected. Maybelle was in the bath, the place she always went when she needed comforting. Bonnie could hear her crying through the steam. She tapped on the bathroom door and said, 'Hello. I'm back.' Then she went into the kitchen and put some lunch on the table.

  Maybelle appeared in a bath towel, with a bright red face and red-rimmed eyes. She glared at Bonnie accusingly and sat down. She picked at her food.

  'Why did you do it?'

  'I don't really know.'

  'Mother wasn't very impressed.'

  'I don't suppose she was.'

  'She says I can't control you.'

  'Perhaps you can't.'

  They stared at each other. Then Maybelle pushed her food aside and sighed. 'Life's too short for this,’ she said. 'Come on, Bonnie. Let's forget it. At least she's gone. Let's go out and buy that paint!'

  Bonnie grinned gratefully. Maybelle disappeared to get herself ready. When she returned, her face was made up and her hair was brushed and shiny. She wore a sundress and high heels. 'We'll make a home for ourselves yet, won't we, Bonnie?' she said.

  Bonnie didn't answer. She was gazing out of the window at the sky.

  'Bonnie?' For all the cheery dressing there was a thin, brittle quality to Maybelle's voice which she always had when Grandbag was around. Bonnie turned her head. She knew with sinking dread what was coming next. 'You do love me, don't you Bonnie?' Maybelle said.

  'Of course I do.'

  'I just wanted to be sure.'

  3

  It was a close, stuffy night. Bonnie tossed on her bed and dreamed of fire. She half woke and lay in a flaming sweat, listening to the distant crackle and roar of the city. Her bedcovers were in a mess on the floor. Her sheet felt hot and moist. She stumbled onto her feet and into the bathroom, splashed her face and neck with tepid water, returned to open the window wider and leaned out.

  Cars passed on the street. Somewhere below her, perhaps among the trees, a pinprick of red light flickered, something sharper and brighter than the neon of the street lights. She looked up into the sky above it. At first she thought that the stars were invisible tonight. But then, as they appeared suddenly and then disappeared again, she realized that it was smoke that was blotting them out as it drifted through the sky.

  The words of the diary came back to Bonnie. 'The weather is perfect. We'll have the practice flight tonight.' She remembered the man breaking dry twigs in the garden next door and stacking them up into a pile, and then she looked back at the red pinprick of light. Not a dream fire, this time. It was a real one.

  Without hesitation, Bonnie dressed and climbed out onto the balcony. A clock chimed four times as she inched past Maybelle's bedroom window. She climbed down the fire-escape and picked her way across the tarmac and among the hollies. When she came to the old wall, she felt for the hole. It took a while but finally she clambered through. The crackling undergrowth beneath her feet and the crunch of leaves as she pushed her way among them seemed very loud in the hush of night. But she pressed on, too curious to care.

  Ahead of Bonnie, a bonfire burned. She could smell woodsmoke and hear its hiss and snap. She crept from tree to tree towards the clearing and at last stood close enough to feel its heat. She peered through the branches and saw something strange, a path of what looked at first like underground light coming from the bonfire. Suddenly she realized it was the dug-out trench. It had been covered, and the smoke and flames were rushing along it from the first pit, where the fire had been made, to the second shallow pit where… where what?

  Bonnie stared, astonished. A dark monster bobbed with its greedy mouth over the shallow pit where the smoke came out. It staggered wildly and drank the smoke greedily, growing bigger as she watched. Bonnie suddenly recognized what it was. It was the cloth that had lain upon the ground. It had become a balloon. Huge poles on either side of it helped to hold it secure with a web of ropes tethering it to the ground. It bobbed at its mooring-place, angry with the tethers, impatient to get away.

  The man appeared. He was fighting with it, trying to keep it down, to keep its mouth over the smoke, to control it. As the balloon filled out, it became harder to hold. Suddenly - from where Bonnie wasn't sure - other figures appeared. Dark like shadows, quick like flickering flames, they grabbed hold of the balloon and struggled with it too.

  Bonnie leaned forward. What was it about those figures? She saw pale hands on the dark cloth of the balloon, eyes glittering in the firelight, bodies darting from side to side. And yet her eyes couldn't hold them properly. Their heads kept turning away and, like the flames, they were quick and light - one minute there, the next gone. Did these strange people, Bonnie wondered, know about the land beyond the sky?

  The man gave a sudden shout. The balloon was as full as a midsummer moon. Its wide open mouth glowed red with heat. It was bursting beneath a sky which began to lighten. They couldn't hold it any more. It had to go.

  As they cut the ropes and the huge poles crashed away on either side, Bonnie realized, surprised, that she'd got it wrong. How had she done that? There was only one shadowy figure working beside the man, racing up and down in the firelight with the speed and strength of ten. One boy pulling a few last dead branches off a tree, tossing them into the last of the fire. One boy.

  'It works,' the man shouted. 'Look at it. It works!'

  The untethered balloon shook free. It went straight up. Somewhere, not far away, a police siren moaned. Bonnie hardly noticed. She looked into the night sky that was turning now to morning. The balloon went up and up into it without wavering, long after the police siren had fallen silent. Up and up into the early morning blue. She watched until it was a dark, lonely inkspot and her neck ached with following it.

  Then Bonnie looked down again. The fire was burning low. The man and the boy were gone. She waited
to see if they would return, but when they didn't she turned to go as well - to rustle back through the dewy grass, and over the wall, and across the tarmac and into her bedroom where she could play with the pieces of the jigsaw in her mind, cast about within herself for understanding.

  'It was a lovely sight, wasn't it?'

  He stood behind her, smoking a cigarette, the man from the house. In the early morning light, she could see his face was dark like a gypsy's and his hair gingery brown, like a ripe nut. His eyes were grey and still and careful. Bonnie’s heart thumped with the sudden shock of his being there, but she didn't run away. Surprised at herself, she said, 'Will it come back?'

  The man shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'It's far too dark.'

  'What?'

  'Midnight blue,' the man said, then added, realizing she didn't understand, 'The sun will keep the air inside hot because the cloth's so dark, and as long as it's hot enough, the balloon goes up.'

  'Oh.' Bonnie looked up again. She couldn't see the balloon any more.

  The man threw down his cigarette, stamped on it. 'Come and sit on the veranda,' he said. 'I'll get us some breakfast and you can tell me what you're doing in my garden.'

  Bonnie gulped uncomfortably. He turned and walked away from her. The choice was suddenly hers, to turn and run away or to follow after him. And yet there hardly seemed any choice at all. There was so much she wanted to know. He climbed onto the veranda and, from behind him, puffing as she caught him up, Bonnie said, 'What happened to the boy? Where did he go?'

  The man stopped. He turned round. There was the strangest expression on his face. 'What did you just say?'

  'Your friend… ' Bonnie faltered uncomfortably. 'You know, the boy who helped you launch that thing.'

  His pause was long enough for Bonnie to wonder if she'd got it wrong again and it hadn't been one boy but, as she'd first thought, many.

  'Sit down,' he said at last, though without answering her. He turned again towards the house. 'I won't be long.'

  Bonnie settled herself on an old sofa in between sleeping cats. The man came out again with a tray full of toast, fruit and hot coffee. He placed it on a little table by her side and pulled up a chair so that he was facing her. He picked up a cat and stroked it lightly, indicated that she should help herself to breakfast, and sat staring at her while she ate. All the while, he ran his fingers down the cat's back and kept his eyes on her face.

  To her surprise, Bonnie found that she had an appetite, that his attention didn't put her off her food. She ate. He waited patiently, as if he had all the time in the world. When she'd finished and pushed the tray away, the man spoke at last.

  'My name's Michael. Tell me about yourself.'

  Bonnie didn't want to tell him anything. She wanted him to do the telling. But it wasn't a question, she realized. It was a demand and she'd intruded in his garden and eaten his breakfast, so she began. He gave her his whole attention and to her surprise the story blossomed. There was something about the way he looked at her, as if he could see what she was saying… She found herself telling him about living with Grandbag because Maybelle couldn't look after her and about getting their own home at long last.

  'You'd like Maybelle,' she said. 'She's really fun. At least, she is when Grandbag isn't around.'

  'What's she like when Grandbag's around?'

  'Well, she can't make up her mind about things and she cries a lot. Things don't seem to work out the way she wants them to and she feels, well, useless, I suppose…'

  Bonnie’s voice trailed off. She hung her head. Gently, Michael changed the subject. 'How did you get into my garden?' he said mildly. 'I keep it locked, you know, and the wall's very high.'

  Bonnie told him about the hole.

  'And why did you come through?' he said.

  Why had she come through? It seemed to burst from her, without her control. 'I... I wanted to know about the land beyond the sky. I read your diary. I know I shouldn't. I know it was wrong. I know you'll be really mad at me. But I couldn't help it. And I'm glad I did, even if you are mad. I've always known inside myself, you see, that there’s a land beyond the sky.'

  The man stopped stroking the cat. He lit another cigarette and drew on it a couple of times. ‘I’m sorry. You must be really cross with me,’ Bonnie said. ‘This is your garden, and I know I’ve got no right.’

  The man didn’t answer.

  'Look, it's light now,’ Bonnie said awkwardly. 'I'll have to go. I don't want Maybelle to know that I've been out. I just hoped you'd tell me how you know for sure…'

  He got up. Threw down the cigarette. 'Come on,' he said.

  'What?'

  'Come on ... '

  He was going to throw her out. Bonnie didn't blame him. She should never have allowed herself to be so easily caught. Now she was for it…

  'It looks as if there's something I'll have to show you.'

  The man wasn't throwing her out. He was marching across the veranda towards the house. Cats were scattering…

  'Don't just stand there,’ he said.

  Bonnie followed him indoors. He brought a big book off a shelf. It was a history of flight with a torn paper cover and yellow-edged pages.

  'There are all sorts of things in here,' he said. He began to thumb through and photos, drawings and diagrams whirred before Bonnie's eyes. 'Here,’ he said, stopping suddenly and stabbing with his finger. 'I found this. It's just a short piece. Read it yourself. Most people would think it was just a story. But I did it. You saw me. I did it tonight. And just like the genie when the lamp is rubbed, the shadowboy appeared.'

  Bonnie looked. There was a picture of a broken shard of pottery with a black balloon on it, and a red fire, and smoke and a soft grey shadow-figure holding a stick with which it poked the fire.

  'Read it,’ said Michael again. 'It proves there’s nothing new under the sun. A thousand years ago – a thousand years - people did what we’ve just done.’

  4

  Bonnie woke. She heard Maybelle's bedroom clock strike nine and she could see that it was bright outside. The door was slightly open and from the kitchen came the sound of the radio and the smell of something cooking, something buttery and sweet and not at all like the burnt toast which was all she'd ever known Maybelle to produce at breakfast time.

  Bonnie sighed. She wasn't hungry. She remembered breakfast on Michael's veranda and creeping home in the early light, back through the open window and into her bed. And then she remembered the rest - the ancient secrets Michael had unlocked, of flight and more than flight, of the land beyond the waving curtains of the sky, of the shed full of more blue cloth, mountains of bigger, fresh balloon that waited for the real launch tonight…

  Maybelle stuck her head round the door. She wore an uncharacteristic apron. 'Wake up,' she said. 'Breakfast's ready. We've got a lot to do today.’

  'I'm not hungry,' Bonnie said.

  ‘But I’ve made pancakes,’ Maybelle replied.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m on my way.’

  When Bonnie entered the kitchen, Maybelle was sliding pancakes onto plates. She was slightly flustered, obviously not used to such early morning efforts. The recipe book was propped up on the shelf beside the stove. A chaos of pans and bowls lay all around her and piled up in the sink. The window was open and smoke was drifting out of it. But the radio sang and Maybelle hummed along with it. And the pancakes were crisp and curly on the edges and soft and brown in the middle where the sugar had been sprinkled.

  Bonnie sat down, found her appetite and ate. All the while, Maybelle hovered attentively.

  'You do like them, don't you? Are they warm enough? Are they nice and light? Would you like some more sugar? We could have them every day, you know.'

  When she'd finished, Maybelle said, 'Do you realize, this is the first proper day of our life together? Isn't that exciting? Come on, let's get going.'

  'Get going with what?' Bonnie eyed the dishes unenthusiastically.

  'With this,' Maybelle said,
and she hauled the pots of red and yellow paint out of the cupboard. 'We'll get it all done today you know, if we make an early start.'

  Bonnie'd forgotten all about the plan to decorate her bedroom.

  'I've been waiting for this day for years,' Maybelle said. 'Our own home. Isn't it wonderful?'

  She hauled the paint down the hall and into Bonnie's room. Then she began covering everything in ragged sheets and shouting for brushes. 'Can you bring the radio?' she called, and started attacking the nearest bit of wall with big, carefree brush strokes.

  Bonnie brought the radio and plugged it in. It was a hot day already and she pushed the window open as wide as it would go. Across the tarmac, she saw the hollies. They were thick and wild and she couldn't see anything of the house behind. It was hard to get excited about painting a bedroom when she thought of what would happen over there tonight.

  Maybelle began to sing along with the radio. She bopped up and down. She'd already covered half a wall. There were paint spots on the carpet, but she carried on regardless and didn't seem to care.

  'We can get them off afterwards. Bonnie, take the red. Make a start on the cupboard door.'

  Bonnie found a little brush and a red pot of paint and began. The room began to look remarkably lively. She couldn't resist a twinge of pride. 'I told you red and yellow would look good together,' she said.

  They paused for lunch. They'd finished one whole coat, all the way round. Maybelle said they'd let it dry for an hour. It was so hot, it wouldn't take long. Incongruously, she started talking about Christmas plans. It was hard to imagine Christmas with the windows open and the sun beating through them.