by Peter Twohig
We waited on that wharf for half an hour, until it was obvious that the captain had not forgotten anything he needed to come back for, then we left. Flame Boy was back to his usual quiet self, but it was the kind of quiet that felt bad, like the quiet that settles on the playground when the bully turns up out of the blue (not that that was a problem for me anymore). I recognised this particular brand of quiet because the same one had come over me just before I took an axe to Dr Stern’s torture machine last year, after he used it to electrocute Flame Boy’s brain.
Where Flame Boy was concerned, I had a history, one that I did not brag about. Though we were not friends we were fellow superheroes, and that’s enough. There’s a code. I’m sorry, but there it is. Flame Boy had only tried to torch the fat copper’s house last year because he saw him shoot my dog. Despite the best of intentions, on the day he actually got his addresses mixed up and burnt down the pub next door by mistake. But his heart was in the right place. I don’t hold small errors of judgement against him. Hell, I wouldn’t have known where to put the first match, so I’m not qualified to criticise. And besides, we’re talking about a certifiable lunatic here.
As for our house, I was reluctant to blame Flame Boy entirely. That particular bonfire had God’s handiwork written all over it. Apparently, he still had not finished doing his block at the Blayney family. God uses whatever is at hand his wonders to perform, a bit like a psycho in an axe factory. This time is was Flame Boy, who could no more control his actions than a wind-up duck could. And anyway, I liked Granddad’s house better.
As we went back to the station I saw Aunty D sitting on a seat on the far side of the pier, watching us, waiting. She had a thoughtful face on, and made no movement. Her crinkly hair was moving a bit around the edges, and I wondered if it was because a sea breeze had kicked up, or because her hair doubled as a kind of radar antenna for kids on the run. She was a bit frazzled, I realised — I had become an expert. But she was not letting it get her down. This was how she had worn the Japs down. She hadn’t won the DSO for nothing. She was a stayer.
45 Flame Boy spits the dummy
I let Flame Boy hang around with me as I bought a ticket, and took him back to Flinders Street. But he was not the same Flame Boy I had come to know. He had gone within himself to ponder the ways of the world, though I could have told him that he would be none the wiser after he had waded through all that ponder and would only ruin a good pair of shoes.
If I tried to grab him by the shirt, he shrugged me off as if I had ringworm. If I spoke to him, he told me to shut up, which I thought was fair. I looked back as we left, but there was no Aunty D: she had caught our train, like a World War II resistance fighter. She probably even knew how to blow the train up if she felt like it.
At the entrance to Flinders Street Station I smelt lavender, and realised Aunty D was right behind us; but I didn’t care. If she wanted to collar Flame Boy and drag him back to our place, that was all right with me. I had run out of puff. But suddenly, he took off like a rocket and shot across the road to the Batman Avenue Tram Terminus and jumped on a tram. He was going to Richmond. I let him go. For some reason, I thought Aunty D would too, but she stepped up beside me and said: ‘Where the hell is he going?’ And I realised she was not familiar with the tram system in Melbourne.
‘Dunno. Richmond, I s’pose. All those trams go to Richmond.’
I had thought for a minute I would never see him again. And in a kind of haze of relief, I assumed that Aunty D was thinking the same thing. But I should have known better.
It was like the Saturday I was out and about with Granddad, and we finished up at Flemington, which we often did, and thought we’d, or at least I’d, trust to fortune, which was one of Barney’s expressions, as Granddad’s whole life was based on not trusting, either to fortune, or to anything else. And the strangest thing happened. We ran into a punter who owed Granddad a tenner, and Granddad muttered to me: ‘Here we go.’
But the punter, George Someoneorother, said: ‘Arch, mate. Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Yeah. G’day, brother.’
And before you could say: ‘So, George, what about that brick you owe me?’ George put his hand in his pocket and shoved a tenner at Granddad on the quiet, so that no one could see he was flush.
‘Here, Arch, take it, quick before I change me mind, and thanks, mate; yer saved me bacon.’
‘It’s a pleasure, George. So which horse paid?’
‘A sweet little filly called Baccarat.’
‘Just remember, cobber: the house always wins in the end.’
‘Only for the drongos, Arch. See ya.’
‘And there goes one of ’em,’ said Granddad to me, as George walked off.
Half an hour later a bloke who bought his clothes at the same shop as George ran into us and pulled the same stunt, giving Granddad a handful of notes.
‘There’s a guinea in there for the bank, Arch. Buy the boy a present. God bless you.’
‘That was nice of him, Granddad, asking God to bless us. Is he a priest or something?’ For Granddad had told me your man of the cloth likes nothing better than to put on his lucky green checked jacket and become a punter for the day.
‘No, boy, just another drongo. But still, it was lucky we ran into him.’
And then, as the arvo wore on and we were just about to leave, another bloke came up to Granddad, a bloke dressed in a very smart suit and tie and shiny shoes. He was a large bloke and wheezed as he spoke, but on the whole he was happy to see Granddad, though I noticed neither of them made a move to shake hands.
‘Mr Taggerty, as I live and breathe. What a stroke of luck. Saves me sending my bloke around to pay you what I owe you for the furniture. Made a nice profit. Thanks for helping me out; I won’t forget it.’ He winked at me. ‘But then, I don’t suppose you’ll forget it, either.’ He handed a wallet to Granddad. ‘It’s all there.’ He looked around. ‘Any more furniture comes your way, don’t forget your mates.’
The bloke with no name ruffled my hair — it was the kind of hair that no respectable hair ruffler could resist — and disappeared into the crowd, and off we went.
‘Aren’t yer going to look in the wallet, Granddad?’
‘No need, boy. There’s never any need. He’s an old customer.’
I remember that day because it was as if everyone in Melbourne who owed Granddad a dollar was out and about saying: ‘Now where can I find that Taggerty rascal, to pay him the million quid I owe him?’
I remember because Granddad laughed as we went through the exit, and I said to him, ‘Penny for ’em, Granddad.’
And he said, ‘I never thought I’d see all that money again.’
And now I was thinking the same thing about Flame Boy. But then I realised that, even though I had finally accepted that he was a lost cause, I couldn’t turn my back on him just like that, and I couldn’t turn my back on the good citizens of Richmond, who were unaware of the monster heading in their direction, hungry for something to kick, or worse.
‘Is he going to your place?’ asked Aunty D, demonstrating a complete ignorance of the history of the case.
‘He doesn’t know where we moved to. Anyway, he knows Mum’d murder him if he showed his face there.’
Flame Boy was going to torch something, and it could, as the Sandersons had said, be their house, which was where Zac the Wonder Dog was currently having a well-earned rest. Or it could be Raffi’s house, or the Camponis’ or the Espositos’. Or perhaps, I imagined, it could be the Fosters’ house! Delicious, but too guilt-producing. Reluctantly, after five seconds of sheer bloody enjoyment, I let the idea drop.
And then with a thrill of horror that ran down my legs and into my runners, like hot pee, I realised that if Flame Boy had followed me before, he might have followed me again, even across the river to Mona’s place. Her house was one of those old ones that could go up in a couple of minutes flat, and her dog was one of those silly Dalmatians that would think Flame Boy had come to p
lay.
Suddenly, I hated all Dalmatians. Why the hell couldn’t she have a dog that hated firebugs, or one that hated everyone, like a German shepherd? And if Mona got killed, who would pash me? Not Josephine Thompson: hadn’t Mona told me that she had no idea who I was? And what would I tell the priest in Confession? It was my fault, Father, that Mona died in the fire, and what was worse, she was the best kisser I’d ever met, and stuck out in front like a film star? That’d get lots of laughs in the old confessional. I had to stop him. The Spirit of Progress swung into action!
‘I think he’s going to torch something.’
‘Shit! What?’
‘Something important.’ I grabbed her hand. ‘C’mon. We have to follow him.’
‘What, on a tram?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Bugger that for a joke!’
Aunty D flung her arm out across the road and let out a whistle that would’ve attracted the twenty nearest pie-boys at a footy match. A Yellow Cab pulled up and she bundled me in. She pointed down Batman Avenue.
‘Follow that tram,’ she yelled in his ear.
The taxi driver turned around. ‘Strewth! There’s no need to deafen a man. Why don’t you catch a tram, if it’s not a stupid question?’
Aunty D was getting nowhere.
I looked at the driver’s badge.
‘Alec, my brother just got on that tram by accident. He’s mentally retarded and we have to keep an eye on him. He likes trams. You can drop us wherever he gets off.’
‘Why didn’t ya say so?’ said Alec, calmly, pressing down his horn and doing a right turn into Batman Avenue in front of two lanes of traffic and another two lanes of trams.
Under owner’s riding instructions, we got the driver to drive past a few trams until we spotted Flame Boy, then we gave the driver the office. Then we played the waiting game that had made both me and Aunty D famous.
At Church Street he suddenly appeared on the side of the road, then got the jump on us and left us for dead at the two-furlong post, catching a Malvern tram. He was going south, towards our old home territory.
‘He’s heading for the river, Alec. Stick with him,’ I said. And Alec did.
By the time we made the right turn he was well away, but within sight. I began to worry that he was indeed going to cross the river, when he suddenly jumped off the tram at Kipling Street. It was an inelegant getting-off, one that I would never have done. I didn’t know which way to look.
‘Stop!’ I shouted at Alec, and swung open the door on the driver’s side, taking ten years off the life of a two-tone yellow Vauxhall Victor driver. Bloody Vauxhalls — don’t get me started.
Flame Boy was well on the way to the winner’s circle by the time I had got my bearings. What I saw as I looked across Church Street frightened me half to death. Flame Boy was running into the main entrance of Bryant & May’s match factory.
I hurried, but I could see that the security bloke was having a barney with a truck driver about the price of fish and hadn’t noticed the Boy of Mystery slip by, not that Flame Boy was sneaking or anything. In fact he was being about as sneaky as Audie Murphy taking on a whole company of Jerries with a machine gun. But no one saw him, and he disappeared into the depths of the factory.
When I crossed the road and tried to follow suit, it was nothing doing.
‘Where the hell d’ya think you’re goin’?’
The truth, Blayney, tell the bloody truth, mate!
‘Me mum’s having a baby … right now, at home, and I have to get Dad!’
‘Jesus, what’s his name?’
‘Can’t stop!’
I ran like hell into the nearest door off the road that led into the factory. Inside were corridors and offices. I ran down a few corridors, heading for the back of the factory, where we had started our open day guided tour. There were noises around me, but I wasn’t aware of anyone shouting Stop that flaming kid! except behind me, and when you’re a kid you get used to that.
At the back of the building there was nowhere to go but upstairs, and as I took to the stairs I heard a gaggle of ladies going troppo at something on the next floor up. When I got there, everything was going: the machines, the smelly chemicals, the ladies in their fireproof overalls and funny hats, making matches like they were going out of style, and the lovely noises of things going bang and grind and punch and cut and chickachickachicka. The factory had gone from dead to alive, like a giant mechanical zombie. There was wall to wall to ceiling action. It was breathtaking. The Spirit of Progress was in love with the match factory.
Meanwhile Flame Boy had climbed a steel ladder up to a long walkway above everything, and had started kicking everything in sight, which couldn’t have been easy, as everything in sight was made out of metal.
‘I hate you,’ he was shouting, over and over, losing all sense of the subtlety and grace that is the mark of the superhero. He was losing his superheroness and turning into something else. Had any of my superhero friends been there, perhaps Wonder Woman, who was in my eyes some kind of Queen of the Superheroes for reasons I can’t even explain — perhaps it was the way she sometimes shushed her husband, Ken, when he was about to say something, despite him being a nasty piece of work — I might have nodded in Flame Boy’s direction and shaken the lemon knowingly, as if to say, ‘Now there goes your busted, worn-out superhero. Let that be a lesson to you, Lesley.’ (Except for the Lesley bit.) It was like watching a raging plasticine monster melt in the sun and turn into a grey puddle.
By this time ladies were backing away from their machines, which were still making thousands and thousands of matches like mad and spitting them out all over the place like machine guns, because no one was doing anything about them. Mum suddenly appeared to my left and took in the situation – I think that’s what she would have called it – and, spotting me, made that ‘keep back’ motion that traffic cops are famous for. Then blokes started coming in and shouting and climbing up to the walkway towards Flame Boy, ignoring me completely. But something happened that stopped them dead in their tracks, the way you stop when you’re at the circus and the bloke is about to stick his scone into the lion’s mouth, and you were halfway to getting another handful of popcorn. Everyone stops. The popcorn stays put. And the thing that stopped these blokes stone cold in their tracks was that Flame Boy had produced a box of matches and taken one out. And lit it.
Tom and I were once playing match factories and getting a shoebox ready to burn, when Mum came along and asked us what we were doing.
‘Nothin’ Mum,’ we said, at the same time. ‘Hey, Mum, what happens if the match factory catches on fire?’
‘We have a fire drill, which we practise all the time. We all line up and go outside where it’s safe. And then the sprinkler system comes on, and water gets sprinkled all over the factory floor, to put out the fire. And all the machines shut down. And the fire brigade is called. And that way, there is no danger to anyone and everyone remains completely calm at all times.’
I swear on my dead cat’s skull that’s what she said. But on the day, when Flame Boy lit that match, none of those things happened. I think Mum would have been better off doing what kids always do and just making something up. Then she might have said: ‘God knows — probably complete bloody pandemonium.’ Because that’s exactly what happened.
Any tick of the clock I expected Flame Boy to throw his lighted match into the big match-making machine, and then, when the flames shot up around him, to spread his arms like James Cagney in White Heat and say, ‘Made it, Ma! Top of the world!’ But he started moving along the big metal walkway he was on, heading round the other side of the factory, back towards us. His match burnt his fingers and went out. He lit another. His face was pained and desperate, confused, just like the first time I ever saw him, when his mother slashed his legs with a fork for trying to burn their house down. I shouldn’t have been there then, and I shouldn’t have been there now. But I recognised that Flame Boy could be subdued. His rage was not infinite.
As he rounded the near corner of the factory and faced us, I called to him.
‘Keith —’
‘I told you —’
‘Sorry. Torch, the briefcase is here. Your dad hasn’t left.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. My mum has it.’
‘What’s she doing with it?’
‘I gave it to her to look after.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In her cupboard in her office. Isn’t it, Mum?’
Mum now had a wild look on her face like Jane when she realised Tarzan could speak to Cheetah in Chimpanzee. Beside her was Aunty D, looking like that warrior queen who kicked the shit out of the Romans, with her steel-wool hair and her flaming red dress.
‘What blood —?’
‘Say yes, Mum. He wants it.’
Mum had given up by now, and had the look of a kid who knows he has just failed the Latin test he thought he was going to fail anyway, and should have listened to his Uncle Mervin and gone to the Tech.
‘Yes, Keith. I have the briefcase. It’s in my office. If you come down I’ll give it to you. Come on, it’s all right.’ She was pretty good at the bulldust thing once she got the hang of it.
Flame Boy hurried to a set of metal steps and made his way down, holding a fresh match in one elevated hand and a matchbox in the other. He trotted towards us like Ron Clarke.
‘I’ll do it!’ was his new catchcry. It wasn’t until this point that the crowd began to work out that this was not just some cheeky little larrikin pretending to put the wind up them in his loveable, boyish way, but the kid the papers had called the Torch!
Yes, the Torch! (Alias Flame Boy.) A strange being from just down near the River, with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal kids. The Torch! Who incinerates cars, trams, houses, timber yards, factories, and pubs — and assists at barbecues. And who, with his magic box of Redheads, fights a never-ending battle for a world in which every kid can be free to set fire to whatever he wants … within limits. No! Bugger the limits!