The Burning Boy by Nicola White

Author:Nicola White [White, Nicola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

Swan stood among the evacuated clubbers and watched the fire progress. They had been pushed back to halfway down the lane, behind a makeshift barrier, but the firemen made no effort to disperse them, being fully occupied. Paddy, the female impersonator, was at his side, with Swan’s jacket over his shoulders for the slight chill in the air. He stood in his ripped tights on a square of cardboard that someone had fetched for him, but refused further offers of clothing from the small crowd, who all appeared to revere him.

Swan now revered him too.

Stuck up on that ladder, with only air below them, Paddy had filled his lungs and bellowed, loud as a car horn. Swan had joined in, for there were no cunning tricks left, no intelligent strategies, just animal howling. And they came – pale beams whisking through the yard below them, an endless clattering of ladders, then rescue in the form of pale-helmeted men approaching from the gloom, guiding them to the ground rung by rung. The moment Swan’s soles struck the solidity of concrete, his knees had started to shake uncontrollably.

But now he had a hold of himself. Shocked sober and more wide-awake than he had been in months.

It was hard to leave the spectacle of the fire. The warehouse adjacent to the gay centre was also alight, and sparks fountained from the roofs and windows in a hypnotic way. A cumulus column of black smoke slanted into the night sky, south towards the Castle. Even though he stood at a distance, fragments of burnt paper and smuts floated down on his hair and shoulders like dark snow.

Around him, people were either weeping – We could have been killed – or outraged – The bastards can’t even let us have one fucking building. One dangerous kip.

The ground beneath their feet rumbled as another wall inside one of the buildings collapsed.

As far as Swan knew, there were no flats in this street, it was all commercial property or abandoned, but a pair of firemen were knocking on doors and shining their torches over grimy windows. One panned his beam over the row of watchers, stopping at Swan.

‘Didn’t we fish you off that ladder? G’wan home, man.’

Swan reached for his inside pocket to show his badge, but he wasn’t wearing his jacket. Of course he wasn’t. He turned to Paddy, who had clasped his hands under his chin, like someone praying. The light of the flames was reflected in his doleful eyes, and the dried mascara-tears on his cheeks made him look like some strange icon.

‘I need my jacket back.’

‘And you can take your girlfriend with you,’ the fireman muttered as he walked away, low enough for only Swan to hear.

He wanted to grab the man, wipe the smirk off his face, but Paddy was handing the jacket back with a wry smile, and it suddenly seemed crass to be taking on a fight that wasn’t truly his. Or was it?

There was another roar of falling masonry from the burning buildings.

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