Fire in the Whole Wide World
By carpo
- 514 reads
Fire in the Whole Wide World
It was my brother who had given the woods the name. At the end of our
road, there was a dirt track which had the misleading name of Sandy
Lane and which led down to a gypsy campsite. It ran along the edge of a
small hill which was crowned by a cluster of trees and bushes. A little
while after we had moved into the house, our dad had taken both of us
up the hill along a well trodden path that wove between thick fern and
browning bracken under the shade of towering pines, oaks and silver
birches. When we reached the summit, we had looked out over the far
side of the hill which sloped down into an open area adorned with
shrubbery and moss. The skyline was hidden by a thick band of treetops,
a canopy of bubbly green. We were both open-mouthed.
"Wow," said Paul. "You can see the whole wide world up here!"
And the name just stuck.
It quickly became our favourite place to go and play. While our mum was
cutting up the remains of the Sunday meat for the next day's curry, we
would plead with her to let us out.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"The Whole Wide World," we replied in unison.
"Okay, but I want you back in half an hour. Dinner's almost
ready."
We went there to find sticks that resembled guns and would shoot each
other hundreds of times with a 'pyow pyow' sound. One time Paul took
two sticks and started to rub them together in a very concentrated
manner. I looked on, fascinated as tiny pieces of green bark started to
fly in all directions. I asked him what he was doing.
"Making fire," he replied. "Didn't you know that if you rub two sticks
together, you can make fire?" His tone was accusatory.
"Of course," I answered uncertainly and picked up the first two sticks
I could find to do the same. Neither of us managed to ignite them. Paul
explained that the wood was too damp and we would have to wait until
the summer for our pyrotechnics.
The Whole Wide World became my cocoon of fantasies. Although I could
also experiment with my imagination to some extent with the battered
matchbox cars at my disposal within the four walls of our house, it was
only in the woods that my mind felt completely unshackled and could
roam free and easy. Some days it was a jungle, and we were on an
expedition to seek and destroy as many man-eating snakes as possible.
We devised a race course out of the twisted network of paths and
pretended to steer rally cars through the undergrowth. The uneven
terrain was also ideal for setting up traps. One day, while we were on
a mission to find adders (dad had warned us that they existed there),
Paul called me over to a spot in a mesh of bracken.
"Come over here!" He was beckoning with flailing arms, as if he had
seen something incredible.
I ran over towards him excitedly to share his discovery. Just as I
reached him, the ground suddenly gave way beneath me and I found myself
upended in a small pit. Puffy, opaque clouds hung in the sky and filled
my field of vision. The reek of brushwood filled my nostrils. Paul's
taunting laughter rained down on me. I was so disoriented, it took me a
while to understand what had happened. Paul had discovered a large hole
and covered it with a flimsy floor of bracken strands that he had
uprooted. Humiliated, I started to blubber and clambered hurriedly out
of my shame. For the first time in my life I ran all the way
home.
Paul got in trouble for his trick, and mum made him promise me that he
wouldn't do it again. The next time we went to the woods, we set to
work on covering other holes, on the strict condition that the joke
would have to be played on someone else other than me. Each time we
returned there, we would feverishly check our man-traps to see if any
unsuspecting walker had fallen foul of any of them.
It was one day in the scorching summer of seventy-six that everything
changed. I was six, while Paul was a couple of years older. We had come
back from a holiday in Devon and there was still a week left before we
had to go back to school. We were itching to get back into the familiar
environment of the Whole Wide World. The west country had been fun, but
there had been too many novel distractions there that stifled our
inventiveness. We had gone to the beach most days and done all the
things that the other children were doing - jumping the waves, building
sand castles and climbing over the rocks. I wanted to run around in my
own domain, where I knew perfectly the lie of the land. I had missed
the woods.
We already knew something was up as we approached the edge of the
trees. There was a sticky smell of smoke in the air and we could hear a
crackling noise in the depths of the wood, as if people were crumpling
up hundreds of bits of paper. There were also urgent intermittent
shouts in the distance that undoubtedly came from grown-up
voices.
We met the group of children on Sandy Lane. There were five of them and
they were all older than me. Most of them were older than Paul and they
were huddled in a circle as if they were a sports team having a
time-out briefing. The oldest one, a girl with mousy-brown hair tied
back to reveal a freckle-plastered face, had the attention of the
others, all boys. She was talking at an exaggerated sprint, as children
are prone to do.
"We're all going to have to get a big stick each and beat it out," she
ordered.
She noticed Paul and I coming towards them.
"Are you two going into the woods?" she asked in a friendly
voice.
"Yes."
"Do you want to help us put out the fire?"
The mention of the word 'fire' had an immediate impact on me. Fire had
always had a mystical quality, something that was out of bounds and
meant danger. When I had rubbed sticks with Paul a few months before, I
had never really believed that I could conjure up a flame that I could
call my own. Fire existed only on films on the television. Or, it
spurted out of the cooker hobs and the Primus stove that my family had
taken on holiday with us so we could sizzle sausages on Dartmoor. It
was something artificial, controlled and practical. The thought of a
real fire seeping through the woods, untamed and free was enticing and
bewitching.
I think Paul felt the same. We both eagerly nodded our heads.
"Come on, let's go!"
Selecting the right stick was not a simple process. I was also
confused. I knew that firemen did not put out flames with sticks. They
used huge hose pipes that slunk and wound over the ground like dormant
cobras. But I was too shy to ask the mousy-haired girl whether it would
be better to fetch some water.
We entered the fringe of the woods and started to scour the land for
suitable fire-fighting equipment. I was unsure what to look for and was
hesitant what kind of stick to take. One of the boys picked up a huge
branch, which was almost twice his size. It was actually the stem of a
small tree. He looked proud of his find and wielded it unsteadily
around like an ant carrying a giant twig.
The girl looked unimpressed. "How are you going to beat the fire out
with that?" she scoffed. "You need something much smaller. Look."
She had plucked a branch from a small tree. It was a little longer than
the length of her arm. Smaller protruding boughs that sprouted buds and
leaves were quickly trimmed down by her nimble hands to produce
something that did not look unlike a witch's broom-stick.
"You need to get rid of the leaves, as they can catch fire when you're
using it," she explained. She swished the finished article around her
head and it cut through the air making a soft, whistling sound.
"This is what you need," she said with the air of someone in the know
but at the same time slightly exasperated at being surrounded by
blockheads.
The rest of us scrambled around to follow her example. Relieved that I
had been given some guidance, I pulled a branch from the same tree that
the girl had, assuring myself that if she had chosen this one then it
would surely be the right choice for me. Soon I was clutching a
miniature version of her instrument tightly in my miniature hands. Paul
eyed it disapprovingly.
"Yours' is too small," he said.
I was about to protest, when the girl interrupted.
"It'll do," she said. "Let's go, otherwise we're going to miss
it."
Our makeshift band of fire-fighters ascended the hill towards the
source of commotion. As the shouts became louder and the smoke that
lingered in the air more pungent, I could make out the first flecks of
bright yellow flickering between the tree-trunks. The air became
suddenly warmer and heavier and I felt a slight pressure on my chest as
I breathed in the smoky air. Near the top of the hill, three men were
stood on the edge of the hungry fire, beating it expertly with
branches, trying to halt its encroachment. I felt a thrill of wild
fearful excitement. The fire was massive, way beyond my expectations.
As I looked down over the brow of the hill, all I could see was a
coiling sea of flames that lapped angrily at the dry heathland. The hot
air tickled my throat and I stopped walking as my fear rose. I didn't
want to get any nearer the flames and could not imagine standing so
close to them as the grown-ups were doing, let alone attempt to fight
them. I wanted to simply stand and survey the destruction from a safe
distance, wide eyed and exhilarated.
From behind us, the sound of a wailing siren gradually rose in a
crescendo until it reached a constant volume. One of the men had seen
us and was running towards us, frantically gesturing at us with his
hands. His shirt was clinging to his torso with sweat. He had a greying
beard and glassy eyes, which seemed to stare right through us. He was
angry and this made him even more frightening.
"Get out of here! It's dangerous!"
He reached the girl and tugged her stick out of her hands after a
slight tussle. "Put those things down and get out of here, you
shouldn't be here."
The girl started to plead with him.
"But dad?"
"No buts, Janine, I told you, you weren't to come into the woods. Go
on, all of you, shoo! The fire brigade will be here in a minute and
they'll be very angry with you."
He gripped Janine by the arm and started to escort his daughter back to
the housing estate, motioning the rest of us to follow. With our
self-elected leader out of action, and a strange authoritative grown-up
now in control we had little inclination to disobey. One by one, our
presumed instruments of fire control were dropped and we dragged
ourselves reluctantly after them.
At the end of our road, a fire engine had parked up and firemen were
busy extracting the hose from the back. I thought the vehicle looked
like a huge red insect, waiting to devour its prey. We didn't have time
to admire it up close.
"Get out of the way!" shouted a fireman. "Bloody kids shouldn't be
here." He seemed to be telling off Janine's father and I wondered if
there was a natural hierarchy in action which would mean that someone
from an even higher authority would arrive and start to berate the
firemen for our presence.
It was clear that we weren't wanted and wouldn't be allowed anywhere
near the battle with the fire. Janine was dragged off down Sandy Lane
by her father to the gypsy campsite, and the other boys started to
follow with a despondent slouch. A fireman asked me where my mum was
and I pointed to our house.
"I think you'd better go home then," he said in a voice of
gravel.
From our front garden we watched the snaking hose disappear into the
woods, propped up by the helmeted figures. Soon mum came out to tell us
that dinner was ready. During dinner, I recounted to her the story of
the fire and she was angry with us for going into the woods and getting
so close to it.
"Don't think you're going into those woods tomorrow," she said.
That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about the fire and what it would
feel like to be burning. It left a nasty impression and I hoped that I
wouldn't dream about it after I had fallen asleep.
*
My only thought the next day was to go to the woods to see what the
fire had achieved. I suggested to Paul that we should go. He said it
wouldn't be very interesting and all we would see would be a 'load of
black' but I could tell he was keen on the idea, he just didn't want to
let on.
I begged mum to let us go.
"Oh pleeaasseee," I said, crunching up my face when I realised that she
wasn't going to change her mind. She said it was still dangerous to go
there, even though the fire had been put out and she didn't want us to
get dirty.
"You can go as far as Sandy Lane and that's that. Otherwise there'll be
no pudding tonight."
"What's for pudding tonight?"
"Your favourite."
"Semolina?"
"Yes."
The thought of missing semolina was a good deterrent but when we
reached Sandy Lane that morning, it stopped being my prime concern.
Janine and the gypsy children were there again and they were going into
the woods. Ready with their beater branches, they had been waiting for
us.
Paul eyed their sticks.
"Why have you got them? They've already put out the fire. Our dad
said."
Janine still had her haughty look from yesterday. "My dad says that it
was a fire caused by the sun and another one might happen today as
well."
I looked up into the sky and blinked as the sunlight made patterns in
front of my eyes. It seemed just as strong as yesterday.
Paul and I didn't even discuss whether we should disobey mum's orders.
I looked at him a couple of times to see if I could register any
hesitation on his face but he was deliberately looking away from me. I
had forgotten about mum's threat about the semolina. I wanted the
chance to see some more flames, or at the very least to see what
yesterday's fire had left behind. We all walked into the woods.
I plucked another branch from the same birch tree that Janine and I had
mauled yesterday. It was now looking noticeably forlorn with most of
its lower branches rudely amputated. As we threaded our way up the
path, I stripped the leaves off, humming the tune to Mr Benn.
"Do do-do do-do, da-do do do-do do-do?"
We reached the top of the hill. I looked down over the Whole Wide World
and was amazed. The colours of the tiny yellow and violet flowers had
disappeared. The carpet of green moss had gone. I realised what Paul
had meant about the load of black. The heath was now one barren,
charred sea of blackness, unrecognisable from its former state.
Isolated wisps of smoke were still curling up from pockets of
smouldering debris as if hundreds of people were lying down smoking
cigarettes. The charred skeletons of what once had been bushes stood in
silent protest. Blackened roots protruded from the wasteland like
outstretched fingers frozen with rigor mortis. The acrid smell of
yesterday had been replaced by a sickly smell that reminded me of
strong vinegar. It was a desolate sight and filled me with awe.
Cautiously, we descended the hill in single file, Janine leading the
way and myself last. The network of footpaths had survived the fire and
were now much more prominent in their new environment. I was looking
down at the scorched terrain, making out patterns in the heaps of grey
cinders that only yesterday had been living organisms. Janine suddenly
stopped near a spot where the ground was still smoking. Tentatively,
she prodded the ash with the tip of her branch. When she was sure that
there was no danger of a flame igniting and roaring up to attack her,
she beat down on the ground with the stick to extinguish the last
traces of smoke. The others instantaneously followed her lead,
thrashing the earth with as much strength as they could muster, causing
clouds of ash to puff up and engulf us. A fine layer of cinders settled
on my bare legs. At first I was alarmed, thinking that it might burn me
but when I felt nothing, I tried to rub it off. I only succeeded in
smearing the apparently indelible greyness deeper into my skin to form
greasy smudges.
Beating the earth was good fun. I would count how many times I would
have to whack a particular source of smoke before it emitted no more. I
felt like I was at last doing some good, that my actions were helping
to prevent another outbreak of fire, and it would be something to boast
about to my schoolmates when school started again next week. I could
not only say that I had seen a huge forest fire but also that I had
helped to fight it. Of course, I wouldn't need to mention that the
flames had already gone; as far as I was concerned, the earth was still
smoking and this meant that the firemen had not put them out
completely. I was applying the finishing touches.
It was probably these thoughts that caused my lack of concentration. My
careful attitude towards the earth had been consumed by the vanity of
one who believes himself to be the victor over the vanquished. I will
never remember exactly how it happened. Maybe my foot caught one of the
many roots that were jutting out at all angles from the searing
terrain. It was more likely my young clumsy legs which would
occasionally lapse into moments of awkwardness, usually resulting in a
plaster on my knee. Whatever the reason, I stumbled forward. My free
hand instinctively reached out to break my fall and landed quite
heavily on the carpet of embers.
I quickly raised myself up. Everyone else had stopped their activities.
I felt several pairs of eyes looking at me, waiting for something. I
still held my stick in my right hand. I inspected the other. My palm
was covered in a film of dirt and soot. However, the black grains
didn't look as if they were merely on the fleshy pads of my hand, they
looked as if they had become part of them. I felt the first twinges of
fire rising up from the depths of my palm.
Starting to panic, I looked up to Janine. She had an odd look on her
face, and I realised that it was uncertainty. Up to this point she had
been so sure of herself, but this had been wiped away. I looked into
her eyes and saw more than just confusion. I saw a face full of
fear.
I was waiting for her to say something, to tell me what to do.
When she spoke, there was no conviction in her voice.
"Use the stick," she said simply.
It was then that, in mechanical obedience, I began to pound at the
rising fire in my burning palm with my stick. With each lash, I felt
the pain grow until it was an unbearable torment. I can't remember how
many times I struck my outstretched palm, but it took me a while to
realise that I was merely adding to the stinging rather than remedying
it. Eventually I lost faith in the stick and dropped it to the ground.
I grabbed my wrist in a vicelike hold and Janine, Paul, the other boys
whose names I did not know became completely irrelevant to me. The
Whole Wide World had lost its magic in one cruel blow. I wanted to be
home and I wanted my mum.
For the second time in my life, I ran all the way home.
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