The Fire Baby by Jim Kelly

them to view the world outside without being seen themselves.
    A white cat with a collar that sparkled like the glitter-ball in a cheap dancehall selected the middle of Humph’s blistered lawn to expel a sizeable pond of piss, the black creeping lake expanding stealthily several feet in all directions. On the other side of the road a couple shouted at each other beneath a bare lightbulb in an upstairs bedroom.
    ‘… fucking Cymbeline…’ shouted the man. But surely not, thought Dryden.
    Humph tried to weigh up whether Dryden’s silence was due to Maggie Beck’s death, but as he was silent most nights it was a difficult call. ‘Nice old girl then,’ he said eventually, judging the moment badly.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Dryden, swigging the tiny bottle and accepting another. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. He told Humphabout Maggie’s confession. ‘But there was more, I think, something else…’
    ‘Perhaps it’s on the tapes,’ said Humph, who knew as much about Dryden’s present life as the reporter did himself.
    ‘The tapes,’ said Dryden. ‘I guess they’re Estelle’s. Yes. You’re right. It must be on the tapes.’ Dryden had given Maggie a tape recorder to let her tell at last the story of her life, and to encourage her to talk out loud for Laura’s benefit. He’d never imagined the result would be a vital testament, a key, even, to the real mystery of Black Bank: Why had Maggie Beck given her son to strangers?
    He stretched out his legs and took out the letter, handing it to Humph. Then he took out that night’s section of tickertape torn off the COMPASS machine. As he read each foot of the tape he passed it over to Humph, tearing it off along the dotted lines. The cabbie was a crossword puzzler of strictly limited ability, but Dryden valued the double check. If he ever missed anything he could always blame Humph. He read the first take and passed it over, wordlessly, to the cabbie.
    DHFVIUROIF SUFJJF SUFT DKJOO J J INDIGA
    FGJGF
    SHFDUTH ABABYGHTUKDN FHGFHFO SHOSJ
    Dryden searched in his jacket pocket for the chocolate bar he had bought earlier that day.
    Humph squirmed in his seat. ‘A baby?’
    ‘Maggie said she swapped the kids on the night of the Black Bank air crash. The one that survived – the Yank pilot – is her son.’
    ‘Jesus!’ said Humph, actually turning in his seat. ‘How does Laura know?’
    Dryden considered this: ‘I guess she heard Maggie using the tape recorder. If that’s the baby Laura means.’
    The last torch had faded three hours ago and Emmanuel had wanted to cry then. Others did. He heard them when the lorry stopped and killed its engines. But the fear had shut them up.
    No one talked now. The blackness was total. But that wasn’t why they were afraid. They were afraid because of the heat, and the way it seemed to be stealing away the oxygen they craved. Emmanuel’s chest hurt as he breathed, and he had to suck the air just to stop the screaming pain in his lungs. He pressed his forehead against the coolness of the metal walls and he tried to do what his father always said: ‘Emmy. Act your age.’
    Sixteen. He was proud of that. A man at last in the village. Just in time to leave.
    He felt the self-pity well up so he thought about home: his touchstone. Almost thirty-one days now, counted out and marked up in his diary. He’d written down what he’d missed most; the way the dogs barked at night and the cool, overwhelming presence of the great river. He’d spent his childhood feeling it slip by, never ending, perpetual. Their lives depended on the river because his grandfather’s boat meant they could all eat. He ferried the foreigners to the mine and back, and Emmy could hear, even now, the high intoxicating whine of the outboard motor. But it hadn’t been enough. First his father had left and sent money. Now he too must send money home.
    He reached out a hand and touched an arm. It jerked away. None of them were friends now. He felt the indignation