The Drowning Earth

Chapter 3

3

Bob was the first person I saw on waking from a deep sleep close to death. Waking after being attacked by a Kwanon Demon-Commando and then a mink feels like a thousand-year jet lag, I discovered.

‘You made it,’ said Bob when my eyes were open and just about focussed. ‘And with James’s help I got you inside and stitched you up good. You’re on the mend now.’

All around us the ornate gold and gilt finishes of the Blenheim Palace State Room that served as Bob’s sickbay shone with unnatural grandeur. It lent an odd, surreal quality to my surroundings and for a moment I thought I was still dreaming.

‘Wrrroooorrrrbblllkkk,’ I heard myself say. It was like someone speaking underwater. What I’d meant to say was: ‘We still have to find Tom.’

Bob leaned forward to pat my knee under the thermal blanket.

‘Later. I’m desperate to rescue him myself but we need our team up to full strength if we’re to be in with a chance.’

‘Tom’s been caught by the Kwanon. He’ll be used as a sacrifice.’

‘I know.’

‘What?’

‘You were talking about it while you were under. In fact, you wouldn’t stop talking about it. I’ve already made plans on the back of what you said.’

I raised my head up from the pillow as much as I was able.

‘What plans?’

‘I’ll tell you when you’re capable of taking them in.’

He had a point. I could feel myself drifting off.

Bob managed a crooked smile,

‘Don’t go to sleep on me just now. You need to eat to get your strength up.’

‘How long have I been in this state?’

‘Three days.’

‘But that means…only…’

What I intended to say was that we had only eleven days left in which to rescue Tom, but I was too weak to get the words out and I fell back onto the pillow.

Bob spoon-fed me soup from a tin-mug, a ritual he performed a few times. During my days in Bob’s DIY sickbay, I never grew to enjoy that thin metallic brew, but it kept me alive, I’ll give him that.

When Bob thought me capable of contributing useful thoughts to his plans - and about two days before I actually was capable – he called a three-person council of war consisting of himself, me, and James. And quite right, too. Tom’s life was at stake. Also, someone was going to have to pay big time for what had happened to Donnie.

There were only two small problems.

One: I was still comatose in bed when Bob called his council of war.

Two: With the best will in the world, James would have nothing to contribute by way of critical analysis or anything else. Even to make a mug of tea was a feat that often seemed beyond him.

Notwithstanding these problems, Bob sat next to my sick-bed with James and told me his plan, perhaps hoping some of it would sink into my befuddled brain by a process of osmosis. And as I lay drifting in and out of consciousness, not taking in a word he said, I relived an incident that had taken place when Bob and I had been fourteen years old. We’d somehow acquired a two-litre plastic bottle of White Lightning which we carried around the streets in a plastic carrier bag, looking for a promising place in which to drink it. Our requirements were threefold: privacy; a place to sit down; and, as the sky was threatening, shelter. After a fruitless twenty minutes of searching, Bob took a cigarette from his mouth – he’d been a keen smoker in those days – and tapped me on the shoulder.

‘I know just the place.’

‘Where?’

Waving his arm vaguely in the direction of what I’d always regarded as the scratty end of town, he said:

‘Turners Industrial Estate. There’s a big clothing place there called Gennaxe. They have a load of skips out back of it, full of fabric cuttings we can sprawl out on. What’s more, the skips have lids on which’ll keep the rain out.’

Bob’s suggestions, even the innocent ones like this one, seldom worked out well, and deep down I knew that agreeing to his proposal would be folly. But as I couldn’t think of a logical objection, I said:

‘Sounds great, let’s go.’

Bob took a last pull on his cigarette, casually tossed the butt-end into a litter bin, and we plodded through a series of grim streets with brick terraced houses either side of them to the industrial estate, a sprawling complex of decaying buildings, potholed roads, litter-strewn wasteland, and the occasional stunted tree looking out-of-place and close to death.

Gennaxe, the clothing manufacturer, occupied the biggest, ugliest building on the site. It was three hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, six stories high, and had once, long ago, been white. Age and a less than thorough approach to maintenance over the years had transformed it into a grey mass with windows so filthy it would have been a miracle if they’d let in enough light for the workers inside to see what they were doing. Bob took us to the rear of the grey behemoth, a journey in itself given the length and width of it, where we found the skips he’d mentioned. How he’d got to know about them in the first place, God only knows.

The skips were each six yards long and three wide and collectively resembled a fleet of landing craft of the sort used to put Allied soldiers on enemy beaches during the Normandy landings in World War Two. They had doors on the front and lids on top, exactly as Bob had described. He took us to the nearest one which happened to be next to the Gennaxe building, and opened the door wide.

‘Voila.’

I peered inside. It contained a huge sloping pile of fabric, heaped up at the far end. I had to admit to myself that it did look rather comfortable. Feeling a spot of rain, I said, ‘Very timely, Bob,’ and entered our drinking parlour.

The lid of the skip was in two halves both of which were hinged to the long sides of the skip. One was closed. The other had been left open, dangling at the side of the skip, meaning that the top was only half-covered. I sat on the fabric in the covered side of the skip and Bob joined me, taking the trouble to hurl his latest cigarette butt to the ground and stamp on it before entering. He took the White Lightning from the carrier bag, unscrewed the top, and looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

‘Ever had this stuff before?’

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘Me neither. I’ve heard good reports though.’

‘So have I.’

With an audible slurp he took a good mouthful and quickly followed it with a second before passing the bottle to me and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. I knocked back a mouthful myself.

‘It’s surprisingly pleasant, Bob.’

‘Yeah. It could almost be non-alcoholic.’

‘Almost.’

Within an hour we’d finished the bottle. Cigarette in hand, Bob looked at his watch.

‘We better go, Zack.’

‘Why, what time is it?’

‘Quarter past eight. My Mum’ll go mental if I’m back late. She reckons I ought to spend more time at home doing my homework.’

‘That’s outrageous.’

‘Tell me about it. Anyway, I’m going to make some sort of pretence to keep her quiet.’

We both got to our feet, which was when I realised the White Lightning had quite a kick to it. I was so relaxed I could barely keep myself upright, let alone walk in a straight line. By the looks of things, Bob was experiencing similar effects. He flicked his cigarette into the pile of fabric. The threatened rain hadn’t fallen beyond a few drops, and the fabric was bone-dry. A column of smoke spiralled up from the spot the cigarette butt had landed on. The end of the butt was glowing bright red and getting brighter. Too drunk to issue a verbal warning about the possible consequences, I gestured towards it. Bob shrugged and turned away. Well, I thought, it’s his pigeon, not mine, and we staggered homewards up the long hill leading to the council estate we both lived on.

At length we attained an elevation affording us a good view of the entire town including the industrial estate we’d just visited, but we didn’t look in that direction as it was behind us, and had no reason to turn our heads. No reason, that is, until we heard the harsh siren sounds of multiple emergency vehicles. We both looked over our shoulders at the same time. Bob was the first to pass comment.

‘Oh. My. f*****g. God.’

It seemed most of the sky to our rear was tinged with a reddish glow. It wasn’t a case of ‘red sky at night, shepherd’s delight’. It was an almighty conflagration.

Every window in the massive Gennaxe building had flames bursting out of it. As we watched in morbid fascination, a sheet of flame erupted from the roof. Above it a black cloud, almost the equal of that a nuclear bomb might make, billowed upwards. I fancied I could hear the roar of the inferno even though it was a good mile away.

‘Oh. My. f*****g. God,’ Bob said again.

‘Best make ourselves scarce, Bob.’

‘I can’t. I’m too drunk.’

Truth be told, so was I, so we carried on at our sedate pace, said goodbye to one another, and went into our respective houses which were on adjacent streets.

The next day all hell broke loose, as the cliché goes. When I got to school the fire was on everybody’s lips. Gennaxe was regarded as the brightest jewel in the crown of our small settlement. Many of our fellow pupils had at least one parent who worked there, or who had worked there until the place burned down, of course. At a stroke, we’d significantly increased the level of unemployment in our small town.

Our achievement was recognised at the very highest levels, because the Mayor was a non-executive director and a couple of councillors were on the board, as were a few high-ranking police who were in the Masons. Word filtered out quickly that someone was going to pay for the disaster at Gennaxe, no matter what it took to catch them.

The headteacher made a speech during assembly, in which he said:

‘Two pupils from this school were responsible for the fire which destroyed Gennaxe last night. We know that, because we have a witness who saw them leaving Turners Industrial Estate minutes before the fire made itself known. The two who started the fire would do well to come forward and admit it. If they do, the police will go easy on them. If they don’t, well, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? The police will be interviewing everyone immediately. Assembly is over.’

It’s fair to say that for all my schoolboy bravado, I nearly wet my pants. I turned to Bob, who’d gone an odd grey colour, and we exchanged a glance which said: neither of us is going to cough, come what may. And we were both true to our unspoken word. In spite of the fact that the police seemed to know we were to blame, and singled us out for special treatment, including a ferocious battery of questioning in the local police station, neither of us cracked.

That incident was the making of our friendship and set a precedent we always followed. One for all and all for one, even though there were only two of us.

I should add we had a stroke of luck. The police witness was incapacitated by a stroke before being able to give the police our names or any details of what we looked like. It seems the shock of seeing her place of work go up in flames was too much for her. So there is some justice in this world, whatever people say.

Perhaps because this incident was uppermost in my mind, it didn’t surprise me that as I came round in my sick-bed, the first thing I heard Bob say was:

‘Fire.’