Smoky flames roil and billow in hellish red-gold and gunmetal against the night sky, tinting the faces of onlookers with hues of blood. He's never seen a burning building before, the fire weeping from blown-out windows, eating away at plaster and wood and groaning like something alive. His skin blooms in the heat even before he opens the car door; the cold at his back is like a knife to the spine when he stumbles from the vehicle, ash and grit catching in his eyes and throat as he sways on unsteady legs and watches the roof cave in.
It's curious, the sense of loss that he feels. He's lived here all of a handful of weeks, but it's his home, God damn it, four walls and a ceiling and a floor that he paid for, one of the few things he's ever owned with honesty, and there it is crumbling in front of him. For a few glorious and despairing moments, all the aches and pains, all the little worries, the neuroses and fears that stitch him together, are driven away by this one thing that is bigger than he will ever be. For that infinitesimally short space of time, he remembers what it's like to be normal.
And then the gathered crowd shifts and parts. He sees the ambulance, adding its own blue tinge to the chaotic dance of light across the pavement. He sees the sputtering arc of spray from a fire hose, too late to be of any good. But most of all, he sees the man-sized black bag on the stretcher, being zipped shut around the shape of a body, and the concerned face of the policewoman – she looks barely old enough to be out of school – as she catches his eye.
“Sir,” she begins, when his gaze fixes on her sensible shoes stepping down off the pavement; and then again, “Sir!” when he turns on his heel, flings open the car door and dives into the driver's seat, fingers fumbling with the ignition until the engine roars into life, and he's gone.
---
In a bedroom a hundred miles away, a teenage boy stares at his reflection in the mirror and hates himself.
He's sitting on the edge of his bed, toes curled in the thick carpet, the black cotton briefs that barely cling to his hips serving as the only barrier between his skin and the chilly air wafting through the curtained window. His fingers trace with childlike wonder the scatter of bruises across his upper arms and his chest, which heaves with the effort of suppressing the dry sobs that rack his body. With a small, oddly satisfied smile, he lets himself fall back across the quilt, sliding one hand underneath his pillow and drawing out a slim journal with a shiny brown leather cover, while the other hand probes and presses at his sore ribs and wrenches a stifled gasp from his parched throat. Licking his dry lips breathlessly, he flips through the book to the last leaf of cramped, chicken-scratch handwriting, a bone-deep shudder running through him as his eyes scan the page. Rolling over onto his front, he kneels up and sets the journal reverently on his pillow, kicking his discarded jeans and shirt off the mattress onto the floor; and then he spreads his legs and bends over, fringe falling into his eyes, with one hand braced on the headboard as the other sneaks down the front of his briefs and he sucks in a guilty moan.
---
He's driving. Where he's driving to, he's not sure, but he knows that as long as it's as far away from his old self as possible it'll be fine. His knuckles are white, gripping the steering wheel hard enough to bruise as he hunches over and struggles just to keep the bloody car on the road, keep these four tyres between those thin parallel lines and not kill himself in the process. It's a cold day today, but sunny, with the kind of clouds that should make you happy to be alive. The roads he's hurtling through at double the speed limit are overshadowed by trees turning autumn yellow-red-brown, surrounded by recently-harvested fields and occasionally dotted with the rambling cottages of odd, rural villages. And everything would be just hunky dory, everything would be as right as rain, if not for last night and the loaded gun under the front seat and the fifty quid in his back pocket which is all the money he has in the world.
He's felt worse, it's true. He's been more desperate (frequently so, if he'll admit it to himself). But he's never had the same crushing sense of helplessness as he did in the early hours of this morning, when he up and left with nothing but a set of keys, a Tesco's shopping bag of clothes and food, a tartan car rug and an Austin Metro to his name. He suspects the lack of forethought will catch up with him in the long run, but since he's not considered anything except the short term for a while now it doesn't trouble him like it would any ordinary man, and besides, he's gotten pretty good at flying by the seat of his pants.
He catches sight of his reflection in the rear-view mirror, and grins. It doesn't really suit him; he hasn't smiled properly in so long and it twists his features like those of a known criminal in a TV mugshot. He rubs at the growth of beard on his chin and cheeks and a bubble of wild laughter wells up in his chest. He spent years trying to grow proper facial hair and, now he's got it, it's no use to anyone. He sticks his tongue out instead and feels a bit better, because he has a plan, for perhaps the first time in his life, and while it might not see him beyond the end of this week it's still something he can stick to which makes him feel a bit more in control. And, he decides suddenly, as the car ploughs into the labyrinth of middle-England suburbia, it has everything to do with the boy in school uniform sitting on the kerb at the next corner.
---
Since his brother went off to university, he's started walking home from school by himself. It's a lonely journey but he doesn't care much for the company of the other boys his age, who shove each other off the pavement and chuck school bags into hedges and hold competitions to see who can spit the furthest from the bridge over the Thames. With the shiny leather-bound journal in his satchel, the dog-eared book of poetry in his pocket and the Joy Division shirt under his hand-me-down uniform, it's been made clear to him time and again that he doesn't fit in.
He doesn't care – not really. He lifts his chin a little higher and stalks past the cluster of teenagers buying sweets at the newsagent in the high street, hitching the strap of his guitar case a bit further up one bony shoulder and pretending he doesn't hear the jibes of those that recognise him. He has a sense of power that none of his classmates can understand, a knowledge that he doesn't belong with the rest of them because he can do things that they would never even dream about. Once upon a time, it would have frightened him to realise that he wasn't like the other boys; now he's glad of it.
He drifts through the town centre, pausing long enough to turn over the change jangling in his pocket as he stares wistfully at the display in the window of the record store, before turning for home. Home is the kind of comfortable suburb with double-glazing and crazy paving, hanging baskets and fathers who wash the car on Sundays, which can be found the length and breadth of the country. One of the few things that keeps him going these days is the thought of getting away from it, moving to a big city he can get lost in, like all of his brother's friends are doing. London, or maybe Manchester because that's where all the coolest people are going these days, where nobody remembers the strange, pale boy with his pocketful of Larkin and second-hand clothes. Even the idea is seductive: the thought of leaving behind the self he's grown to hate so much and inventing a new identity. He could be anyone he wanted. He could have anyone he wanted.
His breath catches a little in his throat, his free hand slipping under his blazer to skate over the still-fresh bruises, and he grins secretly to himself. Of course he'd known about those... things... but knowing and doing is very different. And he's been warned to keep his mouth shut, because he's too young, but he's never had any intention of shouting it from the rooftops even though at points he's felt as though he'd go mad with holding it in; and besides, it's just as damaging for him. His mum would have kittens. Whatever he'd like to pretend, he loves his mum, and he knows he's nothing but grief to her.
The guitar case slips off his shoulder again, and he huffs in frustration, shrugging it off completely and setting it down on the pavement. A couple of preschool girls are playing on a trampoline in the front garden of the house across the street, watched from the living-room window by a careful mother, and the kids pause in their bouncing to stare at him as he crouches down on the ground and adjusts the strap. He sticks his tongue out at them, and they return the gesture, giggling, before running indoors. It's starting to rain. A scruffy, grey-black Austin Metro is crawling down the kerb towards him, but he barely gives it a second thought as he hauls the case back up, until a voice behind him says, “D'you need a hand with that?”
He turns.
It's the car owner, who's leaned across the seat to roll down the front passenger window. He's a small, wiry bloke, with a stupid beard and untidy brown-blond hair and a drooping eyelid. His voice sounds like vodka and broken glass. He's wearing an odd assortment of clothes, patched jeans and a leather jacket over a horrible hairy jumper, and his fingers where they rest on the steering wheel are stubby and nailbitten.
He's perfection.
“It's nothing, I'm all right,” he hears himself say.
“Can I give you a lift?” the driver asks, motioning to the steadily darkening sky and drizzle with an ominous half-smile.
He pauses. He considers. It's something they've all been warned about from a very early age: say no to strangers! And they don't come a lot stranger than the little man in his rusting junk heap of a car, which smells like something died in it, but there's something appealing about the man's meandering gaze, his red-rimmed eyes and chapped lips, and really, if there's a day to die, there's no better day than this.
He grins, and opens the door.
