Hell Fire

41 July 2005

July had brought with it the longed-for summer heat. Bonnie and Simon were out walking in the fields around Geirastadir. They chose a path that ran along the edge of the woods, and Bonnie picked a bunch of wildflowers, dog daisies, bluebells, and clover. She had helped Simon make a big calendar with a square for every day from now until they went to Kenya in August. Each evening, he put a cross in a square and watched the time shrink. It was even more exciting than an advent calendar. He held his mother’s hand firmly, as he always did when they were out walking. Her hand was big and warm and safe.

They were getting close to Skarven Farm when Simon spotted the trailer between the trees. He stopped in his tracks and pointed. He asked his mother if anyone lived there, but she didn’t think so. The trailer was in poor condition with lots of rust around the windows and a couple of small steps up to the door. She could see some ripped curtains in the windows. Simon tugged at her hand because he wanted to go and look. Bonnie had to laugh. It was so typical of Simon — he loved small houses; he loved making tents with blankets; and he loved the little snail above his peg at daycare, with its house on its back. They opened the door and peered in. On the left were two narrow benches with a table in between. In the middle was a tiny kitchen space with a gas stove and shelves and a cupboard, and on the right were two beds with no bedclothes. The trailer had six windows and they were all dirty. It smelled stuffy and damp. Not particularly inviting, Bonnie thought, but Simon was not of the same mind.

“Can we spend the night here?” he asked. “Just one night?”

Bonnie knew he was going to ask that. And all she wanted to do at the moment was please him, her little munchkin.

“But it’s not our trailer,” she said. She looked up toward the farm at Skarven. “Maybe it belongs to the farmer. They’re probably waiting for it to be towed away because it’s just been abandoned here. Come on, let’s go and ask.”

The light blue Opel swung into the farmyard, so Eddie stopped and watched them from a distance. He thought that perhaps they wanted to buy some vegetables or berries. He decided to wait, for a while at least. But when the car door opened, he saw to his astonishment that Bonnie had two comforters in her arms. The farmer came out to speak to them. The boy jumped and danced around, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. He had a teddy bear under one arm and a small pillow with a blue case under the other. And then, for some unknown reason, they started to walk down across the fields and soon they were out of sight. Eddie slipped out of the car, found a path that ran past the back of the house, and then spotted them again, his mother and brother. I don’t care if they can see me from the windows, he thought, and looked up at the big white house to his right. When he got to the corner, he stopped. There, by the edge of the woods, was a trailer, and Bonnie and Simon opened the door and went in. They were going to spend the night there, he realized. Each on a narrow bed, the boy with his brown bear under the comforter. Maybe they would lie there and whisper to each other while they waited for it to get dark. She would probably tell him stories and they might even make great plans for the future.

When he got home, he stood in front of the mirror for a long time. There were now lots of tiny blisters on his flaming cheeks, and he had a belt of the same hell fire around his waist. It felt as though someone had thrown a pan of hot oil over him. He tried to ignore it, but it couldn’t be ignored, even though he was driven by his own project. Determined, he turned and went into the kitchen. He opened one of the drawers and rummaged through the contents. Then he thought carefully before selecting a filleting knife with a wooden handle. There were brass rivets in the handle and the blade was long and sharp. There was an electric knife-sharpener lying beside the knives, which he plugged into the wall.