Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

Incendiary-bomb-shrunken bodies. Then there were the ones who melted, asphyxiated, baked or just plain roasted. And the human torches running down streets on fire, arms flailing.

These were the important factories and docks we were told we destroyed. The firestorm sucked in all the surrounding air, made winds rage fast as cyclones, suffocated all the people hiding in shelters, cellars and bunkers. Fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit at the core. Spontaneous combustion .

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

And the night after that I stole my best friend’s girl because I was the best dancer. That was the night we clung to one another watching the bombers set out again. Six raids. Day and night. Night and day. 41,800 killed. 37,439 injured, burned, maimed. Her skin warm and smooth, wet silk between her thighs, bombers blanking out the stars and the moon. Making Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen. And the night after that, Carl bought it …

‘Blue Flame.’ That should slow them down a bit before our fiery finale, and a nice searing blues solo for me. Most of them are asleep now anyway. There’s even one old dear snoring in the far corner by the vase of flowers. And there’s Emily, hands clasped on her lap, thin smile on her face. Is she enjoying us? As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind fucking Emily, stick it to her hard, right up that tight Morningside arse of hers and take that smile off her face. Bet she’s a screamer. That old guy’s having a real struggle with himself now. Ought to be in a fucking nuthouse not a rest home. Drooling and muttering, arguing with himself…

It wasn’t fair, we’d finished, we were heading home successful, looking forward to a hot cup of tea and a long sleep, no fighters in sight. But then it never is fair, is it? We’d dropped our load, made more Bombenbrand-schrumpfleichen, got out of the flack unscathed, and all of a sudden there it was, a lone Messerschmitt. Whether he was lost or just scavenging, looking for stragglers, I don’t know, but he buzzed at us like an angry wasp and let rip. He could outmanoeuvre us easily and his machine-gun fire ripped through the plane as if our fuselage were made of paper. I could smell the fires breaking out behind us. Me and Clarky, my co-pilot. We started spewing smoke and losing altitude. One of our gunners hit the ’Schmitt and it exploded at ten o’clock. We were bucking and swinging to starboard like an old Short Stirling. God knows how we made it, but we did, Clarky and me, we came limping in the minute we got beyond the old white cliffs and crash-landed in a field. The tail section broke off and flames leapt up all around us. Within minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of gaping yokels right out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Whether they wore smocks and carried pitchforks I can’t be certain, but that’s how I see them when I look now. And when I went back to see how Carl was doing, that’s when I found him. He was dead. Along with the others in back. All black and burned up, uniform and skin fused, welded into one, his knees crooked and his arms tightened up and fists clenched like a boxer, aimed at me. For one of those stupid moments, before reality’s cold blade pierced the back of my brain, I thought he was getting ready to fight me. We hadn’t spoken for three days because of Mary and I knew he was still pissed. But he was dead. Burned and shrivelled.

Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.

Just like the people of Hamburg. Carl, you poor, sad, cocky, two-left-footed bastard. You were the handsomest, the most charming; you were the lady killer. But come waltz, tango or jitterbug, goddammit, I was the best dancer. I was the best dancer!

‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’

One, two, three, and blow that bugle, Taffy! Let’s wake the buggers up. ‘Bugle Call Rag’ and Jesus Christ, will you look at him, the old bastard’s on his feet. Taffy flashes me a big grin and we get in the groove. I can feel Geoff’s eyes boring into the back of my head. Fuck him. Things are jumping now. Taffy and I are trading licks like we haven’t done in years. Trumpet and sax. Dizzy and Bird. Miles and Trane. Look at the guy go, he’s out of his chair and jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs, baggy pants slipping down his hips.

‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’

Sure you were, buddy!

All of a sudden he seems to reach some sort of inner peak or crescendo as my sax and Taffy’s trumpet join in some of the weirdest harmonies we’ve ever found. He’s on tiptoe, stretching his arms as high as he can, reaching for the ceiling, or for heaven.

Then his whole body starts shaking. Taffy trails off to take a break and I blow harder, urging the old guy higher, but he’s out of synch with us now. Whatever he’s into, eyes closed, head tilted towards the ceiling, it’s nothing to do with our music. His pants are down around his ankles, his shrivelled scrotum and shrunken penis there for all to see. I stop the solo and turn to catch Geoff’s dagger gaze. I grin at him and shrug; he leads us back to the opening riff in a few spare, tight-assed chords.

The old man stiffens, then drops to the floor, spent. One by one, we let the music dribble away from us. Then there’s the strangest sensation. The room seems to draw in on him, as if all its energy focuses on that single inert figure. Everything feels tight, like a corked bottle about to blow. The room fills with pressure, and it’s hard against my eardrums, that deaf and fuzzy feeling before your ears pop on an airplane, everything silent and in slow motion.

Then it pops, the air hisses out, and he’s just someone lying on the floor.

‘Jesus,’ whispers the man beside him. ‘When I go, I want to go just like that.’

Then the smooth, practised staff breeze in like a team of office cleaners, or scene changers between the acts of a play, and start to tidy up the mess in a silence as heavy as prayer. Someone in white checks the old man’s pulse and takes out a stethoscope. The other inmates, dazed, mumbling and drooling, are all wheeled back to their rooms. And it’s getting to look like nothing ever happened.

Before they’re done, Emily starts leading us back to the dressing room. ‘I think it would probably be best all around if you left now, don’t you think?’ she says. ‘Then we can get everyone calmed down. They take it hard, some of them, when one of them passes on, you know. See their own future, I suppose, poor things. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid your normal rate, of course. It wasn’t your fault, after all, was it?’

I nod dumbly, walking beside her. She’s right, of course. It wasn’t our fault, no reason why we shouldn’t get paid. But even so. See their own future, I suppose . Somehow that echoes, gets to me so much that I forget to ask for her phone number. And I remember it afterwards in the van. But this time Benny passes around the Jim Beam and Kit rolls another spliff and soon it’s just another memory of just another shitty gig, after all, just another slice of turd on the nursing-home circuit.

Isn’t it strangethe way two strangers might strike up a casual acquaintance due simply to a quirk of fate? And isn’t it even stranger how that innocent meeting might so completely alter the life of one of them? That was exactly what happened when Edward Grainger and I met in a pub one wet September lunchtime, only weeks before his tragic loss.

I work in a bank in the City. It’s a dull job, enlivened only by the occasional surge of adrenalin when the pound takes yet another plunge on the foreign exchange markets, and most lunchtimes I like to get out of the office and take refuge in the Mason’s Arms.