Дик Фрэнсис - Decider

Toby... Toby .

Keith let go of Neil. I shoved my small son away from him in a frenzy. The petrol spilled out of the can and over Keith’s legs in a glittering stream. Staggering, trying to evade the fuel, Keith knocked into the stand containing the torch. It rocked; rocked back and forwards and then overbalanced; started the flame falling in a deadly arc downwards.

I lunged forward, snatched up Toby with my right arm, scooped Neil into my left, lifted them both off their feet and turned in the same movement to escape.

There was a great whoosh at our backs and a blast of heat and sizzling fire as if the whole air were burning. I caught a split-second glimpse, looking over my shoulder, of Keith with his mouth open as if he, this time, would scream. He seemed to take a deep breath to yell and fire rushed into his open mouth as if drawn by bellows into his lungs, and he made no sound at all, but clutched at his chest, his eyes wide, with white showing all round, and he fell face down in an accelerating fireball.

The back of my own shirt was scorching from neck to waist, and Toby’s hair was on fire. I ran with the boys in my arms, ran far enough down the aisle and tripped and fell over, dropping Neil, rolling onto my back and rubbing Toby’s hair with my hands.

Desperate moments. Neil smelled of petrol, Toby also, and there were fires, a maze of fires, to traverse on the way out.

I lay momentarily panting for breath, collecting some strength, my left arm curving round Neil who was crying. I struggled to reassure Toby; and then from far above fell a blessed mist of drizzling drops of water, cooling, life-giving, spitting and sizzling on all the small fires around us, blackening the flames to extinction and turning to a smoking ruin the humped shape of Keith.

Toby leaned on my chest, staring into my face as if he couldn’t bear to look anywhere else.

He said, ‘He was going to set fire to you, wasn’t he, Dad?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Where did you come from?’ I asked.

‘Out of the dining room, where we had lunch. I was hiding...’ His eyes were stretched. ‘I was scared , Dad.’ Water ran through his singed hair and into his eyes.

‘Anyone would be.’ I rubbed my fist over his back, loving him. ‘You have the courage of ten thousand heroes.’ I fought for words. ‘It isn’t every boy who knows he saved his father’s life.’

I could see it wasn’t enough for him. There had to be more, something to give him a permanent feeling of self-worth, to steady him, keep him always in command of himself.

I thought of his little figure launching itself at an impossibly threatening target, arms and legs flying everywhere, but achieving the aim.

I said, ‘Would you like to learn karate, when we get home?’

His strained face split into a blazing smile. He wiped the trickling water away from his mouth. ‘Oh yes , Dad,’ he said.

I sat up, still hugging both of them, and Christopher came running, and the other two also, all of them staring beyond me to the blackened and unimaginable horror.

‘Don’t go down there,’ I said, pushing myself to my feet. ‘Where’s Colonel Gardner?’

‘We couldn’t find him,’ Christopher said.

‘But... the sprinkler?’

‘I turned it on, Dad,’ Christopher said. ‘I saw Henry sticking all those labels on, the day you went on the train. I knew where the tap was.’

‘Brilliant,’ I said; but there weren’t any words good enough. ‘Well, let’s get out of here, out of the rain.’

Neil wanted to be carried. I picked him up and he wound his arms round my neck, clinging tightly, and all six of us, soaking wet, made our slowish way out to the tarmac.

Roger drove up in his jeep, got out, and stared at us.

We must, I supposed, have looked odd. One tall boy, one little boy, clinging, the three others close, all dripping.

I said to Christopher, ‘Run and turn off the tap,’ and to Roger, ‘We had a fire in the big top. Bits of petrol-soaked matting and floorboards burned, but Henry was right, the canvas didn’t.’

‘A fire! ’ He turned towards the entrance, to go and see for himself.

‘Better warn you,’ I said. ‘Keith’s in there. He’s dead.’

Roger paused for one stride and then went on. Christopher came back from the errand, and all of the boys and I began shivering, as much, I supposed, from shock and anxiety as from standing wet in the light April breeze, in air too cold for comfort.

‘Get into the car,’ I said, pointing at Dart’s beaten up wheels. ‘You need to get dry.’

‘But Dad...’

‘I’m coming with you.’

They piled in as Roger came out of the tent looking worried.

‘Whatever’s happened?’ he said urgently. ‘I’ll have to get the police. Come into the office.’

I shook my head. ‘First, I get the boys into dry clothes. I’ll not have them catching pneumonia. I’ll come back.’

‘But Lee—’

‘Keith tried to burn the big top,’ I said. ‘But...’

‘But,’ Roger finished, ‘people who try to start fires with petrol can end up by burning themselves.’

I smiled faintly. ‘Right.’

I walked over to Dart’s car and drove the boys down to the bus, where everyone, myself emphatically included, showered and changed into dry clothes down to the skin. My check shirt, its back blackened as if pressed by a too-hot iron, went into the rubbish bin, not into a laundry bag. Underneath I felt as if sunburnt: a first-degree soreness, nothing worse. Dead lucky, I thought, that the shirt had been thick pure wool, not melting nylon.

When the boys were ready I marched them over to Mrs Gardner and begged her to give them hot sweet drinks and cake, if she had any.

‘My dears ,’ she said, embracing them, ‘come on in.’

‘Don’t leave us, Dad,’ Edward said.

‘I have to talk to the Colonel, but I won’t be long.’

‘Can I come with you?’ Christopher asked.

I looked at his height, listened to the already deepening voice, saw the emerging man in the boy and his wish to leave childhood behind.

‘Hop in the car,’ I said and, deeply pleased, he sat beside me on the short return journey.

‘When you went up to the big top,’ I asked him, ‘what did Keith Stratton say to you?’

‘That man!’ Christopher shuddered. ‘It seemed all right at first. He told us to go into the big top. He said you would be coming.’

‘So then?’ I prompted, as he stopped.

‘So we went in, and he came in behind us. He told us to go on ahead, and we did.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then...’ he hesitated, ‘it got weird , Dad. I mean, he picked up a can that was lying there and took the cap off, and we could smell it was petrol. Then he put the can down again and picked up that rod thing, and flicked his lighter, and the end of the rod lit up like those torches in Ku Klux Klan films.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then he poured petrol onto the floor and trailed the torch into it and of course it went on fire, but just in one place.’ He paused, remembering. ‘We began to be scared, Dad. You’ve always told us never to put fire near petrol, and he had a big can of it in one hand and the torch in the other. He told us to go up further into the big top and he came along behind us and started another fire, and then another, and lots of them and we got really frightened, but all he said was that you would come soon. “Your father will come.” He gave us the creeps, Dad. He didn’t behave like a grown-up. He wasn’t sensible , Dad.’

‘No.’

‘He told us to go on further in, past that sort of stand thing that was there, and he put the torch into it so that it just burned there , and wasn’t swinging about, and that was better, but we still didn’t like it. But he put the petrol can down too, and then he just looked at us and smiled , and it was awful , I mean, I can’t describe it.’