Will Hodgkinson - The House is Full of Yogis

‘It’s a very different scene over there. Anyway, have a listen to this.’

A song called ‘Vicious’ came on, to roars of approval from the guests. Annie started shimmying with a bearded man, Sandy got up and tried to make a reluctant-but-amused John Chubb dance, Mum was saying something about everyone being so bloody conventional and Pete was cornered by a curvaceous woman who was pressing her considerable cleavage up against him, causing his eyebrows to raise in tandem with the glass of beer in his hand.

I continued to fulfill my role as champagne and Flumps waiter until the Flumps ran out, which was strange because nobody had actually wanted one. Apart from a single Flump that Tom had picked up, stared at, and attempted to jam up my nose, I had, I realized, eaten the lot of them.

Nev appeared, charcoal marks on his sports jacket. ‘OK everybody, let’s go outside. I’ve lit the bonfire.’

It was a huge, bright red pyramid, stacked high with dried branches, planks, an old wooden chair and a punk-themed Guy Fawkes effigy at the top (punks being déclassé in 1981). Nev, Tom and I had been building it for days, adding anything that would burn, and now it was a mighty inferno. Mum brought out the tray of baked potatoes while Nev tied the rope for the Flying Pigeon between the apple tree and a pole holding up the washing line, and I, regretting having stuffed myself with Flumps for the last hour, sat down on the grass and leaned against the large wooden box containing all the fireworks and clutched my stomach.

This was the kind of party I liked, even if I was beginning to wish Flumps had never been invented. There was nothing better than Nev having fun because he spread it in our direction. He liked the same things as us: building dens in the woods, making fires, playing board games and going on Magical Mystery Tours to the local fun fair. He was clearly good adult company too, because all these interesting, lively people wanted to be with him. Mum didn’t like any child-related activities and she probably never had, but she enjoyed a party, while Tom relished having a bunch of adults around on whom to test out his maturity. I was overhearing him declaiming to a silent listener about the life of Dr Johnson, and Mum telling someone about her latest article on why she would rather be interviewing a top celebrity in a fancy cocktail bar than being bored at home looking after her children, when Nev appeared.

‘Sturchos,’ he said, grinning down at me excitedly, ‘I’m going to get it all going with the Flying Pigeon. Want to come over here with me to get a good view?’

‘You go ahead,’ I moaned, waving him away. ‘I think I’ve eaten something that disagrees with me. I’ll just stay here for a bit.’

Nev bounded off, telling everyone to clear the line of fire. If only I didn’t feel like I was going to send a hundred half-digested Flumps hurtling towards the ground I would have been up there with him, as Nev’s passion for anything involving fire and the destruction it wrought was matched only by my own. It was terrible to think that I wouldn’t be close to the mayhem – Nev was much more fun than most fathers because health and safety had never been at the top of his priorities – but my conviction was that if I just sat still for a couple of minutes I could recover from this unfortunate situation in time to enjoy the rest of the party, not to mention the rest of the fireworks in the box behind me.

‘OK everyone,’ said Nev, sparking the wick of the Flying Pigeon with a disposable lighter. ‘Here we go …’

The wick fizzed and sparked. People cheered. There was a high-pitched squeal, like it really was a pigeon whose tail had just been set on fire. A shower of sparks burst out. The pigeon took flight, zipping along the rope, spinning around and sending multicoloured rays of exploding gunpowder out into the night sky … and then it stopped. It fizzled out. Only one of the sticks of gunpowder had been used up.

Nev went to examine his prize item, poking around it to discover that the connection between the first stick and the rest had been broken. ‘Well, I’m not going to see that go to waste,’ he said, and before anyone could tell him not to he ripped the Flying Pigeon off the rope and chucked it onto the bonfire.

It sat there for a few seconds, before blasting into the air in a flash of colour. Then it turned and headed down, straight towards me. There were screams. Nev was running towards it, pipe-cleaner legs leaping forward. It looked like it was going to come down right on top of me – and then it was gone. But I could still hear it fizzing away. Where did it go? It all happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to get up and run before I realized.

From the open-mouthed faces of the people all staring at me, it looked like they had realized too. It was in the box of fireworks.

‘Will, get out of the way!’ shouted Nev. He almost made it over, but it was too late: the chaos began. A rocket screamed its way out of the box and headed straight towards Pete’s admirer, who displayed a nimbleness her curves belied and leapt into a rhododendron bush. A Catherine Wheel span wildly and helicoptered along the ground towards John Chubb’s titled ankles. A psychedelic Mount Vesuvius of dynamite exploded everywhere. I put my hands over my head and crouched as World War III broke out on a suburban lawn. Every time I peeked through my fingers, another firework had escaped. People were running, shouting useless warnings to each other and generally dissolving into panic. There was a red roar behind me for what seemed like ages (actually about a minute). Then it stopped.

I poked my head out. John Chubb and Pete were standing alert and looking up as if defending the party from an airborne invasion. People emerged from behind trees. There were groans but no injuries. I didn’t appear to be hurt.

There was one more explosion, followed by a whizzing sound and the sight of a single white light, floating silently in the night sky, mingling with the stars. It was a parachute firework. I looked up, and then looked at Nev, who was staring at this peaceful, brilliant light in contemplative wonder. He wore an expression I hadn’t seen before: transported and spiritual. He was motionless.

Then he shook himself into action and ran and picked me up from the ground.

‘Sturch! Are you all right?’

‘All right? That was the best fireworks display ever!’

What a dad. Who else could cause a grown-up party to descend into such anarchy? Unfortunately other guests, particularly the women, did not share my enthusiasm. They rounded on Nev as one, screaming at him for almost committing them to a lifetime of blindness and singed hair. And why was his poor son lying there next to an arsenal of lethal fireworks? To see Nev, perspiration clouding up his metal-framed glasses, twitching at his tank top as an army of harridans led by his wife accused him of something approaching child murder was far more disturbing than anything that had happened before.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ shrieked Mum, the ferocity of her coal-black eyes made a little less scary by the fragment of Roman Candle jutting from her bouffant, ‘Will could have been killed.’

‘But I’m fine,’ I shouted.

‘You keep out of this,’ she shouted back. ‘Honestly, Nev, sometimes I think you must have gone round the bend.’

Mum and Pete’s wife Annie went back into the house, arms linked, shooting Nev freezing glances over their shoulders. Pete and John Chubb told Nev not to worry, that nobody was hurt, and that women were mad anyway. Tom stood up, brushed down his velvet jacket, and walked towards the house with his hands clasped behind his back, kicking up dust with his shoes as he resumed his soliloquy on Dr Johnson.

‘Don’t listen to them, Nev,’ I said, as we stood next to each other by the bonfire and watched the flames dance. ‘You did them all a favour. That’s going to be the fireworks night everyone remembers for the rest of their life.’