Chris Cleave - Incendiary

—Well then. See what happens when you get yourself mixed up with the hoi polloi.

I stuck my tongue out and I took off my bra. It was brilliant watching his eyes go wide. It’s true what the Sun says. THEY ONLY WANT 1 THING. I handed my bra to Jasper Black and he reached out and took it. He held it up and frowned like he didn’t get what he was supposed to do with the thing. It’s the same way you’d hold a tax demand from the Inland Revenue Osama. Just after you took it out of the envelope and just before you shoved it down the back of the sofa along with all those letters begging you for mercy.

—I don’t know what to say, said Jasper Black. This really isn’t what I had in mind.

—Yeah. Well listen don’t take this the wrong way but you’re one of those people who if we waited till we knew what you had in mind we’d be here all day and then it wouldn’t matter what it was you had in mind because my husband would be back home and he’d kick your teeth in.

Jasper Black swallowed.

—Fair point, he said.

—Yeah. I do try to be fair.

I took off my knickers and I tucked them into his shirt pocket. I was grinning like an idiot. On the telly next door the ref blew his whistle. The crowd gave a roar. The game was starting. I skipped into the lounge and lay on my tummy on the sofa watching the telly in the altogether.

Robert Pires made a long run down the left side and Jasper Black laid his hand on my bum. I shivered. Pires gave it to Cesc Fabregas. Fabregas ran the ball between 2 blue shirts. Jasper Black ran his fingers down between my buttocks. Fabregas looked around for support. I raised my bum up a bit and Fabregas found Thierry Henry. Jasper Black found my clitoris and Thierry Henry struck it on the half volley and I gasped. Thierry Henry’s shot went in sweet and low and so did Jasper Black the crowd went wild. Chelsea walked the ball back to the centre line Jasper Black was working his fingers in and out of me the crowd on the East Stand were singing 1 NIL TO THE ARSENAL. I smiled I was so happy. We were going to win the Premiership it was obvious. I knew my husband and my boy were singing their hearts out there on the East Stand. They would of been feeling great. I was feeling great too.

Neither side had many chances in the next 10 minutes. The game went all scrappy. I looked out at the street through the net curtains. Jasper Black was inside me all the way in very smooth and nice. I watched the street so calm and quiet in the sunshine. I sighed it was all so perfect. I half closed my eyes. Out on the street 3 kids were mucking around on their bikes. Turning in slow circles with the sun flashing on their spokes. An old dear was walking back from Tesco with her shopping trolley. She swerved to go round some dog mess. It was a perfectly ordinary day. My husband and my boy were happy. Jasper Black was moving inside me and there were hot shivers shooting all through my guts while I watched those kids turning circles on their bikes. It was a perfectly ordinary day in heaven.

I started to moan. The shivers were all through my body now flashing up and down my spine and exploding in my fingertips. I had to bite on the sofa cushion to stop myself screaming. There was a roar from the telly. Gael Clichy and Pires were playing 1-2s fast up the left. Jasper Black was moving quicker inside me it was obvious Arsenal were going to score again I was going to explode I couldn’t stand it. Pires lifted the ball across to Robin van Persie then van Persie struck it on the volley then Jasper Black was gasping. I felt gorgeous and you could see van Persie’s shot looping high and wide then curling back in towards the goal mouth. The Arsenal fans were coming to their feet behind the goal in their red shirts red hats red scarves their mouths were open they were screaming and I was screaming too. Everyone knew it was going in. The keeper was beaten and my whole body was in convulsions and you could see the ball curl in towards the goal tighter and tighter and then the whole East Stand exploded in flames.

At first I thought the telly was bust. There was a flash and I thought the tube was blown. But the ball was still there and the goalposts were still there. It was just the stand behind the goal that had disappeared in a white cloud. It looked like a fog bank. I wondered how fog had suddenly got itself into Arsenal’s brand-new stadium like that.

All those fans that had been standing up to scream for the goal. Well. They were just gone. I couldn’t work it out. I was watching the ball. It was still curling in towards the goal and then it slowed down in midair. Now it was shooting back the way it had come. It was flying backwards from the goal and I couldn’t work it out. I started counting. I know it’s daft really but I just started counting the way you do when you see lightning. The picture on the telly wobbled. The camera was shaking. The sound cut out. Everything went very quiet. Jasper Black stopped moving inside me. Oh fuck he said oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. One, I said. Two three four.

I was just counting. I was thinking nothing much I was watching the telly. The fog bank faded into a big dirty ball of smoke and orange flame boiling up where the East Stand used to be. The keeper was flat on his face he wasn’t moving. The flames rolled over him. Van Persie was still looking where his shot had gone. He followed the ball with his eyes. The ball flew back towards him and bounced right beside him and so did a man’s arm. It was a strong hairy arm. A chippie’s arm maybe. You could see the tats on it. The hand was open like it was reaching for something. The arm hit the ground hand first. It tumbled end over end for a bit and then it stuck into the turf. There must of been a spike of bone or something sticking out of the arm and the spike jammed in the ground. It looked like some chippie was trying to climb out of the earth. Van Persie was just staring at it. Fuck fuck fuck said Jasper Black oh my fucking Jesus Christ. Five I said. Six seven eight.

Some of the players were down and the rest were running now. They were running for the tunnel ahead of the waves of smoke and fire and some of them didn’t make it. The other players had their arms up to cover their heads because half the Gunners fan club was falling down around them in bits. There were feet and halves of faces and big lumps of stuff in Arsenal shirts with long ropes spilling behind them like strings of sausages I suppose it was guts. All of it was falling out of the top of the screen. It didn’t seem real. I looked out at the street. It was still very sunny and quiet out there. The old dear was shuffling off up the road and the 3 kids were still turning slow circles on their bikes. Nine I said. Ten eleven twelve.

Then the windows of the flat started to rattle. There was a low boom and then a sharp bang and the windows shook harder. After the first boom was over it echoed and rumbled all up and down the street. It went on for the longest time this thunder. The kids stopped their bikes and looked up into the blue sky. They couldn’t work it out. I couldn’t work it out myself. I only found out later that the telly pictures travelled faster than sound.

Jasper Black pulled out of me. I felt so empty. There had been something inside me but now there was nothing. I thought about my husband and my boy in their Arsenal shirts and I looked back at the telly. The smoke was everywhere now. The picture had gone almost dark it was like night had fallen on the stadium. The crowd was bursting onto the pitch. They were running in all directions. It was a total panic under this rain of blood and chunks. The crowd couldn’t see where they were going with all the dark and the blood. They didn’t have a chance. Lots of them fell and the ones that were still running ran over them. Then it all stopped.