Stephen Kelman - Man on Fire

We stand there watching. No words come to us. We’re all friends now and what’s done is done.

Sleep comes too easily in Ellen’s bed. I float away surrounded by the things she’s brought from home. I remember the reassuring thrill when I first found myself among her laced and fragranced things, the woman-warmed garments that reminded me how I’d been chosen by another person to lead them through the dangers of the world. I feel that thrill again and yearn for those dangers. I go to sleep with the taste of her on my tongue. I sleep for us both, folding into a darkness that will flay the fat from me and leave me light enough for her to lift me on and off a fretting chair.

When I wake up the cases are packed, the little padlocks sitting on top ready for me to thread and snap shut. Ellen’s numb fingers aren’t up to the little things. I reach over to where she sits on the side of the bed and take her hand. I turn it round so the knuckles face out and run them down my cheek. It’s supposed to be playful. The scrape of my stubble is an assault on the air. She looks sad. I think she’s making a guess at how much she’ll miss the touch of a man.

‘You don’t have to keep me,’ I tell her. ‘If you don’t want to. I can go somewhere, they have places for dying in. The people there are trained, they don’t take it personally. It’ll be easier.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Ellen says. And then she tells me a secret. It shouldn’t feel like a secret but it does. She tells me she’s never stopped loving me.

‘I went to buy you a snowglobe once. You remember that’s what I used to call you?’

I remember. I go cold. I haven’t been her secret for such a long time.

She tells me there was a toy shop in town, with carousels in the window and snowglobes in different sizes, an old-fashioned sort of place that clung on to a handmade ideal for as long as it could. She went there to surprise me. It was the day I saw her, the time we never spoke about.

‘I was looking for ages but I couldn’t find the right one. There were so many to choose from and I didn’t want to make a mistake. If I picked the wrong one it meant I didn’t know you anymore. I thought it was such a good idea, I went there all full of myself and I pictured the look on your face when I gave it to you. Things had been hard and I needed to make it right again. You’d been trying so hard.’

She bites on something painful and she’s so brave, I’m ashamed of myself for never seeing it and for everything she saw in me.

‘I gave up in the end. None of them were you. But not because I didn’t know you. They just didn’t have yours there. I would have known it when I saw it. I didn’t want to make do with something else.’

She reaches into the case and brings out a present for me, held in the palm of her hand like an offering. I take it and carefully peel the wrapping paper away. It’s one of the snowglobes I helped save from the flood, the ones with the power station inside.

‘I found it when I first got here, before I came to find you. It was in a little souvenir shop just by the hotel, you probably know it. The man had only just got them, it was the first one he put out. I don’t know why but it felt right. Something about how random it was appealed to me. Go on then, see if it works.’

I give it a jiggle. The glitter falls unimpressively. ‘It’s perfect,’ I say.

The tears fall out of her. I’ve won her back. I never lost her after all. I wrap my arms around her and let her shake. She’s enough snow for the rest of my life.

The ghosts of man and cobra are peeking through the whitewash and Harshad has been in thrall to the radio since sunrise, the swoop of a favourite ballad drawing him away from the whisky bottle that stands near-full at the far end of the counter. Everything’s working now. With nothing left to fix, his hands can be still at last. The bottle will be lifted and drained before the day is out but whenever the music plays it will soak up his sadness a little bit, insulate him against the slow crush of time passing unbrightened by a tactile and reforming love. Every day for him will be like this. I can only hope the radio keeps working so the music will come in rations enough to keep him afloat.

He stops singing when I approach the counter. He undermines me with a hateful look.

I ask him if he’s heard, Bibhuti’s awake and all is well.

He’s heard. He’s glad. But it changes nothing, I can see it in his eyes. It’s luck alone that kept Bibhuti alive. It’s luck that took his wife and his fingers and his best friend. And with luck he’ll live to see his daughter marry into the happiness he never found. There’s no telling. He just wants to be alone with his music now.

I offer my hand. I thank him, for everything. I have nothing particular in mind, I’m just being polite. I’ve been ungrateful in the past and I recognise the error of it. His mangled fingers are smooth as if from burns. I keep shaking for longer than I need to, just to let him know that nothing disgusts me anymore.

He comes out from behind the counter, picks up the cases and takes them outside. He stands on the spot where his friend used to sit and tests the weather. Hollowed out by his losses, he’s a barrel for the rain. It pours into him, pastes the wayward hair onto his head. He stands straight, his face lifted to the sky, his eyes shut tightly. For a moment it looks like he might be taken up the way the old man with the gods had hoped to be.

The blast of a car horn pulls him back down to earth. It’s Jolly Boy’s hand on the steering wheel. Laughing, he blasts the horn again, startling his mother in the back seat. He looks small behind the wheel, a spoof of a grown-up. In the passenger seat Bibhuti winds the wheel towards the kerb. At his nod Jolly Boy brakes sharply. The jolt knocks Bibhuti against the dashboard, spilling his Ganesh. He recovers and looks up at me. He taps the dial of an imaginary watch, his new relationship with pain making him impatient. It’s time to go.

It is with great pride that I convey to you the latest record achievement which will also be my last as the almighty has decided. The attempt passed off with only minor hitch-up due to the extreme difficulty which cannot be matched by any other means. Memory of the event containing some holes but the important parts preserved on film and in the minds of all present, especially my great friend John Lock who pushed me to glory with undimmed spirit and determination which is second to none. Eleven baseball bats broken in one minute and thirty-seven seconds. Guinness ratification pending. My body is no longer the cage of my dreams. All my dreams set free to explore the world and come back to me with the news of seven seas and beyond. God is in everything and knows the best route to happiness. I followed always with sure steps until the path stopped at ultimate destination.

The pain is a gift from him. It is telling me that my work is done. There is no doubt about it. Typing this report with the fingers of one hand only is itself a test of my patience while I await further instructions for my next adventure as person of highest credentials.

You may be asking yourself why there is no regret that I did not reach my target of fifty bats. Really there can be no regret. The prize I received from the big record show and its lead-up is too much to kill time with introspecting on what might have been. This prize is a new friend in the shape of John Lock who will live in my heart for ever. We will share many beautiful moments to come when the almighty spares him from his present illness. He will teach me even more about the role of kindness than he has hitherto. Also there will be lovely times of humour in the vein of previous examples such as his first attempts at yoga and his defeats in the badminton arena which made Jolly Boy smile so frequently. And eleven bats is an impressive number which will never be outstripped by another man. Everything is walking in ideally as I wished it.