Bright Burning Things(83)

There’s a nail and a wooden stick in the bottom of the box, which I presume is meant to be used as a stake. I hammer the stick into the ground and attach the wheel with the nail. The hammer slips, or my hand slips, resulting in a jangling nerve pain shooting through my thumb and forefinger. Bring my finger to my mouth and suck, a splinter lodged underneath my nailbed. The wheel is hanging off its perch precariously. Tommy goes to it and rights it.

‘You need to move away, Tommy, while I secure this thing.’

He gives me that look, which is enough to spur me on. Tap, tap, tap. Now: Straighten fuse, light tip of free end at arm’s length and retreat immediately. I pull the fuse through the centre, watch Tommy watching me.

‘Want to light this with me, Tommy?’

He runs back into the kitchen, returns with the box of matches and this time strikes with intent, the flame flickering in his shining eyes. ‘Arm’s length, Tommy.’

I guide his lit match-tip to the fuse, both hands holding, mine encircling his. We connect, and the Catherine wheel is set alight, blazing. The two of us run to the farthest edge of the yard, cheeks pulsing with heat and excitement. The wheel turns, a whirling dervish casting its hypnotic spell, and I’m there, in the happy scene I’ve been chasing. I am eight, held high on my father’s shoulders. The fireworks display burned so brightly and boomed so loudly, the sound momentarily drowned out my internal hissing and cackling, which I hadn’t known had been a constant until that moment. My father pointed at a huge circling wheel of fire. ‘A Catherine wheel.’ He tilted his head back towards me. ‘Named in memory of a beautiful young woman called Catherine, who was condemned to die for her beliefs on the wheel, a medieval instrument of torture.’

I remember the delicious thrill of shivers in my body, as if my father had just shared an illicit secret with me. There’s no memory of Lara in the picture. ‘But when she touched the wheel, so the story goes, it burst into flames. A miracle, Sonya.’ Although I didn’t know what the word meant exactly, I knew it had magic attached to it.

I look at Tommy, who seems mesmerised, the spinning an antidote to mine, to his.

‘Beeootiful, slinky, sunshiny, lickety-spit, wheee, Yaya, wheee!’

I squeeze his hand as the wheel propels itself faster and faster and with a mighty whoosh lifts into the air and soars above our heads, a silver spinning kaleidoscope of sparkles. Is this meant to happen? I don’t think the instructions said anything about it being airborne. The animals howl. A sound of sirens far off in the distance. ‘Fireman Sam,’ Tommy says, two bright spots of colour on his cheeks, his body thrumming with excitement, speed taking hold of him until he has wrestled free of me and is running to a soundtrack of whistles and flickers, crackles and spits, of engines shrieking rescue.

Suddenly, the wheel explodes, like a fireball, and hurtles directly at him. A noise rips out of me, a gargantuan sound I’ve never heard before. Tommy stops in his tracks; the animals are hushed. Please help, and this feels embodied, a current coursing. Is this it, Sister Anne? Energy pulses through me as I launch myself at him, push him behind me, my body a human shield. I stretch my hands upwards and manage to hit out at the burning wheel, connecting with my right palm, deflecting its path. It throws out sparks.

‘A shooting star, Yaya!’

The sirens seem to get closer, a screaming violin concerto, then swerve away until all that’s left is a distant echo.

‘Fuck, that was close, Tommy.’ I look at him, my whole body shaking. What could have happened plays out for a moment.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck!’

His hot hand climbs inside my already blistering palm.

‘Ouchy, Yaya.’ He drops his hand, inspects my palm and traces the blisters with his fingertips, then blows on its surface.

Herbie and Marmie huddle against my ankles.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

‘Who are you talking to, Yaya?’

Our four faces tilt upwards, as if under a spell. The navy night sky is lit up. We all watch, transfixed, as the wheel of fire skitters off on its new trajectory, trailing in its wake a cloud of fiery glitter. I bend to him, blow the charred fragments off his face, tuck his hair behind his ear and pick him up. He nuzzles into me, his eyelashes brushing my cheeks, his breath in my ear: a divine whisper. Silence falls like a velvet curtain. Swish.





Acknowledgements

Thank you to my wonderful agent, Clare Alexander, without whose support, patience and vision this book would not exist. To Ellah Wakatama Allfrey for introducing us in the first place, I am incredibly grateful. To Lesley Thorne and all at Aitken Alexander, for allowing me to be part of your special team. To Geffen Semach, my most patient reader, my ally and friend, thank you. To the brilliant editor Gillian Stern for helping to unlock the heart of this book with her exceptional insight.

To the Arts Council of Ireland for their invaluable bursary; to Arvon and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for providing beautiful spaces and inspiration along the way; to Linda Walsh for her generosity and sea view.

To all my early readers: Siona, Emer, Gene, Sonya, Earnan, Beth, Julie – thank you. Special thanks to Brian Langan for his perceptive notes and to Michelle Moran, Seamus Hosey, Hugh O’Conor and Tom Farrelly for their friendship and tireless reading. To June Caldwell, Joanne Hayden and Elizabeth McSkeane for their incisive critiquing and support along the way.