Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits Page 3

  His visitor, when he came, was Mr. Askey, the estate manager. They went out together to inspect the ruins of the Cabinet House.

  ʺStill getting about then?ʺ said Mr. Askey. ʺYou seemed a bit shaky last couple of times I came.ʺ

  ʺ’Ad a bad go all through the back-end. Wasn’t sure I’d be lastin’ that long, to be honest with you. But I been feelin’ a deal better lately.ʺ

  ʺLooking it too. But then you’ve never looked your age, anything like. . . . We took it, by the way, that you wouldn’t want a lot of palaver about you reaching your hundred.ʺ

  ʺNo, sir. Tell you the truth, sir, I’ve not been easy about that. Mebbe I’ve been wrong all these years about ’memberin’ Trafal gar, eighteen-oh-five. Could’ve been Waterloo, mebbe. Eighteen-fifteen, weren’t it?ʺ

  For the life of him Dave didn’t understand why he’d answered as he had. The time for making a fuss about his birthday was over, and anyway Mr. Askey wasn’t the sort to make a fuss without Dave’s say-so. They knew each other well, ever since Mr. Askey had been brought in by the ninth earl (mad on improvements) as his new manager, planning, among other things, to build a series of model cottages for all the estate workers. Mr. Askey had first visited Dave twenty years back to discuss moving him into one of these, had at once recognised his obvious dislike of the idea and had come up with a scheme that pleased everyone. Dave would stay where he was on a pension, but still taking care of his wood for the benefit of the occasional gentleman who wanted a bit of rough shooting rather than the big organised drives; the earl would have his model cottages with a new, dynamic head gamekeeper to see to the rest of the shooting. It had been Mr. Askey who’d organised various perks, such as the weekly provisions, as part and parcel of the pension. He was that kind of thoughtful. And from time to time he liked to drop by and talk about old times on the estate, usually because he needed to know how something had come to be the way it was, but often enough just because he was interested.

  He was a good man, and a friend, and Dave didn’t like telling him less than the truth. Maybe that showed in his voice, judging by the sharp, considering glance Mr. Askey gave him before he grunted and walked on.

  After that, though Mr. Askey continued to visit Dave, an unspoken constraint seemed to lie between them, not diminishing as the days and weeks, and then months, went by. Meanwhile Sonny throve. By the time the bluebells filled Dave’s wood, he was a magnificent bird, about the size of a peacock, though a far more graceful flier. On any clear morning, as soon as it was light, he would strut out of the door, flip himself up onto the hitching rail beside the porch, luxuriantly stretch his wings and then launch himself out and up to the topmost branches of the great old oak on the far side of the clearing. Once there, he turned east and waited for the sunrise, and as soon as the first rays flamed off his plumage he stretched his wings wide, as if to gather all the sunlight he could reach into himself, raised his head and sang.

  The notes were about the same pitch as those of a pigeon or a dove, but this was no mere two-note call, repeated and repeated, but a true song, as elaborate and melodious as that of a thrush. Dave used to stop whatever he was doing simply to stand at his door and listen.

  By this time Sonny was too large to get into the stove, so Dave tried offering him a shovelful of embers on the hearthstone. On dull days Sonny might nibble at them a bit, but at the first break in the clouds he would be out and away up into the tree-tops. After a while Dave came to the conclusion that he lived mainly on sunlight, but then, one murky day after several similar ones, with the smell of more rain coming already strong in the wind, he did his annual spring clean-up of the clearing, raking the fallen twigs and branches into a heap on his bonfire site and setting them alight. Sonny, who normally seemed to expect to have everything done for him, for once lent a hand, strutting around and gathering twigs into his beak and adding them to the pile. Then, once the fire was lit and the flames burst through, he hopped into the midst of them and nestled himself down, twisting this way and that like a blackbird having a dust-bath. The smoke, Dave noticed, had a curious spicy smell. Sonny spent all morning on the bonfire, and came out glossy with heat, not the smallest feather singed.

  ʺFire an’ light,ʺ Dave told him. ʺFire an’ light. Them’s what you need, eh? I don’t know what we’re goin’ to do for you come winter-time, now you can’t fit into the stove no more.ʺ

  By high summer Sonny was no longer confining himself to Dave’s wood. The first sure sign of this came when he floated down into the clearing one June dusk with a dead adder in his grasp, which he laid at Dave’s feet, just as a cat might bring a dead mouse home to show to its owner. He then carried the snake to the bonfire site, poked it in among the bits and pieces waiting to be burnt and piled more stuff on top of it. He flipped to the top of the pile, spread his wings, stretched his neck skyward and crowed, a sound nothing like his daybreak song, but one clear, long cry of triumph. Unkindled, the whole pile burst into flame. Sonny stayed in the middle of the blaze until the pile was embers.

  ʺFull of surprises, aren’t you?ʺ Dave told him. ʺKemp Moor, that must’ve come from, that snake. Nine miles off if it’s an inch, and you won’t find adders anyplace else round here. On’y you best watch out ’ow you go gadding about. Anyone spots you, they’re goin’ to want to get ’old of you and stick you in a zoo.ʺ

  He wasn’t in fact seriously worried about the possibility. For all his incandescent splendour, Sonny could be strangely difficult to see in full sunlight, even with a darker background, and became completely invisible against a clear sky. Just as any normal smokeless flame does, he seemed to be subsumed into the general glare. And even in murkier weather he was very good at concealing himself. Neither Tom Hempage nor Mr. Askey nor anyone else said anything about an exotic bird that had suddenly appeared on the estate.

  From then on Sonny repeated this behaviour at least every other week. Only adders, apparently, would do, though there were plenty of grass-snakes actually on the estate. And he may have been looking for them further afield, as he twice spent a whole night away, not reappearing till the following evening. If there was nothing waiting to burn on the bonfire heap, he would build a pile for himself, so after the first two or three times Dave took to dragging bits of fallen timber home from his walks round the wood.

  This pattern persisted all summer, until the leaves began to turn, the swifts had already gone and the swallows were gathering. The only slow change had been that as the days shortened, Sonny seemed to become even greedier for the sunlight. In any bright spell he spent his time at the top of the oak, sometimes slipping in and out of the cottage five or six times a day as the clouds came and went.

  At the same time the pyres he built for himself became steadily larger. In dull weather he spent most of his time flitting round the wood finding dead branches and wrestling them free from their tree. More than once he came and fetched Dave to bring home something too heavy for him to drag, though it was remarkable what he could manage for himself. Then he let Dave break it up for him, but insisted on building the pyre himself, finishing with an elegant pyramid, neat as a wren’s nest, with a tunnel in the side into which he would insert the adder when he brought it home. Dave was fascinated by the whole procedure, though he had no idea what it meant.

  By now Sonny was spending two or three nights away at a time searching for the adders. Dave became used to these absences and wasn’t worried. All the same he immediately recognised the day when Sonny finally left as being different, and by the time the morning hymn was over, Dave, listening from the porch, knew it for what it was. Though the hymn to the sunrise had varied from day to day, it had always been full of joy, joy like a leaping flame. This morning it was longer, slower, and suffused with the melancholy of fading embers. It was farewell. Farewell to the summer. Farewell to Dave. Like the swifts and the swallows, Sonny was heading south.

  As soon as the hymn was over, Sonny came swooping down and straight in through the door of the cottage. Dave turned an
d followed, and found him perched on the arm of his chair. Slowly Dave sat, and they contemplated each other for a while.

  ʺWell, good-bye, old fellow,ʺ said Dave. ʺBeen a real pleasure ’avin’ you around. And an honour, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. Done me a power of good, you ’ave. I don’t know what I’ll do without you, but never you mind. I’ll find something. Not that I blame you. You’ve got to go where the sun goes. That’s where you belong. I wouldn’t want to keep you ’ere, supposin’ I could. It wouldn’t be right. Don’t you go frettin’ about me. I’ll be all right.ʺ

  His voice had grown croaky by the time he finished, but he wasn’t ashamed. Sonny would understand.

  Sonny stared at him for a little while, nodding his head up and down. Then he twisted his neck round, reached and neatly tweaked a feather out of his tail plumage and laid it on Dave’s lap.

  ʺSomething to remember you by, eh?ʺ said Dave, utterly delighted. ʺThat’s nice of you, very nice indeed. I’d been hoping to find one of those come moult time, supposin’ you do that. Not that I’m going to forget you. Not a chance. . . . Well, you’ll want to be off, I suppose, and I’m not going to keep you. You’ve a long way to go.ʺ

  Sonny hopped onto his shoulder as he rose, and let him carry him out. He hopped onto Dave’s offered wrist, gathered himself and leapt, wide winged. He swung out and up round the clearing, a blaze of brightness against the summer-weary foliage, and continued the rising spiral like a soaring hawk until the sunlight struck him and he vanished.

  In one sense Dave missed Sonny dreadfully, more than he’d ever missed any of his dogs, even old Fitz. But at the same time he felt extremely fortunate to have been given such a season of wonder in his old age. Very few people, he was sure, could have had such luck. It hadn’t been anything he had been entitled to, let alone allowed to hang on to when the time came for him to lose it.

  Furthermore, he had told Sonny the truth. The bird had done him a power of good. He felt in better heart than he had for years, and it needed no effort of will to do as he’d promised and find things to occupy his time. Two bits of good luck came his way. Tom Hempage, not normally one for chat, told him as if by way of gossip that the old bitch at the farm had whelped late, both in her life and in the year. As she was the best dog the farmer had ever had, he wasn’t willing to lose any of what was sure to be her last litter, but she hadn’t enough milk for all of them and they were looking for people to wean the pups and look after them until they were old enough to train. From the awkwardness of his manner Dave guessed he had been told to ask without seeming to, and this was the best he could do. Without thought, he said he’d be glad to take one on.

  He got the last of the litter, a bitch, small even for a runt, proving his guess correct. The farmer would only have kept her for sentimental reasons. He wanted a home for her where she would be more of a house pet than anything that would one day make a working gundog.

  ʺWe’ll show ’em, eh?ʺ Dave told the brindled scrap, and she looked up at the tone of his voice, the flop ears attempting to prick. A good sign, he thought. No reason she shouldn’t train. Though he didn’t expect to keep her beyond the spring if she turned out any good, he named her Vick, after a bitch he’d had seventy years back, when the Queen had still been just Princess Victoria. And she did what he’d wanted, keeping him busy enough, stopping him brooding about Sonny. For that reason, and against all his principles—his previous dogs had all been kennelled outside—he went along with the house-pet idea enough to have her indoors and let her curl up on his lap in the evenings. Only, last thing at night, after he’d shut Vick into her box and put the lamp out and lit his candle, he’d take Sonny’s feather from the pot where he kept it on the mantle shelf and run it gently through his fingers, and for those few moments the blazing presence would be vividly with him in the room.

  And then, a few weeks later, George Hand, the head gamekeeper, dropped by for a bit more than the usual chat about old times. Apparently his lordship was planning some really big shooting parties that winter, and George would be needing to drive the woods as much as they would stand, so there weren’t going to be much by way of breeding birds left by season’s end, and he’d be needing to stock up all he could, come spring. Did Dave feel up to lending a hand?

  ʺGlad to ’elp,ʺ said Dave. ʺJust ’ave to see ’ow I come through the winter, mind you, though I’m a mort better than I was this time last year. But I’ll start takin’ a look round, see what needs doin’. Do it myself if I can, ask you to send a lad up if I can’t.ʺ

  So from then on, Dave quartered the wood more systematically than he’d been doing on his daily excursions, checking out the movements of jays and magpies and such. To help persuade them that a man carrying a gun meant no harm he took his with him. Vick, as soon as she was big enough, went eagerly along, learning to walk to heel, to sit until called, and so on. One bright January morning, extending this process, he told her ʺstill,ʺ and made her stand motionless while he took notional aim at a magpie. To his astonishment he found that if the gun had been loaded he could perfectly well have shot the bird.

  Until that moment, though he had been vaguely aware that his eyes were getting no worse, he had no idea they had grown so much better. Testing them one at a time he found that the right eye was now almost unclouded, and the left, which a year ago had been seeing little more than a blur of light, was now making out definite shapes and distances through the mist. He was completely delighted, of course, though he didn’t take the apparent miracle for granted, merely hoping it would last. But for some reason he was wary of telling anyone about his good luck. There was something uncanny about it.

  It turned out a harsh winter, with deep snow and hard frosts followed by a messy thaw, but he bore it better than he’d have believed possible. One still, clear March evening he was checking over the cages, ready for the first pheasant chicks, due next week, when he heard a soft and complex call from overhead. His heart leaped, and he looked up in time to see Sonny detach himself from the general blaze of sunset and settle onto a cage frame. He gazed around for a minute with his usual hauteur, then hopped down and stalked over to inspect Vick. She sat to greet him, as she would for a human visitor, her tail wagging vigorously.

  ʺNice enough little dog,ʺ Dave told him teasingly. ʺNo substitute, mind you.ʺ

  Sonny turned his head to stare at him, acting disdain, but obviously amused.

  The pattern of the years was set. Sonny spent his summers with Dave in the wood, migrated with the swallows and returned before them. Each time he came he found Dave looking a little younger. Curiously it was Tom Hempage, not Dave himself, though he occasionally fantasised about the possibility, who first decided that this was no mere appearance, but was indeed the case. Being a quiet and private man, Tom would not have spoken of it to anyone—none of his business—but Mr. Askey had asked him to keep an eye on Dave, so he mentioned it to him. Mr. Askey waited for a couple more visits to decide for himself, and then, one rainy summer afternoon, brought it up directly.

  ʺYou’re actually getting younger, aren’t you, Dave? It’s happening.ʺ

  Dave sat for a long while, staring at him in silence. All round the clearing rain dripped from the sodden trees, a sound like the endlessly passing minutes that compile the centuries.

  ʺI’ve wondered,ʺ he muttered at last. ʺBut it don’t make sense. Really it don’t. Do it, Mr. Askey?ʺ

  ʺYou’re a hundred and five, Dave. I looked you up in the parish register. There’s no mistaking. I did that—five years ago it must have been—when you first told me you weren’t sure about it after all. I was puzzled at the time, but I reckoned you had your reasons, so I didn’t say anything. Do you mind telling me now?ʺ

  ʺI . . . I don’t know. . . . I really don’t know. Maybe it was something . . . something Sonny—ʺ

  He froze and looked away, desperate with agitation.

  ʺSonny?ʺ said Mr. Askey gently.

  There was a rustle from the chimney and Sonny sl
ipped deftly down into view to stand on the stove. It was an entry quite as imposing as that of any Grand Duchess descending a great sweep of stairs to greet her noble guests.

  ʺMy goodness me!ʺ whispered Mr. Askey, and rose, like Vick apparently recognising Sonny as belonging to an order of creation at least on equal terms with humankind. Sonny eyed him back, just as appraisingly, until he settled back on his chair.

  ʺCan you tell me anything more?ʺ he asked, watching Sonny make himself comfortable on the stove.

  With a feeling of immense relief, Dave told him what had happened from the beginning.

  ʺWell, well, well,ʺ said Mr. Askey, when he’d finished. ʺI think you’ve managed to make friends with a phoenix, Dave. The Phoenix, I should say, as I believe there’s only one at a time. Not that I remember much about him. I’ll ask Mr. Frobisher. I won’t tell him why, of course. The fewer people know about this, the better. We don’t want the world and his wife coming to gawp. But I’ll have to tell his lordship. I can’t go behind his back. Don’t worry. He’ll see it our way, I’m pretty sure.ʺ

  He spoke with confidence. The earls, for all their varied mad nesses, had carried some persistent character traits. They looked after their own. Though they didn’t intrude into their people’s lives, none of their servants, tenants or dependants, except for the hopelessly self-destructive, had ever died in want; and they thought that what happened on their estates was no business whatever of the outside world.

  A week later they were sitting on the bench by Dave’s porch, with Sonny on the hitching rail beside them. The weather had cleared, and the sun at that time of year rose high enough above the tree-tops to reach almost all the clearing. Sonny wasn’t doing his disappearing trick, and in that strong light, seen against the darkness under the trees, he seemed literally to blaze. It was hard to believe that that intense shimmer of brightness wasn’t true flame.