‘Aaaah!’ he screams. It’s too terrible. Suddenly he stops. First he lifts up his head, then he lowers it again. He looks at them.
‘But of course if you do that you leave a big mess for other people to clean up. And you might disturb more than just the traffic.’
They say nothing.
Treppie makes as though he’s brushing away dust and ashes from his face. He pushes past them, going for the door. Pop follows him. They leave her standing there.
She pulls Lambert’s blanket straight where Treppie kicked it off. Let her also go to the front, then. She’s too tired tonight to get worked up over Treppie’s horries. She walks back up the passage, with a new idea in her head.
She stops at the kitchen door. She can’t remember why she came here. Maybe if she opens the door she’ll remember. There’s so much stuff lying around on the floor, the door won’t open properly. She puts her hand round the doorframe and switches on the light. Then she steps over all the stuff, into the kitchen. Now she remembers. She goes to the dresser and fishes out a full box of matches from the top drawer. Very softly, she closes the door behind her, leaving the light on. That rubbish looks like it wants to multiply there in the dark. Mol rubs her eyes. Treppie switches his horries on and off like a TV set. But the horries that she sometimes gets are different, they buzz in her head like horseflies on a windowpane. A window with no handle so you can’t open and close it. All she can do is hush the buzzing in her head. Knitting helps. But she hasn’t got wool. And she also hasn’t got a dog any more.
Now Treppie’s door is shut tight. She puts her ear to the door and listens. ‘Grrrt-grrrt,’ she hears. She knows that sound. Treppie’s tearing things out of the paper. He finds other horries in there, so he can cover up his own.
Pop’s sitting in his chair in front. His eyes are glued to the TV. It’s on so loud he doesn’t even hear when she comes in. She looks to see what Pop’s watching.
It’s a game with a big wheel full of colourful lights around the edges. The wheel turns, then stops, then turns, then stops again. Screaming people try to guess the numbers. A man with rolled-up jacket sleeves tells everyone who’s right and who’s wrong, who wins fridges and washing machines, who gets nothing and who loses everything they’ve already won. There’s a wild monster’s head in the middle of the wheel. Some of the numbers make its mouth open up, and then a big, flat, red tongue comes out. Then the audience screams like it’s going mad. And the man in the jacket pushes up his sleeves again and takes the microphone in the other hand and flicks back his hair.
She must come and sit next to him, Pop signals, so they can watch together what happens with the numbers and the monster and the turning wheel. But she doesn’t want to. She wants out. Out! It’s Guy Fawkes out there and now the TV’s playing so loud she can’t even hear the crackers any more. She wants to see and she wants to hear. She doesn’t want to miss it.
It’s just once a year that all the people in Martha Street come out of their houses and spend some time together. They watch the fireworks and they talk. It’s the only time they’re friendly with each other, the only time they’re interested in each other’s fireworks and things. Just once a year. People say hello, even if they don’t know you. It’s like a party. Not that she feels in the mood for a party tonight. She feels empty and tired. Her heart’s beating too fast. What’s more, there’s another one of those flies buzzing up and down the little window at the back of her head. It’s after eight now, and they’ve been there since this morning. It’s useless trying to sleep in a state like this. She’s all worked up from the goings on, and from Lambert lying at the back there under the worn old blanket. Lambert, who doesn’t want to wake up.
She signals back to Pop that she’s going out. What for? he asks with his hands.
It’s Guy Fawkes outside, she says, but he can’t hear. He points to his ears. She points to her head. Pop nods. Yes, it’s okay, he knows. He motions to her she must turn down the TV, he wants to sleep now. That’s okay. That’s fine. It’s the only thing that works for him.
Once outside, she walks up to the wire fence and looks up and down the street. Just children wherever you look. And grown-ups, standing together in groups.
‘Careful! Watch out!’ they say to the children. ‘Don’t let the crackers go off in your eyes!’
The fireworks shoot and whistle and bang in greens and reds and blues. Rainbows and stars with tails. This will fix you, get lost, you damn bug!
She feels Toby’s wet nose against her leg. Ag shame, last year Gerty was here too, but Gerty was always so scared of the crackers. You had to pick her up, otherwise she’d run inside and hide under a chair in the lounge until it was all over. But not Toby. He thinks it’s a game. Then again, he thinks everything’s a game.
Mol walks back to the little stoep. She hasn’t got the guts to go into the street alone, or to say hello to the people and look at their fireworks. In earlier years they’d all go outside together, with Lambert in front. He likes talking to people. Not that he has much of a story. He starts with a ‘ja, well’, a bit of story, and then another ‘ja, well’ at the end. Or you know, followed by you never know, without adding much of a story at all. People listen to him ’cause he looks the way he looks. They think he’s funny. But then again, people think everything’s funny.
Mol feels for the matches and the Tom Thumbs in her pocket. She’s never set off a cracker on her own before. No, dear Jesus, she’s scared she’ll shoot out her eyes. She looks back into the street. Everyone’s jolly. She stands on her toes to see what they’re doing at Fort Knox. Maybe that man from this morning will give her another cigarette. But they’re very busy next door. They stand in a bunch and then they shout: Sputnik! Hellfire! And then they all run for cover and a big, wild thing shoots up into the sky, making red arrows all over the place and a noise like an ambulance.
Mol turns back to the house. But she’s still not ready to go inside. The house is dark and closed. She can see the cracks on their outside walls in the light of the streetlamps. The house is just a shell. But, she knows, the stuff inside that shell is thick. Thick and quiet from all the things that have happened. All that escapes from the thick stuff inside is the flickering blue light of the TV, playing without sound behind the curtains.
Mol calls Toby, but she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t want to go inside. She pushes herself, yet her feet won’t move. Not into this house where things keep happening. Funny, you’d expect the house to be heavy from all the stuff that goes on. But the house is light. It looks like it wants to float up, like a little balloon. Maybe it’s just her head: tight and loose, thick and thin, light and heavy.
Mol feels her heart. She feels her breath.
She thinks: God, just watch me. Tonight, I, Mol Benade, will shoot off a cracker. For my heart and for my breath, so they can run smoothly, and for the little thing buzzing inside my head, so it can settle down, and for the house, and the walls, so they can get some strength, and for the quiet, thick insides, to give them a little light. And for us, to pep us up a little. And for next door, this side and that side and across the road. For them, a gentle reminder, as Treppie would say, that we’re still here. Before they start thinking we’ve all given up the ghost here behind the curtains. They’re likely to go and put the welfare on to us again, or something like that. All that’s needed is a bit of noise from our side. To show we’re still kicking and we’re not planning to throw in the towel yet. Not a damn. Come hell or high water.
Mol feels her strength returning. She feels her face twitch as she tries to smile. Right. Smile, cracker, matches. Ready, steady, go!