They didn’t all know each other that well. It had started as just Louise and her boyfriend Phil, but as they’d mentioned their plans to more people, everyone wanted to go to the fireworks display in a village outside the town. There were too many of them to go in one car, so they shuffled awkwardly outside the pub while they worked out the best configuration of passengers. There was no obvious solution, no clear alignments of friendship and so it took some time. Louise had wanted to get there early and was impatient to leave, edging slowly towards the car park while they talked. She had her camera equipment packed in the boot and was keen to test the settings on her camera before the display started.
Eventually they worked it out and half an hour later than planned, set off in a short convoy of two down the dark winding lanes towards the display. They parked in the field next to the event and pulled on scarves and gloves as they made their way to the entrance. There was a small fairground, children screaming in delight under neon colours and the smell of overcooked meat from a burger van. They all stood around being polite for a while, no one wanted to take the lead. Louise fidgeted with her camera bag while Phil went off to get tickets for the bumper cars with his friend Matt from work. Louise’s friend Kate had brought another girl, Jo, from her office and they were both queueing for a coffee while Phil and Louise’s neighbours Ben and Jamie dragged a thermos from a rucksack. Anyone standing nearby – and there seemed to be several girls trying to do just that - would have smelt the whiskey laced into the coffee. They joined the other boys on the bumper cars and Louise tried to find a spot to set up her tripod. She had come for the fireworks, but perhaps she could get some good shots of the fairground ride, create stripes of coloured light across the smiling faces. To the side of her, Jo and Kate were speaking quietly. Louise had heard Kate mention Jo before, said she was a bit quiet but a really nice girl and new to the area; another of Kate’s projects. Jo looked cold in a denim jacket and a long slender scarf which looked elegant but did little against the autumn chill slicing through the air.
Louise lifted her camera off the tripod to catch a shot of her friend Kate laughing, her short dark hair poking out of a woolly hat in disarray, stretching out the arms of her parka jacket with bulging pockets. Kate turned towards a shout of laughter on the bumper cars. As usual, the boys had got competitive and while Ben and Jamie careened around the track together – they shared a car to save money - bumping into anyone that got in their way, Phil and Matt had started to circle the track avoiding everyone so they could build some momentum and ram each other as hard as possible. Phil was wedged into the edge for a while, until Ben and Jamie managed to get behind him and nudge him out of the corner. Suddenly, Matt turned sharply and whizzed across the track and knocked into Ben and Jamie so hard that Jamie nearly fell out of the car. The girls had all watched it happen and were silent with shock at the vehemence of Matt’s actions, but the boys were all laughing as the cars all ground to a halt and they got off the ride. She saw Phil accept some coffee from the boys, and noticed that Matt refused. He was driving.
Louise went to find a good spot for taking photographs; Jo and Phil came with her and the others all went off and promised to find them before the fireworks started. When Phil went off to get her a tea, Jo asked Louise about what she was doing.
“That looks like a lovely camera. You must be really good at it – can you even get fireworks on camera? Any time I’ve tried they just come out a blur.”
“Oh yes, you can if you have the right settings on the camera. I’ve not done many night shots before but I thought I’d give it a try. There’s a competition at the gallery in town at the end of the month and I thought maybe if I could get a good picture here...” Louise had entered the competition last year, and her careful deliate shots of flowers hadn’t even placed; this year her tutor suggested she tried something more dramatic.
“Good luck with that, I’ll let you get on. I just came because I like fireworks, really, no clever reason like you.”
Kate walked up behind them.
“Lou doesn’t have a clever reason either, she just wanted to come and be a kid so she brought her camera so she looks legit. I managed to get some sparklers too, so once the display has finished we could have a go with them. All in the name of art, obviously.”
“I’m not sure that you writing rude words is going to count as art, Kate,” said Phil as he joined them and handed Louise her tea.
The firework display was better than they had all expected, and they stood spellbound as the colours boomed and flashed across the dark night. Soon after the music started and the fireworks began, the boys rejoined them; Louise noticed that Matt quickly separated himself from the other two and stood near Jo, the collar of jhis coat turned up against the cold. She saw most of the display from through the screen of her camera until Phil had tugged insistently at her hand; she moved closer to him and looked up at the sky. A row of red catherine wheels angry like a burn whirred on the ground while lines of gold shot into the sky and resonated with a boom. Louise kissed Phil lightly and took the camera off the tripod, handing it to him with her bag.
“I want to get some shots of the people watching it all. Back in a minute.” She moved through the crowd, capturing children’s faces upturned in wonder, couples cuddling into each other as they blew out white clouds of breath and teenagers working hard not to look impressed. She stopped just before she made it back to the group and took some of her friends as they stood together. Kate was laughing with Jamie and Ben; she couldn’t tell from that distance whether she was just standing close or whether she had her hand in Ben’s. Phil and Jo stood still and quiet to watch the dying embers of the display and Matt stood just a little behind them. She saw him watching as Jo leaned into Phil to say something, and she called out as she made her way over to them. She wound her arm around Phil and kissed him possessively.
“Right then, which of you willing volunteers wants to be in my next work of art? Kate’s got some sparklers and I want you all to draw things which I will capture for all time.”
Jamie and Ben both had lighters, and they waited for the crowd to disperse before they lit the sparklers against the backdrop of a dying bonfire and plumes of coloured smoke from where the fireworks had been. Kate was already leaping about with hers and Jo stood nervously making small circles when Jamie handed a sparkler to Matt.
“Hey mate, check it out! Look at you standing there all quiet in your murder gloves.”
“I was just thinking that, too!” laughed Ben as he handed Phil a sparkler. Matt gave them a small smile, always so self contained, and stood still in his smart woolen coat and brown leather gloves and held the sparkler at arm’s length.
They ran around the field like children and Louise tried to capture it all; bright slashes of light, fizzing circles and rollercoaster loops against the darkness. Jo carefully drew a flower and Louise tried not to think of last year’s failed entry as she held her finger against the shutter to capture it. Phil drew a heart for her, and Kate wrote all the swear words she could think of before the sparklers ran out. Louise looked back at the small screen on her camera and smiled at Phil as he walked towards her.
“Got anything good?” he stood behind her and wound his arms around her waist, breathing into her hair.
“Think so. Maybe.”
A silence fell amongst the group again; they weren’t accustomed to being together and without an activity to keep them together they ran out of things to talk about.
“So, time to head off?” asked Louise as she folded the tripod into her bag and Phil took it on his shoulders.
“We were thinking pub, actually. You guys go, the last bus isn’t for ages yet.” Louise saw that Kate was already standing with Ben and Jamie, who were confirming the bus times on their phone, so it appeared she’d made her decision.
“I wouldn’t mind getting a lift if you’re going?”
“I’m going your way, Jo. I can drop you.” Matt once again gave his small smile and offered her his arm.
“Well, I came with Louise and Phil, I don’t know...” Jo seemed reluctant to go with him, and Louise thought of her whispering to Phil during the firework display.
“No, that’s fine. Makes more sense anyway, it’s on Matt’s way so we can all go straight home.” She knew it was rude to make it sound like giving her a lift was an inconvenience, but she didn’t want her in the car again.
“Right then, Lou. We’re off to get battered, see you sensible grown ups later.”
“Bye Kate. Have fun.” Louise looked pointedly at Kate’s hand in the jacket of Ben’s coat and he pretended not to notice as Kate raised an eyebrow back at her.
They walked back to their cars quietly. Thankfully Matt had remembered where they had parked, Louise had been too preoccupied with her plans for the evening when they got there. From the impression she got tonight, Matt never did anything without control or consideration and his immaculate black car beeped as he opened the doors. She was still trying to demist the windscreen as she saw Jo look nervously back at he from the passenger window and his car bumped across the field and joined the queue of cars leaving.
“Bit quiet your mate Matt, isn’t he?” she asked while she wiped at the windscreen with her scarf.
“A bit. Good bloke though, been with us for six months contracting and he hasn’t got renewed so not sure what’s happening now. Took it really well, to be honest. I’d have wanted to hit someone if I were him, but he’s always cool. I’ll miss him. Looks like I’ll be stuck doing overtime again, as well, unless we can convince them that he should stay.”
“Overtime makes it sound like they pay you for it.” It was a familiar fight, and Louise decided it was better to change the subject.
“That Jo girl is pretty quiet too, maybe they’ll get on.” She watched his face while she mentioned Jo’s name but she didn’t react.
“And speaking of getting on,” said Phil as she started the car, “What was Kate doing with Ben? I didn’t know there was anything going on there.”
“As far as I know, they haven’t seen each other since we had that barbeque, but they all go out to the same places so I don’t know.” Louise shoved through the gears and thought about how she should do better to keep up with her friend. It was difficult, though, with work and the photography and of course she had Phil. Kate being single put a distance between them, and they didn’t seem to care about the same things any more. Louise missed her sometimes, but thought it would change back again when Kate settled down, so maybe her going off with Ben was a good thing.
It was another week before Louise had a chance to load her photographs onto the computer to look at them. She and Phil were meant to go to the cinema but he’d made plans to watch the football at the pub and Louise didn’t think it was worth reminding him of his earlier promise. While the files were transferring, the phone rang.
“Hello. What are you doing inside on a lovely autumn day?” Kate.
“Hiya. I was just going through my photos from last weekend. And speaking of last weekend –“
Kate laughed.
“Oh, no photos of that, I promise you. Good fun, though. Did you know Jamie and Ben’s house has exactly the same layout as yours? Made it less traumatic when I woke up with a hangover in the morning.”
“So?”
“So, what?”
“So, are you going out with Ben now?” Louise thought she sounded like a gossiping schoolgirl and it irritated her, and made her miss the old days when it had been her and Kate against the world.
“No, no. Nothing like that. It was just a bit of fun. I mean, he’s nice and everything but I don’t think he’s looking for anything serious. Said he might teach me to surf, though. That would be cool.”
Louise didn’t know what to say, she didn’t understand Kate’s attitude to men, and she was impatient for her to grow up a bit so they could be proper friends again. She changed the subject.
“Did Jo enjoy herself? She seemed a bit quiet...”
“Well, it’s funny you mention Jo. I was ringing just to ask if you’ve heard from her. She’s not been at work all week, and we were all talking about going to that film this weekend, so I thought maybe she’d texted you or something?”
“Me? No, I didn’t give her our number, I never thought.” Jo had asked for the number, but Louise had hesitated, thinking of her whispering earlier in the evening to Phil.
“Maybe she got a cold or something after last weekend. Are you still thinking of going to the film? There’s a showing in about an hour I think.” Louise didn’t want to think about Jo any more, she was getting in the way of everything.
“Sure, see you down there. Look forward to seeing your photos, too. I like to think I might be in a work of art.”
Louise moved steadily through the images she’d taken. Not all of them had turned out well, but some had really captured the evening and she started filing some away as potential entries for the competition. There were a couple on the bumper cars, Phil looking so handsome as he laughed – that smile – and then one of the moment Matt had smashed into Ben and Jamie. Because she’d been trying to capture the lights, most of the photos were blurred but in this one she must have been surprised and forgotten to hold down the shutter. Matt’s face looked pale with fury, his eyes red with the flash and Jamie’s mouth a perfect O as he fell towards the ground. She thought she could call it Boys.
The photos of the fireworks were better than she expected, and she filed several for consideration. The colours came out bright and clear, and the camera had captured the trails of smoke along with the fireworks themselves; certainly more dramatic than flowers thought Louise. Then there was the series of photos of the crowd. There was one she loved of a small boy on his Dad’s shoulders, both weaaring matching expressions of contentment. She thought it was beautiful, but could already hear her tutor sneering that it was obvious and sentimental. At the end of these was the photo of her friends when she’d gone back to find them. Kate and Ben were not just holding hands, but kissing while Jamie pretended not to notice – how had she missed that before? She saw Phil with Jo and remembered why she hadn’t been watching Kate. She zoomed in. Jo looked nervous, and Phil looked to be reassuring her; perhaps it wasn’t what she had thought, after all. As she zoomed back out, Matt came into shot and she moved away from the screen in surprise. Again, his pale face stood out and there was that same look of fury she had seen on the bumper cars. His hands, encased in his sleek gloves, were curled into leather fists.
She moved quickly onto the pictures from when they played with sparklers. The people were blurred against the light, but it still captured the feeling of the night. Ben and Jamie having a mock Jedi battle like children, Kate’s obscenties a spiky antidote to the child’s game. She printed the picture of Phil with the heart, it would look nice on her desk at work. Jo’s flower had come out better than expected, maybe that could be one for the competition. The problem was that everyone had been moving around while she drew it, and Matt’s blurred features loomed as he appeared to be in several places surrounding Jo. There was a sharpness to his expression despite the blur. She moved on, and saw another photo. In this one, Jo’s flower was fading and still Matt appeared to surround her, his hands angry fists as he drew a slash of light which blazed against the blur of her bare throat.
Louise moved away from the computer, thinking about what Kate had said about Jo going missing. She couldn’t stop staring at the screen, but in her mind’s eye she could see the terror in Jo’s eyes as Matt had driven away. She picked up the phone. These photos were dramatic, but they were not the exhibit she had been hoping to produce.
