I’ve given up on fireworks.
I think I’ve experienced the best and the worst.
Let me explain.
I had set off with thirty minutes to go, walking slowly up the narrow lane by torchlight. On reaching the shoulder of the hill, I decided the location was as good as could be found in the time remaining. The heavy sky to the east glowed orange; Sheffield, then a little to the south, Chesterfield. To the west, the brightest glow was Buxton, but behind that spread an even duller brooding reflection of Greater Manchester. The sharp crystal lights of Matlock glittered at the far end of the deep valley ten miles away, while clusters of village lights decorated the hillsides in all directions. And then suddenly the first rocket. Soon showers of bright colours competed across the sky; some closer, some in the far distance.
The whole hemisphere of the sky danced.
It was the new millennium, it was marvellous, and I was alone.
Those few minutes formed the most beautiful memory. When I told people about this, I was met with horror. Why had I had been on my own? It was as if something truly memorable couldn’t really have occurred unless witnessed by others. And so the next year I reluctantly accepted an invitation from a work colleague to what, he insisted, wasn’t going to be a Hogmanay party.
I don’t like parties. Growing up, I never encountered them. Non-family were rarely invited to the house, and birthdays came and went with just a cake to follow an otherwise ordinary meal. There were candles: thin white, blue and pink, in numbers to mark whichever age was relevant. The same candles each time, though the old ones ever-shorter, lasting until redundant through being blown-out so promptly.
I have a condition which makes me feel, and sometimes actually be, clumsy, especially when I'm nervous. Parties makes me nervous. My husband refers to this clumsiness as my “gift” ; for chaos, I presume. From my perspective I feel that a great number of everyday inanimate objects, for some reason, bear me a grudge.
And so the next year, with about four hours until the bells, I parked my car on an icy village street twenty miles from my cosy home. Terrified to trust in my hands, a bottle of good red wine nestled snuggly in a plastic carrier bag.
I found the house. Three modest cottages had been converted into one tastefully rambling extract from a lifestyle magazine. The curtains were not drawn, and so even from the pavement I could see into a world of old wealth; antiques and all. Had any of the rooms been crowded at that point I would have gone straight home to telephone regarding the onset of some previously unsuspected illness. But he had insisted that there would not be a crowd, and so far that promise seemed secure. I just wished they had not invited me to stay over so that I could have a drink. I wished more intensely I had not agreed to do so. Of all evenings, this was the one I couldn’t cut short if feeling too uncomfortable or if some objet d’art insisted on damaging itself by barging into me. I knew that once I rang the doorbell, there would be no turning back.
For about fifteen minutes I walked past the house, backwards and forwards to the car, trying to gather the courage to ring the bell and join the polite and largely unknown gathering within. Unfortunately it was not only my nerves that were stretching and fraying.
I finally stood on the great slab of sandstone which formed the doorstep and pressed a worn brass button. There was a flurry inside the door. It swung open, and there stood the daughter of the house with two of her friends shoving and giggling behind her. I hope they were meant to be fairies. I could see no other explanation for the clouds of white material forming their party dresses. It also explained the wands.
It was at that precise moment that the bottom of the carrier bag finally failed. Gravity insisted that the bottle of wine struck the stone with shattering force. Luckily the green glass scuttered away at ground level. The contents however, exploding into smaller, lighter droplets, took a higher trajectory. A sky-burst firework of red wine against white clouds.
Forget the "whizz bangs" and the rockets that screech into the sky; there is a pitch of scream that I still believe can only be reached by the indulged ten-year-old only-daughter of a wealthy family.
It was too late to turn. Her parents ushered me into the house, every expression I knew flitting and fighting against each other across both faces. It was a party, and I knew it was going to be a very long evening, a long night and a frosty morning.
The following year I stayed put in front of my own friendly hearth. Some people yearn the excitement of whooshing and glittering fireworks. I have come to realise that I prefer the pleasure of the peaceful, thought-filled, gentle flames. Even if now and again my glass does falls over.