First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

Published in this ebook edition in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Steven Camden 2018

Cover design © Leo Nickolls

Cover illustration © Leo Nickolls

Steven Camden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008168384

Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008168391

Version: 2018-01-25

For Lenny,

your music sparked a fire in me

and I am forever grateful.

I love you, man x

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Wednesday: 14 days left

Thursday: 13 days left

Friday: 12 days left

Saturday: 11 days left

Sunday: 10 days left

Monday: 9 days left

Tuesday: 8 days left

Wednesday: 7 days left

Thursday: 6 days left

Friday: 5 days left

Saturday: 4 days left

Sunday: 3 days left

Monday: 2 days left

Tuesday: 1 day left

Wednesday: Last day

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Steven Camden

About the Publisher

You’re almost twelve.

Staring through the fire at Sean. The tips of the flames lick the top branches of the bush you’ve both spent all day hollowing out.

You’re holding the stolen aerosol can. Sean’s nervous smile.

Your willing apprentice.

He can’t see me, even though I’m standing right next to him.

You look at the can. Then at me. The flames dance in between us.

“ Do it ,” I say.

You smile at Sean, then throw it in.

I’m sensing resistance.

You are? That’s weird.

You don’t think this is useful?

I’m sure it’s amazing.

That tone is what I’m talking about.

You don’t like my tone?

It’s not about what I like, Thor. This is about you. Your anger.

Who’s angry?

Shall we start?

I thought we had.

Why don’t you begin by telling me how you’re feeling, right now?

Right now? I’m feeling tired.

OK, and why is that?

I dunno, maybe it’s something to do with the fact that I’ve spent the last week and a half working ten-hour days, demolishing a castle, by myself, my second this month, and tomorrow I’ll get a new job and it all starts again. Now, on top of that, I have to come here. For this.

I could move your slot to the mornings if that’s better for you?

Whatever you say, Adam.

Alan. You understand the importance of these sessions though, don’t you?

How old are you?

Is that important?

You seem young.

You’re deflecting now, Thor.

Am I?

Have you been in any fights lately?

Is that in the file?

Yes.

I don’t do that any more. I’m done with that. Haven’t fought for weeks. Months.

That’s good. So knocking down empty buildings is enough to keep your hands busy these days?

Do these look like hands to you?

I’m sorry, paws.

Look, Adam …

My name is Alan.

Whatever. I get it. This is your job, to “counsel”. That’s great, and yes, I’ve had issues with my temper in the past, but I’m done with that. I’ve accepted what happened. I’ve moved on.

I’m glad to hear that, Thor, but this is still compulsory. You have two weeks until the fade. Those of us who were sent away by our makers have a different set of feelings to deal with to those who were simply forgotten.

So you were sent away too?

We’re here to talk about you. Can we do that?

There’s nothing to say. Ten years ago, she made me. Six years ago, she sent me away; now, in two weeks, none of it matters anyway. I reach ten years, pass through the fade and then that’s that. I either grow old and bitter or lose my mind like the zoomers in the park.

And those are the only two options?

What do I know?

That’s where I can help.

Who says I need help?

Everyone needs help when they reach the fade. Especially those who were sent away. Unresolved feelings will fester, trust me. If we can talk, I’m sure I can help you transition through it smoothly into the rest of your time.

Just like that.

Thor, I’m not trying to trick you. I understand the feelings. Our makers need us, then they don’t need us, and that can leave us lost, but, at the end of the day, we still live on.

They don’t know what they need.

OK, a thought, that’s good. Would you care to elaborate?

Not really.

Your maker is a girl, right? Marcie? Loves drawing.

Loved.

Right. It says she made you when she was seven, after her mother left?

Nearly eight.

OK, so quite late, and that would make her nearly eighteen now?

I guess so.

Good. See? We’re off and running.

Whoopee.

So, by my maths, that would mean she was nearly twelve when she sent you away? Why don’t we start with that?

It’s all written in your file, isn’t it?

Yes, but the point is talking about it. In your words. Can you tell me what happened that last time you were with her?

No.

Because you still feel guilty?

No.

Because you’re still angry with her?

No.

Then why?

Because she’s an idiot.

Nineteen lights up above the doors.

The screech as the brake squeezes the lift cable and the weight in my stomach rises up into my chest. Doors open. The fur of my arms is flecked with purple plaster dust. The ashes of a castle. Press the warm bucket of chicken against my side and step off into the corridor.

My shadow wipes away as the doors close behind me.

This place is so grey.

Charcoal-coloured doors line the pale, empty walls on both sides, stretching away to the end of the hall where it splits left and right to more walls and more doors.

Some people get to live in castles.

I got a tower block.

As I reach mine, I see a black bin bag slumped against the wall outside next door. Dark and lifeless. Their door’s ajar. Must be someone new moving in.

Don’t care. Never spoke to whoever left anyway. Not interested.

Just want to eat my chicken and sleep.

Boots off. Close door. Lamp on.

Grab my laptop and slump in my old armchair.

I pop the lid on my chicken and take a deep breath of hot fried comfort. Rocco’s chicken is the greatest. I bite into a thick drumstick as I log into the work database.

Glance at the phone on the floor. Think of Blue. Could call her. Should.

Across the room, on the table under the window, the old typewriter sits, waiting.

Ignore it.

I sign off on the castle and request a new job. Got to stay busy. Log out.

Everyone needs help when they reach the fade. Especially those who were sent away.

Alan. What a dick.

Feel the strings of guilt twang in my chest.

Because you’re still angry with her?

Drop the bone in the bucket and stare across at the table.

The typewriter. Waiting.

Do these look like hands to you?

Walk to the window.

Dark tower-block tops and the skeleton of a Ferris wheel against a purple-black sky.

Way below on the fuzzy, lit streets, night workers and troublemakers go about their business. Another night in Fridge City.

Sit.

The old black box file of pages. How many are in there now? Enough for a book?

One for every time that I’ve watched.

Stare at the typewriter. Each letter pitted with dents from my claws.

You wouldn’t believe it. Me. Writing.

I close my eyes as I slowly stab at the keys, like every time.

Close my eyes.

To see.

You’re on your bed. Legs crossed. Pyjama bottoms and hoodie. Hair up in the high bun you only wear at home. On the duvet next to you, your worn copy of Othello, scattered revision cue cards and your old sketchbook.

Your bedside lamp sends a bat-signal beam up at your packed bookshelves. Shelves of ordered comics and graphic novels. Heroes and villains. The lost and the lonely.

You slide the lid of your pen across your bottom lip like lipstick. Thinking.

Tomorrow is your last exam. And you are nervous.

You know what you want to do. But will you be able to do it?

The front door closes downstairs and you hear keys drop on to the phone table. Coral calls up. She has food.

You call down and stare at your sketchbook.

I could help.

I could be there. Nod at the right time. Let you know it’s OK.

If you’d just want me.

I’m right here.

So close.

In two weeks, I won’t even have this.

Nearly ten years, Marcie.

Do you even know?

Wake up like I hit the floor in a dream about falling.

Breathe.

Sunlight strokes my bedroom wall. Warm glow on deep scratches.

City sounds down on the street and the muffled chatter of a morning talk show from next door.

I close my eyes and lie still. Let the morning sink into me.

Hit my punchbag until my shoulders burn. The hiss of air with every connect. The chain link dancing in its bracket.

Shower. Turn the dial until the hot water stings my neck as I scratch the grout between the tiles with my claw.

Punisher T-shirt and my old jeans. Log into work and print out new job. Coffee. Thick and black.

Feel it hitting my veins as I stare out at the city. Glass buildings twinkle. A sleepy dragon takes off, yawning.

Another day in the not real.

Touch the typewriter. Say your name.

Grab the job printout. And gone.

We look like a handful of X-Men rejects.

A carriage full of forgotten friends heading to the jobs that nobody else wants.

The skinny ghost guy who works by the docks. The bubblegum waitress with the four chunky arms. Moose boy. The old trench-coated hunchback who’s always opposite me, muttering to himself. I know everyone’s face and nobody’s name. The unspoken agreement is: we don’t need to speak. We just sit, avoiding eyes, as the high number six train snakes out of the city between impossible skyscrapers, grounded space rockets and hundred-storey tree houses. Jungle-covered pirate ships and giant sleeping dogs. Chocolate factories and looping water slides. Hover cars whizz past us. A flying lion pulls a sparkling carriage. The city circus in full swing.

Another day. Another forgotten structure to destroy.

I feel the same crackle in my gut that I always get on a new job. A fresh building to break down to rubble. Crunch some kid’s discarded dreams into dust. Good at it too. Nobody destroys unwanted things better than Thor Baker.

Check my printout. Address is just on the other side of Needle Park. Four stops. Could’ve walked.

Close my eyes.

Alan. Everyone needs help. It’s good to talk.

Ball my paws into fists. Yeah. It’s good to talk.

But it’s so much better to smash.

The street is narrow.

Terraced houses with small, square front yards and shallow bay windows. One of those normal streets in among the madness. This won’t take more than a few days.

I don’t see anyone, but I can hear Billie Holiday through an open window and there’s the warm, soapy smell of fresh laundry. Printout says number seven. Odd numbers are this side.

It’s a bit like your street. Coral’s street. Different name, but familiar. Where are you now?

Have you already left for school? Outside the gym with everyone else? People swapping last-minute quotes and pretending they haven’t revised? You standing silent, telling yourself it’s time?

There’s a little inky black cat on the low wall outside number nineteen. It looks at me with a tilted head, trying to work out if I’m a threat. A boy with bear arms, carrying a backpack.

I step forward, reaching out to stroke it, but it jumps down and scampers away behind two grey bins.

“Screw you then, kitty.”

The cat pokes its head out and stares. I stare back.

“Didn’t really want to stroke you anyway, fleabag. Might eat you later.”

Carry on walking. Can’t wait to start smashing now. Seventeen. Fifteen. Thirteen. Check my bag. The chipped sky-blue of my trusty helmet. If I properly go for it this morning, might even take the afternoon off. Go to the river or something. Eleven. Nine. Yeah. That’s a plan. Stop.

Look at the house.

And feel a wrecking ball hit my chest.

The clock ticks.

Ten minutes in

and my page is still empty.

All around me, a gym full of people, sitting in rows, heads bobbing like a gridded flock of feeding birds, speed-scrawling answers to questions we’ve spent months preparing for.

Every few breaths, a head will pop up, like it heard something. The distant call of that great idea. That one quote that could turn forty UCAS points into forty-eight.

This is it.

Final exam. Sixth form’s last supper.

Scan the room. Mouth everyone’s name.

Most of us have been at this school since we were eleven. Some of us even went to the same primary school. How many memories do we share?

Izzy Maynard. Tolu Clarke. How different are mine to yours? Eli Hanson. Hardeep Khan. How does it work? So many versions of everything that happens. Everything that happened.

I remember play fights; you remember getting punched. You remember lunchtimes packed with hide-and-seek; I remember hiding in the craft cupboard and people forgetting about me.

We all remember laughing when Simon Harris tripped and threw pink custard over dicky Mr Page.

When you think about it, it’s thirteen years. More than two-thirds of our lives so far sharing the same space and, after today, most of us probably won’t see each other again.

We’ll say we will, but we won’t.

Maybe accidentally in town, one random summer Saturday.

Or five years from now, on a train platform at New Street, heading in different directions.

Or maybe in middle age, at some badly soundtracked class reunion when we’re all swollen or wrinkled or both and crying into our gin and tonics about how we chose the wrong path. Isn’t that just a little bit weird? Has anyone else in here even thought about it?

Sean is four across and two in front. I watch him scribble, then pause, scribble then pause. Scratching his head. Questioning himself, whether he’s following the right thought.

Cara is two across and three in front. Even from behind, the calm in her slender shoulders is clear.

Prepared. Sure. Tattooing her future on to paper. Ready for the rest of her life. When she’s finished, she’ll look back, checking in with me. That things are going to plan.

I look down at my page.

Still empty. Still waiting.

I know what I’m supposed to do. And I know what I want to do.

Last chance.

My pen tip scratches the blank paper. Like a claw.

And then I feel you.

For the first time in years. Watching me. Knowing my thoughts.

I look up.

Across the room.

And there you are.

Outside.

The tinted glass facade of reception.

Me, reflected, sitting on the low brick wall, backlit by a fuzzy white afternoon sun.

A life-size, full-page panel. Top left, one thought box.

I did it.

My pen is still in my hand. I actually did it. Can’t be undone now.

No more school.

No more lessons.

No more sawdust-dry assemblies.

No more cafeteria parade.

Nearly seven years spent shuffling around this place, nodding at teachers, passing notes, hanging back in cross-country, swapping homework. Come September, somebody else will sit where I sat. Use my locker. Answer the questions I would’ve answered … And a new crop of wide-eyed Year Sevens will step on to the secondary conveyer belt, just as we step off. Into our futures.

My skin is tingling, my whole body buzzing like a light bulb.

And there you are. Behind me. Your reflected silhouette. Bigger than I remember. Broader. Just me and you in the frame. “I did it, Thor.”

Your name is honey in my mouth.

The sliding glass doors of reception part and you’re gone.

Cara skips out, arm in arm with Leia and Naomi, like a half-Chinese Dorothy and her friends, off to Oz. A stream of other sixth-formers follows them, squinting as the sunlight hits them. I stand up, and wait for her to see me.

“What the hell, Mars!” she shouts, breaking off from the others and walking over. “How do you do it?”

We’re the same height, but my dandelion Afro gives me a few extra centimetres. Cara lifts her arms in celebration and a strip of smooth, pale midriff shows itself above the edge of her skirt.

“How’d you finish so quick?”

I pull my blouse away from my stomach and shrug back. “Said what I wanted to say, I guess.”

She smiles. She has more teeth than she needs, little white overlapping roots that on anyone else would look weird, but on her look like evidence of intelligent design.

“Marcie Baker, super-brain,” she says, and we hug. I close my eyes and breathe her in.

Honesty, confidence and ambition. That’s Cara. Since forever.

“We did it, Mars,” she says over my shoulder and squeezes me with her thin arms. I can feel her little pointy boobs pressed against my fuller chest.

“Yeah.”

People are scattered down the wide school driveway, hugging and hi-fiving each other. Sean, Mo and Jordan are tearing pages of revision notes into confetti over the bonnets of teachers’ cars. Jordan already has his tie around his head. Cara lets go of me and wipes her eyes.

“I feel like I can breathe again, you know?” Her sharp bob shines like black ribbon. “I can’t wait for uni! We’re gonna have so much fun! Did you do the ‘role of women’ question?”

I look down at our feet. Her crisp white Vans. My battered Chuck Taylors.

“Yep.”

Then she screams. Like a proper animal-type scream, head thrown back, arms stretched out. Someone else behind us takes their cue and screams, then someone else, and someone else, like car alarms triggered by each other, until I’m watching a school driveway full of A-level English students howling at the sky like wolves.

The pack starts to move towards the main gates.

“Everyone’s going to Jordan’s,” says Cara.

“Cool,” I say.

She flashes a knowing smile. “You’re coming, Mars. Don’t you dare even start.”

I nod. “OK.”

“We did it, Mars! It’s done!”

Nod again. It’s done.

No undoing it now.

What looks like half our year is sprawled across Jordan’s big back garden, like a sixth-form Where’s Wally? Shirts are undone. Cigarettes rolled. Detention memories and impressions of teachers are shared. Miss Langley’s cleavage. Mr Kelsey’s breath. Stormzy’s “Shut Up” pumps out through open French doors.

Some people managed to get boxes of wine and cans of Red Stripe from the outdoor, Old Mr Thomas serving teens in school uniform as a “fuck you” to the new Tesco Express.

I sit in the shade of the big oak tree, on a cast-iron garden chair, making cloud prints on the stretched cotton of my navy skirt with the wet bottom of my glass.

I can’t tell whether I feel light or heavy. Have I let something go or picked something up?

I scan the party, looking for you. Like you might actually be here. Stupid.

Cara’s on the grass, part of a captive horseshoe audience listening to Sean tell a story. His untucked shirt hangs open off his bony shoulders. His limbs have got longer this year.

“You remember, Mars? How mad they were?” he says, looking over, smiling. Audience heads turn my way. I wasn’t listening to the story at all.

“Yeah,” I say, “course.”

Sean waits a second for me to say more, then just dives right back into the narrative, taking his audience with him.

Nabil and David are trying to scale the concrete garage at the bottom of the garden, their shirts long discarded, shoulders gleaming with a sheen of sweat.

I scoop up my stuff just as Nabil gets to his feet on the garage roof like he conquered a mountain.

“I’m gonna jump!” he says. “Somebody film me!”

As people turn to watch, I walk inside.

Jordan’s mum’s downstairs bathroom is easily the most glamorous bathroom I’ve ever been in.

From the waist up, the entire wall in front of me is mirror, the sink a chunky white porcelain square set into the glass. The shower cubicle to my right is as big as our entire bathroom, the white towels neatly stacked in a pyramid on the shelves to my left look like they’ve never been used, and it smells like a swimming pool.

I drop my stuff and stare at myself. My uneven ’fro is wilting. My school blouse grips my chest like my skirt grips my hips. “Full bodied”, that’s what Coral said, the day she took me for my first proper bra fitting. Standing in the Selfridges changing room, arms out like a new prisoner. Remember it felt like I’d gone from nothing to too much, in one summer. Like my body was some fast-tracked puberty experiment. Cara’s face when she came back from France. She wanted to be the one who got boobs first.

There’s nothing more attractive than a full-bodied woman, Coral said. Just look through history, real history: full-bodied women are nature’s queens.

Not really the most humble way to describe yourself in Freshers’ Week though, is it? Yeah, hi, I’m Marcie Baker, I’m from Birmingham, I’m into reading and films, I used to draw a bit, oh, and I have the attractive, full body of a natural queen.

Something about this mirror having no edge makes it feel less like looking at my reflection and more like staring at someone else. A nearly eighteen-year-old girl.

I make myself smile and she smiles back. Smooth cheeks, more dark freckles than a face needs. The gap between her two front teeth is big enough to be embarrassing. An unwanted hereditary gift from a woman long gone.

I close my eyes. And breathe.

“You look older.”

My body stiffens.

You’re standing behind me, big enough to almost completely block the door.

I can hear muffled laughter from outside.

You step forward. The light hits your cheekbones. Your hero’s jawline. Is there a trace of stubble?

“So do you,” I say, keeping a straight face, trying to ignore the fact that I can feel my heart beat in my skin.

“I guess we both do,” you say. A shrug of your bear shoulders.

My fingers grip the seams of my skirt. “What are you doing here, Thor?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

I swallow and watch your eyes scan my reflection up and down.

“You can’t be here.”

Your eyes meet mine. “Says who?”

Then we just breathe and stare at each other. How long has it been?

“I did it, Thor.”

Your wicked smile.

“I saw.”

“Mars?” Cara bangs on the door and you disappear.

“Mars? You OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just washing my hands!”

I push the lever on the swan-neck tap and swill my face with cold water.

The empty space in the mirror.

“You sure you’re OK? You look kinda pale.”

Cara’s concerned face, her cheeks slightly flushed from cheap wine.

“Yeah, I just feel a bit off. I didn’t eat. I think I’m gonna go.”

“You want me to come with you? We could get chicken?”

“Nah, I’m good, you stay, have fun.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Message me later if I miss anything.”

Her expression turns sheepish. “Nothing’s gonna happen. I’ve left it too long. He’s oblivious,” she sighs. “That ship has sailed.”

I smile and poke her stomach. “Maybe, but you’ve always been a strong swimmer.”

She hugs me again. “I love you, Marcie Baker.”

“I love you too, Cara Miles-Yeung.”

Our bodies shake with laughter and I go to squeeze her, just as she pulls away.

The bin men haven’t been.

One black bag leans on the wall under the hedge with a trail of its guts on the pavement. A bloated green tea bag, a clump of brown rice, the wilted carcass of a red bell pepper. It’s a miniature art installation made by a fox.

I step over the exhibit, through the gate and see the sign. It’s one of those cheap banners you buy from a card shop. CONGRATULATIONS! in somebody with zero style’s idea of exciting letters. I can hear Stevie Wonder singing inside. Coral always makes an effort.

Think of the end of Jurassic Park when the T. rex is roaring as the torn banner ripples down from the ceiling. Close my eyes.

You came, Thor. I needed you there and you came.

Nobody knows. Only us.

Open my eyes. Tear down the banner. And go inside.

Dusk. And I’m literally buzzing.

If you could press mute on these busy city streets and lean in, you’d hear my body crackling like a plasma ball.

I crossed over. To you. You saw me. There. In the real. And I helped.

You know I did.

At the lights, I lean on the stop sign as a fifteen-metre white limousine rolls past. Across the street, a line of five black-suited yakuza sit in the neon window of a noodle bar, slurping in unison, their dark sunglasses hiding their eyes.

The house is the bridge. Coral’s house. Has it always been there – just across the park – this whole time?

Walking in. The hall. The stairs. Your bedroom door. The heat in my chest.

A foghorn.

I look up and see a World War II German Royal Tiger tank waiting at the red light. The top hatch creaks open and a small man wearing military uniform and a white moustache as big as a broom head starts barking unintelligible orders.

I cross the street.

Why now? Why do I find the house now?

I stop on the corner. The grinding tread of the tank behind me. The neon of the noodle bar.

The fade.

Ten years since you made me. Six since you sent me away.

I finally have a new way to reach you.

And I have to knock it down.

The bin bag is still there outside next door.

The door is closed and I don’t hear anything from inside. Why wouldn’t they just take it to the rubbish chute? I’m not doing it. Not my job.

Inside.

Boots off.

My head is swimming. It happened. I was there. With you. Through the house, that I now have to destroy.

Alan. Unresolved feeling will fester, Thor.

No shit.

Who can I tell?

No one. No one can know, Marcie. Just me and you.

The need to see you pulls me to the table. The old typewriter smiles. Like it knows.

Like it knows.

You’re drying a dinner plate.

Coral stands next to you, washing the last of the dishes. Her Lauryn Hill MTV Unplugged album is playing from the living room. She hums along as she washes.

You thank her for dinner and for the banner and the cake. She tells you not to be silly and offers to drop you off wherever Cara and the others are. You tell her you’re tired and that you’re just going to watch a film and, as she passes you the pan, you notice a mobile phone number inked on the back of her hand.

You ask her if she realises that it’s nearly ten years since you moved in with her. Coral drops the sponge. Of course she remembers it, she says. She remembers it like it was yesterday. She tells you that becoming your legal guardian is the best thing that ever happened to her.

You smile.

She asks if you’ve seen your dad. You tell her you’ll go tomorrow.

She pulls you in for a hug and tells you that she is so proud of you and that you are so smart and so special and that university is going to be the best time of your life and, as she kisses you on the head, you close your eyes and see me.

Diane’s gift-wrapping a slim hardback for an old man with a crooked spine and long ears.

They’re the only two people in the shop.

Street sounds are muffled as I close the door gently behind me. Deep breath.

The calm of being surrounded by books.

Something folky is playing quietly through the wooden speakers behind the till.

“Morning, Marcie,” says Diane, in her PhD voice. She’s wearing one of her self-knitted cardigans over a sky-blue denim shirt buttoned up to her slender neck. Hipster bookshop chic.

The old man is watching her fingers gracefully wrap the book, like a young boy watching his grandfather fix a precious watch. He gives a grateful nod as Diane hands him the finished gift and then he just stands there, like he doesn’t want their interaction to be over.

“Have a lovely day,” Diane says to him, and I get a little bit of leftover smile as he leaves.

“Bless him. That’s the third time he’s been in this week.”

“I think he likes you,” I say, dropping my jacket over the chair behind the counter.

“He’s sweet. I wonder who he’s buying them for?”

“Maybe it’s no one. Maybe they’re for himself, and he just loves opening presents.”

Diane looks at me, her glasses resting on top of her Disney-heroine hair.

“That’s so sad, Marcie.”

“Is it?”

I watch her try to see it my way. Her thinking face makes her look like a little girl. I’m not sure how old she actually is. Old enough to be doing a literary doctorate and to like Nirvana in a non-retro way. Old enough to be having a not-so-covert thing with Dad and it not be creepy. Early thirties? Pretty and clever and slightly vacant in the eyes. She’s the most English person I know.

“How is he?” I say, pointing at the ceiling.

Diane pulls a pained expression. “He’s ‘working’,” and the way she rolls her eyes tells me it was a long night.

“I’m just gonna go say hi. Do you want a coffee?”

Diane zones out, like she’s contemplating a tough life decision, then snaps back. “I’d love one, please. Wait, are you done? Last exam?”

“Yep. All finished.”

“Congratulations! You must feel amazing.”

“I guess so.”

“You’re going to love uni, Mars, trust me.”

I nod. She smiles again, then gets on with her stock check. I run my fingers along the spines as I walk, giving my usual wink to Johnny Cash, staring out from his autobiography in the music and film section next to the door for the stairs.

It looks like somebody poured a skip-load of paper through the skylight. A snowdrift of empty white A4 curves up the walls of the small shaded room at the top of the stairs.

There’s a kind of path, where someone has waded through the middle. I can hear Dad muttering as I follow it to the open living-room door.

He’s in the corner, past the sofa, standing on his head.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

His eyes stay closed, still mumbling something to himself.

“Dad.”

He slowly lowers his bare feet and stands, blinking slowly, readjusting to being the right way up.

“Better. Feel my face.” He pushes back his black pipe-cleaner hair. I don’t move.

“Come on. Feel my face.”

He takes my hand and presses it against his cheek. His skin is stubble-rough over sharp cheekbones. “You feel that? Morning, gorgeous.”

He leans in and kisses my cheek. I smell Imperial Leather soap and tobacco.

“Circulation, Mars. You know, in some cultures people believe that ideas exist in the blood. More blood to brain, more ideas.” He taps his temple.

“So vampires must be geniuses then,” I say, looking out of the tall window on to the sleepy high street.

Dad smiles and sits down at the little table. His yellow legal notepad is pristinely empty.

“Exactly.” He starts to roll a cigarette. “Is it Saturday already?”

“It’s Friday, Dad.”

“Don’t you have an exam?”

“I finished. Yesterday.”

Dad jumps up like someone just tasered his arse. “Yes! Freedom! Come here!”

“I still have to wait for results, Dad.”

He lets go. “Who cares about results?”

“Erm, UCAS? The universities?”

“You’ve aced them. Coral’s academic skills have rubbed off.”

“I’m glad you’re so sure, Dad.”

Dad’s not listening. “We should celebrate! This is the best summer ever. No more school, getting ready to leave. Have you got any weed?”

“Dad …”

“No, course.” He nods to himself. “Is that my shirt?”

“No, it’s mine.”

“Hmm. Looks like one I used to have.” He sits back down and finishes rolling his cigarette.

“I’m just here for coffee,” I say. “You want one?”

The kitchen is a thin sideboard city of dirty dishes and hanging pans.

There’s still half a large glass bowl of tar-black coffee in the diner-style maker.

“How’s my big sister?”

I pretend I haven’t heard him as I search for the least dirty cups and swill them out.

“Did she get you a gift? I bet she got you a gift.”

I bring the pot through and Dad holds up his empty cup.

“What was it, vouchers? Coral loves her vouchers.”

“No gift needed, Dad.” I pour. He raises a finger.

“I’ll get you something then! What do you need? I could get you a new sketchbook?”

“Still got the last one, thanks.”

“Anything in it?” he says, his smile almost desperate.

“Not really.”

His face drops for a second. “Can’t rush ideas, Mars. New trainers then?”

“From the man who doesn’t even own a pair of socks?”

He lights his cigarette. “I do own socks! I have multiple pairs of socks. Casual socks, dress socks, sports socks.”

“Yeah?”

“Just because a person doesn’t reveal something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Besides, socks are for sheep, Mars. I want to feel what I’m walking on.”

“How convenient.” I nod towards the small room full of paper. “Busy night?”

Dad blows smoke. “All part of the process, my young padawan. Did Diane seem pissed off to you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Excellent.” He sips his coffee. “I’m getting closer, Mars, I can feel it.” He moves his fingers like he’s playing piano in the air.

“That’s great, Dad.” I go back to the kitchen and pour coffee for me and Diane.

“You sure you don’t have any weed? Even a little resin?”

“Dad, please,” I say, carrying the mugs into the living room. “How many times? I don’t smoke.”

“Well, you should. You’re nearly eighteen; you’ll be at uni soon. Poetry readings and squat parties.”

“It’s not Greenwich Village in the fifties, Dad.”

“Very funny, Mars. I’m just saying, you should be experimenting at your age. Poking out of the box.”

“And what box is that, O wise one?”

He takes a long pull on his cigarette. In his white vest and brown trousers, his unruly hair pushed back, he looks part beatnik, part mad scientist. A man who operates just off the pulse, who believes in conspiracy theories and who, some days, completely forgets to eat.

“Well, if you have to ask, it might already be too late.”

I exaggerate a sad face. “I guess I’ll just go downstairs and get back in my box then.”

Dad’s face turns serious. “I’m proud of you, special girl. You did it.”

I stare at the coffee mugs, feeling your name running down the corridors in my head. Scratching the walls. Banging doors. You did it.

“Don’t be too proud yet, Dad. Results aren’t till August.”

Dad shakes his head and picks a stray tobacco strand from his lip. “Please. Pass. Fail. F. A-star. Just labels, Mars. You’re not a can of beans. Life is process.”

He smiles the kind of smile that makes it easy to imagine him as a cheeky five-year-old, crayoning the walls with ideas.

“Get back to work,” I say, and I walk out of the room.

“I’m getting close, Mars. Really close. I feel it!”

I kick through the blank paper, heading back to the stairs.

Once every ten years, a novel comes along that makes all the rest look at each other and say, “What the hell do we do now?” Baker’s daring debut is that book, and, if you are at all interested in where contemporary storytelling is heading, I advise you to read it.

– Quentin Quince, the Times Literary Review, on Dark Corners by Karl Baker

Karl Baker.

Award-winning debut writer.

Giver of half my genetic code.

Barely capable of looking after himself.

Still working on his second novel seven years later.

“You OK, Marcie?”

Diane’s face is wrinkled up like she’s trying to read Latin.

“What? I’m fine.”

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, holding two coffees.

“It’s just … you looked, well, drunk.”

“I was just thinking.”

I pass her a mug.

“Thanks. Your phone beeped a couple of times.”

Probably Cara. “Thanks.”

“Just thinking, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“I hear you. So do you think you’ll be around more over the summer?”

“I don’t know. I guess. Not much else to do.”

“Great. That’s good.”

We both stare out of the front windows either side of the shop door.

Diane sips. “It’s nice to hang out, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Still staring.

“Did he say anything, about me?”

I sip. Hot, bitter coffee on my tongue.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter. I like your shirt. Is it new?”

“No.”

“Cool.”

The shop is one square room with the till in the centre next to a thick supporting pillar. The layout hasn’t changed since Dad bought it nearly three years ago – four small display tables, one in each quarter: new and contemporary fiction; classics and historical stuff; non-fiction; and children and teen.

It used to be called Blue Pelican Books, but Dad sanded the name off the shopfront the day he moved in. He said you can’t trust any animal with wings.

There’s never been what you’d call a steady stream of customers, especially on weekdays, and, since the new Foyles opened up in town, things on the outskirts have got even quieter. We still get new releases, just fewer copies, and people rarely wait for an order when there’s Amazon Prime two clicks away. Luckily, the romance of the underdog hasn’t completely died out so things just about tick over. Diane moved into the downstairs back room and basically runs the place, with me helping out on Saturdays and when I’m free. Dad pays me bits here and there, but I do it mostly for the peace. I can read, scribble stuff down if the mood takes me, or just do nothing. No questions or hassles. No Facebook updates or plans for the future. A haven.

My haven.

“I might go get a sandwich. Do you want a sandwich, Diane?”

“Yes, sandwich. Definitely.”

“Great.” I put down my coffee. “Crisps?”

“Are you having crisps?”

“Probably.”

“Ooh, can we have Monster Munch?”

I don’t even think she realises she’s speaking to me like I’m four. Some people can’t gauge tone at all. I nod excitedly. “Yeah! Let’s!”

A stab of guilt from my own sarcasm. Then Diane claps, like actually claps, and for some reason so do I.

We’re both clapping, like sugar-charged babies, about crisps.

It’s funny how much of life can feel like a Year Ten drama exercise.

Drake and Rihanna singing about work.

I lay my basket on the self-checkout shelf.

Things are changing.

Scan an item to start.

Tuna and sweetcorn on wholemeal bread. Beep.

English Language and Literature, Psychology and Biology A levels. Beep.

Pickled onion Monster Munch. Beep.

Three grade As needed for entry to Psychology undergraduate degree. Beep.

The old woman at the next till along can’t find the barcode on her slab of cheddar.

Chicken, bacon and avocado roll. Beep.

Leaving home. Beep. Following Cara.

A skinny man with arm tattoos and a supermarket polo shirt comes to help her.

Flamin’ Hot Monster Munch. Beep.

New city. Beep.

A mountain of student loans. Beep.

Bottle of still water. Beep.

Three more years of study. Beep.

The foundation for a life. Beep. For what?

Can of Coke.

For who?

Can of Coke.

Hold it. Look at the rest of the stuff in my 5p carrier bag. Shop noise and an auto-tuned pop chorus. Work, work, work, work, work, work.

Can of Coke.

Rest of my life.

Can of Coke.

What have I—

“Do it.”

You’re standing behind me, half your face reflected in the screen.

“Please scan an item, or press finish to pay.” The robotic teacher voice of the till.

My heart.

The businessman waiting behind me is head down in his phone.

Stare at the can in my hand. Look at our reflection. Smiling. The crackle in my stomach.

I press finish, resting the can on the edge of the barcode glass as I feed a ten-pound note into the machine. The whir. The guy with the tattoos is helping the old woman with the rest of her stuff. His back is turned. My change falls into the plastic tray like fruit-machine winnings.

I lift the bag off the scales and put the stolen can inside, scoop out my change and walk away, leaving my receipt.

Scattered pensioners, filing in and out of the charity shops.

I can feel you over my right shoulder as I walk. This side of the street has the shade.

Push my phone on to vibrate and hold it to my ear like I’m making a call.

“That was so stupid,” I say as I pass Subway and catch a waft of vacuum-packed vomit.

“Felt good though, right?”

I don’t look at you. “What do you want, Thor?”

You move closer. “What do you want, shoplifter?”

I swerve to pass a shuffling old man wearing three different shades of pastel blue.

“I’m not a kid any more,” I say.

“Neither am I.”

You step up so you’re level with me. “Tell me that didn’t feel good though.”

I stop walking.

“It didn’t feel good.”

You shake your head.

“So why are you smiling?”

Then my phone vibrates for real and slips out of my hand. I scramble to catch it, smacking my shopping bag on the pavement and nearly falling over as the phone lands in my palm.

“Nice catch.” You stand there, clapping your paws.

Cara’s face, beaming out from my phone screen.

I stand up straight and compose myself. “This is a bad idea, Thor.”

You nod.

“Probably.”

And then you’re gone.

The old man tips his sky-blue flat cap as he slowly steps through the space where you were.

I nod back, then answer the call.

“Marcie! It’s a full house tonight!”

Cara’s dad Ken always greets me like I’m an old schoolfriend he hasn’t seen for years.

He’s a graphic designer and he looks like one. Bald like he did it on purpose, he’s got that flawless, poreless, older man skin that says water filters and gym membership. He’s holding an expensive-looking tea towel.

“Full house?”

Ken nods. “Morgan’s here. Hungry?”

It smells amazing. Don’t think I’ve ever been to Cara’s house and Ken hasn’t been cooking. I’ve had so many foods for the first time here. Wild boar. Quinoa. Pickled herring.

“Her highness is upstairs working on a new video. Dinner in a hour, OK?”

“OK, Ken. Thank you.”

And he’s off, back towards their massive kitchen, expensive tea towel over his shoulder, leaving me to close the front door, like I’m family.

Cara already has the tripod and camera set up when I knock and walk in. She’s checking her camera angles, deliberating over which pillows to have in shot.

“I’m not dressing up, Car.”

Cara stops fluffing pillows. “Who said anything about dressing up?”

I throw my jacket over the back of her 1970s super-villain swivel chair.

Cara’s room is like a cross between an FBI investigation wall and a retro furniture shop. The walls are collages of magazine articles, photographs and old B-movie posters. I always think of people’s bedrooms being like the inside of their head. Cara’s is busy and full, but organised. She was made for her journalism degree. Her hair’s tied up in a stubby ponytail and she’s wearing her pre-planned “I just threw anything on” outfit for the camera: black leggings and one of Morgan’s old sweaters.

“Morgan’s home?”

“Apparently,” she says.

“That’s early, no?”

“Dunno. Haven’t seen him. Been in his room since he got back. If he’s home early, he must be broke.”

“I haven’t seen him for ages,” I say.

Cara cuts me a disapproving look on her way to her backstage-style dresser.

“Don’t worry, you can stare longingly into his eyes over dinner. That’s if he even comes down.”

“Shut up.”

I try to think of the last time I saw Morgan. Maybe the Christmas before last. He rarely comes home from university in London.

“Can’t we just hang out, Car?”

“We are hanging out.”

“Yeah, but I mean just do nothing. Exams are over. When was the last time we just did nothing?”

Cara looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili.

Through her bedroom window, the sky is going dark. I picture the view from across the street. Camera on tripod, one girl fluffing pillows, getting ready, another standing nervously next to the bed. Some girls make thousands of pounds on their own in their rooms with their laptops.

“What accents can you do?” she says, pulling two bottles of what look like shampoo out of a yellow Selfridges bag, one seaweed green, one milk-chocolate brown.

“Accents? What are you talking about? What are they?”

Her face lights up.

“I had an idea.”

What started as a simple Year Ten drama project quite quickly evolved into Cara’s performance-art YouTube channel Jumblemind.

Jumblemind is basically a space where all of Cara’s social-commentary ideas are sporadically filmed and uploaded to an audience of 316 subscribers made up mostly of younger girls from school. Any little nugget of performance gold that’s been rattling around her head gets dumped out on film for her cult following’s consumption and, over the years, a high percentage of these nuggets have involved yours truly.

October 3rd 2014: “Genderrorists” – The two of us stand back to back, reading extracts from The Vagina Monologues in balaclavas.

February 9th 2015: “Pressure to Make Up” – Cara uses the latest, top-of-the-range L’Oréal products to paint my face to look like Heath Ledger’s Joker.

My personal favourite though was this time last year, when Cara just sat in front of the camera for ten minutes, stuffing an entire Black Forest gateau into her mouth and crying.

OMG! Don’t know why but can’t stop watching! So dumb but SOOO good! LOL!!!

– YouTube comment on “Gateau Tragic” from Trixabell496

“You’ll need to put your hair up,” she says. “There’s bobbles in the bedside drawer.”

“Car, what are we doing?”

“It’s a goodbye to school.” She holds up the bottles like she just won them in a raffle.

“Face-pack Shakespeare!”

The car still smells like new trainers.

Cara’s humming along to Lana Del Rey, effortlessly driving down dark streets towards mine, like she’s had her own taxi for twenty years.

It’s probably testament to her charm that getting a brand-new black Mini Cooper for her eighteenth birthday didn’t make me want to punch her in the face. I had the grand total of three empty supermarket driving lessons with Coral before we both decided I might be more suited to the passenger seat, for now.

“I can hear you thinking, you know,” she says.

“Imagine.”

“He’s such a dick.”

“Who is?”

“My brother. Can’t even come down to dinner? Locking himself away in his room? You know, I probably won’t even see him before he goes back. He hasn’t asked about the exams once. Nothing.”

“Maybe he’s busy.”

“Oh, shut up. Stop defending your prince.”

Her arm goes up to protect herself as she laughs. I just give her the finger.

“We could drive up to Leeds?” she says. “For the day, start getting to know our new home before September.” Excitement radiates off her as she speaks. It’s hard not to be drawn to someone who’s completely sure of what they want. “I could maybe even get Dad to sort a hotel. He gets things on account sometimes.” She pulls into the petrol station forecourt and parks next to the pump. The stereo display goes black as she turns off the engine, then flickers back to life.

High halogen floodlights turn up the contrast of the colours through the glass of the kiosk and make me think of that Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks.

“Mars? Are you listening?”

“Did you ever have an imaginary friend?” I ask.

“An imaginary friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Like when I was a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Why?”

“No reason.”

“You did, blatantly, right?”

I shrug.

“Course you did,” she says.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can see it: you in the park, talking to an empty swing.”

“Thanks a lot, Car.”

“No, it’s a compliment. I wanted one. Some super-badass flying ninja princess goddess. I just never did it. Too busy writing pretend newspaper reports on my family. I would’ve been so jealous if I’d known you back then. An imaginary friend would’ve been amazing!”

“You think?”

“Yeah! Someone who gets you? Who you don’t have to pretend with? What was her name, your one?”

I squeeze my thumb in my lap.

“I don’t remember.”

Cara takes her purse from the tray under the stereo.

“No matter, you’ve got me now, eh?”

She smiles, then gets out.

I lean over so I can see into the rear-view mirror. The empty back seat.

Where are you right now, Thor Baker?

How many times have I stood in this lift?

Stared up at these numbers?

Ten years. A decade. Decayed.

Think of my first day. The day you made me. Crossing over after you fell asleep. Waiting in line. Filling out forms like everyone else. The grand City Hall full of fresh immigrants to the not real. Standing in our rows, staring forward, hands raised, reciting the oath.

Less than two weeks to go, Marcie.

What do I do?

The fade is coming. I can’t fight it. Can I?

No.

I have to destroy the house. But, once it’s gone, so are you. Forever. A pile of rubble. And I just live out the rest of my days here, like the others.

The lift doors open and I stare down my grey corridor. The fade is coming.

And I don’t want to be alone.

The doors start to close again and I let them.

I know who’ll understand.

“These blessed candles of the night.”

Leyland’s voice has the velvet quality of cello notes. When most people quote Shakespeare, it sounds like they’re trying to seem clever. When Leyland does it, it’s like the words are his own.

Leaning on the ledge of the roof next to him, looking down at the city, it feels like we’re on stage for an audience of night sky.

The air is sharp.

I don’t come up here as much as I used to. Blue thinks it’s weird that I still visit my elder at all, but just the right amount of time with Leyland can feel like the kind of dream you wake up from smiling.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Mr Baker?” he says.

“Just wanted to see how you were,” I lie. “It’s been a while.”

He looks at me.

“What?”

“You have many skills, my young friend, but sharing untruths is not one of them.”

“It’s nearly ten years, Leyland.”

“Ah. Of course.” His eyes widen. “The fade.”

I push myself up to standing. I’m a full head taller and almost twice as wide, but when I’m around him I always feel like the nervous apprentice. Leyland turns his back on the city and folds his arms. “And you feel … scared?”

“No! I’m not scared. Scared of what?”

He takes a white packet of cigarettes out of his corduroy breast pocket. “Precisely.”

Tapping one out like a private detective, he sparks it with his smooth silver lighter. He’s got one of those Philip Marlowe faces. Straight lines and deep creases. Thin lips and neck, dark eyes and slick hair. The kind of head that screams out for a fedora. He was my assigned elder when I was first made. Most people lose touch with theirs once they settle, but Leyland and I became friends.

I picture the house. The stairs. Your bedroom door.

“Ten years comes to us all eventually, Thor,” he says, turning to face the city again, leaning on the edge. “How long since she sent you away?”

“Six years.” I pick at the rough stone with a claw. “I know I should be ready for it. I just feel … messy.”

Leyland smokes slowly for a while, then says, “To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist.”

I must’ve heard him speak hundreds of these kinds of quotes over the years. Each one somehow managing a perfect blend of just enough possible relevance mixed with a thick, cloudy ambiguity.

“Is this what you felt like when you hit the fade?”

Leyland does one of his dramatic, slow-motion blinks. “I’d have to imagine it was, yes. Long time ago now, of course, and I’m not sure how apt the word ‘hit’ is. I seem to recall it feeling more like crawling.”

A metal aerial creaks behind us as he takes another long drag. “We are different from most others, Thor, you and I. You must remember that. We have to deal with things only those who were sent away can understand. To be simply forgotten is one thing, but to be sent away, to have the door slammed firmly in your face, that … that is an entirely different box of snakes.”

I lean next to him. Cold air ripples through the hair on my arms.

“The fade takes many forms for those sent away,” he says, pointing at me with his cigarette. “Each one of us gets our own test. And it always makes the most tragic of sense.”

High above us, wisps of silver cloud drift across the darkness.

“How long will I be angry, Leyland? How long were you angry?”

Leyland closes his eyes. Smoke curls up past his face into the night.

“Oh, I’m still angry, Thor, believe me. I’m still angry enough for the both of us.”

The bin bag is still there, propped against the wall.

Why haven’t they moved it? Who moved in?

Don’t care. Not my problem.

It’s past midnight. Didn’t tell Leyland about the house. About crossing over. Couldn’t face the lecture. I won’t tell anyone, Marcie.

You’ll be asleep now. I won’t watch for long.

Open my door.

“Finally! I was about to leave.”

Blue’s sitting in my chair sideways, her slim legs dangling over the arm, chunky silver headphones in her lap. I recognise her oversized black hoodie. It’s mine. My skull feels like it’s shrinking.

“Are you coming in?”

I drop my bag and kick off my boots. Blue swings her legs round to sit properly. Her perfect fringe is like a blonde roof for her pale, princess face.

“You didn’t have anything to drink,” she says, holding up a brown paper bag.

“I’m fine with the tap,” I say, closing the door, my body filling up with guilt.

“Where you been?” she says, looking at me like a prosecution lawyer. I don’t blink.

“Helping Leyland.”

“How is the Mad Hatter?”

“Don’t call him that. What time is it anyway?”

Blue pulls the thin glass bottle out of the bag.

“Time for a drink.”

“We should talk, right?” I say, staring into the black mirror of the kitchen window.

Blue’s at the counter, pouring something dangerous into coffee mugs.

“That’s not why I came, Thor.”

She holds out a mug, smiling. She’s pretty. Even more so because she tries to hide it. Princess Blue. Denier of powers. Hider of privilege.

I lean against the sink. “Blue, listen, I’ve been meaning to call. I—”

“Shut up, yeah? Talking doesn’t get us anywhere.”

She takes a cowboy-style gulp, blinks and smiles again.

I look down into my mug, the dark bronze of trouble. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

She finishes her drink and pours herself another one. “What, us hanging out? Just ‘friends’, remember? Wait, you thought I came here to …?” she frowns. “Don’t flatter yourself, Thor Baker.”

She knocks back her drink in one, then pours another. I put mine down.

“Hang out?” I say. “Don’t you have to actually like someone’s company to hang out?”

Blue sighs. “Nope. I hang out with idiots all the time.” A wicked smile.

“How’s work?” I say, and her shoulders slump.

“Same, same,” she says. “We do what we can, but we’re basically babysitters. We bring supplies to the park, feed them and make sure they’re comfortable.” She downs her drink and pours again. “Anyway, enough violins. I’ve been leading some workshops with newbies.”

“Really? You?”

“Don’t looked so shocked, Baker. I have to try and balance things out, right? It’s just helping them find their feet.” She sits down at the little table with her drink. “Man, some of them are so small! Do you remember it, when you first came?”

“Course,” I say. “So do the newbies know who you are?”

“I’m Blue. What else do they need to know?”

“Course. Don’t want anyone loving you for powers first, right?”

She shakes her head, “Don’t want anyone loving me full stop.”

Silence.

I first met her at Needle Park. It was just before Christmas, the year I was sent away. She was handing out soup to a crowd by the fountain.

Something about how she moved got me. A slow kind of grace. Like she didn’t need to try. Like someone who knows they can fly and chooses not to. In her case, literally. In a circle of people wishing they were more, the person wishing she was less shone like a diamond in a dumpster.

We were never officially “a thing”, but stuff happened.

“What about you?” she says. “You start your fade counselling yet?”

I sit down opposite her, familiarity seeping into the room.

“Started Wednesday.”

“And?”

“And what? Stupid pop psychology crap. Anger issues from being sent away. It’s good to talk. Blah-blah-blah.”

“Helpful though, right? I remember it helping.”

“Who says I need help?”

Silence.

I tap the table with one claw. “It’s not a big deal. I’m gonna hit ten years, like everyone does, and then just … carry on. It’s not like I’m gonna flip out or something.”

Her look says it all.

“That’s different,” I say. “The ones you work with, they’re …”

“They’re what, Baker? Different? Weak? You think it can’t happen to you?”

“Blue, I’m fine. I’ve moved on. Can we drop it now?”

She finishes her drink and gets up to pour another. “So you’ve stopped watching?”

I fight my instinct to look away. Blue smiles like an older sister who already knows you’ve been in her room and touched her stuff. Lie? Truth? Lie? Truth?

“I have actually. Are you planning on drinking the whole bottle?”

Blue turns around with her mug. “So, if I were to walk in there right now and inspect that typewriter, it’d be covered in dust? And, if I broke open that box, I wouldn’t find new pages?”

Don’t flinch. Don’t flinch. “No.”

Silence. “Go check if you want.” Straight face. Straight face.

She shakes her head.

“Good,” I say. “I told you. I’m done with her. She can do what she wants. My life is here.”

Blue nods, tentatively. I need more.

“I’m serious, Blue. I’m even knocking down her house, for God’s sake.”

“What?”

The release of finally telling someone, even for the wrong reasons.

“Her house. They sent me there. New job. I’m demolishing the house she made me in.”

The shock on Blue’s face melts into disbelief, then happiness, then comes back round to shock again.

“Wow. And you’ve started already?”

“Yeah. Today.”

“And you’re OK?”

I stand up. “I’m fine. It’s time. I told you, I’m done with her.”

And she hugs me, standing on her tiptoes, pulling me down to her level, squeezing me, and I can feel the warmth of her relief. I try to push out my guilt and just enjoy the hug. The moment. It’s not until you get a good one that you remember how amazing hugs can be.

Blue slips back down on to her feet, holding my paws in her hands.

“Have you been fighting again?”

“No. It’s from work. I’m done with the fighting too.”

Guilt in my spine.

She looks up at me. “Can I stop over?”

“Blue …”

“Just to sleep.”

Smell the booze on her breath. See the hope in her eyes. Smile.

“Course you can.”

We hug again and she speaks into my chest. “I missed you, Thor.”

Squeeze.

“I missed you too, Blue.”

And I have. Truly.

So maybe I’m only half a liar.

“Bad dream?”

Blue on her side, smiling at me with sleepy eyes. I realise I’m gripping twisted duvet in my paws and let go. Breathe out. “I’m OK.”

She strokes the fur on my shoulder. “Let’s go out by the river,” she says, covering her mouth with her other hand, worried about morning breath. “We could take some food. Drop rocks into the water, remember?”

I do remember. Her skimming stones. Me shot-putting boulders. But I want you.

“I have to work.”

Her hand leaves my fur. “It’s Saturday, Thor.”

“I know.”

“I’m not saying it has to mean anything. Just two friends hanging out by the river. It’ll be fun.”

Sit up.

“It’s not that, Blue. I have to put in braces on the side walls, so I don’t damage the buildings either side.”

“But it’s the weekend.”

“I know. The removals guys have to come first thing Monday and, if the braces aren’t in place, we can’t do the clearing.”

She’s scowling.

“I’m serious,” I say. “It’s not like a castle. It’s not all just mindless smashing up, you know. There is some skill involved. I’m not just some animal.”

She smiles and touches my shoulder again. “I like you, animal.”

I am a liar. Say something true.

“I’ll cook later; you could come over?”

“You’ll cook?”

“OK, I’ll get Rocco’s. How long since we had chicken?”

“Too long.”

“Exactly. Say, nine?”

She nods. I get out of bed, part of me wishing I could step out of my skin and leave the me she wants there with her.

She deserves more than I really am.

Dad looks like a scarecrow trying to defuse a nuclear bomb.

I think I’ve seen him behind the till maybe three times since he bought the place.

Customer service isn’t his calling.

A woman and her little nursery-age daughter are in the children’s corner, looking at picture books. The old crooked man who’s in love with Diane is browsing classic fiction.

“Marcie, thank God!” says Dad, holding his head. “This thing hates me.”

I step behind the counter. The old monitor screen is showing “system error”.

“What did you do, Dad?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. It’s this piece of shit!”

He slaps the side of the monitor. The woman in the children’s corner gives us evils.

“Easy, old man. It’s not a problem. I showed you, remember?”

“I remember a simpler time, Mars, that’s what I remember.”

I push the keys and the blue stock search screen comes back up. Dad groans. He’s still in his dressing gown. “You’re a genius.”

“No, Dad, you’re a caveman. Why are you even down here? Where’s Diane?”

On cue, something bangs upstairs. Dad points up.

“Yeah. I’d better … You’re good here, right?”

I nod. He goes upstairs.

The little girl lifts up the Marvel Encyclopedia. “Look, Mummy!”

The woman shakes her head. “No, Rosie, I said a proper book.”

The girl puts the book back, frowning as she drags her feet over to where her mum is crouched in front of books for toddlers. Don’t worry, Rosie, superheroes will still be there when you’re old enough to choose.

Muffled shouts bleed through the ceiling. Another lovers’ tiff.

I load up Roy Ayers on to the turntable and sit on the stool behind the till. Crackle. Chants. Bongos. I turn it down to background level. Saturdays are the best days. Full of possibility.

Blank pages, waiting to be scribbled on.

I imagine the counter is the control desk for a spaceship, the two front windows either side of the door my navigation screens. I’m the captain. I could go anywhere in the universe.

Where am I going? My mind’s blank. Just a month ago my head was so full of stuff.

Stanley Milgram’s (1963) obedience experiments. John Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis. The Loop of Henle and kidney function. The ambiguity of Iago’s motivations.

All of it crammed in, facts and quotes and dates, loaded up, ready to regurgitate under exam conditions. Where is it all now? In a box tucked on to a shelf in the warehouse of my brain? Saved to the cloud?

I close my eyes and picture a pile of rubbish as big as a house, rough and jagged edges sticking out, but, instead of broken pieces of furniture and antique crap, it’s just words, different-sized letters and sentences piled up on top of each other, a massive dark scribbled jumble of everything I’ve ever been taught. And I’m standing on the pavement in front of it, my hand reaching out, holding a lighter.

Think of Cara. Want to tell her. I reach into my bag for my phone and find my sketchbook. I don’t remember putting it in here. Haven’t taken it out of the house for ages.

You.

You put it in.

Someone stomps down the stairs and the moment is gone.

Diane’s carrying a large navy-blue backpacker rucksack. Her face is flushed thunder.

I push my sketchbook out of sight.

The old man turns round, smiling, like he senses her presence. He’s wearing a full suit, eager to impress. Diane doesn’t even acknowledge him as she stomps over to me and drops her bag.

“Excuse me, Marcie,” she says, taking the red strongbox from the shelf under the till.

“Are you OK?” I say, like a child.

She bangs the box on to the counter, then tips over the old mug that holds the pens, fishing the key from a puddle of paperclips and drawing pins.

“I’m going to stay with my parents.”

She opens the box and counts out a stack of notes. “Just what I’m owed,” she says. I nod.

She gives me a sympathetic look, blows hair from her face, then waves her hand around like an untied balloon that’s just been let go.

“Alton Towers has got nothing on that man, Marcie.”

I glance at the door to upstairs. Why isn’t he trying to stop her leaving? Did he give up?

“A rollercoaster’s only fun because you know you’re getting off at some point, right?” she says, folding the notes into her hip pocket. “Nobody wants a rollercoaster forever.”

I’m supposed to say something. I can feel the old man watching from the shelves.

“When are you coming back?” I say.

Then she hugs me.

It’s the first time she’s ever done it and it’s not the reserved, polite embrace I’d imagined it would be. It’s the kind of firm, animal hug of an older sister who’s going travelling and knows you’ll be getting all the grief she would have got from your parents.

When she lets me go, we’re both on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry, Marcie.” She picks up her bag and wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Oh, a guy phoned up and ordered a couple of books this morning. I don’t remember his name, but it’s on the system. He’s picking them up on Tuesday.”

“OK.”

Diane looks at the doorway to the stairs.

“Look after him, OK? He needs you.”

And there’s another space for me to speak. But I don’t.

I don’t say, Him? I can’t even look after myself, Diane.

I don’t say, My head is playing games with me right now.

I don’t say, Please stay. He’s been so much calmer since you’ve been around.

I don’t say anything. I don’t even nod.

I just watch her leave and, as the shop door closes, I catch the broken look in the old man’s eyes, like a young Bruce Wayne in that Gotham City alleyway.

Quiet with Dad has its own quality.

It’s not like the painful tumbleweed wasteland it is with other people.

Growing up, I got used to him wandering off with a thought midway through a sentence and not looking back. Some new story idea that immediately superseded anything in the real world.

Sitting quietly with him while he stared out of the window, chewing over an idea, was as normal as watching TV.

This is different.

Watching him from the sofa, chin resting on his hands, he doesn’t seem like he’s lost in some plot point or character he’s trying to grow. This feels like the stilted silence of a man digesting what has just happened. That thick silence that leaks out through the cracks of a mistake.

If there’s one thing I think I’ve learned in my nearly eighteen years on this planet, it’s that there is no situation the wrong words can’t make worse. So I just sit with that double negative in my lap, staring across at the dormant fireplace.

Resting on the mantelpiece, in a cheap glass frame, is an A3, eight-panel, black-and-white comic strip. The first three panels are a creature that might be a bear, looking left, then right, then up. In the fourth panel, the bear looks at us and a speech bubble says, “Where Squirrel?” Five is him shrugging, six is him standing up, and in seven he turns around and half a squirrel is sticking out of his bum. Panel eight says “Lost Squirrel” by Marcie Baker. Age 7.

I laugh without meaning to. Dad looks over.

“Sorry,” I say, covering my mouth.

“Don’t be,” he says, and the ten-ton mood lifts just enough for me to slip a question underneath.

“Will you call her?”

Dad looks at his hands.

“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”

“Dad?”

“Orwell. She’s made her choice, Mars.”

“What, and that’s it?”

He shrugs. “It is what it is.”

He glances at me, then goes back to the window. I swallow my frustration and just watch as the invisible elephant clomps into the room and plonks itself down in front of the fire, the word “MUM” painted in dripping red letters on its arse. I could say something. I want to.

But every sentence I run through in my head feels pointless.

Watching Dad like this, it’s easy to remember he’s a younger brother. The kind of boy who’d get escorted around by an older sister like Coral, taken to the playground, told not to wander off and pretty much left to his own devices. A boy who’d happily spend an entire afternoon inspecting leaves.

“Circles, Mars,” he says after a while, stubbing out his cigarette. “What has happened will happen again.”

“Bullshit.”

You’re standing where the elephant was, bear arms folded in front of the fireplace.

“Tell him that’s bullshit.” You’re gesturing at me like a sports coach giving a pep talk.

“Go on.”

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut, willing you away.

“I’m not leaving till you tell him,” you say.

I open my eyes.

“Do it.”

“Dad—”

“Amor fati, Mars,” says Dad, starting on a new roll-up. “Amor fati.”

“Do it, Marcie!”

“Bullshit!”

You smile. I stand up. Dad drops his tobacco.

“The pitiful fortune-cookie lines I can just about handle, Dad, but when you start with the Latin … Get up.”

“What?”

“Tell him again.”

“I said, get up! Get your shoes on: we’re going out.”

I walk over to him. Dad looks almost scared.

“I don’t want to go out, Mars.”

“I don’t care what you want, Karl, we need air. This place stinks of self-pity.”

I take his jacket off the hook next to the kitchen door and throw it at him.

“Yes!” you say. “Go on, Marcie!”

And I feel good. Better than good. I look at Dad.

“Come on. We’re leaving.”

You’re eleven.

It’s the night before secondary school starts.

You’re sitting at Coral’s kitchen table with her and Dad. He’s now living in a bedsit nearer town. Coral’s made curried goat and rice and peas. Dad compliments the food for the twenty-fifth time. Coral ignores him. She looks at you and asks what you have to say. The windows are all open, but there’s still the faint smell of burnt polyester from the sofa.

You picture the green flames dancing as the paisley cushions ignited.

The light flickering in my smile.

You say you’re sorry. That you were conducting a science experiment and it got out of control.

Coral stares at Dad.

Dad stares at his food.

You slide your hand into your pocket under the table and feel the smooth envelope, its edges worn almost furry from being held.

Coral tells your dad to say something. That it’s getting ridiculous.

Your dad forces a smile and says a movie studio offered to buy the rights to Dark Corners. Coral asks how much. Dad says it doesn’t matter: a book is a book, and a film is a film, they’re not having it.

He raises his pineapple punch and says, “Screw Hollywood.”

Coral looks at you, and rolls her eyes.

“Thank you,” says Dad as we walk back down the high street.

It’s nearly six and everything is closed. A couple of hours’ walking quietly through the park is as good as any therapy session.

I drop my used wet wipe in the bin outside the British Heart Foundation shop, belly full of chicken and chips.

“No problem.”

We reach the shop and Dad starts patting his pockets.

“Maybe I should get a dog, with the park right there and everything?”

“Yeah? And who’ll be the one who ends up walking him?” I say.

He fingers his bunch of keys for the right one. “Not you. You’ll be gone.”

“Dad …”

“Don’t worry. I can handle myself.” He holds up the shop door key proudly. “See?”

There’s a sadness in his smile.

“Shall I come in for a bit?” I say. “I could wash up?”

“I’ll be fine, Mars. Tell Coral I said hi.”

He opens the door.

“I could come over tomorrow, cook you dinner?”

He shakes his head. “No need, Mars. You enjoy your Sunday off.”

“I’ll come on Monday then, help with the shop?”

I watch the realisation that Diane is gone sucker-punch him in the ribs. “Yeah. That’d be great.”

He hands me his keys.

“OK then, call me if you need me, Dad, yeah?”

He nods an autopilot nod and closes the door.

You’ll be gone.

I watch him through the glass. He looks older from behind, his body fading into shadow as he walks to the stairs.

Coral’s wearing eyeliner.

“Oh, hey! I just sent you a message,” she says, pointing back at the house. I can smell perfume.

“You look nice,” I say.

She looks down at her outfit – navy-blue trouser suit, shimmery white top. “You think? Not too much?”

“Not at all. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Nobody special. Dom from work, you remember him? He came to my work birthday meal?”

She brushes fluff from her arm. The light dances in her perfectly cropped Lego hair.

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