STONES
POLLY JOHNSON

Authonomy

by HarperCollinsPublishers

For H, E and D

also

The ‘Amazing Writers’ and Authonomites

for all the reading.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

About Authonomy

Copyright

About the Publisher

1.

‘Admit you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘That’s all you have to do. It’s not hard.’

When you’re being held against a wall – feet almost off the floor and a hand gripping your throat – it’s always best to agree.

‘Yes, okay. You’re right; let go!’

The red face – spit round the mouth – came closer. Eyes squinted a hair’s breadth from mine and a horrible smell of stale beer bloomed in my nostrils. It would be okay though. He was right. I’d said it…

I walk fast, head tucked into the neck of my jacket like a tortoise. Adrenaline washes through me in a hot tide so I don’t feel the tang of ice in the sea-wind. The windows of the streets and squares glow yellow, and shop windows flicker to life as Brighton wakes. I hurry through it as though my feet are on fire, while commuters barge past me the other way, cups of stinking coffee held before them as shields. My heart surges in my chest and I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be part of it. I just need to reach the sea.

‘Lying little moron,’ the voice sneers again in my head. ‘You don’t mean that. You think you’re so smart…’

Voices from the dead. At night the past spills over into morning and I wake thinking it’s now. I lie there in the early light and remind myself it isn’t. It’s done. I tell myself this over and over, hoping that will make it true and the memories will fade like the Shrink Woman tells me. Until then, they wake me with a jolt each morning. Memories of my brother Sam. Of what he turned into…

…The hand tightened on my throat. Black and silver stars exploded on the edges of my vision. ‘I’m wrong,’ I said. ‘Sam! I agree!’ I tried to make my voice as loud as I could, so that maybe someone upstairs would hear me and come down. He slammed my head back against the wall – again, then again…

‘I’m going to kill you,’ he said.

I’ve walked so fast, I’m already crossing Grand Junction Road. The long green railings and pier entrance are ahead and after that there’s only the sky, streaked with orange and pink, and no sound but the shush of waves washing lazily over stones. I hurry down the steps to the promenade, move the rucksack to my other shoulder and slow down, listening to the suck and blow of the water and the hum of the wind. It’s quiet now… calm… until suddenly a voice breaks in – shocking as a slap: ‘Oi. Girl. You – Girl!’

I keep moving, twisting my head to find the speaker, and then I see him.

Over the road, in the shadow of the tall arches, are two men. One lies on a bench and hefts himself up to stare at me. His face is ghostly pale in the dimness, but it’s the shouter I fix my eyes on. He walks towards me with a strange scissoring stride – hair in a mad, red halo, his mouth a wet gape.

‘I saw God!’ he bellows, so close now that I hear him breathing. ‘I saw God, and he had a message for you!’

His eyes are red-rimmed and crusty, eyelashes yellow with some gungy mess, and the scent of him carried on the breeze is a ripe, biscuity stink. I look down and keep walking, my feet shooting in and out beneath me in a blur, but he keeps pace – one hand coming up to clutch my jacket.

‘You!’ he says again. ‘Girl!’

The fingers catch and hold – tightening – before they’re suddenly snapped away. The man with the pale face has him, his arm locked round the nutter’s neck, holding him back. For a second our eyes meet – his, the colour of moss on stones – and something unspoken passes between us. He smiles at me even as the red-haired man struggles and growls, and I get away while I can, breath tearing out of my chest and sweat cold on my forehead. I run until I feel pebbles under my feet and I’m safe on the beach. It’s just me now, but for a single grey gull riding the air currents, and far in the distance a hesitant bather stammering on the frozen stones. The day is full of madmen.

No one has followed me, but I keep moving all the same; hugging the rucksack close, not sure why I brought it. It’s an old bag – you can still see the faint printed outline of Barbie on one side – and it’s stuffed with emergency supplies for when I leave: a change of clothes, a map of London and a small knife from the kitchen. No money though, which makes bringing it pointless. No money; no train.

After a while I crunch my way back over the pebbles and stop, letting the cold squeeze me. The end of the mini railway is in sight, and with it, the end of the promenade. I don’t know where to go from there.

As I’m thinking, a blob appears and as it gets closer, I see it’s a lad wearing the same uniform as mine. He’s stuffing a sausage roll in his face and talking to himself. As he draws level and sees me, the talking stops and he blushes deep red. ‘Don’t keep on that way,’ he says. ‘There’s police.’

I ignore him and walk on, but he turns and follows, keeping pace and flicking glances from me to the road ahead. He has fluffy blonde hair, an earring, and a dirty smear down his face as if he’s been crying. I wish he’d go away.

‘You should stop,’ he says. ‘Something’s happened up there.’

I walk faster. ‘Why should I care if there’s police?’

‘You’re meant to be in school, right? Like me.’

‘It’s early – and it’s not their business anyway.’

He blushes again, the hot stain washing up his neck and into his hairline.

‘It might be. They looked at me funny. There’s nothing to see, but you don’t want to draw attention. I’m going to warm up somewhere.’

Being warm sounds good, but I keep going until I see the cars drawn up in a tight circle. There are four policemen and a dog; I stop. The boy watches me and I notice that as well as the tear streak, there’s a line of dirt all round his chin. He looks as miserable as I feel, but for some reason, I decide to go with him.

The police don’t notice us anyway. They’re clustered opposite the big white ruin I call ‘The Mansion’. One of the policemen comes out of its door-less front, talking into a radio, and we turn our backs, walking with the wind behind us.

‘Good decision,’ the boy says. ‘It’s nicer to have company, don’t you think? I fancy a latte, how about you?’

I make a face. ‘A latte? That’s what my mum drinks.’

For a moment he just looks at me with eyes round as marbles. There’s a faint stubble round his mouth so he must be older than I am, but he’s going red again like a little girl.

‘I have expensive tastes,’ he shrugs. ‘You may have a Coke if you like, but I shall have a latte.’

He’s odd, but I like him. He smiles, lights a cigarette and offers me the packet. I shake my head and we go on in a burst of smoky scent, not even talking, like we’ve known each other for years. Before I know it, we’re back with the tramps.

The man who saved me is sitting up, head in hands, fingers rubbing at his temples with slow concentration. The shouter is glaring up and down the seafront, waving a can around and muttering. Any hope of slipping past is gone when he sees us and steps into the road.

‘Hey,’ he croaks, hoarse now. ‘You found a boy! Is he a good boy? Everyone should have a boy…’

The ‘boy’ glances at me and grins. ‘Friend of yours?’ he asks.

‘Don’t answer,’ I say. ‘He’s nuts.’

The red-headed man sways over to join us, eyes fixed on me. ‘Tell her!’ he croaks, ‘Tell her I got a message from God.’

‘You tell her,’ the lad says, and I dig him shuttup in the ribs.

‘Oh, don’t be mean,’ he says. ‘Even nutters need friends.’

‘You have him then. Personally, he’s not my type.’

As soon as we reach a busier part of the promenade the madman stops as if at an invisible checkpoint. He stands muttering, and then the mutters turn to shouts and the shouts into shrieks as we pull away. I think I still hear them long after we’re gone, like the howls of a beast. At last we reach La Gigo Gi, where my ears are soon burning in the warmth. The boy brings our drinks and sits down, sweeping spilt sugar into a heap and tweezing it up with his fingers. When he’s done, he looks up and smiles. ‘I like to be tidy,’ he says, ‘don’t you? How old are you, by the way?’

I tell him I’m just sixteen and he raises an eyebrow. Then, to my horror, pushes his chair back and shakes his head. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Way too young for me. I really can’t be seen talking to you.’

Standing, he turns away, and I can’t believe it – until I see the smile on his face and realise he’s joking.

‘You have a weird sense of humour.’

‘Have to,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I’d go crazy.’

I start to laugh, but his face is so serious, it dies halfway. He sits down again, picking up the free biscuit that came with his coffee. It’s some buttery, almond thing and I watch him bite into it from the cover of my fringe. Tiny crumbs of sugar stick to his lips and his tongue comes out to catch them. While he’s looking down, I tuck the stray hair behind my ears and wipe at my face.

‘You look fine,’ he says. ‘I like your hair, though I bet you hate it. Girls always want what they don’t have.’

He’s right. I don’t mind the colour, which is what they call auburn, but I would rather it was straight. I lift a curl and twirl it round my finger, but he’s gazing out of the window where the sky is white and cold.

‘How come I’ve not seen you around?’ I ask. ‘At school I mean.’

He stares at me and sighs. ‘I only came this September. And I haven’t seen you either.’

I wonder where he was before. He has such a fancy voice I’m sure it was a private place, but I daren’t ask because I don’t want any questions back. If I tell him he hasn’t seen me because I haven’t been able to face it, he’ll want to know why, and who knows what’ll come spilling out? He’d think I was madder than the tramp if he knew that the reason I’m sometimes not in school is because I’m seeing a psychologist. People always do, even if they don’t say so.

He must notice my hesitation because he sits forward and smiles. ‘So,’ he says, ‘why are you bunking off?’

I’m about to change the subject like I always do, when something strange happens and I find myself talking as if it’s nothing to do with me at all. A whole stream of words that burst out together in one breath: ‘It’s my brother,’ I tell him. ‘He died. Everyone thinks I should be over it by now, but I’m not. They think it’s because I miss him, I suppose, but I don’t. They’d think I was evil if I said so, but I just don’t.’

‘Oh,’ he says and waits for me to go on, but it’s more than I’ve admitted to anyone before. I feel the panic rising and it must show in my face because he shakes his head. ‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Leave it.’

We sit there, avoiding each other’s eyes, but just as it’s getting awkward he asks for my number and email address. After that we leave, walking through the town in a warm silence. We wander for hours, in and out of shops, along the pier and through the arcades. We buy sandwiches and take them down to the promenade to eat like we’ve known each other for years. I watch his face when I’m sure he won’t notice, and follow the calm movement of his hands as he rolls up the sandwich wrappers. Once it’s late enough he walks me home and when we reach the bottom of my road he stuffs his hands in his pockets and grins. For a boy who’d obviously been blubbing when I met him, he smiles more than most people.

‘Goodbye then,’ he says and goes ten paces before turning back and calling out: ‘Oh! How stupid – I don’t know your name. Mine is Joe. Joe Steen.’

‘Coo,’ I say. ‘At least that’s what everyone calls me.’

‘Coo,’ says Joe. ‘Coo. Like a dove. I like that.’

I stand and watch him till he disappears. He’s put a long coat over his uniform and his blonde head seems to shine. For the first time in ages, I reach home without thinking how much I hate it there. It’s not the place itself but the silence; especially the silence in Sam’s empty room. I don’t think about that today, though. Today I don’t mind going in, because I’ve got something new to think about. Something that makes me feel warm and wanted instead of empty and afraid.

2.

We’ve lived in Brighton for two years. Before that we lived in Oxford and before that, somewhere else. Mum and Dad would decide that this move would be the last; that a change of scene would do it. It wouldn’t, of course, so then they’d decide that Sam would manage on his own if they paid his rent, but nothing lasted. After a few months, he’d turn up on our doorstep looking dirty and desperate, and Mum and Dad would let him right on in. I would have just shut the door in his face, brother or not, but no one listened to me – and now we are three.

You can still see us as a whole family in the photo on my bedroom wall – Mum, Dad, Sam and me. It’s taken in the before; you can tell because we’re smiling. The photo shows us on holiday, wearing shorts and squinting in the sun. I’m just a toddler, and Sam is about ten. He stands in front of us grinning, one hand brushing the curls from his eyes and the other waving into the future with no idea of where he’s heading. I leave it up so I can remember that it wasn’t always like this.

Our house is in a long row. It has three storeys and two front doors: a normal one that leads into the hall and another for what used to be a downstairs room and is now Mum’s antiques shop. Two people are coming out as I arrive, with a glass lamp and a curly legged table tucked under their arms, which makes them look like escaping thieves instead of customers. There’s a little tussle on the doorstep while we do that dance people do when they’re in each other’s way, and it’s as I stand aside to let them pass that I see him. The mad tramp is right there at the end of our row, watching. His hair, lifted by the wind, is held back by a grubby claw and he says nothing, only stares at me for a long moment before baring his teeth in a yellow grin.

I’m frozen in place, staring back while he begins to move towards me, dropping a can into the gutter as if he wants both hands free…

I clutch the door handle. If I go inside, he’ll know it’s where I live, but I’m scared to stay out here. He takes another step and stops dead. Someone is behind me.

‘Corinne?’

I jump before I realise it’s Matt, my friend and near neighbour. I turn and get behind him, shaking my head.

Matt steps forward and stares at the red-haired man who’s standing half in the gutter. ‘You want something?’ he asks.

The tramp looks at him – slowly, up and down. He starts at Matt’s pointy leather boots and goes up all the way up to his blonde hair. His mouth curls open in a growl. Finally he spits out words: ‘Gotta message for that girl… Need to give it to her…’

‘Get lost,’ Matt tells him and leads me across the road to where he and Ben had been unloading their car.

‘Who the hell is that?’ he nods, but when we look back, the street is empty.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

‘Just being a good neighbour.’

‘Just getting out of helping me with this, you mean,’ Ben says.

We look down at the thing they were unloading and Matt laughs. ‘What the hell is it anyway?’ I say.

Ben sighs. ‘It is a statue of Pan,’ he explains. But to me it’s still just a weird sort of half-man-half-goat thing tootling away on some pipes.

‘Where are you putting it?’

‘Heaven knows,’ Ben says. ‘It’s a present from my sister. Probably stick it by the bath with a towel over its head.’

‘You didn’t make it to school then?’ Matt says to me, ignoring Ben. He nods at my uniform, then his watch, his pale eyes unblinking.

‘I meant to,’ I tell him.

He sighs. ‘Come round anytime. I could give you a lift.’

I look at my feet and nod. He’s not fooled.

Mum and Dad don’t have many friends here. Nor do I. When you have someone like Sam threatening to burst in on things at any moment, you tend to keep yourself to yourself. Ben and Matt are different, though. They knew all there was to know from the start – from the first day they moved in.

It was about a year ago and past midnight when I heard the hammering of fists on wood and Sam’s voice blaring into the night from across the street. I let Mum and Dad sleep and darted over to find him slumped on someone else’s doorstep with a cut on one eyebrow and tears on his face. The door opened and two men peered out, looking nervous.

‘It’s my brother,’ I said. ‘Sorry – he can’t help himself. We live over there, if you could just help…’

I was shivering in my dressing gown and one slipper, as they looked from me to Sam and back again.

‘Is he violent?’ one asked. ‘If not, bring him in. I don’t think we can move him any further. Don’t worry about disturbing us, we haven’t gone to bed yet.’

Between them they hoisted Sam up and carried him inside, feet echoing in the empty hallway. They dropped him on an old sofa and covered him with a throw.

‘We just moved here,’ the one with fair hair said. ‘Not much unpacked.’

Sam lay still on the red velvet as if he was dead; I sat with my two neighbours on the floor looking at him and tried to explain. I told them he was an alcoholic. I told them that even Mum and Dad were sometimes scared of him, and I told them I hated him. It poured out of me like water and they just sat there and took it all in. When I said sorry for the rubbish welcome to the neighbourhood, they smiled and one of them got up to offer me his hand, which seemed the thing to do. ‘Matt,’ he said, ‘and that’s Ben. Would you like some hot chocolate?’

While we drank it, they told me a bit about themselves. They looked as different as cloud and sun. Matt was blonde and trendy with tattoos from shoulder to wrist, and Ben was dark and neatly dressed. Perhaps he saw me looking from one to the other, because he grinned and nodded at Matt. ‘I’m the sensible one,’ he said. ‘I work for a software company while Matt is all creative and arty.’

‘Graphic design,’ Matt said. ‘He’s just old and stuffy, take no notice.’

I laughed. Ben must have been about thirty, but Matt wasn’t that much younger.

‘I don’t know why I stay with you, brat,’ Ben sniffed, but he didn’t mean it. They were so obviously happy together, they made me feel calm and safe.

They brought Sam home the next morning and Mum and Dad were so embarrassed they insisted on cooking breakfast. After that they were often round, especially Matt. I think mum liked to talk to him, and so did I. Things would have been different if he’d been my big brother. It was Ben and Matt who looked after me the night Sam died – my body curled into the same old sofa. They were my first grown-up friends.

I leave them to it now, fair head behind dark, carrying the weird statue inside – the same way they’d carried Sam that night we first met.

Once they’ve gone, I scour the street for any sign of the red-haired man. There’s only his dropped can, still leaking orangey stuff into the drain, so I slip indoors and stand in silence while my heart stops thumping, then creep down the hall to spy on Mum. She’s in the shop. I can see her through the glass door, counting cash, brown eyes narrowed in a frown and her fluffy hair caught up in a tortoiseshell clip. She’s got really thin since Sam died. Her hipbones would make a supermodel envious. Sometimes Dad creeps up, puts his arms round her and takes hold of them like he wants to steer her off somewhere, but she mostly pushes him away as if she has something urgent to do elsewhere. Her name is Karen, but one night – just after Sam died – she said that ‘Karen’ was gone and she was someone else now. I think that may be true.

I slip upstairs and take out the ‘Thought Diary’ I’m supposed to fill in for the psychologist – the ‘Shrink Woman’, as I call her. I open it and read:

‘Sam and I were friends once. He was my big brother who looked after me. Once he sat indoors and caught measles from me because he was drawing cartoons to keep me happy…’

There isn’t any more. It didn’t help to write about that Sam. That Sam began to vanish as he grew up and I didn’t like the one that took his place. It was like a creepy movie where a demon possesses one person in a family and sucks the life out of all of them. He certainly drained me.

Now, though, after meeting Joe, something is changing. Down inside, where I thought I was sleeping, something stirs. I’m not even sure if I like him yet, but I want him to like me. I write his name in the margin of a new page, then wonder why I did it, so I hide it away and lie in blue dimness on my bed. The curtains are drawn and the faint noise from outside plays a background tune to my thoughts. No one will come looking for me until at least four o’clock. I can just lie here and do nothing at all.

3.

Thought Diary: ‘Wakey-wakey eggs ’n’ bakey.’

I wake with a jolt in the early hours. I’ve slept through the evening and the whole night too. I think for a minute that no one even missed me, but someone must have because I’m covered in a blanket. The worried feeling is there again, but today it only hovers, like an unsure guest. What gets me out of bed is the thought of Joe.

The house is silent as I creep downstairs, making a little jump past the door to Sam’s room. The kitchen is temptingly warm, but I’m not hungry yet. I shove two croissants into a brown paper bag and let myself out into the cold morning.

I like this empty time. The air is fresh, the sky streaked with the new morning, and despite what happened yesterday, I head for the beach. It’s my thinking place and no nutcase will keep me away. All the same, I go a different way and walk right along the shoreline, just in case.

The air is full of seagulls squabbling over the tide’s edge, snatching bits of dead fish and jumping into the wind to escape with them. There’s a family out early with a brown puppy, a little girl screaming and laughing at the dog as it dares the breakers. Usually, I hate happy families, but today I smile. Perhaps this is progress; something to tell the Shrink Woman to shut her up.

I leave them behind and walk until I’m halfway to The Mansion, then stop to look out across the grey water. It’s because the wind is in my ears and my mind’s far away that I don’t hear the scrunch of feet until they’re right behind me. I whirl round, remembering the red-headed man, slipping on the loose stones in panic. For a moment I think perhaps it’s Joe, but it’s not. I glimpse a dark coat and long hair and recognise him – the tramp with the pale face who saved me from the shouter. I turn back, heart thumping, waiting for him to go past, but he doesn’t. Instead he comes over to me and sits down right at my feet.

‘Hi,’ he says, but I don’t answer. I can feel him there and worse – I can smell him. It’s the stink that alcohol makes when people take it like food until it oozes out of their pores. A smell that makes me feel sick and afraid.

Just down towards the water is a little pyramid of stones someone has left, and the man starts to pick up pebbles and lob them at it: chunk, chunk, chunk.

‘I wanted to say sorry,’ he says, ‘for what happened with Alec. He’s a mad bugger, but he shouldn’a done that. I notice people who come around and I see you lots, walking on your own. I told him to lay off.’

Maybe it’s his voice, which is unexpectedly calm and gentle, but instead of walking away, I answer him as if he’s just a regular person.

‘Why do you notice?’ I say. ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’

He throws more pebbles. I can see his hand sticking out of a black coat sleeve – long, knotty fingers, dirty with an oily grime. Across his knuckles is tattooed ‘Lilyn’.

I already know the answer to my question. Of course he doesn’t have anything better to do, because he’s a tramp; an alky that soaks himself in booze until he can’t stand up. He probably makes someone else’s life a misery too, unless he’s done the decent thing and disappeared. He stays quiet and I feel awkward, as if he can hear my thoughts.

‘Why are you always down here then?’ he asks. ‘Don’t you go to school? You gotta get an education.’

I feel like laughing. ‘An education? Like you I suppose?’

He doesn’t answer, just sends a big, grey stone crashing into the pyramid, tipping it sideways.

‘I do go,’ I find myself saying, ‘but I’m allowed leeway.’ I use that word a lot – leeway. It’s what the headmaster said. It means I’m allowed to do things other people can’t, because I lost my brother in difficult circumstances. Stupid words – like we got separated in a storm or something – when Sam was the difficult circumstances.

‘They don’t want me to freak out,’ I say, ‘or do something weird – like I am right now, talking to some… tramp.’

I look at him to see whether he minds what I said, but he’s smiling at me. He’s waiting for the answer to a question I didn’t hear him ask.

‘I said, do you want what’s in that bag?’ he repeats. ‘’Cos if not, I’ll have it.’

He grabs the bag when I hold it out and folds a croissant into his mouth in one go, chewing it up while staring out across the grey water. I take the chance to have a good look at him. He’d have an okay face if it wasn’t so tired looking. It’s criss-crossed with little cuts, all bright red on the white skin, as if someone’s cleaned round them. His hair would be a reddish brown if he washed it, but now it’s greasy and hangs in long waves to his collar. His eyes, despite being weary and watery, have green flecks running through them, like gemstones. I guess he’s about thirty – a grown man – and suddenly that worries me. I glance around and see we are alone. I shouldn’t be here.

He’s finished the croissant and is rolling a little cigarette with one hand.

‘I like it down here,’ he says. ‘It’s quiet – know what I mean?’

I do, but don’t answer, keeping my eyes instead on a big gull which struts up and down, eager for crumbs, its legs doing a nervous dance closer and closer. I step towards it and it takes off, only to drop down again not far off, waiting. I watch it for a moment then turn back. ‘I have to go,’ I say, and start to walk before stopping again. ‘But thanks for keeping that man off me.’

He doesn’t answer. He’s lying back now, eyes shut, one arm across his forehead blocking out the light. The cigarette has dropped from his fingers. He’s sleeping.

4.

Thought Diary: ‘A whole lot of nothing.’ Me.

I feel rude for leaving him. He might wake up and wonder where I am, but I can’t just stay and watch him sleep. I walk away and think of him still lying there, long eyelashes on his cheek, snoozing as if he was on cushions. It’s not till I reach the promenade that I remember the other one – his mad mate – and then as if my thoughts have conjured him, he appears, weaving across the path towards me. He comes right up and stands there, nose to nose, almost touching. He stinks, and his lips are outlined with a grey scum which flies out as he speaks. I keep my mouth closed.

‘I told you,’ he says. ‘Gotta message for you – stay away! Don’t wanta see you.’

I’d love to go, really I would, but he doesn’t move. The rank smell from his clothes is disgusting. I can’t hold my breath for ever.

‘I know what you want,’ he tells me. ‘But you can’t touch me – I’m telling you.’

His hands come up close to my face so the black nails are in front of my eyes. I could tell him right now if he’d listen – the last thing I want to do is touch him!

His mouth curls open again and he spits at me, ‘Get!’

I don’t need to be told twice. Pushing sideways, I dart away from him and walk fast, refusing to run. When I glance back he’s still there, unmoving. I let my breath out in a long sigh.

I go to school on Monday. I wasn’t going to, but I do. Maybe it was the idea of seeing Joe – that he might be thinking the same and turn up too – but from the moment I woke up I felt sure I could do it.

Dad says nothing when he sees me in my uniform. Maybe he doesn’t want to break the spell. He looks crumpled and hopeful, searching for something in my face. ‘You look nice,’ he says. ‘Have a good day.’ His eyes blink rapidly and the side of his thumb is bitten down. I have a sudden vision of him from long ago when his hair was longer and his smile was like a lightning flash. He’d juggle eggs before cracking them into the frying pan, never dropping a single one.

I nod at him. ‘I’ll try.’

I missed weeks of school after Sam died, and then there was the summer break. Since then it’s been hard to feel part of things. It’s like a roundabout you jump off when you’re little, that’s spinning too fast for you to get back on. There’s a sense of not knowing what’s changed, what happened while you were away.

I walk to school on my own, joining the clumps of other students heading the same way, and it doesn’t take me long to wish I hadn’t bothered. Not a single person talks to me and I’m so far behind in lessons it’s embarrassing. The nervous feeling coils in my stomach but I sit still through three lessons, and then it’s lunchtime. I find Joe in the canteen. He’s sitting alone, but when he sees me the expression on his face brightens and he waves me over. I sit and watch him eat chips – dropping them into his mouth so they don’t touch the sides and sipping his Coke soundlessly. Neither of us speaks, but it doesn’t seem to matter, and gradually the scared feeling dies down.

‘Not eating lunch?’ he asks me suddenly, and I shake my head.

‘You ought to,’ he tells me, and I say I will – next time. He shrugs and nods, chewing as if he has something important to say and the food’s in his way. I wait while he swallows the last chip and gets up, slipping his bag over one shoulder.

‘I think,’ says Joe, ‘that we were meant to meet. That you and I will make things happen.’

I look at him, and a shiver goes through me. ‘Hope so,’ I say.

Joe smiles. ‘Ready for the afternoon?’ he asks me, and I think I am.

I make it through to Friday, including a meeting with my History teacher, Mrs Rutland, who’s worried about me. She’s a tall woman with joints as knotty as balls of rope and legs so thin you think they’ll snap if she runs on them. The grapevine says her husband left her for someone else, and her eyes have that look about them that says she’s only holding things together by the fingernails. I know that look from my own mirror.

Because she seems to care, I talk about coursework and catching up, but it’s a relief when I see Joe waiting outside the window and she lets me go. He comes all the way to the bottom of my road again and then goes off, his flash of blonde hair bobbing up and down like a buoy on the ocean.

‘Log on,’ he calls after me. ‘Give me fifteen minutes.’

I watch until he disappears and then run to the top of the road, not even noticing the slope. The sky is a whiteness that seems to suck me upwards as if a lid’s been taken off the world. I take a huge gulp of it and hurry indoors, skipping past the inner shop door where Mum’s talking to a customer. I dash upstairs, turn on the computer and wait:

‘Hey Coo’

‘Hey Joe’

‘How’s it going?’

‘It’s going good, at least since I met you.’

‘It’s the same for me. I really like you.’

‘Want to go out sometime?’

‘Sure yes. That would be great.’

‘Why don’t we just get married now?’

‘Ha ha.’

Well, that’s how the conversation goes in my head. Stupid, I know, and sure enough, I wait for half an hour and he doesn’t log on. People never do what they say they will. In the end I shut down and go for dinner – sausages, onion gravy and a chocolate pudding that sticks to my mouth and still tastes afterwards.

‘I’m glad you came straight back,’ Mum says. ‘There are some nasty things happening. I don’t think you should wander about alone just now, especially after dark.’

‘Why?’ I say. ‘What things?’ But she says nothing, just clears the plates, while Dad finishes the pudding, glancing up after every mouthful to smile at me. I don’t know why it annoys me but it does, so I tell them I’m going upstairs to do my homework. Dad’s face falls. I wish I knew what he wants me to do – smile back? Climb on his lap and ask for a cuddle? Sometimes I wish I could, but tonight’s not one of them. I go up and take out my books, but I can’t face it. Instead I just sit, thinking about ‘nasty things’ as if we haven’t all seen enough of those to last a lifetime. In the end I give up and go to bed, lying awake for what seems like half the night listening to the muffled sounds from downstairs and outside. It’s always like this.

In the morning, when I turn the computer on for a quick check before I leave, there’s a message for me after all:

JoeSteen says:

Hi. It’s midnight – cdnt get on b4. U there?’

JoeSteen says:

Guess not. Sorry

JoeSteen says:

See you 2morrow?

It’s nothing much, but it shows he didn’t forget. I feel a surge of energy and when I reach the kitchen, I’m smiling. ‘See you tomorrow?’ he said, and that meant today.

5.

Thought Diary: ‘Clinical Psychologists aim to reduce psychological distress and enhance psychological well-being. They deal with mental and physical health problems including anxiety, depression, addiction and relationship problems.’ From the Cardwell Clinic welcome pack. I think that covers everything!

Thanks to Joe’s message it’s the first weekend for ages I haven’t wanted to be somewhere else, but after breakfast Dad bursts the bubble. It’s my day to see the psychologist and I’ve forgotten.

‘It’s on the wall diary,’ Dad says. ‘I couldn’t make it easier for you.’

He could make it easier by cancelling the whole thing, but I don’t say so. I send Joe a text saying ‘have 2 go out. Maybe later’ then trail upstairs and get the Thought Diary from under my bed – where the most recent things I’ve written look so completely stupid she’s bound to know I haven’t been keeping it properly. I call her the ‘Shrink Woman’ because that sounds less scary; less like I’m actually crazy. She’s meant to help me deal with how I feel about Sam dying, but it’s a waste of time.

My phone buzzes in my pocket as I go downstairs. It’s Joe. ‘Let go of the past – the fall is not as far as you think.’

For a moment I wonder how he knows where I’m going, but he can’t of course. He’s just a bit mad, like me.

‘Good to see you smiling,’ Dad says as we drive away, so I wipe the smile off in case he thinks I’m happy.

We never speak on the journey there. Dad listens to the radio and I sit with my head turned to the window with my eyes half-closed, trying to think of nothing while the fields drift by, dotted with horses and isolated buildings. The clinic used to be a house, I think. A big building with carved gables and gardens, but it’s no house now. When you go in and see the smart reception desk and the people sitting around in chairs, you know where you are.

On my first appointment I didn’t say a word – nothing at all. I just sat there looking at a patch of brown stuff on the carpet and a cat outside the window as it played with a bird. Seeing the struggle and the flapping and the blood made talking seem pointless. Anyway, I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t like those other people crying into their handkerchiefs. I wasn’t crazy.

‘No one here is crazy,’ Dad’s always insisted.

‘Only you,’ I’d say, ‘paying all this money for nothing. You’re the biggest nut of all.’

The psychologist is very glamorous, like she should be in a movie or something. Piled up silver hair, huge blue eyes and what they call ‘good bones’, which means she’ll always look wonderful, even when she’s ancient. I suspect she changes clothes between clients like some kind of chameleon woman. Buddhist for the middle-aged trendies, prim for the nervous and clip-on dreads for the alternative types. Whenever I go it’s all African jewellery and joss sticks; I watch the smoke curl like ghostly snakes up the white walls and listen to her questions, which I never answer. They’d only lead to other questions and so we sit there – her in one armchair and me in another with a view of the garden. Poor old Dad, he pays all this money and she just looks at me and waits, and I look at her and make her wait some more. Until today that is, when she picks up the Thought Diary and to distract her I blurt out: ‘I saw a tramp. He talked to me. He was a bit like Sam.’

She doesn’t move, just lifts an eyebrow. ‘Oh yes?’ she says.

‘Yes. He came over and sat down. He could have been anyone – a vampire even, but I didn’t care.’

‘That’s an interesting choice. Why a vampire?’

‘I dunno; only that he could have been anyone.’

We look at each other.

‘Tell me something about him,’ she says, and I think.

‘He had really nice eyes.’

She smiles. ‘I’m surprised you noticed.’

Outside, the trees dance in the wind.

We’ve broken the silence now and she glances at my folder, at a piece of paper where I wrote stuff down before my first appointment.

‘And how is the other thing?’ she says. ‘The Pit.’

I consider The Pit. This is the term I use to describe the way I used to feel all of the time, but less often now.

It’s like one of those holes you dig on the beach. The ones you spend all day on when you are a kid. In the end it’s home time, and there you are standing at the bottom. It’s probably not very deep to anyone else, but to you it’s almost Australia. The sides are steep and narrow and cold, and right down at the bottom is a pool of smelly water. Here is where you’ve been sitting.

The frightened feeling comes back again and I clench my fists together, then apart and then together again.

‘What?’ she says. ‘What is it?’

But of course, if I knew that, I wouldn’t need to be sitting here, would I?

We drive home through slow traffic. The Thought Diary is on the back seat. The Shrink Woman wants me to write in it at least once a week, but I doubt I will.

The radio’s on and Dad hums tunelessly under his breath. He stops halfway home at a café and the warm air and clatter of knives and forks makes things all right again. There’s something so normal about cheese on toast. You can’t imagine traitors eating it for a last meal, or ordering Earl Grey tea with lemon-not-milk to go with it as we do now, trying not to swallow too loudly and watching the other people come and go as if we’ve only been shopping or something. I wonder what the Shrink Woman made of what I said; I wonder why I brought it up at all. I wonder what the tramp is doing now and how long it is since he had cheese on toast, so hot that it comes to his mouth still bubbling.

Dad nods at me across the table. A little lump of cheese sits on his top lip.

‘You all right?’ he asks me, and the little lump drops onto the table cloth.

I don’t say anything. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to. Dad waits a minute and then looks away, transferring his little smile from me to the waitress. Then we go home.

6.

Thought Diary: Graffiti in the town: ‘I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason.’ Glinda, Wicked (the musical).

There’s something going on with Joe. He gives me a call on Sunday morning to say he needs to get out of the house, and then again an hour later to say he can’t. It’s obvious he has his hand over the phone, but I can still hear shouting and his voice is pulled tight as a fishing line.

‘I can’t come. Sorry … ’

‘Are you okay? What’s all the noise?’

‘…Yes. That’s right. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you.’

I wait, but there’s nothing more, and then the line goes dead and I’m left in silence. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about meeting and didn’t want to say so, but then I remember the way his voice sounded, and the yelling in the background. People don’t yell for nothing.

Mum’s in a strange mood too. I catch her standing outside Sam’s room with the laundry basket – as if she’s forgotten there is no more laundry. She turns as I pass and jumps like she’s seen a ghost, then goes inside and shuts the door. I stand outside and listen, holding my ear close – careful not to touch it – just like I used to when I needed to check if Sam was in or not. I can’t hear a thing though, except for my breath in its careful whisper against the wood.

I leave her to her ghosts and go downstairs, but the house is silent. Through the kitchen window I see Dad in his garden shed. He’s in overalls and obviously busy. I watch as he drags out bits of rubbish and old cans of paint. His face is relaxed and his movements easy, but then it changes. He comes through the shed door slowly, something red cradled in his arms. It’s an old three-wheeled bicycle. Sam’s I think. He stands holding it for a long time, and I don’t move even though he can’t see me. I hold my breath until I can’t stand it any more and have to let it go in a huge burst. When I look up, the bike is lying on the rubbish pile and Dad isn’t moving. Then he goes into the shed and shuts the door.

I take my coat off the hook and go out.

The promenade is crowded as usual. Mostly families again with kids made fat by bobble hats and puffy jackets, and dads skimming pebbles across the water. A little boy falls down and his mouth opens in a wide circle of rage. A girl runs across the promenade, screaming like a seabird, flapping her arms while her mum chases after her in a low crouch. I hurry on, eager to escape.

When I’ve gone almost as far as the nudist beach, I see the homeless man from yesterday. He’s standing on the hump of pebbles, staring at the sea, while a cloud of smoke bursts from his face to disappear into the air. He seems to be alone but I hesitate in case Alec the Shouter is around. It would be best to just leave, but I don’t. Instead I walk over until he can hear my feet on the stones.

‘Hi again,’ I say.

He twists, loses his balance and lurches sideways. One hand goes down and hits the pebbles hard, but it saves him. He stands up tall, trying to pretend it didn’t happen because he’s drunk, but I know better. I’ve seen it all before.

‘Hello,’ he says, ‘what brings you back then?’

I don’t know, so I can’t say. Instead I bend down and pick up a handful of pebbles. There’s a tin can down towards the water and I throw them at it.

‘I like the fact it’s stones here,’ he says, picking a couple up and rolling them in his palm. ‘If it was sand, it would get everywhere, and it’d be crawling with kids an’ that.’

I glance around. Of course he’s right; I’ve just never questioned it before. Stones aren’t much good for lying on or building sandcastles.

‘Why is it, though?’ I ask him. ‘Why not sand?’

He throws me a startled look and rubs a hand across his mouth.

‘You don’t know, do you?’ I say. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Actually,’ he says, sitting down with a crash, ‘there is sand, when the tide goes out, but stones are more meaningful anyway.’

I hesitate. I feel stupid standing over him like this, but I can’t just walk away, can I? I drop down next to him; we’re so close that the sound of the wind cuts out. Now, sitting as we are on top of the rise, it seems like the sea is just below us and we’re on the edge of the world. I look at him sideways: long lashes, stubble; a nice face. Not a dirty, mad face like the other man.

‘Meaningful how?’ I say. ‘Aren’t pebbles just pebbles?’

‘Dig your hand down,’ he says, ‘pull some up. You ever think how many there are? Like people – millions of ’em and not one the same.’

I push my hand down, like I must have done a hundred times before, but this time I look properly. All the colours are different and some have shapes or patterns like scales, or holes that bore right through them. The tramp is looking at me, smiling.

‘Sometimes,’ he says, ‘you find a stone that’s like a message – you know?’

I realise I’m meant to answer, but what can you say to something daft like that?

‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘really. If you got something on your mind or you don’t know what to do, you make a decision, and then you wait. If it’s the right one you’ll find a stone. Then you know.’

I stare at him. ‘Then you know what?’

‘If it’s the right decision, it’ll be a special stone, not just any stone.’

‘Good,’ I say, ‘because who’d notice an ordinary stone here, right?’

He catches my eye and we laugh. ‘Try it,’ he says, then drops his head and gives a little sigh.

‘I think it sounds nice,’ I say. ‘Something helping you out – what would it be, though, that made you find it?’

‘I dunno… Maybe God…’ He must see my face because he looks down again, ‘or maybe the devil. I told you, I dunno.’

I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t seem the type for God. He smells like he’s been drinking something heavy, and he looks tired and rough. I should leave, but I don’t want to. There’s something about him that makes me feel warm.

‘They say,’ he goes on, ‘that in Heaven there’s a stone for everyone. Underneath, it has a new name for you, so all this… doesn’t matter any more.’

His hands tremble in his lap. I can’t stop looking at them. He laughs and I know he’s embarrassed. ‘Take no notice,’ he says. ‘Tell me your name.’

My muscles tense with the scared feeling and I should just get up and walk away.

‘It’s Coo,’ I find myself saying, ‘short for Corinne.’

He puts out his hand and I have to shake it. ‘Banks,’ he says. ‘If you come again, bring us a cup of coffee would you?’

‘Sure,’ I say, and then my mouth goes on, ‘I’ll come in the evening if you like.’

He smiles, lets go of my hand and I get up. ‘You be careful,’ he says.

‘Careful of what?’

‘Just careful. There’s bad things out there.’

I don’t know what to say. Bad things again. Bad things everywhere.

I tell Joe about it on the way to school next morning and he gives me a sideways look. ‘Which one is it?’ he grins. ‘The one who was shouting at you? I told you he fancied you.’

I give him a jokey swipe around the head and he ducks like lightning. His expression changes like cloud shadow on the grass and he walks on without waiting for me.

‘Joe? You okay?’

‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I dunno. You just…’

He sniffs and wipes his coat sleeve across his face, then in an instant he’s all right again. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Tell me about your alky – is he crazy too?’

‘Get out, don’t be mean. He reminds me of Sam.’

‘Sam?’

‘My brother,’ I remind him. ‘That was his name.’

‘Oh yes,’ says Joe. ‘But that’s not good is it, to remind you of your brother?’

‘I guess not, but Banks is different.’

‘He’s still a tramp, Coo. Not really the best of company.’

‘At least he’s there, and he listens to me.’

Joe says nothing, but the look on his face says it all. I remember my meeting with Banks and wonder if I’m losing it. Perhaps I shouldn’t go again, but I know that I will.

All the time we’re walking, I think about Sam. Lots of people lose brothers, but the usual noises of sympathy are no good to me. I lost mine a long time before he died, and I hated him and loved him like two sides of a sheet of paper. There are also the secrets. The secrets Sam told me when he was drunk and desperate, which I carry inside me like dark stones. Only someone like Banks could listen and not find them strange. He must spend all his time in dark and dirty places – my secrets would mean nothing to him.

It wasn’t always like that – hiding things and being scared. The change came slowly, like a dark stain in clear water. I was a late baby. There were eight years between me and Sam so I didn’t realise he had problems at school or that he was skipping it. Then, one day, there was a huge row between him and Dad, and after that, there was little else. He started hanging round with older people, and maybe he felt better with some booze inside him – more confident, more equal – but it didn’t stop there. You wouldn’t think a little thing like a drink could do so much, but it did. In just a few years it turned Sam into a monster. When he came home our house became a frightened place, and at night I lay in the darkness with a desk pushed across my bedroom door. How do you tell most people a thing like that?

7.

Thought Diary: ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May!’ Nursery rhyme.

Now I’ve started talking to the Shrink Woman, I can’t seem to stop. I tell her on Tuesday evening that I’m planning to leave home. I don’t say ‘run away’ because that sounds stupid, like something little kids do then turn up at teatime. I tell her I’m packed and ready to go, which feels good because I know she can’t tell anyone because of patient confidentiality. I doubt she believes me anyway.

I also tell her I have two new friends, and this seems to cheer her up because she nods and makes a little note on her pad. She smiles when I talk about Joe. Her eyebrows wiggle about and she leans forward just a tiny bit, but she’s not so happy to hear that the other one is Banks. Her body language changes at once; even her feet want to tell me it’s all wrong, and the eyebrows stop wiggling and bunch together in the middle like two caterpillars.

‘He sounds a lot older than you,’ she says. ‘Is he?’

‘I guess so. I think he’s about thirty, but it could be his skin.’

‘His skin?’

‘Yes. People who drink a lot have old looking skin. It changes the way they look. It puts ten years on them and makes them smell bad, like old cheese. If they keep on doing it, they can’t even stay living in a house with other people, and in the end it usually kills them.’

She nods. ‘I thought you didn’t like to be around people who drink.’

‘I don’t mind Banks,’ I say. ‘He doesn’t drink when I’m with him.’

‘Do you think you can stop him?

I look at her. It’s a stupid question. ‘I’m not his counsellor,’ I say, ‘he’s just someone I met.’

‘And what do you think the point is?’

‘The point?’

‘Well. Why? Why an alcoholic?’

I don’t know what to say. She’s talking like I picked him out of a dating site and checked a list of his hobbies or something. ‘There isn’t a why,’ I say, ‘that’s silly.’

She looks at me for a bit, her long, elegant fingers toying with a tortoiseshell pen. ‘There often is,’ she says. ‘There’s very often a hidden “Why”.’

Every comment leads to another question – we are two contestants in a ring, where only one comes out. It’s all about getting me to say what I think without slipping up herself, but like I said, I know her game.

We fall into silence, but just before it gets awkward she’s called out to the telephone. Nothing is meant to disturb our sessions, so it must be something serious – maybe someone forgot to pay her and she’s worried about buying her caviar for the weekend. I lie back in the big chair and think about Banks.

I was going to go home after school yesterday, but Mum rang me.

‘I’d rather you came straight home today,’ she’d said. ‘A girl’s been attacked down by the marina.’

‘I’m not going to the marina,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I can look after myself.’

I turned the phone off then. Too bad. I didn’t go home lots of times when they were running after Sam, and they barely even noticed, so it seems a bit late to start playing nanny. I didn’t go home. I went for a walk – right down towards the marina. Serve her right.

I didn’t get that far before I saw Banks. He was stumbling along as if he had to get somewhere fast, but there was only the beach, with the sea splashing at his feet all annoyed looking. A bit further along an old man with a white bathing cap was starting a swim. That’s what Banks was looking at. An old man with white, stalky legs, a slack-skinned stomach and a chest with saggy little breasts all covered with hair.

My feet clattered on the stones and Banks turned, losing his balance and tottering down the incline. He staggered right into the water and went down on one knee. His arm was soaked to the elbow when he got out, and the tatty little cigarette in his mouth was a grey rag. I hurried the last few steps and when I reached him, the old man had taken a quick plunge. Nothing could be seen of him now but his pale face looking back at the beach.

‘You look like a sailor who tried to catch a mermaid,’ I said as I reached him.

‘He’s no mermaid. I thought he was in trouble for a sec there.’

‘How could he be, silly? He wasn’t in the water yet.’

Banks shrugged and grinned. ‘All the trouble I’ve ever been in happened on land.’

He hiccuped and burped, and we stood for a bit longer looking for the old man and finding only unbroken sea.

‘He musta drowned,’ Banks decided. ‘Horrible way to go, or so they say.’

We began to walk up the beach, away from the town. Banks waved his arm around, trying to dry it, and sometimes he’d stop and pick up a pebble then throw it down again. None of them seemed special. They were just boring ordinary pebbles. They were just stones. Banks turned up the shingle and onto the road and I followed him without thinking. We cut behind the bushes to the grass, where he sat down and took out a little bottle. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans but it didn’t bother Banks. He tipped up the little bottle to drink, and turned to me.

‘Tell me about your brother then,’ he said. So I did.

‘Sam was all right as a boy. That’s why I hate how I feel now. He used to play with me even though I was much younger. Sometimes he laughed so much he couldn’t breathe, but he changed as he got older.’

Banks nodded, looking down. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘what made it happen?’

‘I don’t know, really. He couldn’t get on with people; he felt like he didn’t belong. I think getting drunk helped that. He said it made him feel better … ’

‘Ahh,’ Banks said. ‘I remember that. Better. Right.’

‘Later,’ I went on, ‘I think he took other stuff too. He started to see things – normal things, but to him they were something else. He thought people were plotting against him too. He was drunk all the time – and then he started seeing the shapes. He’d phone the house at three in the morning, screaming that devils were chasing him, and Dad would go out with a jacket over his pyjamas to find him. First I wished the shapes would get him, then I worried they’d follow him home.’

Banks dragged on his ciggie and burped. ‘He was a proper boozer by then.’

‘And the rest.’

‘Violent?’

‘And the rest; he hit our mum.’

‘You?’

‘He hit everyone. Even himself.’

I try to remember that once Sam was just my brother. I try to remember when we were very young and not what came after. Sometimes I wonder if there was ever a time when someone could have stepped in and stopped it. Useless thoughts, those.

‘He wasn’t bad looking,’ I tell him. ‘He had curly hair and freckles, but later he got pale and blotchy, with bags under his eyes like he was about sixty.’

‘What’d he drink?’

‘What didn’t he? Beer first. Then cider, then later on, spirits – vodka and that.’

Banks nodded. ‘Sends you funny, spirits – best stick to cider.’

‘He used to invent games,’ I whispered. ‘Games we had to play when our parents were out.’

Banks looked at me and spat onto the grainy floor. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yes. He liked to make me do things I shouldn’t do, like steal stuff or say things to people in the street. He liked to see me get into trouble.’

‘Doesn’t sound so bad,’ Banks said.

‘When I didn’t want to play them, he got angry.’

‘It was the drink,’ Banks said

‘No it wasn’t! Stop making excuses.’

Banks looked down.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Not your fault.’

‘That’s okay,’ Banks said. ‘I did ask.’

He sighed and started rolling another of his ciggies – one handed which was pretty impressive. His fingers were yellow-brown right up to the first knuckle and the nails looked like he’d spent the last year living in a coal cellar. When the rollie was finished he lit it – right in the face of the wind blowing across the promenade – by lifting his coat sideways and hiding inside it. Banks knows how to do all sorts of difficult things that would seem useless to most people.

‘He’s dead now, right?’ he said to me.

‘Meant to be,’ I said. ‘But it’s not that simple.’

The psychologist woman told me, on one of my first visits, that when something is so big you don’t know where to start, you can take just a little bit. One sip from the whisky bottle, one slice from the loaf, or just the melody line of the song and manage with that. So I’d have to tell her about Sam in little bits that don’t join together. How he stole my life in tiny little bites. First my parents, then my home and finally even me. Everything turned around Sam like some dark sun, and whether he was drunk or not we turned in our orbits. Sometimes I wonder what sort of person I’d be if he’d never been born. Thing is, it’s just too much effort; there’s too much to tell.

The door cracks open and the Shrink Woman is back, apologising all over the place and promising to make up the time. Who cares? An extra ten minutes staring at each other for about twenty-five quid? That would buy Banks a whole heap of sausage rolls.

8.

Thought Diary: Today: Words about the sea: ‘A swatch is an incoming wave, backwash is an outgoing wave, and fetch is the distance travelled by a wave. The longer the fetch, the bigger the wave.’

‘I think of my life now in terms of the sea. Sam was the swatch, the curling wave that swamped us, and the backwash is still going out, dragging us with it, over and over in the stones until one day it will spit us all out again on a distant shore. Right now we are still travelling, on the crest of the biggest wave I ever saw. Rolling on – a long, long way.’

I’ve started to write in the Thought Diary, and that’s what came out today.

‘You learn about those words in school?’ Banks says when I tell him, and I nod.

‘I coulda told you,’ he says. ‘I know.’

We’re sitting together. Me in my school uniform with my bag tucked under one arm and Banks in his heavy black coat. We are on one side of a square of wooden benches; it’s cold and the wood beneath us is wet.

Across an expanse of grass, there are some swings and a climbing frame dotted with little kids who flit like birds from one thing to another, their voices fluting in the air. They are the bright beginning and the men on the benches are their worst nightmare futures – the ones their parents dream up late at night when they get the first bad school report or worrying news from the doctor.

The men are all wearing several layers of ill-fitting clothes and I can smell them from where I’m sitting. One is old with a Santa Claus beard and a fat gut barely covered by his fraying jumper. He clutches a can of beer and sways backwards and forwards, head lolling on his neck like a dandelion on a broken stalk – his beard a thick fluff of seeds that never seem to blow away. Next to him is a thin wiry man who has no teeth. He carries on a muffled conversation with the man next to him who does nothing but nod and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, you were right, you were really right…’

The fourth man is Alec, the red-headed shouter, and he’s glaring at me from his pale, flickering eyes. I move closer to Banks because I know he’ll look after me. The thought makes me feel warm inside.

Banks sees Alec looking and gives me a little nudge. ‘Found her in town, didn’t I?’ he tells him. ‘Couldn’t let her wander round on her own, could I?’

The red-haired man spits on the ground and stands up. It isn’t till Banks hands him a beer that he sits again, snapping off the tab and sucking it down, still staring at me over the rim.

‘She helped pay for that,’ Banks says. ‘Dinner money!’ He starts to shake with laughter and the ripples of it come all the way through his coat, pressed as it is against my body.

I have a beer of my own and though I don’t like it, I sip at it now, feeling the cold liquid all the way down to my stomach. I wasn’t sure what to do when Banks gave it to me and for a while I just held it.

‘If you don’t want it…’ he’d said, and I didn’t want to turn down the gift, because that’s what it was really, coming from him. Then, as we walked, we kept getting these looks from people in town – staring from me to Banks and back again. I hoped someone I knew would see me, and wonder what I was doing, and that’s when I opened it and swigged at it as we went along. It felt good somehow.

I sip at the beer again and Banks grins at me. It doesn’t taste so bad now and anyway, it’s only one can of beer. I won’t even finish it.

After a time, Banks relaxes. His face is quiet, eyelids drooping. I huddle a bit closer to him and stare at the red-haired man, steadily and without blinking. At first he stares back, flaring his nostrils as if that will scare me off, but I keep on going until he starts to twitch. He gets up, then sits down again, sucking and sucking at his can and muttering. I wait. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ I mouth at him, but that’s too much. He launches himself forward with a growl, flinging the can hard. It slams into Banks, who springs into life, grabbing hold of the nutter just as he reaches me.

It’s all over in a moment. Banks has pushed him away and they scuffle into some bushes, snapping and cracking the twigs like the bones of some animal. There’s no sound but for their grunting and puffing. The old man wakes with a start and stares wildly round in the direction of the playground while the others shout their odds like punters at a boxing match. The bushes explode outwards and only Banks comes out. Alec is rolling on the ground, corkscrew hair caught in the twigs, snarling like a mad dog.

Banks comes over and drags me away, holding me by one arm and stumbling slightly. Behind him, when I turn my head, I see Alec rising up, one hand rubbing and rubbing at the scratches on his face.

‘Thank you,’ I say to Banks. ‘You saved me.’

He says nothing until we get further into town and can see the line of the sea ahead of us.

‘What did you do to get Alec going?’ he asks me. I shrug my innocence but I’m scared now. Banks is angry with me, and I’ve made the nutter hate me even more. Banks will protect me, I know that now, but he won’t always be there. I shake my head at Banks. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’

‘You must have,’ Banks says, ‘and what are you doing here anyway, instead of being in school? And what’s with the bag?’

I look at it, all hugged tight in my arms, and shrug.

‘What you got in it – school stuff?’

‘No! Why would I hump that about? What’s it to you anyway?’

Banks shrugs and turns towards the promenade.

‘If you must know,’ I tell him, ‘it’s my bag of stuff – for when I leave.’

‘Oh yeah?’ he says and then just nods.

‘I want someone to say they’re sorry,’ I blurt. ‘No one ever says they’re sorry.’

Banks looks at me, nudging a strand of hair out of his face with a flick of his head. He’s made himself a roll-up and smoke streams from the side of his mouth.

‘Sorry about what?’ he asks, and he’s smiling.

‘About me,’ I say. ‘Sorry about me. Everyone goes on about how terrible it is that Sam died, and I know it is! But it’s like nothing he ever did matters now – as if he’s become a saint or something.’

I realise how stupid I must sound, but if Banks laughs at me now, I think I’ll die.

A long time passes and then he puts out his hand.

‘Gimme the bag,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep it for you.’

I look at his grubby hand; at the bare wrist disappearing into his sleeve. I’m not sure.

‘I won’t nick anything,’ he says. ‘I just want to be sure you talk to me first.’

‘I don’t even know where I might go,’ I admit. ‘London, I thought.’

Banks makes a little noise that might have been a laugh, but when I look at him he’s not smiling.

‘Yeah, yeah, London,’ he mutters. ‘Then what? When you’ve been missing for a while, the police will find you and bring you home, and your mum and dad, who’ve been out of their heads with worry, will be really sorry? Is that it?’

I flush to the roots of my hair, and look away, but Banks keeps staring.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I tell him, ‘you don’t know what you’re on about.’

I remind myself he’s a stinky tramp. If I shut my eyes and think back, it could be Sam standing there, smelling of alcohol and stealing my life away.

I try to take back the bag, but Banks has hold of it. I get so mad I hit him across the shoulders with my closed fist twice but he still doesn’t let go.

‘Keep it then,’ I scream at him. ‘Steal it; do what you want. You think you know everything but you don’t. Look at you.’

He has the bag in one hand, and the other comes out of a pocket holding a round pebble. He stands gazing down at it, turning it round and round in his yellow-stained fingers like a marble egg; a kid playing with a tiny world. I turn my back on him and go.

‘And stay clear of Alec,’ Banks shouts after me. ‘I’m telling you!’

9.

Thought Diary: Dictionary: ‘Alchoholic: Pronunciation [al-kuh-haw-lik, -hol-ik] adjective: Of, or pertaining to, or of the nature of alcohol. Containing or using alcohol.’ Long-winded explanation for getting pissed too often. No chance with beer – it’s vile!

By the next evening I’m starting to feel bad about hitting him. When the streetlights come on, Mum draws our heavy curtains against the cold and sweeps off to the kitchen. We’re having a dinner party. Mum is cooking a curry from scratch and Dad is shutting the back windows. It’s too cold to use the garden anyway.

The year is on the turn for sure – it was freezing first thing. I’d left my bedroom window open and the chill woke me up before it was properly light. I didn’t mind in the end because when I checked my phone, there was a text from Joe:

‘Be yourself,’ it said. ‘You can’t be anyone else.’

The silliness of it made me laugh and I texted back in the chilly darkness:

‘Be someone else. Anything’s an improvement.’

To my surprise, he sent one straight back: ‘Love you just the way you are.’ And there we were, in our separate bedrooms before anyone else was awake, miles apart, but just a fingertip away.

I got up when I heard Dad go downstairs and we sat in the kitchen eating toast. I tried to imagine Joe thirty years from now, but I just couldn’t. Dad looked like he’d been grown up for ever.

Dad spent the morning sorting the back yard out, but had to give up. There’s all this timber out there from ages ago when he had an idea for a sort of awning we could sit under. Sam had been in one of his ‘good patches’ where he didn’t drink as much. He’d talked about getting a job or moving away, and when he came into a room I didn’t immediately look for the quickest way out of it. He’d been really keen to help Dad with the awning. Mum had in mind lights and rambling roses, but it never happened of course. It stayed a pile of wood under a blue tarpaulin. Sam started drinking again, and soon the ‘good patches’ stopped for ever.

In the end the evening is okay. Ben and Matt come round and we eat at a new table Mum has just bought for the shop. It’s noisy and enough fun that the knot in my stomach unwinds. Mum is laughing – she’s had a glass or two of wine – and she leans into Dad’s arm, which encircles the back of her chair.

Afterwards we play cards, and then let the chill air in from the garden while Dad makes coffee. By the time I see Ben and Matt off, it’s almost two in the morning.

‘Nice weather for polar bears,’ Matt jokes. ‘Good thing we’re just across the way.’

He peers into my face. ‘Here if you need me,’ he says, and I open my mouth to tell him… but I don’t know what.

‘Yes,’ I say instead. ‘Yes, I’m all right.’

I smile and watch them go, but when I glance down as I shut the door I see three cans right outside under the shop window. A stain runs from them into the gutter. A chill goes through me and I almost call out to Matt, but it’s late and what would I say that wouldn’t make him ask too many questions? Then he’d want to tell Mum and Dad, and they’d ask more. No. It’s probably nothing. Lots of people drop cans around here – they could belong to anyone, but somehow I know they don’t. I nudge them aside with my foot and they roll crazily across the pavement with a sound like Chinese gongs.

It’s freezing in the hall now and I think of Banks. How does he keep warm? How does he wash or go to the toilet? What does he do for food? It feels wrong going back to the warm kitchen to scrape leftover food into our big bin. The table still holds dishes of creamy dessert and wineglasses with dregs of red wine. All Banks has is whatever nasty stuff he’s drinking. I wish he could have been here tonight, but let’s be honest, even sober, he’s not the sort of dinner guest Mum would have in mind.

‘Are you all right, Coo?’ Dad says as he feeds the dishwasher.

‘Yes. I’m just thinking,’ I say – and I am. I’m hatching a plan that’s making my heart beat faster with excitement. I’ve just remembered that tomorrow is Sunday, and Mum and Dad are going on a buying trip. It will just be me here. It’s the perfect time.

My scheme almost goes wrong first thing, when Mum asks if I want to go with them. She stands in the doorway of my room looking awkward, more like a guest than a woman in her own home. ‘We wondered,’ she says, ‘if you’d like a trip out with us.’

I look at her long fingers stroking the wood of the doorframe, at her hair where it’s come loose from its clip, and her eyes as they search mine. They’re creased at the corners but the wrong way up. Not laughter lines, that’s for sure.

‘I’d rather stay here,’ I tell her, but I wonder what I’d have said if I hadn’t got my plan. Whether I’d have gone with them and tried to mend the chasm that’s widened between us without any of us noticing until now.

She goes to say something but then stops and just nods her head and goes. I hear her feet on the stairs and then the click of the front door. ‘Bye, Mum,’ I whisper.

The silence in the house seems to rise like air pressure, and I hurry out, slamming my bedroom door behind me.

I smuggle Banks in by the main front door like a fugitive, and he stops dead just inside so I have to push him to get the door closed. Even then he just stands there, sniffing the air like an animal brought indoors, checking out the danger spots. I squeeze past him then lead him by the hand into the kitchen where I make coffee as if I do it every day. When I press down the plunger on the cafetière and turn round, I notice, with a lurch in my stomach, that he’s disappeared. I want to trust him, and I do, but it is Mum and Dad’s house after all, and I know what they’d think. I dash out of the kitchen in a sudden panic, but he’s only in the hall, peering through the inside door that leads to the shop.

‘Lotta nice stuff in there,’ he says, squinting past the lace curtain

‘Yeah, I guess so. It does okay. It’s Mum’s thing really.’

‘Lots of that Japanese looking stuff.’

‘Mostly pine – boxes and that. They used to keep blankets in them but now people use them as coffee tables.’

‘Can we go in?’

‘It’s closed because Mum’s not here. She locks it.’

He sighs. ‘Okay then,’ and straightens up, twisting his head so he’s looking right up the stairwell. ‘How many floors?’ he says.

‘Three. You want to see?’

We go up the first flight and he stops to look at the claw-footed bath before we work our way up. It feels odd to see him tiptoeing through my parents’ bedroom. He picks things up from the dressing table, examines Dad’s book by the bed and even opens the wardrobe like the snowman in that cartoon – he’s certainly no less weird. I know he shouldn’t be here. I’ve made a mistake but now I have to see it through, so I follow him like an estate agent while he pokes about. He looks at everything, even the flock wallpaper on the upper landing – running his hand up it to feel the texture.

When we come to my room I push ahead in case there’s anything out that shouldn’t be, like knickers! There isn’t, but an old diary is on the floor and I kick it under the bed. I don’t use it any more – I got tired of shouting from the end of a biro, but it’s pink and embarrassing somehow.

Because he’s there, it’s like seeing my room for the first time. Teddies on the bed and little kid curtains still up at the windows; even an old poster on the wall behind the door. He must think I’m a right baby. He’s certainly not saying much.

‘I feel funny with you being in here. We should go down.’

‘Sure,’ he says, ‘if you like.’

We go back downstairs, feet muffled on the carpet. ‘What’s in there?’ he says as we reach the first floor again. We are outside my brother’s room. The door is plain stripped pine like all the others, except for a square of wood in the centre that’s a different colour. Banks runs his hand over this as if puzzled by it, fitting his fist into the outline as if measuring for a boxing glove. He says nothing. ‘Sam’s room,’ I say, moving to the staircase. ‘Or it was. Shall we go down?’

As we start, however, I have the best idea.

‘Why don’t you have a bath?’ I say. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’

He looks at me and then at his feet, and I realise how rude that must have sounded.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean because you’re dirty! I just thought…’

He shakes his head. ‘No, no. I am. I haven’t had a bath for ages; showers sometimes, yeah, but not a bath. If you think it’s okay, that would be good.’

He goes to the front door to get a little bag he left there, and I start filling the bath. It’s one of those old ones that Mum rescued from a house demolition; big, deep and free-standing, with lion’s feet legs.

I empty in loads of bath foam and little soap petals until the whole room is steamy and smells of roses. When it’s done, I get towels from the wall safe – big, fluffy white ones – and pile them on the wicker chair. Banks has taken off his jacket and shirt and his hands are on the hem of another layer. I’m not straightened up yet and from the corner of my eye I see bare skin appear as he peels off his T-shirt. Compared to his arms and face it’s dead white, and a little fluffy line runs down from his tummy button into his jeans.

‘Wait!’ I laugh. ‘Let me get out first. I’ll make some sandwiches. When you’re done, just come down – there’s no rush.’

My heart is pounding and a little snake of disquiet squirms in my guts. What the hell am I doing? He could kill me and leave, and who would ever know he was here? How could I ever have thought this was a good idea?

I finish making the coffee and put it on the table in chunky blue cups with some flapjacks and biscuits. When he still doesn’t come, I find some corned beef in the fridge and make sandwiches with brown bread and rocket, then sit staring at the clock. In the end, I go to the bottom of the stairs and look up, but the bathroom door is ajar and it’s silent, as if no one else is here.

‘Banks!’ I shout. ‘Come down. Coffee’s getting cold.’

At last he comes. I hear feet on the stairs and then he’s in the kitchen, wearing some new clothes that I don’t recognise. He grins.

‘Sally Army,’ he says. ‘Men and women in funny hats. They give out food ’n’ clothes, you know.’

I don’t really, but it doesn’t matter right now. I’m too stunned by this new person that’s come into the kitchen and too busy pretending I haven’t noticed.

Banks now has golden brown hair that falls in waves to his shoulders, and his face is clean and much younger looking. He seems to feel awkward too because we sit down and don’t speak. He sticks his nose over the mug of coffee I’ve made him and breathes in, ‘Snnnfffff’ like he’s smelling roses, then stuffs half the sandwich I’ve made into his mouth, chewing with his eyes closed. I get up and put his old clothes in the washing machine like a regular housewife. He’s brought them down in a little pile, with the stuff from his pockets in a paper bag. As they go round in the machine we sit watching the water turn black, like it’s a television. Banks laughs and tells me to change the channel. ‘This one’s too mucky for a girl your age,’ he says, winking.

He starts to peel an orange with his strange, new fingers – so clean you can imagine the person they could have belonged to – a Banks who’s married, with a job and a house. His eyes, without the oily lines round them, look wider and brighter and he doesn’t smell any more. I like this Banks, even if it’s only a ‘good patch’.

‘Now you’re all clean and not totally drunk, why don’t you find a job and somewhere to live?’ I suggest. ‘I mean, you must feel better, right? You could come here for Sunday dinner. My dad could introduce you to some people. You could make a fresh start.’

Banks looks at me over his coffee mug and doesn’t speak. I blush and feel like a kid again, a stupid kid who should know better.

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