‘Where next?’ Alex asked, a little jumpy at the fact that they had been searching for their friend for a whole thirty minutes but had found nothing.
‘How about Market Square?’
‘Okay!’
The boys ran as the sun began to climb on the bright summer’s day, and arrived in the cobbled square with fringes damp from sweat stuck to their foreheads. Three older boys from school sat on the bench. Nick looked at them and then looked away sharply; he knew the rules. He and Alex were about five years away from being able to sprawl like that on the coveted bench unchallenged. He ran his fingers over the comforting outline of the multi-tool in his pocket.
A cursory glance in shop doorways and at the tables and chairs in front of the pub told them this was not where they would find their friend.
‘Maybe he’s been taken by aliens,’ Alex whispered.
Nick stared at him. ‘Yes, that’s probably it. Or we could go and look up at the Old Dairy Shed?’ He suggested the only other place the three ever went.
‘Yes!’ Alex clicked his fingers as if his friend were a genius.
Surprisingly, the place was a lot scarier during the day. Partly down to the lack of snoggers, which made the space seem echoey and vast, and also because without the darkness to mask its many imperfections the true state of its dilapidation was revealed. The windows that weren’t smashed were covered in a dull, green slimy moss and the rafters were covered in pigeon shit. One or two of the birds still roosted there, sitting with chests pushed out and watching as he and Alex crept over rubbish and planks of wood, the remnants of rusted machinery and, most intriguingly, an old fridge freezer which looked to have been dumped there.
‘This place is scary,’ Alex said softly.
‘More or less than my sister?’
Alex considered this. ‘About the same.’
It was unmistakable and heart-thumpingly alarming all at the same time, the sound that suddenly floated from behind one of the girders: crying. And not the sweet burble of girls’ tears or the kind of crying you heard on the telly, but loud, breathless sobs, as if the person couldn’t stop even if they wanted to.
Alex took a step behind Nick and the two walked slowly forward in this pantomime-horse manner.
‘Eric?’ Nick called out.
‘Go away!’ his friend screamed.
The two did the opposite and ran towards the voice. And there they found him. Nick looked down at his mate, who sat on the concrete floor with his knees raised and his arms folded on them. His head was bowed on to his forearms and his narrow shoulders shook.
‘What’s wrong?’ Alex asked gently.
‘Nowt!’ Eric roared, looking up briefly to reveal eyes that were bloodshot, a runny nose and two dirty tracks down his cheeks where tears had carved a sad path over his skin.
The three often found each other’s distress comical – when Alex accidentally pinched the skin of his thumb between two links on the bike chain, he and Eric had watched, waiting for the tears that they could then mock. It was just what they did. But not this time. Eric’s hurt went way beyond pinched skin.
Nick sat down on the floor and Alex followed suit, and there they sat in silence while their mate sobbed. Nick thought about when he cried and his mum put her arms around him. It made everything feel a little bit better, but there was no way he could hug Eric! An idea came to him. Instead of a full-scale hug that would only embarrass them both, he extended his index finger and the one next to it and pressed his fingers on to his friend’s leg. Contact that he hoped might just take the edge off his distress in the way that his mum’s hug did for him. Alex copied; extending his two fingers, he pushed them on Eric’s other leg and, strangely, it seemed to work. Eventually, with a hiccup to his breathing, Eric extended the two fingers of both hands and laid them on top of his mates’. They were joined and calmed, the three of them, by this odd and well-meant salute.
Eric took a deep breath and wiped his teary lashes with the back of his hand. ‘My dad came home from billiards and had a fight with Dave the Milk.’
‘A proper fight?’ Alex was clearly both intrigued and excited by the prospect.
Eric nodded. ‘I was in my bedroom and my mum had told me to stay there, and I was setting up Domino Run when I heard them all shouting. It sounded like something on the telly.’ He swallowed. ‘I sat at the top of the stairs and my dad and Dave the Milk were thumping each other. They came out into the hallway and I saw my dad punch him in the mouth, and blood flicked up the wall. And my mum came out of the front room in her dressing gown and my dad pushed her back in and then . . .’ His tears came again. ‘And then my dad chucked Dave the Milk out of the house.’
‘Is it because he found out about your mum’s secret job?’ Alex tried to make sense of it.
‘I don’t know, but my mum . . .’ Eric paused and, with a look of utter despair, whispered, ‘My mum went with him. She went with Dave the Milk and I don’t know where she is now.’
Nick felt like crying himself. The idea, the very thought of his mum going somewhere and him not knowing where, or worse, the thought of her not coming back! Well, that was really the worst thing he could possibly imagine.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he offered.
‘How will it?’ Eric asked, without his usual air of sarcasm; he was a kid wanting both answers and reassurance.
‘I don’t know,’ Nick levelled with him, ‘but I bet it will.’
The three sat quietly for a while until Alex piped up. ‘Do you think because your dad hit him, Dave the Milk might want his handlebars back?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Eric managed.
Nick stood up. ‘Come on, we need to go and find stuff; sitting here isn’t going to get Half Bike finished, is it?’ He wiped the back of his shorts, which were damp from the floor, and was happy that the other two fell into step. He turned to look at Eric, who hadn’t lost his sad expression. Nick reached into his pocket.
‘Eric, you can be in charge of the multi-tool today. You can keep it in your pocket.’
Eric took it and gripped it tight. Nick was happy to see the small smile form on his friend’s face. He ignored Alex’s barely audible huff.
‘Can I take it home? Just for tonight?’
Nick nodded. ‘Yes, you can. Just for tonight.’
FOUR
Winter claimed the landscape of Burstonbridge. Thin frost sat on the grass in the early hours and the ground was hard as iron. The air was sharp with cold and chimneys let out loose plumes of smoke as folk set fires of coal and wood to try to stave off the chill. It was a cold November day with a bright blue sky, three months since they had laid Kerry to rest. Nick’s grief, while no less weighted, had changed gear. Gone was the unexpected smack of sadness that hit him at the most random of times and in its place was something slower, a smouldering melancholy that he carried with him like a cloak, one, in truth, he was almost used to wearing. The house was exactly as she had left it, apart from the kitchen that maybe sparkled a little less, the bedroom, which was in need of airing, and he still couldn’t get the hang of how to plump and position those damn cushions. Her clothes hung in her wardrobe and her boots and coat were where she had last placed them in the cupboard in the hallway. At first he took comfort from the items, running his fingers over them; they helped him pretend that she was not gone but had just nipped out. Now he didn’t notice them as such; they were just part of the fabric of the building that had been her home.