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Myself. That morning. That afternoon. Useless indoors while all around the police, my friends, my neighbours were useful outside: searching, searching for her – in parks, in hedges, in knoll-knuckled fields, on roadsides, in alleyways, gardens, allotments, in undergrowth, in bracken, on muddy riverside slopes. The beats keeping time as minutes melted into hours. The helicopter overhead. The lifeboats. The green swell of the river. The darkening sky. The time, the time, running, running, running away.
Running out.
Thirteen
Matt
They are running down the high street when Matt feels his chest tighten. He stops and, after a moment’s delay, Neil stops too and looks back.
‘You OK?’ he calls. A moment later, he’s jogged back and is now laying a hand on Matt’s shoulder. ‘Mate?’
‘I’m all right.’ Slowly the breathlessness subsides. Matt straightens up.
‘Just keep breathing,’ Neil says. ‘Take it slow, that’s it. Actually, you look knackered, mate. Eyes like piss holes. Have you been sleeping?’
Matt nods – a wordless lie.
‘Keep breathing. In and out, that’s it. In and out. Are you eating?’
Again, without a word, Matt nods. Another lie. He can’t remember what it’s like to sleep for a whole night, eat a whole meal.
Neil pulls at the elastic of his shorts, retrieves a bank card from the hidden pocket and grins.
‘Sod this for a game of soldiers,’ he says. ‘Let’s go for a pint.’
Matt grimaces. ‘I didn’t shower.’
‘We’re not on the pull, are we? It’s warm enough to sit outside. Come on. You need a beer.’
Matt follows Neil to the King’s Head, where, at the tables out front, small groups drink and chat. They are mostly in their forties – nicely cut clothes with no obvious logos, expensive glasses, good shoes.
‘Grab us a table,’ Neil says and heads into the pub.
There is a small table with one chair next to the pavement, a little way from the others. Matt grabs a spare chair from another table and sits. He stretches out his back and consciously tries to loosen his shoulders. The evening is humid and still, the sky dark blue, stars lost to the haze of street lights. From the Chinese takeaway opposite, the aroma of crispy duck makes his head spin. His mouth fills with saliva. A Pavlovian response, he thinks. He wonders if he’s always this hungry actually, if this past year his brain has lost the pathway to whichever bit deals with appetite. His stomach is as hollow as a cave – he feels it, suddenly. Last time he caught sight of himself, he noticed the prominent curves of the bottom of his ribs; the premature middle-aged sag of his nipples despite all his fitness.
A grunt.
Biting two packets of crisps, Neil is putting two nut-brown creamy-topped pints on the table.
‘IPA,’ he says, once he’s plucked the crisps from his teeth and thrown them down. ‘Dunbar.’
He sits and downs half of his pint in one go. Matt does the same, closing his eyes momentarily at the taste. The beer is malty and cold, quite unbelievably delicious, and as he puts down his glass, he gasps like a bloke on a beer ad.
‘Long time since I’ve had a proper pint,’ he says.
‘Me too.’ Neil winks. ‘Not since this morning.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’
Matt takes another gulp. It is such a long time since he has sat like this, with anyone, so long it feels a little disconcerting. He resists putting the glass back to his lips a third time, knows he could easily down the rest, but he hasn’t brought out his cash card. Not that this would be an issue.
They have been friends since Neil stepped in to save Matt from a highly likely black eye courtesy of Robbie Timmins, the year’s hard case. It was Matt’s first day at his new school after he’d moved down with his parents from Manchester. Easter: first two terms already behind them, everyone already sorted into friendship groups – excruciating for a shy, academic boy. It was only on the way home that he and Neil realised they lived on the same street. They once tried to work out how many times they must have walked the route to school together, settling eventually fora lot.
‘Have some crisps.’ Neil opens both packets and lays them flat. ‘There you go. Tapas.’
A few seconds later, Matt has pretty much inhaled the lot. Good manners are all that prevent him from licking the salty grease directly from the packets. But he is hungrier now than he was a moment ago. Hungrier than he has been for… well, since that day. Since Abi. Now, the savoury waft of crispy duck is reaching torture levels and his pint has almost gone.
