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‘What special dinner are the Martins having, anyway?’
‘Roast chicken.’ Jonah stared at young Lucy’s face, trying to imagine her being in love with Roland. They had met on a yoga holiday in Egypt. The photo might even be from that holiday, although Lucy had been ill for most of it. Roland had heard her in the night, in the bathroom, moaning, and he’d looked after her. He skimmed all the photos again, looking for Roland. There was one of him when he was maybe a teenager, with his arm around Rusty, his dog. Rusty was looking at the camera, and Roland was looking at Rusty, so it was his profile you could see, with his long knobbly nose and his quiff.
The only other photo with him in it was the one of their wedding day. The two of them, standing on some steps, Roland in a suit, and Lucy in a strange blue dress with a white collar. He was smiling, but she looked serious. She was slightly turned away from him, even though they were holding hands, and you could see her bump, in which a little tadpole Jonah had been swimming around. About a third of the photo had been torn off. Presumably because it showed Bad Granny.
The photo next to it was of Raffy, Baby Raffy, only just born, his stripy monkey toy in his tiny fist. Jonah had given him that monkey, in the hospital. Lucy had been sitting up in her big bed, and someone had lifted him onto her lap, and put the bundle that was Raff on his lap, and Raff’s fierce little face had gazed up at him. Everyone had been amazed at the way he held the toy. ‘What a strong baby! What a strong little baby!’ Jonah got a match out and lit both incense sticks.
‘Maybe there’s some sweets left.’ Raff was looking at the Advent calendar, which was high up on the fridge door, fastened with four magnets at each corner. They’d made it together last year, with pieces of red and green felt. It had twenty-four pockets sewn onto it, and the word ‘Christmas’ across the top. When Christmas was over, Lucy had said she was so proud of the calendar she couldn’t bear to take it down.
Jonah and Raff stepped forward together and dipped their fingers into the pockets. No sweets any more, they’d gobbled them all up, but Lucy’s fountain pen was in pocket number 17.
‘That’s what she was writing with. In the garden,’ said Raff, snatching it from him. Jonah nodded. It had been a present from Dora, along with the heavy, thick-paged book.
Brighter today.
‘Where’s her diary?’ He turned, his eyes scanning the messy room.
‘Here’s her keys.’ Raff used the pen to fish them out from between two piles of dirty plates. Jonah took the keys and looked at her elephant key ring. She was always forgetting her keys. The elephant reminded him of his painting of Ganesha, and the little wise eye. The sweet smell of the incense was filling the air. He put the keys down on the table and noticed the calendar, and the changes he’d made that morning. The first two weeks still so clean and bare, but now, with his dark blue additions, the third and fourth row were looking untidy. He squinted at the word beginning with C, and tried to think what PED might stand for. Then he flicked back to June. Vrischikasana, or Scorpion. A very difficult pose, a kind of handstand, but with your toes coming down to meet your head, like a scorpion’s tail.
June had been busier. Lots of her loopy scrawls. He ran his finger along the rows of numbers, going backwards through time. Dentist. They hadn’t bothered going in the end. He couldn’t remember why. Martins with D. Oh yes, the day they took Dylan round, so he could mate with Elsie. They’d sat on a blanket in the garden, watching the rabbits ignoring each other. Saviour had brought out tea and cake. Rhubarb cake. It had been quite cold.
‘I wish we had a time machine,’ said Raff. He had taken the pen to bits and was examining the little tube inside.
Jonah kept looking at the calendar. Time, a whole month, one circling of the moon, turned into thirty squares on a page. ‘What for?’ he said.
‘To take us to when she comes home. Then we wouldn’t have to keep on waiting.’
‘Or it could take us back to this morning. Before she went out.’ Jonah flicked the calendar back to July. ‘Then we could stop her from going.’ He put his finger under the word beginning with C. It might be Clink. Or maybe …
‘You can’t actually do that.’
‘Do what? Don’t do that, Raff. The ink will come out and go everywhere.’
‘Change things that have already happened.’ Raff kept squeezing. There wasn’t any ink in it anyway. ‘Otherwise everything would explode. There’s no point in going back. Only forward.’
‘But if you go forward you lose some of your life.’ Jonah thought for a moment. ‘Well, not if you came back again.’
Raff nodded. ‘You could go forward, see what’s going to happen, like who gets a certificate in Assembly, and then come back and make a bet on it.’
‘Well, you could bet on a horse race,’ Jonah pointed out. ‘You could put all your money on it, sell your car and your house, because you’d absolutely know which horse was going to win.’
‘Daddy would like that!’
Jonah frowned, looking at the photograph of Roland and Rusty. Rusty had died, ages ago, before the Egyptian yoga holiday. He was buried in Bad Granny’s garden. There was a gravestone, with his name. ‘I don’t think he would. He would think it was cheating. Which it is.’ He looked back at the calendar. PED. On the last day of term. Perfect End Day? ‘And anyway. Once you’ve gone forward, coming back again, you’re actually going into the past. So putting the bet on in the past would make everything explode.’
‘No, because you’d put the bet on in the new time, that came after you went into the future. The bit that nothing’s happened in yet.’
PED. Jonah frowned at the letters, thinking about time travel. ‘But when you’re in the future, watching the horse race, then it’s actually the present, isn’t it? And the time leading up to the horse race must have actually happened, otherwise …’ He closed his eyes, seeing the strange blankness of unwritten time. ‘I think what must happen is that you split into two.’ He opened his eyes. Raff was fiddling with the bits of pen again. ‘So your old self just keeps going, and not putting on the bet, and then your new self …’ He stopped again, trying to work it out. It was incredibly complicated.
‘No such thing as time machines anyway, stupid Peck.’ Raff dropped the pen pieces on the table and left the room.
16 (#ulink_fcf3c931-2da3-53a4-8153-7c5243e07233)
Her clogs were still there, and the umbrella, and the petrol can, and the bag with the swimming things. The stepladder was lying flat, taking up a lot of room. Jonah picked it up and rested it against the wall. Without saying anything, they wandered together from room to room, ending up in Lucy’s bedroom, where the air was still thick with the smell of her body. Raff climbed into her bed and lay down.
‘Why are they having roast chicken?’
‘Because of Dora’s cancer.’
‘She’s had that for ages.’
‘She got better from it. But Em said now she’s really ill and might die.’ Jonah surveyed the room. A big tear in the paper lampshade showed the curly light bulb inside it. The wardrobe door hung open, clothes spilling out, and two of the drawers were sticking out of the high chest of drawers. Lucy’s red silk dressing gown, with the dragon on its back, was hanging on one bedpost, and on the other was that smelly grey cardigan she’d borrowed the day they took Dylan to the Martins’. Her flowery top and denim shorts from yesterday were on the floor beside the bed, and her lacy pink pants were still inside the shorts. There was a dark stain on the cotton bit where her fanny went.
‘Do you believe her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Mayo said it wasn’t actually that bad.’ Raff kicked the duvet off the bed. His trainers had made dirty marks on the bottom sheet.
‘When did she say that?’
‘I dunno.’ Raff sat up and swung his legs over so that he was sitting on the other side of the bed, facing Lucy’s dressing table, which was just a small, ordinary table with a piece of mirror propped on it. Jonah went and sat beside him, and they both looked at themselves in the dusty, greasy mirror. Jonah looked more like Roland, who was white, with a long, thin nose, whereas Raff looked more like Lucy, with his browner skin and his afro hair, and his huge, golden eyes.
Raff leaned forward and reached for her lipstick, which was lying amongst some lipsticky tissues. It didn’t have its lid on, and was all squashed and melted. Jonah noticed that two of Raff’s cornrows were coming out now. Lucy had put them in weeks ago, nice and tight, so they would last, but nothing lasts forever. He watched Raff putting the lipstick on his mouth, remembering Lucy doing the same thing the night before. The cricket had finished, and he’d gone upstairs to find her. She’d had her back to him, and their eyes had met in the mirror. She’d scraped her hair into a tight knot on top of her head, which made her look weirdly beautiful. ‘That hairstyle really suits you, Mayo,’ he had said. And then he’d said, ‘Lucy, I mean.’ He’d smiled, but she hadn’t smiled back; and her lipstick had been far too thick.
‘What’s up?’ said Raff, with bright red lips.
‘Nothing,’ said Jonah, but the memory had brought a coldness into his belly. ‘You look stupid with that lipstick.’
‘I look cool, bébé!’ Raff turned sideways to look over his shoulder into the mirror and blow a kiss at himself. Then he went over to her wardrobe and pulled out her sparkly fairy shoes. ‘Roast chicken’s my favourite. Why can’t we go to the Martins’? We could leave her a note.’
Jonah had a flash of the Martins’ house: of burrowing into that space behind the sofa and lying there, smelling what was cooking, and listening to Dora and Lucy talking. When they had first got to know them, when he and Emerald were in Reception, they used to go there nearly every day.
‘Or we could just tell Dora to phone her,’ said Raff.
The phone. Jonah turned to the bedside table. It was still there, next to the wine glass. ‘Have you seen her charger?’
Raff had put his feet into the sparkly shoes and was clopping around the room. ‘It’s down there.’ He pointed to the socket under the dressing table. Jonah crouched down, connecting the phone to the electric current. ‘Why didn’t she take her phone?’
‘She must have forgotten it. Like she forgot her keys.’
‘But where is she?’
The phone seemed to be charging. Jonah tried pressing the ‘On’ button.
‘Jonah.’ It was Raff’s very young voice again.
‘What?’
‘Do you think Bad Granny will come and try and steal us again?’
‘Stealing isn’t the right word, really.’
‘Why not?’
Jonah frowned. It was the word Lucy used, when she told the story, but he was sure there was a more grown-up way of talking about it. ‘She didn’t think Lucy should be allowed to look after us. But that’s not the same as stealing.’
‘Will she try again?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ The phone wouldn’t turn on.
‘Maybe we should tell the Martins Mayo’s not here.’
‘I don’t think we should.’
‘Because of the cancer?’
‘Because they might decide to phone the police. And then the police will tell Bad Granny.’
‘And she’ll come and steal us.’ Raff’s voice had gone all husky. The phone suddenly bleeped. Then it bleeped a few times more, indicating missed calls and messages.
‘Yesss!’ Raff clopped over and pulled the phone out of Jonah’s hand.
‘Raff, what are you doing!’
‘We’ve got a message from Mayo!’ he said, pressing the buttons.
‘They’re not going to be from her, stupid! They’re from people who phoned her! Give it to me! You’ll delete them if you’re not careful!’
Jonah grabbed it back off him. There was a missed call and a voice message and two new texts. He played the voice message first. ‘It’s Dora,’ he whispered. Dora sounded cross and upset, tearful, even.
‘What’s she saying? Is she saying she’s going to die?’ Raff tried to get his ear right next to Jonah’s, but Dora’s voice had stopped.
‘She said, what’s going on, you ignore my texts and then phone me up at the crack of dawn.’
‘Who, Mayo?’
‘Yes. Shush.’ He looked at the most recent text.
Awful in the hospital. Hubby lost it totally. You and me need to sort things out. Come over with boys after school?
‘Let me look.’
‘Wait.’
The earlier one, sent at 11.07, was in a different tone:
Worrying about you is the last thing I need right now.
PLEASE FUCKING REPLY
‘Give it, Peck!’ Raff snatched it.
‘Raff, give it back. I want to look at the old texts.’
‘“Come. Over. With. Boys. After. School”,’ Raff read out. ‘Right, let’s go.’ He kicked the sparkly shoes off.
‘And what shall we say about Lucy?’
‘Say she didn’t want to come. Anything. Come on, fam.’
‘They’ll think it’s weird. They’ll want to speak to her.’
Raff sat down next to him, sighing, but then jumped up again. ‘Hey! I know! Let’s pretend to be Mayo, and write that we’re coming, but she’s too busy!’
Jonah frowned. It was actually quite a good idea, although pretending to be Lucy would be like lying.
‘Come on, Joney! Then we can see Dylan!’
Dylan. Lovely, floppy Dylan. They hadn’t seen him for weeks. ‘OK. What shall I write?’
‘Say, boys coming over now, but I’m a bit busy.’
Jonah typed:
Sorry, I am OK but very busy so great if you could have boys for tea shall I send them over now from Lucy
He showed it to Raff, who studied it. ‘You don’t write “great” like that. It’s g, r and the number 8.’
Jonah made the change, and pressed Send. Raff whooped and started dancing.
‘Put your trainers back on, then. And take the lipstick off.’
‘The Martins don’t care about lipstick, fam!’
It was true. Saviour would laugh, and Dora would tell Raff how glamorous he looked. Watching Raff prancing, he imagined being with Saviour in the kitchen, helping him with the meal; Saviour glancing sideways at him, saying, ‘Penny for them.’ He wouldn’t answer, and Saviour’s brown eyes would get even kinder. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘Not that good,’ Jonah whispered to himself. ‘Lucy’s gone, and we haven’t got any food. But the thing is, I can’t tell you.’
The phone bleeped. Raff came running to read the reply. It was two words:
Fuck yourself.
‘Oh Em Gee!’ said Raff, his eyebrow shooting up. ‘Is it really Dora who wrote that? That is bad swearing, man!’
Jonah felt like crying. He lay down on the bed.
‘Is it because she’s going to die?’ Raff sat next to him.
