All The Lonely People

by David Owen

  ‘I almost didn’t come, Mr Delaney set us a thousand-word essay due tomorrow,’ said Jae, as the windows rattled and the bus got under way.

  ‘He always does that. He’s a dick,’ concluded Robbie.

  ‘Mrs Rahimi is worse,’ said Aoife. ‘She makes everybody memorise poetry and gives the whole class five minutes detention for every line you forget. “The future is a grey seagull / Tattling in its cat-voice of departure”.’

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘I don’t know, I memorise the lines and forget everything else.’

  Wesley leaned back in his seat and focused on the passing street to smother a smile. It was the most mundane conversation, the kind that school kids all over the country must have been having. The kind of conversation shared between friends.

  The square was quiet at this time of day, chairs and tables set up outside the pubs in defiance of the new chill on the air, nobody but smokers brave enough to use them. Just like before, Safa was leaning against the fountain, but the way she watched the people passing by was different now: hungry, appraising, a predator at a buffet.

  The fade had accelerated in her as it had in Kat. From a distance she was indistinct, like haze from a hot road. A mirage of a girl.

  ‘Hey,’ she said when she spotted Kat’s approach.

  Oh, so it was going to be awkward. ‘Hey.’

  ‘We’re going to get a bus.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They crossed to a stop at the edge of the square and stood in a silence so thick it would have broken the blade of a knife. It was so tempting to apologise, to say anything that would break this tension, but that wasn’t Kat’s responsibility. All she could do was wait.

  ‘This is it,’ said Safa.

  A bus to the next town over, doors hissing open to let out an old man with a frame. They both jumped on, Kat tapping her card out of habit. Safa went straight upstairs to the top deck, and Kat was following when she spotted who occupied the bottom floor back seats. Wesley and the so-called Lonely People, laughing over some shared joke. The resentment she expected to feel at his apparent happiness didn’t come. There was a vague satisfaction that he had taken her clue and it had kept him on the trail. Some part of her was even willing to feel happy that he might have found friends – she knew the importance of that more than anybody.

  She went up to join Safa in the front seats.

  ‘Man, this is hard without Siri,’ said Safa, as soon as the bus was moving.

  ‘What is?’

  She grabbed and shook fistfuls of the air in frustration. ‘Finding the right words.’

  ‘Siri always gets it wrong.’

  ‘Yeah, but she tries, bless her.’

  Kat stayed quiet now, determined not to let Safa joke her way out of this.

  ‘I guess I’m trying to say I’m sorry,’ said Safa, toying with the nesting doll at her throat. ‘I was a dick.’

  ‘You were kind of a dick.’

  ‘It’s true what I said about struggling to feel as if anything matters, but I want you to know . . .’ She squirmed in her seat, as if being this earnest was physically painful. ‘You matter.’

  Heart soaring, belly flipping, smile tugged open by puppet strings. ‘Thank you. And you matter to—’

  ‘No more!’ said Safa, flapping her hands. ‘I can’t take it.’

  ‘Okay, so where are you taking me?’

  ‘It really is hard to explain,’ said Safa. ‘I just want you to understand everything.’

  What they called the next town over was really part of the same urban sprawl. No clear border marked it except for a change in chicken shop names. Apart from a snarl of roadworks, traffic was light. They pulled up in the town centre less than twenty minutes later. Wesley and the Lonely People got off at the same stop and started along the high street.

  ‘Well isn’t that nice,’ said Safa. ‘I knew they never really wanted to fade.’

  Watching them go, she almost sounded jealous.

  They piled into the crowded Caffè Nero Selena had chosen as a meeting place and found her sitting at a table in the middle of the room, in plain view of the counter. She looked almost exactly as Wesley remembered, black hair scraped back into a high ponytail, eyebrows thin enough to have been drawn on. The only difference was a walking cane leaning against the table beside her.

  She wasn’t alone; a guy in a thick jacket that may or may not have hidden bulging muscles/gleaming knives/a machine gun sat close at her side and eyed them suspiciously as they approached, Aoife leading the way.

  ‘Is it okay if we sit down?’ she asked.

  Selena looked between them, fingers dancing nervously on the rim of her coffee cup, and then nodded.

  The cafe was busy enough that they needed to beg spare chairs from other tables. As soon as he sat opposite her, Wesley’s leg began to bounce of its own volition. He had to keep telling himself he had only played the smallest of roles in the #SelloutSelena campaign, there was no reason he should feel guilty.

  ‘I thought it probably wasn’t safe to come alone,’ said Selena, nodding to the bodyguard beside her.

  ‘We understand,’ said Aoife. ‘You don’t know us, and I got in touch out of the blue.’

  ‘I don’t speak to anybody from school any more. I would say it’s a shame, but I wouldn’t mean it.’

  ‘There are still a lot of stupid rumours about what happened to you.’

  Selena smiled at that. ‘The truth isn’t very exciting. Obviously I was in hospital for a while after it happened. My knee was badly damaged, and it needed some rehabilitation.’ She tapped her fingers against the cane. ‘And, you know, I still need counselling about the whole thing. It doesn’t go away, just like that. But I don’t want to let it ruin my life. I still get some modelling jobs, and I’m working with a charity on a campaign against online bullying.’

  Wesley tried to hold his leg still. He imagined this was what it would be like to sit opposite Kat, without the fade to insulate him from her fury, only worse, because there would be no way he could pretend he wasn’t entirely to blame.

  ‘So, what did you want to talk about?’

  ‘Um, I mentioned it in the message,’ said Aoife. ‘You knew Aaron Musley?’

  Selena smacked a palm against her forehead. ‘Right, of course. That keeps happening lately.’ She turned to her bodyguard. ‘It’s okay, can you give us a few minutes?’

  He left them alone to talk.

  The high street was flatter and wider than home, the hooks of gentrification sunk a little deeper. Kat hadn’t bothered to come here in years, and the greasy spoon cafe she’d always stopped at with Mum was now an artisan crêpery.

  ‘Should we try and get something to eat?’ asked Safa.

  ‘Just show me.’

  Along the high street, they passed phone shops and estate agents and upmarket clothes stores. A banner strung between lamp posts was advertising a Halloween market, whatever that meant. First the shops went fancy, then they tried to lure you out to them with extravagant events. It would be happening at home soon.

  Safa led her to a Greek fast food place Kat hadn’t known was there, though the stuttering light in its sign and the peeling letters in its window suggested it had been there a while.

  ‘I told you I’m not hungry.’

  ‘No, look inside.’

  Past lunchtime, it was quiet inside the restaurant. The only customers at the white plastic tables were a balding man biting into a kebab and a young woman sitting close to the counter.

  ‘What?’

  Safa pointed to the woman. ‘She’s my Cradle.’

  ‘We weren’t together long, but I think we’d liked each other for a while,’ said Selena, frowning as if she had to haul the memory across a great distance. ‘He was the real reason I broke up with Gabriel because, you know, Aaron didn’t treat me like shit.’

  Wesley was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that anybody could have been with Selena and been unhappy with their life.r />
  ‘When everything with the hashtag started to get out of control, Aaron told me he couldn’t take it any more.’ The group watched in silence while Selena pondered this. ‘I couldn’t blame him, you know? But at the same time it was me dealing with all this abuse. Nobody knew about us, and it wasn’t like I had the option of just walking away from it all. It would have meant a lot if he had stood by me.’

  Across the cafe, Selena’s bodyguard watched them closely. Wesley pressed a fist into his restless leg. He wanted to tell her what he knew about the campaign against her, the small part he had played within it. But what good would it do now? It couldn’t change what had happened, and it might keep him from learning information that could save Kat.

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’ asked Robbie.

  She thought about this for a long moment. ‘I knew he was gone, and I guess I never stopped to ask where. It was just the truth, you know? I used to think about him all the time, whether I was hating him or missing him like crazy. It got really intense one day, and then it just . . . stopped.’

  Wesley leaned forward. ‘But you didn’t forget him?’

  ‘How could I?’ she said. ‘After the message he left me.’

  The young woman was reading a thick book propped up against the wall and making notes on a pad, a lock of dark, curly hair escaping her bun and falling across her eyes. A cup of coffee steamed beside her.

  ‘You’re going to choose her?’ said Kat. ‘After you fade for good?’

  The woman glanced up at them and they both pretended to be studying the menu in the window, before remembering that it didn’t matter.

  ‘It’s not just because she’s gorgeous,’ said Safa. ‘The restaurant is family-owned and from what I can tell they all get on really well. She works here sometimes to help out, but she’s studying full-time to become a therapist.’

  Oh, the irony.

  ‘How many times have you been here?’ said Kat. ‘To learn all this?’

  Safa smiled. ‘Thankfully I love souvlaki.’

  It sounded too good to be true, and Kat thought of the suppressed something else she had felt when she inhabited the boy at the march. The rainforest inside him had not been as perfect as it seemed.

  ‘You can’t really know anything about her – not enough to become part of her for ever.’

  ‘I know she’s more than I’ll ever be.’

  Kat turned on her. ‘You don’t know that!’

  ‘You wanted to know what triggered the fade in me,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t any big moment. It happened the morning I woke up and knew – knew – that I couldn’t go on as myself.’

  There was an eerie calm about Safa now, as if being this close to her intended washed away any doubt. As if most of her was already gone. She checked her watch and looked away along the high street. Another young woman, big earrings jangling and an Afro like a halo around her head, was striding towards the restaurant. They stepped away to let her inside, and she passed, of course, without seeing them. The woman already inside the restaurant squealed and sprang to her feet, and they met between the tables, pulling each other into a kiss.

  ‘Nobody will ever be that happy to see me,’ said Safa, watching them dreamily as they broke apart, hands still clasped together between them.

  I would, thought Kat. I am.

  The first young woman gathered up her things and shouted a goodbye to whoever was in the kitchen. They linked arms and left the restaurant, heading away between the shops. Safa moved to follow, but Kat turned in the opposite direction.

  ‘You don’t even want to try,’ said Kat. ‘What if these things will happen for us if we just wait?’

  Safa took her shoulders and turned her to face an empty shop window, where only a hint of their reflections looked back. ‘Some people hurt because of the things that happened to them,’ said Safa. ‘I hurt because of the things that didn’t.’

  Kat reached across and squeezed her hand. Live for long enough without hope and you’ll believe that nothing can ever change for you. Maybe then you make it true.

  Looking at the people scattered around the high street, it seemed impossible to pick any one she would want to become. It would be pot luck, best guess, hoping whoever she chose had their shit together as much as it looked.

  She just had to hope it would never come to that.

  ‘Let’s go out tonight, scope out the local talent for you,’ said Safa.

  ‘I don’t think I should . . .’

  ‘Please, look,’ said Safa, an edge to her voice now. ‘I know you think stopping this attack will help you stay. If I can’t convince you it’s not worth it then I promise I’ll stop bugging you. Just please don’t leave me alone tonight.’

  The façade had slipped again, and this time Kat was sure she glimpsed what was underneath. Doubt. Fear. Everything Safa had so ruthlessly hidden until now.

  ‘All right,’ said Kat. ‘Let’s paint the town invisible.’

  One way or another, it would be the last time.

  The picture on Selena’s phone didn’t make any sense. It showed bottles of ketchup and random sauces broken and spilled across a kitchen floor, colours running together into a soupy mess.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ asked Robbie.

  Selena checked the screen before turning it back to them. ‘You can’t see it?’

  ‘It just looks like your shopping bag broke.’

  ‘There’s a message written in it,’ she said, pointing to the middle of the photograph. ‘Like he used his fingers.’

  Wesley squinted at the screen, like the words might make themselves known if he just concentrated, but he could see nothing there.

  ‘It says GOING NOW. LOOK FOR JOSEPH.’ She stared at the image. ‘I’ve never shown anybody else before. You’re not messing with me?’

  They all shook their heads. If there was a message there, it was invisible to them.

  ‘Call me old-fashioned, but couldn’t he have used a pen and paper?’ asked Jae.

  ‘I think he tried. There were pens knocked off the side too.’ Selena pointed to the corner of the photo, where biros and highlighters swam in the spilled condiments. ‘It must have happened while I was home. I didn’t hear anything, but when I saw it I realised he had been there. It felt like he’d been with me.’

  That was how she was able to see the message. It should have been invisible to her too, scrawled on another plane of existence, but Aaron had gone inside her to make sure it couldn’t be missed. He had given her the power to see it. That’s why she had gone looking for him at home, just like Lukundo had.

  ‘Look for Joseph,’ repeated Aoife. ‘You think he wanted you to look after his little brother?’

  Wesley straightened up so sharply that he banged his knee against the table. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t spotted it before now. Maybe the powers of the fade had hidden the truth from him. Lukundo and Selena had been drawn to Aaron’s house because being inhabited made them need to be close to him. Just like that boy who had been searching for Kat. That meant that, even after he had disappeared, Aaron was still at the house. In one form or another.

  ‘Thank you for meeting us,’ he said, standing abruptly. The others confusedly followed.

  ‘One last thing,’ said Selena, as her bodyguard began to make his way back over. ‘Can you tell me what really happened to him?’

  There was no way she could really understand the truth, and even if she did she would soon forget. ‘I think he’s still around,’ said Wesley, and left the cafe with the rest of the group in hot pursuit.

  ‘What is it?’ said Robbie, when they caught him half way up the high street.

  ‘We were so focused on Aaron being gone that we never thought about where he went.’ Wesley looked around at the people passing them, moving between shops or talking on their phones. It would be almost impossible to choose a Cradle, a lucky dip, even with the ability to sample a few before making a final decision. Unless you chose somebody you already knew. ‘Look for J
oseph. He wasn’t asking her to look after his brother. He was trying to tell her he chose his brother as his Cradle.’

  They had spoken to Aaron, or whatever was left of him, a few days ago. They just hadn’t known it.

  25

  Somebody Who Actually Cares

  Wesley wanted to confront him immediately, but there was one more important thing to take care of first. Even as his shift at the garage was coming to an end, he couldn’t stop glancing sidelong at the back office every opportunity he had. Legs aching with the effort of pumping up tyres, skin dry and tight from washing cars that didn’t need it – nothing would take his mind from what he needed to do.

  Tonight, he was going to steal a car. He just hadn’t worked out how yet.

  Dave sat at his desk, sorting out some paperwork from a sale earlier in the day. The lockbox on the wall behind him was open. It would be closed before they left, along with the office door. Wesley would only get inside if he had the keys.

  He checked his phone, found a message from Luke.

  see you 2am?

  Yeah, he replied. No backing out now.

  The next time his eyes slid sideways to the office he realised Dave was no longer at his desk.

  ‘Good job on this one, sport.’

  Wesley jumped out of his skin as Dave came around the car. ‘Sport?’

  ‘I thought it might be a cool nickname.’

  ‘It’s really not,’ said Wesley, and they both smiled.

  The car was a grey Vauxhall, almost aggressively nondescript and parked in the front row. It was currently Wesley’s top target.

  ‘You’ve really got a knack for this.’

  It was hardly difficult, washing cars, but there was that warm glow of pride nevertheless.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Everything all right?’ said Dave, reaching out a hand to lean on the car before thinking better of it. ‘You seem a bit on edge.’

  Being outed as on edge only made him feel considerably more on edge. ‘No, I’m just tired.’

  ‘Is it cos of your brother being back?’

  It was strange, having somebody ask him personal questions, especially one of Mum’s boyfriends. It was even stranger being able to tell that he actually cared.