She picked up a mug from the draining rack and hooked it onto the mug tree. It had a picture of a man in dressing gown and slippers, jumping over the moon, and the slogan He’s all right, my dad. A birthday present from Sam. Alex wondered when Dad would be home. It depended which shift he was working. Much as he longed to see him, Alex was unsure what his rational, skeptical father would make of “Philip.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“You mean well, I know that. All of you.” Mum moved away from the sink and took a step towards him. Started to place a hand on his shoulder, but hesitated and left the gesture incomplete. She pushed a stray lock behind her ear. Her hair looked dull, in need of a wash. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Doing the right thing. Saying the right thing.”
Alex put the glass of water down. “D’you think I could use the bathroom?”
He made straight for the bedroom. His bedroom.
Alex paused on the landing, half afraid to go in, still clinging with the fingertips of his imagination to the idea of entering the room to see himself at the PC or sitting on the bed, reading or listening to music. That name panel he’d made in woodwork, with its wonky X, was still fixed to the door, along with the notice he’d done on the computer: Killers fans only beyond this point. Alex had once run face-first into this door, hurtling upstairs in the dark to escape a whack from Dad. What for, he couldn’t recall. Now he heard Mum downstairs, pottering about, and the synthetic racetrack roar from the lounge. Hesitant as he was, he didn’t have much time before his trip to the loo would be taking too long. He opened the door, went in.
And there it was. He had wondered if he might find it like this, but he hadn’t actually expected to. They did this in movies or TV dramas, not in real life: the bereaved family leaving a child’s room untouched after he’d died. As though he might return home at any moment, or as though they couldn’t bear to let him go, and by preserving his room, they were allowing themselves the illusion that he wasn’t dead. Maybe they came in here from time to time, Mum and Dad—Mum, most likely—to talk to their lost son while they were surrounded by his things.
To Alex, who felt like he’d been away from home for days rather than months, it wasn’t as bizarre as it might’ve been to find his bedroom the way it was the last time he’d seen it. In fact, it wasn’t precisely as he’d left it. Someone (Mum) had tidied away the strewn clothes, the CDs and books and other things that lay about the place. The room no longer looked like a burglary had just occurred. It didn’t smell of what his dad called teenage armpit. The bed was made. Drawers were pushed in; the wardrobe doors were closed; the keyboard had been slid back into its slot beneath the computer table. (How bulky and old-fashioned that monitor seemed, compared to Flip’s flat-screen.) The surfaces were clear of dust; the curtains were tucked behind their hooks; and the window, which Alex had always kept shut, was open a crack. It was a boy’s bedroom from the show home of a new housing development.
Was his room really small? It seemed so, after Flip’s. It was good to see his own posters, though. Not cricketers and basketball players, but the Killers; maps of the world and of the night sky; wall charts of woodwind instruments, the planets, the hydrological cycle; a wall-mounted magnetic chessboard, its 2-D pieces frozen in mid-game. His books lined the shelves. His CDs filled the rack. And when he opened the wardrobe, there were his clothes. Not that they would fit him. On the bedside table, he saw the novel he’d been reading in December—Louis Sachar’s Holes—a bookmark poking out of it. Alongside it lay his inhalers—the brown, the blue—like quotation marks, and the jam jar of five-pence coins. One hundred and seven, at the last count.
Next to the table was the music stand, with the clarinet book open at Henri Tomasi’s Sonatine Attique; beside that, the clarinet itself, impaled on its mounting. Alex picked up the instrument. How tempting to play it. But quite apart from drawing attention to his snooping in “Alex’s” bedroom, he wasn’t likely to produce a tune, given the state of his lip or a reed which must’ve dried out after six months’ disuse. All the same, it was good just to hold it. Secondhand, but decent; he’d had it since he was nine. If he lived to be ninety, he’d still be able to recall the feel of it, the smell, the sound, each scuff and blemish on its chocolate-colored skin.
Not that he’d live to ninety, of course. Or even make it to fifteen. Not as Alex.
Was that what got to him? Probably it was the accumulation of everything. Just being there, in that house. Whatever it was, a wave of anguish swept through him, his shoulders shaking with each sob. Through the tears, he looked at the bed. His bed. Suppose he got in right now—just slipped under the zebra-stripe duvet and slept. Slept for hours, then woke suddenly in the dead of night, restored to his own body.
Alex was still holding the clarinet, he realized. He bent forward to replace the instrument on its stand.
“Do you play, Philip?”
He jumped half out of his skin. He hadn’t heard Mum come up the stairs and didn’t have any idea how long she’d been standing in the doorway. If she was angry with him for being in there, she didn’t sound it, with her quiet question; when he turned round and saw her expression at the sight of his tear-streaked face, he knew she wasn’t cross at all. She couldn’t have known, or begun to imagine, why this strange boy was crying, or what he was doing in Alex’s room in the first place. But it seemed his mother regarded him not as an intruder but as an ally in love and loss.
How many times had she come in here herself and wept?
To apologize for being in there would risk breaking the spell. So he answered her question. “I used to,” he said. It wasn’t altogether a lie.
She nodded, as though she’d suspected all along he was musical. Here was a boy the same age as Alex. He played chess, as Alex did. He could play the clarinet, just like Alex. Mum might not have intuited Alex’s essence inside this unexpected visitor, but she appeared to be turning him into some kind of surrogate son. Or more likely, she was simply glad to have someone to talk to about him.
“He used to drive me barmy,” she said, still framed by the door. The room had grown gloomy but the landing light was on and Mum stood in its haze. “You don’t know how cross you can get until you have kids.”
If she expected a response, she didn’t give him time to come up with one.
“I’d give anything to have him back,” she said, smiling to herself, “but I know I’d be sniping and yelling at him again before too long.”
There were the sounds of tires outside on the hardstanding, the killing of an engine, the opening and closing of a car door. Mum didn’t seem to notice, or to pay any attention if she did.
“We talked about giving up. On the anniversary.” Giving up what, he had no idea. Giving up on all this, maybe—finally letting go of him and clearing out his room. “Six months, a year—it doesn’t make all that much difference, really.” Mum sounded calm, matter-of-fact. Staring at the bed, as though her son was right there, with his head on the pillow, she said, “So we sat with him, the two of us, and discussed it.”
From downstairs, the click of a key turning in a lock and the familiar judder of the warped wood against the frame as the front door opened.
“That’ll be him now,” she said. For one ghastly moment he thought Mum meant “Alex,” but then he realized who she must’ve been referring to.
“Alex’s dad?” he asked.
“Ed would be there twenty-four seven, if they’d let him.” Then, with an odd kind of a laugh, she added, “I expect he’s got something going with one of the nurses.”
With Dad home, the mood shifted.
He was polite enough. A little thrown by the sight of his wife coming down the stairs with a lad he’d never clapped eyes on, but that was all. Mum introduced “Philip” as a friend of Alex’s from chess club, and as he hung his jacket on the coat stand, his father summoned up the effort to be sociable.
“You look more like a rugby player than a chess player,” he said.
Then, with a smile, he indicated Alex’s mouth. “Or a boxer.”
Alex knew he ought to say something but no words came to mind.
“I’m Ed.” Dad offered his hand. Alex shook it, his own hand bigger inside his father’s than it had been before. Not so easily crushed.
“Philip.”
“He’s in Mrs. Harewood’s tutor group,” Mum said.
It was too surreal, seeing his father again like this. Too bewildering altogether after what Mum had said just now in the bedroom. That stuff about nurses, and how Ed would be there twenty-four seven, if they’d let him. The pieces of a puzzle had still been clicking into place in his head, and now this: Dad, standing in the hallway, shaking his hand, making polite conversation. He wore that familiar brown checked shirt (one of five in the same style, in different colors), jeans and the yellowy brown Caterpillar boots—his typical work gear, because although he had been transport manager for a couple of years, with his own office, he was still “one of the lads” at heart. When they were shorthanded at the depot, he’d muck in, loading the vans, or driving one himself if he had to. They called him Ed, not boss or Mr. Gray. He insisted on that. His left thumbnail was permanently black from when he’d trapped his hand beneath a pallet. The accident had happened when Alex was little, and the disfigured thumb had always held a gruesome fascination. Noticing it now, as Dad bent over to tug his laces undone, Alex felt a surge of affection for his father that surprised him with its strength.
“Shall I put the kettle on?” Mum said.
Dad stepped out of his boots. “Lovely.”
“I did make a pot, but it’ll be stewed by now.” She headed for the kitchen.
It was as though they’d forgotten he was there. Why were you at the hospital? he wanted to ask. The answer loomed over him—obvious and incredible at the same time—but he had to hear it from them. Had to have it spelled out for him, because he was too shocked and exhilarated to let himself believe it.
“How is he?” Alex asked, so softly he wasn’t sure his father heard him.
Dad stiffened. “Sorry?” he said, hard-faced all of a sudden.
“I … I was wondering how Alex is.”
Dad held his gaze. Pushed the answer out like a challenge: “He’s in a bloody coma, how d’you think he is? Same as yesterday. Same as last week. Same as last month, and the month before that and the—”
“Ed.”
“Why are you here, exactly?”
“I—”
“Philip’s from the Year Nine Council,” his mum said. Dad’s attention shifted to her; he paused in the kitchen doorway. As she said why Alex had come round, it sounded even more dubious than Alex’s own explanation had. His father’s face grew so pale it looked like it had been drained of blood.
“A memorial?”
“No,” she said, “he didn’t say a—”
“That’s what it is, though. A memorial trophy. Jesus.” Turning to Alex again, he said, “Couldn’t you even have the decency to wait till he’s—”
“Ed, please.”
“And what were you doing up there just now? Were you in Alex’s room?”
Alex flinched, as though the words were gobbets of spit.
“Please, he’s just a lad. A friend.” Mum came along the hall, stepping between them and placing a hand on Dad’s sleeve. “It’s inappropriate, I told Ph—”
“Inappropriate. You bet it’s inappropriate.”
Alex came close to calling him Dad, but managed to stop himself. “Mr. Gray, look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just turned up like this.”
“Philip, is it? Philip what?”
Alex hesitated. “Garamond.”
“Garamond. I’ve never heard Alex mention you before. Fran, have you?”
“Philip, you’ll have to excuse—”
“Sam, have you seen this lad before?”
Alex’s brother had appeared in the living room doorway, no doubt lured from his video game by the commotion in the hall. Earlier, Alex had longed to see Sam’s face, and now there it was, his expression set between suspicion and outright hostility. He studied Alex for a moment, then shook his head.
“Right, I’m phoning David.” Dad jabbed Alex in the chest, as though sticking a drawing pin in him. “You, wait here.”
“Oh, Ed, this is ridiculous. Can’t you see how upset he is?”
His dad disappeared into the lounge, almost barging Sam out of the way. The boy stayed there a moment, staring at Alex, before following his father into the room.
Alex’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow.
“We’ve had a few cranks,” Mum said. Round-shouldered with weariness, she gave him an apologetic look. “Hoax calls, letters, e-mails. You can’t imagine. Reporters camped outside—going through our bins, one time; or they ring up, pretending to be someone else. We had to change our phone number in the end.”
“I should just go,” he said.
“Alex’s dad’s under a lot of strain. We all are.”
Dad’s voice carried from the lounge. “Terence, it’s Ed Gray.… Look, is David there? … Yeah.… No, no, there’s just something he can help me with.… Thanks.”
Mum looked close to tears, like this was all too much and she just wanted to sit down at the foot of the stairs and bury her face in her hands. What had Alex done, coming here? It was crazy. A thoughtless, selfish act of madness.
“David? Hello, mate …”
“I’m so sorry,” Alex said. “I really didn’t want it to happen like this.”
Before she caught on to what he was doing, he turned away from his mother, grabbed his bag and released the door latch.
He’d never run so fast along these streets of his childhood, his arms chopping the air, his feet thumping on the pavement, breath hot in his throat. It was such an adrenaline rush. As soon as he could, Alex turned off into the maze of the estate proper: a left turn, a right, another left. One or two dog walkers were out; an old lady peered from behind a curtain; two kids snogged in a bus shelter; a man came out of the Spar with a carton of milk … If any of them paid him much attention, he didn’t notice. Just kept going, putting as much distance, as many twists and turns as he could between his father and him. He’d heard Dad hollering after him when he’d gotten halfway up Monks Road. But he’d had a head start, and Dad would’ve had to put his boots back on before he could give chase. Then came the thought that Dad might get in the car and cruise the estate, searching for him. Alex picked up the pace as far as the alley that cut through to a business park. He’d cycled up and down there often. In a moment he would be out on the wasteland beyond the industrial buildings and storage units.
All the while Alex had been running, the thrill of flight and fear of capture had coursed through him. But something else, too. Way, way stronger. A single thought—a pulse buzzing inside his head, so electrifying it was all he could do not to laugh and whoop and punch the air.
I’m alive! I’m alive! I’m alive!
It was 10:03, according to the illuminated dial on Flip’s watch. Alex had been hiding out in the scrub at the far end of the waste ground. He and David used to scavenge among the debris of whatever buildings had once stood here, or watch older boys BMX racing. In parts, it looked how Alex imagined the surface of the moon. One time, a group of skinheads had chased them off. Nigger, they’d called David. Alex was nigger-lover.
He couldn’t go to David’s. That had been his plan, such as it was: go home as Philip, see Mum and Dad, then call in at David’s. Hi, I’m the one who e-mailed you. If he could convince anyone he was Alex, it would be David. Face to face, as Alex piled up the evidence, the logic, the things he knew that no one but Alex could know.
He wasn’t going to get that chance, though.
Dad would’ve tipped David off by now about the crank who’d lied his way into Alex’s house, then done a runner. If he turned up at his friend’s place, David’s father would grab hold of him till the police came. The police. Would Dad have called them? Probably.
David would connect the name Philip Garamond with those e-mails. David would tell Dad. Dad would tell the police.
That had been another mistake to add to the list: using Flip’s name instead of making one up.
He didn’t even want to think about the total mess he’d landed himself in.
But that one overwhelming thought continued to thrum in his head: he was alive. He, his body, “Alex,” or whoever he was, wasn’t dead after all. He had risen from the dead. That was how it felt just then.
Okay, so he was in hospital—in a coma, it seemed from what Dad had said—but that was a whole lot better than being dead. How did he come to be in a coma, though? What had happened to put him in hospital? But anyway, the point was you could wake up from a coma. Weeks, months, years later. People did. You saw it in the papers and on TV. He might wake up any day now. Any minute. Which meant … Well, he wasn’t sure what it meant, but it meant something. It had to.
Alex was hungry. Thirsty. Cold. He pulled the blazer from the schoolbag and put it on. The food and drink he’d bought on the train was gone; he would have to break out of hiding if he was going to get something to eat. The Spar would be closed by now; Somerfield’s, too. There was the Tesco Extra at the petrol station on Crokeham Hill Road, but that was half an hour’s walk. Too exposed. Too risky. Dad had almost certainly rung the police. Mr. and Mrs. Garamond would’ve called them as well by now, to report their son missing. No, his best bet was to stay right where he was. Which meant sleeping there, too. Another flaw in what passed for a plan: he hadn’t given a moment’s thought to where he might spend the night.
Nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat or drink, no way of keeping warm and dry. So what? He was on home territory … and he was alive.
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