by Matt Haig
“Oh wel , don’t mind me,” he says. “Keep asking your questions. Keep asking and you wil find the truth—that this girl before you has a mind as pure and unknowing as a field of untouched snow and she knows nothing whatsoever about what happened to that boy on Friday night. Which is why there is no point writing anything down in those little notebooks.”
He walks over to the policewoman and holds out his hand. Almost apologetical y, blank-faced, she hands him her pad. Wil tears out the pieces of paper she has written on, before handing it back.
“And everything else you have heard has been lies. Clara knows nothing. Look at her, real y look at her . . .”
They look.
“Have you ever seen anyone quite so pure and innocent? Don’t you feel ashamed that for a moment you doubted that innocence?”
They nod their heads, like little children in front of a strict teacher. They are deeply ashamed.
Wil notices Clara’s eyes are wide with wonder.
“You wil leave now. You wil leave and you wil realize that you have nothing to go on here. The boy is missing. It is another unsolved mystery in a world ful of unsolved mysteries. Now stand up and walk out the way you came, and the moment that fresh air caresses your face, you wil realize that that is what makes the world so beautiful. Al those unsolved mysteries. And you won’t ever want to interfere with beauty again.”
Even Peter and Helen are impressed, Wil notes, as the officers stand up and walk themselves out of the room.
“Bye now. And thank you for your visit.”
Deli Ham
Clara is sitting eating her brother’s deli ham in her room when Eve arrives. Clara starts to offer an explanation about yesterday’s incident in Topshop. She tel s her she had a panic attack and needed to get outside. A half-truth. Or a quarter-truth. But not an outright lie.
Eve, though, is hardly listening. “Did the police come and see you?” she asks. “About Harper?”
“Yeah,” says Clara.
“So what did they want to know?”
“Oh, this and that. Was Harper suicidal? Stuff like that.”
“Clara, what did happen the other night?”
Clara makes eye contact with her friend and tries to be convincing. “I don’t know. I was sick on his shoes and then he just left.”
Eve nods. She has no reason to believe her friend is lying. She scans the room and notices the absence of posters.
“What happened to the sad monkeys in cages?” she asks.
Clara shrugs. “I realized the animals are stil going to die whatever I put on my wal .”
“Right. And whose is that camper van outside?”
“It’s my uncle’s. Uncle Wil . He’s pretty cool.”
“So, where’s he now?”
Clara is getting frustrated with al the questions. “Oh, sleeping probably. He sleeps al day.”
Eve wonders about this for a moment. “Oh that’s—”
But then they hear something.
Someone shouting downstairs.
“Eve!”
Clara looks at Eve’s face crumble with horror.
“Not here,” she whispers to herself. Then, to Clara: “Tel me you didn’t hear that. Tel me I’ve started to hear voices and need psychiatric help.”
“What? Is that your—”
They hear heavy footsteps pound up the stairs. And then Clara sees a tal , stoatlike man in a Manchester United top storm into the room.
“Eve, you’re coming home. Now.”
“Dad? I just can’t believe this. Why are you doing this in front of my friend?” says Eve.
“She’s not a friend. You’re coming with me.” He grabs her arm.
Clara watches. “Hey, leave her alone. You’re—” She stops. Something about his forceful stare makes her back down.
He knows something. He definitely knows something.
“Get off me! God!” says Eve. She struggles, and then in her embarrassment half complies as he literal y pul s her out of the room, kicking over the wastepaper basket ful of crumpled posters in the process.
Rowan hears some kind of commotion going on in the hal way. He puts down his pen and abandons the poem he is trying to finish: “Life, and other Eternal Hel s.” He steps out of his bedroom to see Eve trying to resist her father’s grip.
“Ow, Dad, get off me.”
Rowan is behind them as they gravitate to the stairs. They haven’t seen him. He plucks up the courage to speak. At the last moment, he manages it.
“Let her go,” he says quietly.
Jared stops, then turns. He keeps hold of Eve’s arm and glares at Rowan with wild anger.
“Excuse me?”
Rowan can’t believe this is Eve’s father. It’s only his mousy blond hair that bears any relationship to his daughter. There’s enough hate in his bulging eyes for a whole army. “You’re hurting her. Please, let her go.”
Eve shakes her head at him, wanting him to stop for his own good. As she stares at him, she realizes that Rowan real y cares for her, for some ridiculous reason. Boys often fancied her, and she was used to that, but she had never seen in any of their eyes what she was now seeing in Rowan’s. A genuine concern for her, as though she were some external part of himself. She is momentarily so taken aback that she doesn’t notice her dad’s hand leave her arm.
Jared storms over to Rowan. “I’m hurting her? I’m hurting her? That’s great. Yeah, that’s great.
You’re the good guy? It’s a good little act. Wel , if I see you or any of your family near her again, I wil come for you with an axe. Because I know what you are. I know.” He rummages under his footbal shirt for a smal crucifix, which he thrusts in Rowan’s face.
Clara is at her doorway watching in bemusement.
Jared directs his words at both her and her brother. “One of these days I’m going to tel her what you are. I’m going to tel her about the Radleys’ little secret. I’l make her fear you. I’l make her want to run and scream if she ever sees you again.”
The crucifix does nothing, of course, but the words hit Rowan heavily, even as he sees Eve is dying from shame as Jared says al this, thinking her father is a lunatic. She runs away, rushing past someone coming up the stairs.
“Eve!” shouts Jared. “Come back! Eve!”
“What’s going on?” asks Peter, reaching the landing.
Jared struggles to get past him, apparently scared to make actual physical contact.
“Let me past!”
Peter stands back against the wal to al ow Jared through. The man charges down the stairs with a desperate determination, but Eve is already out of the house.
Peter looks at Clara. “What on earth is going on? What’s his problem?”
Clara says nothing.
“He doesn’t want his daughter hanging around murderers,” says Rowan. “He’s old-fashioned like that.”
It dawns on Peter. “He knows about us?”
“Yes,” says Rowan. “He knows about us.”
An Abstainer’s Guide to Skin Care
To live a normal, blood-free life without ever facing daylight is a near impossibility. Although the sun is as much of a health risk for abstainers as it is for practicing vampires, there are certain measures you can take to reduce skin damage and disease.
Here are our top tips for looking after your skin during the day:
1. Stick to the shade. When outside, make sure you stay away from direct sunlight as much as possible.
2. Wear sunblock. You should coat your whole body in a sunblock of at least SPF 60.
Whatever the weather, and whatever you are wearing, this rule always applies.
3. Eat carrots. Carrots promote the repair of skin tissue, as they are a valuable source of vitamin A. They are rich in antioxidants, including photochemicals that help to reduce photosensitivity and promote skin renewal.
4. Ration outside exposure. Don’t spend more than two hours outside on any given day.
5. Never sunbathe. If you need to tan,
make sure you fake it.
6. Act fast. If you feel dizzy, or if you are developing an angry rash, it is important to go indoors, preferably to a darkened room, as soon as possible.
Stay positive. Stress has been proven to aggravate the skin complaints abstainers suffer from. Try to keep a healthy attitude. Remember, no matter how much your skin itches or burns, you are doing the right thing.
The Abstainer’s Handbook (second edition), pp. 117–18
The Sun Sinks Back Behind a Cloud
Rowan is too shaken up by the Eve incident to stay in the house.
How long does he have?
How much time is there for him to build up the extraordinary levels of courage needed in order to tel her what he feels about her?
When wil she find out he is a monster?
He grows weary, walking along the main street, with the sun peeping out from behind clouds.
Strong and bright and as impossible to face as the truth. As he keeps walking, his skin begins to itch and his legs threaten to buckle under him. He realizes he hasn’t put enough sunblock on and that he should go home, but instead he crosses over to the partial y shaded bench in front of the war memorial. He reads the words THE GLORIOUS DEAD inscribed on the stone. What happens, he wonders, after a vampire dies? Is there space in the afterlife for bloodsuckers to sit alongside war heroes? Just as he is about to leave, he hears someone behind him and the voice he loves more than any other.
“Rowan?”
He turns to see Eve approaching, having just stepped out of the bus shelter where she had previously been hiding.
She is looking at him, and he feels that familiar discomfort that stems from being in her field of vision. From being the imperfection that perfection views.
She parks herself beside him. They don’t say anything for a while, and Rowan seriously wonders if she can hear the pounding of his heart.
“I’m sorry,” she says, after a long silence, “about my dad. He’s just . . .” She stops. Rowan realizes she is struggling with something. And then she tel s him. “My mum disappeared two years ago. Before we came here. Just went missing. We don’t know what happened to her. We don’t know if she’s stil alive or anything.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Wel , I don’t talk about it much, to be honest.”
“No, it must be hard,” says Rowan.
“That’s why my dad’s like he is. He’s never real y come to terms with it. You know, we deal with it differently. He gets paranoid, I just try and joke about everything. And date idiots.”
She looks at Rowan and realizes she was wrong to see him as Clara’s shy and weird brother.
For a moment she realizes how nice it is, sitting by his side on a bench, talking. It’s like he brings something out in her. And she feels more herself than she has in years. “Look, Rowan, if you have something to say to me or if you want to ask me something, then you can just say it, you know. It’s okay.”
She wants to hear him say it to her. She knows it already from Clara. And everyone in school hears him say her name whenever he fal s asleep in class.
The sun sinks back behind a cloud.
Shade deepens.
Rowan senses this is the opportunity he has dreamed about since he first heard Eve’s laugh on the bus when she sat down next to Clara on her first day here.
“Wel , the thing is . . .” His mouth is dry. He thinks of Wil . Of how easy he finds it to be himself, and Rowan can’t help but want to be his uncle for the next five seconds or so, in order to finish his sentence. “I . . . I . . . I real y think you’re . . . what I’m trying to say is that I . . . wel , you’re like no girl I’ve ever met . . . You don’t care what people think of you and . . . I just . . . when I’m not with you, which is obviously most of the time, I think about you and . . .”
She is looking away from him. She thinks I’m a freak. But then he hears and sees what she has already heard and seen.
His neighbors’ car. It stops in front of them. Gleaming and silver like a weapon. Mark Felt rol s down the window.
“Oh God,” says Eve.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—”
Mark looks at Rowan suspiciously, then addresses Eve. “Toby’s told me your dad’s trying to pul a fast one. Tel him I’l be showing people round from tomorrow if he doesn’t pay the money. Al of it. The whole seven hundred.”
Eve seems embarrassed, even though Rowan has no idea what is going on.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
Then Mark addresses Rowan. “How’s your sister?”
“She’s . . . fine.”
Mark’s eyes loiter on him a while, trying to work something out. His window glides back up and he drives off.
Eve stares down at the grass. “He’s our landlord.”
“Oh.”
“And we haven’t got any money to pay him because, wel , when we moved here my dad didn’t get a job. He didn’t even try for ages.”
“Right.”
Eve stares at the monument and keeps talking. “And we already had al these debts from when we lived in Manchester. He used to be so careful, him and mum. Had a good job. Policeman. He was in the police. The CID. It was a good job.”
“Real y?” says Rowan, troubled by this information. “What happened?”
“When mum disappeared he had a breakdown. Went mad. Had these theories, these total y off-the-wal theories. Anyway, the police, they signed forms to say he was insane and he was in hospital for two months and I lived with my gran for a bit. She’s dead now, though. When he came out, things were never the same. He was just on pil s and drinking and he lost his job, went out al the time doing God knows what.” She sniffs, takes a pause. “I shouldn’t be tel ing you this. It’s weird, I never tel anyone this stuff.”
Rowan realizes he would do absolutely anything to erase the sadness from her face. “It’s okay,”
he says. “Maybe it’s good to talk about it.”
And she does so, almost as if he isn’t there, as if it’s just something that needs to come out.
“We couldn’t afford the place in Manchester anymore and this was the real crap bit because I always thought if we stayed there, then at least Mum would know where we were if she ever wanted to come home.” She gets angry at the memory.
“Right.”
“But we didn’t even stay close to the old place. He wanted to move here. To a little granny flat.
And we can’t even afford that. And it looks like we’l be moving again if he doesn’t sort something out. And I don’t want to move again because we’ve just settled here, and every time we move, it makes the past more of the past. Like we’re losing more of Mum every time we do it.”
She gives a slight shake of her head as though she is surprised at herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean She gives a slight shake of her head as though she is surprised at herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a whole essay.” And then she checks the time on her phone. “I’d better go home before Dad finds me here. He’l be back along soon.”
“Wil you be okay? I mean, I can come with you if you want.”
“Probably not a good idea.”
“No.”
She holds his hand, squeezes a soft farewel . The world stops rotating for a perfect second. He wonders what Eve would have said if he’d managed to say what was there in his head, pressing against the dam of nerves.
“It’s real y quiet today, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” says Rowan.
“There’s no birds or anything.”
Rowan nods, knowing he could never tel her he has only ever heard birdsong online, or that he and Clara once spent a good hour watching video footage of chirping sedge warblers and chaffinches, nearly in tears.
“I’l see you at school,” she says, after a while.
“Yeah,” says Rowan.
As she walks away, Rowan stares after her. Eventual y he goes to the cash machine outside the post of
fice and checks his balance: £353.28 CR.
A year’s worth of Saturday afternoons working at the Wil ows Hotel enduring silver service at what seemed like forty-eight versions of the same drunken wedding reception and this is what he’s left with.
He withdraws as much as he can and then pul s out his NatWest card to take money from his
“life after home” account, the one his parents top up once a month and which he isn’t real y al owed to touch until he’s at university. He struggles to remember the PIN but gets there eventual y and withdraws the rest of the money he needs. When he gets home he puts every single one of the twenty-pound notes into an envelope and writes on it “Rent money for 15B Lowfield Close.”
His Wife’s Trembling Hand
At four o’clock in the afternoon, the Radleys are sitting down and eating Sunday dinner. Peter, studying the cooked lamb flesh on his plate, is not surprised by his wife’s determination that everything should go on as normal. He knows that, with Helen, routine is a kind of therapy.
Something that helps her paper over the cracks. But judging from the trembling hands that spoon out the roast potatoes, this therapy isn’t working.
Maybe it’s Wil .
He’s been talking for the last five minutes and shows no sign of stopping, answering more of Clara’s questions.
“. . . you see, I don’t need to blood-mind for myself. I’m protected. There’s nothing the police can do to stop me. There’s this thing based in Manchester cal ed the Sheridan Society. A col ective of practicing vampires that looks after each other. It’s kind of like a trade union but with sexier representatives.”
“Who’s Sheridan?”
“No one. Sheridan Le Fanu. An old vampire writer. Long dead. Anyway, the point is, they send this list over every year to the police, and the police stay away from those people. And I’m always pretty close to the top of the list.”