“What about you?” he asked suddenly.
“Me?”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m trying to be positive.”
“I dream about her,” he said suddenly. “Every night. I don’t dream of her being killed or stuff. They’re nice dreams, happy dreams all about Mum stroking my hair and hugging me and stuff like that, though she only used to stroke Christo’s hair. She said I was too old for all that now.” He flushed furiously. “It just makes it worse.” Then he said: “Nobody’ll tell me exactly how she died.”
“Josh…”
“I can cope with the truth.”
I thought about the photograph of Jenny’s corpse and looked at the awkward brave boy in front of me.
“Quickly,” I said. “She died quickly. She wouldn’t have known what was happening.”
“You’re lying to me as well. I thought you’d tell me the truth.”
I took a deep breath.
“Josh, the truth is: I don’t know. Your mother is dead. She’s out of pain now.”
I was ashamed of myself, but I didn’t know how to do any better. Josh stood up abruptly and started wandering around the room.
“Are you really a clown?”
“An entertainer.”
He picked up my juggling beanbags.
“Can you juggle?”
I took them from him and started to toss them around. He looked unimpressed.
“I meant, really juggle. I know loads of people who can juggle with three balls.”
“
“I’m not an entertainer.”
“No,” I said dryly.
“I’ve brought you something,” he said.
He crossed the room to his rucksack and fished out a manila envelope.
There were dozens of photographs, most of them taken on holiday over the years. I leafed through them, horribly aware of Josh at my shoulder and of his labored breathing. Jenny very slim and tanned in a yellow bikini on a sandy beach under a slice of blue sky. Jenny in well-pressed jeans and a green polo shirt, in the stiff circle of Clive’s arm and smiling prettily for the camera. She was so much better looking than he was. Jenny with a much younger Josh, hand in hand; holding a bald baby who was presumably Chris; sitting on a lawn surrounded by all three sons. Jenny with long hair, bobbed hair, layered hair. Jenny skiing, crouched neatly forward with poles tucked behind her. In groups, alone.
The one that touched me most was a photograph taken when she was obviously unaware of the camera and no longer wore her watchful look. She was in profile and slightly blurred. There was a strand of glossy hair against her face. Her cheek looked smooth; her lips were slightly parted, and her hand was half raised. She seemed thoughtful, almost sad. Armor off, she looked like someone I could have known after all. Something else hit me like a blade pushed into me: There was something interesting about her. I could see what might have caught someone’s attention. I could imagine her as a woman people could be fascinated by. Oh God.
I laid them down in silence and turned to Josh.
“You poor boy,” I said, and he started crying then, but trying not to: gulping and sniffing and gagging on his grief, and saying “Jesus” under his breath; hiding his head in the crook of his arm. I put a hand on his shoulder and waited, and eventually he sat up, fished in his pocket for a crumpled tissue, blew his nose snottily.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t,” I said. “It’s good she has someone to cry for her.”
“I ought to go now,” he said, gathering up the photographs and pushing them back into the envelope.
“Will you be all right?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“I’ll give you my card so if you want to call me, you don’t have to look me up in the Yellow Pages again. Hang on.”
I went to my desk in the bedroom and Josh lounged in the doorway. He was so thin. He looked as if he would fall over if he didn’t have something to lean on. A pile of bones.
“You’re not exactly tidy,” he remarked. Lippy sod.
“True. I didn’t know you were coming, so I didn’t tidy up for you.”
He grinned in embarrassment.
“And your antique computer,” he observed.
“So I’ve been told.”
I rummaged in the drawers for my business cards.
“Are you on-line?”
“On-line? Not as such.”
He sat down and started tapping at the keyboard. He looked at the screen as if it were a porthole with something comical on the other side.
“How big is your hard disk?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“That’s what it’s all about. You just need more power. This is like a mosquito trying to pull a lorry. You need a system with proper memory.”
“Right,” I said, hoping he’d shut up.
“Faster hamsters.”
I found the card and brought it through, brandishing it.
“Here you are. Nadia Blake, children’s entertainer, puppeteer, juggler, magician, and general-” Then I froze. “What? What the fuck did you say?”
“Don’t be angry. It’s just that a computer is almost useless without proper-”
“No, what did you actually say?”
“I said you needed more power.”
“No. What fucking exact words did you say?”
Josh paused and thought for a moment and then for the first time I saw him laugh.
“Sorry, that’s just a stupid expression. Faster hamsters. It just means more power.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“It’s just a metaphor. It must come from hamsters running round on wheels, I suppose. I never really thought about it before.”
“No, no, no. Who did you hear it from?”
“Who?” Josh pulled a face. “Just a guy at our school’s computer club.”
“What? A pupil?”
“No, Hack, one of the guys who helps run it. He’s been really nice to me, since Mum died especially.”
I was trembling.
“Hack? What kind of name is that?”
“It’s his handle. It’s his
I tried to control myself. I gripped my hands together.
“Josh,” I said. “Do you know his real name?”
He wrinkled his brow. Please please please.
“He’s called Morris, I think. He knows about computers, but he’ll just say the same thing I’ve said.”
SIXTEEN
My hands were shaking so much I could hardly punch the numbers on the phone. I got myself put through to
