Mal mumbled something Jory couldn’t catch, and he drew back, just a little.
“I thought—” Mal’s voice cracked.
Jory didn’t want to let go of him, not even for a second, but he knew there was a bottle of water in the car. He loosened his grip on Mal cautiously, then when he’d managed to convince himself that nothing dire would happen, let go entirely and lunged for the glove compartment, where he fumbled until he found the water bottle.
Relieved, he sat back down on the grass and put his arm around Mal’s shoulders once more. It made it harder to open the bottle, but he didn’t much care.
The water inside must have been unpleasantly warm and stale from sitting in the car for weeks, but Mal gulped it down so fast that Jory ended up taking it from him, afraid he’d make himself ill. “Slow down, okay?”
Mal nodded jerkily. He was staring at nothing again. “I thought he was gonna jump. That kid. Thought he was gonna jump in the road.”
“What kid?”
“Dark hair. Metal T-shirt. From Download, maybe? Some festival like that. Don’t remember. Just thought he was gonna . . . Shit.”
Jory frowned. He’d seen the boy—young man, really. He’d been walking with a girl in a black crop top, and he’d made an exuberant hand gesture, but nothing had made Jory think there was any danger.
Why had Mal thought he was going to jump in front of the car? Why would anyone jump in front of a moving car? A toddler might think it was a game, perhaps, but not a grown man. And if anyone actually intended harm to themselves, well, they’d undoubtedly find a more reliable way than jumping in front of slow-moving traffic in a seaside resort.
It’s not like there’s a shortage of cliffs around here, Jory thought bitterly. It just didn’t make sense. “Mal, has something happened to you? A . . . car accident?”
Mal didn’t answer for a long moment. “Not car. Tube. Had a one under.”
“A . . . what?”
“’S what we call it. When they jump.”
But Mal had said he worked in customer services . . .
He hadn’t said where, though, had he? And London Underground probably employed thousands of people in customer services. “You saw it happen?”
Mal made a horrible sound then, a sort of sobbing laugh. “Was driving.”
Jory felt sick. “Oh God. You couldn’t stop?”
“Never can. You slam on the brakes, but . . . yeah. Not a chance. Just gotta wait. For the bang. Takes ages. I mean, it’s seconds, yeah. Less? Dunno. But it takes ages. And you just gotta wait.”
Jory had both arms around him now, and was holding as tight as he could.
“Is he all right, dearie?”
Jory looked up. Two watery blue eyes were peering down at him from a face that was a mass of concerned wrinkles under feathery white hair. “Um . . .”
“Too much sun, is it? Sweet tea, that’s what he needs. You bring him along to mine, dearie. It’s only two doors up.”
Jory glanced at Mal, who had gone back to staring into space. Sweet tea was good for shock, wasn’t it? And Mal certainly seemed like he was in shock.
Somehow Jory found himself getting Mal to his feet and half supporting him as they followed the old lady and her shopping trolley. It had jaunty little sailing ships on it, and a faded sticker of a butterfly.
It was unexpectedly tiring to move at the speed of an old lady. The few yards felt like half a mile.
“You can call me Helen, dearie,” she said as she let them into her terraced house.
“Oh. Ah, I’m Jory and this is . . . Malory.” Jory hoped Mal wouldn’t mind, but she didn’t seem the sort of person one introduced people to using their nickname.
“Malory? That’s an unusual one. Come on in, dears.”
Mal hadn’t reacted at all—not to the name and not to the comment. Jory helped him into the house and tried not to panic.
The street door opened directly into a tiny front room. The walls were covered in photographs: laughing, gap-toothed children, young people wearing academic robes and clutching scrolls, and at least three wedding photographs in varying degrees of faded colour and fashion disaster.
At Helen’s direction, they sat down on a surprisingly modern sofa. This was probably just as well as what Jory at first took to be a fluffy, if slightly tatty, black cushion on one of the armchairs turned out, on closer inspection, to be a cat. At any rate, that was his best guess, given that he could see it breathing.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Helen said, carrying on into the kitchen.
Jory knew he should offer to help—but he couldn’t shake the fear that if he let go of Mal for a moment, something terrible would happen. “Thank you,” he said, so as not to seem utterly devoid of manners.
He turned to Mal, who was breathing more easily now, thank God. “Are you all right with this? We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”
Mal closed his eyes. “No. ’S okay.” He opened them again and smiled faintly. “Think that’s her?”
Jory followed his gaze to the oldest wedding photo, in black-and-white, which showed a strikingly attractive young woman with an unimaginably tiny waist, beaming as if overjoyed to be wedded to a rather ordinary-looking man.
“I think so.” Jory tried in vain to trace any resemblance between the glowing young bride and the old lady with the shopping trolley, but he didn’t doubt it was her.
Helen returned with a mug in each hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but I just can’t be doing with cups and saucers these days. Young men prefer
