‘If I were you I’d get out your water bottle,’ I told Abi, who was staring at me like I’d summoned the rain myself, just to keep her out there. ‘You never know how long it’s going to last.’
Which, after a minute, is what she did. It’s what we all did. We opened our mouths, too, tipping our heads back and shutting our eyes. It was a proper end-of-summer downpour, thick and heavy, so there was no problem catching the drops. They were big as berries, bursting in your mouth the moment they hit the back of your throat. I swear to God, they even tasted sweet. I’d been so focused on being pissed off at Abi’s moaning, I’d forgotten how thirsty I was myself. I even started grinning. I couldn’t help it. And when I’d had my fill, I looked around, and I realised the others were grinning, too. Cora, at least. Fash, as well. Abi was still gobbling up raindrops, her eyes screwed tight and her hair plastered to her forehead, but even Luke twitched a smile when he caught my eye. His hair was stuck to his head, too, the rain all running into his eyes, but it was like, no one cared, you know? Just the opposite. After the heat, and the dust, and fucking everything since the start of the summer, all any of us felt at that moment was relief.
‘Jesus,’ said Fash. He had to shout to get anyone to hear him, because the rain was coming down that heavily. ‘When was the last time it actually rained? And like this.’
I spread my hands and raised my head again. It was like that scene in that old prison movie. The Shawshank Redemption. Have you seen it? There’s this bit, when Andy Dufresne crawls through the tunnel of shit, and then he gets out the other side and he realises he’s free, finally, and the rain, it’s coming down in ropes, just like it was out there in the woods, and the guy, Andy, who’s completely innocent, by the way, he takes off his shirt and he spreads his arms and he’s standing there like he’s Jesus Christ or something, like it’s an actual religious experience he’s having. Which I guess is exactly what it is.
But my point is, that was me. Just for a minute. It was as though the rain was washing away all the shit that had stuck to me as well. The shit people had thrown at me since Sadie went missing. The shit you started.
And then it hit me. Because with Andy, in the film, it’s the beginning of the end. You know, just before he disappears to go and live on a desert island, or on a beach in Mexico or wherever. Me, I was still in the same old place, still stuck in the middle of a nightmare with no prospect of ever waking up. It only took me about thirty seconds to remember that. To realise that the rain wasn’t actually going to wash away anything.
‘Dude,’ said a voice at my shoulder. I hadn’t noticed Fash move up beside me. ‘Are you, like, crying?’ he said. He spoke quietly, and he’d turned his back on the others, who were busy filling up their water bottles. His hand moved towards my shoulder, like he meant to comfort me or something, and I shrugged it away. Right at that moment, Fash was the last person I wanted trying to make me feel better. And anyway, what did he think he was going to say? Because what I’d realised was, whatever happened from that point on, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Not that my life had ever exactly been perfect or anything, but some things were. You know?
Sadie was.
Look at me. For fuck’s sake. Fucking doing it again.
Fucking Shawshank Redemption. Fucking overrated is what it is.
No, I’m fine. I said I’m fine.
Christ.
Christ.
So the rain. I was talking about the rain.
So yeah, at first it was as though it had started snowing on Christmas Eve or something. But that feeling … that sense of relief I mentioned? It didn’t take long to wear off.
‘So are we doing this?’ said Cora, when all our bottles were full. Which is exactly what I was talking about before. It’s like, it had started already. You know? The others all looking for some other reason to go home. Because Cora, when she said it, she was looking up at the sky, like we couldn’t go looking for Sadie now, not if it meant getting wet.
And fucking Abi. Because of course she decides to chip in as well. She was looking at the water in her bottle, going, ‘You aren’t supposed to drink rainwater either, are you? Isn’t it meant to be full of, like, pollution and stuff?’
‘Well, it’s too late now,’ I said, throwing my rucksack over my shoulder. ‘You’ve already swallowed the equivalent of half a bucketful. So let’s get on with this before the cancer kicks in, shall we?’
I didn’t give her a chance to respond, and I didn’t wait to see if the others were following me. I started walking back upstream, the way we’d said we’d go before. I went slowly, making a show of scouring the ground around me, and stopping every so often to peer down into the water. Eventually I heard the others fall in behind me. Nobody said anything for a while. There was just the sound of the rain, which had eased off slightly since the clouds had broken, but was still falling heavily enough that there was no particular shelter beneath the trees. I was waiting for the bitching to begin, because after an hour or so even I started feeling the cold. It wasn’t the air temperature so much as the fact that I was completely soaked through. And even though Abi was the only one to bring a waterproof, I fully expected her to be the
