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 one to start.
Except she didn’t. No one did. Instead, after a while, everyone began to spread out. Cora and Luke crossed the stream, and Fash and Abi moved up alongside me, veering slightly deeper into the woods. There was a curtain of trees between us, but that didn’t stop me hearing what they were saying.
“Fash?” Abi said, and I could tell by the way she was trying to keep her voice down that she was worried about anyone else listening in.
Fash looked at her, I guess, and waited for her to go on.
“What do you reckon happens when you die?” she asked him.
There was a beat, as though Fash was trying to process what she’d just said. “Bloody hell, Abi,” he hissed at her. There was a gap in the trees then, and I saw him glance over, but I couldn’t tell if he was worried about Luke overhearing, or me.
“No, I know. But seriously. What do you reckon happens?”
I could have told her what happens if she’d really wanted to know. Nothing happens. Zilch. It’s lights out and then it’s over. All that bullshit about God and heaven and having a soul . . . if it were true, what would be the point of living in the first place? It’s lies, is what it is. A fucking comfort blanket. When you die, you’re dead, end of story. Literally.
But obviously that’s not what Abi wanted to hear.
“I don’t know, do I?” said Fash. “Why are you asking me?”
He sounded uncomfortable, like death was the last thing he wanted to talk about. Which I suppose it is for most people most of the time, but even still . . .
“Your mum’s religious, isn’t she?” said Abi. “So I just . . . I don’t know. I just wondered what you thought, that’s all.”
“My mum’s a Muslim, so what? Luke’s parents are religious, too.”
“Yeah, but I can’t ask him, can I?” said Abi.
“If you did he’d probably say the same thing as me. That he doesn’t know either.”
“I know you don’t know,” Abi said. “No one knows. But what do you think? That’s all I’m asking.”
Fash exhaled, like he could tell Abi wasn’t going to give it a rest until he answered.
“I think . . . I think something happens. But I don’t know what.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help it. But I’m pretty sure neither of them heard.
“Really?” said Abi, sounding like someone had just offered her a free iPad. “You really think that? That dying isn’t the end?”
“Keep your voice down, Abi, for Christ’s sake,” said Fash.
We all walked on for a bit, and neither of them spoke.
Eventually Fash gave a sigh. “What I think is . . .” he said, in a whisper, and you could tell he was struggling to find the words. “I think there has to be something else. Because . . . I don’t know. It’s like . . . thoughts. You know? Like, where do they come from? And dreams and ideas and . . . and all that stuff. The stuff that isn’t muscle or bone or fat or whatever. The stuff that’s us. The real us, I mean. That has to go somewhere. Right? And maybe there’s no heaven or hell or anything, but there’s definitely got to be something. Like . . .” He sighed again. “I don’t know. Like the way we can’t see infrared. Radio waves. Pollution. Things that are all around us right now. So maybe the afterlife is like that. All around us, but the only thing is, we can’t see it. Not until after we die.”
At first, when he finished his little speech, I figured he was taking the piss. I kept waiting for him to start laughing, to tell Abi he was yanking her chain.
But he didn’t. Meaning he actually genuinely believed that shit.
“Right!” said Abi. “That’s exactly what I reckon! And what you were saying about the things that
