I stared at him, stung by how final he sounded.
‘And you’ve only just thought to tell me this now? You’ve had an okay time?’
He flinched. ‘Please don’t get angry,’ he said through lips gone white and bloodless. ‘Please. You promised you wouldn’t.’
‘Why? What difference does it make? You’re not even going to be here. Look at you, dishing out instructions as you abandon me. Wow, whatta pal—’
As my voice tiptoed steadily closer to fury, Scanlon began to look around the garden with horrid jerky movements, like a frightened bird.
‘Frankie, I’m begging you. Don’t do this. Just … let’s say goodbye calmly, okay? I know you’re upset—’
‘You could say that.’
He squirmed, then looked me in the eyes with a dreadful sincerity. ‘Look, Frankie, don’t take this the wrong way, but this is a good thing. I’m glad I won’t be seeing you again.’
At the sight of my face he had the grace to look sheepish and said, ‘No, sorry, that came out all wrong.’
But it was too late by then. Things inside me were flapping their jagged wings.
‘I thought we were friends, Scanlon,’ I said. And then the full reality of what this meant sunk in. ‘If you leave, I won’t have anyone – anyone. You can’t go. I … need you.’
You’re the only person in my life – death, whatever – now. You’re the only one who can see me.
‘You don’t need me,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, you’re better off without me.’ And he gave me a searching look before saying, ‘Log off, Frankie.’
Then he turned and walked back into the house through the kitchen.
I followed him, stumbling and inadvertently walking through tourists, light-headed with anguish, trying and failing to work out how to persuade him to stay, to not abandon me too – not like …
We’d just reached the hall when a figure seemed to materialise out of the dark.
‘Hello, son,’ said the shadow.
‘Dad,’ said Scanlon in a curiously guilty voice, like he’d been caught with his hand in the sweetie jar. ‘I … was just—’
‘Saying your goodbyes?’ Crawler said.
Something about the way his eyes raked around the hallway set my teeth on edge.
‘When I couldn’t find you at home I had a hunch you’d be here.’
Scanlon’s whole body seemed to shrink as he walked towards his father.
‘Got any souvenirs you’d like to hand over?’ asked Crawler.
Scanlon shook his head. ‘No,’ he said tonelessly. ‘I’d tell you if I had.’
‘Would you now?’ Crawler said. ‘Would you?’
It was Scanlon who looked away first.
After a moment, Crawler said in a light voice, ‘I suppose you can’t win them all.’ And, clapping a heavy hand on Scanlon’s shoulder, he pushed him towards the front door.
If Scanlon walks out of that door, I may never have a conversation with another person ever again.
I stumbled after them both, past a father trying to strap his baby into a pram.
‘Scanlon! I overtook him and held my hands out pleadingly, looking him in the eyes. ‘P-please let’s talk about this …’
With a chilling look of foreboding, Scanlon looked to the right and left, but his father kept steering him straight towards me, and a second later he’d pushed Scanlon right through me.
Well, that’s torn it.
I stood there, gasping, spluttering at the taste of sweat and stale doughnuts all sour and stringent, and underneath that I tasted something else too, like cold ashes, the remains of a dead fire. And I should have paid more attention to that, really, but by then my temper was up and dancing about with gusto, and caution didn’t stand a chance.
I screamed, so loud that the air around us seemed to flex and change and the baby in the pram began to cry. ‘Scanlon Lane, don’t you dare walk through me.’
In a daze, I became aware that all the bulbs in the murky hallway around us were spluttering, as if an electric charge was messing with their filaments. Warty Ada looked up at them, bemused.
Scanlon’s face drained of colour, and Crawler slowly bent and started fiddling around with his old, stained, black leather bag.
I barely glanced at the odd contraption – a cross between a laptop and a Dustbuster – that Crawler had brought out.
I didn’t even care that Crawler had started muttering to Scanlon, ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it, cos it seems to be working.’
All I could do was stand and shout at Scanlon, while he shook his head and plucked at his father’s arm and said something that sounded like: ‘Please, Dad, not this one.
Please.
Please.’
Crawler was ignoring Scanlon’s pleas and Warty Ada’s attempts at asking him to pack up because it was closing time. Instead he seemed intent at jabbing, with determination and shining eyes, at the buttons on his gadget. I glanced at it distractedly. There were metal tin cans sticking out of it. Weird. But my attention snagged on something else: Crawler’s face and how much it had changed. I forgot about the gadget.
Because he no longer looked like an affable geography teacher, not any more – how could I ever have thought he was mild and meek? His eyes were full of dark purpose and there was something sinister about the way his smile got wider the more Scanlon plucked, ineffectually, at his jacket.
Then Scanlon kicked the gadget with an awful angry cry, at which Crawler, without even looking, landed a hard flat blow on Scanlon’s cheek. Although I could see a bright red smudge appear where his father had hit him, Scanlon made no sound at all.
I stared with fury at the man who had hit my friend, and then out at the world I could just about glimpse through the doorway. Furious, I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, which happened to be the pram with the crying baby strapped in.
‘Oh, shut up,’ I yelled, and threw
