‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’
Vince glanced over his shoulder, into the darkness beyond the beam cast by her headlamp. He nodded at the black pools of water. Penny turned sharply, picking out Andy, crouched on the water-worn shore. He was holding out his hands, laughing softly at something in his palms. He was still dressed up Goth for his night out, his leather jacket creaking in the near silence. He motioned Penny to come and see what was in his hands.
Unsteady on her feet, Penny shuffled away from the wall and focused her light on Andy. Vince followed behind. As Andy’s face turned brighter, Penny could see the little creatures dancing on his palms, hopping lightly from hand to hand. Tiny black horses, dog-things, antelopes, seals and penguins. Some were clinging on for dear life, hooking fragile legs on his huge, clumsy fingers. They kicked and stamped in the air and against his flesh, colliding with each other, haring about, glowing. More of them were pattering over slimy rock, coming to him.
‘He has a way with animals,’ Vince said, and the sound of his voice made Penny jump. She looked up at him and jumped again. He had donkey ears and a donkey tail and his eyes had a sexy and lugubrious cast to them. ‘Andy’s in touch with his animal self,’ he said. Vince reached into his purple jacket pocket and produced three green apples. An expert juggler suddenly, he tossed them into the dark for Penny to catch.
Then came the braying of a horn, the wild lurching and flashing of gas lamps and, with a terrible clatter of hooves, a carriage appeared on the road leading into the rock. A stage coach painted gold, with flashing leaded panes, pulled by a troop of white, steaming donkeys. The vehicle was filled with boys, pushing and shouting and laughing. The coachman brought them to a halt and waved his riding crop at Vince and Andy. Above his tightly knotted scarf, Penny saw, the coachman’s face was brightly tattooed. ‘It’s our lift home,’ Vince told Andy. Andy scooped as many little creatures as would fit in his pockets and then he was off, running after Vince, to the carriage.
Penny watched them go.
As they rode off, vanishing up into the island at last amid howls and jeers, she set about balancing the three apples round her head. They were all the vividest green, an invisible thread connecting them through the cores, keeping this perfect triangular formation. Penny levitated them, one single perfect crease in her forehead. Gravely they revolved about her as she exerted her own gravity.
As the fruit encircled her head she sat back and grinned, relaxing now. She clapped her hands and the triangle held in place, its shadow smudging blue on the dark wood of the polished table.
‘Father, mother and the holy ghost,’ she said in a singsong voice. ‘Me.’
Then there was a knock at the door and the fruit dropped, thumping one two three against the wood as if plucked and flung.
Penny brushed away her shock, settled her heart rate, and went to turn the kitchen light on.
‘Who is it?’ she asked through the kitchen blinds, fingers resting on the key in its lock.
‘Jane.’ Her voice sounded thick, as if she had bitten her tongue.
Penny paused. Before opening the door, she offered a brief prayer. If I’m going to be bludgeoned, let it be quick, if this isn’t really Jane but a psychopath…
‘Your mam’s not with us.’
Jane was slumped against the doorframe, coloured a brilliant emerald with the dark foliage of the garden behind her. Fran hugged herself nearby, looking embarrassed.
‘She’s making her own way home, pet,’ Fran said. ‘She’ll be in soon.’
‘We got a taxi,’ Jane told her. ‘Guess what it cost!’
‘What do you mean, making her own…?’
‘It was twelve quid.’ Jane pulled a face. ‘I spend less on food for a week.’
‘Why didn’t she come home with you two?’
Fran said, ‘Jane here had a head —’
‘She got off with someone, that’s why. Guess who?’
‘She what?’
‘Yes, she did. With the bus driver. With my bloody bus driver!’
Fran took Jane by the shoulders. ‘Come on. Time for home.’
‘And he’s called Cliff!’
Fran marched her out of the garden, calling back to Penny, ‘Sorry about this. She just stayed back for a lift. She’ll be in soon, pet. Night.’
The gate slammed and Penny watched them disappear around the corner.
It was that time of night when the white lights in town, from the cinemas and take-aways, were all switched off. Only the streetlamps burned. Everything was flat and dull and yellow as Vince and Andy linked arms down North Road, following the cracks in the pavement.
They kept in step. ‘We’re walking at exactly the same pace!’ Andy shouted. ‘And we didn’t even realise it! Fucking brilliant.’
‘Smart.’ Vince concentrated on the gaps in the paving stones. Paving-stone width didn’t quite correspond to the length of their strides. On a first step their toes would nudge a crack, then the other foot would land dead centre in a square, then the first foot land half across a crack, then…’
‘We’re not even walking with equidistant paces, either. Frightening, isn’t it?’
In his enthusiasm for the sound of their own joint footsteps, Andy couldn’t hear the others behind them. Vince could. To him they sounded too stealthy. He tried to urge Andy on, to get them home. He always found himself in this position, trying to see things through to the end.
They paused by the church, where a turn-off led up and down a dip in the landscape that concealed the industrial estate. Here you could see the sky pulled in tight over a low horizon that was made of a single row of Georgian houses. They were square like cartoon teeth, some of them punched in. A gas tower rose out of the dip, a huge metal drum gazing over the town from within its metal cage.
‘I used
