at the end of it I’m expected to come back here and help my dad run his business, and in another five or ten years I’ll be expected to take over running the business. A business which, by the way, I find about as interesting as this town.”
Mia was silent a moment, thoughtful, then she said, “I guess we’re all stuck in our own little boxes.”
They passed the joint back and forth. Julian lay back and stared at the underside of the bridge. His eyelids felt heavy as stone. “But what if someone wanted to get away, just disappear someplace. Do you think that’s possible?” asked Mia.
“I don’t know. There’s this guy at uni whose parents got sick of the rat race and decided to drop out of society. Now they live on a commune in some woods in Preseli.”
“Where’s Preseli?”
“Wales. They generate their own power, grow their own food, look after goats, horses and chickens.”
Mia sniffed down her nose. “Sounds boring as shit.”
“Not to me. Sometimes I think about going there myself. This guy says everyone’s welcome, and you can stay as long as you like, a day, a year, whatever. No one asks any questions about who you are, where you’re from, or why you’re there. Just imagine, no boxes. You can be whoever you want to be.”
Mia stared at the fire, her face intent. After a moment, she shook her head. “I think that guy was shitting you. No place like that really exists.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s only one way to truly disappear.” Julian drew a line with his finger from the bridge’s railings to the water.
A strange, distant light came into Mia’s eyes. Julian watched her watching the river flow past. Her pupils looked huge and black in the firelight, like a doll’s. She began to rock gently, as if hypnotized. Suddenly, with a quick intake of breath, she snatched her hand out of her pocket. There was blood on her palm. “What happened?” asked Julian, sitting up in alarm. Mia didn’t reply, but her eyes came back to themselves and she lifted her hand to her mouth and licked the blood away. More welled up in a thin, straight line.
“It’s strange,” she said, her voice low and dreamy, like a sleepwalker’s.
“What’s strange?”
“When I saw you the other day you seemed so familiar. I felt as if I knew your face.”
“You’ve probably seen me around town before.”
“Maybe.” Mia sounded unconvinced. She turned her intense blue gaze on Julian. “You feel that way, too, don’t you? I can tell from the way you look at me. It’s like you’re trying to work out where you know me from.”
Julian licked his suddenly dry lips and spoke hesitantly. “I’m not sure how I feel when I look at you.”
A moment of silence passed between them. Mia bent and kissed Julian, a kiss as deep and heavy as the ache in his stomach, a kiss that felt wrong to him, and wronger still with every second it continued. His blood hammering in his temples, he pulled away.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing…I…” stammered Julian.
“Don’t you want me?”
Yes, he wanted her, but some whisper in his consciousness told him that giving in to that want would be like jumping off the bridge above, only less intimate and final. “What I want’s got nothing to do with it.”
“I thought we had a connection.”
“We do. I don’t understand it, but it’s there.”
“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
One side of Julian’s mouth lifted. “Yeah, I kind of guessed that.”
“So what is it then?” Mia pouted, obviously not used to being turned down. “You bent or something?”
“Don’t talk stupid.”
Mia’s eyes flashed scorn at Julian. “I’m not the fuckin’ stupid one here.” She jumped up and started to walk away, flinging over her shoulder, “If you don’t want me, I’ll just have to find someone else to fuck.”
“Wait, Mia, don’t go.” Julian tried to get up, but whether from the dope or lack of sleep or both, his body felt like lead, his arms straw. The darkness quickly swallowed Mia. He lay thinking about her. He thought about the blood on her palm. She must have had a knife in her pocket — perhaps for self-defence, perhaps for use on herself, perhaps both. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting her. He massaged the heel of his hand hard into his stomach, trying to push the heaviness away. It was as immovable as a rock. With a low groan, head spinning, he closed his eyes, giving in to the tiredness dogging him. The instant he did so, the dream attacked him with savage force, as vivid as a waking hallucination.
When Julian awoke, the fire had burnt down to glowing embers and he was shivering cold. He sat with his shoulders scrunched forward, his nose running and his mouth full of sticky, bitter saliva. A kind of raw sickness gnawed at his insides. The river drew his eyes. Momentarily, he considered stripping off and washing in it, washing himself free of the guilt. But it wouldn’t work, he knew. It would take more than water to wash away the memory of the dream. He climbed the bank to the car and drove home through the quiet of dawn.
Chapter 6
Christine was in the kitchen, drinking coffee. There were dark clouds under her eyes. Sometimes, even with all the pills, the pain prevented her from sleeping properly. “You smell like a fire,” she said, looking at Julian with curiosity and concern as he poured cereal into a bowl and got out the milk. “Where’ve you been all night?”
“With a friend.”
“Which friend?”
“Does it matter? Just a friend,” Julian muttered through a mouthful of cornflakes. He gave his mum a sullen glance. “Anyway, what’s it to you where I was? What I do’s my own business. Isn’t that what you said last night?”
Christine sighed. “Yes, I said something to that effect. And I meant it. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about you, Julian. Especially when you drag yourself home looking like death warmed over. And especially when you’ve made such a traumatic discovery so recently.”
Julian stopped eating. “Dad’s told you then.”
Christine nodded. She reached out to gently take hold of her son’s wrist. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if you do want to talk about it or anything else, anything at all, then I’m here. I’ll always be here for you, you know that.”
Julian felt tears tickling at the back of his throat. He swallowed forcefully, knowing that if he let them go everything else would come out with them. He managed a thin smile. “I know.” He withdrew his arm from Christine’s hold. “I’m going to get a shower.”
“Okay, darling.” As Julian turned away, Christine added, “Oh, I almost forgot. Eleanor phoned last night.”
“Eleanor, what did she-” Julian started to say. Then, remembering with a sudden sinking of his heart that he’d arranged to take her out the previous evening, he screwed his eyes up and exclaimed, “Shit!”
“What is it? What’ve you done?” Christine frowned. “You’ve not stood her up, have you?”
“I didn’t mean to, I just forgot.”
“Oh, Julian,” breathed Christine in a gently reproachful tone. “Eleanor’s such a lovely girl. She doesn’t deserve to be just forgotten. If you’re going to mess her about like that, perhaps you’d be better off leaving her alone.”
Julian stared at the floor, biting his lip. His mum was right, he knew. Eleanor would be better off without him and his problems in her life. He also knew he had to see her and, if not explain, at least apologise. Without a word to his mum, he rushed out the front door to his car. When he got to the Hill’s house, like he’d used to do when they were together, he went around back and threw gravel from the path at Eleanor’s bedroom window. Her face appeared at the glass, sleepy-eyed and frowning. She made no move to open it. Please, he mouthed, please, Eleanor. She hesitated a moment longer, then relented — like he’d known she would do. She peered down at him, waiting for his explanation.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he said.
“Is that it? Aren’t you even going to try to make an excuse?”
