She’s Not There. Tamsin Grey
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opened his eyes. Opposite, one of the squatters, the one with the bald head, came out and sat on the doorstep, just like them. The squatter was the opposite of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò, he realised, the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò being tiny, with a huge head, and the squatter being big and tall, with a tiny head.
‘Is she?’ Raff nudged him.
‘I don’t know, Raff. Probably not.’
The squatter looked across and nodded at them, and got out his tobacco and rolling papers. It was finally starting to cool down.
‘She’s not coming,’ Raff said.
Jonah watched the squatter light his smoke. The sadness was making his stomach hurt. He looked back at Alison’s front door. Alison doesn’t like you, Lucy. No one likes you. Even Dora doesn’t like you any more. The squatter sucked. Jonah watched the smoke billowing out of his nostrils.
‘Maybe we should phone Daddy,’ said Raff.
‘You can’t just phone people in prison. It’s more complicated than that.’
In the silence, they could just hear Alison’s voice, shouting at Mabel and Greta. The squatter was leaning over his knees, squishing the smoke out on the pavement. Then he stood up and stretched his arms above his head.
Raff stood up too. ‘Slingsmen,’ he said.
Jonah was Slygon, and Raff was Baby Nail. Jonah kept winning, but Raff started getting fed up, so he let him win a few. He kept an eye on the clock, and when it got to 9 p.m. he said it was bedtime.
‘That’s not fair, I haven’t won hardly any yet!’ Raff threw his nunchuck down and went and lay on the sofa, face down.
Jonah stared down at Raff’s back. Then he scrunched his eyes tight shut, to pray, or to make a wish, or to try and reach her, somehow. Please come back. He said it over and over in his head, but the only answer was the Slingsmen tune. His stomach lurched at the endless emptiness of everything, and he tried to get a sense of a god, watching him: Ganesha, with his kind little elephant eye, or the Christian god, his bearded face all cloudy. Or maybe a group of gods in their togas? Was what was happening a kind of test? If he did the right thing, would he get her back? And was she up there, with the gods, was she waiting for him to work it out, to pass the test, so that she could return; holding her breath, wanting to shout clues to him?
The Slingsmen tune tinkled on and on, with the occasional phwoof of a released missile. He opened his eyes, dropped his nunchuck, and pulled her phone out of his pocket. The smallness of it, the lightness, the scratched redness, the way it flipped open and closed: so familiar, it was like an actual part of her. He flipped it open and looked at the text from Sunday morning.
Tonight X
He glanced down at Raff, and walked out of the room.
In the kitchen he pressed the green call button and held the phone to his ear. As it rang, he batted away a fly, and looked out at the corduroy cushion in the yard. The phone rang and rang, and then it rang off. No voice telling him to leave a message; just silence.
He snapped the phone closed and laid it on the table. He went out into the yard and checked that the diary hadn’t slid under the cushion. He walked back into the kitchen and looked for it on the windowsills and among the piled-up plates and bowls. Then he squeezed his eyes tightly shut again, trying to see her, to bring up her face. I don’t know what to do. Can’t you send me a message? Or some kind of sign?
Back in the sitting room, he wandered over to Roland’s aquarium. The fish had died long ago, just after he’d gone to prison, and they’d emptied the water, and now the tank was full of random objects: chess pieces, a stripy scarf, a broken kite. No diary though. He looked down the back of the sofa, and then pushed his hands under Raff’s body, feeling for the book. Raff pushed him away, swearing, and he rolled onto his back on the floor. There were flies, about ten of them, hanging out on the ceiling. The shape they made could be a messy J for Jonah. Or maybe an L for Lucy. He stared at the insects, waiting for them to form a different shape, to start spelling out a word.
They didn’t. Raff was crying now. Jonah got up and turned off the TV, and came back and perched next to him.
The sudden knock made them both jump into the air. They raced the few steps to the front door, Jonah arriving first and tugging it open.
‘Where have you …!’ he began, preparing to dive up into her arms, but he fell silent, because it wasn’t her. It was Saviour.
The sun was setting now, and Saviour’s face was glowing in the pink, spooky light. He was carrying a small wooden crate, and his fingers were still purple. Normally they were glad to see him, eager to let him in – but they both stood in the doorway, gazing out at him.
‘Hello, Saviour,’ said Raff, finally. Saviour nodded and cleared his throat, but instead of saying something, he offered Jonah the crate. His eyes were strangely pale: caramel instead of the usual brown.
‘Thank you,’ said Jonah, looking down. Plums, not blackcurrants; fat yellow ones, their skins breaking open, showing the squishy flesh. He turned and put the crate down, next to the petrol can.
‘Are you going to let me in?’ Saviour’s voice was very croaky and his breath smelt like Lucy’s nail varnish remover.
‘Lucy’s not here,’ he said quickly. ‘She’s gone to yoga. She’s only just left.’
Saviour looked down Southway Street, as if he might catch a glimpse of her going round the corner.
‘Are you having roast chicken?’ asked Raff.
Saviour shook his head. ‘Not tonight.’ The words were slurred, as well as croaky. He must have been drinking.
‘Is Dora going to die?’
‘Shut up, Raff,’ said Jonah. Saviour’s weird eyes fixed on him. His pupils were two tiny black dots, and it crossed Jonah’s mind that an alien had taken over his body.
‘You can come in if you want,’ said Raff. Jonah nudged him, but Raff elbowed him back and jumped down from the doorstep. ‘You can play Slingsmen with us, until she comes back!’
‘Good plan.’ Saviour took a breath and seemed to become himself again. He stepped forward, putting a hand on Raff’s shoulder, but then stopped. His eyes had closed and his mouth hung open, his bulldog cheeks sagging low. It was like he had fallen asleep. He must be really drunk, which was strange, because he was meant to have given up alcohol forever. Then his phone started ringing, from the pocket on his shirt, and Jonah and Raff both jumped, but Saviour’s eyes stayed shut. Jonah and Raff looked at each other as it kept on ringing.
‘You should answer it,’ said Raff, shrugging the hand off his shoulder and giving him a little push. Saviour’s eyes opened, and he nodded and felt for his phone. Once he had it in his hand, he stared at the flashing screen.
‘Answer it, then!’ said Raff.
Saviour nodded again and held the phone to his ear.
‘Dad?’ Emerald’s voice was small and tinny, but clear.
‘Yes, love.’
Emerald’s voice began to wail, and Saviour flinched, suddenly wide awake. He cleared his throat. ‘OK, love. Don’t worry. I’m on my way.’ She kept wailing, but he cut her off. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, his alien eyes came to rest on Jonah again.
‘Saviour.’ It was Alison. She had probably been watching them from her front window. Saviour’s face