Not that he was particularly looking forward to chippy chips at the moment. Or even his birthday, for that matter.
‘How old will you be?’
‘I’ll be twenty-three.’
‘Twenty-three? My, you’re in your prime, Daniel. You’ll have all the girls after you soon.’
‘I hope not. They teased me on the bus.’
‘That’s probably because they liked you. Girls do that kind of thing.’
‘No, I think it’s because I had a sticker on my back that said “I’m Stupid”. Laurence put it there.’
She laughed. ‘Well, I’m sure they’ll come calling for other reasons soon. Wouldn’t you like to have a girlfriend?’
He gave it some thought. It wasn’t something he’d really considered before. He quite liked the idea of having someone to share his problems with. Someone to walk with and hold hands with and maybe hug and kiss and play games with and . . .
And then he remembered The Rule, and knew it was impossible. He would never have what everyone else took for granted.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a girlfriend.’
‘Hmm,’ Mrs Romford said. ‘We’ll see. You’ll change your mind one day.’
No, he thought. I won’t change my mind.
‘I have to go home now,’ he said. ‘My mum will be waiting.’
‘Okay, then. You do that. Tell your dad I said hello.’
He turned and continued on his journey home, but his legs seemed heavier, and everything inside him felt tight.
Erskine Court loomed into view. Probably for the first time ever, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go home. But then he remembered all the things that went wrong whenever he was out in the world, having to deal with other people.
He had a sudden premonition that the schoolboys would appear again, and that they would throw their football at him and call him names, and he wondered whether he could stop himself from hurting them, because that’s what he seemed to do now, and even if he could rely on Adam-9 to intervene he wasn’t certain that would be any better.
He wanted to swear, but he didn’t because he knew that swearing was a really bad thing. Instead he ran. Despite his heavy legs and the tightness in his chest and the fact that he didn’t want to be around parents that argued or lied to him or chopped people up, he ran home, craving the safety of his bedroom, where he wouldn’t have to worry about The Rule and how he was possibly going to get through the rest of his life without breaking it again.
32
To Scott, the flat seemed filled with tension, as though everything and everyone in it were connected in a web of taut elastic, one wrong move having the potential to cause it all to snap and fly around in a maelstrom. Gemma was standing in the centre of it, as if afraid to set it off.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘I’m surviving. About all I can do until this is over.’
‘Where’s Daniel?’
‘In his room. Again.’
It was said with regret rather than accusation, but Scott couldn’t stop the feeling of responsibility rearing inside him.
‘Is he okay?’
‘Not really. He has his problems, Scott, but he’s not an idiot. He knows when something’s going on.’
He sighed. ‘It’s going to be okay. Seriously. It’ll all work out.’
‘Hmm,’ she said. Non-committal. Scared.
He pulled the envelope from his backpack and placed it on the dining table.
Gemma stared at it. ‘What’s that?’
‘The money.’
‘In there? How much?’
‘Just over four thousand, three hundred.’
She sat down and opened the envelope. Pulled out the bundles of cash.
‘It doesn’t look a lot, does it?’
‘I suppose not. But it’s all relative, isn’t it? To us, that’s a hell of a lot of money. I’m hoping I can get Ronan Cobb to see it that way.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
Scott had no answer.
