The Bone Clocks

He lines up his answer carefully. “If you’re running off because your dad’s a petty crim who beats your mum up and throws you downstairs when you try to stop him, then running away’s the clever thing to do. Go. I’ll give you my InterRail money. But if you’re sat on this wall tonight just because your umbilical cord got snipped, then, yeah, it hurts, but it had to happen. Cut your mum a bit of slack. It’s just a part of growing up. You shouldn’t be punishing her for it.”

“She slappedme.”

“Bet she feels like shit about it now.”

“You don’t even know her!”

“Are you sure you do, Sykes?”

“What’s thats’posed to bloody mean?”

Brubeck lets it drop. So I let it drop too.

·   ·   ·

THE CHURCH IS quiet as the grave. Brubeck’s asleep in a nest of dusty cushions. We’re up on this gallery thing along the back wall, so we won’t be spotted if any Satan worshipers drop by for a black mass. My calves are sore, my blister’s throbbing, and my mind keeps rewinding to the scene with Vinny and Stella. Wasn’t I good enough at sex? Didn’t I dress right, talk right, like the right music?

22:58, glows my Timex. The maddest minutes of the week at the Captain Marlow are right now: last orders on a Saturday night. Mam, Dad, and Glenda, who just works weekends, will be going full pelt; a roaring wall of drinkers flapping fivers and tenners through the fog of smoke and the racket of chatter, shouts, laughs, curses, flirting … Nobody’ll care where Holly’s ended up tonight. On the jukebox “Daydream Believer” or “Rockin’ All Over the World” or “American Pie” will be booming through the building. Sharon’s fallen asleep with her flashlight on under the blanket. Jacko’s asleep with people murmuring foreign languages on his radio. Up in my room, my bed’s unmade, my schoolbag’s slung over my chair. A basket of washed laundry’s just inside the door, where Mam puts it when she’s pissed off with me. Which is most days now. The big glow of Essex at night’ll be shining orangy light across the river, through my undrawn curtains, over the Zenyatt а Mondattaand The Smithsposters I scavved from the Magic Bus. But I’m not going to start missing my room now.

No fecking way.

July 1

TIN WHISTLES, SCRATTY NOISES, birdsong, and a stained-glass angel. The little church on the Isle of Grain, I remember now, lit by sun through the first crack of the day. Mam. The row. Stella and Vinny, waking up in each other’s arms. My throat goes tight. I s’pose if some man’s been inside you often enough, it’ll take a while to get rid of him. Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. 06:03, says my Timex. Sunday. Ed Brubeck: There he is, asleep on his cushiony things, mouth squashed open, hair floppy. His baseball cap sits on his neatly folded lumberjack shirt. I rub the sleep from my eyes. I was dreaming about Jacko and Miss Constantin holding open a curtain of air, and stone steps going up like in an Indiana Jonesfilm …

Who cares? I lost Vinny. Stella stole Vinny.

Ed Brubeck snores like a bear. Brubeck wouldn’t two-time his girlfriend. If he has one. Most boys in my year drop hints ’bout losing their virginity at a mate’s party, specially boys who haven’t, stroking their bum-fluff moustaches … Ed Brubeck doesn’t do any of that, which means probably he has done it. If it was with someone at our school, I’d’ve heard. Dunno, though. He keeps his mouth shut.

Mind you, he told me quite a bit yesterday.

His dad, his family, everything. Why me?

Watch his sleeping, pointy, half-man-half-boy’s face.

And the answer’s obvious: ’Cause he fancies you, you prawn!

If he fancies me, why didn’t he make a pass at me?

He’s clever, I realize. First he makes you grateful.

Right. Of course. I do believe it’s time I was off.

DANDELIONS AND THISTLES grow along the cracked track and the hedges are taller than me. The early sun’s like laser beams. Dunno why I nicked Brubeck’s cap as I crept away, but I’m glad I did. He won’t mind, much. Should be able to cut across the fields to the main road to Rochester—six, seven miles away, I reckon. My blisters’ll take it. They’ll have to; I don’t have a first-aid box in my duffel bag. I feel a jab of hunger, but my stomach’ll just have to put up and shut up—I’ll find something to eat at Rochester. Perhaps I should’ve said bye and thanks to Brubeck but if he’d have answered, “No worries, Sykes, but are you sure I can’t give you a backie back to Gravesend?” all cheerful-like, I’d’ve found it too hard to say no.

Up ahead, I see the track ending at a farmyard.

I climb a gate and skirt round a field of cabbages.

Another gate. A hawk thing’s a speck in the sky.