The Bone Clocks

“ ‘Gravesend’ and ‘picturesque’ don’t exactly waltz around arm in arm. It’s a lot of closed-down factories, paper mills, Blue Circle cement works, council estates, pawn shops, and bookies.”

“It can’t all be misery and postindustrial decay.”

She searches the bottom of her cup. “The older streets are nice, I s’pose. The Thames is always the Thames, and the Captain Marlow’s three centuries old—apparently there’s a letter by Charles Dickens that proves he used to drink there. How ’bout that, Poshboy? A literary reference.”

My blood’s zinging with coffee. “Is your mum Irish?”

“What leads you to that deduction, Sherlock?”

“You said ‘with my mam,’ not ‘with my mum.’ ”

Holly exhales a fat loop of smoke. “Yeah, she’s from Cork. Don’t your friends get annoyed when you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Sifting what they say for clues instead of listening.”

“I’m a detail nerd, that’s all. Have you started the clock on my twenty minutes, by the way?”

“You’re down to”—she checks—“sixteen.”

“Then I’d like to spend the remainder playing bar football.”

Holly scrunches her face. “Bad idea.”

I never know if she’s serious. “How come?”

“ ’Cause I’ll scalp your arse, Poshboy.”

·   ·   ·

THE TOWN SQUARE is patchy with melting snow and busy with shoppers, and a red-cheeked brass band’s playing carols. I buy a fund-raising calendar from some school kids and their teacher at a stall by the statue of St. Agnиs, and get a chorus of “Merci, Monsieur!” and “Happy New Year,” because my accent tells them I’m English. Holly Sykes did indeed scalp my arse at bar football; she scored rebound goals off the sides, she can lob, and her left-handed goalie’s a lethal weapon. She didn’t smile but I think she enjoyed her victory. We made no plans, but I said I’d drop by the bar tonight, and instead of answering Eeyore-ishly or sarcastically, she just said I’d know where to find her. Stunning progress, and I almost fail to recognize Olly Quinn in the phone box by the bank. He’s looking agitated. If he’s using a phone box instead of Chetwynd-Pitt’s phone, he doesn’t want to be overheard. Would I be fully human if curiosity didn’t get the better of me occasionally? I hide behind the solid wall of the booth where Olly can’t see me. Thanks to a bad line and his angst, Olly’s voice is loud and every punched-out sentence is pretty clear. “You did, Ness. You did! You said you loved me too! You said—”

Oh dear. Despair is as attractive as cold sores.

“Seven times. The first was in bed. I remember … Maybe it was six, maybe eight, who cares, Ness, I … So what’s that about, Ness? Was it one big lie? … Then was it some—some mind-fucking experiment?”

Too late to slam on the brakes now; we’re over the edge.

“No no no, I’m notgetting hysterical, I just … No, I’m not, I don’t get what happened, so … What? What was that last bit? This line’s shit … No, not what yousaid—I said the phoneline’s shit … What’s that? You thoughtyou meant it?”

Olly punches the glass of the phone box, hard. “How can you thinkyou love someone? … No, Ness, no, no—don’t hang up. Look. Just … I want things back to how we were, Ness!… But if you’d explain, if you’d talk, if you’d … I amcalm. I’m calm. No, Ness! No no no—”

A phony peace, then an explosive “ Fuckit!”

Quinn hammers his fist on the glass a few times. This attracts attention, so I slip back into the stream of shoppers and loop back around the way I came, sideways as I pass, for long enough to see my lovesick classmate folded over, hiding his face in his hands. Crying—in public! The unedifying sight sobers me a tad with regard to Holly. Remember: What Cupid gives, Cupid takes away.