Bennett was all tanned after his holiday. It looked like his teeth and the whites of his eyes had been freshly painted. He was goose-stepping over puddles on the path, making every cloud in them shimmer, as Daniel wheeled his bike beside him, talking everything through, right up to the day before with Mason.
‘So?’ asked Daniel when he had finished. ‘What do you think?’
Bennett stopped to peer down at his reflection in a puddle, a cigarette between finger and thumb.
‘What do you think?’ asked Bennett, bending closer to the water as if expecting his reflection to answer for him. When it didn’t, he sighed and shook his head and looked up at Daniel. ‘That you can’t tell anyone else about Mason, but then you know that already. Also, that you should be glad you’re not me. Because I’m the one who’s supposed to tell you everything’s going to be OK. But I can’t do that. I can’t lie. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be acting like a best friend should. It wouldn’t be me.’
Bennett studied his reflection in the puddle again as if waiting to see if it had anything to add, then took a final drag and flicked his cigarette away, making the water hiss. Daniel stepped back, as if the water was alive, and Bennett noticed, but said nothing as he walked on.
‘There’s something you can do to help,’ said Daniel.
Bennett’s large brown eyes grew wider beneath his fringe of black hair. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Come with me now, to look for some answers.’
‘Where?’
‘Where do you think?’
‘You mean climb down into the sinkhole?’
‘No, I meant go and explore where I got out.’
Bennett coughed a bluish cloud and spat a gob of phlegm that landed on the wall beside them. He watched it scrambling down the bright red bricks like some green bug. ‘Do you think there’ll be any answers there?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s a place to start.’
‘You mean to help with the Mason situation? With finding someone to make the fit?’
‘With anything.’ Daniel wafted a toe over the gap between two paving stones as if wary of stepping on it and then put his foot down beyond it. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’
Bennett stopped and just stared at him, and then he peered down at the black gap between the paving stones before planting both feet across it. ‘I can see why you need to go back to the place you nearly died.’ Daniel didn’t say a word. ‘But I wouldn’t know what to do if it’s all too much.’
‘You’d know better than anyone else.’
Bennett’s lips purred as he blew out a breath.
‘I’m still the same Daniel you’ve always known. The one you met in nursery who tried to eat your socks. I’ll be OK if you come with me.’
Bennett dipped his toe into the puddle beside them and as Daniel watched the ripples it was like he was back underground. He thought he heard running water and he clutched his arms around him as a cloud passed over the sun. And Bennett noticed that Daniel was suddenly somewhere else.
‘Prove it then,’ he said and stepped into the puddle. The water was barely five centimetres deep. He held out his hands to Daniel. ‘It’s just a puddle.’
‘I know.’
‘So come on in, the water’s divine.’
Daniel propped his bike against the wall. Closed his eyes. He took a big step and felt the water sucking round his trainers as he stepped into the puddle. When he looked again, Bennett was staring back, holding on to his hands.
‘I’m supposed to go home for some sort of family food “thing” in an hour or so. Lunch? You know it?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ said Daniel in a rush, feeling embarrassed to have asked at all. ‘I understand. That’s fine.’
‘So-o-o, in a roundabout way, I guess what I’m asking is, will there be food on this expedition of yours?’ Bennett grinned.
Daniel smiled back. ‘There can be.’
‘I like crisps. And would there be fizzy drinks?’
‘Yeah, if you want.’
‘Well then, I can’t say no, can I?’
The longer they stood in the cold water, the more Daniel could feel it pressing round the edges of his feet, like the puddle was trying to suck him down somewhere deep. When Bennett let go of his hands, Daniel wobbled and his friend grabbed on to his shoulder until all the ripples around them had vanished.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when it happened,’ said Bennett, lighting another cigarette and taking a drag.
‘That’s OK,’ said Daniel. ‘You were on holiday. You weren’t to know what was going to happen.’
‘No one ever does, do they?’ said Bennett and he glanced over at the traffic going past them as if waiting to be proved right. ‘You’re sure though? You’re not upset with me?’
Daniel didn’t know what to say, so he nodded. He looked down at the puddle. Saw his reflection smiling back. ‘I’m just glad you’re here now.’
‘I prefer salt and vinegar by the way,’ said Bennett. ‘And Diet Coke. At least a couple of cans.’
Daniel frowned and then he grinned when he realized what Bennett was talking about and stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts, making the change inside them clink. Bennett’s lips lit up in a smile too, as if the two of them were connected by an invisible current to which only they were wired.