6.01 pm

Alice and Pen are standing outside the pub. The bells of the Angelus are still echoing. Alice had looked a bit surprised when Pen suggested they could talk outside, but then as Pen stood up, she followed.

‘Are you okay?’ Alice says.

Pen shakes her head, not to say no, but to dislodge the earlier bit when she wasn’t okay, to separate then from now. If Alice was really looking at her, she would see Pen is new now.

‘I got you something for your birthday, an early birthday thing,’ Pen begins, concentrating on looking at the seam of Alice’s jacket shoulder. ‘A surprise.’

‘Wow, I had no idea,’ Alice says. Her voice sounds a bit quiet, but her face is not doing anything bad.

‘A concert ticket. I got me – I got us – two concert tickets. For tonight.’

‘Wow,’ Alice says again, but she’s sort of smiling? ‘I mean, what concert?’

‘So, you know the way you love Florence?’

‘But she’s not on tour—’

‘No, but this group, one of the members of Florence plays with them, with her, and they’re, like, inspired by Arctic exploring, and they have a whole orchestra. They raise money for Greenpeace.’ Pen risks a glance. Alice looks like her face is making up its mind how to look. ‘They’re like a blend of chamber music and jazz.’

Alice’s face is still not decided.

‘It’s hard to explain, they’re really, really good. I got us two tickets. It’s the National Concert Hall so there’s seats and it won’t be dark so we’ll be safe, and we can get something to eat if we go, on the way, there’s a vegetarian place. I have it marked on my places on the map.’

And Pen breathes and says the scary thing. ‘It will be,’ she glances at Alice, ‘it will be a date.’

Pen wants to tell Alice how she had watched the group do a tiny-desk-concert online, which was cool, and how she liked the way they talked about what they did, and the sound they made. How they made her want to know about music. It was all about counting, but counting in a way that made it look like you weren’t. She wants to say, Ricercar. The word sounds good in Pen’s mouth, and she is just about—

‘What?’ Alice says.

Pen has dried up. She can’t explain that Ricercar is a Renaissance musical fugue form, those words won’t come out, and she just has ‘Ricercar’ going round and round in her mouth and mind and ear and heart because she and Alice are like a human fugue and she wants to say that to her, about the fugue being like a kind of love, because Alice plays piano so she should understand, but she doesn’t say it because Alice’s face has turned away.

Alice is not looking at Pen or at the street or the trees across the road or up at the sky trying to figure out what time it is from the light left, or, even, is Alice breathing? And then she speaks.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Pen, I thought we were just good friends. I don’t, I don’t want that. It’s not you, it’s me, I’m—’

Are Alice’s eyes wet? Because they are shining, and now she is looking at Pen, staring at her and not speaking again but the look is harder and more painful. Pen reads it. Far too much. Not enough. Nothing.

‘The concert is tonight,’ Pen’s voice sounds altered, as if it could not be emitting from her chest, her throat. Alice, her best friend, her only person, who has lain on her bed next to her, who has breathed in and out with her, who has touched her—

‘I can’t,’ Alice says, and backs away.

Pen has never been hit. Not even when Claire says she’s beyond-the-limit-Pen, or driving-me-mad-Pen, or I-just-need-to-take-a-five-minute-break-Pen. No one has ever hit her, though maybe come close, but this is what it must feel like to be hit in the chest, across all your body, because Pen is not moving but she is also travelling through space and time, propelled by a blow to her solar plexus. And there is not enough oxygen in this Real Life world.

Alice said no. Pen had not planned for this, she had thought maybe Alice would ask questions or she would want to hug Pen or something else would happen, but that something would be not this. Alice said no. Actually, Alice didn’t even say no, she said—

No air.

Breathe anyway.

It is like she hears the woman’s voice from earlier. In and out. And Pen tries to follow the instruction, though she can’t shut her eyes because then she’ll lose her balance, so instead she looks at the pavement, at the place where Alice was standing, and she whispers, In, and then Out, and somehow the breath is coming in and out of her body.

Pen feels a shiver, is this cold she feels, or else she’s just shaking. Pen’s jacket and backpack are on her stool, she’d left them on the stool next to Alice and across from Jo, next to a person whose name she didn’t know, maybe he’d been called Sam, she didn’t know, it’s not a problem, her bag is safe, but moving her feet, that’s a problem. The window is right there and she can see the table next to theirs but the sign for stupid beers is hiding her table. Their table. Hiding.

Pen is no longer on the street. Pen is standing over her stool, no idea how she got here, how is this where she is? But Alice is not on her stool. Pen’s jacket and backpack are there. Alice’s jacket is there. Jo is talking to maybe-Sam.

‘Where is Alice?’ Pen is using her loud voice.

‘Sorry? Oh, I thought outside with you?’ Jo says.

‘No, no, she came in,’ says maybe-Sam, pointing to the back. ‘Loo?’

Pen keeps standing there and she can see Jo’s face moving and her mouth is moving but it’s like there is a loud buzzing in Pen’s head and she can’t hear the words. The name for what Jo’s face is doing is ‘worried’ but that word seems to come from really far away, and Pen just thinks, In and Out, and hopes that the dizzy feeling will go away, because what is worse than Alice saying no, or Alice not being here, is Alice seeing her fall over and having to call Pen’s mum and having to fix Pen, and it will be like being back in the wardrobe and how when the door was finally opened Pen crawled out like an animal, making groaning noises, and everyone backed away from her.

There is Alice’s face, above the others, Jo points. Alice is moving towards her, she is looking at Pen’s face. And she touches Pen. Alice touches Pen as she sits down, but not in a deliberate way, in an ignoring way, the way your body sometimes touches a stranger’s because they are standing in your way, and Pen is not sure if she or Alice is the one who flinches most. ‘Oh,’ Alice says, ‘your phone went.’ Her shoulder is side-on to Pen, her face pointing towards Jo, Pen can’t read it, but she reads it.

‘Alice.’

It is a whisper.

‘Alice.’

‘Have a good time at the concert, Pen. The box office might take the extra ticket back.’

‘Oh, what concert?’ asks Jo, then slides her eyes away at Alice and Pen’s silence, which means they are still sharing something, even if that thing is not talking.

Pen steps back.

People might be looking, but she does not care if they do, that’s not on the list of things to care about any more.