‘WAKE UP. ’
I rose to the surface of a refreshing and satisfied sleep, to find myself under a gentle blue sky. Clouds drifted slowly overhead, lemon-tinted with sunrise. The air was warm but scrubbed clean, like the early morning of what would be a hot day by the sea. I was lying on soft grass; birds were singing. I took a deep lungful of the fresh air and basked for a moment in sheer bliss.
I moved my fingers through the neatly cropped grass beneath my hands. It was slightly damp with dew, but I knew that soon the sun would be cresting the roll of the hill and I would be soaked in its heat. I sighed, perfectly content to lie there until kingdom come – I had never been so comfortable in my life. I turned my head. Dom lay beside me, curled on his side, his eyes open and blankly staring.
I jolted to my knees, my heart in my mouth, and knelt over him, not knowing what to do. He didn’t react to my sudden movement; his eyelids didn’t even flicker.
‘Leave him be.’
I recognised this voice as being the one that had called me awake; its soft rasp had become as familiar to me as my own. I turned to see Lorry sitting on the slope of ground behind me, the rising sun just starting to glow through his hair. He smiled at me. I reached back and put my hand on Dom’s chest. My eyes closed in relief at the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, the pumping thud of his heart beneath my palm. I sat back down on the grass, all the strength gone from my legs. I kept my hand on Dom’s chest.
Lorry breathed in deep, closing his eyes and tilting his head, tasting the air. He released his breath slowly and looked up at the fleecy clouds. He was clean-shaven and barefoot, dressed in dark trousers, the sleeves of his loose white shirt rolled to the elbow, his throat bare. The wavy tousle of his hair glowed in earnest as the sun broke the horizon, and he smiled.
Lorry? I thought. Is everything alright now? Is Dom alright? Is Francis free?
He looked at me and smiled again. I couldn’t tell if it was just an expression of his contentment or whether he was telling me that everything would be okay.
Where’s James, Lorry? Just the smile again, and I began to feel that I wasn’t quite there for him; that we weren’t exactly on the same page.
The sound of footsteps pounded the turf, and we both turned to look as a young boy thundered into sight. He came to a sliding halt on the crest of the hill and stood grinning, framed against the beautiful sky just as the sun finally spilled down the grass and washed us all with slanting morning light.
‘Lorry! The boats are in!’ The boy had two sticks in his hand, and he flung one in a winnowing arc across the air. Laurence caught it with one graceful lift of his arm over his head. They grinned at each other, these blond twins, one an older reflection of the other, and my fingers tightened around the fabric of my brother’s shirt. What about us?
Francis swished his stick through the air and turned to go. As he turned, he seemed to catch sight of me, and paused. He squinted, his hand raised in mid-swing, a little frown between his eyebrows. Then his face cleared and he shook the moment off with a laugh. It was as though he had caught sight of a strange bird or a fleeting shadow, then dismissed it. He turned his grin to Lorry and flourished the stick like a sword in the air.
‘Come on!’ Francis said. ‘Race you to the harbour!’ And then he was gone, his footsteps bumping away from us across an unseen lawn.
Lorry got to his feet. He hefted the stick Francis had thrown him, bouncing it in his hand. He smiled again. ‘Good stick!’ he said to me, and swung it in an extravagant fencing gesture. He turned and casually mounted the slope, ready to follow his brother out of sight. My heart twisted at the thought that he was going to leave me here, but at the crest of the hill he stopped and turned back to me, his green eyes solemn for a moment.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Patrick.’ My voice was barely a whisper, and I was suddenly thirstier than I’d ever been in my life. His eyes dropped to Dom. ‘That’s Dominick,’ I said.
‘Is he the one?’ he asked, staring at Dom’s unmoving face. ‘The one that Fran hurt?’
I nodded. More than anything, I wanted to know: would Dom be alright? After all of this, could anyone be alright? But I couldn’t summon the words, and the regretful quirk of Laurence’s mouth made me afraid to try.
Laurence sighed deeply and gave me one last searching look. He walked backwards over the crest of the hill, keeping me in view all the time. Just as he was about to lose sight of me, as he was about to turn and follow Francis, his eyes flicked up and down, taking in my whole face as if determined to remember it. ‘Wake up,’ he said.
And I did.