Christ, she was hungry. Everyone knew stories of pregnant women with cravings, peanut butter, sauerkraut, even coal, but for her it was just tons of carbs. She rummaged through Heather’s kitchen cupboards, found a packet of bagels and pulled one out, started chewing it. She leaned against the kitchen cabinet to take some of the weight off but she couldn’t get comfortable whichever way she stood. And she needed to pee again.
She went to the toilet, struggling to get her trousers down then struggled to get them back up. Everything was a struggle. She couldn’t wait for her daughter to be out. But, given her current situation, she also wanted her to stay in as long as possible. At least with the baby in her womb, Ava could offer some protection.
She went to the living room, chewing the bagel. Lennox was on the sofa, headphones on, checking his phone, which was charging. She tried to remember him from school. The kids were mostly a blur, if she was honest, boys in white shirts and with flick haircuts, girls in tight skirts and elaborate make-up. But Lennox stood out with that hair and skin colour in a mostly white and Asian school. She always thought he looked cool, that’s all that registered, but now he held a totally different place in her life. She was amazed he’d come to help her. She wouldn’t have had the balls if the situation was reversed.
She went to the window, no sign of Heather. Ava had listened to the doorstep conversation. Given her situation with Michael, the last thing she needed was a journalist sniffing around.
Her baby kicked against some organ near her pelvis. What does an itchy spleen feel like? Then she rolled around and Ava traced the bulge on her stomach with her fingers. She felt heartburn through the chunks of bagel she was swallowing, went to her bag and dug out the Gaviscon. She chugged it like juice.
‘You OK?’ Lennox said, looking up from his phone.
She put the Gaviscon away. ‘Yeah, just one of the joys of pregnancy.’
She’d discovered how overfamiliar people became when she got pregnant, sharing stories of their own nightmarish experiences, offering unwarranted tips, touching her belly without asking.
Lennox nodded. ‘Sounds tough.’
Ava eased onto the sofa. Up close she could see he would be a handsome man in a few years, but he still had some teenage uncertainty, not sure who he was yet. That was a laugh, none of us really know who we are, she didn’t and she was almost thirty. Whoever she was with Michael, she didn’t want to be that person anymore.
She looked at him and he glanced away.
‘I never really said thank you properly,’ she said. She didn’t feel confident, hadn’t done in a long time, but the tricks of being a teacher in a room full of kids still worked. Fake it till you make it.
‘You did,’ he said, removing his headphones.
‘I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come along.’
Lennox pouted. ‘You would’ve got out.’
‘No.’ Her cheeks reddened. ‘I don’t think I would’ve. I’ve been in that prison for years and never did anything about it.’
‘You always seemed so together at school,’ Lennox said, flicking his phone between his hands. ‘Confident.’
Ava swallowed. ‘Just an act.’
‘I get that.’
Silence for a moment. She wondered about Heather in the pub along the road. What was she telling that guy?
‘Why did you come?’ Ava said eventually.
Lennox brushed that off like it was nothing. ‘You asked.’
‘Come on, a woman gives you her phone with a message on it. That’s enough to steal a car and rescue her?’
He looked around the room then down at his hands in his lap. Cleared his throat. ‘I feel like we’re … connected.’
The swell of emotion in her stomach rose through her chest to her face. ‘Because of that thing.’
Lennox ran his tongue under his upper lip. ‘Sandy.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what I call them.’
‘They told you their name was Sandy?’
He smiled. ‘Na, they were just sandy, like, on the beach. I thought it suited them.’
Ava smiled at how daft the idea was, and how perfect. ‘Sandy, I like it.’
She’d felt drawn to Lennox and Heather in hospital, but she’d pushed that down when Michael arrived, self-preservation kicking in. The thing with the phone was last-minute panic but it paid off. They should all be dead but they weren’t. That meant something.
‘What about you?’ she said.
Lennox pressed his lips together. ‘What about me?’
‘Won’t they miss you back home?’
Lennox snorted a laugh. ‘They’ll barely notice.’
‘Come on, the children’s home can’t be all that bad.’
Lennox thought about that for a moment. ‘It’s not bad, it’s just … It’s a job for them, right? They don’t have enough staff, funding, anything. And I guess the kids there don’t exactly make it easy for them. Folk are always bunking off, missing curfew, running away.’
‘But you stole a car.’
Lennox sucked his teeth. ‘Yeah, I feel bad about that, Geoff is a decent guy. Tries his best.’ He nodded at his phone. ‘I have eleven missed calls from him, so he knows it was me. I guess he’s contacted the police, so I can’t go back there. I mean, I was done with the place anyway, I’m sixteen. I could join the army, right? Kill people or get married. They wanted rid of me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
Lennox laughed again. ‘This isn’t Tracy Beaker.’
‘How did you…?’ She realised how rude that was after the first three words, when she saw his eyebrows raise. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.’
He took a beat to think it over, kindness in his eyes. ‘It’s OK, I don’t mind. I was taken from my mum as a baby, or maybe she gave me up willingly. I don’t know. That’s something about our fucked-up care system – you can’t try to find out about your birth parents until you’re eighteen, and even then they have to agree to the contact. I have a feeling my mum wouldn’t.’
‘Do you want to find her?’
Lennox shrugged. ‘What difference would it make?’
Ava felt her baby kick, and a twinge of guilt. ‘It might give you some answers.’
Lennox cricked his neck. ‘There are no answers. I’m on my own.’
Ava put on a smile. ‘Not anymore. You have me and Heather. And Sandy.’
He didn’t seem convinced.
She took a bite of bagel and chewed. Lennox’s phone pinged. Her own phone was in her bag, switched off. She’d disabled the Find My Phone app but she was sure Michael had some other way of tracking her. And he had friends in the police, he always reminded her.
She nodded at his phone. ‘What’s happening in the world?’
She wondered if they’d made the news. The strokes, the recovery. The thing in the sky, the animal on the beach. It was all one story, but maybe others hadn’t made the connection yet.
Lennox turned his phone over, unlocked it. After a few moments his face fell. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
Lennox ran a hand through his hair and handed his phone over. A story on the BBC. Photograph of Ava smiling, it was from a picture that sat on her mantelpiece back home. Then a picture of Lennox, some officially posed headshot. She scrolled through the text, detailing how they were both missing, some suggestion that Lennox was responsible for Ava’s disappearance. Then at the bottom of the article was a large picture of the Renault, the one parked right outside. The car that the journalist had looked straight at half an hour ago.