It’s about six-thirty now and everyone’s sitting in Helen’s front room. Apparently she was woken at about three a.m. by Doug ringing her to ask if she knew where Julie had taken Luke. Since Chantel phoned, Helen has taped bin-bags to all the windows in the cottage and drawn all her curtains. Since everyone arrived, she has lit a fire and made everyone hot drinks. Now the police have gone and everyone’s settled.
‘This is very exciting,’ Helen says, smiling at Julie proudly. ‘You’re on the run.’
Luke looks at Julie for a second but she’s not catching his eye. No wonder, he was a complete bastard to her in the van.
‘We didn’t think we were on the run,’ Chantel says. ‘We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.’
‘I couldn’t believe it when Doug phoned,’ says Helen.
‘So how come he phoned you?’ Charlotte says. ‘We didn’t even know we were coming here until about an hour ago.’
‘Jean was going bananas, apparently. Doug, Dawn and Michelle just seemed to be phoning everyone they could think of. It sounded like they’d also been interrogating someone called Nicky, who seemed to know more details about where you’d gone. But evidently she became rather pissed off and refused to say anything much except that she thought you’d be a few days at least.’
‘Nicky’s my mum,’ Chantel says. ‘I’d better ring her in the morning. Well, it is the morning, but . . . At a more reasonable time. Mind you, I’ll be asleep then, I hope. Maybe I’ll text her.’ She pulls her phone out of her bag and starts pressing keys on it.
‘I take it you didn’t leave that note, then?’ Charlotte says to Luke.
‘I was going to ring Mum when we got there,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think it would take so long.’
‘To get to Wales? In a flood? On B-roads?’ Helen says, laughing. ‘Why were you going on B-roads, by the way?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Julie says.
‘And you’re off to see . . .’ She smiles. ‘A healer?’
‘That’s right,’ Luke says. ‘He’s going to make me better.’
Helen looks unconvinced. ‘How?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Luke says. ‘But he’s very good, isn’t he, Charlotte?’
She nods. ‘If Luke can be healed, he’ll do it.’
‘Will it cost a lot of money?’ Helen asks.
‘It’s on a donation basis,’ Charlotte says. ‘You donate to charity afterwards.’
‘Well, you’ll have to let me know how you get on,’ Helen says, yawning.
‘Thanks for saying we could stay,’ Julie says suddenly.
‘No problem. It’s been much too long, and all this is very exciting. You should ring Jean, though,’ Helen says to Luke. ‘Go on. Do it now.’
‘She’ll be asleep, though . . .’
‘I don’t think she will. She was very worried.’
‘Oh. I thought we’d be there by the time she got home from bingo. I thought I’d call her then . . .’
Luke knows his voice sounds choked. He’s got a headache from drinking beer – and he’s forgotten something again because of it. Not forgotten, exactly, but if he hadn’t passed out in the van he would have known what time it was, and that his mum would be home from bingo and very, very worried. It was late even before he started drinking, though, and he was depressed by everything he saw at South Mimms. That was why he started drinking. So it wasn’t even the drinking that made him forget. There’s no way he can explain it to himself. He’s hurt his mother, and he doesn’t even have an excuse. What’s wrong with him? Nothing feels right any more. He just wants to go home.
‘The phone’s in the hall,’ Helen says. ‘Help yourself.’
Even the phone’s wrong. It’s not his phone. Luke dials.
‘Luke?’ Jean answers immediately.
‘Mum? Yeah, it’s me.’
She starts crying.
‘Oh, thank God. Thank God.’
‘I didn’t mean to worry you,’ Luke says.
She cries into the phone for several minutes.
‘Mum?’ he says.
Eventually she speaks. ‘Thank God you’re all right. Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure. On the way to Wales.’
‘Wales? What the bloody hell . . .?’
‘There’s a healer . . . I wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘A surprise?’
‘Sort of. Well . . .’
‘You mean you weren’t going to phone me at all?’
‘No, I was, I mean I am. Look, I’m sorry.’
‘I almost died when you weren’t there. A healer?’
‘I’m sorry. Look, I’ll be OK. I’m in a house now, with no sunlight.’
‘What about your allergies?’
‘I’m OK, Mum. They seem to be OK. I’ve got my Ventolin and my adrenaline. Julie knows how to do the adrenaline if I accidentally eat a peanut or something.’
Jean is silent for a few seconds.
‘Mum?’ he says. ‘Are you still there?’
‘I suppose you’re not coming home, then?’ she says.
‘What? Of course I’m coming home!’
‘You won’t come home. I can feel it.’
‘Why are you saying this?’
‘I felt it when your father left. You’re just like him.’
‘Mum, for God’s sake. I’m not like my father, and I am coming home. I’ve just gone away for a few days to try to get myself better. It’s not a big deal.’
She sighs. ‘Not a big deal. Luke, I’m so tired. I’ve been up all night.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again.
‘Good luck,’ she says, in a weird voice.
‘What with?’
‘Everything. Your life.’
‘Mum, are you saying I can’t come back?’
‘Of course not. This is your home.’ She pauses portentously. ‘But I saw it.’
‘Saw what?’
‘I had a dream. I saw you walking down a long path and never coming back.’
Luke can’t handle this right now. ‘For God’s sake. I don’t need this, Mum. I’ve had the most fucking awful night, and Julie’s not speaking to me because I acted like a dick, and I don’t know where I am, and I’ve wanted to come home all this time, but I wouldn’t know how to get home and everyone’s being so nice to me and looking after me and I can’t let them down . . . And this healer, he sounds so genuine and it’s my one chance to get better and I’m so fucking scared, but I’m trying to be brave and I miss you and . . .’
‘Please don’t swear at me, Luke. I’m tired.’
‘How do you think I feel? I’m tired too.’
‘It’s always about you, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘No, Mum. Do you know what? I don’t think any of this is about me.’
Luke puts the phone down.
He pretends he’s on TV. ‘That went well,’ he says to himself in a low voice, as if there’s an audience. Then he laughs like canned laughter but this isn’t funny. Maybe she’ll be in a better mood tomorrow. She’s always like this when she’s tired. But . . . Why does she have to be so fucking horrible to him? Nevertheless, Luke still wants to go home.
Helen comes into the hall. ‘Everything OK?’ she asks.
Luke notices that Helen looks older. The first time he saw her, when he was nine, she couldn’t have been that much older than Charlotte is now. And when she lived in Windy Close, he didn’t notice her change, particularly since he didn’t see her much. Her hair seems to have more grey in it now, and her eyes have more lines. But what he really notices are her clothes. This is the first time he’s seen Helen wearing anything other than what would count as ‘young people’s’ clothes – jeans, denim jackets, hippy scarves from the market, purple DMs. This morning she’s wearing a cardigan that looks, well, grown-up, and when she held her mug of hot chocolate in the sitting room before, Luke could almost imagine her as an old lady, with greyer hair, a bit smaller and sunken and in some way frail. Will Julie be like that when she gets older? Or do you have to actually live life before you can look like that?
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Well, Mum was weird.’
‘In what way?’
‘I don’t know. She . . . She thinks I’m never going home.’
‘Oh, ignore her.’
‘She makes me really sad, Helen.’
Helen just smiles sympathetically, but she doesn’t know that’s the first time Luke’s said anything negative about his mother to anyone.
‘Shall I show you your room?’ she says.
‘Thanks,’ says Luke.
Everything’s TV again. All he can manage all the way up the stairs are TV responses: Thanks, that would be lovely; don’t go to any trouble; in here? He’s never really had to use any of these phrases before. When Helen shows him the bathroom he can’t listen to what she’s saying because the room smells so different to his bathroom at home, and he can’t identify the smell, because smells – particularly ones that imitate nature – are not something he’s familiar with.
Helen’s explaining something about how to flush the toilet.
‘What’s that smell?’ Luke asks suddenly.
‘Smell?’ she says, in an odd voice.
‘Have I said something wrong?’
‘No, but . . .’ Helen smiles. ‘Is it a nice smell?’
‘Yes. It’s . . .’
‘What does it smell like?’
‘I don’t know. It’s amazing. I’ve never . . .’
‘Oh, God. You don’t have smells in your house, do you?’
The way she says this makes Luke think she’s criticising his house in some way. But she’s right, his house doesn’t smell of anything, really, just his house. Nothing. But the smell of Helen’s bathroom is indescribably beautiful.
‘Is it this?’ She opens a small bottle and holds it under his nose.
‘No, not completely,’ he says.
Helen puts several more bottles under his nose for him to smell. It turns out to be a combination of rose conditioner, mint shampoo, rosemary bath-oil, pine-fragranced bleach (‘I shouldn’t use bleach, because of the environment, but how else do you clean the toilet?’), toothpaste and three different kinds of soap: rose, orange blossom and heather.
‘These are from flowers, aren’t they?’ Luke says. He thinks of vague smells on the few girls who’ve been in his bedroom over the years. Occasionally there was a small whisper of something like this, but mostly the smells were faint and slightly poisonous. Luke’s never smelt a flower before, on a soap or on a girl or anywhere.
‘Yes,’ Helen says. ‘These are mainly made from essential oils.’
‘Do the real plants smell like this?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve got mint in the kitchen and a few roses left in my garden. I can show you, tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Well, when you wake up.’
‘Cool. Thanks, Helen.’
‘You’ve really missed out, haven’t you?’ she says sadly.
Luke thinks about this. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how much more than this there is. I’ve no idea what there is out there. Whatever it is, I guess I’ve missed out on it.’
His bedroom smells and looks different to anything he’s seen before. Often, on TV, bedrooms look very similar to one another. They don’t usually have every wall covered in books or slightly ragged folded-up towels lying on the dresser (‘They’re for you. Help yourself to the bath or shower.’). This room also has an old-looking mirror standing against a dusty fireplace, and lying at its foot, old copies of magazines Luke’s never seen before – City Limits, Spare Rib and Time Out. There are also lovely pieces of thick printed fabric thrown over the bed, which actually looks like a sofa.
This room is dark, like his room at home. The only place he’s ever seen sunlight is on TV. Were he ever to see sunlight in real life, it would surely be as different as everything else he’s seen on this journey. Would it have a smell? What would it feel like? There’s a small wooden wardrobe in the corner of this room, by the dresser. Luke walks over and runs his hands over it. Wood comes from trees. Luke knows that. But he’s never felt wood before. This is wood, but it’s surely not real. Would a tree feel different? And, hang on, there’s something else here – something amazing – a piece of fabric hanging through one of the handles in the door. It’s the softest thing Luke’s ever felt in his life. It’s a square, a red square of this incredible fabric, with pictures of flowers on it.
He touches it to his face. Chloe had some knickers that were made of fabric that felt a bit like this – he remembers that, and that he wasn’t allowed to touch them once she’d taken them off because she thought it was weird. Maybe that was one of the reasons she never got in touch again: Luke wanted to rub her knickers in his face. This material smells of a flower, maybe one from the bathroom. It’s so soft. He can’t stop touching it. He puts it down while he takes off his space-suit and most of his clothes underneath, but then, like an addiction, he can’t leave it alone. It’s better than fleece. He takes it to bed with him and rubs it on his legs.
This is lovely, but he still wants to go home.