Richie opens the flask and pours us a cup of hot squash each. We sit on the mountain, on a fallen tree trunk, looking down over Ponty. From here we can see all the places we’ve known our whole lives. The river rushes round bends, smashing over rocks, making foamy splashes. It’s high today because it rained a lot in the night. I wonder where Jinx’s map is now; floating in the sea, I suppose.

‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ Richie says. ‘Just you and me.’

‘Yeah.’ I blow on my squash.

‘We should do it more often. It can be our Bloke Time.’

‘Brother Time.’

He nods once and smiles. ‘All right. Brother Time.

Jase?’ He’s got a funny look on his face, like when he had to tell me about the diesel. I don’t like it.

‘What?’

‘We can’t keep going on the way we are. I might have got out of that spot of bother …’

I raise my eyebrows.

‘Okay then, that whole load of bother, but it doesn’t mean there’s more money. And the bank definitely won’t help us now I’ve got a criminal record.’

‘Are we losing the house?’

He screws up his face and stares down the valley. ‘Not if Aunty Pearl moves in. Permanently, like.’

‘What? Live in Ponty?’

‘She’s prepared to sell her house and help us out. That’s a big thing, you know, especially at her age.’ He eyes me sideways. ‘What do you think?’

I watch the steam rise from my squash. Aunty Pearl. Before all this, I’d have said she was the worst option but, really, she might be the only way for us to stay together. And she’s already a bit less naggy than she was.

‘What if the three-day week ends soon and she sells her house for no reason?’

‘I was struggling before that. My wages aren’t like Dad’s were, and the savings they left us soon went.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Thought I could handle it … I know, I know … Look how that turned out.’ He takes another drink. ‘We can’t keep the house on our own.’

Silence.

It’s like a heavy weight hanging between us.

‘Say something, Jase.’

I hold my cup tight, letting the warmth seep through my gloves into my hands, and think of what he said up at the workshop; about not feeling like a grown-up. He needs some time to be a teenager. Time to grieve, I suppose. If Aunty Pearl comes it won’t be easy, but at least we can be proper brothers again.

I put my cup down. ‘I think she should move in.’

He leans back to look at me, smiling slightly. ‘Really?’

I smile back. ‘Really.’

‘I’ve done some pretty idiotic things, haven’t I?’ he says.

I shrug. ‘You’re not the only one.’

I tell him about the quest. He’s not happy about some of it – the bull and the hay bales and Gary and Dean – but he laughs when I tell him about shutting them in the tunnel.

‘Catrin and the boys did all that with you?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘For us, yeah.’

‘Wow.’ He blinks. ‘Never stop being mates with them, Jase.’

‘Believe me, I won’t.’