CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT

“Good morrow, Mrs Lawson,” Noah said as Harry’s mum opened her front door. “Is Harry within?”

“He doesn’t want to see you.”

Noah nodded, swallowed and did his best to smile. “And I understand that. Yet I am here to make amends.”

“Go home, Noah, I’m sorry,” she said, closing the door in his face.

Noah stared at the polished chrome knocker and stained-glass panels. Fine. Be like that. But he would not be giving up that easily. He walked round the side of the house to the back garden, looking up at Harry’s bedroom window.

“Haz? Harry? HARRY?! HAZZA?” he shouted up. “Please!”

The back door opened. Harry’s mum again. “Noah! I just told you, he doesn’t want to see you!”

“But I want to see him!”

“And what the hell are you wearing?” she asked.

“This is the hoodie that Harry gave me,” Noah said. “It’s so nice, it’s my favourite thing.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean on your legs.”

“A woman’s linen culotte,” Noah explained. “They’re the only item I could find that was … roomy. I had an accident, see. But not that kind! Another … accident.”

Harry’s mum shook her head. “I’m sure Harry will call you, if and when he’s ready to.”

Noah sucked his cheeks in. “How’s Timothy?”

“Who? Oh, the fish? I’m sure it’s fine.”

“No, but is he OK? Maybe … he is my fish, so maybe I should take him back?”

“Noah, the fish is fine. Harry changed the water and gravel over earlier.”

Noah froze. “What do you mean? What do you mean ‘changed the gravel’?”

“No one told me I was supposed to turn the tank light off at night, so the whole thing had become infested with algae. But it’s fine now, it has new water and new gravel.”

“WHERE’S THE OLD GRAVEL?” Noah bleated.

Harry’s mum screwed her face up. “In the bin, I expect.”

“Bin? What bin?”

“The green bin.”

“Green? Green bin for recycling? Why would you, oh never mind, oh … God … oh shit. Pardon me. OK. Um … I need some of that gravel back. It’s precious to me. I have to get it. I need permission to get it out of your bin, Mrs Lawson? Please?”

She shook her head as she went back inside. “I can’t even.”

That was, he supposed, a yes. He darted back round to the side of the house where the three bins were kept, and narrowed his eyes at the green one. He chewed his lip. It might be bad if Harry were to come out and find him rummaging through the rubbish. It would be weird. Noah glanced back towards the garden, then back at the bin again, then reached out and very quickly lifted the lid a bit, just like he was popping a bit of litter inside or something. No alarms went off. No sign of Harry. He glanced around again, lifted the lid, heard a noise, slammed it shut.

OK. It was OK. Just a crow.

He turned back to the bin. Reopened it and cast his eye over the contents. It was very different to Noah’s bin. Noah’s recycling bin had sleeves from ready meal cartons and pizza boxes. Harry’s had empty glass bottles of extra virgin olive oil, jars of something called “chorizo jam” and a paper bag from a takeaway sushi place. La-di-bloody-da! But where the hell was the gravel? Would it have worked its way down to the bottom? Or would it be lodged in amongst all the other detritus?

Another quick glance towards the garden, and Noah gingerly lifted an empty plastic pot of what once contained “coconut milk yoghurt” from the bin and shook his head. “This type of plastic is not currently recycled in this area,” he tutted, checking it thoroughly before sorting it into the black bin instead. “What is wrong with people, it isn’t hard!”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Noah spun around. “Harry! Hello, Harry!”

“Why are you going through our bins?” He crossed his arms and gave Noah a cold stare.

“Um … no, I was just … a bit bored, passing the time, hoping you might come out.” Noah glanced at the bin, then back at Harry. “I came to talk to you. I’m not here about bins.”

Harry just stared.

Noah swallowed. “I’m wearing the hoodie you gave me, Haz. I was missing you, so I wore it.”

Silence.

“OK,” Noah said. “So, the thing I wanted to tell you, firstly, is that I’m sorry…”

“I’m not looking for an apology, Noah.”

“No, but –” he glanced at the bin again “– I have made a mess of things, and for that…”

“This won’t work if you don’t trust me.”

“But I do, see, because…”

“No, Noah, you don’t, because you didn’t trust that I wouldn’t cheat on you with Pierre, and you don’t trust that I love you for who you are, and you don’t trust that it’s you I want and no one else. What, do you think I’m just with you because there’s no one better right now?”

Tears welled in Noah’s eyes. “I don’t know why you like me, though. I just can’t see it, that’s all. Everything screws up for me, and I drag you down with it, and I’m not good at kissing and I’ve no idea about … sex stuff. I’m a mess.”

“But you’re my mess,” Harry said.

Noah managed a small smile. “Thanks, Harry.”

Harry nodded.

Noah sighed, eyes flicking momentarily to the bin again.

“Why do you keep looking at the bin?” Harry asked.

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“OK, so, quite by chance, and that’s not the reason I came here because I would have come anyway because I wanted to sort things out with you, but, turns out that Eric swapped the diamonds. The goose ate fakes. He put the real diamonds amongst the gravel in the fish tank. I didn’t know.”

Harry stared at him. “You didn’t come round here to make up with me at all, did you? All you’re interested in is your stupid diamonds? Screw you.”

“Ha—”

“No, Noah! SCREW YOU! And get off our property! Go on! Piss off out of it!” Harry grabbed Noah’s arm, pulled him away from the bins, and pushed him towards the front of the house. “You know, this tells me all I need to know. Honestly, I thought maybe you’d come here to actually say or do something meaningful for once. But it’s just more of your shit. More stupid drama. I don’t care.” Harry was actually sobbing now. Noah instinctively reached out to him, but Harry batted him away. “No! Go. Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you or talk to you.”

He gave Noah a final push towards the pavement, tears streaming down his face, then turned and went back in his front door, slamming it behind him.

Noah stared at the space where Harry had once been. If he hadn’t screwed things up enough before, he certainly had now.

And he’d underestimated how upset Harry was about everything.

He hadn’t fully understood.

But now he did.

And it hit him like a ten-tonne truck as he crumpled to the ground. “Oh God,” he gasped, curling up, face in the soft hoodie. “Oh, Harry…”

And the tears started streaming down his face too.

And then he saw the Black Vauxhall Astra parked up the street.

The blood drained from his face.

“Oh fuck.”