‘negative space’ they left behind, like an impression of a coin in a blob of Blu-Tack - it was them, or at least a negative of them, and it was the closest thing she had to saying goodbye in person.
Jacob’s room, north-facing, was dim. She smiled at the wallpaper of pirate ships, the shelves still stacked with Playmobil and Games Workshop figures, and books and rubber-banded packs of trading cards.
She whispered a farewell.
Out on the landing, dark but cut by a golden lance of sunlight across the floor, she hesitated beside the only closed door. She didn’t need to open it again. She’d done that several days ago and wished she hadn’t. Several panes of glass had smashed, leaves were dusted across the room and piled up in one corner. A bramble of some kind was growing on the bed, taking root in the quilt and feeding off nutrients that had long ago soaked into the mattress. Feeding off her dad. She’d angrily wrenched the damned thing off the bed and tossed it out through the window and not been back in since.
Bye bye, Dad.
Then she was down the stairs, tiptoeing across the hall. She opened the front door and stepped outside. A quiet still suburban street. She realised how beautiful the world could look on an evening like this; the russet and green leaves of the horse-chestnut trees on fire in the sunlight, red poppies in the opposite garden like discarded M&Ms. The summer green of tree branches almost meeting each other now across the narrow street, sweeping and hissing in the breeze and the broken tarmac road, dappled with shifting light.
Really quite pretty.
Jacob and Nathan watched the dome from the outside. It was warm enough that they sat out in T-shirts on the edge of the vegetable plantation, on the quayside overlooking the Thames.
In the middle of the dome’s canvas roof, multicoloured lights marbled the surface from inside, and out of the very apex, twin spotlights lanced up into the night sky. They could just about hear the gentle thud of music drifting across the rustle of leaves, and the murmuring of quiet conversations from groups of people nearby.
‘It looks amazing, doesn’t it?’ said Jacob.
Nathan nodded. This was the first time they’d come outside to watch the lights. Better than staying inside the dome, where the pounding music made it impossible to sleep anyway. Pretty much all the workers spent Party Night outside, some dragging their bedding with them, happy to sleep outside until dawn.
A fortnight ago, as Snoop had escorted them out of the central arena, he’d told them that Party Night normally lasted into the early hours. He’d not been wrong. As well as the machines, he’d said, there was alcohol . . . and the girlfriends, too. He’d winked at them both as he shooed them down the stairs and out through the turnstile. ‘Play your cards right and you bros be joinin’ the fun soon enough.’
‘It’s going to be cool,’ said Jacob.
‘Yeah.’
He imagined it was going to be a bit like the rock festivals Leona used to go to. She always used to say she had a well-bangin’ time at them. After-gig parties that lasted until dawn in a field somewhere. People still dancing hypnotically as the sun came up. Others zonked out in tents or eagerly discussing the meaning of life in hushed voices around smouldering campfires. She told him once, before the crash, that he had all of that to look forward to at college; parties, music, stage-diving, girlfriends, his first proper hangover, his first joint . . . all the cool things she was enjoying . . . between occasional essays, lectures and course work.
Except, of course, she’d been wrong.
His teen years had been spent watching the North Sea pound relentlessly at the rigs’ support-legs; watching migrating Vs of birds and every few weeks - a special treat - picking through warehouses and cargo containers on Bracton’s freight storage quay.
‘We’re going to stay here, then?’ asked Jacob.
‘Shit, I know I am.’
He nodded after a moment’s consideration. ‘Me, too.’
Maybe he’d give it a year or so then check with Mr Maxwell that it was all right for him to go back home and pay the rigs a visit. Maxwell seemed like a decent enough bloke from what he saw. A bit grumpy, but somehow that was reassuring; like they were seeing him warts and all. No pretence. Far better than somebody, all smiles at first, that you just knew was going to