“How’s Peter? What’s he up to today?” Darren was always asking about Peter. Back when he took us trampolining, he used to call him the Professor.

“He’s all right.”

“Reading a book somewhere I ’spect. And you, Andy? Things all right with you?” As I got out, he beckoned me back. He wasn’t smiling now. “You ever need anything, you come to me.”

Two days of getting the bus out to see Marcus was enough. His mum didn’t want us up in his room, so we sat on the cream sofa, Marcus with his leg up on a pouf. His ankle was all the colors. There was nothing on telly. We couldn’t even talk about the manor because his mum was always in and out, giving a little cough in the doorway in case she was interrupting anything.

We ate lunch at the table. “Markie likes his yolks runny. What about you, Andy?”

There were photos everywhere, mostly of Marcus, a couple with Darren and some old people. My eyes lingered on a picture of his mum in her wedding dress on her dad’s arm. It was up on a top shelf and turned a bit to the left, like whoever put it there wasn’t sure they wanted it to be seen. I moved closer.

“Andy! Put it back.” In the photo, she looked about twelve with long, straight seventies hair. Her smile went from ear to ear. Marcus was struggling to his feet.

“All right, all right.” I set it down and came and sat down next to him. “You never hear from your dad?”

Marcus shook his head. “Don’t want a bar of him. She says the only good thing came out of it was me.” He took my hand. “When you marry someone, you look after them. Treat them right. And you should wait, shouldn’t get married young. You should be at least twenty-one.”

The bus didn’t come for another hour.

I chose a seat on the top deck on the way back, feeling the breeze pour over me, listening to the twigs scratching on the roof. There weren’t many people on. Two ravers a few rows back were talking about e; Double Doves and Mitsubishis; how you wanted a line of whizz on the way up and a bong for the way down; Lakota vs. the Brunel vs. Gold Diggers; the trippy carpet at Membury Services.

“You want to listen, you come sit with us.”

So I did, sliding across the seat as the bus shook round the corners, and listening to Scuttler and Lee—both on the simian side, both wearing clothes sizes too big—tell me about their weekend adventures like soldiers recounting legendary battles. They worked at B&Q in Swindon and spent most of the time smoking weed in the stores, or sleeping off their comedowns in the cardboard recycling container.

“It’s quite comfy in there,” Scuttler said.