At Blackpool they headed for the beach, walking hard on tired legs, past the FAIR & SQUARE CLUB and the Brick House, through the alley by the prison and from there to their old house.

O went to the door and knocked but J would not go on beyond the painted iron gate, preferring to watch his sister recede down the gravel path like a scene from some long forgotten ‘film’. O knocked and knocked but there was no answer and only when her knuckles were red with human blood and when J joined her in the doorway, placing a hand upon her shoulder, did she stop. No neighbours to see them. All dead or gone away, their houses trashed or claimed by Bosnian Serbs.

The two of them walked around the back of the house (bungalow?) and Olivia forced a window, laughing at the noise and soon the two of them climbed inside. Like clambering back into the warmth and smell and close-to-nothingness of the womb.

*

The sun shone brightly in the garden beyond but days and weeks passed strangely in the old house as the 2 kids lived in there all alone. Every ‘thing’ held a memory, every smell a reminder, every corner a ghost. As empty and silent as it was it seemed that the smallest of noises were magnified there, the tinniest of movements amplified – so that the crack sound of wood in the stairs or the strange heartbeat of the central heating could animate the whole space, scaring James and Olivia, populating it.

Of dad and Harry there was no new sign. Just the traces of the life they had lived, before the new days began.

When her own clothes got too dirty Olivia took to wearing her Mums – a discarded shirt that shimmered like a strip cut out of the sea, a pair of old party shoes, with straps. Dressed like this she did the dishes, or spent long hours in front of the TV, watching ALL NEW FORECAST OF ASIAN MARKET CRASH and the rerun soap from Kasparov called ROBOT BEACH. Smoking Marlboro Lights. Drinking gin from the bottle in Dads cupboard. Throwing books at the cats as they frolicked in the heat.

*

And while O drank J stayed in the attic, marooned, immobile. He was busy with the task of shading his skin to stay just as pale and thin as ashes. He was busy with his pictures (dad, mum, harry, a spaceship) and busy with the other great task of trying ‘to think of numbers that were bigger than possible’:

“. . . two thousand million and hundreds of thousands and 62 thousand millions and one hundred and one dalmations and ten millions and millions of gallons and 61 thousands of hundreds and millions of ninety three millions . . .”

He would list to Olivia before asking: “Is that bigger than possible?”

And Olivia would give no answer. Or some nights she would smile and say nothing, then blunder her pissed-up way to the bed.

*

Two visitors.