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Chapters (75)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. About the Author
  4. Title Page
  5. Intoroduction
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EITHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. FORTY-THREE
  49. FORTY-FOUR
  50. FORTY-FIVE
  51. FORTY-SIX
  52. FORTY-SEVEN
  53. FORTY-EIGHT
  54. FORTY-NINE
  55. FIFTY
  56. FIFTY-ONE
  57. FIFTY-TWO
  58. FIFTY-THREE
  59. FIFTY-FOUR
  60. FIFTY-FIVE
  61. FIFTY-SIX
  62. FIFTY-SEVEN
  63. FIFTY-EIGHT
  64. FIFTY-NINE
  65. SIXTY
  66. SIXTY-ONE
  67. SIXTY-TWO
  68. SIXTY-THREE
  69. SIXTY-FOUR
  70. SIXTY-FIVE
  71. SIXTY-SIX
  72. SIXTY-SEVEN
  73. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  74. CLIMATE EMERGENCY
  75. Copyright

‘And then you, the other week, facing him down that morning. It was like you were on their side, Josh. You’re not like that. I don’t know what poison they’re feeding you, but you need to stop.’

‘I know,’ I manage, eventually. The water is just a trickle, but it will have to do. For now.

‘Or someone’s going to get hurt.’ Jamie smiles a little at his own joke, intended or not.

‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that.’

‘It wasn’t you. Not entirely anyway. It was that guy on the bike that broke my leg. No more goals from the corner flag for a while at least.’

I make a limp attempt at a laugh. We stare at the screen together. The presenters have stopped smiling and are looking seriously straight down the camera lens. Images of a dusty, bombed-out city, smoking in the heat of the sun. The caption reads ‘Aleppo, Syria’.

‘You know, his dad died out there. Ahmed’s, I mean.’

‘What?’

‘Ahmed’s dad. He worked for some kind of charity or something. Legal stuff I think, or maybe medical. Really important, apparently, so they didn’t get out when the fighting started – there were too many people they were helping, or maybe they thought it wouldn’t last. Ahmed said that one day his dad didn’t come home. Nor did a bunch of other guys he worked with. There was no word from any of them for a week, and his mum tried all the hospitals, or what was left of them. Ahmed’s parents had made a pact where if that happened, to either of them, then the other would get out, run away. They’d explained all this to Ahmed. Can you imagine that? Being a little kid and your parents sit you down and explain that they might not come home one day?’

I can tell that Jamie knows he’s close to the line with me. He’s looking at me, gauging my response as my mind flashes back to that that last, warm Sunday evening with Dad, the joke about a last-minute holiday. If it were possible to know the future, would I have wanted to know my life was about to change, violently and irrevocably? Would I have wanted to know that he wasn’t coming back? Or am I luckier than Ahmed that our tragedy dropped out of a clear blue sky rather than one already full of smoke and falling bombs?

‘So that’s what they did, Ahmed and his mum. Ahmed won’t talk about it, the journey, except he said that they were in a refugee camp in Turkey for a while. And I haven’t pushed him. It took them a while, months I think, but they managed to get to the UK and claimed asylum. I think it was pretty hard on them.’