He realized that what he’s been feeling in recent days, that ache in his middle, isn’t sorrow. It’s guilt. It’s guilt that this isn’t killing him like it surely should be. He’s guilty because he shouldn’t be able to deal with this. But he can.

He could see now how he’s spent these past few years desperate to cling on to the things that had made being a child so perfect: happily married parents, the joy of being home, the adoration of grandparents. And he’s watched as, bit by bit, it’s all been taken away. Order to chaos. Happiness to misery.

Will thought about these last few months since that night he met April in Danny’s car. Somewhere along the way, he forgot to hold himself back, forgot to limit himself with the belief that all the good things he’ll ever experience have already happened to him.

Happiness, he has begun to realize, is not this precarious thing. It is not an imposter, destined to be rooted out and crushed. It is not a stepping stone to inevitable misery. Happiness to misery; order to chaos. Like all rules of nature, they are based only on the evidence so far gathered.

Will wiped his damp eyes and looked up at the time. He’d been there well over an hour. Having promised April he’d be at school by lunchtime to set up, he needed to get moving.

He leaned over and kissed his nain’s forehead. ‘Gotta run,’ he whispered. ‘Back soon.’

More than ever, he could sense that tension in Nain, the clinging on to life. The fight.

Will stopped himself halfway to the door.

This isn’t fair, he thought. I’m not being fair to her.

The top of her head was hot against his face. Her downy white hair tickled his cheeks.

‘When you’re ready,’ he whispered, ‘you must go. Please, Nain.’

Did he imagine that noise from her, the shift in her breathing?

Will hugged her harder and breathed in that happy smell that still clung to her. ‘It’s OK to go,’ he said. ‘We’ll be all right.’

She seemed even more rigid beneath him. Defiant.

‘It’s OK, Nain. It’s OK.’

He stepped out of the hospital into the freezing air feeling older, and curiously lighter, than when he’d arrived.

Armed with his bag of records, Will began the long walk to school.

She holds on for me. We are in contact.

She’ll go nowhere till you and I have done what we have to. This she has promised.

I can so nearly see everything now.

And she tells me she is ready.

Disco Inferno

‘That is a lot of kids,’ April says.

She, Will and Kris Tring are in the foyer between the school hall and the outside. ‘This is nuts! I can’t even see the end of the queue.’