‘Oh, William,’ she says, patting his knee. ‘Girls don’t want someone who writes them poems and treats them like a princess. They want a man.’

‘I’ve never written a girl a poem. I’ve never written a poem full stop.’

She waves her hand, as if that fact is irrelevant, but doesn’t get as far as expanding on her point.

The intensity of the lights coming back on is initially dazzling. Bleeps of varying pitch sound throughout the house, appliances and telephones resuscitated. Suddenly, discussing his embryonic love life with his mother seems many times more ludicrous than it did by candlelight. In any case, the shock of the power returning appears to have made her aware of her own drunkenness. Shading her eyes, she struggles to her feet, briefly lost in her own living room.

‘Toilet,’ she says matter-of-factly, successfully identifying it beneath the staircase.

Will steadies her as she makes the short journey.

And he heads upstairs, closes his bedroom curtains and locks his door, sleep the furthest thing from his mind.

Blind Alley

How long have the lights been back on? Half an hour, at least. Will doesn’t check, his phone face down on the bookcase just inside his bedroom door. Initially he’d enjoyed the sense of defiance – Will Parks is definitely someone whose life has not involved enough defiance – but the guilt doesn’t take long to start creeping in. Nagging, gnawing – that inbuilt compulsion to follow orders. Life, Will realizes, is made up of the people who do whatever the hell they like, and the people who hold everything together so that they can.

He’s lying on his bed, reading April’s treasured library copy of Geek Love. Even in his distracted state, he savours each sentence, digesting the words slowly. Is the prose as luminous as it seems, or has April’s love of it corrupted his judgement? He feels excited just looking at the yellowed pages. He’s sure there’s a whiff of her hand cream about it. Enjoying the story’s strangeness and filthiness as he is, it’s a book he knows he can’t review with impartiality.

How would I do it anyway? Will wonders. ‘Only talk to Danny.’ What am I supposed to do, phone him? He never picks up calls.

If he needed anything, he’d have messaged and Will’s phone hasn’t vibrated once. And he can’t just go looking, not with over twenty alleyways to check.

He can feel it, though – the compulsion to roll off his bed, grab his phone and put a call in. Just in case Danny answers. Just in case there’s good reason. But that means believing that scrawled note has the ability to, what, predict the future?

Will shakes his head. ‘Not playing,’ he says aloud.