I hesitate. My street. Mum and Dad and all the others. Tucked in safely. Net curtains snug against the windows. The kind of life you end up with if you always play it safe. She’d say I’m playing with fire. She’d say people with that background always return to type in the end. The lights turn green. I lean across to whisper in his ear. He smells of paint and sweat and aftershave.

‘I’ve forgotten my key,’ I say, ‘why don’t we just go straight to yours?’

12:15 am

because nobody will tell me what it is I’m expected to do. There’ll be a backlog at the Post Office before long. They’ll know something’s up because I’m never

and I can’t think how to get a message through. No one will give me any stamps.

The ink runs and the letters get mixed up. All the

Words      words     words

they never stay put.

The birds try to get in.

Not the right kind           for carrying messages. No one has given me the code. One for sorrow, two for sorrow

all that peck, peck pecking on the glass.

They say he wandered very far, very far –

and who can blame him? There’s no green. There’s nothing here for children.

I have to keep singing              A little shy,    and sad of eye,     and very wise

but not wise enough to stay out of the trees, to stay away from the water.

Dad must have found him by now. Mum said there are so many miracles      but I’m still waiting for the

wonders            and

28 November 1989

Arthur

If I wake him up there’ll be hell to pay. I can hear May in the kitchen opening the cupboards, sifting flour and cocoa powder into the big bowl, performing everyday magic with sugar and eggs. It’s already dark outside. Alex lying on the sofa. Tuck his skinny little legs back in under the blanket. His mouth hanging open. The rise and fall of his chest. Rain against the window and the gas fire ticking away, pumping that drowsy heat at us, turning his cheeks pink. I hope he’s dreaming about something exciting. Discovering a cave full of treasure and riding on an elephant through the streets with the crowds all cheering him on. I want to pick him up and squeeze all the fear away. I want to tell him it’ll be alright. Kneeling here next to the sofa like it’s an altar, like I’m about to plead for divine help. If anyone could make me do it, he could. Right this minute I’d pray properly for the first time since school assembly and ask for protection, ask for all the memories of his shit of a father to be rubbed out. I want to say he never deserved you. I want to tell him that.