‘My name’s Sheanna. It’s like Sheena but better. No one is called it but me. What’s your name? Then I’ll know. About whether you’re a merboy or a mergirl.’

A different name. A new name. ‘Scout.’

‘Scout? Like Boy Scout?’

‘Yep.’

‘That’s a weird name.’

‘Not any weirder than yours.’ Matty tried to smile, a small one.

Sheanna scrunched her face up and eyed Matty for a few seconds, her nose smoothing out again. ‘You’re mean. And that doesn’t help, anyway. I have to go now.’ She kicked her bike stand away and began pushing it up the short slope. ‘Bye!’

Matty looked back at the water, a petrol shimmer on it. Wanted to swim forever and never wanted to swim again.

***

Back to safety, at Brigid’s, pushing the bike most of the way up the hill with the working hand. She’d been home, hadn’t minded the bike being taken, seemed pleased. Matty had stumbled down the hallway, shut the bathroom door quickly and run the bath.

That crazy kid, turning up out of nowhere. It wasn’t quite the same spot where she’d last been, and yet there she was. She was probably imaginary.

Nicks hadn’t been real. Had he? He’d haunted Matty, though not in the same way as Joe. Just occasionally, on a sunny day in Hampstead, there’d be a sliver of him, in a flash of green light, the splash of a fish, someone diving.

Brigid’s olive-coloured bath turned the water into a pond, the thin film of dirt and tiny specks floating in it like water boatmen. Sage-green skin.

This body. No amount of exercise could turn it into the right shape – it was often hard to know what even was.

Matty ran a finger over one rib, then another, tracing the yellowing bruises. Lower. Stomach. Lower. The bath had been the best place for wanking, traditionally. No one else’s mouth, no one else’s fingers. Imagining drowning. Trying to time it right, listening to the blood moving, submerging again just as the dark, fierce shudders came.

But today, there was Dale. Breathing, trying to go blank, was futile. He wasn’t here, and he was everywhere. Matty went under, jamming a fist up in the crotch to find the feeling, and to stop it ever coming. To protect it.

A tiny clicking sound. There was a shape out there, tall and filmy.

From warmth and near-silence to a loud slosh of sound. Matty jolted up, ready to fight, water hefting over the side of the bath.

‘Jesus,’ the man said. ‘Sorry.’

Black hair. Not Dale. The back of him as he swiftly left the bathroom.