Matty was curled up again in the chair, unable to respond. Joe had said that Sheanna knew he was ill, how serious it was, but not that it was terminal. They’d been working up to it. He’d described going to the hospital a year earlier for an X-ray and coming out with a diagnosis for Stage 4 lung cancer. The chemotherapy and how he’d decided to give it up, seeing as it wasn’t making any difference. He’d wanted to be at home as much as possible, not travelling to hospital and returning spent. He was well versed, used medical language. Pointed to his torso, his hand circling, fingers expanding. It had spread to his lymph nodes. Could spread further.

As Sheanna gave a lecture on the rock pools she’d just been poking around in, Matty watched Joe, properly. The fragile effort with which he moved, even on the sofa, a dialogue with the pain he was bearing. Of how most of him was utterly engaged with Sheanna, but one small part occupied elsewhere, as if there was a blurring at his edges.

A hologram. Something here now, but gone soon.

The two of them talked. With Joe’s encouragement, Matty told him about the work over the years, how it had started at the climbing wall. Working with kids in Yorkshire, North Wales, Cumbria. The swimming. All the time thinking, He’s going to die he’s going to die he’s going to die.

‘That’s absolutely cracking. The lot of it. I bet they’re lucky to have you, all those kids.’

‘Maybe.’

‘’Course they are.’ He gave Matty a measured, up-down look. ‘You’re – you look bloody fit. Strong as an ox.’

A tiny bloom of pride, blinked away. ‘Not as much as usual.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Why so?’ He looked eager, expectant.

There was a small moment, a feeling of being in the middle of a rope bridge. Two ways to go. Matty could leave, now, and he could remain oblivious – until there was something about it in the paper, him finding out another way. Something unfastened. It couldn’t be hidden forever. ‘I got hurt.’

He looked sympathetic. ‘Some kid drag you off a cliff-face?’

‘No.’ Matty got up, shut the living door and sat down again.

The smile disappeared, and he inclined his head a little. A questioning frown.

‘I’m in trouble.’

Joe blinked. Bounced back. ‘Tell me what it is, and I’ll get you out of it.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I was …’ There was still time to retreat. Go back to the middle of the bridge. It could make him more ill. ‘Attacked.’

That curve of his eyebrow. He hadn’t been expecting that. He sat forward. ‘Someone hurt you?’

‘Yeah.’ Matty was starting to feel light-headed. A burning in the chest. ‘Quite a lot.’

One side of Joe’s face tautened. ‘Where are they now?’ He thought he could do something.