This time, the plectrum went to the middle. The alphabet. Matty sneaked another glance at Johanna. She looked a bit scared. Or was pretending to.

One by one, their fingers shifted over the middle of the board, spelling one long word.

LOOKDEEPER

Matty moved it to FUCK OFF, very quickly.

***

Itchy chest. Itchy chest, itchy toes, itchy insides. Matty was lying on top of the duvet, waiting for Mamma to leave for work. An almost sleepless night spent looking up at the glowing plastic stars stuck to the ceiling. Dad was dead and he wasn’t dead and you couldn’t be dead if there was no body. Missing presumed dead, like they said in wars.

The front door opened, closed again. Matty got up and stood very still. Listening for him.

To their bedroom. The dressing table was full of Mamma’s things. Perfume bottles, including really tiny ones, lipsticks. There was a chipped bowl of beaded necklaces like strings of marbles. An ashtray on each side of the bed. It was stuffy in here and you could see the dust on the windows. Mamma normally cleaned them like crazy.

Lookdeeper. Maybe Johanna hadn’t been pushing the guitar plectrum. Matty made every muscle slacken, go dead. Toes digging into the carpet. ‘Are you there?’ Spoken so quietly that the words were all smudged together. ‘Are you there? Dad?’

A sudden beep outside, making Matty’s stomach do a Karate Kid kick. The sound of a revving engine. Just a car.

In the wardrobe, Mamma’s dresses and coats were on one side and Dad’s things on the other. His jumpers with diamonds or stripes. Short-sleeved shirts, for work. Not his leather jacket, because he’d been wearing that. Matty put a hand in, pulled out a pair of jeans that weren’t folded up. Smelt them. A faint mustiness, like a farm two fields away in the countryside. He was still here, in his clothes.

Bathroom. After flushing the toilet, Matty turned the tap on and let it run for ages. In the cabinet above the sink, Mamma’s and Dad’s things were all mixed up together. Cream for cuticles, which were the dried glue-bits at the bottom of your nails. Paco Rabanne aftershave. Toner, the colour of a swimming pool, and Jolen Creme Bleach. Nail clippers, with rust around the screw.

Once, round at Johanna’s, they’d watched one of her brother’s video nasties where someone closed the bathroom cabinet door and suddenly there was a ghost there, making them both yelp.

One breath. Two breaths. Matty stood straight, skin prickling, and shut the cabinet.

It was just the faded peach shower curtain. Nothing else. He wasn’t here.

Matty went to turn the tap off, and stopped. There. Wedged into the grout, as if fossilised, was a single, gently golden hair.

***

‘Yes, of course. We can adjust anything.’