Suicide. People had done that in water – made themselves drown, letting their lungs be filled on purpose. Anoxia. In the encyclopaedia, there had been a Chinese poet who held a rock and walked into the river, on purpose, to protest against the government. People beat drums and splashed at the water after he had drowned to keep the evil spirits away, and threw in rice as an offering. Virginia Woolf walked into a river with stones in her skirts. Was that what Dad did? Maybe he had wanted to die. He had taken a last tug on his cigarette, stubbed it out and walked into the Men’s Pond with loads of stones weighing down his pockets.

There had been suicides there. Matty had read about them in that pamphlet. The boatman had pulled out a man who had been trying to drown himself.

The sure, slithery feeling along Matty’s calf in the water. The lookdeeper.

Dad had been crying and there had been suicides in the pond.

Maybe it hadn’t been an accident.

Chapter 5

Hand on toast, hand in hair. Crumbs. His chair tilting as he ate, turning the page of his paper.

Early evening. Matty did the same now in the kitchen, toast-less, tipping the chair back onto two legs and holding the table to balance, as Mamma read a magazine opposite. Italian Vogue, her monthly luxury, delivered with the post. She was staring at each photo for ages, occasionally touching her face, before turning the page. ‘You’d fit in there a treat,’ Dad might have said once, nodding at it, a long time ago. ‘I’d put you on the cover over that daft-looking one.’

Matty thought of the bold suicidal Chinese poet, and thought again over those last moments of Dad, the scraps of detail from the morning before the final day of primary school. Toast, hair, chair. Leather jacket. A kiss on Mamma’s cheek when he left.

The chair came back down. That was it. Once, the kiss had been on the lips. When had it changed? Matty couldn’t remember. Had Mamma turned her cheek to him first or had he gone for it?

‘Can we have a Chinese?’

‘What?’ Mamma looked up from the page, a woman in a gold wraparound swimming costume holding a stuffed bird. ‘You know I don’t like Chinese food. It is too salty.’

‘Can I get some?’ Matty tapped out sub-machine gun sounds on the table, rapped a bit of Gegsy’s new song very quietly.

‘You don’t like it either. Stop that.’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘Fine. Take some money.’ Her eyes went as hard as marbles. ‘You think I don’t know you have been doing that?’

Matty stared back, defiant, like Han Solo or Princess Leia would look. How else did you feed yourself?

‘Haven’t seen you for ages,’ said Nicks.

‘Two days.’

‘Yeah, well, seemed ages, dickface.’