They’d been doing it, those two men. Sex. Matty had only ever seen people having sex under the covers on TV – or the start of it before Dad had glanced over, amused, and put his hand over Matty’s entire face. But that had always been a man and woman. This was like what Freddie Mercury might want to do, if he was a poof. Maybe it had been Freddie Mercury. No. No moustache. Matty wanted to ask Nicks who they were, and if he knew them. Were they always there? Were they getting AIDS? He hadn’t seemed surprised, but this was his Heath. He knew it all, and he probably knew everything that went on. All its day people, and all its night people. He seemed to move between them seamlessly.

Nicks was suddenly close. ‘Turn over.’ He was hardly speaking above a whisper, and yet his voice was loud, burrowing.

Matty rolled in the water and looked upwards. Took a breath.

Stars. An explosion of them, a paintbrush flicked at the sky. The saucepan outline of the Plough. The Little Bear. Orion’s belt, one, two, three. Matty made a star-shape and floated, a water-star looking at sky-stars.

Something soft touched the outside of Matty’s fingers. A leaf. Not a corpse. It was just a leaf, sliding along one arm. The only sounds were of breath, long and slow through closed lips, and a crinkly sound in both ears. Nicks was floating on his back in just the same way, the moon on his face like a simple mask.

Maybe he had come here. Dad. Lookdeeper. Maybe he came here one night, like the two of them, because this pond had an extra magic. He had swum out to the far rope, and something had happened to make him sink, cough, swallow the water. Or this was the place he had chosen to sink under, rocks in his pockets. Laryngospasms. No one would know.

Matty kicked once, enough to drift closer to Nicks. Two stars almost joined, a tiny constellation. There was the feel of Nick’s hand, cool and light, as they were gently moved by the water.

Nicks linked a little finger with Matty’s little finger.

A single streak of cloud sat under the moon, like an arrow had just whizzed past it.

Voices began to emerge. Two figures appeared from between the buildings – girls, laughing, accompanied by the clink of bottles in a bag. Nicks turned and became a fish, quickly slipping through the water towards the ladder.

Matty walked down the dark lane, made of water and night. Nicks had gone with his usual abruptness, a quick, muttered ‘see you’ after climbing back over the padlocked gate. It didn’t matter. It was just how he was.

At the single-track road, the streetlights were shocking, a shot between the eyes by the Vietcong.

***