Page 75 of A Face in the Crowd
‘You’re dead,’ I tell him.
‘Am I?’
‘Alex…?’
I move closer still and he stops rocking, sitting still and looking up to me. Perhaps it’s fate, or maybe it’s an accident of nature – but the moon chooses that moment to emerge from behind a cloud. Gloomy white light seeps across the playground and the scar is suddenly clear underneath his Adam’s apple. The old rugby injury.
‘Nearly,’ Ben says.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ben rolls up his sleeve to show me the tattoo he had etched onto his arm a month before the train crash. There are spiky shapes that always looked disjointed to me, but it’s darker than I remember; more intricate. I was never sure if I liked it. It all seemed a bit low-rent. The type of thing some bloke might have on show while throwing around chairs outside an all-day breakfast place on the Costa del Sol as he bellows ‘English’ at the Spanish owner. I never told Ben that, of course. It’s one of those unwritten rules: if someone shows off their tattoo, they have to be told it looks great.
Ben shivers and rubs his arm: ‘Bit chilly, innit?’ he says.
I feel it now, too. There’s a wind that sizzles between the trees. Everything feels like a dream. An impossible dream.
Another firework booms overhead and Ben holds up his hands. When the bang has evaporated, a small smile crinkles onto his face. ‘Your favourite night of the year,’ he says.
I shake my head. ‘It used to be.’
He doesn’t object as I stretch for his arm and rub the tattoo with my thumb. I half expect it to smudge but it remains intact.
‘It’s real,’ he says. ‘I’m real.’
‘How?’
Ben tugs his sleeve down and sets himself rocking steadily on the swing. I have to step to the side.
‘I’ve been trying to give you clues,’ he says. ‘To ease you into it. I didn’t want it to be such a shock. I thought you might’ve figured it out by now.’
‘Figured it out? You’re dead.’
He shrugs in the way I always hated. It never did suit him. He says nothing in reply and, almost because of the weight of expectation, I sit on the swing next to his, allowing my legs to dangle.
‘Have you been living opposite?’ I ask.
‘Not living. I’ve spent some time in there. I wanted to be close to you. I’ve missed you.’
He makes it sound as if this is all normal. ‘There was a funeral for you,’ I say. ‘Ajointfuneral. There have been memorials every year.’
I pinch the webbing in between the thumb and finger on my right hand, half expecting to jump awake and still be at home. I don’t. I’m here on the swings.
‘I wasn’t feeling well,’ Ben says. ‘Do you remember?’
‘“Last night’s sushi”,’ I reply. Of course I remember. Those words, those stupid words, have been burned into my memory.
He laughs a little, though there’s no humour there.
‘Right. The sushi. It saved my life. My stomach was in knots and the toilets on the train were out of order. I ended up getting off at the final stop before the crash. It was one of those smaller ones that are only used by window-lickers and bumpkins. I was going to sort myself out and then get on the next train an hour later.’
‘You weren’t on the train…?’ I reply, thinking of Steven and his stupid conspiracies. There never was a body.
Ben doesn’t reply. I suppose the very fact he’s here is a response.
‘What about Alex?’ I ask.
‘Alex…’ Ben repeats the name with a sigh and stops rocking on the swing. He presses his feet into the floor and leans forward a little. ‘I thought it would look better in front of the investor if there were two of us. We were in matching suits to look united. When I got off the train, I told Alex to stay on and that I’d catch him up. We didn’t know where we were going at the other end and I said that if he could figure out where everything was, we wouldn’t lose that much time…’ He tails off and then whispers: ‘Itoldhim to stay on…’
