Page 18 of From Now On

‘Charlie? Pippa?’ There’s no reply.

Duke runs back upstairs. All the bedroom doors are open.Where is everyone? Every time Charlie, Nina or Pippa are out of sight, a jumping bean of anxiety hops around his tummy at the thought they might never come back.

From the bathroom he can hear a noise. He sits cross-legged outside of the door and waits.

When Nina opens the door, she snaps, ‘You could have used the downstairs loo.’

‘I don’t need the toilet,’ he says.

‘Weirdo.’ She’s cross but he doesn’t know why. He has only heard the tinkling of wee. It isn’t as though she was having a poo or anything.

He heads back to the kitchen. Pippa opens the back door with her elbow, her arms full of vegetables. ‘I just nipped home to fetch supplies.’ She smiles.

‘Where’s Charlie?’

‘He’s outside, Sasha’s here.’

‘Is she staying?’

Pippa shrugs. ‘I guess so.’

Duke is glad. He hugs Sasha around her waist when she steps inside the hallway. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he says. He knows it’s a stupid thing to say, he’s only met her once, but what he really means is that he misses the way his life was when he met her. It’s all muddled inside of his head but it’s like she is a connection to the time before his parents died, as though she might have the superpowers to bring them back. She stands stiffly for a moment but then her arms tighten around his shoulders, ‘It’s nice to see you too, Duke.’ He gazes up at her as though she might have brought some answers with her but, if she has, she keeps them a secret.

‘Nina’s eyes are all red from crying,’ he says. ‘You could put some of that glittery stuff on them.’

‘I don’t think Nina is really in the mood for a makeover.’ Charlie gently eases Duke away from Sasha.

‘But it made her happy the last time.’

‘I’ve got a little something for you both.’ Sasha crouches down and unzips her bag, pushing Billie’s inquisitive nose away. She pulls out Samsung smartphone boxes. ‘One for each of you.’ She passes Duke his. ‘I know your parents didn’t let you have mobiles but…’ her cheeks flush pink. ‘Sorry, I should have checked…’ She glances up at Charlie and he squeezes her shoulder.

‘It’s very thoughtful of you. Isn’t it, Duke?’

‘Yes. But…’ he remembers his manners just in time and says thank you rather than the ‘who would I call’ that was slipping from his mouth. He doesn’t have any friends but the fact that Sasha thinks he might makes him stand a little taller as he rushes down the hallway to show Pippa. From behind him he can hear Charlie mutter ‘you didn’t need to do that,’ and Sasha saying something about ‘living in the dark ages’. He knows from the history lessons Mum gave him that means something to do with the Roman empire, but he feels they are all living in dark times right now, and Sasha, the only one without red, swollen eyes and a forced smile, might be the one to make it all a little brighter.

‘Look. Sasha bought me a phone.’ He skids to a halt. On the kitchen table are a pile of shells. His shells. The ones he collected from the beach on New Year’s Day. He picks one up and runs his finger over the bumpy surface, watching as grains of sand sprinkle onto the pine tabletop, which is punctured with grooves of cutlery, marks of family life. Mum could have touched this shell that night. She was always gathering and discarding things. A pile of daisies to make a chain, a bunch of pine cones to spray gold for Christmas. What if… Duke closes his palm around it,concentrating hard, trying to feel the imprint of her fingers, her soft skin.

‘I found them in your pocket when I collected the laundry,’ Pippa says gently, placing her hand on his shoulder. ‘We can wash them and do something with them.’

‘Like what?’

‘Put them around the flowers underneath the bird feeder; your mum loved the garden.’

Duke shook his head. ‘A big fat pigeon might steal them.’

‘We could put them on the kitchen windowsill so everyone can see them every day.’

‘They might get knocked off and broken.’

‘We could… Remember that wind chime I have hanging outside of my front door?’

‘The one made of coloured beads?’

‘Yes. Those beads belonged to my grandma and when she died I didn’t want to leave them in her jewellery box gathering dust so I made the chime and now I see it every time I come home and it’s like she’s greeting me.’

Duke thinks about this. ‘How will we make a hole in the shell without breaking it?’

‘I’m sure if we set up your new phone and go on YouTube, we can learn how to do that.’

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