The Returners by Gemma Malley

Author:Gemma Malley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-02-06T17:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER TWELVE

We walk into town in silence. I follow him into a coffee shop. It’s a normal coffee shop, one of those ones that sells fifteen types of coffee, where you have to speak Italian just to order something. It’s not busy – a couple of harassed-looking people in suits queuing up, a man with a laptop at a table, two women with babies. It feels so normal. I wonder what would happen if I shouted, if I pointed at the man and told everyone he’d brought me here against my will.

He didn’t bring me here against my will, though. I followed him.

I still don’t know why.

Do I?

I’m too hot. I shrug off my jacket. Still hot. Prickly under my shirt. The man is talking to me. I’m not listening. He tries again; I do my best to concentrate.

‘Drink, Will? Do you want something to drink?’

I shake my head. Then I nod. ‘Water,’ I say. ‘A bottle of water.’

He orders and we make our way to a table. I open the water, guzzle it down like I haven’t drunk anything for days, like I’ve been trekking across the desert or something.

‘Now what?’ I ask sullenly when the man doesn’t say anything. I feel stupid, as though I’ve walked into a trap; I should have known better.

‘Just wait, Will. The others are coming.’

‘The others?’ I wipe my forehead, drink some more water. I’m burning up. What have I done? There’s still time to leave, to walk away. But I’m not going anywhere. I know that.

We wait.

I drum my fingers on the table.

The girl is the first to arrive – the girl from the shopping centre and the river. She smiles at me, a hopeful smile, the sort of smile you give someone after an argument when you’ve tentatively made up, when you want them to be your friend again. I don’t smile back. She’s not my friend.

And yet . . . perhaps she was once; some residual memory, an image . . .

No. I give myself a mental kick. No, I don’t remember her, I don’t know her at all. It’s my mind playing tricks. Any feeling of familiarity is a mirage, is false memory.

She sits down on the other side of me. I’m cornered. I look at the door. I look at the other people. The man with the laptop takes out his phone. All so normal.

Two more people arrive – a man and a woman. The young woman from my garden. I shrink back; she smiles, her eyes still ghostly sad. I clutch my water bottle – it’s empty, but it’s something to hold on to.

‘More water, Will?’ the man asks.

I don’t want anything from them. I put my hand in my pocket – as usual I find money in there. It suddenly disturbs me that I don’t know where the money is coming from. Then an idea comes to me. Dad – maybe he puts the money in my pocket. Maybe it’s his way of looking after me. This thought makes me feel good, makes me feel stronger.

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